Putting out a fire with gasoline

Lest you think that Yellow Dog gets all the fun because she gets to write about Kentucky politics, we Missourians can give just about any state a run for the money when it comes to mendacious polecats in the GOP.

It would have been a sight to behold, and I wish I had seen it...

On Veterans Day, Matty B came to KC to the world headquarters of the VFW for the obligatory medal ceremony that happens every November, and after the event, three KC Star reporters tried to get an answer from Baby Guv about the brewing email scandal in Jefferson City. He quite literally broke into a run to get away from the likes of Kit Wagar, Steve Kraske and Dave Helling.

As the reporters closed in, a security guard (who looks disturbingly like that guy on Springer) shoved Wagar, who was pushed back into Kraske, who was knocked back into Helling - who is a pretty big guy, so presumably he didn't go anywhere. But Kraske was suddenly faced with having to acknowledge that there is indeed a story there, and he should prolly say sumthin' about it, and damnit to hell, thats gonna deal a setback to his secret desire to be Matty B's next press secretary...But Helling had that damnable camera of his running, and the video was all over the interwebs an hour later...

For those unfamiliar with Missouri's latest gubernatorial malfeasance, it's a potboiler.

[keep reading]



It all started a few weeks ago when Tony Messenger, political reporter for the Springfield News-Leader came into possession of an email from Blunt chief-of-staff Ed Martin that indicated Martin was performing political work from his state-funded office, and that is a violation of ethics rules. Messenger started asking questions of the governors office, and under the states Sunshine Law, he asked to see other emails like it. He was told that other emails didn't exist because Martin and other officials in the Blunt administration routinely deleted emails, which violates violates public records rules that mandate openness and transparency, and to that end, email retention.

Well, the governors office went into full freak-out mode and proceeded to compound their troubles exponentially. They denied they were aware of the policy on email retention - but the AP soon turned up with an email from a lawyer who served in the Blunt administration who said he had advised the governors staff to stop deleting email.

And here is where it gets really weird and the hubris becomes palpable. Scott Eckersley, the attorney who gave the administration the advice they didn't want to hear was fired and slandered and had his character and his ethics challenged; and Eckersley, a devout Mormon, was accused of getting porn emails at his state email address. (Don't we all get offers for penis enlargement, and gender is no deterrent?)

The issue has consumed a tremendous amount of newsprint all over the state, and it has been scathing of Blunt and Martin, and sympathetic to Eckersley. And two weeks in to the whole fiasco, the Blunt administration cut off their nose to spite their face. The administration filed a complaint with the state bar association, claiming that Eckersley violated the confidentiality he owed the governor as his attorney when he talked to the press. The complaint is tacit acknowledgment that Eckersley did indeed advise the governor and his staff to stop deleting emails.

And by Thursday of last week, baby guv had unveiled a new plan to archive every single email that is sent or received on state computers, because he wants to "avoid confusion" - except his staff seems to be the only folks who are afflicted by confusion. But that didn't stop him from blaming Jay Nixon, the current Attorney General. Blunt, in a stunning display of audacious gall, said his new scheme would "prevent what has happened in Attorney General Nixon's office, where the spokesperson said that e-mails are routinely deleted." Nixon, as every Missourian knows, is challenging Blunt in next years governors race, and in the words of Hotflash, my good friend and fellow co-blogger at Show Me Progress (and by the way, she has been absolutely tireless on this issue) Blunt isn't just going to lose next fall. He is going to get demolished.

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Better Democrats, Please

Can we get some real Democrats?

Or at least some who know how this game is played?

You see, we are a nation founded on Liberty, but some among us have a pretty screwed up idea of what constitutes Liberty. Unfortunately the poltroons in need of a refresher course are our elected representation.

If they will not hold this administration accountable, they do not represent me.

If they will not make the obstructionist pricks in the GOP actually filibuster a bill, they do not represent me.

If they think they can govern from the center, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the Fourth Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the First Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Posse Comitatus, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore the Insurrection Acts of 1807, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Habeas Corpus, they do not represent me.

If they will not revoke torture as official policy of this administration, they do not represent me.

If they will not vote for common-sense troop protections like the Webb Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they compromise on any part of the Constitution, they do not represent me.

If they do not stand up to the Deserter in Chief, they do not represent me.

If they do not take concrete steps to end the occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they get on board with a decades-long occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they do not represent me, I will support primary challenges.

***************

I was pissed off at the MoveOn ad, too - but not because it offended me. I was pissed off about it because I knew the frothing fuckwits would get worked up into a lather and draw fortification from it, at just a time when the public was getting there on their own.

But once it was out there, it was the job of the Democrats to defend the First Amendment, and ask pointedly "where was the criticism when Kerry was swift-boated and when Cleland was smeared?"

Instead, they lined up to take turns shredding the first amendment. Here is the thing about the First Amendment - it guarantees FREE speech - it does not guarantee that speech will be tasteful, or that no ones feelings will get hurt. It just means that it is FREE.

It means that I can tell Claire McCaskill that she is a disappointment and a disgrace and I am seriously starting to resent all the time that I spent on her campaign.

Fat lot of good it did me, for the way her votes have fallen.

Every single Democrat who has fallen in line needs a primary challenger. The rot in Washington is to the core in both parties. Democrats who won't stand up now need a primary challenge. If you are a Representative who wants to abdicate your responsibility to impeach this criminal administration, you need a primary challenger. If you are a senator who can not defend the Constitution, you need a primary challenger. If you are a Democrat who does not protest the long-term occupation of Iraq, you need a primary challenger.

The answer here is not to fall into an abject funk - it is to get pissed, and stay pissed, all the way from today through the first Tuesday in November 2008.

And I just did something I have never done before. I made a donation to MoveOn. Because they are standing up for free speech and the First Amendment, and besides that, there is the added benefit that it will agitate the fuck out of the squawking chickenhawks on the right. I want feathers to fill the air.

In closing, I want to remind every Democratic politician that elections have consequences - and so do their votes. They need to keep in the front of their mind that a failure to act upon the consequences we hit the Republicans over the head with in 2006 will lead to more consequences. It's called a stiff primary challenger with netroots fundraising support, bitches.

(hat tip to Pale Rider for his help with this post. The closing paragraph is almost all him.)

There's more: "Better Democrats, Please" >>

I suppose I have to blog about that speech...

...or risk getting a "Bad Blogger! No Biscuit!" citation.

But really...what is to say? It was the Diet Coke of Presidential Speeches. There was no substance and the flavor wasn't quite right, but nonetheless, it was pretty much what was expected; rancid aftertaste and all.

But like Diet Coke is calorie free, the Resident's speech was fact free:

• "Iraq's national leaders are getting some things done," such as "sharing oil revenues with the provinces" [The oil law fell by the wayside, was doused in gasoline and set alight a full day before the bullshit banquet was served up this evening.]

• Bush made the proclamation that Baqubah, capital of Diyala province, (once, (impossibly) simultaneously considered both restive and the al Qaeda - Iraq mothership) is now pacified. "[t]oday, Baqubah is cleared." stated the President. [The pResident makes this claim, yet on 27 August the head of the Foreign Service Office in Diyala said the security situation was far from stable and impeded access to both sustenance and energy needs.]
  

• Further separating himself from reality, he thanked "the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq." [He was only off by a dozen or so. Give a dry drunk moron credit for not fucking this up worse...]
  

• He referenced a panel report assembled by Marine Gen. James Jones, and presented to congress last week, but he misrepresented it, saying that "the Iraqi army is becoming more capable..." [The report actually says that the Iraqi Army "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven." It also described the 25,000 member national police force as being infiltrated to the core by sectarian militias, and at best of specious loyalty. The Jones report recommended that it be disbanded.]

• He pointed to the relatively restive Baghdad of today, as compared to the Baghdad of a year ago, and pointed to lessened violence in the capital as evidence that his Surge™ strategy is showing success. [When the ethnic cleansing is complete, the supply of people fleeing and being murdered naturally dries up.]

At least in Japan miserable failures like the fool currently occupying the oval office have the decency to go sideways. But not this Dionysian fuckwit. He will go to his grave, at far too distant a date, and after enjoying too much health for too many years, convinced that we lost Iraq because I personally didn't clap loud enough.

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"Return on Success"?

Tell these people and their families, who returned all right, but with your feigned success charged at their expense.

There's more: ""Return on Success"?" >>

Six hours later, and I'm still in shock

It is six hours later, and I am still trying to make sense of that speech Resident Evil gave at the VFW convention, just a few blocks from my home...I'm still waiting for the lotus-like sluggishness of intellect to lift from my zipcode. We are deep blue here in the MO 05, and we were just inundated by more republicans downtown than Kansas City has seen since the convention in 1976.

But I was ranting about Resident Evil. Where was I?

Oh, yes....

Holy Chocolate Covered Christ, aren't we well into "fitness to serve" territory yet?!?!?!?

He just stood in front of the VFW and did a backflip with a 180 and stuck the landing - and nobody noticed! I actually think he freakin' believes his own bullshit!

After rejecting parallels with Vietnam, he is suddenly stripping to his skivvies and ready to climb into the sack with those very comparisons, albeit with a kinky twist. Now it seems he thinks that we should have stayed in Vietnam - you remember Vietnam - that was the war that he, draft-dodging, war-mongering, chickenhawk that he is - refused to fight, the draft he dodged - you remember Vietnam. I certainly do, and so do my aunt and uncle who lost their oldest son....And Veterans of that conflict embarrassed me today by clapping for that sonofabitch who so spectacularly failed the test back then.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Mr. Bush said. "Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields."'

And the idiots who voted for this clown called Kerry a flip-flopper. None of you should EVER call a Democrat a flip-flopper in my presence again. Not with this fucking political gymnast representin' y'all.

Well - I am not the only one who was stunned speechless by the "say anything, what do I have to lose?" resident's speech. Noted UCLA historian Robert Dallek, who has written extensively about the conflict in Iraq as compared to Vietnam, accused Bush of playing fast and loose with history.

"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president," he said in a telephone interview.

"We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will," he said.

"What is Bush suggesting? That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion," he continued. "We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out."

So - will the mainstream media give him a[nother] pass, or will they finally call him on his delusional bullshit? What will you bet he gets a pass? But I think I have maybe figured out why...it is that he is just so fucking wrong, wronger than anyone has ever been, so wrong that in the history of incompetence and failure he gets a special category...That there is just an air of "Holy shit. Where do I even start???"

Well - enough already with the feeling overwhelmed. Pick a point and start making sense, and don't stop.

There's more: "Six hours later, and I'm still in shock" >>

The Rebranding Effort is Under Way

Let me state my position unequivocally to preempt spin. I am not necessarily anti-war across the board, but I am and have always been anti Iraq war. I am as pro-G.I. as you can possibly be, but I am as opposed to Resident Evil and his 'policies' as is possible as well. He is a warmongering toad, and a danger to the Republic.

But the MBA president sure has a good marketing team. The marketing team is so effective that they have convinced staunch withdrawal advocates that another Friedman is called for.

The most vapid bullshit is being repackaged and sold...and Democrats are lining up to buy it. Hillary has been so fished in that she swallowed the hook.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.

BZZZTTT!!! Wrong! What is happening in Anbar has nothing - nothing - to do with the so-called Surge™/troop buildup and everything to do with deals being struck with Sunni insurgents that involves massive amounts of firearms and ammo. Consider this for a moment: 170 million mostly 9 mil. rounds for Iraq, and stateside our police forces train with paintballs because there is insufficient ammo. (I have been very vocal about pointing out that the Romney boys and the Bush twits are ducking duty, but Chelsea Clinton isn't in uniform either, and if Mommy is going to be a war-monger on the stump, it's only fair to point that out.)

John Edwards called her on it, too. "Senator Clinton's view that the President's Iraq policy is 'working' is another instance of a Washington politician trying to have it both ways," Edwards campaign manager David Bonior said in a statement. "You cannot be for the President's strategy in Iraq but against the war. The American people deserve straight talk and real answers on Iraq, not double-speak, triangulation, or political positioning."

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), an Armed Services Committee member seems to get it. "I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies." (emphasis mine)

Congress comes back in two weeks, tanned rested and refreshed, having sold out the Fourth Amendment on their way to the beach. But when they come back, they are in for a surprise, because America will be standing watch, silently scrutinizing from the gallery. And it will just get worse for them from there. We, the People, have had it, and we are taking matters into our own hands. On September 4, we begin to stand watch, and on September 21, we observe the first Iraq Moratorium Day.

Participate, people. Be a worthy descendant to the founders who put it all on the line to give us a Republic that these fools have pissed away.

There's more: "The Rebranding Effort is Under Way" >>

Debunking a presidential budget myth

Everyone is focused on September right now – as well they should be – but everyone is focusing on a portion (Iraq) of the big picture.

The real fight is about the budget for FY 2008, which starts on 01 October. Let’s be kind in our assessment, and just say that the administration certainly seems to be embracing magical thinking where the nation’s checkbook is concerned. You see, if we aren’t kind, we have to say that the president is lying his ass off and pushing malicious propaganda. (The latter is likely true, but we are feeling inexplicably magnanimous tonight. If it persists, I'll get checked out.)

Last Thursday the president spoke to the American Legislative Exchange Council in Philadelphia, and his speech was so far divorced from reality that, frankly, it left me wondering what exactly was the combination of drugs he was enjoying at the time? I mean, the BS is so easily debunked that it seems like they aren't even trying any longer.

He boasted that he had overseen a budget deficit that has been declining in recent years, and that his policies would realize a surplus by FY12.

Problem is, he forgot a couple of really, really salient facts. (Or maybe they are inconvenient so he committed an intentional sin of omission?)

If he is going to take credit for reducing the deficit, he has to admit that he created it. Prior to his administration, there were four consecutive budget-surplus years, with a forecast of $5.6 trillion in continuing surpluses. This robust economic forecast was the justification for the Bush tax cuts, but even after the surpluses were revealed to be imaginary, massive, record-high deficit spending continued unabated. (Never before have we cut taxes in time of war.)

Additionally, the word “debt” never fell from his lips during the entire speech. He either doesn’t realize, or again opted to willfully omit, that while the deficit is falling, the debt is climbing. In fact, his term in office will realize a $3 trillion increase in the national debt.

But it gets better! He said we have a responsibility to fix our problems! It wouldn’t be fair to pass these problems off "to future Congresses or future generations." All the while ignoring that the interest payments on the debt will be crippling for the next three decades, thanks to that $3 trillion dollars added to the debt. Oh – I almost forgot! There is a hell of a lot of short-term borrowing that is coming due and we don’t have the cash to satisfy the debt. So we have to refinance. (We all know someone who got in trouble with a payday loan that took on a life of its own. This is like that, only on a national scale and its trillions instead of hundreds.) The ghost of the George Bush presidency is going to haunt this nation for years to come.

When he bragged that the current (FY 2007) deficit would be "lower than the national average over the last 10 years."

There is only one way to make that statement true: omit the years FY98-01 and still call it a decade. When FY98-01 are included, the average deficit drops to 0.9% of GDP, but the number that the president cited for FY08 was significantly higher, 1.5% GDP.

Translation: He wasn’t really saying this years deficit represents the lowest percentage of GDP in a decade, it will just be lower than any of the six consecutive deficits he has presided over. (Doesn’t sound quite so sexy that way, though, does it?)

He went far afield and insisted that congress should send him budget appropriations individually, not in a combined omnibus spending bill, and not in the form of continuing resolutions, but individual appropriations bills. (This has never been asked before, and is quite baffling in the petulant audacity it takes to even ask.) Not once in the past six years has the White House expressed any concern whatsoever Interesting, given that FY01, 03, 04, and 05 were all funded by omnibus spending bills, and the entire government has operated on continuing resolutions this year, FY07, because the republican rubber-stamp 109^th congress failed to pass a budget.

But the coup de grace was the proclamation that the Congress was obligated to, “in a time of war” pass the Pentagon budget before the August Recess! (Isn’t there something happening in September that makes that suggestion especially galling?)

Out understanding is not so stunted as the president prefers to think it is, apparently. For instance, we know that the fiscal year does not start until 01 October, and that any funds appropriated for FY 2008 now would not be available for dispersal until then, no matter when the Pentagon appropriations are passed! His petulant, pandering insistence is disingenuous at best. Or maybe he just forgot…

His credibility on this issue is suspect in any case. Over the past six years, Congress has adopted the Pentagon appropriation by the start of the summer recess only once (FY05). Twice (FY04 and 07) it was enacted in the last days of September. Three times (FY02, 03 and 06) it was enacted well after the fiscal year began. At no time during this period did the White House ever call on Congress to adopt the bill beforethe August recess or criticize it for not getting the work done before the fiscal year began.

Also casting a cloud on his credibility is his complete and utter refusal to criticize the Iraqi parliament for taking an August recess. Again he strikes a disingenuous pose. That “time of war” he referenced is taking place in their country and they are off on holiday after accomplishing exactly nothing.

Now, analytical disagreements are par for the course when budget and appropriations projects are debated. But the president’s statements about the budget are so patently and obviously false that they read much more like propaganda than policy differences. The mind boggles at the audacity. It really truly boggles.

There's more: "Debunking a presidential budget myth" >>

We need some new rules

For starters, we need to rename our policy institutes to more accurately reflect the product that comes out of those fever-swamps. They push agendas, reality be damned and critical thinking be suspended.

When agenda-whoring is the major gist, call them what they are – Belief Tanks. And call their "analysts" what they are, too – Agenda Whores.

With September looming, and the true believers having difficulty moving the goalposts to November, the Idiots from Brookings™ are back. Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack take to the op-ed pages of the New York Times today to proclaim that “we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.”

O’Hanlon and Pollack bill themselves “as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” They are very quick to point out that they are ‘two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq’ but they fail to mention that they were frothing hawks who poo-pooed those of us who were fucking right before hand. Pollack wrote an entire damned book layuing out “the case for invading Iraq,” and took the case for war to the Cheetos-and-Hot Pockets crowd on Oprah in 2002, where he enthusiastically beat the war drum and pushed the false intelligence about Iraq as justification to war.

O’Hanlon is nearly as odious as Pollack. He has shared Pollack’s zeal for war with Iraq. Prior to the invasion, he predicted a “a rapid and decisive” victory. Now, he is intent on flipping war critics to the “surge supporters” column, and his plans revolve around a long-term occupation.

Now that these pathetic fools who have been wrong around everything are back from another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, they are off on a PR junket touting “stay the course.” This weekend on CNN, the hapless O’Hanlon claimed that the war “is going brilliantly at this point.”

CNN correspondent Arwa Damon refuted his claim in an interview with Tom Foreman: .

FOREMAN: Arwa, is there a sense in Baghdad on the ground that that’s exactly what’s happening?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tom, actually not when you speak to the Iraqi people. In fact, most of those that I’ve spoken to will not really say that they feel that the situation is getting better. Remember, they’re not measuring their own security in terms of numbers of U.S. casualties or numbers of bodies that were found unidentified throughout the entire capital. They are measuring their sense of whether or not things are getting better by the level of comfort with which they can leave their homes. For most Iraqis, they are still just as petrified of falling victim of sectarian violence or any other sort of attack that could take place in the capital today as they were before the surge began.

O’Hanlon breathlessly points to some non-existent metrics to bolster his puffery and support for this failed war:

He is excited about the delivery of “basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people,” and he sings Hosannas to the ‘reliability‘ of Iraqi security forces, and he is simply wide-eyed over “how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.”

Too bad none of these things that have him so tickled are actually, you know, happening the way he says. In reality, residents of Baghdad now get only one or two hours of electricity each day, the Iraqi security forces are deserting in large numbers, and reconstruction has stalled.

Only a died-in-the-wool idiot would look to these never-right morons for advice.

So I guess they find a ready audience in aWol.

[H/T Think Progress & Glenn Greenwald]

There's more: "We need some new rules" >>

Taking Stock: the day after

I spent 24 hours enraged. That is my MO. Then I pull myself together and I get downright calculating and methodical. That was the part that scared my kids the worst when they were growing up and ran afoul of the Rule of Mom, which was the equivalent of the rule of law in our household. (Military Moms tend to run a tight ship, no matter what branch of service they are married to. I was no exception. You spend too much time alone with the kids farther into the career and you can’t lose control of your charges.)

So – I have had 24 hours to assess the situation. There is still some 'there' there, if you know what I mean.

Did aWol commit an impeachable offense when he commuted the treasonous Libby’s jail term? No processes were observed, no recommendations considered, no briefs were filed and no procedures were followed. So...perhaps. (Note: It is the opinion of this blogger that the entire Bush Presidency has been an impeachable offense.)

The way this played out, it smacks of a cover-up. It looks like the resident was scared shitless that Scooter might spill when he found himself looking into that cell.

Remember, from the very outset, Libby’s attorneys played it like he was a fall guy, a patsy, a chump taking the rap for others – specifically the vice president. Fitz repeatedly and sharply stated that the details that surrounded the case cast doubt and suspicion over Dick Cheney.

Take the fact that the defense claimed he was a fall guy, add the shadow over vice, and it is a short step to come to the conclusion that Libby was made Cheney’s bitch.

It is within the scope of powers afforded the office of the President to commute sentences, of course. However, it is not within the scope of those powers for him to commute a sentence in an effort to derail a criminal investigation. If the sentence was commuted for the purpose of covering up criminal activity, be those activities ongoing or previous, that in and of itself is a crime that merits the impeachment of this feckless president.

What underlies the decision by the resident to offer this commutation, without a single day served, must be investigated thoroughly.

Both Judiciary Committees and Representative Waxman’s Oversight Committee must open investigations and get to the bottom of this. Including calling Patrick Fitzgerald to testify.

This is not over. Not by a long shot. Unless, that is, those we chose fold like a bunch of cheap suits.

There's more: "Taking Stock: the day after" >>

BREAKING: No Stay of Sentence for Scooter

A glimmer of Justice was seen flickering in the sunlight today when the three-judge appeals panel unanimously rejected the plea by Scooter “Treason” Libby to remain free on bond while appealing his sentence. Instead, he will have to report to prison in just a few weeks to start serving his much-to-short sentence.

Look for the apparatchiks who place Party over country and the rule of law to turn up the volume on their bleating about dedicated public servants. (Who happen to commit treason and successfully obstruct justice!)

And when they start in, call them on it. Mock them, ridicule them, and question their patriotism. At least with them and their ilk it’s justified, because they do excuse treason. (Fred Thompson, I'm calling you out right now.)

Scooter, one word of advice. Don’t drop the soap, lest what happened to our country with your mendacious assist could very well happen to you.

There's more: "BREAKING: No Stay of Sentence for Scooter" >>

Fred Fielding Goes Long

Okay, buckle up and grab the dashboard. The route of Republican logic (snort at that oxymoron) we are about to traverse is as twisted a path as any Missouri two-lane blacktop.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has sent along a letter ‘splainin’ why the White House is refusing to let Sara Taylor and Harriet Meyers testify if there is any record of the exchange.

Writes F²

"Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth in that regard. The position that the president took and conveyed to the committees and the offer of compromise did not include transcripts. The accommodation was designed to provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony. One of the concomitants of testimony, of course, is transcripts.

"As far as the debate goes, often cited is that a transcript is not wanted because otherwise there would be a perjury trap. And, candidly, as everyone has discussed, misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it's under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there's no intention to try to avoid telling the truth." (emphasis added)

Perjury trap? Are they planning to lie?

I guess if you are a part of this freakshow, it’s better to be assumed a liar than to open your mouth to prove it.

Sara Taylor was overheard explaining to a friend at lunch that “orange makes me look sallow.”

There's more: "Fred Fielding Goes Long" >>

For Dick Lugar, Party Trumps Principle

This is why I put a 24-hour-hold on reporting anything that comes close to looking encouraging if it comes from a party apparatchik Republican. They always backpedal and retract and spin and explain what they really meant to say – probably after a visit from Karl’s boyz, but that’s just speculation…

Yesterday evening, Think Progress posted the following:

In a major speech on the Senate floor, Lugar said that “victory” in Iraq as defined by President Bush is now “almost impossible.” The current course of the war “has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond,” he said.

Lugar warned that “persisting indefinitely” with Bush’s escalation strategy “will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.” He specifically rejected claims that withdrawing U.S. forces will increase instability. Downsizing the U.S. military presence in Iraq would “strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities,” Lugar said.

And today, MSNBC tells us that I was smart to hold off on praising him, because he intends to take the sniveling cowards way out, and has no intention of backing up his bold rhetoric.

Lugar won't switch vote
However, [Lugar spokesman Andy] Fisher said the speech does not mean Lugar would switch his vote on the war or embrace Democratic measures setting a deadline for troop withdrawals.

In January, Lugar voted against a resolution opposing the troop buildup, contending that the nonbinding measure would have no practical effect. In spring, he voted against a Democratic bill that would have triggered troop withdrawals by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pull out in six months.

Next month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to force votes on several anti-war proposals as amendments to a 2008 defense policy bill. Members will decide whether to cut off money for combat, demand troop withdrawals start in four months, restrict the length of combat tours and rescind Congress' 2002 authorization of Iraqi invasion.

Expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass controversial legislation, the proposals are intended to increase pressure on Bush and play up to voters frustrated with the war.

…the proposals are intended to increase pressure on Bush and play up to voters frustrated with the war. Fisher says that like it’s a bad thing! In reality it is the only thing. Change ain’t gonna happen until this president is forced to deal with the reality that is “dealing with” ~30 Americans a week – and the only way he is going to be forced into facing facts is if members of his own party insist that he do so.

Dick Lugar should hang his head in shame. And he should also attend the funeral of every Indianan who falls and explain to the grieving family members why he puts party and politics above the lives of their loved ones.

[Crossposted from Blue Girl, Red State and OOIBC]

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So the reich-wing wants a piece of the internet pie, eh?

This is our turf.

Deal.

You know how for all those years the GOP had the GOTV handbook?

Well, when something came along to rival that advantage, it totally took them by surprise.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Welcome to the netroots, Republicans, and let us know what you think of 1997 once you catch your breath, won’t you?

When David All, a former Republican congressional aide, launched a blog recently that he hopes will spur his fellow Republicans to bridge the digital divide, he did his best to sound upbeat. "Today our Revolution begins," he wrote. "Tomorrow we fight."

But implicit in his cheerleading was the acknowledgment that there is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet, and that his party will have to scramble to catch up. "For the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000," he said in an interview.

Michael Turk, who was in charge of Internet strategy for President Bush's 2004 campaign -- puts the problem his party faces more bluntly: "We're losing the Web right now."

But implicit in his cheerleading was the acknowledgment that there is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet, and that his party will have to scramble to catch up. "For the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000," he said in an interview.

Sweet. Mother. of. God. (can a Jewess even say that and not get struck by lightning? Apparently so…)

THEY. JUST. DON’T. GET. IT.

The way they do things – top down – is simply antithetical to the way the blogosphere works – bottom up – if you can afford an internet connection, you can be a player…And that just blows their minds. It's a true meritocracy. It doesn't matter who your momma *ahem* kept company with (so Jonah Goldberg loses his advantage) and it doesn't matter who your daddy was (so Bill Kristol is just a babbling idiot with a gap-toothed grin) – No, in Blogsylvania, if you have firing neurons, you have equal footing.

And they can't stand it.

The reich-wing is suckin’ hind tit on every front.

My tech-savvy ass – which saw a digital age of pseudo anarchy coming 30 years ago – is laughing heartily – and blogging daily.

…it takes a certain level of technical skill and understanding to be an online strategist, and Republicans admit that "the pool of talent in the Democrats' side is much bigger than ours."

But an underlying cause may be the nature of the Republican Party and its traditional discipline -- the antithesis of the often chaotic, bottom-up, user-generated atmosphere of the Internet.

"We've always been a party of staying on message," All said. "It's the Rush Limbaugh model. What Tony Snow says in the White House filters down to talk radio, which makes its way to the blogs."

“What Tony Snow says in the White House filters down to talk radio, which makes its way to the blogs."

And therein lies the rub…

Have you read this site ? –(Or any other liberal blog, for that fact.)– Can you imagine any of the bloggers here (or any other liberal bloggers, for that fact) taking marching orders from any damned body?

Seriously! Not gonna happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

I beg of all you ‘wingers – cling to that model that has served you adequately – after all, it is the nature of the conservative, their essential Modus Operandi, to look backward for answers to current problems, rather than forward.

And so long as they embrace the past and cling to models of irrelevancy…

We… Win…

And we will continue to win – and as long as you embrace the past, you will continue to lose.

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How much longer do we have to abide this joker?

Of course we know why AGAG is still on the job...Anyone Bush found acceptable would not get past the confirmation process, and anyone the Democratically controlled congress would confirm...would burn the Bush maladministration to the ground.

It sure looks to me like the Attorney General of the United States should face perjury charges for lying to the House Judiciary Committee last week when he told the committee that the firing of U.S. Attorneys for political purposes was limited to the eight attorneys in the original inquiry.

The Washington Post reports this morning that he was lyin’ like a rug when he told that (tall) tale. It turns out that fully 25% of the U.S Attorneys were considered for dismissal.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June, and other administration officials have said that only a few others were suggested for removal.

In fact, D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues, the sources said.

They amounted to more than a quarter of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys. Thirteen of those known to have been targeted are still in their posts.

I can’t see Representative Conyers having much of a sense of humor about it all. Senator Schumer does not appear to be mollified. "When you start firing people for invalid reasons, just about anyone can end up on a list," he said. "It looks like the process was out of control, and if it hadn't been discovered, more would have been fired."

At least one of the targeted attorneys is not going to be placated by platitudes. Christopher J. Christie, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and a major GOP fundraiser, is steamed about his name appearing on Mr. Sampson’s hit list.

He has a stellar record and is not accepting apologies. "I was completely shocked. No one had ever told me that my performance had been anything but good," Christie said. "I specifically asked him why he put my name on the list. He said he couldn't give me an explanation." (Because there was no legal one to offer, perhaps?)

Have we seen enough of this guy yet? Good lord – just this week we have learned about more than enough stuff to meet the burden of proof to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General.

The removal of Gonzales from his post is mandatory if we are to restore the concept of justice to Justice.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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So much for 'stare decisis'

STARE DECISIS - Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principal that the precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts; To abide or adhere to decided cases. It is a general maxim that when a point has been settled by decision, it forms a precedent which is not afterwards to be departed from.

If you Google Stare Decisis + Alito confirmation, you get over 30,000 hits. I recall him using that phrase exactly when he was facing the Senate and confirmation to the court.

I bet Senator Durbin does too:

SEN. DURBIN: Most of us are troubled by this 1985 memo. You said yesterday, you would have an open mind when it came to this issue. I'm sorry to report that your memo seeking a job in the Reagan administration does not evidence an open mind. It evidences a mind that sadly is closed in some areas. And yet, when we have tried to press you on this critical statement that you made in that application, a statement which was made by you that said the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, you've been unwilling to distance yourself and to say that you disagree with that.

ALITO: The things that I said in the 1985 memo were a true expression of my views at the time from my vantage point as an attorney in the Solicitor General's office. But that was 20 years ago and a great deal has happened in the case law since then. Thornburg was decided and Webster and then Casey and a number of other decisions. So the stare decisis analysis would have to take account of that entire line of case law.

I knew that little weasel wasn’t trustworthy. I knew it. And today, he proved me right.

I am confident that one of the attorneys who post here will address today’s Supreme Court decision after they read the opinions in much more detail and context than I can, but that doesn’t make me any less pissed off right now.

My anger comes from being female, and a health care professional. I know that Intact Dilation and Extraction is a medical procedure that is never undertaken lightly, and is indeed quite rare. When it is exercised, it is a last resort option. It is never an afterthought form of birth control. It is only exercised in the event of danger to the life and health of the mother or in the case of a doomed fetus.

Many years ago, I used to work in a high-risk obstetrics and fertility practice. Our goal was always a live birth and a healthy outcome. But in that practice, we didn’t always get what we wanted. Sometimes parents were faced with heart-wrenching decisions. The kind of decision where you have to decide which option is less bad, because none of them are good. Horrible decisions that no one should ever have to make.

Today, some of those couples just got dealt a sucker-punch.

Now, there will be women forced to carry doomed fetuses to term. To remain pregnant knowing that they are not bringing home a healthy baby at the end of it all. And worse still, there are the physical dangers to the mother.

I could write a thesis in laboratory medicine about what can go wrong at the end of a failed pregnancy. But instead I am going to tell you about one disorder, DIC, or Disseminated intravascular coagulation. It is a terribly nasty disorder, and quite often fatal. Fortunately it is quite rare.

The leading cause of the disorder in reproductive-age females is intrauterine fetal demise.

On Mother’s Day of last year, a woman came in to the labor and delivery unit of the hospital where I was working at the time, and delivered a stillborn infant. Two days later, she was critical, suffering from DIC. Frankly, I don’t know if she made it or not. She was still alive when I finished my last shift that week, and she was gone when I returned. But I never looked in the computer to check the details of her demise. I didn’t want to know if she left horizontal.

I don’t care if it is only five additional women a year who end up contracting DIC, and I don’t care if all five recover…The fact remains that they should have the right to control their own bodies and make the decisions that are best for them and their families.

This SCOTUS decision smacks of misogyny and willful ignorance. And it is condescending as hell. Families faced with the tragedies that lead to the decision to opt for the procedure are not making flip, split-second, devil-may-care decisions. They do not deserve to have a heartbreaking decision that could save the womans life denied them.

And we won't even get into compromise of future fertility. That was quite a position for the "pro-family" conservatives to take...

I hope this issue is revisited soon and this bad decision is overturned in short order.

If it is not, ladies and Gentlemen, meet President Hillary Clinton.

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Betting the Farm on Executive Privilege

Talk about stones! On Tuesday, while the nation absorbed the shock of what happened in Virginia, the White House used the political cover the tragedy provided to assert (as they had indicated they would) that Executive Privilege extends to the Republican National Committee computer system.

Yep. You read that right . (Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had tried to assert such a thing? There would have been great wailing and howling and gnashing of teeth. A racket would have set up from the Republicans that would have drowned out a Spinal Tap show - and their amps go to 11.)

From the Washington Post:

The RNC deferred yesterday to White House requests that all documents from administration officials who used RNC e-mail accounts first be reviewed by Bush's lawyers. Congress has requested several years' worth of e-mails from top White House advisers, including Karl Rove, as part of its investigation of the prosecutor firings. In letters to the House and Senate Judiciary committees, an RNC lawyer said those documents belong to the White House.

"Recognizing the unique and significant nature of the potential privilege issue raised by the committee's requests, the RNC has agreed to the White House's reasonable request," Robert K. Kelner, an RNC lawyer, wrote to Conyers. Conyers responded that the action was "a clear attempt on the administration's part to delay this process."

House and Senate investigators have focused on e-mails by J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy political director, who used RNC e-mail accounts to discuss Rove's interest in appointing a former deputy as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

A leading House Democrat said last week that he had been told that as many as four years' worth of Rove's RNC e-mails may be missing. The e-mails are also sought in a congressional investigation of the alleged politicization of the General Services Administration.

The overreaching of the imperial presidency is stunning in scope. It's as if it truly knows no bounds. This stubborn digging in, in the face of overwhelming public disapproval, seems to me like a hail-Mary pass into heavy coverage. There is no precedent and no reason to believe that any court would uphold this imaginary divine right of the worst president ever.

It is a desperate ploy, and it is certain to fail. I honestly believe that they know they have cashed in all their chits and probably bounced a few checks too boot - the political capital account is overdrawn. All they have left is monkeywrenching...An activity that both Conyers and Leahy long since grow tired of.


[Cross posted to Blue Girl, Red State]

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Let’s Crucify a Lie and Resurrect the Truth

The truth has taken a beating lately. It’s cowering in the corner, bleeding and in need of intensive intervention. Fortunately, the McClatchy Washington Bureau is there.

The Pinnochio President has become increasingly shrill in recent weeks, as he crisscrosses the country, desperately flogging fear in an attempt to get us recalcitrant children back in line and supporting his grand adventure in Mesopotamia.

His favorite meme is still the absurd insistence that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will just follow us here. He is still insisting that we gotta fight ‘em there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here, despite all evidence that he is 180º off. – in other words he is the exact opposite of correct – or to put it bluntly – flat flippin' wrong.

Anyone with more than three firing neurons working in concert knows that he is full of s***.

Military and diplomatic analysts say the president is lying when he makes that absurd insistence. They accuse Bush of grossly exaggerating a non-existent threat when he insists that enemy forces in Iraq pose a danger to the U.S. mainland.

“The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature,” said James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization. “It’s a poor choice of words that doesn’t convey the essence of the problem - that walking away from a problem doesn’t solve anything.”

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.

Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they're believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.

Daniel Benjamin, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, agreed.

“There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don’t have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States,” said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council’s director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. “I’m not saying events in Iraq aren’t going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president’s formulations call for a leap of faith.”

"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials. "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."

There is no guarantee that America will not be attacked again. There will never be any guarantee that America will not be attacked again. It is imperative that we get our heads around that, and stop setting our hair alight every time we see a brown person. (Hint: If you are getting on a plane, the "threat" isn't the bearded man in traditional dress who faces Mecca and prays before boarding. It is the clean-shaven guy in the leather jacket trying his damnedest to pass himself off as a Greek.)

The danger isn’t in waves of terrorists landing on American shores if we pull out of Iraq. While it is true that violence will most likely relocate, it will do so regionally. Some will go home, some will go to Afghanistan, and others will relocate to Europe, where there are established communities of Muslims to blend into. The United States is a distant fourth

[An aside: We have really screwed our European allies here. They already had problems in this regard, and now they are much worse; and heading south towards all-hell-breaking-loose on an express train, and the United States paid for the ticket.]

America will have fallout to deal with, but it will be economic and social. “The danger is not that they’ll follow us home,” Carafano said. “The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists.”

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“I’m not an environmental scientist, but I play one in the Bush administration…”

Good lord. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Bush administration hack that it seems was only put in their position solely to destroy their department from the inside.

An Inspector General’s report released yesterday found serious conflicts of interest and manipulation of science by a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The IG found evidence that she repeatedly pressured senior scientists and changed reports to make them industry-friendly.

In an especially blatant instance of conflicting interests;

…according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a "nesting range" of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a "running battle" with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there. (emphasis added).

The insidiousness of these political hacks will not be palliated when the end of an error comes to a close and the Bushies leave Washington forever. These partisan flaks are pushing out the people who are dedicated not to politics but to their jobs. The ones who have served faithfully no matter who was in charge are leaving in disgust, and you just know they are not being replaced by dedicated public servants. They are being replaced with partisan flaks that will be weak links in the civil service system for years to come. It will be decades before we are rid of these worthless patronage whores.

Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work,

and then get elected and prove it. –P.J. O’Rourke

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Reining in a Rogue Elephant

To my (admittedly wonkish) way of thinking, the most exciting RSS feed these days is the one coming from Representative Waxman’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Representative Waxman and the Oversight Committee today (Monday, March 26, 2007) informed both the Republican National Committee and the Chairman of the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign that they are not to destroy any email records they may be in possession of, in light of the evidence that certain high-ranking public officials (*cough* Karl Rove *cough*) have used non-official email servers to conduct the business of the government and avoid scrutiny and transparency in government affairs, and have most likely acted in ways that violate the Presidential Records Act.

One thing is for certain – the mendacity and hubris of this administration is staggering. If their actions were not so consequential for the rest of us, it would almost be funny – but as that is not the case, they are simply appalling on an epic scale.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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