Al Qaeda Rising, Bush Spinning

Today may be Friday the 13th but, sadly, under the Bush 43rd Administration, every day feels like the world’s least fortunate day (that is, unless you’re a fatcat defense contractor, an energy company stockholder, or one of the hundreds of incompetent appointees of this president constantly rewarded for their grave failures). So I suppose it fits that we have been treated this week to the news not only that our Homeland Security czar decides terror levels based on his “gut” but that Al Qaeda has, after probably more than a trillion dollars (the Bushies hide so much) and countless lives have been expended “fighting” Osama bin Laden’s exclusive club, largely reconstituted itself to its “pre September 11th” strength.

Yet it’s not just al Qaeda here we need to worry about. Bush has made the world a far more scary and hate-filled place through his policies and pronouncements. There were, for instance, a number of Muslim-dominant countries that had “favorable” feelings toward the United States before Bush but almost none now.

While he’s spent more money than any other president EVER “reshaping” everything terror-wise, creating endlessly redundant agencies (for example, we have 4-5 people now who seem to be in charge of our wars, including our Commander in Cheat, Bush himself), removing civil liberties left and right as if the U.S. Constitution did not exist, restructuring spy agencies to make them “function better” only to have them work less well than ever before, what do we have?

We have NO greater homeland security than we had before. We are hated far more throughout the world than we have ever been before. We have done the almost impossible: made the Middle East far more dangerous and far less stable than it was before we went into Iraq.
But we also have a president who turned around and refuted his “intelligence experts” and his own gut-rumbling secretary of Homeland Security to claim al Qaeda isn’t restored AT THE SAME TIME Bush congratulated himself for keeping us so damned safe. This, the same man who, for his own political gain, quite obviously engineered the outing of a CIA operative directly involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as political payback because the woman’s husband exposed one of Bush’s flood of lies related to Iraq in the buildup toward war.

And we’re supposed to thank him. Right. Let’s hope he holds his breath until he receives our gratitude.

The Latest Fed Privatization-To-Skirt-Civil-Protections Ploy

While the concept of outsourcing the work of government is hardly brand new with the Bush Administration, the Bushies have no less than a hundred-fold used what I can only see as appropriately called "the privatization ploy" not just to reward companies eager to subsidize the Republicans under Bush/Rove, but to deliberately and egregiously circumvent certain protections and liberties afforded not just by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, but by other federal charters.

Notable examples include former Defense Secretary (and he's not only still on their payroll at a much-inflated "contractor" rate, but maintains a major desk at the Pentagon) Rumsfeld's extremely lucrative privatization of the military to the likes of Blackwater, Bechtel (Rumsfeld's former hunting ground), Halliburton and others; bringing in contract interrogators and soldiers of fortune; IRS collections to private agencies that can do even worse things than the IRS, hiring data mining companies like ChoicePoint to improperly bounce voters (especially those of color), dig into our most private affairs (and those of people in other countries), et al. The list goes on ad nauseum, I'm afraid.

Now the Bushies are set to launch a NEW privatization ploy, according to ABC News: contract with companies to keep sophisticated and detailed records on all our communications via phone and Internet that federal laws prevent the government from keeping themselves. The feds can then use this info, regardless of whether there is any reason whatsoever to monitor us (as in, due cause), while completely circumventing the very laws put in place to protect us from domestic spying/eavesdropping.

When and where the hell does this end? [And yes, I think it can end, but we have to stand up and MAKE it STOP!] Clearly, the Bush Justice Department exists only to persecute citizens.

Springfield, VT Wins "The Simpsons" Honor

No, I cannot quite explain how Springfield, VT (Vermont being my "home" state) got chosen as the official Springfield as part of the upcoming The Simpsons movie premiere, nor do I want to.

However, I will ask this question,"Hey, Fox, did you see the size of the Springfield movie theater? You should be able to fit at least 24 people into the premiere!"

Or... "DOH!"

[Springfield is not in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, neither is Fox.]

Patriot Act Follies

Yet another thing US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lied about; claiming there are no verified reports of abuses of the U.S. Patriot Act when he has them piling up.

Chertoff Gets Gas; America Foots "Security" Bill

So we went from Tom Ridge as secretary of Homeland Security spending billions to come up with a color-coded (and it was miscoded, actually) terror alert system that was held together with duct tape and chutzpah to Michael (Legion of Satan) Chertoff now putting us on alert because he has a "gut feeling" we're in for fresh terrorist attacks.

Yes, his gut feeling is that:

a) Bush wants to keep terrorizing the rest of the world and doesn't want to be told NO;
b) Bush wants to invade Iran now;
c) even rigged Republican-owned voting machines might not win the Repugs the 2008 presidential vote

Say Hello to...

Citizens for a Legitimate Government.

Imagine that! Almost like fair voting!

Just Say No To Dick (And What a Dick He Is, Too!)

Dick Cheney just isn't loved (quite) as much as he once was (and then, only by very scary people, including wife, Lynne). While he still tells us that his convicted-of-lying-and-obstruction-of-justice former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby is the most honest man he's ever known, the Senate is trying to cut off his funding since Dick claims he is answerable to no one.

Senator Dick Durbin, in the move to cut off such funding, should be very careful around Darth Cheney when he's carrying a gun. As Lynne can attest, "Duck, It's Dick!" Cheney often ejects his ammunition prematurely. [Insert Marine ditty about the difference between a rifle and gun here.]

Bitter Vitters, Fred Thompson "Mole" For Nixon, And Fibby Libby

Even George Orwell could not have imagined, much less felt it would make believable fiction, some of most recent headlines out of the Bush White House, their "moralist" (which always means, "you better live by my moral standards if you want to stay out of trouble, but hey, if I falter, I'll just claim God's forgiveness and keep on keeping on") far right, and their subversion of democracy.

Let's look at a handful, shall we?

*As The Times reported several days ago, Donald Rumsfeld as then Defense Secretary called off a strike against a supposed major meeting of Al Qaeda officials, including the purported #2 man to Osama bin Laden, the former pediatrician al Zawari; because it was just too dangerous for the Navy Seals and CIA operatives who would have attacked; uh... so it's better to keep tens of thousands of far less trained 18 year olds out fighting where the biggest terrorist is often a (perhaps all too justifiably pissed off) civilian?

* Turns out Fred Thompson, the bad actor and even worse politician, may have been a "mole" for Richard Nixon (the original Tricky Dick, although he was never as good at it as Dick Cheney has proven to be), carrying confidential information from the 1970s Watergate Commission to Dick Nixon's White House to help a lying leader avoid pitfalls; really makes you want to entrust Fred with the White House, eh?

* While the tighty righties scream that Bill Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich (who, I believe, gave a considerable amount of money to Republicans beyond the contributions of his ex-wife noted to Democrats) was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more evil than George Bush's miraculous and quite probably illegal commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the PlameGate affair, none of them ever bothered to mention that Libby happened to have been Rich's lawyer and one of those lobbying Clinton for clemency; Libby has certainly been the benefactor of so many riches

* Senator David Vitters (R-Louse... er... Louisiana) who railed against Bill Clinton's immorality while screaming that marriage is too precious to waste on gays who just happens to have been a client of not just the infamous "DC Madam" but also other prostitutes during - and this is just toooooo precious - the same time period he was shaking his moralist finger at Clinton

The Horror in Iraq - The Huh? Factor At Home

Strangely, there was fairly little coverage over the long weekend of a single suicide bomb that took out no less than 104 people - and desperately injured hundreds of others - in the Diyala province of Iraq. What mention it did get blamed Iraq again for its troubles, as if the Bush invasion and occupation - a debacle that has now surpassed the evil of Saddam Hussein - has not created the entire four-plus-year nightmare there. (And, oh yeah, the media noted, too, parenthetically, we're seeing a huge surge in American soldier deaths in just the first week of July - happy Fourth! Yeesh.)

Instead, we heard about President Bush's birthday plans, how easy it was for Scooter Libby to fork over a quarter million dollar "nuisance" fee for obstruction of justice in the PlameGate affair (actually, much of the MSM barely questioned how Libby came to have so much in his coiffers, largely put there by Bushies), and how First Lady Laura says that creating hope in others is a wonderful thing. [Unfortunately, since we're under the oppressive, tyrannical rule of her husband, we wouldn't know one damned thing about inspiring hope.]

Our founding fathers - and mothers - would have their heads explode.

Slamming The Door Shut On A Dick

According to the Washington Post, support for the impeachment of (at the very least) Vice President Dick Cheney is growing.

More Bushian Drumbeats Toward War With Iran

Now another American general is claiming - at the behest of the Bushies who would very much love to "control" Iran's oil as well - that Iranian security forces are training both Hezbollah and Iraqi militants. Uh huh.

If you want to blame someone for the terrible state of affairs in Iraq, you need to look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to two treasonous tyrants named Bush and Cheney with a hell of an assist from the Pentagon.

The Indefensible and Olbermann's Call For Bush-Cheney To Resign

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann had very strong words for the latest corrupt, self-serving, indefensible, protect-the-elite-Bushies-while-screwing-everyone-else action on the part of President Bush: commuting the sentence of convicted liar and former Cheney chief-of-staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby so he does not have to serve a single day in prison for outing former CIA operative Valerie Plame in the scandal known as PlameGate.

Olbermann called Bush gutless, that Bush proved beyond all doubt that he is not the leader of the United States but the titular head of a small and very elite group for whom their protection and profit is all that matters to this White House, and more than merely suggested that not even disgraced former president, Richard Nixon, would have dared pull such a nasty trick.

Yet, as Olbermann also announced on Monday, tonight (Tuesday) he will deliver one of his scalding and scalpel-sharp Special Comments in which he calls for (demands?) the resignation of both Bush and Cheney. You should watch (8 PM ET, MSNBC).

In the meantime, even the often far-too-Bush-defensive Washington Post editorial page today calls Bush's action indefensible (meanwhile, everyone else connected with the case, including the Justice Department, rushed in to claim Bush came up with this terrible deal mostly on his own, without their consultation):

IN COMMUTING I. Lewis Libby's prison sentence yesterday, President Bush took the advice of, among others, William Otis, a former federal prosecutor who wrote on the opposite page last month that Mr. Libby should neither be pardoned nor sent to prison. We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive. But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did -- to probation and a large fine -- is not defensible.

Mr. Libby was convicted in March on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff had told the FBI and a grand jury that he had not leaked the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame to journalists, but after hearing abundant testimony and carefully deliberating, a jury concluded that he lied. As we wrote at the time of the conviction, lying under oath is unacceptable for anyone, and particularly for a government official. As Mr. Bush said in his statement yesterday, "our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable."

Bush: The "Gutless" Wonder

Virtually no one - except perhaps President Bush and Vice President Cheney - expected that this White House would rush in so soon to keep a convicted liar and obstructor of justice, former Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, from having to pay any real penalty for his role in outing CIA covert operative Valerie Plame in the debacle known as PlameGate.

That Bush would subvert justice should not be such a surprise; after all, making a mockery and laughingstock out of the United States, its system of laws and government, and endangering the very people "charged" with protecting us while maximizing corruption to the great advantage of his pals is what he does best.

Yet even Bush reached a new low by delivering this announcement not in person, not on camera, not by official White House press conference, but by a press release delivered over what many are taking as a 10-day-long July 4th weekend. As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann noted Monday night, the way Bush did it proved he is entirely "gutless"; he hopes no one will notice because he expects them to be too busy drinking beer and swilling hotdogs.

Sorry For The "Silence"

Twelve days ago, a little accident with the dog that sheered off most of the flesh on both of the palm side of my hands turned into an infection from hell because his leash went trailing into uh.. sheep dip and, in trying to get control of him and the leash again, I managed to bring some lovely eColi into my system. Fever was bad but having hands I could not use was really annoying.

Thankfully, after wearing mitts of antibiotics for awhile now, it looks like I'm on the mend and can type again, if far more slowly than usual. So beware.. I'm back.

White House Lies, Damned Lies, And Infidelities: "Whatever Shall We Tell The Children?"

If the past few weeks - give or take seven years - have taught us anything, it's to yearn for the days when a president merely lied about a question that was simply NOT the business of special counsel Ken Starr or the American press corps to ask: whether he engaged in any form of adulterous sexual activity with a consenting adult.

True, it's sad as hell that the Clinton-Lewinsky cigar/blue dress debacle would seem like the good old days. Yet, back then, we weren't at war with everyone and everything, more Americans were earning a living wage while far fewer were forced into bankruptcy and home foreclosures, and Washington's only seeming grave concern was "What shall we tell the children?" about a lie that was really none of our business when, today, the people getting screwed are American workers and other citizens (and it's sure as heck not consensual!), the lies told undercut not the sanctity of marriage but the entire U.S. constitution, bill of rights, and the ever-declining integrity of a democracy.

Indeed, we really SHOULD be asking the question now, "Whatever will we tell our kids?" because, if we don't figure out how to address what the Bush Administration is doing to us and America and the world, our kids stand almost no chance whatsoever of living in a country of which they can be duly (rather than artificially) proud.

Say Hello to...

Telling The Truthiness: News From The Gut

Bush: Felon In Chief

TalkLeft gives you more details about the "Karl Rove-Ken Mehlman/Official White House email sent out over Republican National Committee servers/incoming and outgoing email messages for 51 out of 87 different White House/government appointees purged" brouhaha.

Or, as Bush and Cheney (AND U.S. ASSAttorney General Alberto Gonzales) like to say,"WHAT U.S. Constitution? WHOSE Bill of Rights? WHAT planet are you on where you think this administration is accountable to anyone? The Presidential Records Act, like the Geneva Conventions, is quaint and not to be worried about. Go f*** yourself!"

Free Press? So Why "Fear Is In Every Newsroom In The Country"?

So much for the First Amendment, folks. From Adbusters (with deep thanks to Buzzflash for the link):

When Australia’s Rupert Murdoch threw his support behind the Iraq War, so did the 175 media outlets he owns as part of News Corp. When Canada’s CanWest Global Communications justified the Afghanistan invasion, so did its eleven daily newspapers and 16 television stations. And when the major US media conglomerates signed off on the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, American journalists lined up right behind them. In a recent interview on PBS’s Bill Moyers Report, former CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather explained why journalists were so afraid to question the war.

“Fear is in every newsroom in the country . . . particularly in [the] networks,” said Rather. “They’ve become huge international conglomerates. They have big needs, legislative needs, regulatory needs in Washington. Nobody has to send you a memo to tell you that that’s the case – you know. And that puts a seed in your mind of well, ‘If you stick your neck out, if you take the risk of going against the grain with your reporting, is anybody going to back you up?’”

Although the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have shown that media conglomerates limit the diversity of views, subvert democracy and stymie journalistic integrity, Canada, America and Australia’s media regulators continue to let them expand. In fact, over the past decade, media regulators have gone out of their way to help facilitate consolidation or have refused to speak up against it – all to the detriment of the public’s interest. As each of these three countries enters another round of media convergence, their federal media watchdogs appear to be looking the other way.

Yet Another Bush "Veto on America" As He Wages Bloody War on Science

Grrrrrr.... What is even MORE infuriating is that we've seen examples of several cases where the rabid rightwingers who fight against any use of embryonic stem cells (taken only from those that would be lost anyway) then turned around and used their OWN money and their OWN clout to seek the benefits FROM those stem cells. These, the same folks demanding that embryos that are barely more than a few cells deserve far more right to life than the women carrying them or the fully-cooked human beings who could benefit from REAL science. From Think Progress:

Today, President Bush issued the third veto of his presidency on legislation expanding funding for embryonic stem cell research, which recently passed Congress with a bipartisan, overwhelming majority.

Faced with the opposition of nearly two-thirds of Americans, White House spokesperson Tony Snow today attempted to spin the veto as a positive development. Snow claimed that Bush has a “unique and unprecedented role” in supporting stem cell research, and attacked critics for “misstating” the administration’s policies, claiming that Bush was in fact “putting science before ideology.”

In an attempt to drum up support for less potent alternatives to embryonic stem cell research, Snow falsely characterized the science behind stem cell research, claiming scientists “are not even entirely sure about what the possible benefits of embryonic stem cells [are].”

Just another loud, arrogant, and infinitely harmful "Fuck You" from the White House we pay to abuse us.

Gee, is Tony Snow, battling colon cancer, using stem cell treatments or at least using doctors willing to explore this? I (sadly) would not be surprised.

Yeah, Bush's War on Science is as well founded in fact and executed just as effectively as his other wars (on health care as a whole, on public education, on reason, on brown people not named Alberto Gonzales, to name a few).

Why Did Bush's FBI Allow Osama Bin Laden To Charter American Plane(s)?

Very good question, especially considering the Bush family and the Bin Laden family - on which Dubya sat on a board with bin Ladens - have for a very loooonnng time financially benefited from their war profiteering. Can you say Carlyle Group?

Notice this is from Canada since the press here still quakes in its boots:

FBI were aware that Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the flights that took members of the bin Laden family out of the United States immediate after the 9/11 attacks, yet allowed the planes to depart, new Agency documents reveal.

The formerly confidential documents obtained by Judicial Watch through Freedom of Information Act and ongoing litigation states:

ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.

Traffic control reports show that the plane was allowed to depart the United States after making four stops to pick up passengers, ultimately landing in Paris where all passengers disembarked on 9/20/01, according to the document.

FBI’s most recent document production includes details of the six flights between 9/14 and 9/24 that evacuated Saudi royals and bin Laden family members.

The documents also contain brief interview summaries and occasional notes from intelligence analysts concerning the cursory screening performed prior to the departures.

FBI did not consider a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members as possessing any information of investigative value.

According to Judicial Watch the documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi flights.