Tuesday night some Tuesday night.
Shithead and Dickwad had been safe away up there in the ratty pad soaking up reruns of Useless and Uselessness, playing with guns and fronting like a couple of prepube bitches when Shithead said, “Let’s go let go,” and Dickwad said, “You bet.”
It was bad, bad snowing upside head one and head two, and had been for long about – who really knows after a while – three days, four days, five weeks and a balloon or twelve, and there was no clear path through the fog that blackly starlit, fullmoon night. They had a nice ride though, not too cranky and not too much of too much of anything, and it purred and bumped along the ruts of Oldtown’s subs. Plenty of right now tunage on the radio, which was also purring and bumping, come to match the mood of these nice but misguided boys, and it also overflowed with plenty of really good advice, that radio.
So up one gratuitously named street and down another gratuitously named street – nothing but apartments and condos and ratholes behind cast-iron pickets for miles, here in the very, the exact, center of suburban nothing – until they came to the house of the latest flame (that would likely be Marie) and POP, POP, POP, POP (pause) POP, POP, POP. Bitch think twice next time.
For the the neighbors the next hour was mainly about choppers and gossip, but for Shithead and Dickwad it was a’home to the main crib, there to watch the rest of the marathon evening of TOO MUCH RERUNS OF USELESS AND USELESSNESS, and the odd nervous giggle (did that really happen? S’up, f’sho?) and many more pipes of white witch and plenty of Olde English and finally (crash+burn=dreamless, non-REM sleep).
Next day, the same question: Dunno, Dickwad; what do you want to do?
From TOMM
Bumperstickes seen in San Fran, Chicago, Boston, NYC and yes, DC! Click on image to enlarge. Print them out. Stick em on your rear window or cubicle. Free is good.
the-oc-ra-cy 1: government by officials regarded as divinely inspired. The White House can talk about “liberty, freedom and democracy”forever, but the truth is America has unleashed the second (Iran is the other) batshit-crazy-fundalmentalist-fungi country of our times.
In the Worst-Ever category: nine presidents never went to college…including Andrew Johnson who couldn’t read until he was fourteen and didn’t learn to write until after he was married!
After several of Boy George’s college classmates swore they were paid to take his exams, the royal Bush family forced Dubya to marry a librarian. But the question remains: Has W ever read any book cover-to-cover?
From Tomm
One of my favorite bloggers died early Saturday morning after a longillness. Steve Gilliard was only 41, but he had a huge impact, however unnoticed by the world at large. The news is posted Gilliard’s regular site which was kept going during his hospitalization by his friend Jen and others. Mourning and such seems to be getting carried out by Jane Hamsher and in the comments following her remarks. Those include the following.
Tomm says June 3rd, 2007 at 12:42 am
This is sad news, and creates a terrible void in our lives, in the
blogosphere, and indeed, in the national discourse.
Steve was endlessly quotable because his powerful prose not only pulled no punches, it was pithy. Here are some extended excerpts from his long-ago take on New Orleans. Prescient, fearless, this piece is not only still as relevant as the day it was written, it showcases his military history interests as well, and makes clear that it was not his knowing the information that made him indispensable, it was his knowing what to do with it, knowing how to bring it to bear to illuminate a topic in useful and often unexpected ways.
Other fine postings from Steve News Blog.
Way back on September 16, 2005, Steve wrote:
Watching Bush’s speech tonight, I realized that there is no chance he will recover his presidency.
His speech was a list of gifts, but lacked an element of responsibility, contrition. The true art of leadership is sacrifice.
I tell you - as officers, that you will neither eat, nor drink, nor smoke, nor sit down, nor lean against a tree until you
have personally seen that your men have first had a chance to do
these things. If you will do this for them, they will follow you to the ends of the earth. And if you do not, I will bust you in front of
your regiments. —William J. Slim
Bush doesn’t get that. Never did, never will. Leadership, at it’s core, is sacrifice. It is placing the needs of others above yours. Slim knew about leadership, because unlike most of his peers in the British Army, he had been an enlisted man, His memoir, Defeat into Victory, still sells well, because of what it says about leadership.
What Slim is saying is simple: Leadership is sacrifice for the sakeof those you lead. George Bush stayed on vacation while people died.
America is in the process of shaming George Bush.
No matter what he said tonight, and he made many promises, then placed
Karl Rove in charge of it. Bush still doesn’t get it. The conservative dream ended on August 30, 2005, just like Isolationism ended on December 7, 1941. We are all Kenysians now. This isn’t about politics. New Orleans isn’t about making Bush look good, the port has to work, the nation’s economy depends on it. All their plans. tax cuts, estate tax, all gone. In the end, Iraq will end as well. You cannot spend a billion a day while Americans live in stadiums and not be noticed. We cannot afford this. But Bush wants to pretend he can.
Watching the brutal Nightline aftershow with Jerry Hauer and Richard
Clarke, Bush will not get cut slack. That magic has ended. Bush has had a bad year, from Social Security to Terri Schiavo to New Orleans, Bush has lurched from mistake and misjudgment about how the nation saw him. Now, the cold reality of day is that Bush cannot lead. He can talk like a leader, he can look like a leader, but he cannot lead. Because he has no idea of what sacrifice is.
Steve’s streamlined prose is so rough and powerful that you could easily
miss that it’s the directness of his insight penetrating to the heart of
an issue that provides its real force. Understatement was not his forte,
but while his victims may have thought the sharp dagger of his thought was
a bludgeon, in actuality it was so finely honed that it slipped deeper
than expected. He was a surgeon passing for a boxer, wielding a kind of
Philip Pullman “subtle knife,” a word blade that slashed open new
realities at the flick of his fingers.
It frequently shocked me that he couldn’t spell for sour apples because
that didn’t match the quality of his thought or the force of his
expression, and of course it was those attributes that brought him such a
wide readership, such respect that one might even call it love. And it
wasn’t hard to see that his ferocity was matched by a heart of mush and
motivated by a low tolerance for stupidity, which made him really, really
angry.
He saw clearly, wrote clearly, but could certainly be wrong about things
sometimes, most sadly when he claimed that Beloved Leader would not be
re-elected, or when he predicted that Donald Rumsfeld would keep his job
as Secretary of Defense. As the tide of bamboozlement rises, his keen
grasp of fundamentals is needed more each day, and his occasional
overestimating of voters or underestimating White House chicanery and
duplicity didn’t make him wrong in general:
Bush will not leave Iraq, not because he thinks we can win, or he thinks
it’s part of the war on terror. But because he cannot face another
failure. Which is why Scowcroft and Baker have had no influence on him.
They are his father’s men, veterans, despite their politics, realists.
Bush is not and never has been. When he wasn’t hiding from his failure
with booze and coke, he hid from it with Jesus. Now he has Henry
Kissinger whispering in his ear, telling him what he wants to hear. He
doesn’t want advice, he wants support and only support. Those who do not
support him, are diminished, then banished.
This is a man who has never honestly looked himself in the face and said
I have failed. He has always been protected from failure.
Which is why Rumsfeld keeps his job. To admit he was incompetent, and
some days he seems positively addled, would reflect poorly on Bush.
Immediately prior to the last election, he wrote
Bush will not last 2007 if he has to make compromise after compromise.
He’s a bully, and when the rain of shit comes from Congress, creating a
constitutional crisis, he’ll get sick or fall off the wagon in public.
Which is exactly what some of the supermarket tabs have been insisting.
And shocking private breakdowns are starting to be reported as well,
though the national press seems to think it is irresponsible to spread the
word on stories like the Dallas Morning News http://tinyurl.com/ytotb4
report on Bush that:
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly
wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated
“I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so
his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”
And in response to various pre-vote GOParty-line spinners saying they
think the numbers will go poorly for them, he says:
Remember, these are comments for attribution. And this is not the kind of
thing to fire people up to vote Republican. It is, however, encouraging
to Dems. And when you start saying you’re gonna lose big numbers, what
aren’t you saying?
And immediately following the election, he opined:
Crucial to any analysis of yesterday’s results must be the fact that they
started a war based on bullshit, and then they quite literally made a
bloody mess of it.
Naturally, he was all over the Valerie Plame story, and from the beginning
he understood what even a number of liberal/left bloggers apparently did
not.
The problem here is that Valerie Plame was the rarest of the rare, a
non-official cover agent of the CIA. No one knows how many there are, but
the guess is that they would not fill too many tables at a dinner.
Training one is more expensive than training a fighter pilot or Delta
Force trooper. Revealing her name to anyone without a security clearance
was a crime. Even while employed at CIA headquarters, people had no idea
she was a NOC. Apologists like Bob Somersby and Richard Cohen just don’t
get it. This was a crime and one with serious consequences.
No need to belabor the point, but I’ll put it this way: one of Special
Operation Command’s mission is to pull agents from dangerous situations.
Pulling a NOC is the most dangerous of all. No one knows how many
missions had to be run to clean up the mess created by this bit of
spitework.
But why would they do it, then cover it up. Surely they understood what
had happened?
No, they didn’t. They tried to write off Joe Wilson’s anger as politics.
It wasn’t. His wife’s career was ruined, her friends in various countries
had their lives in danger. Their callousness may have killed people, all
to show him up. Wilson, who had faced down Saddam as the last US diplomat
in Iraq, was not someone who could be intimidated by Beltway bullies.
Here is why so many people wanted to miss this: the rot of corruption.
Once corruption enters the process, people assume everyone is corrupt.
That everyone is as craven and venal as they are. That they work from the
same motives. They never got that Wilson and his wife were real patriots,
people who had risked their lives for the US and what it stood for. That
they were deeply offended by this crap.
Or, again:
We all make jokes about jail and Fitzmas Day, but this isn’t funny. We
may not have voted for Bush, we may not like him, but our collective
security depends on his effectiveness and the effectiveness of his staff.
But from 9/11 to Katrina, we have been failed. Failed to the point that
this nation’s security may have been crippled in any number of ways.
Brave, resourceful CIA officers we ask to do our dirty work in parts of
the world we would never want to be in, may have died over this.
In October of 2005, when it looked as if there would be indictments in the
case, back before it was known that Scooter’s coverup, as coordinated by
the Vice President of the United States of America in secret sessions in
the White House, was known to have succeeded, Steve, like many of us, was
getting ready for a major smackdown. While it turned out he was wrong
about the indictments, his analysis is worth considering for its summation
of a particular moment in the process:
Folks, true or not, people are scared shitless. Rumors like that appear
when people have the scent of fear in the air.
People may still be wrong, Fitzgerald may still just issue a report, but
my feeling is that Judy Miller wasn’t just clocking time. She was in jail
for a reason and Fitzgerald was going to let her cool her heels until she
realized that her bosses could do dick to help her. People were icy to
her arguments and Arianna Huffington basically build the Huffington Post
on her back. Hell, Maureen Dowd didn’t say a word in her defense. Not
one, not on Bill Maher, not on Timmah, nowhere. Hell, even her husband
went to Spain while she was with the tats and cornrows set.
Judy was starting to figure out her ass was alone. Really alone. So she
talked and Fitzgerald is moving full steam ahead.
I think that Bush picked Miers not out of some Machiavellian plan to keep
him and his out of jail, he could give a shit about Rove, or anyone else
actually, but because when he gets jammed up, he needs to pick people he
can trust. And Bush may well be jammed up. So, like a king at the end of
his reign, he gives his most loyal retainer a prized appointment.
My feeling about Bush is that the people who serve him are just that,
servants. Rove and Cheney are not his social peers and if they went down,
well, the ground is a hard place to land. One thing about the Bush family
is their snobbery. They think they’re the Republican Kennedys but they
are anything but. They’re just another bunch of jacked-up rich folks.
A lot of people are going to be surprised when Rove and friends are
indicted and Bush turns his back on them like hookers in the morning.
I’m getting ready for my happy dance.
And, as a sidebar, on stubborn NYTimes report Judy Miller he wrote:
I think she had enough of the cornrows and tats set to make a point.
Fitzgerald was tougher than her in the end and jail sucked, especially
when you’re 30 years older and far better educated than your cellmates.
Machisma has its limits.
In January, Keith Olbermann, this generation’s Tom Paine, perhaps even a
reincarnation of the original and surely as outspoken, delivered a
stinging rebuke to the Bush plan to call for increased troop levels in the
name of “sacrifice,” beginning with these words:
If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an serviceman or
woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had
already sacrificed 3,003 of them? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003
of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds,
maybe thousands, more?
And then the foul-tongued blogger snarled:
Oh fuck no he wasn’t angry enough for me, and he was so angry, even my
mother noticed it.
But George Bush is in no position to ask for sacrifice from ANYONE.
He told people to go shopping after 9/11. Now he wants sacrifice? From
whom? The survivors of Iraq? The Iraqi people?
We’re all fucking sacrificed out. Teenagers look like horror show freaks
because an IED burned them up. What more can they give?
His daughters whore around Argentina and he thinks no one notices? He
wants some poor kid from Wal Mart to do another tour?
I think we have sacrificed quiet enough for Bush’s Colonial War. Send
his fucking daughters and the rest of the Bush brood for his attempt to
save his ego.
Sacrifice?
Hmmm, let’s start with the Iraqi mother who’s son was snatched up from a
hospital and killed for being the wrong religion. I think she’s
sacrificed a great deal for this war.
Or we can walk around Walter Reed’s neurology ward, where they’re
building plastic skulls for the wounded.
Maybe we can ask a nurse on the flight from Balad to Rhein Main about
sacrifice.
Maybe we can ask the survivors of Haditha about sacrifice.
And since no one talks to them, why not ask some grunts about sacrifice.
I mean, they’re the ones watching their friends die. Iraqi, American, I
think both have sacrificed enough for Bush’s war.
I think of the Shia women crying on caskets as their children are given
a quick burial. Or the mothers who get the phone call, which reads US
Government, and the next thing she knows, she’s flying to Germany to see
what’s left of her child.
Iraq has created a great deal of sacrifice, for many people.
Except one group:
Bush and his friends. He should take those fat, cheetos eating fucks at
the think tanks and ship their asses overseas. Let Cliff May run a
convoy and have Max Boot drive. Let Goldberg man the .50.
Let those useless motherfuckers sacrifice more than their filthy fucking
mouths. Let them do what they ask of others and then denigrate.
Bush must be in a Potemkin Village to think he can ask for sacrifice.
Bush must be in a Potemkin Village to think he can ask for sacrifice.
Sacrifice? Him and metal heart Cheney did everything but ask for
sacrifice. He has no standing to ask for sacrifice. He pissed that away
with his tax cuts.
What a sad little man we have running this country. Sacrifice. What the
fuck does George Bush know about sacrifice? He’s never sacrificed a
fucking thing in his miserable life.
If you think that’s tough talk, you should check out the uproar (esp among
righty concern trolls) when he called “Nigger” and “Uncle Tom” at a
certain Republican patsy running for Congress (who predictably went down
to well-deserved defeat). Amongst his soccer-fan postings, his discussions
of food, cooking, and recipes, his blogging fund-raisers, and frequent
shrill cries of “Fuck the Yankees,” he turned fearlessly to many topics of
the day to offer valuable insights. He once posted a huffingtonpost
article on Brokeback Mountain that dismissed Hollywood’s alleged gay
agenda as so much piffle and used the occasion to point out:
The fact is that Hollywood was frightened to death of making any
statement against Hitler before WWII, because they were all Jews and were
afraid they would be turned on.
So they remained silent until Charlie Chaplin made the Great Dictator.
Made outside the studio system. Even a movie like the 39 Steps never
mentioned Nazis, even though it was a spy drama.
It wasn’t until after the war that Hollywood attacked anti-semitism, and
the movie, Gentlemen’s Agreement was based on a book about…
homosexuality.
Hollywood is among the least gay friendly industries in America, at least
publicly.
Let me put it this way: TV is far more comfortable with gays and gay
themed subjects, from soaps to cable to prime time TV than mainstream
movies. Even then, sex between gays is relegated to cable TV. Ever see
Will, on Will and Grace wake up with a man and have breakfast?
Thought so.
His scorn for the current crop of braying idiots in the current
presidential race is as easy to imagine as his contempt for Joe Biden and
Dennis Kucinich playing the race card over almost everyone dropping out of
the Faux presidential debate sponsored by the Black Caucus, or what he
would have to say about “America’s Mayor” and his mobbed-up bedmate Bernie
Kerik. Consider how he talked about Hillary back when Big Media was only
just beginning to anoint her as frontrunner:
Let’s see.
Only 72 percent of Americans will vote for a woman.
Hilary Clinton is the most detested politician outside of the Bush
Administration.
So detested, her name is a punchline in most of America
She can’t campaign for Dems outside the Far West and Northeast.
She has zero legislative accomplishments.
She supported the Iraq war
She has no national security experience
She has no defining political philosophy.
I think the Clinton campaign is a house of cards. When she is
pressed hard and expected to actually take controversal stands,
she is going to falter. She is a cautious politician, who despite
all of her experiences, does not gauge the antipathy she faces on
the left and the middle.
There isn’t a chance in hell I would support Clinton, or to be
honest, Obama, in a primary at this point. Neither has done more
than talk and that will not cut it when we have to salvage our
reputation and foreign policy.
Of course all these extracts depend in part on when they were originally
published, and I have saved them over the last few years without those
dates and without preserving the original links, which are thus left as an
exercise for the reader. So it goes.
But plucked from longer essays like the ones quoted above which readily
bear excerpting on their own, and entirely out of context, without links
or even dates, these apothegms bear remembrance. Many have been used as
tag lines (.sig files) for my own e-mails, and perhaps others will find
them useful for that purpose as well. Apart from being a tribute to
“beloved blogger” Steve Gilliard (1966-2007), his plain truths— and I
call particular attention to the last item— are worth remembering and
repeating.
But what isn’t said is this: they have lost confidence in Bush as well.
Rummy is just the acceptable whipping boy.
Isn’t it time to stop pandering to people who are losing and unpopular?
Bush is scaring people who don’t scare easily. Like Jim Baker.
It isn’t just another business deal if the harbor blows up, is it?
My attitude here is simple: I respect Muslims and their concerns because
I want them to respect mine, enough so that they reject terrorism and
inform on those that do embrace it. We cannot say reject terrorism and
then mock what they see as holy. It’s as if we’re doing Osama’s work for
him, and I don’t want any part of that.
The thing about blogging that has been reenforced over the year is the
futility of appeasing the right. They’re gonna come after you anyway, no
matter what you say or do, so standing up to them is the rule of the day.
Those people only mean me ill. Pretending that there is a common ground
is futile.
Bush came in shady and will go out ugly and it won’t be in January, 2009
unless he’s luckier than he’s ever been in his life. Bush has never
finished anything he started. He either walked away, got bailed out or
just stop showing up. Why should this be any different
He is protected from the truth because he cannot deal with it.
The problems the White House has is more than anything but honesty can
fix. Until they admit mistakes and then fire people and fix them, they’re
done.
What Americans understand is that we’re not going to win.
We want to hear from Bush how we’re going to leave.
The idea that a few thousand more troops will matter is insane.
Opposing the war is not a “left” position.
It is an American position.
Laws based in ignorance often end in disaster.
We are all guilty and will be until it ends
TOMM
From Democratic Underground on a tip for ClickClackGonzales feeding tube removed, GOP urges quick intervention
Following his disastrous appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alberto Gonzales’ wife, Rebecca Turner Gonzales, has decided to remove the feeding tube that has been keeping the Attorney General alive for the past ten years. “We have always held out hope that Alberto will someday achieve normal brain function,” said Mrs. Gonzales in a written statement. “
Congressional Republicans responded quickly to this news, introducing “Alberto’s Law”, which would prohibit the removal of any life support device even in cases of gross incompetence and extreme toadying.
Speaking from his home in Tennessee, physician and former GOP Senator Bill Frist offered his own diagnosis. “I have reviewed the video footage of Thursday’s hearing,” said Frist, “and in my medical opinion it is clear that Alberto does exhibit some limited mental activity. With the right treatment, it’s possible that, someday, he may even be able to understand and respond to questions.”
Republicans contend that, while clearly dumb as a post, Alberto Gonzales has shown the ability to smile and respond to visual stimuli.
While Democrats maintained that this is a private matter for the Gonzales family, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman(I) immediately declared his support for the legislation and called on news outlets to dramatically increase their coverage of his statements on the issue.
For its part, the White House continues its unqualified support for Gonzales. “The president has no plans to ask for his resignation, ” said White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino. “We remain confident that death will in no way reduce Judge Gonzales’ effectiveness as Attorney General.”
From Tomm
I love this story!A man walked into the produce section of his local supermarket and asked
to buy half a head of lettuce. The boy working in that department told him
that they only sold whole heads of lettuce. The man was insistent that the
boy ask his manager about the matter.
Walking into the back room, the boy said to his manager, “Some asshole
wants to buy a half a head of lettuce.” As he finished his sentence, he
turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, “and this
gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half.”
The manager approved the deal and the man went on his way. Later the
manager found the boy and said, “I was impressed with the way you got
yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their
feet here. Where are you from , son?” “Canada, sir,” the boy replied.
“Well, why did you leave Canada,” the manager asked. The boy said, “Sir,
there’s nothing but whores and hockey players up there.”
“Really!” said the manager. “My wife is from Canada!”
The boy replied, “No kidding??? Who did she play for?”
From TOMM
The 485,460-Calorie Messiah
Just in Time for Holy Week - Cosimo Cavallaro’s Chocolate Jesus.Look at the picture. Seems perfectly unexceptional to me and the artist is presumably a Catholic. Guess Donohue and his fellow raving loony bigots at the Catholic League think this is the first Chocolate Jesus. They’re wrong. Link to images
Maybe it’s the dark skin? Maybe it’s the nudity, though I betcha this is not the first nude crucifixion scene ever piously portrayed. Anyway, they whipped up enough hysteria that the display had to be canceled because of traditional “Christian” death threats in the name of the Prince of Peace.
Isn’t all the hatemongering in the name of religion getting a little old? Link to article
In a related story:
Link to Obama as Jesus article
Release Your Inner Zombie
3/30: Recently went to boingboing for the first time in far too long and
discovered several current items of possible interest. Just the URL’s and
teaser info here, but the actual items include all manner of links and
intel.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/19/david_gill_reviews_p.html
David Gill reviews Philip K. Dick’s new old novel
Gill, an emerging Philip K. Dick scholar, wrote this review of
“Voices From The Street,” the author’s last unpublished novel:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/18/lovecrafts_70th_deat.html
March 15th, 2007 marked the 70th year since HP Lovecraft’s death.
Lovecraft’s 70th death-a-versary, Cthulhu adoration everywhere
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/03/24/buddha_machine_spiri.html
Buddha Machine: spiritual, generative transistor radio
The Buddha Machine from Chinese manufacturer FM3 looks like a cheap
transistor radio. Turn the single dial, and it starts making crazy-ass,
generative ambient music. Press the single button and a different kind of
crazy-ass music emanates from the single small speaker. That’s it — one
button, one dial, one speaker. There’s also an LED to let you know it’s
on.
==
“All nine Buddha Machine loops in uncompressed .WAV format are available
for download.” Free, natch.
What with one thing and another, I was then drawn to some online videos by
my favorite futurist….
Cory Doctorow writes:
SF writer and design prof Bruce Sterling has produced a wonderful
8-minute short film about the future of cities, in which he wanders around
Belgrade, the city he’s made his home, and talks about the way that his
city is interacting with the present, past and future. This is fascinating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7os_UPGl-Q
http://thomasfortenberry.net/?p=678
As my close friends and frequent readers know, I am a lover of the future.
I am especially taken with cities, as they represent our past and current
homes, plus our habitable human potential. I have studied them for
decades, drawn, designed, and created them since childhood. I like to
ponder endlessly the whatifs of the smallest to largest cities.
Imagine my Boinboinging joy when I found Bruce Sterling’s urban futurity
video.
…and he provides a link but I don’t have time to find it now.
So, Bruce lives in Belgrade, huh? News to me….
—
None of this is about Alberto Gonzales. This is about the president and
the White House, which is where this entire plan was hatched. Gonzales was
just following orders, executing the president’s plans. This is about this
president and this White House, which … let’s be honest, everyone on
both sides of the aisle already knows. — Josh Marshall
3/21: This week Olbermann pointed out that the Tyrant’s performance looked and
sounded a lot like Nixon, whose claim of executive privilege was shot down by the Supremes. Over at Talking Points Memo, which has been praised by both Time and the LATimes for its valiant and groundbreaking work on the attorney story, a search through the recent document dump has yieleded a lot of pay dirt. This morning, site coordinator Josh Marshall reports: I think a commenter in our document dump research thread may have been the first to notice that the emails released by the Justice Department seem to have a gap between November 15th and December 4th of last year.
The firing calls went out on December 7th. But the original plan was to start placing the calls on November 15th.…So those eighteen days are pretty key ones…Hohoho.
Earlier, watching the embattled loser’s performance, Marshall said:
Cable news talking heads are marveling at the his aggressiveness and
seeming willingness to fight. But this is vintage Bush. The president has
always pushed bluff and bluster and pretensions of holding a strong hand
precisely when he’s at his weakest.
And that is also always when he is most engaged and dangerous. The man has
no interest in wonkery but is a demon of low and vicious cunning when it
comes to political infighting. That said, he’ll throw Abu Gone-zales
(nickname “Fredo”) under the bus a lot sooner than abandon Rove (aka
Turdblossom).
Democratic Leader Harry Reid in the news:
“After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the
U.S. Attorneys, the Bush Administration is not entitled to the
benefit of the doubt,” Reid said. “Congress and the American people
deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth,
he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness.”
The divine Atrios, blogger indispensable:
“The only reason to refuse to be under oath or even have a transcript is
because you plan to lie and you want to do it with impunity.”
The “unitary executive” gang has long said impeachment is Congress’s
primary check on the executive. Time to call their bluff.
Bush has declared another war of choice and so now he’s got one. I boldly
predict it will be as big a success for him as his unnecessary war in
Iraq. There, he’s bringing down the whole Middle East. This time, he may
be bringing down not just his presidency but his party and, perhaps,
what’s left of the republic we inherited. But remember, this is the gang
that recoils vampire-like from the light of day. The gang whose very own
John Bolton said last night that was serving the interests of those who
voted for them, not the American people as a whole. The gang who were so
crazed with power and messianic delusions that they believed Iraq would be
a cakewalk.
Despite what they think, condoms do protect against HIV/AIDS, the Grand
Canyon was not created in six days, the earth has just had the warmest
winter on record, and hurricane Katrina just struck six miles away at
Walter Reed Hospital. Now the patsies in Bush’s own party are waking up to
find themselves as powerless— in his eyes— as an unregistered US
prisoner being tortured by his personal executive order at an undisclosed
location.
The wheels are off the bus and the chickens are roosting at last. We are
about to find out whether we have a democracy any longer and a
representative government or a one-man, one-party world dictatorship.
Considering the Dums and their record, there’s much to be queasy about.
Considering that the smirking Klown King of Krawford has a Mid-ass touch
(everything he’s touched in his entire life has turned to shit), and that
he and his neocon cabal of True Believers has been absolutely wrong about
everything— including their alleged mandate and their margin of victory
in the last election— it looks like immanentizing the eschaton may not be
work so well for them as they hope.
Stealing the recent midterm didn’t work out as well as they thought,
because they misunderestimated the amount of theft required. Maybe their
years-long effort to pack the courts hasn’t been as successful as they’d
hoped either. As for this being a partisan fishing expedition, please note
that ONLY two senators voted to maintain the secret White House-sponsored
Patriot Act provision that allowed them to contemplate this extraordinary
subversion of the Justice Department— and one of them was outspoken war
critic Chuck Hagel.
Speculation is rife as to when the failed Attorney General will resign.
And Biggus Dickus was in the hospital the other day with his leg problem
so some might wonder when he will resign for health reasons. Me, I’m
wondering how long it will be until we see the leader of the free world
drunk in public.
—
The surest way to be proven wrong is to give George Bush the benefit of
the doubt. —James Wolcott
From TOMM
Oh, Gone-zales is so out of there. They released the giant document dump Monday night and the House is putting them online as fast as they can scan them. Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com owns this story. The LATimes did a p1 feature on him Saturday and Jay Cocks, the DC guy from Time, did an elegant little blog post earlier in which he said: I said you guys were all whacked out conspiracy lefty crazies and that there was nothing to this but I was wrong and you were right and thank you for holding my feet to the fire. Of course, those are all my words, not his, but that is not a misrepresentation either, and the last part, from “thank you” IS what he said. Read moreSo Josh immediately rounded up the troops and invited everyone to comb
through them and report back on the good stuff. Undoubtedly, they expected
thousands of pages would send everyone into overwhelm and any smoking gun
wd be lost in the chaos, but with the Internets doing what they do best,
everyone tossing in their tuppence, results will be sorted and available
in jig time. Meanwhile, hearings will continue, subpoenas will go out, and
Karl will either testify of their will be a shitstorm confrontation that
will keep the issue alive even longer. Nothing pisses off Capitol Hill
more than being bypassed or disrespected, and these guys, if nothing else,
conspired to find a way to replace Attorneys with their Stooges in a way
that would not require confirmation hearings or be thwarted by Senators
who disapproved of who was being put into their state. And then they
manifestly LIED about that under oath.
The aide who wrote a lot of this sht resigned and is going to testify
voluntarily because he refuses to be the kind of scapegoat that Libby is,
or maybe only because he’s too far down the food chain to be guaranteed a
pardon. And one of his co-conspirators, McNulty, is about to resign as
well, they say. But resignations won’t stop this. It’s gonna go on until
it’s over.
Here’s two new fun facts. First, you know that Lam got into trouble when
the day after she said she was going to issue subpoenas for Foggo and
other higher-ups in DC as part of her ongoing Cunningham investigation.
They said THE NEXT DAY that she was a problem. Hmm…. More than that,
though, she maybe was confronting Bajagua, a Tijuana water plant that
Cheney came to town (twice?) to promote. Nobid contract for $20 mil in
profits was awarded to a company created for that purpose. They just thunk
of a get-rich-quick scheme, formed a company to profit, and went to town.
Hmmm….
Second fun fact: Abu G. does not use e-mails, but Turdblossom does (Rove’s
lovely nickname from his good friend the Klown King of Krawford) and what
Roverboy and the resigned guy and all the rest seem to have been doing is
using e-mail addresses from the Republican National Committee to do
government work. Yes, this insecure, unaudited, unprotected, unauthorized,
insecure website is being used to provide e-mail for several of the most
powerful people in the world so that there is no record, no
accountability, no archiving, lots of deniability, and even more violation
of law because it is illegal to do the people’s business in that manner.
And more than being sneaky, they were using e-mail accounts from a
political party just as if US business and GOP business were The Same
business. Which is, after all, what the firings are all about, nu?
Btw, Fitz didn’t know about this secret e-mail activity. And yes, as a
US attorney, he was ranked with the others when it came to Bushie loyalty
and such. Didn’t get such a high ranking. Right in there with some others
who Did get fired. And this the man who drew up the US indictment against
Osama Bin Forgotten. A man who is by all accounts, possibly THE single
best prosecutor in the country, period. Grrr.
These are indeed High Crimes under the meaning of the law. And add to all
that, Hank (my Hollywood congressman, Henry Waxman) is on a royal rampage
and wants to know, following the revelation in his hearing Monday, how
come the President said there wd be an internal investigation into the
Plame leak and then there was NOTHING nada ZIPPO rien, bupkis, NOTHING
done to investigate anything.
Well, of course that’s because the Chimperor knew perfectly well that
there was a smear campaign to shore up his war of choice and in my view
was probably actively involved in conniving the strategy because he gets
v. hands-on when it’s something mean and vicious and involves political
infighting instead of something wonky like nuclear war. But don’t matter
whether my dirty effing hippie slur is accurate or not. Point is, even if
they did not know she was undercover, they knew someone had outed her and
BY LAW there is an affirmative duty to get to the bottom of it, and BY LAW
anyone who obstructs or does not follow through to deal with it Right Now
is breaking the law.
High crimes. Oh, I want them all to do time. I do, I do, I do. And that
means the drunk should not only leave office, but be prosecuted,
convicted, and PUNISHED and not punished as in “the shame is punishment
enough” — not for his crimes, not for this war, not for sacrificing Magna
Carta and the Constitution and Civil Liberties and World Peace and the
military and the economy and…. No, shame is only the beginning. His name
can well become a watchword for a certain kind of insidious, treasonous
evil, like Quisling, but that’s not as satisfactory as doing hard time.
I think daily waterboarding and the kinds of stress positions and loud
noises and sleep deprivation that he has personally authorized in the name
of the American people, in the name of Democracy and Freedom and of you
and me… Hmmmm…. Too much? Yeah. But CONVICTED FELON on his driver’s
license if he ever gets out, and with it (unless justice is done and that
GOP law is overturned) the loss of his right to vote… Yeah, that would
be rich indeed.
But prison is certainly not inappropriate and wd forever remove some of
the convenient defence by their fellow travelers and apologists that
“there was no underlying crime” or “but he was pardoned.” No, no pardon,
no excuse. And no official portrait in the gallery of Presidential
Pictures, either. Let him and all of them be shunned, turned into a
watchword and a bogeyman to scare the children of future generations (if
there ARE future generations). Sam Addams and Tom Paine would have known
what to do with these bastards. And at the least, making them all serve
unpardoned time would have an apotropaic effect— would ward off evil. Wd
scare the daylights out of anyone contemplating any more criminality of
the sort.
Oh, the wheels are coming off. Just check this out:
http://judiciary.house.gov/
Look at the list of “lawyer letters” they’ve sent out to demand documents,
the upcoming hearing schedule, the press reports. You don’t have to click
on any link or try to read any of the .pdf docs. Just look at all the
activity going on and feel really good that the Eumenidies (what the
Greeks called the “Furies”) are on the trail. Old Hank… Javert, as I
prefer to think of him… is going to get his man. And unlike poor Jean
Valjean, they’ve got it coming.
As for betting on his exit day, I had thought late Friday, but that was
when they were still pretending something cd be salvaged. Now, that’s not
possible. They’re searching for someone the Repugs on Capitol Hill can
accept as a replacement. They’re saying, tepidly, “we HOPE he stays,” as
if it were not up to them, as if he cd quit if they ordered him not to. He
has held no position that did not come from Bush. These people are joined
at the him, and not in a good way. He is entirely a creature of BushCo but
the distancing is going on. The heat is being turned up. His testimony
later this week will be THE story of the day, even if it does turn out
that very same day sheik whosis was not only behind 9/11 and the Cole
bombing but also pushed Billy Jo McAllister off the Tallahatchie Bridge
AND fathered Anna Nicole’s kid and gave steroids to Barry Bonds while
Michael Jackson watched.
So does he resign the next day or the day before? With any luck, the
circus will continue another week while White House hemorrhaging
continues. Either way: Pass the popcorn.
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, [redacted] wrote:
> Yes, I am enjoying gonzo watch, local air-america station is taking
> bets on his exit day. However there is nothing preventing busholini
> from giving him an office 4 doors down once he is booted.
> Torture-boy’s lame excuse that his dept is sooooo big how could he
> possibly know what is going on? Luv it!
—
…Libby was Cheney’s Cheney. He’s not a “fall guy,” he’s a willing
accomplice in a plan to obstruct justice and thwart the efforts of federal
investigators… —Jane Hamsher
From ClickClack
From TOMM
For some of you, I’ve already recommended this hilarious piece involving yet another GOP loser who thinks he shd be president. Dave Barry on Miami and Tom Tancredo
So far the media seems to be giving a free ride to St. John McCain,
America’s Mayor Giuliani, and Massachusetts Mormon Mitt Romney, but isn’t that a field of losers? And people think the Dums have problems, even as Congressional approval is on the increase. And they’ve barely started to roll up their sleeves. If it weren’t for all the dead people and this end of the world thing coming up and all, it wd all be pretty entertaining.
And then there’s the issue no one dates talk about. The latest numbers out from DoJ say that in 2005 nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested on pot charges
The cost of incarceration is over a billion dollars a year. Meanwhile,
according to a story I just found from last May:
The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.
Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing
chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous. Link to article
A more recent story, from New Scientist, has more good news:
A synthetic chemical similar to the active ingredient in marijuana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reducing anxiety and depression. The results suggest that marijuana, or its derivatives, could actually be good for the brain. Link to New Scientist article
Finally, in this little roundup, I have just discovered that the hot new New Age movie The Secret (about “The Law of Attraction”) is available online, in full, for free. From the people who made “What the Bleep Do WeKnow?” Link to The Secret
Those of you more inclined to rationalism can celebrate today as
“Evolution Sunday,” where, for the second year in a row, US some US
Christian groups are noticing that denial of Darwinism is not required in order to maintain their faith. About time.
—
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least one in every twenty
workers who voted for a union was illegally fired; some estimates put the number as high as one in eight. —Princeton economist Paul Krugman
Published by Greg at 08:53 AM on September 7, 2007