The issue isn't that Foley is gay - though living in the closet so long literally means you are living in the dark, and the darkness seems to have over come him - the issue is his predatory behavior and the age of the boys.

But Foley aside has Congress gotten so corrupt that anything goes as long as your are Republican.

It now seems Foley's grossly inappropriate behavior was as much a secret in Congress as Marion Barry's drug use was in DC back when he was mayor of DC (police once waited until he left an apartment before rushing in and doing a drug bust).

They truly believe in the concept that it is "good to be king." They are the ruling party - and acting like America is now no more then a banana republic - they consider their rule the end all and be all. Their own actions, their own failures, and America itself are not to be considered - only the continuing rule of the party.

So the Republican leadership - the leadership of the House (who are there to represent us - the citizens - not the "party") - turned a blind eye to Rep Foley's actions as long as he was another check on the R side.

Rep. Foley Quits In Page Scandal

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.

Looks like Boehner got a little "reminder." A reminder that the truth is not as important as the party.

Lawmaker Quits Over Messages Sent to Teenage Pages

According to ABC, he exchanged instant messages with the pages using his initials and year of birth: “MAF54.” And he might have known he would be watched; the pages, teenagers in navy blue uniforms who open doors and carry messages and water to members on the House and Senate floors, are closely guarded, not only for their vulnerability, but because they have been the object of past Congressional scandals.

The page who received the first e-mail messages told ABC News that people in the program had warned his class to watch out for Mr. Foley. The page worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, and sent the messages to a colleague in the office with a note saying they had “freaked me out.”

Emphasis Mine.

- rob 1:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know sometimes your really have to meet someone a few hundred times before you really get to know a person (and what that person wants with our tax dollars).

Abramoff Put White House Contacts at 400

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his colleagues billed their clients for more than 400 contacts with White House officials between 2001 and 2004, according to a report released yesterday by the House Government Reform Committee.
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Abramoff's team offered officials tickets to 19 sporting events and concerts, the report states, but "in many instances the documents do not indicate whether the White House officials requested or attended the events." One who did accept tickets, the report said, was Susan Ralston, executive assistant to White House presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The report also cites documents suggesting that former White House political director Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, may have helped Abramoff's team get money for a tribal client from the Justice Department.
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One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP.

So many more arrows could be added to one of our favorite TCS Posts: Six Degrees of Jack Abramoff

- rob 6:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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What Bush has done to America in 5 years is summed up just like this:

"This is the lens through which Iraqis will now see America," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. "Incompetence. Profiteering. Arrogance. And human waste oozing out of ceilings as a result."

From: Iraq Contractor's Work Is Further Criticized

In a House hearing on what has gone wrong with reconstruction contracts in Iraq, Parsons Corp. quickly became the focus, taking bipartisan heat for its record of falling short on critical projects. The Pasadena, Calif., firm was supposed to build facilities at the heart of the $21 billion U.S.-led reconstruction program, including fire stations, border forts and health-care centers. But inspectors have found a litany of flaws in the firm's work. The one project reviewed by auditors that was being constructed correctly, a prison, was taken away from Parsons before its completion because of escalating costs.

In a report released yesterday, inspectors found that the Baghdad Police College posed a health risk after feces and urine leaked through the ceilings of student barracks. The facility, part of which will need to be demolished, also featured floors that heaved inches off the ground and a room where water dripped so heavily that it was known as "the rain forest."

The academy was intended as a showcase for U.S. efforts to train Iraqi recruits who eventually are expected to take control of the nation's security from the U.S. military.

- rob 5:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Freedom on the march?

A duck walk maybe.

Iraqi Journalists Add Laws to List of Dangers

Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.
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The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.

I honestly believe push wants to promote "freedom" - he just doesn't know what the word means.

Here. There. Anywhere.

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This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities.
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In an email to me, Blank explained the significance of the photos. He wrote:

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods.
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The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn't a coincidence. As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Go to the site to read more and see the photos.

- rob 5:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ever wonder who in American politics really has no idea what America is or means.

This week's events provided us with a list of at least some of them:

List Of Congressmen Responsible for Torture

- rob 5:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Domestic terrorism is funny thinks the NY POST

Yep nothing funny like the sheeple who learn of the world solely from Fox News sending out fake anthrax leaders to journalists who speak out about an over reaching administration.

'NY Post' Makes Fun of Olbermann's Reaction to Getting Letter With White Powder

NEW YORK One would think journalists might not make fun of a high-profile industry colleague, in this day and age, receiving an envelope -- at home -- which contains white powder. But that seemed to be the case at the New York Post's "Page Six" today in reporting on an alleged incident involving Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's "Countdown."

Olbermann is not only a frequent critic of President Bush and the Iraq war -- he has been involved in a long feud with Fox News in general, and with Bill O'Reilly in particular. Fox News and the New York Post share an owner: Rupert Murdoch.

Several leading news organizations in recent years have summoned "HazMat" teams and sent employees to the hospital after receiving letters with white powder at their offices. The Post itself received a so-called "anthrax letter" in the fall of 2001, infecting three staffers, who all recovered.

Olbermann responds noting that The NY Post by mocking him not only showed disturbing ethics but also may have interfered with a federal investigation. Crooks and Liars has the video.

So yes, you knew it was coming, but this time it is more appropriate than ever - except this time it is directed to NY Post itself:



Meanwhile political gossip site Wonkette notes this is the 5th anthrax anniversary (which actually makes the Olbermann letter all the more of a threat).

Happy 5th Anthrax Anniversary!

It has begun. Come get your Cipro after the jump.

At the Hart Senate building right now, the feds are investigating a “suspicious substance” found in Sen. John Cornyn’s office. But he’s a Republican, so it’s probably just cocaine.

Capitol Police are telling everyone to avoid Hart rooms 517 and 612 “until further notice.” Go ahead and start that terroristic three-day weekend right now!

It was Tom Daschle’s office that got hit particularly hard by the Capitol anthrax mailings, and Daschle was right down the hall from Cornyn’s offices. Coincidence?

Meanwhile, there’s the curious tale of MSNBC Bush basher Keith Olbermann’s own anthrax scare. Basically, he got an anthrax-style terror envelope, but it was soap powder. Naturally, the New York Post found this to be hee-larious. Because what’s funnier than this whole War On Everything bullshit, right? Hah-ha!

- rob 4:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush just like blasts.

Bomb Iraq, bomb Afganistan, but save those blastocysts.

Bush's Conception Conflict

It was, I believe, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who first made the excellent, bitter and terribly unfair joke about conservatives who believe in a right to life that begins at conception and ends at birth.

This joke has been adapted for use against various Republican politicians ever since. In the case of President Bush, though, it appears to be literally true.

Emphasis mine.

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Iraq situation is 'dire,' says Straw

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The current situation in Iraq is "dire" according to former British foreign secretary Jack Straw.

Straw -- now the leader of Britain's House of Commons -- blamed "mistakes" made by the U.S. administration in the aftermath of the invasion for the current problems.

"The current situation is dire," he said during an appearance on BBC1's Question Time.

Oh those British - they are so dry. "Dire" "Mistakes" Next you expect Straw to ask for tea.

And how cute is "question time." Here in America we have "evasion time."

- rob 3:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Why have experts do studies when Bush's office is just so danged smart that they can edit it or censor it until the study says what it should have said in the first place.

See why have experts at all. Bush's peoples are wayyys smarter than people who may have had edumacations and experience in their fields. Bah.

White House Said to Bar Hurricane Report

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday.

- rob 11:23 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Let's hope they have good luck.

Scientists and Engineers FOR America

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.

- rob 11:16 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Q: How can you tell when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is lying?

A: Her lips are moving.

Har Har Haerr.. its not really funny.

• RICE OK'D CLAIM OF 'SAFE AIR' AFTER 9/11

  Condoleezza Rice's office gave final approval to the infamous Environmental Protection Agency press releases days after 9/11 claiming the air around Ground Zero was "safe to breathe," internal documents show.
  Now Secretary of State, Rice was then head of the National Security Council - "the final decision maker" on EPA statements about lower Manhattan air quality, the documents say.

• 2001 memo to Rice contradicts statements about Clinton, Pakistan

  "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice told a reporter for the New York Post on Monday. "Big pieces were missing," Rice added, "like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren't going to get Afghanistan."
  
  Rice made the comments in response to claims made Sunday by former President Bill Clinton, who argued that his administration had done more than the current one to address the al Qaeda problem before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She stopped short of calling the former president a liar.
  
  However, RAW STORY has found that just five days after President George W. Bush was sworn into office, a memo from counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke to Rice included the 2000 document, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects." This document devotes over 2 of its 13 pages of material to specifically addressing strategies for securing Pakistan's cooperation in airstrikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

• Rice: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center..." (May 16, 2002)Which thus brings me to the March, 2001 premire of the X-Files spin off: The Lone Gunmen. What better way to start of a government conspiracy show then have the heroes barely avert a "hijacked" (via remote control) full passenger jet liner from crashing into the World Trade Center. The scene of the jet barely mssing the tower (with the tail of the jet dramatically scrapping the top of the towers antennas) is chilling when viewed now. No one could have "predicted" it Ms. Rice, but the idea shouldn't have been such a surprise.
  
  Oh by the way, the reason in the Lone Gunmen for crashing the jet into the WTC? Because the world was getting more and more stable and this would shake things up and increase defense spending - it was a conspiracy show after all.

- rob 11:01 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Click this link now - and leave this site and read Atrios.

Start here and scroll down

Clinton Speaks

Democrats and Republicans alike believe that terrorists must be caught captured and sentenced. I believe that there can be no mercy for those who perpetrated 9/11 and other crimes against humanity. But in the process of accomplishing that I believe we must hold on to our values and set an example we can point to with pride, not shame. Those captured are going nowhere – they are in jail now – so we should follow the duty given us by the Supreme Court and carefully craft the right piece of legislation to try them. The president acted without authority and it is our duty now to be careful in handing this president just the right amount of authority to get the job done and no more.

Washington's Choice

During the Revolutionary War, between the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which set our founding ideals to paper, and the writing of our Constitution, which fortified those ideals under the rule of law, our values – our beliefs as Americans – were already being tested.

We were at war and victory was hardly assured, in fact the situation was closer to the opposite. New York City and Long Island had been captured. General George Washington and the continental army retreated across New Jersey to Pennsylvania, suffering tremendous casualties and a body blow to the cause of American Independence.

It was at this time, among these soldiers at this moment of defeat and despair, that Thomas Paine would write, "These are the times that try men's souls." Soon afterward, Washington led his soldiers across the Delaware River and onto victory in the Battle of Trenton. There he captured nearly 1000 foreign mercenaries and he faced a crucial choice.

How would General Washington treat these men? The British had already committed atrocities against Americans, including torture. As David Hackett Fischer describes in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Washington's Crossing," thousands of American prisoners of war were "treated with extreme cruelty by British captors." There are accounts of injured soldiers who surrendered being murdered instead of quartered. Countless Americans dying in prison hulks in New York harbor. Starvation and other acts of inhumanity perpetrated against Americans confined to churches in New York City.

The light of our ideals shone dimly in those early dark days, years from an end to the conflict, years before our improbable triumph and the birth of our democracy. General Washington wasn't that far from where the Continental Congress had met and signed the Declaration of Independence. But it's easy to imagine how far that must have seemed. General Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren."

Read it

Obama Speaks

I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here. I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be called everything from cut-and-run quitters to Defeatocrats to people who care more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.

And yet, while I know all of this, I’m still disappointed, and I’m still ashamed. Because what we’re doing here today – a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused – should be bigger than politics. This is serious.

If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences – heartfelt convictions that couldn’t be settled by compromise – I would understand. But it’s not.

All of us – Democrats and Republicans – want to do whatever it takes to track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible. All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this. And all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to the American people.

In the five years that the President’s system of military tribunals has existed, not one terrorist has been tried. Not one has been convicted. Not one has been brought to justice. And in the end, the Supreme Court of the United found the whole thing unconstitutional, which is why we’re here today.

We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.

Instead of allowing this President – or any President – to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions, as we would have if we passed the bill that the Armed Services committee originally offered.

Read it.

Patrick Murphy Speaks

We need to be absolutely clear, to the world and to our professional soldiers, that the United States of America does not condone torture, and does not conduct torture. Period. Not only is it not right morally, but strategically, as a military professional, it's wrong. When you look back at our nation's history, when you look back at Desert Storm back in the early 90's, when we had tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of them in the first few days of the campaign rose with the white flag of surrender. Why did they do that, ladies and gentlemen? They surrendered because they knew when captured by the Americans we would treat them humanely. We would treat them appropriately, and we would follow the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

When I sat and taught the rules of engagement, and I was the law enforcement officer in my combat brigade, my soldiers knew, our paratroopers knew, that they were professional soldiers, that we have army values. Those Army values cannot be breached. Those same Army values that I taught to the 600 Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members, the new Iraqi Army, to make sure that they too understood that we are a part of a profession. That we are to act appropriately. That we are to follow the law of war.

Read it.

Edwards Speaks

In its zeal to score a political victory before Congress adjourns for the midterm elections, the Bush administration and the Republican leadership are playing politics with our national security by pushing through a deeply-flawed bill that would undermine our long term ability to win the war on terror.

Read it.

Kerry Speaks

“We’ve got to tell the truth about what’s happening right now – right now – in our country. We must start treating our moral authority as a national treasure that doesn’t limit our power but magnifies our influence. That seems obvious, but this Administration still doesn’t get it. Still. Right now – today — they are trying to rush a bill through Congress that will fundamentally undermine our moral authority, put our troops at greater risk, and make our country less safe.

Let me be clear about something—something that it seems few people are willing to say. This bill permits torture. It gives the President the discretion to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. No matter how much well-intended United States Senators would like to believe otherwise, it gives an Administration that lobbied for torture just what it wanted.

Read it.

Feingold Speaks

But Mr. President, we wouldn’t be where we are today, five years after September 11 with not a single Guantanamo Bay detainee having been brought to trial, if the President had come to Congress in the first place, rather than unilaterally creating military commissions that didn’t comply with the law. The President wanted to act on his own, and he dared the Supreme Court to stop him. And he lost. The Hamdan decision was an historic rebuke to an Administration that has acted for years as if it were above the law.

Finally, only because he was essentially ordered to do so by the Supreme Court, the President has agreed to consult with Congress. I would have hoped that we would take this opportunity to pass legislation that allows us to proceed in accordance with our laws and our values. That is what separates America from our enemies. These trials, conducted appropriately, have the potential to demonstrate to the world that our democratic, constitutional system of government is our greatest strength in fighting those who attacked us.

And that is why I am saddened that I must oppose this legislation. Because, Mr. President, the trials conducted under this legislation will send a very different signal to the world, one that I fear will put our own troops and personnel in jeopardy both now and in future conflicts. To take just a few examples, this legislation would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and hearsay, would not allow full judicial review of the conviction, and yet would allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death. That is simply unacceptable. We would not stand for another country to try our citizens under those rules, and we should not stand for our own government to do so, either.

Not only that, this legislation would deny detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere—people who have been held for years but have not been tried or even charged with any crime—the ability to challenge their detention in court. Among its many flaws, this is the most troubling—that the legislation seeks to suspend the Great Writ of habeas corpus.

Read it.

Dodd Speaks

Mr. President, the Administration and Republican leadership would have the American people believe that the War on Terror requires a choice between protecting America from terrorism and upholding the basic tenets upon which our country was founded -- but not both. This canard has been showcased in every recent election cycle.

I fully reject that reasoning. We can, and we must, balance our responsibilities to bring terrorists to justice, while at the same time protecting what it means to be America. To choose the rule of law over the passion of the moment takes courage. But it is the right thing to do if we are to uphold the values of equal justice and due process that are codified in our Constitution.

Our founding fathers established the legal framework of our country on the premise that those in government are not infallible. America’s leaders knew this sixty years ago, when they determined how to deal with Nazi leaders guilty of horrendous crimes. There were strong and persuasive voices, at the time, crying out for the execution of these men who had commanded with ruthless efficiency the slaughter of six million innocent Jews and five million other innocent men, women, and children. After World War II, our country was forced to decide if the accused criminals deserved a trial or execution.

This history is particularly personal to me. My father, Thomas Dodd, worked alongside Justice Robert Jackson in prosecuting these trials at Nuremberg. He viewed Nuremberg as one of the most pivotal moments in our history – where America chose to uphold the rule of law rather than succumb to rule of the mob. Let me be clear: these enemies of the United States were not given the opportunity to walk away from their crimes. Rather, they were given the right to face their accuser, the right to confront evidence against them, and the right to a fair trial. Underlying that decision was the conviction that this nation must not tailor its most fundamental principles to the conflict of the moment -- and the recognition that if we did, we would be walking in the very footsteps of the enemies we despised.

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the first verdict of the Nuremburg trials this Saturday, it is important to reflect on the implications of the past as we face new challenges, new enemies, and new decisions. Much as our actions in the post-war period affected our nation’s standing in the world, so too do our actions in the post 9-11 era.

Read it.

Seriously please don't read anything on my site until you've read all of the speeches in totality - available on Atrios's site (start with Clinton and scroll down - there are other posts inbetween these speeches).

If you've already read them - then what the heck - read what I have on the site - not much I admit - I've been swamped.

- rob 6:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Dan Froomkin - Bush Rules - washingtonpost.com

Today's Senate vote on President Bush's detainee legislation, after House approval yesterday, marks a defining moment for this nation.

How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies? How much raw, unchecked power are we willing to hand over to the executive?

The legislation before the Senate today would ban torture, but let Bush define it; would allow the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant; would suspend the Great Writ of habeas corpus; would immunize retroactively those who may have engaged in torture. And that's just for starters.

It's a red-letter day for the country. It's also a telling day for our political system.

The people have lost confidence in their president. Despite that small recent uptick in the polls, Bush remains deeply unpopular with the American public, mistrusted by a majority, widely considered out of touch with the nation's real priorities.

But he's still got Congress wrapped around his little finger.

Read it all.

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World Hero

I forgot to mention this on Tuesay, but Tuesday was the 23rd anniversary of Stanislav Petrov saving the world.

From Wikipedia:

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: ????????? ?????????? ??????) (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Strategic Rocket Forces colonel who, on September 26, 1983, averted a potential nuclear war by refusing to believe that the United States had launched missiles against the USSR, despite the indications given by his computerized early warning systems. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons. Because of military secrecy and international policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998.

Unfortunately this wasn't the only time civilization almost met an untimely end: 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War is a sobering read.

It proves that saber rattling does lead to jittering fingers on the trigger, and luckily some far calmer heads have prevailed.

We're lucky the cold war is over because we seem to have "calm heads" in short supply.

Meanwhile, though, just because the USSR is gone doesn't mean the threat of nuclear war is gone.

Peace and Trust aren't just good ideas, they are required for humanity's long term survival.

- rob 10:38 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Lot of stuff to post - but no time to do so, so in the meantime why not make America's future a little brighter and this century a little suckier by helping out: ActBlue - Netroots Candidates

- rob 5:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Olbermann (see below) isn't the only one who gave Bush a verbal beating yesterday - life long Major General Batiste really let Bush's administration have it, going afte the Decider's man Rummy.

Republican General: Rummy responsible for deaths, failure, Abu Ghraib, the leaning tower of Pisa...

Donald Rumsfeld is not a competent wartime leader. He knows everything, except "how to win." He surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates who do not grasp the importance of the principles of war, the complexities of Iraq, or the human dimension of warfare. Secretary Rumsfeld ignored 12 years of U.S. Central Command deliberate planning and strategy, dismissed honest dissent, and browbeat subordinates to build "his plan," which did not address the hard work to crush the insurgency, secure a post-Saddam Iraq, build the peace, and set Iraq up for self-reliance. He refused to acknowledge and even ignored the potential for the insurgency, which was an absolute certainty. Bottom line, his plan allowed the insurgency to take root and metastasize to where it is today. Our great military lost a critical window of opportunity to secure Iraq because of inadequate troop levels and capability required to impose security, crush a budding insurgency, and set the conditions for the rule of law in Iraq. We were undermanned from the beginning, lost an early opportunity to secure the country, and have yet to regain the initiative.
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Secretary Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq. He was responsible for America and her allies going to war with the wrong plan and a strategy that did not address the realities of fighting an insurgency.
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Secretary Rumsfeld built his team by systematically removing dissension. America went to war with "his plan" and to say that he listens to his generals is disingenuous. We are fighting with his strategy. He reduced force levels to unacceptable levels, micromanaged the war, and caused delays in the approval of troop requirements and the deployment process, which tied the hands of commanders while our troops were in contact with the enemy. At critical junctures, commanders were forced to focus on managing shortages rather than leading, planning, and anticipating opportunity.

Wow - just go read it (a video is there too).

- rob 5:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Do we laugh?
Do we cry?
what do we do to stop getting poked in the eye?

Election horrors
In gruesome detail, let's recount why we don't want Congress to be re-elected

Election Day will be upon us sooner than any of us could have anticipated, which means we will go to the polls, once again, somewhat unprepared, and poke and prod and punch our way through ballots and learn at day's end that almost all members of Congress have been re-elected.
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The fact that much of Congress will be re-elected should not lead people to think Congress and the government are doing a fine job.

I have just completed reading an extensive New York Times poll.

I have thought about it. Processed it. Called forth my inner pundit.

Here's what I think it shows.

People would rather have their head dunked in the swampy, bubbly goo that comes out of pipes at chemical plants than see Congress continue on its present path.

They would rather select a baboon from the zoo, dress him in a nice suit, give him an expense account and ship him off to Washington than cast ballots for the congressional candidates who are available this time around.

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If the children are the future then the Bush administration doesn't give a damn about them.

Screw the future!

Seems like bad policy to me.

U.S., EU spar in private on terrorism

It began near the end of the meeting, according to one participant, when Tuomioja said ministers were bound to be asked if they had discussed the issue of secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons for suspected terrorists and "rendition flights" to transfer prisoners to states where they may face torture.
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Tuomioja replied: "We all agree on the need to fight terrorism but we should do so in a way that does not create more terrorism in the future."

Rice shot back: "Let's deal with those who are trying to kill us now and leave the future for some other time."

Unwilling to leave her the last word as the meeting broke up, Tuomioja added: "The future is with us today."

Unbelievable. Emphasis mine as you know doubt already knew.

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Part of me thinks Keith is just daring them to fire him.

Olbermann: A textbook definition of cowardice

The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.

It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.

It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”

Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.

Nonetheless. The headline is this:

Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.

He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.

"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
...
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration did not try.

Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
...
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
...
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
...
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
...
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.

"We must disenthrall ourselves."

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.

He might well have.

"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
...
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, Mr. Bush:

Are yours the actions of a true American?

And yes there is a heck of a lot more to read (though I did quote an awful lot). So go to the MSNBC site - get Keith the traffic - and read the whole thing (and don't forget to rate the article).

It's also worth viewing: Crooks and Liars has the video.

- rob 2:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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In reference to nothing here are some search queries that brought people to TCS yesterday:

• uzbekitty
• Fraud Roundup
• example sentences of aberration
• Louis XIV's misuse of tax dollars
• what snake does lachesis come from
• 2003 percentage border patrol agents southern border us
• when was richard clark appointed cyberterrorism czar
• internet poker industry crooked
• magdalene laundries freud

How many of these people do you think were satisfied with their search results?

- rob 11:33 AM - [PermaLink] -

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You've heard about it - and if you click this link you can see a video of it:

Crooks and Liars - Fox Clinton Interview - Part 1 - Osama bin Laden

From the transcript reprinted on Crooks & Liars:

WJC: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still President, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush, and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever…

CW: [Laughs]

WJC: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise. We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. [Not] until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

CW: Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?

WJC: You can.

CW: I always intended to, sir.

WJC: No, you intended to move your bones by doing this first. But I don’t mind people asking me. I actually talked to the 9/11 Commission for four hours and I told them the mistakes I thought I made. And I urged them to make those mistakes public because I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things. I always get these clever little political…where they ask me one-sided question. It always comes from one source. And so…

CW: [..]

WJC: And so…

CW: I just want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what’s
the source? You seem upset…

WJC: I am upset because…

CW: …and all I can say is, I’m asking you in good faith because it’s on people’s minds, sir. And I wasn’t…

WJC: There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds because they’ve done a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. This country only has one person who has worked against terror…[since] under Reagan. Only one: Richard Clarke. And all I’d say [to] anybody who wonders whether we did wrong or right; anybody who wants to see what everybody else did, read his book. The people on my political right who say I didn’t do enough, spent the whole time I was president saying ‘Why is he so obsessed with Bin Laden?’ And that was ‘Wag the Dog’ when he tried to kill him. My Republican Secretary of Defense, - and I think I’m the only person since WWII to have a Secretary of Defense from the opposition party - Richard Clarke, and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get Osama Bin Laden and came closer apparently than anybody has since.

CW: All right…

WJC: And you guys try to create the opposite impression when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s findings and you know it’s not true. It’s just not true. And all this business about Somalia – the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day. Same exact crowd.

- rob 5:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Even though the intelligent response to this is:

"no shit sherlock"
or
"No Duh"

This is actually big news

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.
...
"It's stating the obvious."
...
But "a really big hole" in the U.S. strategy, a second counterterrorism official said, "is that we focus on the terrorists and very little on how they are created. If you looked at all the resources of the U.S. government, we spent 85, 90 percent on current terrorists, not on how people are radicalized."

As it is a classified document the Bush people are stiking back with "that isn't what it says but due to national security I can't tell you what it says, but it doesn't say what I just said it doesn't say.

Trust me."

Don't let them get away with that yet again. Joshua Marshall over at Talking Points Memo wants everyone to take action:

Call up your representative and senators -- Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter -- and tell them you want the April National Intelligence Estimate ("Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States") released to the public. Now. Before the election. So the public can know what the White House has been keeping from them.
...
An NIE isn't some random government white paper. It represents the consensus judgment of the entire US intelligence community, with input from all the different agencies, from CIA and DIA to INR and FBI and all the others. In other words, this is the collaborative judgment of the people actually fighting the War on Terror.
...
So pick up the phone and tell your reps and senators what you think. Then ask them whether they support releasing the April Iraq/Terrorism NIE to the public before the November election. Yes, or no. You may hear excuses that it can't be released because it's classified. But that's plain bull. Reports like this are routinely and without much difficulty released in redacted versions which remove any specific information that might reveal what intel types call 'sources and methods'.

- rob 4:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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well it has been at least a few days since I last used this graphic

A week after an anthrax victim's window says the government may know who killed her husband, the FBI makes to bold statement that all its earlier comments on the case are no longer operative.

FBI Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks

Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in a frustratingly slow investigation.

The finding, which resulted from countless scientific tests at numerous laboratories, appears to undermine the widely held belief that the attack was carried out by a government scientist or someone with access to a U.S. biodefense lab.

BooMan over at the BooMan Tribune sums this all up with:

Anthrax: Lying Then or Lying Now

I'm tired of the lies. The anthrax was studied extensively back in 2001 and 2002. They checked on genetic markers, they identified the anthrax as a substrain of Ames that was probably produced in Utah and shipped to Fort Detrick Maryland. They certainly counted the spore concentration back then and got it right. Did the government exaggerate the concentration back then? Or are they downplaying the concentration now?

- rob 3:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Karl Rove Promises October Surprise

WASHINGTON -- In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.
...
Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be.

Perhaps the readers of TCS know?

- rob 12:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This was emailed to me last week.



That's about right.

- rob 9:45 AM - [PermaLink] -

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It is not a conflict of civilisations - It is a conflict of ignorance

West and Islam in "conflict of ignorance" -Aga Khan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Ignorance and rejectionism lie at the heart of the conflict between the Western and the Islamic worlds, the Aga Khan, spiritual head of the world's more than 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, said.
...
Talking to a small group of journalists in New Delhi, he said the world was grappling with "a conflict of ignorance".

"It is not a conflict of civilisations. It is an enormous gap of understanding. And because that understanding is not there, the ability to predict, anticipate, reflect becomes that much more difficult," he said.
...
"What is at the heart of the issue is ... rejectionism," he said. "I am deeply worried about that. All education systems need to come to terms with these issues, to educate people about other societies and civilisations."

"It is going to be a long and slow process," he added, "but we can't continue the way we are."

- rob 9:35 AM - [PermaLink] -

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