Another One Bites the Dust, Ewww Version

ABC is reporting that Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida is resigning over sexually explicit messages to minors.

Bush's 9/11 Failure for Dummies

For those who haven't been able to reead for the last 5 years (or have been getting their news from the traditional media), Keith Olberman has put together a must-see video displaying the Bush administrtion's total incompetence in the 8 months preceding 9/11.

"Pandemic"

HBO does it again!

The best show of the new season for me is hands down ... The Wire.

From the first scene of the season - a young, tough-talking hitwoman buying a nail gun at a Home Dpot-like store - a multitude of character driven storylines and subplots began to develop. It gets better week after week, and now having watched the third episode on Sunday, I'm jonesing hard for the next.

Got that pandemic, for real.

More Condi Incompetence: "Safe to Breathe" at Ground Zero

From The New York Post:

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.

Scientists and lawmakers have since deemed the air rife with toxins.

Early tests known to the EPA at the time had already found high asbestos levels, the notes say. But those results were omitted from the press releases because of "competing priorities" such as national security and "opening Wall Street," according to a report by the EPA's inspector general.

And what do we have ... about 70% of the rescue workers at Ground Zero have had respiratory problems since.

But hey, maybe there was a shoe store in the area Condi needed reopened pronto.

Kindasleazy: The Media's Free Pass Liar

To respond to the Clinton smackdown of Wallace, the Bushies needed to respond and had only one avenue ... lying. Who better suited than Kindasleazy ... in an interview with Murdoch's New York Post. She claimed Clinton never handed over a plan against Al Qaeda and that the Bushies were at least as aggressive as Clinton pre-9/11.

Actually, a very specific plan developed under Clinton was handed over by Richard Clarke to Condi on January 25, 2001. But its Condi ... so Righties and the media must ignore the written record and don’t dare mention that she’s lying when she says the Bushies never received a plan.

One element of the plan was to respond to the USS Cole bombing which Kindasleazy put into action

… NEVER.

Armed Predators were delayed, principles meetings were tabled, Osama was ignored in favor of missile defense.

But then we can look at all the thoughtful, pre-9/11 meetings of Cheney’s terrorism task force that totalled

… ZERO.

Unfortunately, that’s what passes for aggresive work for Kindasleazy. I mean, there’s shoe shopping to do while Katrina floods. Who cares that she did nothing when handed a PDB saying “Bin Laden determined to Attack in America”? Who cares that her Sudanese peace plan has actually exacerbated the violence in the Darfur? Who cares if she sat quietly on her hands while hundreds died before belatedly calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon … a delay that achieved nothing beyond those unnecessary deaths?

Judge her not on her record of sheer incompetence, she plays piano.

Hide & Seek the Sequel

Bush today announced that he will release the NIE ... in part.

This, of course, is what Bush did with the Iraq-WMD NIE in the run-up to the 2002 elections. He redacted numerous portions that questioned or qualified the assessments.

The hatchet job was all discovered much later and was so poorly covered by the media that most people are probably unaweare of the dirty trick at all.

The only question here is - will the media fall for this stunt a second time?

It now also turns out that there is a second NIE on Iraq that the administration is gaming by not technically calling it an NIE (thereby avoiding Congressional reporting requirements). Who will have the courage to call the Bushies out on this obsessive hide-the-ball gamesmanship that is damaging and demeaning to a transparent society and a full factual debate of the issues critical to Ameriucan security.

You Had Me At "Pork Chops"

With the "N" word problem growing daily (O Dub has the latest), the George Allen circus has jumped the shark to no longer funny.

Just pathetic.

Release the NIE!

The New York Times reported this weekend about the National Intelligence Estimate - available since last April but withheld from the public - which reportedly suggests the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism.

The Bushies, of course, are trying to spin away from the story.

Josh has a solution --- release it, you MFers*.


*I'm not sure Josh said the last part, just my reading.

Quick Picks

Notre Dame will bounce back and win by more than 3 at Michigan State.*

Arizona will lose big at home but not by more than 21 to USC.

UCLA will beat the 3 point spread on the road at Washington.

Though I hate huge spreads, give up 21 and take West Virginia against East Carolina. It's just a question of when the Mountaineers choose to shut it down.



*BUYER BEWARE: I'm 0-3 on Notre Dame picks this year.

Pro-Torture Bill: Clarity Equals Bush's Interpretation

You can read the Bill here (pdf file). Other than specifically banning that which was already obviously banned - murder, rape, maiming - the Bill provides a litany of vague and ambiguous phrases (e.g. "Grave Breaches", "severe physical or mental pain or suffering") as to what the Bush administration can or cannot do in interrogating detainees and, most disturbingly, the phrases are left to the interpretation of the President himself.

So when McCain, Graham and Warner tell you that water boarding is prohibited, don't believe them. There is no express provision barring waterboarding, stress positions, sleep depravation, sensory depravation, exposing detainess to extreme temperatures, etc. Indeed, White House officials have made clear, their interpretation of the Bill means the CIA can continue doing what they've been doing. The Bill's also retroactive to 1997 --- there must've been a lot of this stuff needing ex post facto legal validation.

Worse, the Bill now creates the legal basis military interrogators have said they would need before they too engaged in the techniques that the CIA has been using. The Bill actually expands the ability of our government to torture.

Short of getting another "look at me" moment from an adoring and drooling press, McCain has accomplished nothing in the fight to preserve our national identity as a civilized country that takes the moral high ground against torture.

George Felix Allen ROCKS!!!

Sensible conservative John Cole has it about right on the political importance of George Allen's Jewish ancestry:

Who cares?

Whether he is Jewish, or whether he may have not stated he was Jewish is all water under the bridge. None of that changes that he has some pretty sketchy associations with clearly racist folks, none of that changes that he is beholden to the Chrisianist religious right and parrots their rhetoric comfortably and openly, and none of that changes the fact that he is wrong on torture, wrong on virtually every issue, and shouldn’t be the next President, much less a Senator.

So let’s please keep that in mind and stop the crazy talk.

But dude, c'mon ... your missing the whole comedy gold thing going on here.

In the comedic void this country had lapsed into desperately awaiting the returns of My Name is Earl and The Office, George Allen stumbled forward and presented a "Look at me, I'm an Idiot" routine that supplied America with a gut-busting, laugh out loud relief.

The comedic subtelty of the "mom's got a bit of Spanish in her" was pure genius. And who can't appreciate the whole ham sandwiches and pork chops bit brilliantly timed with his acknowledgment of Jewish ancestry.

Torture In Iraq Worse Than Saddam?

The BBC reports on the UN's latest human rights report from Iraq. Here's a portion from the BBC report:

The UN report says detainees' bodies often show signs of beating using electrical cables, wounds in heads and genitals, broken legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns.

Bodies found at the Baghdad mortuary "often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances".

Many bodies have missing skin, broken bones, back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails, the UN report says.

Victims come from prisons run by US-led multinational forces as well as by the ministries of interior and defence and private militias, the report said.

The most brutal torture methods were employed by private militias, Mr Nowak told journalists.

The UN's antitorture expert notes that because of the dangerous situation in Iraq, he has not been able to leave the Green Zone for a first hand examination of the bodies at the morgue but is basing his report on autopsies and witnesses interviewed in Jordan.

As critical as it was for USAID and other organizations to collect the evidence of human rights abuses under Saddam; what are we doing now to verify and/or preserve evidence of the current torture regimen.

The Sinking of Santa's Workshop

Here's a report on the disappearing Arctic ice cover:

European scientists voiced shock on Wednesday as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.

Maybe those greedy consevative SOBs might finally wake up when Santa's presents don't show up under the tree this year.

A Day In The Life

In The L.A. Times, from an Iraqi reporter:

On a recent Sunday, I was buying groceries in my beloved Amariya neighborhood in western Baghdad when I heard the sound of an AK-47 for about three seconds. It was close but not very close, so I continued shopping.

As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead.

The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened.

I was still looking at the wounded man and blaming myself for not stopping to help. Other shoppers peered at him from a distance, sorrowful and compassionate, but did nothing.

I went on to another grocery store, staying for about five minutes while shopping for tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. During that time, the man managed to sit up and wave to passing cars. No one stopped. Then, a white Volkswagen pulled up. A passenger stepped out with a gun, walked steadily to the wounded man and shot him three times. The car took off down a side road and vanished.

No one did anything. No one lifted a finger. The only reaction came from a woman in the grocery store. In a low voice, she said, "My God, bless his soul."

Read the rest.

The Forgotten Terrorist Attack

MSNBC allows Casey Chamberlain, a survivor of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, to tell her story and remind peolpe that the Anthrax murders and assaults remain unsolved.

What Ms. Chamberlain fails to undrstand is that her story is inconvenient to the pro-Bush lie of no terrorist attacks since 9/11. Accordingly, the victims of these attacks are neither to be seen nor heard in the rightwing world that largely controls contemporary discourse.

At least for the sake of those victims, somebody in the media ought to do some in depth reporting about the status of the investigation and whether enough is being done to apprehend this killer(s).

Torturing the Innocent

The New York Times reports:

A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.

The U.S. - in particular, Bush's Justice Department - rendered Arar, without any provision of due process by which he could dispute the charges made, to Syria where he was tortured and held for a year in deplorable conditions.

This is what the fight is over and why Bush needs to be stopped in both his military tribunal and interrogation proposals. Without sufficient due process, we will have more Mahar Arars.

More Good News from Iraq

MSNBC posts a new story from Iraq and, if you can just set your liberal biases aside, you will notice it is filled with good news.

First, there's this:

Each morning, high school student Achmed Hammed reads the newspaper obituaries looking for friends who have died.

See ... betcha didn't know the newspaper was being delivered daily.

You should also notice the upbeat economic news:

[Suhail Gergis has] been making coffins since 1983, and for the first time he cannot keep up with demand.

"We turn on the generator and keep working until late at night," he says.

They are building a coffin for a small child. In Iraq, in this chaos, this business has the biggest increase in manufacturing here.

Even better is the government's work toward an accurate media:

On Monday morning, an Iraqi NBC producer, his face hidden for his protection, and his camera crew were caught in crossfire at the morgue. On one side, Shiites from the Ministry of Health, on the other, Sunnis from the Ministry of Electricity. Our tape was confiscated.

Way to nip that lying videotap in the bud!

Doughy Pantload with a Screwdriver

The big read this weekend was Rajiv Chandrasekaran's expose in the Washington Post on what we liberals already knew --- the CPA hired its minions based not on skill or merit but based on fealty to Bush. Its political patronage in the supreme and should be illegal (though given the recent opinion of conservative activist judge T.S. Ellis in the Custer Battles case, there probably isn't even a civil claim that can be made).

What is new are some of the details --- the hiring was controlled by Jim O'Beirne (husband of the National Review's rightwing sycophant Kate O'Beirne. Apparently some applicants were even asked their view on Roe v. Wade.

Its another case of rightwing affirmative action. A way to dump loads of money into the pockets of its young adherents. Merit be damned. Even more, Iraqis be damned.

Quick Picks

Bet The Irish and give up the 6 points playing at home against Michigan.

Which Tennessee team will show up this week ... I'm saying the one that was suckey against Air Force. Take Florida and give up the 3 1/2 points.

Look for Oregon to trounce the Sooners at Autzen Stadium; give up the 5 points.

Take the 3 1/2 points and bet on LSU on the road against Auburn.

Take Miami and the 4 points on the road against Louisville.

More Friday Fun - George Allen's "Ethnic Friends"

Colbert comes to Allen's rescue.

Friday Fun Time

Let's play a game!

Remember that game when you were a wee one - I believe it was on Sesame Street - called Guess Which One Is Not Like The Others.

Well, look at the pictures below and let's see if we can determine which one is different; and I'm not talking about being convicted versus facing a mountain of evidence likely to bring a conviction - I'm talking about guessing which one, and only one, had his congressional office searched by the FBI.







Hmmm ... can you tell which one is different?

The Rightwing Ward Churchill

Tom Tancredo.

The difference being that Churchill's followers consist of two drunks and a dog while Tancredo's been elected to Congress by the whackjob right.

Here's a snippet from the Southern Poverty Law Center's report:

Dressed casually in a yellow t-shirt, Tancredo addressed the standing-room audience of 200-250 from behind a podium draped in a Confederate battle flag. To the congressman's right, a portrait of Robert E. Lee peered out at the crowd of Minutemen activists, local politicians, and red-shirted members of LOS and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Confederate trappings of the event found a mismatch in Tancredo's standard nativist polemic, which stayed clear of references to Southern heritage or direct plaudits for the LOS, a Southern white nationalist organization dedicated to "Southern independence, complete, full, and total."

(Via O Dub)

Jeebus ... If Meredith Howard Had to Go, Why Can't Bill Kristol

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

An Army reservist who has become the oldest Wisconsin war casualty in at least 50 years told family members that she worried about being too old and poorly trained for combat.

"We had no idea why she was there," said Lorraine Stevenson, a cousin of Merideth Howard of Waukesha, who was killed Friday in Afghanistan, five months after her unit arrived there.

Rest In Peace, Ms. Howard. You are a hero.


POSTSCRIPT: Meredith Howard was killed in Afghanistan. A fact that points out another glaring problem with Kristol and Lowry's editorial that I criticized yesterday. Their call for more troops was only for Iraq ... Afghanistan wasn't even mentioned. In fact, we've withdrawn many of our troops from Afghanistan even though the job there is far from being done and is in perilous danger of completely unraveling. This is the job that a vast majority of the American public and the International Community supported. Success in Afghanistan is critical to our credibility as a nation and, hence, our long-term foreign policy.

Yet, Kristol and Lowry ignore the impact "more troops" for Iraq would have and, indeed, has had on Afghanistan. Once again, I stand by my charge that the Post editorial was not serious by mere political ass coverage for two selfish and egotistical blowhards. The selfless one was Ms. Howard.

The Mirage (or The Oasis is Right Over the Next Hill)

Today, Fred Hiatt's editorial page gave free space to the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol & the National Review's Rich Lowry to post a disingenuous piece of bullshit that can only be read as an effort by the two to obtain future ass coverage.

The solution to all things wrong in Iraq, they claim, is MORE TROOPS.

Matt Yglesias has chewed up Kristol for his historical shortcomings on this issue while Glenn Greenwald takes Lowry to the shed for hiws outright duplicity.

But most disingenuous, in my opinion, is that Kristol and Lowry don't have the balls to say exactly from where these troops are to come. You certainly aren't going to see Lowry signing up or Kristol going door-to-door to his friends urging that they or their kids join up.

Nor was the word-that-dare-not-be-mentioned mentioned. Let's see if you can guess it by filling in the following sentence: "Reggie Bush was the No. 2 selection in this year's NFL _____."

They simply provide a proposal for which they offer no viable specifics. The cavalry is just expected to appear magically on the bluff above and save the day.

Yet, these two, better than anybody, know that neither Republicans running for reelection nor a president trying to retain control of Congress can demand more troops right now regardless of source. So given that this is a call with no backbone, what gives?

Both Kristol and Lowry see the writing on the wall. The war in Iraq is a failure and the American public isn't going to tolerate a never ending engagement. They are betting, probably correctly, that the situation will disintegrate further and they want to be able to distance themselves from that failure. But calling for redeloyment or withdrawal is anathema to their followers and they don't want to be known as sell-outs. On the other hand, being on record as supporting Bush's doomed policy (one that really includes no plan) is also not appetizing. So, instead, they pimp a hawkish position that their readers will lap up and they can then lay future claim to the line that if we would've just kicked a lil more ass, it would not have turned out the way it did. By then, they hope the viability issue of their proposal has long spiraled down the memory hole. And they do this knowing all the while that there is no chance that their proposal will be followed.

This isn't a serious proposal but mere ass coverage by those who want to indefinitely preserve keeping their collective snouts deep in the rightwing media trough.

As a secondary matter, notice how careful constructed this paragraph - the paragraph which really forms the evidentiary basis for their argument - is:

There is no mystery as to what can make the crucial difference in the battle of Baghdad: American troops. A few thousand U.S. troops have already been transferred to Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq. Where more U.S. troops have been deployed, the situation has gotten better. Those neighborhoods intensively patrolled by Americans are safer and more secure. But it is by no means clear that overall troop numbers in Baghdad are enough to do the job. And it is clear that stripping troops from other fronts risks progress elsewhere in the country.

Of course, we've learned that the Baghdad redeployment has not necessarily worked in decreasing the violence in Baghdad. That's why the paragraph has built-in deniability all through out it. It really is meaningless upon a close read.

These are two truly pathetic creatures and the Washington Post should be ashamed of allowing them to print such self-serving garbage without demanding that they give some specifics as to viability.

Vikes Are On The Board

Macswain's Minnesota Vikings went on the road and put out out an awesome, full-team effort to take their opener from the Redskins.

The flick is of Darren Sharper's game changing hit; knocking the ball loose from Santana Moss in the end zone.

Poetic Justice re "Path to 9/11"

Conservatives will spend some 5 hours watching a demonstrably false docu drama that just plain sucks.

The Metacritic - an aggregator of reviews regarding music, movies, TV shows - has "The Path to 9/11" receiving a consensus score of 51 out of 100 ... and that includes a score of 90 from the Wall Street Journal as well as a score of 80 from Diane Werts of Newsday. All you need to know of Werts is that she actually wrote: "[the filmakers] facts pass informative muster."

In all the hoopla about this flick, we liberals forgot one important thing --- conservatives, even when they are lying about the facts, absolutely suck at making good movies.

This Week's College Football Picks

After going 3-2 opening week, let's see if we can keep rolling and makin' $$$.

The Big Un is Ohio State at Texas. The odds makers like the homefield advantage and have the Longhorns as 2 point favorites. I say take the points and bet the Buckeyes . AND because I'm so condfident Ohio State will actually win, I say put a hundy on the money line to win $115.

The Irish are favored by 7 1/2 at home against Penn State. Expect Notre Dame to win another low scoring game 20-14. Take the points and bet Penn State.

After the Boise State drubbing of Oregon State on Thursday, one might think the smart money is on Fresno State as 3 point dogs at home against Oregon. The Ducks, however, looked to have the whole package in their opener against Stanford. Give up the points, take Oregon.

Two other bets I like - give up the 20 points and pick Tennessee to continuing rolling at home against Air Force; take the 14 1/2 points as Nevada will hang tough in Tempe against Arizona State.

The ACLU Has Infiltrated the JAG

In testimony before Congress, the top military lawyers took issue with the evidentiary limits contained in the President's plan for trying terror suspects held at Gitmo.

They now join other notorious ACLU members - John McCain, Lindsay Graham and John Warner - who have voiced concern over the legality of the President's plan.

Shorter Bush: I Have No Faith That My Prosecutors Can Convict Three of the Worst Terrorists

Rather than coming up with an effective plan for decreasing terrorism, President Bush has once again chosen to play political football with the issue. Yesterday's speech contained a number of noteworthy issues.

Many have focused on the confession that the CIA was, in fact, running secret prisons and how righties were, once again, so wrong in labeling this as a liberal smear.

Others have dissected the semantic spin in which supposed straight-talker Bush has engaged in when admitting to "alternative interrogation techniques" while denying that "torture" occurred. The former phrase reeks of dishonesty as much as the previous gag phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction Relateed Program Activities." The later term - "torture" - has been rendered meaningless by this administration.

But Bush's main PR point, and the one that headlined most MSM websites, was the transfer of the 3 worst terrorists in American custody - Khalid Sheik Muhammad, Ramzi Binalshib and Ab Zubayda - to Guantanamo to face trial. Bush is obviously making this move for pure political reasons. He wants to force a divisive vote on his kangaroo court proposal in the hopes of turning the anti-Republican tide swelling for the upcoming mid-term elections.

But with the publicly available evidence (just look at the 9/11 Commission Report), there really is no need to resort to Bush's kangaroo court to obtain convictions of these individuals. We didn't need to gut civil liberties to convict Timothy McVeigh or John Muhammad or Zacarias Moussaoui nor do we need to sacrifice the important principle of due process to bring these three terrorists to justice. The symbolism of acting as a civilized society, even with regard to the worst individuals, is a powerful weapon in the war on terror that the Bushies have repeatedly tossed aside for demagogic, short-term, domestic political gain. Moreover, the principles applied to the worst will also be applied to the lowly shepard swept-up by greedy and zealous bounty hunters ... and while that issue may not be big news in America, the rest of the world - and especially the Arab world - is following how we treat the innocent as well as the profane.

Thank God

A big thanks to Florida Republicans for choosing Katherine Harris to be their candidate for United States Senator.

Talibanistan?

Wow!

Darfur In The Crosshairs ... Again!

While the American media slumbers on Darfur, The Guardian has an ominous update on the situation. Omar al-Bashir's government is ordering the small contingent of peacekeepers from the African Union out of the country and is set to embark on a large military operation in the region to "restore stability." This, of course, spells the end of the "peace deal" brokered by Deputy Scretary of State Robert Zoellick; the peace deal that largely rewarded (appeased?) the human-rights-abusing Sudanese government.

There can be little doubt but that Bashir has timed this to take advantage of the U.N. (and the world media) having shifted their collective attention to Lebanon.

It should also be noted that the Sudanese government has imposed a media blackout on the Darfur and has arrested, as spies, brave journalists who have attempted to get the Darfur story out.

What price will the Sudanese government pay for undercutting Condi's work? Will the American media even note this foreign policy failure and, more importantly, will it call out Sudan on its latest acts stifiling press coverage of what are almost sure to be acts of brutal violence?

The history of the Bush Administration in Sudan is only one of action following media scrutiny. Unfortunately, the American media seems loathe to cover Darfur until the bodies have largely and publicly piled up.

The Other War

In Afghanistan, coalition military fatalities are now at 144 for the year 2006.

This surpasses last year's record high mark of 130.

Afghanistan was the place a vast majority of Americans - conservative, moderate and liberal - were comitted to changing. Not only to removing Al Qaeda and the Taliban militarily but committing to aid, restructuring and rebuilding programs that would undercut Al Qaeda's rhetoric and show that the West was truly compassionate and caring when it came to not only Muslims but the world's poor.

The Bush administration is failing miserably and creating greater dangers for the people of Afghanistan and the world at large. But silly me ... maybe the Bushies and their financial benefactors need such dangers both politically and monetarily.

The Pentagon's Madison Avenue Media Pimps for Missile Defense

The media is all over the news that an interceptor missile destroyed a mock warhead in a test of the missile defense system. Here's a report from ABC.

Of course, we've been fed exaggerated stories about the success of missile interceptors before. We got bogus stories regarding the success of the Patriot missile during the first Gulf War and exaggerated stories or stories with critical omissions regarding earlier missile defense tests.

Does the media give you the background of the Pentagon's prior deceptions or tell you that these prior deceptions have been used to raise billions for the missile defense program. Of course not. The media simply plays advertising agency for the Pentagon and the defense contractors who stand to make even larger fortunes off our tax dollars.

Buried in some of these stories - the ABC story, for example - is criticism from some group opposed to missile defense. But it's fact, not mere argument, that these tests are not real-world or "operational" tests.

To its credit, ABC notes at the end of its three page article, that the test did not include any of the simple evasions that can be made to avoid missile defense. Further up in the article, there was this nugget:

The launch was postponed from Thursday after fog socked in Kodiak Island. There was also fog over Vandenberg Friday morning but it burned off.

Thankfully, launching a missile in fog isn't something any of our enemies - good sportsmen all - would even consider.