Hoo, boy! Thanks, June, for this little gem. Ditch Mitch should go down in FLAMES over his abuse of homosexuals for political gain among the most illiterate, homophobic rubes in the nation. The *Southern strategy* of gay and race baiting has now been fully disclosed. Read The AlterNet article here.
In 2002 the two closeted far right extremists each went for the #2 slot in the Senate Republican leadership. McConnell beat him. Yesterday McConnell released this statement on behalf of the Republican leaders in the Senate:
Late yesterday we became aware of the incident involving Sen. Larry Craig and his subsequent admission of guilt in a Minnesota court. This is a serious matter. Due to the reported and disputed circumstances, and the legal resolution of this serious case, we will recommend that Sen. Craig's incident be reported to the Senate Ethics Committee for its review. In the meantime, leadership is examining other aspects of the case to determine if additional action is required.
Interesting that McConnell is moving rapidly against his fellow homosexual-- who loudly denies having done anything wrong-- while he never did a thing when it came to David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), who admitted to hiring prostitutes (a crime).
The right-wing grassroots is howling for homo blood and McConnell is more than aware how quickly that could turn against him-- and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is already in trouble with the violently homophobic Know Nothing wing of the GOP for his support of Bush's immigration agenda. One extremist, Robert Bluey, writes "How very sad for a party that once stood for moral values," while another is demanding something that scares the bloomers off McConnell:
Good Lord! Our long National nightmare of Rethuglicans running winning campaigns against girly Dems and limp wristed Liberals should be drawing to a close. Don't hold your breath, however. It's only a sin if Liberals *do it.* Gay Republicans have been hiding in plain sight since forever. Ditch Mitch, of all people, is disgusted by the (((gay))) antics of fellow Senator Larry Craig. That's rich.
I guess it would be too much to ask back in 1982 that Craig be kicked to the curb when he was accused of molesting underage Congressional pages. Perhaps timely intervention a quarter-century ago could have prevented the mess that was the Mark Foley scandal, not to mention providing some scrap of evidence (however small) that boy-rape is not part and parcel with the Republican attitude toward underage pages.
But, whatever. Doubtless the waves of young boys who were improperly solicited and seduced by members of Congress in the intervening two and a half decades were little "beasts" as Matt Drudge says, who were egging the older men on and deserved whatever they got.
If the Republicans get any more sick, venal, and corrupt, their constituents may as well just start electing hyenas and poisonous snakes to Congress. Who could tell the difference?
The NYTimes tells us that, The Justice Department’s internal watchdog disclosed Thursday that he was investigating whether sworn statements to Congress by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales were “intentionally false, misleading or inappropriate.”
Let me help you out here, Mr. Glenn Fine--Jeopardy style. The answer is: What is, No Duh! Ding, ding, ding. My stinking head hurts. Here's more:
Congressional officials said it would have been unusual for Mr. Fine to refuse to investigate, given the interest of Senator Leahy and other powerful lawmakers.
Mr. Gonzales was already known to be a focus of investigations by Mr. Fine into the propriety of the Justice Department’s involvement in the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and the firing of United States attorneys last year.
The inspector general’s office does not have the ability to bring criminal charges. If Mr. Fine finds credible evidence of perjury or other wrongdoing by Mr. Gonzales or his senior aides, precedent indicates that he will refer the information to criminal prosecutors, possibly at the quasi-independent public integrity division of the Justice Department.
Quasi-independent??? I can barely stand the suspense of a kangaroo court investigation at the oxymoronically named "public integrity" division of a totally trashed Justice Department. I think I'll bust another artery now.
Cowardly Mitch cuts and runs away from his constituents who oppose his and Bu$h's failed war. The paltry few supporters Mitch dispatched to counter the protest were grossly outmaned and quickly scurried back under their rocks.
Thank you Jim, for documenting the successful Iraq Summer protest. We are greatful.
It was a great event. All the speakers were inspiring but our awesome Congressman, John Yarmuth, got the loudest applause and at LEAST 3 standing ovations. He also announced that he has sponsored legislation to shut down the shameful terrorist training camp know as the School For The Americas. Woo Hoo! From the C-J:
More than 600 anti-war demonstrators urged U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell last night to take a stand against the Bush administration's war plan in Iraq at an event at Bellarmine University.
The Rev. John Burke, minister at St. William Catholic Church at 1226 W. Oak St., likened the current war plan to the definition of insanity.
"You can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result," Burke said of the recent increase of troops.
The event was part of a nationwide campaign to "turn up the heat" on members of Congress who have opposed setting a timetable to end the war in Iraq, according to the campaign's organizers, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.
The group is composed of several entities that have joined forces for the cause, including MoveOn.org, VoteVets.org, the Service Employees International Union, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and others.
The group began running a TV ad last week on MTV, ESPN and local channels, saying McConnell has supported "Bush's war" and encouraging citizens to tell him to "end this war."
Yesterday was the end of the 10-week campaign and was designated "Take a Stand Day." Similar events were held last night in more than 40 cities across the country, including Lexington and Covington, Ky.
McConnell was invited to Louisville to explain his stance on the war to his constituents, Aniello Alioto, the group's Kentucky field director, said.
But McConnell did not have Louisville on his agenda last night, said Robert Steurer, McConnell's press secretary. He made several stops around the state and finished last night at a fundraiser in Lexington.
[. . . ]
Following the rally, about 300 protesters marched to the Belknap neighborhood home of McConnell and U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.
McConnell was not at the home, but the protesters were met by about 40 people who support the senator, including Justin Brasell, McConnell's re-election campaign manager.
I wonder how many of the lousy 40 wingnuts who showed up to support Mitch were paid staffers. One thing is for sure: McConnell was too busy spending time with the only constituents that really matter to him--the ones who buy his votes. He doesn't have the courage to face voters in an open forum and he never has bothered to do so. He's a coward and a weasel. Ditch Mitch!
Who are you going to believe, Mitch or your own lying eyes? I picked this up from DLer Jake's new website, PageOneKentucky Click here for more
The surge is working! What do you have to say about that, Col. Horne? Care to chime in? Has there been tremendous progress in Iraq?Sen. Jack Reed has been to Iraq more than any other senator (ten times) and says it’s a flipping train wreck. We want to know what everyone else thinks.
And for you dirty, America-hating liberals who disagree with McConnell? There’s a vigil on Tuesday. We hear there’s also a march to McConnell’s house after the event.
More info here in addition to earlier blog posts on the Iraq Summer Campaign Click here
Senator Larry (Nancy Boy) Craig Is A Dirty Old Man
Another "family values" Republican is caught with his pants down, and it's not with a woman, either. Seems Sen. Craig had the system of super secret gay taps and come-ons down pat at the airport men's room. From Roll Call:
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.
Craig’s arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.
A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a “he said/he said misunderstanding,” and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.
After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” the report states.
Ooooooh! Awesome! But here's the best part:
Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”
The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.
“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.
Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.
“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”
Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.
“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.
Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”
And not a moment too soon. Attorney General Gonzo, like his boss, is unfit for office. His contempt for Congress and the Constitution in unmatched in US history. Bu$h's claim that Gonzo was run out of office and "dragged through the mud for political purposes" is hysterically funny. No, W. Dragging people through the mud for political purposes is the top job of your WH and of the GOP. You guys OWN that one. Here is a snip from Salon(thanks, June) that offers up a different view of Gonzales' rise during the Bu$h years. Frankly, I wouldn't hire Gonzo to oversee a house closing, he's such a nit wit.
Gonzales' rise -- from the son of an alcoholic millworker in, yes, Humble, Texas, to the top of the American justice system -- is a fascinating psychological study, especially when you remember that Bush, his patron, also had a drinking problem, and that one of Gonzales' early key accomplishments for Bush was hiding a 1976 drunken-driving arrest. But Gonzales may have reached a new low when he invoked his father in his resignation speech. "Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days," he said Monday morning.
I can't judge whether that's true, but I'm not sure Gonzales can either. Gonzales could go down in history as the worst attorney general ever, accused of ginning up legal rationales for torture, spying on U.S. citizens and trying to turn the Department of Justice into an arm of the Republican National Committee. The man biographer Bill Minutaglio credits with having a "mortician's calm" attempted to embalm the department he was supposed to lead. Sen. Patrick Leahy wants to charge him with perjury for his many likely lies to Congress. (Paul Kiel has six of the best lies here.)
I can hardly wait for the spineless Dems to roll over for the next disaster Bu$h nominates.
Here is the latest on the Iraq Summer Rally on Tues, August 28:
The big night is almost here! The Iraq Summer Campaign's Take A Stand! Town Hall Rally will include short speeches by Al Herring, Bill Londrigan, Father John Burke, Jim Chatham, and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Andrew Horne; a short video montage; a Q&A session; and music by John Gage and The McCool and the Gang Hardware Band. Join us to take a stand and demand that Sen. McConnell end this reckless war!
We also need you for the 48-Hour Stakeout. If you can take a 2 hour shift with our other volunteers, that will make a big difference!
When: Sunday, August 26th at 6pm until Tuesday, Aug. 28, at 6pm.
Where: Sen. McConnell's house at 2318 Dundee Rd. (located 2-3 blocks from Bardstown Rd./Douglas Loop just before the intersection of Page, Dundee and Woodbourne). Call Sara to join a group shift - 202-246-1165.
TAKE A STAND!
AND REPRESENT THE MAJORITY OF
KENTUCKIANS WHO DEMAND THAT SENATOR McCONNELL
SUPPORT A RESPONSIBLE END TO THE IRAQ WAR
Tuesday Aug 28th, 6pm
Bellarmine University
Frazier Hall
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
EMAIL: KENTUCKY1@IRAQSUMMER.ORG OR CALL SARA AT 202.246.1165
HOSTED BY IRAQ SUMMER CAMPAIGN AND BELLARMINE'S POLI SCI CLUB
ONE FINAL NOTE...
Immediately following Take A Stand!, the local MoveOn council will lead a candlelit procession from Bellarmine back to Sen. McConnell's house for a vigil. With everyone's involvement, this can be an impressive procession.
If you have any questions or would like to confirm your attendance at Take A Stand! and/or the 48-Hour stakeout, please call Sara at 202.246.1165. I have attached our Take A Stand Flyer if you would like to spread the word about our event to your friends and family.
Yep! No good government deed will go unpunished--very harshly at that--in the Bu$h Administration. Reports of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars and the deadly corruption involved in Iraqi contracts can result in harsh punishment and death threats against those who expose this corruption to high levels of government. Is this a great country, or what? Makes you wanna weep for your country.
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.
Or worse.
For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.
WTF is wrong with us a a people that this is allowed to happen????
This is the US under GW Bu$h. This is our media under a no holds barred, corrupt institution. The rise of hate radio, Fux Newz and the Bu$h propaganda machine has largely gone unchecked for 6 plus years to disastrous effect. Read Glenn Greenwald's article here and gnash your teeth
In a solid piece of reporting, CNN yesterday disclosed that the most powerful GOP lobbying firm, run founded by former GOP Party Chair and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and staffed by key former Bush national security officials, is being paid by Allawi to coordinate these anti-Maliki, pro-Allawi efforts:
A powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House has begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed. . . .
A senior Bush administration official told CNN the White House is aware of the lobbying campaign by Barbour Griffith & Rogers because the firm is "blasting e-mails all over town" criticizing al-Maliki and promoting the firm's client, former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, as an alternative to the current Iraqi leader. . . .
Allawi hires the most powerful GOP firm in the country, with former top Bush officials as partners, and almost immediately, the key Op-Ed pages of our nation's newspapers open up to him and all of official Washington, beginning with the President, changes course. Suddenly, key figures in both parties begin calling for Maliki to be replaced.
Most extraordinary of all is how deceitful this whole process is. As CNN reports: "The lobbying firm boasts the services of two onetime foreign policy hands of President Bush: Ambassador Robert Blackwill, the former Deputy National Security Adviser, and Philip Zelikow, former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
My head hurts. It seems clear to me that we need to dismantle the current system and begin again from the roots up. How did our country sink so low under the stupidest man ever to hold the presidential office?
Mark your calendars for the Idea Fest in Louisville in mid September:
For three days in September the 2007 IdeaFestival® brings together some of the brightest, deepest, strangest, most groundbreaking, cloud-clearing, mind-moving ideas out there in science, food, business, fashion, the arts, design, you name it. It’s random, it’s fun, it’s a synapse-stirring celebration of innovation, creativity and the power of big ideas. Visit the Idea Festival link for this year’s wide-range of events and presenters. Events are filling fast so get your passes now!
And if BIG IDEAS make you thirsty for more, consider this:
Brew at the Zoo (Fourth Annual)
August 25 from 4:00 - 9:00 p.m.
in the Oasis Festival Tent & Field
Special ticket required
Produced by the Friends of the Zoo
Join us for the fourth annual Brew at the Zoo - a celebration with live entertainment, a wide variety of microbrews and great food.
Well, well. Looks like the US lost control of the energy grid in Iraq in 2003. Four years later the situation has gotten further out of control. WTF are we doing there again? From the Times
Armed groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday.
That is dividing the national grid into fiefs that, he said, often refuse to share electricity generated locally with Baghdad and other power-starved areas in the center of Iraq.
The development adds to existing electricity problems in Baghdad, which has been struggling to provide power for more than a few hours a day because insurgents regularly blow up the towers that carry power lines into the city.
The government lost the ability to control the grid centrally after the American-led invasion in 2003, when looters destroyed electrical dispatch centers, the minister, Karim Wahid, said in a news briefing attended also by United States military officials.
In Bu$hWorld, Maliki is the right man for the job. Is Bu$h an awesome judge of character, or what?
Not only are our state legislators bending over backwards to kiss the ass of Big Coal, but Bu$h is leading the way toward the environmental destruction of our mountaintops, lakes and streams nationwide. To call this policy ass-backwards is an understatement. The Times features this on the front page:
— The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.
It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion.
The new rule would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law.
The Office of Surface Mining in the Interior Department drafted the rule, which will be subject to a 60-day comment period and could be revised, although officials indicated that it was not likely to be changed substantially.
Here is the motto of the US Department of the Interior:"The Mission of the Department of the Interior is to protect and provide access to our Nation's natural and cultural heritage and honor our trust ..." Oh really? Contact the department for public comment here if you can find it on the Interior Dept. home page
Thanks to DLer Derek for passing this along. Please let our corrupt politicians know that we don't want our tax dollars going to dirty, filthy, destructive coal companies who will further wreck our environment to line their pockets. Click this link to contact Ky House Speaker Richardson to express your outrage and demand he drop his support for Big Coal.
If you can't come to Frankfort, you can still help raise the opposition to this bad bill.
If you haven't done so already, please visit www.No2PeabodyCoal.org to see KFTC's [Kentuckians for the Commonwealth] newspaper ad against Peabody and the special session and to take action!
ACTION:
In addition, you can also contact Speaker Richards and your own legislators by calling the toll-free message line at 1-800-372-7181.
MESSAGE: “I urge you NOT to give hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies to the coal industry. This is a bad deal for Kentucky.”
Let's swamp our legislators with letters and calls of disapproval.
Mark your calendars for this Iraq Summer Group Event and let Ditch Mitch and other politicians who support Bu$h's Disaster in the Desert know that time is up. Get our troops out NOW! Take positive action here:
Iraq Summer Town Hall Rally
Take a stand!
For A Responsible End To The Iraq War town hall-Style Rally
Tuesday Aug 28th 6pm Bellarmine University Frazier Hall
For More Information:
Email: Kentucky1@iraqsummer.org Or Call Sara At 202.246.1165
Hosted by iraq summer campaign and bellarmine’s poli sci club
The event will feature service members and their families, elected officials, faith leaders and youth advocates calling for a responsible end to the reckless war in Iraq. Among the list of speakers will be Jean Edwards, who will introduce one of the winners of the FOR Peace Essay Contest to read the winning essay. Please tell everyone who wants to put pressure on Senator McConnell and other Senators to attend this important meeting at Bellarmine. For more info or to confirm that you'll be there, email Sara Choate at Iraq Summer, kentucky1@iraqsummer.org .
Jeepers H. Christmas. Can the WH get any more cynical in its abuse of 9/11 than having Gen. Petraeus testify before Congress on "progress" in Iraq on that date? Excuse me. but last I checked the Dems have control of Congress and it is they who should be setting the date for these foolish hearings. This is from Think Progress
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed the testimony date during a press briefing on Air Force One today:
Q And the second one is, there’s been some confusion about the whens, hows, wherefores of the Crocker-Petraeus testimony to Congress. Can you say when they’re going to testify before Congress and under what conditions?
MR. JOHNDROE: Yes. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will testify in open hearings on the Hill. Administration officials are reaching out to Hill leadership today to discuss with them the potential dates for that testimony. Given the tight schedule leading up to September 15th and the congressional recess with Rosh Hashanah coming up, the likely dates for testimony are September 11th and 12th.
Q That’s really just because of the tight schedule and not because it’s September 11th?
MR. JOHNDROE: That’s right. Congress is not — as of right now, based on the last we checked, Congress is not in session because of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, very much the week leading up to that Saturday, September 15th.
Petraeus is mandated by Congress to testify about the Iraq status report before the document is delivered on September 15.
The script writes itself: Iraq! Terra, terra, terra! 9/11--Iraq--kill them there before they kill us all here! What kind of lilly livered fools do they take us for? The GOP is terrified (and want you to be) that bunch of Middle Eastern extremists are somehow going to destroy the US. What bullshit. What cowards.
It takes a special kind of evil to put corporate greed ahead of the health and well-being of children, but that is what our compassionless conservative pResident has done. God forbid that children will get a crack at a healthy upbringing when so many needy, suffering corporate pigs in health insurance and Big Pharma suffer.
The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a monthlong Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were intended to return the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.
After learning of the new policy, some state officials said yesterday that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children and would impose standards that could not be met.
An article from The Nation
President Rudy by Jon Wiener
In recent polls, Rudy Giuliani leads his rivals in the Republican primary race by about ten points. That's surprising, since he's been a supporter of gay rights, abortion rights and immigrant rights as well as gun control. It suggests that a President Giuliani would be better than Bush. I asked Kevin Baker--he's author of the well-known City of Fire trilogy of novels about New York City--Strivers Row, Dreamland and Paradise Alley. He also writes for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Harper's, where his essay, "A Fate Worse Than Bush," leads the magazine's August issue.
Giuliani's main claim to fame is his conduct immediately after 9/11. Many still remember his TV press conference the night of the attacks, when a reporter asked how many casualties there would be. Giuliani had a magnificent answer: "More than we can bear." Compared to what President Bush was saying, that was Shakespeare.
But what about the rest of his performance around 9/11?
by P.M. Carpenter | Aug 17 2007 - 9:22am
From www.SmirkingChimp.com Go to story here.
By now, the nation is well acquainted with the centralized authoritarianism of the Bush administration -- a kind of unseen hand that issues ideological dicta throughout the federal bureaucracy and brooks no upstream application of thought, especially by working professionals in their respective professions. It regards itself as supreme, and supremely wise, hence no one the hand touches could possibly have anything of value to add, hence you're either with the Bushies or against them -- in toto.
The administration also actually prides itself on this eccentricity, projecting it not only as sign of managerial efficiency, but as an articles-of-faith show of resolve. Political scientists might debate its merits as a theoretical construct designed to present a unified executive front, but in reality -- at least with this bunch -- it plays out as little more than emotional insecurity on top of heaping immaturity that few of us have seen since grade school.
The treatment of Dr. Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general ousted by the Bush administration last summer, is a classic case in point.
Following a polite silence after his firing -- he applied independent thought to his job, you see -- Carmona fired this blistering broadside against his employer's thuggishness: "I increasingly witnessed a government that was more and more using theology and ideology to drive its policies and its people -- stem cells, abortion, Plan B, the war and many more.... [And] our go-it-alone so-called cowboy diplomacy has in fact isolated us from the world more than ever in our history."
Later, at Rep. Henry Waxman's invitation, Carmona reminded the administration in House Oversight testimony that "the job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party."
Once, for example, Carmona submitted to his superiors a report for publication that "mention[ed] global warming" and -- oh dear -- contained "references to condoms as a deterrent to the spread of AIDS." Needless to say, it never saw the light of day. But Bill Hall, speaking for the Global Health office, which had shut down the report, said the administration's refusal to publish was only because of Carmona’s reliance on bad science. "Politics did not intervene in the process," said Hall, while supressing a chuckle, I presume.
What is more telling, however, was the initial response by administration officials to Carmona's public assault on theo-ideological policymaking; because their response, as mentioned, was the stuff of a child's mind and emotions.
They simply pretended they weren't the ones who broke the window.
"Dr. Cristina V. Beato, a former deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary for health who was Dr. Carmona’s boss, said she never heard him complain about political interference....
"Dr. John O. Agwunobi, who in 2005 replaced Dr. Beato, said, 'I worked with him short of one year and saw none of the criticisms that he was reported to offer.'"
Innovative as always, White House spokesman Tony Snow tried out what could fairly be described as the ah-shucks Trent Lott variation on the broken-window defense: Sure we broke it, but whatever could be wrong with a little play? Golly, your indignation puzzles us. Or as Snow put it, "There is certainly nothing scandalous about saying to somebody who was a presidential appointee, 'You should advocate the president’s policies'" -- which means, even in matters of a scientific bent, if Mr. Bush says two and two are five, the secretary of education should back him up.
But here was the real grabber -- an infantile display of Bush-administration immaturity that drops the adult jaw:
"Days after the abrupt end of Dr. Carmona’s term, friends organized a send-off party. Neither Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt nor any other top administration official attended."
Let's see. These children have how many days left in office?
_______
Thanks Lucy, for passing this along. Here is Dick Cheney explaining why Papa Bush did not topple Saddam Hussein in the first Iraq War. The video speaks for itself. Check it out.
Wow. Click on the link below for the entire piece. Did the arrogant Gooliani really think his secrets would not come out in a presidential campaign? I found this on TPM:
'He had his own elevator'
Wayne Barrett has done the political world a great service with a devastating piece in the Village Voice on Rudy Giuliani and the "five big lies" surrounding the former mayor's claim to fame: his performance on 9/11. The entire piece -- which, if read, should effectively end Giuliani's presidential ambitions -- is important, but there's one part of the story that's particularly worth highlighting.
Giuliani deserves to be laid low for making bags of money and running a campaign on the devastation of 911. Shame!
All the rightwing chest thumping and warmongering have badly damaged the United States' image, but don't think that will stop them, much less cause them to reform their evil ways. From The Guardian
It is becoming increasingly clear that one of the reasons why so much has been going wrong for the United States in recent years can be boiled down to a single word: arrogance.
The conservative movement, which has dominated political discourse in America since Ronald Reagan's first inauguration, has perpetuated the mindset that the US knows best about everything. Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani recently unleashed rhetoric of that sort when he lambasted the "socialist" health care proposals of his Democratic counterparts, warning: "You have got to see the trap. Otherwise we are in for disaster. We are in for Canadian healthcare, French healthcare, British healthcare."
If only. Actually, it is the right's refusal to learn lessons from abroad and cooperate with other countries that have bogged down the United States with the most inefficient healthcare system in the industrialised world and ensnared us in a multitude of other quagmires, foreign and domestic.
America's high handed march to war in Iraq, now widely recognised as a tragic debacle to all except neoconservative diehards, is another excruciating example of how conceit produced failure. In that case, shunting aside the deep reservations of long-standing allies and the United Nations led to calamitous results.
Even the label that Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan assigned to the philosophy that underpinned the rationale for the invasion, "benevolent global hegemony," exudes hubris. As lapsed neocon Francis Fukuyama has pointed out, "The idea that the United States behaves disinterestedly on the world stage is not widely believed because it is for the most part not true and, indeed, could not be true if American leaders fulfill their responsibilities to the American people."
So we have not, in fact, been greeted as liberators in Iraq and anti-Americanism attributable to the invasion remains pervasive, diminishing rather than strengthening the capacity of the US to lead internationally.
Europe knows Bu$h lead this country off a cliff. So do all sane Americans. The WORLD is sick of Bu$hCo.
I stopped watching Lou Dobbs many moons ago once I realized that even when proven wrong he keeps up his indefensible deceit. The man, like the GOP at large, cannot admit error. That said, I wondered why he and a few cranks in the GOP kept up the drum beat about the "unfair" treatment of border agents who were convicted in Texas by a jury of their peers for lawlessly abusing their official power. John, at AmericaBlog puts it all together.
These are the two US Border Patrol agents who CNN's Lou Dobbs is trying to set free. I have to admit, I watched Lou Dobbs talk about these guys and never did I see him mention the real facts of this case. Here they are:
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told members of a conservative political action committee that the two agents are serving harsh sentences because they "winged" a fleeing drug smuggler. That is false, and Duncan no doubt knows it. The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, are in prison because they failed to report the shooting, lied to investigators, tried to conceal evidence and filed a false report with their supervisors.
The sentences are harsh, but the agents, knowing their guilt, could have pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received lighter sentences. As the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, has explained over and over to anyone who would listen, the former agents chose to roll the dice in a jury trial. The clear-eyed jurors convicted them. One of the counts against them, obstruction of justice in a case involving a firearm, carries a mandatory 10-year sentence....
Some members of the public rail that the brave agents are in prison while the drug dealer they shot goes free. As Sutton noted, the reason the suspected dealer is free is because the agents shot at him 15 times, wounded him, then tried to cover up the incident and lied.
Yes, but remember, Republicans have no problem about lying about a crime in an effort to cover it up.
Our pathetic media keeps falling for the same old WH and Pentagon BS about how great the "surge" in Iraq is going. They are too happless to even do a quick Google search to check WH propaganda. Here is a reality check for the gullible rubes, who apparently CAN be fooled all the time. From Juan Cole in Salon:
... And as a tally noted on Foreign Policy magazine's blog, the number of U.S. troop deaths in July, compared with previous years of the war, is anything but a turn for the better:
July 2003: 48
July 2004: 54
July 2005: 54
July 2006: 43
July 2007: 80
Meanwhile, the statistics for the hapless Iraqis themselves are no less discouraging. According to icasualties.org, the Iraqi civilian and military death toll from political violence in July 2007 was 1,690, a 25 percent increase from the July 2006 number, 1,280. (There was also a 25 percent increase in Iraqi casualties in July 2007 over June 2007, meaning the trend was going in the wrong direction any way you look at it.) These statistics -- bad enough as they are -- are typically understated by a substantial margin because passive tallying by media outlets misses many deaths. . .
Some proponents of the surge may have rightly argued that an effort to take on the guerrillas and militias will produce higher casualties in the short term -- but some of them are also saying the strategy has already begun working and is producing lower casualties and more security for Iraqis, which is a blatant falsehood.
What has surged is not calm or political compromise, but rather the number of guerrilla attacks, the number of U.S. troop deaths compared to the same months in previous years, and the number of Iraqi casualties. That some of the U.S. media and the U.S. public have allowed themselves to be manipulated into thinking the "numbers" from Iraq are a cause for optimism echoes the sloppy and wishful thinking that got U.S. into this mess in the first place.
Iraqi access to electricity and even food and water has fallen, 2 million have been displaced internally and another million abroad since April of 2003. That is not encouraging, to say the least. The "national unity government" of Prime Minister al-Maliki is on the brink of total collapse, as the bad news piles up.
Indeed, the power of positive thinking is an old American value. But sometimes it causes people to fall for pyramid schemes, or even worse.
Absolutely nothing in Iraq is being done competently. Billions in US dollars disappeared. There is less security, electricity, clean water, jobs and medical care than before GW Bu$h mindlessly invaded Irag five years ago. Now this:
American taxpayers are rightly prepared to pay for all the equipment our soldiers need to defend themselves in Iraq. What is harder to accept is that because of the Pentagon’s scandalous mismanagement, they may have been paying to arm Iraqi insurgents who are shooting at American soldiers.
The Government Accountability Office reports that more than 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and another 80,000 pistols that Washington thought it was providing to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 are now unaccounted for. More than 100,000 pieces of body armor and a similar number of helmets have also gone missing.
These numbers represent the discrepancy between the equipment ordered by the American commander in charge of training Iraqi forces and the equipment actually logged into the property records of those forces. Disturbingly, that commander was Gen. David Petraeus, now the overall commander of American forces in Iraq. [My bold]
The missing weapons amount to fully 30 percent of the weapons handed out by Washington to Iraqis through the start of this year. Some were presumably diverted into black market arms bazaars where they were picked up for cash, no questions asked. Some almost certainly ended up in the hands of insurgent militias, who use small arms fire to force American military convoys into the path of roadside bombs.
If the Dems don't have the guts to stand up for the Constitution and the rights of our citizens for fear of conservatives running attack ads against them, they need to find a new line of work. Barring that, we should see to it that the yellowbellies are fired. Come on! Aren't they capable of launching a fierce attack against this administration and the lockstep GOP who have stood by passively while this lawless Administration has trashed the Constitution? The The NYTimes nails it!
It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.
There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative.
But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president .
Every time Bu$h says "We don't torture," he's lying. I heard the author of the the New Yorker article on CIA "Black Sites" interviewed on NPR this afternoon and Googled her article. Here is the link: Her conclusion was that the Red Cross is a very careful, conservative (in the best sense of the word) organization and the Bu$h administration is quite the opposite. If you're not depressed to know the US tortures and "renders" suspects around the world, you have no humanity. Here's a snip:
The public-affairs office at the C.I.A. and officials at the congressional intelligence-oversight committees would not even acknowledge the existence of the report. Among the few people who are believed to have seen it are Condoleezza Rice, now the Secretary of State; Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; John Bellinger III, the Secretary of State’s legal adviser; Hayden; and John Rizzo, the agency’s acting general counsel. Some members of the Senate and House intelligence-oversight committees are also believed to have had limited access to the report.
Confidentiality may be particularly stringent in this case. Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the C.I.A.’s practices. One of the sources said that the Red Cross described the agency’s detention and interrogation methods as tantamount to torture, and declared that American officials responsible for the abusive treatment could have committed serious crimes. The source said the report warned that these officials may have committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, and may have violated the U.S. Torture Act, which Congress passed in 1994. The conclusions of the Red Cross, which is known for its credibility and caution, could have potentially devastating legal ramifications.
[. . .]
“They invented the program of interrogation with people who had no understanding of Al Qaeda or the Arab world.” The former officer said that the pressure from the White House, in particular from Vice-President Dick Cheney, was intense: “They were pushing us: ‘Get information! Do not let us get hit again!’ ” In the scramble, he said, he searched the C.I.A.’s archives, to see what interrogation techniques had worked in the past. He was particularly impressed with the Phoenix Program, from the Vietnam War. Critics, including military historians, have described it as a program of state-sanctioned torture and murder. A Pentagon-contract study found that, between 1970 and 1971, ninety-seven per cent of the Vietcong targeted by the Phoenix Program were of negligible importance. But, after September 11th, some C.I.A. officials viewed the program as a useful model. A. B. Krongard, who was the executive director of the C.I.A. from 2001 to 2004, said that the agency turned to “everyone we could, including our friends in Arab cultures,” for interrogation advice, among them those in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all of which the State Department regularly criticizes for human-rights abuses.
The C.I.A. knew even less about running prisons than it did about hostile interrogations. Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of European operations at the C.I.A., and the author of a recent book, “On the Brink: How the White House Compromised U.S. Intelligence,” said, “The agency had no experience in detention. Never. But they insisted on arresting and detaining people in this program. It was a mistake, in my opinion. You can’t mix intelligence and police work. But the White House was really pushing. They wanted someone to do it. So the C.I.A. said, ‘We’ll try.’ George Tenet came out of politics, not intelligence. His whole modus operandi was to please the principal. We got stuck with all sorts of things. This is really the legacy of a director who never said no to anybody.”
Bottom line: 90% of the information gathered by torture is bullshit. The rest is somewhat to highly useful. However, it never occurred to these US torturers to find other, more effective methods to extract information. There is no doubt that the CIA or any law enforcement agency would use any tool available to prevent an imminent attack, but that is not what is going on here. Torture is the official policy.
Hahahahahaha. The clowning hacks running the GOP get more ridiculous by the day. Check this out
You remember a little while back we brought you the story of Florida McCain campaign co-chair, Rep. Bob Allen (R). Right on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter's exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, Allen got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.
Now it turns out that Allen revealed the true reason for the alleged park-john-offer in a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest.
"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."
I guess this raises the question of whether if you thought you were about to get mugged by a group of stocky black guys, your first plan of escape would be to try to give one of them a blowjob. But I guess maybe you had to be there.
I am hot with shame every time KY politics hit the news stand. There is good reason to believe our school system is in the dumpster when a stupid mutt like Ernie is taken seriously as a candidate to govern our backward state. This guy has a law degree and is a Baptist minister????? What is wrong with that picture?
For Fletcher, it was charging that Beshear is out of step with Kentucky voters by supporting casino gambling and gun control and directing that public schools remove the Ten Commandments from their walls.
Beshear made his stand on the merit hiring scandal that ensnared the Fletcher administration and saw the governor charged with three misdemeanors.
Beshear also defended his beliefs, noting that his father was a Baptist lay minister.
"If Moses came to Kentucky, what would he think?" Fletcher asked, in talking about a 1981 opinion by Beshear. As attorney general, Beshear wrote that Kentucky schools must remove the Ten Commandments from classrooms pursuant to a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Later, Beshear told the crowd that his father used to tell him that where the Ten Commandments are displayed isn't nearly as important as living by them. "If this administration had been living by them, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in now," he said.
Fletcher used supporters dressed as Moses, a witch, a zoot-suited high-roller and a hunter carrying a giant sling-shot to make his points. When Beshear spoke, Republicans tossed playing cards -- one by one -- toward the stage.
Beshear, on the other hand, gave a more traditional stump speech in which he attacked Fletcher on some points and defended his support for gambling.
Democrats in the crowd wore shirts that said, "Turn your back on corruption," and some of them turned away when Fletcher spoke.
Just shoot me already. We have no real "leadership" in Congress whatsoever. The Dems have just given their blessing to illegal wiretapping.
The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.
The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted.
Democrats and the White House are at odds over the scope of surveillance legislation. President Bush said he opposes a congressional recess, scheduled to begin this weekend, unless lawmakers approve
Democrats and the White House are at odds over the scope of surveillance legislation. President Bush said he opposes a congressional recess, scheduled to begin this weekend, unless lawmakers approve "a bill I can sign." (
The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.
Thanks to June for passing this along. Even Mitch can't fool all the rubes all the time.
Deplorable: Obstructionist-in-Chief Mitch McConnell Voted Against Providing Health Coverage for Thousands of Low-Income Kentucky Children
Standing with President Bush over Kentucky Families,
McConnell Stands Against Providing Health Coverage for 9.2 Million Children
Washington D.C. – Thousands of low-income children in Kentucky are one step closer to receiving the health care they deserve thanks to bipartisan legislation that passed in the U.S. Senate yesterday. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program to continue providing health coverage for 6 million children and to begin providing coverage for 3.2 million more low income children – reducing the number of uninsured children in America by fully one third over the next five years. Sadly, U.S. Mitch McConnell stood with President Bush and his health insurance industry backers over his most vulnerable Kentucky constituents – children.
“We understand that Obstructionist-in-Chief Mitch McConnell is never one to break ranks with President Bush, but when it comes to looking out for children who have absolutely no health coverage – we thought even he might make an exception,” said Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change. “Senator McConnell instead put his blind loyalty to the President and the financial interests of private insurance companies ahead of the basic health care needs of thousands of children in Kentucky.”
“When it comes to spending $12 billion a month fighting an endless war in Iraq – Senator McConnell can find the money. When it comes to providing billions of dollars in giveaways to the big insurance companies – Senator McConnell can find the money. But when it comes to providing basic health coverage for nation’s most vulnerable citizens – our children – he just can’t spare a nickel. It sends a pretty sorry message to the families who pray each night that their children don’t get sick or hurt – a message that to him, protecting the bottom line of big insurance companies and protecting President Bush’s irresponsible agenda is just more important.”
I think the KY has had just about of Mitch's clowning. He and the moron-in-chief long ago went too far for even the most die hard republicans. They have trashed this country to its core. Ditch Mitch.
We have some of the cleanest water in the world here in Louisville. Let's stop filling up landfills with petroleum products.
On the streets of New York or Denver or San Mateo this summer, it seems the telltale cap of a water bottle is sticking out of every other satchel. Americans are increasingly thirsty for what is billed as the healthiest, and often most expensive, water on the grocery shelf. But this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Instead of consuming four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles, we need to start thinking about what all those bottles are doing to the planet’s health.
Here are the hard, dry facts: Yes, drinking water is a good thing, far better than buying soft drinks, or liquid candy, as nutritionists like to call it. And almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands. Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.
Heck of a job, China! Where the hell has our US import safety network been while China exports toxic pet food, dangerous drugs, toothpaste and lead infected toys marketed to the most vulnerable of our citizens--toddlers? Makes you want to holler! Enough, already.
Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, is recalling nearly one million toys in the United States today because the products are covered in lead paint.
Nickelodeon, which owns Dora the Explorer, says it will keep a closer eye on its toy makers.
According to Mattel, all the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China.
The recall, the second biggest this year involving toys, covers 83 products made from April 19 to July 6. Many of them feature Sesame Street and Nickelodeon characters — including the Elmo Tub Sub, the Dora the Explorer Backpack, and the Giggle Gabber, a toy shaped like Elmo or Cookie Monster that toddlers shake to hear giggles and funny noises.
We need to cut off all non-essential trade with them until they promise to stop killing us with their deadly exports. Is that asking too much?
Congress has a picture perfect example of a lawless administration, guilty of multiple high crimes and misdemeanors and yet they sit on their hands or cry, "impeachment is off the table." Good Lord! Read this article in the Nation and act accordingly.
Recently PBS's Bill Moyers Journal devoted a full hour to the subject of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney--the first such attention by a national network. The remarkable thing about the response was not its size or intensity. After visiting more than a dozen states to address the issue, I have come to understand the depth of the public's desire for accountability. But it was only after Moyers invited conservative legal scholar Bruce Fein and me to lay out not merely the specific grounds for impeachment but the historical rationale for applying the "heroic medicine"--the Founders' preferred cure for a constitutional crisis--that I fully understood the extent to which Americans recognize that this is about a lot more than the high crimes and misdemeanors of a regal President and his monarchical Vice President. The stakes are enormous: If Bush and Cheney are not held accountable, this Administration will hand off to its successors a toolbox of powers greater than any executive has ever held--more authority, concentrated in fewer hands, than the Founders could have conceived or would have allowed.
The collapsed bridge in Minneapolis is a scene that has and will continue to play out accross the country for years to come. For decades the GOP has been cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations and feeding the voratious appetite of the Military Industrial Complex while our country's infrastructure literally crumbles. Now that the country is laid to waste, the GOP will dump the whole mess into the lap of the next Democratic president and shriek about the Democrats raising taxes. Amazing.
Rescue workers have been unable to begin recovering bodies at the scene of a bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis last night as officials continued to examine the site to make sure it was safe for them to work.
DLer June sent me this Kos diary and it's killer good.
The most important people in Democratic politics don't even know it.
::
It's the kid with the anger in his eyes I saw on my way to the swimming pool...anger at the injustice of a school system that's written him off in the fifth grade...anger at a society that tells him every day that he is less than a full citizen because of the color of his skin just like his dad and his uncles.
It's the overweight mom I see in my neighborhood. The one with two young children who has pre-diabetes and doesn't know it yet. She lives in a society that won't give her preventative care or nutritional education, but which underwrites big corporations that sell her super-sized food that is silently eating away at her body.
It's the small town single mom sitting at the kitchen table late at night smoking a cigarette...taxed to the last dollar like all the working poor...trying to figure out how to pay the electric bill and still have rent money on a cleaning woman's wages.
It's the hard-working, middle-class 60-year-old facing an outsourced job and a failed pension who's shown up on time, paid his dues, but is now looking down the barrel of a retirement plan that's gone up in rust-belt smoke.
It's that hopeful nurse in a rural hospital who spends her day cradling low birth-weight babies in a society that stopped caring about some of its children with the rise of the political party that's "abstinence-only."
It's a 34-year old father from the exurbs looking at his third tour of duty in Iraq...and his seven-year-old daughter watching him go
