Sooner Be Blue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2007/7/31

The Feds raid Ted

@ 07:25 AM (11 months, 14 days ago)

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy .. he is without a doubt the nastiest tempered man in the senate.
 
The Feds raided Alaskan GOP senator Ted Stevens' home with a search warrant .. note that the raid was carried out by FBI *and IRS agents* .. which means that Ted may soon have tax fraud problems.
 
The Republicans just aren't having a very good week. Here another one is probably involved in a crime.
 
We all remember ol' Ted Stevens, of course .. mostly from the Bridge to Nowhere .. or the Daily Show's favorite clip of him yelling "NO!", that nobody was going to take that bridge from Alaska. Also, he indignantly refused to put oil company executives under oath when they were called to testify before his committee.
 
My personal favorite is his explanation on C-SPAN of how the Internet works .. through a series of tubes, not trucks.
 
Stay tuned and ramp up Queens' "Another One Bites the Dust"....
 
From the Washington Post, Tuesday, July 31, 2007:
"Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R) yesterday as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, officials said.
 
Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, Veco, whose chief executive pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers.
 
Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, Veco executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens's house in Girdwood, an exclusive ski resort area 40 miles from Anchorage, according to statements by the contractors.[..]"
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001427.html?hpid=topnews
 
Hmm .. that'd be the same home that was doubled in size by renovations in 2002, and I'm shocked, shocked, to learn that the contractor was Veco, the corrupt oil company whose former CEO has been convicted of bribing Alaska politicians. AND, as prosecutors have pointed out, was not in the business of residential construction or remodeling.
 
But hey, I'm sure that lots of oil companies suddenly decide to help someone remodel their home .. especially if that someone happens to be, say, the senior senator from an oil state or something.
 
The biggest stink will be about payment for the job. When asked about the investigation a couple of weeks ago, Ted said he paid every bill he received with his own money.
 
That's crooked politician talk for he paid a couple of the little bills .. but Veco did not bill him for ALL the services rendered.
 
Meanwhile, looks like the GOP still hasn't cleaned out its corruption closets yet.
 
Yeah, yeah .. I know, Democrats can be corrupt too .. just not as many lately. But just wait until they get into the White House and have better chances.
 
Sadly, with all these shady deals sometimes our government resembles the mafia.
 
...with all due respect to the mafia.
 

2007/7/30

W's reign of error turns R's into D's

@ 05:47 AM (11 months, 15 days ago)
 
Brothers and Sisters
By MAUREEN DOWD, New York Times columnist
 
W.’s odyssey is one of the oddest in history, a black sheep who leapt above expectations and then crashed back down. It must be a crushing burden for President Bush to have wrought the opposite of what he intended in so many profound ways.
 
For me, one of the most amazing reversals brought about by W.’s reign of error is this: He may have turned my sister into a Democrat.
 
As a girl, Peggy shivered in the bitter cold through a coatless John Kennedy’s inaugural speech, and when she saw W. “debone” Ann Richards in a Texas debate in ’94, she thought: “This guy will be the greatest president since J.F.K. He’s so good looking, bright. He’s got everything going for him.”
 
She volunteered at the Republican convention in 2000, toting a “W Stands for Women” sign. I snuck her into the press pen at a breakfast with George and Laura and had to tackle her when, to the consternation of reporters, she began cheering as if at a Redskins game. She flew to West Virginia to work a phone bank for W. She sat up all night election night (in vain).
 
She cut back on Christmas presents to give him money, and proudly displayed pictures of herself at fund-raisers, one with W., one with Dick Cheney. She canceled her Times subscription when I wrote about the rigged buildup to the Iraq war, and called “Bushworld” (my chronicle of W.’s warped reality) “that silly book.”
 
She once told a reporter that she couldn’t totally choose W. over me because she knew if she were dying “he won’t come and hold my hand, and I know Maureen will.” So imagine my surprise when she started talking about voting for Barack Obama or John Edwards, if they stop “pussyfooting” around Hillary.
 
“W.’s loyalty to Cheney has hurt his presidency,” she says sadly. “When Cheney picked himself as vice president, W. should have said, ‘Bug off.’ He could have made his own banquet instead of choosing leftovers. If only he had dialed his father or listened to Powell instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld on Iraq. Not only has W. brought himself down, he’s brought down John McCain, who I wanted to support but can’t because of the war.
 
“I grew up in the shadow of Walter Reed and was used to seeing servicemen without limbs. But recently after watching a special on soldiers coming home from Iraq with brain injuries, I picked up a picture of my four nephews and I know how I would feel if they had fought in Iraq and came home without limbs or in body bags.
 
“We are spending billions on this war, and yet veterans and their children are practically getting nothing. I’m no longer a Republican. I’m an American, and I will cast my vote for the person I believe will start the process to get out of Iraq — unless, of course, it’s Hillary.”
 
I knew my family’s cocky red state of mind had changed when one of my O’Reillyesque brothers used a mocking nickname for W., and expressed disgust about Iraq.
 
Another, Kevin, praises W. on the economy but not on immigration, noting that our father, who came from Ireland in steerage at 19, had to fight in World War I to win citizenship: “The secret key to the puzzle is the word illegal.”
 
He supports W. on Iraq but agrees that “one of the president’s greatest assets, loyalty, has turned into his Achilles’ heel. When I started my sales career, an older rep advised me: ‘Stay away from the mean drinkers in the bar. They start the fight but someone else always gets hit.’ George Bush is getting hit because he won’t move away from ‘the mean drinkers.’ ”
 
“The word neocon bothered me because I have an aversion to zealotry,” he continues. “An uncomfortable visual of Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld manning the Situation Room in a scene reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove and Gen. Buck Turgidson — ‘No more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks’ — began to haunt me. How could we have underestimated the postwar situation in Iraq so badly? Is our intelligence that poor, or did the people making the decisions even care?
 
“The Republicans got exactly what they deserved in the last election. They fell on the same sword they had brilliantly wielded to gain power. Tom DeLay was as corrupt as Jim Wright, Dennis Hastert as inept as Tom Foley.”
 
Even in his demoralized state, Kevin warns Democrats: “Memo to Nancy and Harry — a default blind date to the prom is not the basis for a long-term relationship.”
 
My sister still has her picture of W. up. But Cheney is face down in the laundry room.
 

2007/7/29

Late-night jokes recap 7/29

@ 05:47 AM (11 months, 16 days ago)
 
"It got a little testy at the debates the other night, where Barack Obama said he would be willing to meet with leaders of countries hostile to the United States. And then Hillary Clinton accused Barack of being 'naive.' Is this the same woman who thought Bill Clinton would forsake all others til death do you part?" --Jay Leno
 
"President Bush is also having a bad week. Senate investigations, congressional hearings, a colonoscopy -- I'm telling you, it's just one probe after another" --David Letterman
 
"According to a recent study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in the first quarter of this year, Fox spent less time covering the Iraq war than either CNN or MSNBC. Look, just because everyone else is reporting that the U.S. is jumping off a bridge in Iraq, that doesn't mean Fox should report it too." --Stephen Colbert
 
"O'Reilly isn't the only one out there tackling the big issues that aren't Iraq. Luckily, there's also 'Hannity and Colmes.' I love this show. It's like watching Dorian Gray and his picture at the same time." --Stephen Colbert
 
"John Edwards is continuing his poverty tour around America. Today, he visited a group of people who get their haircut in a place called a 'barber shop.' He was horrified to hear that story." --Jay Leno
 
"India, on Saturday, elected their very first female president. And today, President Bush called India -- not to congratulate her, he had some questions about his computer." --Jay Leno
 
"The White House announced that right after President Bush got his colonoscopy on Saturday, he immediately played with his dogs and then rode his bicycle. How old is he? Twelve?" --Jay Leno
 
"Over the weekend, President Bush had his annual physical and he had one of those colonoscopies. Now he knows what it feels like to be invaded. ... He's okay, although he was slightly injured trying to say the word 'colonoscopy.' ... It was long, but a successful procedure. They removed five polyps and ten Al Gore ballots" --David Letterman
 
"The Bush administration is constantly attacked for being the most secretive in history. ... But let me ask you something: if they are truly the most secretive administration in history, would they have told us over the weekend that the president handed over power to Dick Cheney for two hours while he went and got a camera stuck up his butt? ... The next time some pundit out there wants to call the president secretive, stick a camera up your butt, then tell your viewers about it. Not so easy, is it?" --Stephen Colbert
 
"This weekend, President Bush was unconscious -- even more so than usual. He was having five polyps removed. Initially, he didn't want them removed. He said that they were doing a heckuva job. ... They removed the polyps successfully, and they also found an impacted Scooter in the President's Libby" --Stephen Colbert
 
"Doctors said that during the colonoscopy, they did find something -- five polyps and two reporters from Fox News." --Jay Leno
 
"But everything's fine. The procedure went well. After the operation on Bush's colon, the doctors put his head back up his ass." --David Letterman
 
"The comedy Gods are smiling on me tonight. I have been saying for the longest time that President Bush must set a timetable for removing his head from his ass. And by God, today they went in and looked for it. ... At least for once in our lifetimes, we saw the words 'Bush,' 'operation,' and 'success' in the same sentence." --Bill Maher, on Bush's colonoscopy
 
"Rudy Giuliani ... actually brags on the campaign trail that on 9/11, as the towers are going down, he turns to his super corrupt chief of police and said, 'Thank God George Bush is president.' That alone should disqualify a person from any higher office." --Bill Maher
 
"Rudy Giuliani is probably going to be the next president of the United States ... because it's all about image. He's got the big anti-terrorist image. On January 20, 2009, you may very well be welcoming to the White House Rudy Giuliani and his lovely wife ... whoever that may be at the time. ... Giuliani's first wife was his cousin. I'm not making that up. I think that's a very cheap way to go after the Southern vote." --Bill Maher
 
"On the Democratic side, the only two candidates who could not actually run together on a ticket are Hillary [Clinton] and Barack Obama, because that's too much non-male whiteness for America. ... And the Republicans would have a field day if they ran together. First, Bush would call like twelve fake terror alerts. And then the Republicans would run a series of ads about how terrorism is happening now again ... and this is no time to trust the country to a woman and a black teenager" --Bill Maher
 
"The U.S. Ambassador to Iraq said today he was not aware of any plan B strategy by our government for Iraq. Of course there's no plan B. We don't have a plan A." --Jay Leno
 
"Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is in the hospital for food poisoning. You ever see Kucinich? Doesn't he always look like he always has food poisoning?" --Jay Leno
 
"'Hairspray' opened today. In the movie, John Travolta plays a fat housewife named Edna Turnblad. ... He's so convincing as a fat woman, earlier today, he got a call from President Clinton." --David Letterman
 
"In a speech about foreign policy yesterday, Rudy Giuliani said that America needs to focus more on Pakistan. Giuliani says he knows more about Pakistan than the other candidates because he spent so much time in New York City cabs" --Conan O'Brien
 
"As you know, the Democrats want to pull the troops out of Iraq in 120 days, 'cause the Iraqi government has only met eight of the 18 benchmarks we have set. They've had eight accomplishments. You know something? That's more than our Congress has had." --Jay Leno
 
"According to a new Zogby poll, the new Congress has hit another historic low. Only 14% of people approve of Congress. 14%! And that's just the hookers that work for the DC madam." --Jay Leno
 
"Next month, right here in Los Angeles, the leading Democratic presidential candidates will hold a gay debate. It will be a televised debate to discuss just gay issues. Well, how much is John Edwards going to spend on his hair for that one? We're looking at a $1,500 haircut." --Jay Leno
 
"John McCain isn't the only candidate out there who is suffering. Over the weekend, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore announced he was dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination for president. His departure strikes a severe blow to his party's diversity. Of the nine white Christian men running, Gilmore was the only one with a wife named Roxanne. We no longer have that choice" --Stephen Colbert
 
"Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are predicting that 75% of Americans will be overweight by the year 2015. But my fellow Americans, with a little team work, I think we can do it by 2010. USA! USA!" --Conan O'Brien
 

2007/7/28

Hackers make child's play of voting machines

@ 08:46 AM (11 months, 16 days ago)
 
What do I really worry about: Terrorists? No. Voter fraud? Hell, yes!
 
I am much more afraid of a Diebold voting machine than Osama bin Laden.
 
HBO had a show on voting machines a few months ago .. and actually set up a sequence where three people voted and a hacker hacked in and changed the votes .. BUT recorded that they had voted on a paper copy the way they actually had!
 
And now this from the NYTimes, July 28, 2007:
Scientists’ Tests Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines in California and Elsewhere
 
Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the state.
 
The reports, the latest to raise questions about electronic voting machines, came to light on a day when House leaders announced in Washington that they had reached an agreement on measures to revamp voting systems and increase their security.
 
The House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts.
 
.....The California reports said the scientists, acting at the state’s request, had hacked into systems from three of the four largest companies in the business: Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Thousands of their machines in varying setups are in use.[..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2t3ydm
 
A lot of Democrats think our elections have already been hi-jacked by Republicans .. by controlling resources and making sure that Afro-American and low income voters didn't have enough machines and voting precincts .. and by pressuring US Attorney Generals to participate in vote caging.
 
When Monica Goodling, with immunity in her hot little hand, recently testified before Congress about the US Attorney scandal, she made several references to caging. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) said she wasn't familiar with the term and asked Goodling to clarify. Goodling hemmed and hawed, finally said that caging is "a direct-mail term, that people who do direct mail, when, when they separate addresses that may be good versus addresses that may be bad."
 
What that means in straight talk is vote caging is an illegal trick to get rid of minority voters -- who tend to vote for Democrats -- by getting them knocked off the voter rolls.
 
It's a fact that in 2004 the Bush/Cheney camp sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to certain voters' homes. Letters returned --"caged"-- were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses.
 
Who were these evil fakers? Students, homeless people .. and, you have to love this, American soldiers on duty in Iraq .. all in predominantly African American and Democratic areas.
 
One of the things Congress wants to know in this US Atty investigation is whether senior officials at the White House and the Justice Department tried to reward Karl Rove's protege -- Timothy Griffin of Arkansas -- with a US Attorney position because Griffin had engaged in "illegal voter suppression tactics."
 
And did these same officials hope to cover it up by bypassing the confirmation process?
 
All that could help explain the White House's role in the US Atty firing purge.
 
THIS is why senators are so hot on this investigation.
 
Ah well .. we may never have a totally tamper-proof voting system of ANY kind .. it's just too huge of a task with too many stages of transferring information.
 
No electoral system is absolutely tamper-free, but Paper and Pencil, locked and sealed ballot-boxes, and hand-counted votes .. that's the best way to go. Thank goodness we still vote this way in Oklahoma.
 
This shouldn't be partisan folks .. our democracy is at stake.
 

2007/7/27

Gonzales got some 'splainin to do

@ 08:03 AM (11 months, 17 days ago)

"Mommy, why is the lying man still in charge of the law?"
...as Jon Stewart asked.
 
Let's make this fun .. everytime Attorney General Gonzales lies, we have to take a drink.
 
Oh my poor liver...
 
"WASHINGTON - The head of the FBI contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn testimony and Senate Democrats requested a perjury investigation Thursday in a fresh barrage against President Bush's embattled longtime friend and aide.
 
...On Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly and emphatically denied that the dispute was about the terrorist surveillance program."
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_go_co/congress_gonzales
 
CNN said a Gonzales spokesman maintained that the attorney general stands by his testimony.
 
From what I hear, witnesses are given the chance to review and correct their testimony. This guy won't even do that? Is he that dumb? He could just say that he was mistaken or something.
 
Or that he just can't keep track of so many lies and slipped up.
 
Yet .. why would he bother changing his testimony with Commutation Guy sitting in the Oval Office?
 
Much ado about nothing you say? You say that US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired at any time for any reason?
 
Sorry bucky, but serving "at the pleasure of the President" is NOT to say that they can be fired for any reason at all.
 
Say .. what if aides of a top leader of one party hinted -- in a period of time shortly before the election -- that attorneys need to prosecute politicians from the other party as much as possible .. AND to prosecute politicians from the same party as little as possible?
 
And what if just hinting was not successful, so to put a little pressure on the attorneys, said aides created a list of attorneys to be fired .. the very ones who had failed to prosecute politicians from party A and not prosecute those of party B.
 
Then they were fired ILLEGALY .. period.
 
But hey, even if you think US Attys can be fired at the pleasure of yada yada ..  do you still think that the Attorney General can perjure himself during Congressional hearings without fear of repercussions?
 
Sorry .. lying to Congress is a crime no matter why he chose to lie.
 
Incoming! Here comes some Bush polyps chucking a Bill Clinton deflection grenade!
 
"Oh Yeah .. well Bubba lied!"
 
Who could've guessed that the greatest threat to America today is what Bill Clinton did 15 years ago?
 
My bet is that Gonzales and the White House are covering up other crimes .. the firing of the attorneys is the tip of the ice berg. Dana Millbank said the other night that there are so many scandals in the DOJ under Gonzales that Democrats are having a hard time focusing on just one.
 
Getting a Special Prosecutor to issue subpoenas is a sure way to circumvent Executive Privilege .. but that could be a long road. It took Ken Starr almost two years before he could issue criminal subpoenas .. but then he was on a fishing expedition and got lucky finding Lewinsky. This time they know what they're going after.
 
Wouldn't it be great if -- for just this once, regardless of political persuasion -- we could all just agree that this Gonzales guy is an incompetent lackey who has no business whatsoever leading an organization as important as DOJ?
 
I won't hold my breath....
 

A little Friday music

@ 05:18 AM (11 months, 18 days ago)
 
Arctic Monkeys
 
A very interesting British guitar band. Yep, silly name .. but one time people thought "The Beatles" was a silly name.
 
Anyway this video is too cool .. and don't try this at home...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knx9zcZ-amI
 

2007/7/26

China and US duke it out for Iraq's oil?

@ 05:36 PM (11 months, 18 days ago)

Ooops, the latest oil deal fell through.

No wonder Cheney's frantically trying to hang in there.

What a mess they've gotten us into -- just before the invasion, oil was trading at around $30 a barrel .. last I heard it was more than $76 a barrel.

From NYT: "BAGHDAD, July 22 — Efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Iraq received a double blow on Sunday.

Lawmakers acknowledged that there were still many differences on a proposed law to manage oil revenue, the country’s most lucrative resource, making it unlikely they would approve a law before September, when the Bush administration must report to Congress on Iraq’s progress toward meeting certain legislative benchmarks. The report is expected to have an impact on whether Congress continues to support the Iraq war. [..]"

http://tinyurl.com/ynw5tw

Boy they'd better hurry -- looks like US oil companies may have to fight the Chinese for a cut of all that lovely oil. According to the Financial Times, the Iraqi government has "revived a contract signed by the Saddam Hussein administration allowing a state-owned Chinese oil company to develop an Iraqi oil field."

"Iraq wants Chinese firms to bid for oil exploration contracts and hopes to revive the frozen oil exploration contract...."

http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/18549

With everyone and his brother competing, China will take on political risks in Iran and security risks in Iraq .. just to get an oil share before US firms hog it all up.

And what's this about China writing off Iraq's 8 billion dollar debt?

"Chinese Commerce minister Bo Xilai and three Iraqi ministers signed a deal Thursday to cancel Iraqi debt owed to China's government, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was set to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday.

...According to Iraq's finance minister, Iraq owes China about $8 billion -- part of the roughly $60 billion in foreign debt accumulated during the Saddam Hussein era."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070622/china_iraq_debt.html?.v=1

There are already Chinese firms in Iran .. not many competitors there, so they have the opportunity to get involved in super giant oil fields. Iran's oil equipment is old and ready to fall apart .. it needs China's investment to keep the oil flowing.

Iran could give such sweet oil deals to China that it might persuade them to look the other way when the subject of backing sanctions against Tehran comes up .. you know, over all that silly nuclear business.

Iraq has the third largest reserves in the world and only 10 percent of the country has been explored for oil. Since US laws prohibit American firms from investing in the Islamic Republic, Iraq's oil becomes all the more important.

Heck, that could be the main reason we invaded. <coff coff>

Here's the secret Republican plan to bring the troops home from Iraq:

Delay until Cheney and his Big Oil buddies get the oil deal they want .. delay until September .. delay until October .. delay until November .. delay until the spring of 2008 .. delay until the spring of 2009.

Cheney will be out of office in January 2009 .. so spring may come a bit earlier that year.

 

Glad you're OK, now shut the hell up

@ 06:59 AM (11 months, 19 days ago)

Yesterday, Bush held a quick news conference and gave a tepid acceptance of the Walter Reed Commission report...
 
Read about it here:
 
...anyway, ABC's Bob Woodruff was in the press gallery .. and Bush's prepared speech recognized Woodruff’s personal journey back from near-fatal injuries he'd suffered in Iraq:
 
"I also want to recognize Bob Woodruff here. He is a — he himself was wounded, severely wounded, and went through the system, to a certain extent. And we welcome you back, and we’re glad you’re with us. And we would hope that any wounded soldier, any person in uniform would receive the kind of care and the ability to return to work, just like you have done. And so we’re glad you’re with us, Bob. Congratulations on the will to recover…"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070725.html
 
Nice little nod to Bob, huh? Compassionate, huh? But wait a minute .. there’s more to the story I heard on NPR radio.
 
Everything would have been fine, had Woodruff not had the temerity to actually ask a question .. about whether the government was moving fast enough to help families.
 
The preznit declined to answer .. and not just the smile-and-nod-and-not-answer routine. He gave that snarky little laugh and said, “Just because I recognized you, Bob, doesn’t mean I’m going to answer your questions here.”
 
In other words -- “Thanks for letting me use you as a prop, Bob, now shut the hell up.”
 
How do you like that? Upstaging a guy who had half his head blown off.
 
And I'd bet my life on one thing -- that the 'system' civilian Bob Woodruff went through once he was back stateside isn't the same one that our similarly wounded vets are put through.
 
If only Bob would do a special segment on how he was USED as a prop at Bush's event .. on how Bush snubbed him.
 
If only we lived in a democratic society and were free to ask our president questions .. or not have him run like a thief in the night when we ask a tough question.
 
Oh to have a president who can think on his feet and speak spontaneously and coherently without a written speech.
 

2007/7/25

Gates can cry but Hillary is no sob sister

@ 05:35 PM (11 months, 19 days ago)

Tough enough to smack around dictators

MoDo's latest take on Hillary. I used to think Hillary was unelectable (and she may be) because of the negative press she gets .. especially from right wing radio. But then, that machine will slime any Democrat, whoever gets the nomination. I still don't know who I'll vote for, but it might be worth seeing Hillary win because it will drive the Rabid Righties absolutely insane.

By MAUREEN DOWD, NYT columnist, July 22, 2007, WASHINGTON

A Woman Who’s Man Enough

Things are getting confusing out there in Genderville.

We have the ordinarily poker-faced secretary of defense crying over young Americans killed in Iraq.

We have The Washington Post reporting that Hillary Clinton came to the floor of the Senate in a top that put "cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2."

We have Mitt Romney spending $300 for makeup appointments at Hidden Beauty, a mobile men’s grooming spa, before the California debate, even though NBC would surely have powdered his nose for free.

We have Elizabeth Edwards on a tear of being more assertive than her husband. She argued that John Edwards is a better advocate for women than Hillary, explaining that her own experience as a lawyer taught her that "sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues."

We have Bill Clinton, who says he’d want to be known as First Laddie, defending his woman by saying, "I don’t think she’s trying to be a man."

We have The Times reporting that Hillary’s campaign is quizzical about why so many women who are like Hillary — married, high income, professional types — don’t like her. A Times/CBS News poll shows that women view her more favorably than men, but she has a problem with her own demographic and some older women resistant to "a lady president" from the land of women’s lib.

In a huge step forward for her, The Times said that "all of those polled — both women and men — said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief."

So gender isn’t Hillary’s biggest problem. Those who don’t like her said it was because they don’t trust her, or don’t like her values, or think she’s too politically expedient or phony.

There is a dread out there about 28 years of Bush-Clinton rule. But most people are not worried about Hillary’s ability to be strong. Anyone who can cast herself as a feminist icon while leading the attack on her husband’s mistresses, anyone who thinks eight years of presidential pillow talk qualifies her for the presidential pillow, is plenty tough enough to smack around dictators, and other Democrats.

John Edwards and Barack Obama often seem more delicate and concerned with looking pretty than Hillary does. Though the tallest candidate usually has the advantage, Hillary has easily dominated the debates without even wearing towering heels.

When she wrote to Bob Gates asking about the Pentagon’s plans to get out of Iraq, it took eight weeks for an under secretary, Eric Edelman, to send a scalding reply, suggesting that she was abetting enemy propaganda. But Mrs. Clinton hit back with a tart letter to Secretary Gates on Friday and scored something of a victory, since he issued a statement that did not back up his own creep.

Maybe Hillary has had her tear ducts removed. If she acted like a sob sister on the war the way Mr. Gates did, her critics would have a field day.

Even in an era when male politicians can mist up with impunity, it was startling to see the defense chief melt down at a Marine Corps dinner Wednesday night as he talked about writing notes every evening to the families of dead soldiers like Douglas Zembiec, a heroic Marine commander known as "the Lion of Falluja," who died in Baghdad in May after giving up a Pentagon job to go on a fourth tour of Iraq. "They are not names on a press release or numbers updated on a Web page," he said. "They are our country’s sons and daughters."

The dramatic moment was disconcerting, because Mr. Gates, known as a decent guy who was leery of the Bushies’ black-and-white, bullying worldview, has clearly been worn down by his effort to sort out the Iraq debacle. He and Condi, who worked together under Bush I, have been trying to circumvent the vice president to close Gitmo without much success, while the president finds ingenious new ways to allow torture.

Mostly, though, it was moving — a relief to see a top official acknowledge the awful cost of this war. The arrogant Rummy was dismissive. The obtuse W. seems incapable of understanding how inappropriate his sunny spirits are. And the callous Cheney’s robo-aggression continues unabated. (What could be more nerve-racking than the thought of President Cheney, slated to happen for a couple of hours yesterday while Mr. Bush had a colonoscopy? Could it be — a Medal of Freedom for Scooter?)

Mr. Gates captured the sadness we feel about American kids trapped in a desert waiting to be blown up, sent there by men who once refused to go to a warped war themselves.

Listen to the fed up majority of the American public

@ 07:29 AM (11 months, 19 days ago)

I know that We The People don't underwrite your paychecks, but no matter what you columnists and TV talking heads say, here are the important opinions.
 
We The People don't like the war, don't trust Bush to manage it, and don't think Democrats have gone too far in opposing it. Is that clear?
 
From the latest Washington Post poll:
 
78% think George Bush is too unwilling to change policies in Iraq.
 
55% support legislation to withdraw from Iraq by next spring.
 
55% trust congressional Democrats on the war (only 32% trust Bush).
 
62% think Congress should have the final say about when to withdraw troops.
 
49% think Democrats have done too little to get Bush to change his Iraq policy (only 17% think they've done too much).
 
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/ssi/polls/postpoll_072307.html
 
Wouldn't it be nice if someone competent would try to manage US foreign policy and the war for a change? How many people has Bush appointed through the years that were supposed to "manage" the war .. like, where's the LATEST War Czar guy .. and by the way, didn't Condi used to be in charge of something or other?
 
It's clear from the (non)results that the incompetence of the Bush administration is unparalleled in modern history.
 
A prime example is Osama bin Laden, the evil genius that must be destroyed at all costs. First, he was allowed to escape .. then became "unimportant" .. but now he's back at the top of the evil genius list. Talk about bloody flip-flops .. and that's real blood by the way.
 
The only thing this Bush administration has accomplished has been the destruction of the reputation and future and soul of America.
 
According to Righties like Bill Kristol the public's feelings about the war are twisted because the nasty wiberal media reports only bad news.
 
Last weekend on Fox News Sunday Kristol and Brit Hume said the war was turning in Bush's favor .. that there was a glimmer of some peace in Anbar Province.
 
What they failed to mention is Anbar Province is overwhelmingly Sunni while the rest of Iraq -- where most of the killings of US troops and all the car bombings are taking place -- is a hotbed of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite militants.
 
I've got a great idea for a new reality show:
 
War cheerleaders Bill Kristol and Brit Hume are dropped off at the edge of Anbar Province and have to race to the Baghdad Green Zone without any aid from the US military.
 

2007/7/24

"It was Gladys Knight and the Pips"

@ 08:09 AM (11 months, 20 days ago)

...to quote CNN analyst Jeffery Toobin about the YouTube presidential debate .. and he said Hillary looked like someone who could become president.
 
"LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The first question in presidential debate history to not come from a moderator came courtesy of Chris, a thin white man sitting at a small table at his home in Portland, Ore.
 
In his video, he wore a goatee, baseball cap, two small earrings and tattoos were visible on his arms. Using what could possibly be the first ironic air quotes in presidential debate history, he asked the candidates to please do something "revolutionary" and answer questions directly instead of "beating around the bush." Then he leaned toward the screen and cut his Webcam off.
 
Cut to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, brow handsomely furrowed, who offered, "We have no idea if this is going to work."[..]
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSN2439421320070724
 
I napped off and on through a repeat of the You-Tube debate, but from what I saw I think it was a success. I wondered if the quality of the questions would be up to snuff and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the questions were mostly thoughtful .. and inspired some nice moments in the debate.
 
First impression? Edwards was doing pretty good -- though I didn't agree with some of his answers -- until he included Hillary's dress in his 'critique' of her. I mean how telling is that .. about his view of women, I mean. It was silly .. would be like Hillary commenting on his tie in her assessment of him.
 
Hillary was strong and made a good showing .. but certainly didn't run away with the thing. I still don't know if she can win, but she impresses me. She is so damn smart, acts reasonable, tough as hell, has freaking nerves of steel. She would be a good president IF she would do what she thinks is right, and not do the bidding of her corporate donors. That's what worries me.
 
OTOH, when I listen to Biden discuss how we get out of Iraq -- he has the best solution of all the people on that stage.
 
I guess Barrack is my favorite so far .. but I don't know if his lack of experience will matter. We might end up with a Clinton/Obama ticket. Anyway, he more than held his own .. but boy is he ever going to be sorry he said that young school kids should be taught about sex enough to know if they are being abused. The Righties are jumping on that like ducks on June bugs.
 
Those two good ol' boys from Tennesse nearly stole the show with their Gore question. “This here question is for all you candidates: Mainstream media seems awful interested in Al Gore these days. Is he losing weight, what’s he say in his book, is he still worrying about ‘ol lies. They interpret all these as signs…if he may or may not run…they really want to know if Al Gore is gonna run again. What we wanna know is, does that hurt ya’ll’s feelings?”
 
Maybe I slept though it, but I didn't hear a single question addressing the immigration issue, and surely there were questions submitted about it!
 
The scariest moment was that guy brandishing an automatic weapon, calling it his baby, asking the candidates' position on gun control. Biden responded "...that guy needs help. I hope he doesn't come looking for me!"
 
A big shout out to Anderson Cooper for making the candidates answer the questions asked .. and kudos to the candidates for answering as well.
 
But, I'm sorry Dodd, Gravel and Kucinich -- because I really agree with a lot you say -- but at some stage you have to leave these formats. Nice guys or not --you have ZERO chance.
 
Bottom line, I would approve of every person on that stage for POTUS before any one of the GOP candidates .. even Newt Gingrich calls them "pathetic pygmies."
 
Anyway .. the next President will probably be a Modern Progressive .. unless Dick invites GW to the next quail hunt. Then all bets are off.

2007/7/23

Maybe this is what's eating Chertoff's gut

@ 08:25 AM (11 months, 21 days ago)

Black pepper with salmonella from India .. crabmeat from Mexico that is too filthy to eat .. not to mention all that contaminated crap from China.
 
And the way these countries self-regulate is by body count.
 
"China’s not the sole source of tainted imports, U.S. rejected more than 3,000 shipments from Mexico, India in last year.
 
MEXICO CITY - Mexican cantaloupe irrigated with water from sewage-tainted rivers. Candy laced with lead. Chinese toothpaste is not the only concern for U.S. consumers wary of the health risks posed by imported goods.
 
Producers in other developing nations are big violators of basic food safety standards, even as they woo consumers with a growing appetite for foods like pickled mangoes from India and winter-season fruits and vegetables from Mexico.
 
....China, already under suspicion as the source of tainted toothpaste, contaminated fish and toxic medicine, had the largest number of violations in the past 12 months, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejecting 1,901 shipments of food or cosmetics. But India and Mexico weren’t far behind, with inspectors rejecting 1,787 and 1,560 shipments, respectively.
 
The biggest reasons? Foods that are unapproved or contain poisons and pesticides. Some are simply dirty, with inspectors finding that the shipment “appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food.”
 
And those are just the problems that are caught. FDA inspectors only have the money and resources to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments a year.[..]"
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19875319/
 
The article says that Bush has set up a task force to look into the problem.
 
Well, big hooray .. the same guys who helped create the problem of tainted food coming into the US, and lax regulations *inside* the US, will now put together a master plan to solve the problem.
 
Yep, the party of small government (coff coff) just makes government bigger and bigger and bigger.
 
To hell with the panel .. quit underfunding the FDA! Show me the money needed to inspect a lot more than just 1 percent of our imported food. They only have money to inspect 1 percent!
 
This is important .. it means life and death. Don't forget how Mexican green onions caused an outbreak of hepatitis A in people who dined at a Chi-Chi’s .. four people died, more than 600 people were very ill. Not to mention our domestic spinach killers.
 
I saw a government guy on TV say it’s our fault because we want cheap food .. but I have yet to see people rioting in the streets for cheap food. But we certainly need to start kicking up a fuss for safe food.
 
No, it's Big Business who buy crap so they'll make more profit .. and then when their crap begins to sicken and kill pets and people, it’s China’s fault .. or it’s Mexico’s fault .. or India’s fault .. or the consumer’s fault. And they just roll merrily along, with Bush's FDA and USDA to cover their backs.
 
That's why Bush is so against giving poor children health care. It interferes with insurance companies.
 
How many times in the past 50 years -- before this administration took over our government -- did Americans have to worry about the food they were eating?
 
How many times did we have to wonder if the food we were getting from the grocery store was going to give us E Coli, or salmonella, etc.?
 
This administration does not seem to believe in a government FOR the people .. or that the government's job is to protect the general welfare of our citizens. No, the neo-cons want to protect and provide for mega-corporations before they do we the people.
 
Look what greed has done to this country. We were once a great food-producing nation to be proud of .. we loved our farmers. Then during the Reagan years mega-corporations started taking over our food-growing .. farms were lost .. farmers committed suicide.
 
I need to get serious about a garden....
 
 

2007/7/22

No jokes about the Preznit's colonoscopy

@ 06:24 AM (11 months, 23 days ago)
 
Well .. maybe just a teensy one .. like, what did they find up there? .. WMD? .. his head?
 
See .. not so bad. Certainly mild considering what you Righties would say about Clinton's colon.
 
Okay, that out of my system, now I'll share a MoDo column:
 
Hey, W! Bin Laden (Still) Determined to Strike in U.S.
 
By MAUREEN DOWD, NYT columnist, 7/18/2007, WASHINGTON
 
Oh, as it turns out, they’re not on the run.
 
And, oh yeah, they can fight us here even if we fight them there.
 
And oh, one more thing, after spending hundreds of billions and losing all those lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re more vulnerable to terrorists than ever.
 
And, um, you know that Dead-or-Alive stuff? We may be the ones who end up dead.
 
Squirming White House officials had to confront the fact yesterday that everything President Bush has been spouting the last six years about Al Qaeda being on the run, disrupted and weakened was just guff.
 
Last year, W. called his “personal friend” Gen. Pervez Musharraf “a strong defender of freedom.” Unfortunately, it turned out to be Al Qaeda’s freedom. The White House is pinning the blame on Pervez.
 
While the administration lavishes billions on Pakistan, including $750 million in a risible attempt to win “hearts and minds” in tribal areas where Al Qaeda leaders are hiding and training, President Musharraf has helped create a quiet mountain retreat, a veritable terrorism spa, for Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri to refresh themselves and get back in shape.
 
The administration’s most thorough intelligence assessment since 9/11 is stark and dark. Two pages add up to one message: The Bushies blew it. Al Qaeda has exploded into a worldwide state of mind. Because of what’s going on with Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah may now “be more likely to consider” attacking us. Al Qaeda will try to “put operatives here” — (some news reports say a cell from Pakistan already is en route or has arrived) — and “acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in attacks.”
 
(Democrats on cots are ineffectual, but Al Qaeda in caves gets the job done?)
 
After 9/11, W. stopped mentioning Osama’s name, calling him “just a person who’s now been marginalized,” and adding “I just don’t spend that much time on him.”
 
This week, as counterterrorism officials gathered at the White House to frantically brainstorm on covert and overt plans to capture Osama, the president may have regretted his perverse attempt to demote America’s most determined enemy.
 
W. began to mention Osama and Al Qaeda more recently, but only to assert: “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th.” His conflation is contradicted by the fact that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, as the Sunni terrorist group in Iraq is known, did not exist before 9/11.
 
Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, did her best to put a gloss on the dross but failed. She had to admit that the hands-off approach used by Mr. Musharraf with the tribal leaders in North Waziristan, which always looked like a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup, was a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup.
 
“It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” she conceded. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.”
 
Just as we outsourced capturing Osama at Tora Bora to Afghans who had no motive to do it, we outsourced capturing Osama in Pakistan to Mr. Musharraf, who had no motive to do it.
 
Pressed by reporters on why we haven’t captured Osama, especially if he’s climbing around with a dialysis machine, Ms. Townsend sniffed that she wished “it were that easy.” It’s not easy to launch a trumped-up war to reshape the Middle East into a utopian string of democracies, but that didn’t stop W. from making that audacious gambit.
 
The Bushies, who once mocked Bill Clinton for doing only “pinprick” bombings on Al Qaeda, now say they can do nothing about Osama because they can’t “pinpoint” him, as Ms. Townsend put it. She assured reporters that they were “harassing” Al Qaeda, making it sound more like a tugging-on-pigtails strategy than a take-no-prisoners strategy.
 
We’ve had it up the wazir with Waziristan. Surely there are Army Rangers and Navy Seals who can make the trek, even if it’s a no-man’s land. If it were a movie, we’d trace the saline in Osama’s dialysis machine, target it with a laser and blow up the mountain.
 
W. swaggers about with his cowboy boots and gunslinger stance. But when talking about Waziristan last February, he explained that it was hard to round up the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders there because: “This is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West.”
 
Yes, they shoot with real bullets up there, and they fly into buildings with real planes.
 
If W. were a real cowboy, instead of somebody who just plays one on TV, he would have cleaned up Dodge by now.
 

2007/7/21

Bush solves US Attorneys mess

@ 07:33 AM (11 months, 23 days ago)

Well, thank goodness! Now Congress doesn't have to worry about that any more, and can especially forget about filing contempt charges against anybody in the White House.
 
Why? Because contempt charges have to be pursued by US Attorneys .. and the White House told the Justice Department that US Attorneys aren’t allowed to prosecute contempt cases when the preznit claims Executive Privilege.
 
Huh? When did the White House start telling the Justice Department what it could and could not do? I thought the two branches were supposed to keep each other at arms-length .. otherwise someone might get the impression that the White House has the Justice Department in its back pocket. <coff coff>
 
From The New York Times: WASHINGTON, July 20 — The Justice Department would be likely to block any efforts by Congressional Democrats to seek contempt charges against present and former White House officials for refusing to give information to Congress, a White House spokesman said Friday.
 
Congress and the White House have been moving toward a constitutional confrontation over the administration’s invoking executive privilege to prevent any testimony about its role in last year’s dismissal of federal prosecutors. [..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/2j5a3j
 
So .. Bush is proclaiming that he is above all law. Sort of Putinesque isn't it?
 
Since we are no longer a nation of laws .. we might just as well pack it up and go hide out in the woods. Nixon was right when he said -- "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."
 
Too bad Clinton failed to realize this .. all that impeachment crap could have been avoided.
 
Has everyone gone crazy!? People of both parties need to rise up and defend our precious Constitution! .. STOP this administration in its tracks!
 
I rather like this part....
 
"Congress has another route to enforce its will, an inherent power of contempt. But that has not been used since early in the 20th century. It has long been deemed unwieldy in the modern era as it entails Congress stopping all work to hold its own trial and imprisoning any offenders in the basement of the Capitol."
 
Maybe they would sell tickets ....
 
We may have to impeach Gonzalez to combat White House claims of executive privilege .. he deserves it anyway. It would certainly get the media to pay attention .. and would show that Congress means business and won't be shoved around.
 
Please oh please let Bush continue to push the limits of executive authority .. he edges closer and closer to obstruction of justice .. and a weird sort of Catch 22. Because there is no way to determine if obstruction has taken place except through the process of law.
 
The ball is clearly now in Congress' court .. let's see what they are willing, or not willing to do.
 
The first step would be to exercise their contempt powers, which they should have already done last week when Harriet Meirs failed to appear.
 
Ugly Thought: If the Democrats don't fiercely challenge this executive privilege distortion, this declaration of dictatorship .. could it be because they want to inherit these same powers when they get back into the White House?
 
The Republicans really, really oughta think about that......
 

2007/7/20

Late-night jokes 7/20

@ 05:56 AM (11 months, 25 days ago)
 
"The U.S. Senate held an all-night session, trying to get the votes needed to begin troop withdrawal from Iraq. They lost. They stayed in the Senate chamber all night long, with some of them sleeping on cots. In fact, Hillary stayed up so late, she actually saw Bill sneaking in." --Jay Leno
 
"Things got a little testy at about four o'clock in the morning when a fight broke out between Senator David Vitter and 89-year-old Senator Robert Byrd over the last diaper." --Jay Leno
 
"A report card on Iraq shows progress on only eight of 18 areas. Eight out of 18. And, of course, President Bush is thrilled. That's the best report card he's ever got in his life." --Jay Leno
 
"Louisiana Senator David Vitter held a press conference this week, where he admitted yes, he was a client of the DC madam, but he said those stories of hookers dressing him in diapers were not true. Boy, what do you do there? Are you supposed to take the word of a politician over a hooker? It's a tough decision for people." --Jay Leno
 
"Vitter's wife was by his side when he made the announcement. She called the senator her 'best friend.' Unfortunately, his best friend is someone named Thumper." --Jay Leno
 
"Down in Washington, DC, they had the all-night Senate session. The senators were there all night. It was the DC madam's slowest night ever." --David Letterman
 
"The Republicans were saying, 'Pulling out the troops in 120 days would lead to chaos in Iraq.' And I'm thinking, 'Well hell, chaos would be an improvement.'" --David Letterman
 
"So why did this all-night session happen? Because while Democrats have a majority in the Senate, they don't have the 60-vote supermajority needed to bring bills like this to a vote, thus forcing the Democrats to stay up all night to prevent the Republicans from staging an all-night, vote-blocking filibuster. You can see why we're fighting so hard to export this type of government to Iraq" --Jon Stewart
 
"The Senate held an all-night session, and Senator Hillary Clinton gave a speech at four in the morning. Apparently, it was the first time Hillary gave a speech at four in the morning that didn't start with, 'Where the hell have you been?'" --Conan O'Brien
 
"This week, President Bush announced he's launching a new campaign to solve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. When asked why, Bush said, 'It's fun to finally be working on a problem that I didn't cause.'" --Conan O'Brien
 
"Congress is working all night to try and solve the problem in Iraq. And I was thinking, 'Gee, maybe they should have done that before we went in.'" --David Letterman
 
"That's right, Congress is working all night. At least Senator Vitter's wife will know where he is." --David Letterman
 
"He appeared at the press conference with his wife. Did you see the look on her face? I haven't seen a woman that happy since New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey gave his famous 'I'm a gay American' speech." --Jay Leno
 
"In other political news, John McCain's communications director has quit. McCain did not have an immediate comment ... because his communications director quit." --Jay Leno
 
"Things not looking good for President Bush. His approval rating has dropped so low the only thing he's above now is the law." --Jay Leno
 
"The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese has paid $660 million to settle these sexual abuse claims. Plus, they also have to release all the priests' confidential, personal files. I think those are called pedo-philes." --Jay Leno
 
"According to a new AP poll, the most popular presidential candidate among registered Republicans is 'none of the above.' At the moment, Rudy Giuliani is running third, just behind 'Good Lord, not him.'" --Conan O'Brien
 
"Louisiana Senator David Vitter came to prominence in the '90s demanding President Clinton's impeachment for the Monica Lewinsky affair. Well, it seems the condom is on the other foot. Last week, Vitter became the highest profile John implicated in the DC madam scandal. ... It kinda reminds me of the old saying, 'The only thing I trust less than a Louisiana senator sleeping with a hooker, is one that isn't.'" --Jon Stewart
 
"As we speak Republican senators are being forced to stay up all night debating yet another Democratic proposal on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Still, this is an opportunity for Republicans to stand up for what they believe in -- keeping us in Iraq no matter what. So, at this late hour, heroes like Trent Lott and John McCain are in the Senate trenches, kept in the line of political fire much longer than any of them signed on for. Democrats, bring these boys home." --Stephen Colbert
 
"It was so hot, Mayor Villaraigosa had an affair with Ann Coulter just to cool off. ... What does the mayor of Los Angeles have in common with President Bush? Apparently, neither of them have any plans to pull out soon. " --Jay Leno
 
"The latest sex scandal concerns Florida Republican state Representative Bob Allen, who was arrested ... for offering to perform a sex act on an undercover police officer in exchange for $20. $20? Finally, a politician who's not afraid to put his money where his mouth is." --Jay Leno
 
"Osama bin Laden has released another new video. See, that shows how dumb this guy is. He releases it the same week as 'Harry Potter.' ... On this latest tape, bin Laden says, 'a happy man is one who dies for his religion.' Do you ever notice the one who is giving the advice is never the one blowing himself up?" --Jay Leno
 
"Sports Illustrated says that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is like a 'golf nut' now. She plays golf all the time. She went golfing with Cheney. Condoleezza shot an 83 and Cheney shot two attorneys and an accountant." --Jay Leno
 
"The L.A. Catholic archdiocese has agreed to pay a $660 million settlement in a sexual lawsuit against Catholic priests. ... $660 million? Yet, nobody goes to jail and they just get to write a check. Who do these priests think they are -- Scooter Libby?" --Jay Leno
 
"Congratulations to former Vice President Al Gore. His youngest daughter Sarah got married over the weekend. Very happy for them, although Al couldn't enjoy the reception. He was so obsessed with how fast the ice sculpture was melting" --Jay Leno
 
"The U.S. government is now offering $50 million for the capture of Osama bin Laden. $50 million for the capture of Osama bin Laden. Are you like me, thinking, 'Wow, do we really have that much left?'--David Letterman
 
"Louisiana Senator David Vitter has admitted he was a client of the DC madam. She made public a list of all her clients' phone numbers. Here's my question: If you're so stupid to go to a prostitute and give her your real name and your Senate office phone number, how did you get elected in the first place?" --Jay Leno
 
"The DC madam said he sometimes paid $300 an hour just to have the hookers talk to him ... and they didn't have sex. Another example of government waste." --Jay Leno
 
"Here's just the creepiest part of the story: there are now reports that the senator paid prostitutes to dress him up in a diaper. He's not denying these allegations. He did poo-poo them though." --Jay Leno
 
"It seems that a member of the Florida House of Representatives and the co-chairman of John McCain's Florida campaign, a man named Bob Allen, has just been arrested for soliciting an undercover male police officer for sex. He offered to perform a sex act on the police officer for $20. Remember the good old days during a campaign, when you only had to kiss babies?" --Jay Leno
 
"According to the current issue of Sports Illustrated, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become a 'golf nut.' She's pretty good, too. The only sand trap she can't get out of? Iraq." --Jay Leno
 
"Former President Clinton about to publish a new book called 'Giving.' ... Really? Shouldn't 'Getting' be the name of the book?" --Jay Leno
 
"The President's approval rating just keeps getting lower and lower. Right now, he's somewhere between former President Richard Nixon and the hunter who shot Bambi. And by tomorrow, he's expected to rank somewhere between John Mark Karr and Chinese toothpaste." --Jimmy Kimmel

2007/7/19

Al Qaeda recovers, grows stronger on Bush's watch

@ 07:16 AM (11 months, 26 days ago)
 
Guess what? A new National Intelligence report came out Tuesday and said that al Qaeda has gone from an organization that was "seriously damaged" and "disrupted" to one whose capabilities are near the same level they were when they struck the US nearly six years ago.
 
Then Bush runs out to say that while that may be true, al Qaeda is still not as strong as it was on 9/11.
 
So, that's all he can say he has accomplished against the crazy bastards who attacked us .. the ones he said he would destroy?
 
This is why our kids died? He has had six years, and billions of dollars since 9/11 .. and we still aren’t any safer? And how many more NEW enemies do we have?
 
How brilliant of Bush to use America's military strength and numbers to invade Iraq, while drawing away from the far more important job of rooting out al Qaeda.
 
Bush is wrong, wrong, wrong when he claims that the people we are fighting in Iraq are the people who attacked New York and Virginia. "al Qaeda in Iraq" did not even exist until after we invaded Iraq.
 
And now we hear that al Qaeda is getting stronger in Pakistan .. their new safe haven across the border from the old hangout.
 
Isn't Pakistan supposed to be our ally in the war on terrorism? Haven't we given them more than $10 billion since 9/11 to kind of help us out?
 
Okay .. they did go after a couple of al Qaeda leaders who were holed up in their big cities .. but they also signed a written agreement that, in effect, created a sanctuary for terrorists in their northwest territory.
 
Bush's war in Iraq has both weakened the US and strengthened al Qaeda -- and it will continue to do so as long as we stay there grappling with a complex civil war.
 
This makes al Qaeda and copycat cells very happy .. see them dancing in the streets and shooting guns into the air. Their recruitment soars. What could be better for them than the Iraq War?
 
Bush says if we leave Iraq it might become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda.
 
Well Mr. Preznit, Pakistan already is.

 

2007/7/18

Another rat jumps ship

@ 06:45 AM (11 months, 27 days ago)

"A prescription for American suicide."
 
That's from an editorial in the "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review," and it's referring to Bush's policy in Iraq.
 
And guess who wrote it? No, not a Wascally Wibwul Bush Basher .. the newspaper is owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife .. a loyal supporter of Republican politicians and many conservative causes. AND he spent beaucoup money funding a network of investigations into President Clinton's doin's in the 1990s .. paid for those sleazy documentaries that portrayed Clinton as a murderer and a drug runner.
 
The editorial goes on to say that if President Bush does not end this war, the people must do so .. and urges the Senate to follow the House's lead and vote to withdraw troops from Iraq. It says, the term "progress" no longer has any meaning.
 
"The fledgling Iraqi government -- how long can it reasonably be called that -- consistently has not stepped up to the plate. President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.' What do we have today, sir?"
 
Indeed sir .. what happened in Iraq yesterday could be called 'mass killings on a horrific scale'.. suicide bombers killed and wounded hundreds .. executions .. mutilated charred bodies all over the place. Rivers of blood literally ran in the streets.
 
"Quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about 'sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved,' we had to question his mental stability."
 
And now with Bush leaning towards the Cheney position on Iran, there is serious reason to question Bush's mental stability and overall grasp of reality.
 
Wow .. it's getting pretty bad when Righties line up with Lefties to call Bush's Iraq policy a "prescription for American suicide" .. and questions his mental stability.
 
Here's the entire editorial:

"Perhaps Jack Murtha put it best: The Pennsylvania congressman, among the first to make the cogent argument that staying the course in Iraq was the exercise in futility that indeed the war has become, says President Bush is delusional.
 
Based on the president's recent performance, we could not agree more. "Staying the course" is not simply futile -- it is a prescription for American suicide.
 
We've urged for months to bring our troops home. Now is the time.
 
"Progress" has become such a nuanced, parsed and tortured term that it no longer has meaning.
 
The "fledgling" Iraqi government -- how long can it reasonably be called that? -- consistently has not stepped up to the plate.
 
President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk "mass killings on a horrific scale." What do we have today, sir?
 
And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about "sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved," we had to question his mental stability.
 
If the president won't do the right thing and end this war, the people must. The House has voted to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April. The Senate must follow suit.
 
Our brave troops should take great pride that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein. And they should have no shame in leaving Iraq. For it will not be, in any way, an exercise in tail-tucking and running.
 
America has done its job.
 
It's time for the Iraqis to do theirs."
 
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/archive/s_517212.html
 
Look at me -- actually agreeing with a Rabid Rightie!
 
After waiting and hoping for so long for this Rightie switch-over to occur, I am actually surprised to see it. Maybe it took a big mouth like O'Reilly to get the conservative ball rolling:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZWKxK-fqxg
 
Don't cry Georgie, at least there is one Rightie who's sticking like glue -- Bill Kristol still thinks you are a great president.
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301709.html
 

2007/7/17

"I took the W off my car today"

@ 06:30 AM (11 months, 28 days ago)

Remember Peggy Noonan, the conservative GOP speech writer? Well, she's worried about the preznit just like everybody else .. and seems to suggest that we just run out the clock for the rest of Bush’s presidency and just hope for the best.

She says other Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly seem to suffer -- Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn’t Bush?

From The Wall Street Journal:
American Grit
BY Peggy Noonan
Friday, July 13, 2007

We can't fire the president right now, so we're waiting it out.

It's been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush's news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.

I'm not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who'd previously supported him. She said she'd had it. "I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth." I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: "I took the W off my car today," it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.[..]"

http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010326

This president has had terrible calamities (9/11, Iraq, Katrina, etc.) and he should appear to have the weight of the world on his shoulders .. or at least look a little worried.

And yet, he brags about how well he sleeps. He takes more vacation time than any president in history .. and he’s constantly smirking, as if he hasn’t a care in the world.

This was especially true in last week's press conference. He seems to be almost amused, especially when he talks about threats against the US. He's probably smiling because he thinks, "These idiots don’t understand the world the way I do" .. but it comes across as a detached president who smirks at crises.

He has failed time after time all his comfortable life and it never really mattered .. he suffered no consequences that mere mortals would face. His rich politician daddy got him out of scrapes with the law, the military and bad business deals.

Some people say he gets his serenity the old-fashioned way -- through chemistry. Legal of course. Say, anti-depressants. When you stop and think about it, he has had a “What? Me worry?” attitude ever since he took office .. even after 9/11 ...

Or, he may think he has a special entitlement as a Born-Again .. who thinks his thoughts come straight from God.

Maybe God promised him that the Rapture will happen before 1/20/2009.

Naw .. he thinks if he just stalls long enough he'll get to hand the messes he's made over to the next president.....
 

2007/7/16

Used up and spit out

@ 06:06 AM (11 months, 29 days ago)

I recently saw, and was sickened by, Bob Woodruff's ABC report on Personality Disorder Discharges, the military's way of dumping soldiers who suffer psychiatric damage during war by claiming that their problems are merely pre-existing conditions that they'd had all along.
 
Discharged soldiers are denied all future benefits and VA care, and in some cases are even required to pay back re-enlistment bonuses they've previously received.
 
Yep, you read right. Soldiers who are suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injuries -- TBI, the signature injury of this Iraq war and one Woodruff suffered himself -- have been discharged from service under Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: “Separation Because of Personality Disorder.”
 
According to the Department of Defense, since 2001, more than 22,000 servicemen and women from all branches of the military have been separated under the personality disorder discharge.
 
They suffered brain injuries in combat, and our glorious troop-loving-and-supporting government uses 5-13 to just kick them out. Even when they have received service commendations like Purple Hearts .. even when they have been allowed to re-enlist, and received re-enlistment bonuses, they find out when they are out-processing that they will have to repay thousands of dollars of their re-enlistment bonuses.
 
See .. these bonuses carry with them a commitment to serve the entire enlistment. If it isn't served, they leave with NO benefits, NO care for their injuries, and in debt for the portion of their bonus that the military paid for and the soldiers didn't serve out.
 
Thank you Bob Woodruff and ABC for bringing this to light .. for showing what goes on when the GI's come home after daring to get wounded. TBI and PTSD are wounds. To say they aren't facing a lifetime wound because of the trauma they received in combat is the equivalent of telling a GI with his legs blown off it was his fault he drove over an IED.
 
And how many soldiers are afraid to seek treatment because they don't want to be kicked out for being mentally deficient?
 
I am fuming mad and have called and written my Congress critters.
 
Here .. a video is worth a thousand words:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVLOz7xQlE0
 
After serving our country honorably and going to war, they are simply thrown away.
 
Doesn't it make you proud to be an American?
 

2007/7/15

History as an Alibi

@ 05:55 AM (12 months, 1 hour ago)

By Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist:

On Friday, Condi Rice played hooky and spent the afternoon at the Tiger Woods golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in suburban Maryland.

She had lunch at the clubhouse with Tiger, who had dedicated the contest to American servicemen. She followed Phil Mickelson and Brad Faxon for a bit, after having them over to the White House on the Fourth to watch the fireworks. She gave interviews about her newfound affection for golf, laughing about her errant drives and "wicked hook."

Like W. going out boating and fishing in Kennebunkport as Britain and its new prime minister, Gordon Brown, reeled from terrorist attacks, Condi acted as if she didn't have a care in the world. And why on earth should she?

The homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, has a gut feeling that a Qaeda cell might be coming or already be here. "Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said, sounding more like a meteorologist than the man charged with keeping us safe.

With 30 mortars hitting the Green Zone yesterday and Army recruiting wilting, some Bush advisers are at long last coming around to the Baker-Hamilton report recommendation that they should engage in intense diplomacy with the countries around Iraq.

Someone might tell Condi - who said in one of her golf interviews that her zest for sports is so all-encompassing that "I love anything with a score at the end" - that she'd better get to work or America's score in Iraq will be zero.

The Iraq war she helped sell has turned into Grendel, devouring everything in sight and making it uninhabitable. It has ravaged Iraq, Bush's presidency, the federal budget, the Republican majority, American invincibility and integrity, and now, John McCain's chance to be president.

And there's no Beowulf in sight. Just a bunch of spectacularly wrong hawks stubbornly continuing to be spectacularly wrong at what an alarmed Republican Senator John Warner calls "a time in our history unlike any I have ever witnessed before."

Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.

With Republicans in revolt over the surge and losing patience, and Bushies worried, as one put it to The Washington Post, that "July has become the new September," the president decided to do a p.r. surge to sound as if he's acquainted with reality.

But in a speech in Cleveland yesterday, the president was still repeating his deranged generalities. Making a tiny concession, he said we would be able to pull back troops "in a while," whatever that means, but asked Congress to wait for Gen. David Petraeus to debrief on the surge in September - rather than focus on the report due this week that says the ineffectual Iraq government has failed to meet benchmarks set by America.

It was ironic that his strongest supporter to the bitter end was the Republican who was once his bitter rival. There was speculation that Mr. McCain would come back from his visit to Iraq and revise his bullish support of the war to save his imploding campaign. But the opposite happened.

As his top advisers were purged, Mr. McCain went to the floor of the Senate to reassert his warped view that "there appears to be overall movement in the right direction."

Like W., Senator McCain values the advice of Henry Kissinger and said, "We can find wisdom in several suggestions put forward recently by Henry Kissinger."

Why they continue to seek counsel from the man who kept the Vietnam War going for years just to protect Richard Nixon's electoral chances is beyond mystifying. But Mr. Kissinger holds their attention with all his warnings of "American impotence" emboldening radical Islam and Iran. Can't W. and Mr. McCain see that American muscularity, stupidly thrown around, has already emboldened radical Islam and Iran?

The president mentioned in his speech yesterday that he was reading history, and he has been summoning historians and theologians to the White House for discussions on the fate of Iraq and the nature of good and evil.

W. thinks history will be his alibi. When presidents have screwed up and want to console themselves, they think history will give them a second chance. It's the historical equivalent of a presidential pardon.

But there are other things - morality, strategy and security - that are more pressing than history. History is just the fanciest way possible of wanting to deny or distract attention from what's happening now.
 

2007/7/14

Late-night jokes 7/14

@ 06:29 AM (12 months, 1 day ago)
 
"What is it with Republicans and weird sex? If it's not young boys, it's diapers, some other strange fetish. Why can't they just have sex under a desk with an intern like a normal person." --Jay Leno
 
"The darling of the religious right, conservative Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, has not only admitted to having sex with prostitutes, he would pay them $300 to make him wear diapers. And today that crazy astronaut called him 'my dream guy! He's got my vote.'" --Jay Leno
 
"Today, Vitter put out a statement saying he only started to cheat on his wife after he started to hang out with the wrong crowd, you know -- Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, the mayor of L.A." --Jay Leno
 
"And listen to this, here's another bizarre one. A member of the Florida House of Representatives and the co-chairman of John McCain's Florida campaign, a man named Bob Allen, arrested for soliciting an undercover male police officer for sex. He offered to perform a sex act on the officer for $20. How broke is the McCain campaign? I knew they needed money, I had no idea. Man, that's not a good sign when you're sending guys to the men's room to raise money." --Jay Leno
 
"The senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, he's admitted now he dates hookers in Washington, D.C, and also in Louisiana. But, he said, in his defense, he always selected the girl with the lowest bid. So he's fiscally prudent." --David Letterman
 
"But good for Vitter, he said that it did not cost the taxpayers a cent. He pays for the hookers with his bribe money." --David Letterman
 
"President Bush was talking about Iraq today and he said that the United States and Iraq has met eight out of 18 of the benchmarks ... required in Iraq. If things don't improve, people are going to think the war isn't going well." --David Letterman
 
"This week, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said he is opposed to medical marijuana. However, Giuliani did said he is a huge supporter of medical Rogaine." --Conan O'Brien
 
"This is odd, a politician in California wants to put an eight percent tax on all porn movies and X-rated entertainment. The politician says it could raise $100 million a year, and that's just from Charlie Sheen" --Conan O'Brien
 
"Well now more problems with this Vitter guy. You gotta go on his website, he's like Mr. Religious, Mr. Family Values. Well now a second madam has come forward and told the Associated Press that he was also a customer at her brothel. This guy was cheating on his hooker with another hooker." --Jay Leno
 
"And this madam says that Vitter was not only having sex with the prostitutes -- this is unbelievable -- he would also pay them to dress him up in a diaper. See, that's what you call a pampered politician. And she also said today in an interview that he sometimes paid $300 an hour just to have the hookers talk to him because his wife didn't listen to him. Well, I bet she's all ears now." --Jay Leno
 
"Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said today that he had a gut feeling that there would be another terrorist attack this summer. ... Now is that reliable? How do we know it's not just bad clams? It's like, 'False alarm. It was Long John Silver, we're gonna be fine.'" --Jay Leno
 
"And Colin Powell said this week he once spent two and a half hours trying to talk President Bush out of going to war in Iraq. Well actually, the first hour and a half were spent trying to get Bush to put down the Gameboy." --Jay Leno
 
"Because of the war in Iraq, President Bush's popularity now plunged to 2% BC. You know what that means 'BC'? Below Carter. It doesn't get any worse than that. In fact, Bush's only supporters now are Laura and one of the twins." --Jay Leno
 
"Officials in Iran have announced that a man convicted of adultery there has been stoned to death. ... Imagine if they did that in Washington, they'd be out of stones like the first week." --Jay Leno
 
"A new poll finds that Dick Cheney has a 59% disapproval rating, which makes him the least popular vice president in history. Even worse, the only people polled were Cheney's wife and kids." --Conan O'Brien
 
"The pope announced that the Catholic Church provides the only true path to salvation and that other Christian groups are either defective or not true churches. Yeah, the pope finished by saying that 'God loves everyone, but he loves me more.'" --Conan O'Brien
 
"John Edwards is on the campaign trail. He's now doing something called his 'Poverty Tour', where he's visiting people who have no money and no hope. In fact, his first stop today: John McCain's headquarters." --Jay Leno
 
"More news coming out about the big Live Earth concert, apparently Michael Jackson was supposed to perform, but didn't due to a misunderstanding. Apparently he wound up on the wrong planet, yeah I don't know what happened there. I think he was on Uranus." --Jay Leno
 
"They have prostitutes in Washington D.C., and it now turns out that senators and congressmen and important, powerful people are dating the prostitutes. ... And there's a senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, admitted he's been dating prostitutes. And he was very generous with one girl, he paid her with a new highway project in her home state. ... One thing I'll say for this guy from Louisiana, this David Vitter, at least he went to a professional and left the congressional pages alone." --David Letterman
 
"Washington, D.C.: It's so hot there, a chunk of ice fell off Dick Cheney. So hot, Scooter Libby wishes he was in the cooler. ... So hot today, President Bush pardoned Al Roker. So hot, Al Gore's son was doing 100 mph in a Mr. Softee truck." --David Letterman
 
"Did you hear about this? Al Gore's son was arrested speeding doing 100mph. Al's already made a movie about it called 'An Inconvenient Son'" --David Letterman
 
"It was so hot, the mayor of Los Angeles found out what his mistress would do for a Klondike Bar. ... That's the big story in Los Angeles. It seems our mayor is getting a divorce and is dating a local TV news anchor. To which Rudy Giuliani said, 'Hey, when I was mayor that was a slow week.'" --Jay Leno
 
"You know, this President Bush had commuted Scooter Libby because he felt that 30 months in jail for four felonies was way too harsh, so he reduced it a little back to nothing, zero. See, that's called the rich white guy reduction. See, that's 'cause his name's Scooter. There's not a lot of guys named Jamal gettin' that deal. Nah, Jamal is doin' 30 months for jaywalking." --Jay Leno
 
"Some sad news. Al Gore's son, Al Gore III, arrested in Laguna Niguel, California. Police found marijuana in his car. Police searched the car after pulling him over for going 100mph in his Prius. When his dad found out he said, 'Whew, thank God it was a Prius. That could've been so embarrassing'" --Jay Leno
 

2007/7/13

They call these guys brave? Hah!

@ 06:01 AM (12 months, 2 days ago)

"Seven gored at Pamplona bull run"
 
From news.bbc.co.uk: "Seven people have been gored by bulls during the sixth day of this year's annual bull-running festival in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona.
 
Local authorities said three people were in a serious condition and had undergone operations in hospital.[..]"
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6295300.stm
 
Running with the Bulls in Pamplona is for wimps. They wanna prove how brave they are? I've got a better idea. It's called Runnin' With Al Qaeda .. through narrow casbah-like streets in 117 degree heat, loaded down with full gear .. all the while dodging bullets, IEDs and missiles .. don't forget suicide bombers, beware of those flying bone fragments.....
 
This amazing feat of courage and strength is performed everyday in Afghanistan and Iraq by American military men and women and their allies. That's true bravery.
 
Not some silly men in red kerchiefs swatting bulls on the butt.
 

2007/7/12

Harriet Miers tells Congress "Bite me"

@ 07:22 AM (12 months, 3 days ago)

Will they really jail a sweet little old lady?
 
Yesterday afternoon, based on no law that anyone knows about, the White House ordered former WH Counsel Harriet Miers to disobey a congressional subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her successor, Fred Fielding, insisted that Miers has “absolute immunity.”
 
Anything about this remind you of Nixon's Last Days?
 
It's hard to imagine Miers giving a worse performance than former WH political director Sara Taylor .. but apparently the lawyers for the WH mob thought she would. Surely a woman considered to be US Supreme Court Justice material would be able to hold her own before a House Committee.
 
At least Taylor showed up -- but declined to tell what she knew about the firing of nine US attorneys last year. Turns out her memory is as lousy as that of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales .. who told the committee he "couldn't recall" 64 times.
 
These people took an oath to be loyal to the CONSTITUTION .. NOT the President.
 
From Yahoo news.com: "WASHINGTON - The Bush administration says the president's immediate advisers are absolutely immune from having to appear before Congress, but legal scholars say the issue isn't that clear cut.
 
The question grew more pressing Wednesday as President Bush ordered former White House counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons in the controversy over the administration's dismissals of federal prosecutors.
 
The Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House judiciary committees have said they would consider introducing contempt of Congress citations against any subpoena recipients who resist.
 
....George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the White House "could not have picked worse ground" on which to fight executive privilege.[..]"
 
http://tinyurl.com/yqhgq4
 
I don't see how a case can be made that the scandal being investigated touches on "military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets."
 
The need for a criminal investigation should outweigh the privilege itself .. didn't Nixon find this out the hard way?
 
Lawyer friends tell me no one has "absolute immunity" .. that the concept simply doesn't exist in the law. "No one can claim that executive privilege entitles you to ignore the body that subpoenas you."
 
If the Bushies keep pushing this, eventually the Democrats will have no choice but to push back harder.
 
Barring the terrorist attack the Bushies are setting us up for (Chertoff's 'Gut Feeling'), I'll bet we won't recognize the political landscape of this country by next summer.
 
Time to hire a special prosecutor? There's no reason to believe Gonzales will allow an investigation any more than there was reason to believe Mitchell would allow one when Nixon was in trouble.
 
Could ordering a person to disobey a lawful subpoena from a co-equal branch of government be impeachable conduct?
 
Bring me some more popcorn, I will enjoy watching the GOP stonewall this .. bound to play well in Peoria. Just like it did for Nixon.
 

2007/7/11

Top Doc says he was muzzled in Bush's War on Science

@ 08:12 AM (12 months, 3 days ago)

I'm shocked .. shocked to discover that decisions about public health are based on politics and theology, not science .. that the White House manipulates non-partisan government agencies for political gain!

Read the rest of this entry ... (443 words left)

2007/7/10

More Republican dirty sex

@ 06:34 AM (12 months, 5 days ago)
  "They're always coming and going, and going and coming, and always too soon." -- Lili von Schtupp in "Blazing Saddles"   Gosh, who's ready for another good old fashioned scandal with Republicans getting caught engaging in illegal sexual activity?   (BTW, what's the latest on Mark Foley? Is he still in Pedophile Rehab?)   Anyway, how 'bout a round of applause for the voters of Louisiana, particularly the First Congressional District of Louisiana ...   From Fox News: "Louisiana Sen. David Vitter apologized Monday for his telephone number showing up on the old phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates, the alleged prostitution ring run in the nation's capital by Deborah Jeane Palfrey.   "This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said in a statement.   "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there --with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way," he wrote.[..]"   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288740,00.html   Why do these creeps always find Jesus AFTER they've poked hookers ..  or snorted blow or stolen taxpayer's money? Why don't they follow His teachings BEFORE they do all that crap?   Oooh .. maybe because then they COULDN"T poke hookers, snort blow or steal taxpayer's money.   Uh .. there's also a House in New Orleans. Lest we forget, Vitter was once accused (by another Republican) of having an 11-month affair with a known prostitute named Wendy Cortez. He denied it of course .. the story came out just days after Vitter dropped out of the race for governor in June of 2002.   http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20040329m   I'll bet his wife was flattered .. her name is Wendy too. Here's a verrry interesting thing she said back then:

From salon.com: "Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Read the rest of this entry ... (213 words left)

2007/7/9

Was it the 100 dead American kids a month?

@ 07:18 AM (12 months, 6 days ago)

Bush getting ready to 'Cut & Run'?
 
A NY Times article seems to indicate that the White House is looking to get ahead of the feared stampede of Republican Senators to defect from Bush's endless war .. changing Iraq strategy even before September 15th.
 
I love it when they turn on themselves.
 
Of course, such a face-saving move can't be called a "withdrawal" .. so they're calling it a "post-surge redeployment"...
 
One more meaningless phrase that will dominate our political discourse for the next few months. "Post-surge redeployment" will join "stay the course" .. "cut and run" .. "fight them there so we don't fight them here" .. and, of course, "surge."
 
From The New York Times, 07/09/2007:
"White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.
 
.....Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Mr. Bush's strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Mr. Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.[..] "
 
http://tinyurl.com/2xhxzl
 
I don't believe it for a minute. This is one stubborn guy, Mister-my-way-or-the highway, remember? And look at the bottom of the article -- 3 weeks until the Congressional summer recess.
 
3 weeks to tread water .. and the preznit is going to cave on everything he's fought against for the last few years?
 
And give up the opportunity to pass this mess to the next president?
 
Nah!
 
 

2007/7/8

Late-night jokes 7/8

@ 05:28 AM (12 months, 7 days ago)

Note: I get so many 'hits' on the late-night joke recaps that I know you enjoy them .. but the late-night shows have been in re-runs, so pickin's are slim lately.

Read the rest of this entry ... (636 words left)