Apparently, Wal-Mart is paying right wing bloggers to say all kinds of favorable things about them. And, being right-wing bloggers, many felt no need to mention they were - and ARE - being paid big bucks to say how wonderful $2.49/ream toilet paper is at Wal-Mart. Imagine that.
From Crooks and Liars:
Keith: ...the Bush administration on the hunt for anyone who might have leaked word of the NSA domestic spying program to the media. Amid further word tonight that there may even be more secret spying going on than thought previously. Absent any hint of irony, the administration launching several investigations to nab any federal official who may have blown the whistle on its warrant-free surveillance programs, as well as its secret CIA prisons.
President Bush, you will recall, calling the NSA leak a, quote, "shameful act" that was, quote, "helping the enemy." Nevermind the members of his own senior staff who saw fit to leak the name of a covert CIA operative, mainly because her husband had said something critical about he White House..The "Washington Post" reported that dozens of employees at the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by the FBI already. At the same time, the Justice Department warning reporters that they could be prosecuted under espionage laws. .read on"
From the Associated Press (although I like it when Skippy says AssPress or in skippy... asspress - the ee cummings of blogtopia!):
NEWFANE, Vt. - In five Vermont communities, a centuries-old tradition of residents gathering in town halls to conduct local business became a vehicle to send a message to Washington: Impeach the president.I love how the freepers and the rest of Clueless Dementiadom, those great patrons of "less government" are calling for black helicopters to land in Vermont and the entire population placed on the Terror Watch List.
An impeachment article, approved by a paper ballot 121-29 in Newfane Tuesday, calls on Vermont’s lone member of the U.S. House, independent Rep. Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against President Bush, alleging he misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.
“It absolutely affects us locally,” said Newfane select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article. “It’s our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying” in the war in Iraq.
From ImpeachBush.org:
Just last week:
The last vote I heard was something like 126 yea/28 nay to request our sole rep in the House of Reprehensibles, Bernie Sanders, initiate a call for articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.
If anyone from Newfane is reading - and I've noticed a few of you in recent weeks - please feel free to provide your comments on the discussion, vote at today's Town Meeting Day.
From Editor & Publisher:
A new Washington Post-ABC News polls shows that an overwhelming majority of adult Americans believe fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims will lead to civil war in Iraq. Confirming a finding in a Gallup survey last week, more than half say the U.S. should begin withdrawing its forces from that country.I was also reading that Bush's support in deeply Southern-identified states (the ones where the citizens perhaps cannot spell their state except as an abbreviation?) has dropped very low so that even in red only-locations, his unfavorable ratings on terrorism and Iraq are running higher than the favorables.
More eight in 10 Democrats and political independents--and seven in 10 Republicans--believe civil war was likely.
Slightly more than half--52%--of those surveyed said the United States should begin withdrawing forces. One in six favors immediate withdrawal of all troops.
The poll found that 56% say the U.S. is not making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq--a major surge in pessimism since December.
Because this horse's ass brags that HE would sign that South Dakota ban-all-abortions! bill that does not even take the health and welfare of the mother into account.
I guess old Johnny wasn't reading the U.S. Constitution and the words of our founding fathers while he was a PoW. But then, he lost all credibility when he began brown nosing Bush's ass which smells worse than Viet Cong ever would.
Another fat, privileged, old white man stands up to decide what a woman should do. Yawn.
Today is the day when every Vermont town gets together and hashes out budgets, bad blood, and who made the best pot of coffee for lunch.
It's also today that Newfane - I'm not aware of any other town presenting it - votes on whether to demand our elected officials initiate impeachment proceedings against the accident-prone guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Oops, no, the other accident prone guy besides Duck! It's Dick! Cheney.
John at AmericaBlog pointed out the only redeeming moment during the Oscars ceremony on TV last night:
I posted something last night about CentCom contacting some bloggers. And, being me - no, really, I can be sarcastic sometimes, honestly - I closed by mentioning that I had not been the recipient of any love letters from CentCom.
Well, it turns out, CentCom sent me a note today to clarify that CentCom does NOT send love letters (I was so relieved - imagine how the defense budget would soar if it did!).
Anyhoo, yes, SPC Flowers, I would be happy to give CentCom a link. Perhaps I can learn something from you, and you perhaps can learn something from me.----- Original Message -----
From: Flowers, SPC Claude W. (USA)
To: EdBlog
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 7:19 PM
Subject: CENTCOM websiteHi, Katharine:
Sorry to disappoint, but CENTCOM doesn't send love letters.
What we have been doing is reaching out to bloggers to let them know that we have a webpage (http://www.centcom.mil). Since so many sites (such as yours) are focusing on the Global War on Terrorism, we've been trying to tailor the content of our own site to make it one of the informational resources that folks can avail themselves of. We've been progressively expanding the scope of CENTCOM.mil over the past few months in an effort to make it better.
I don't know if you've paid the site a visit, but it features news, photos, audio and video from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, all of which you are free to use. There's also a weekly electronic newsletter and monthly Coalition Bulletin which I can sign you up for, if you want.
If you could add a link to CENTCOM on your blogroll, that would be terrific (It'd certainly help spread the word). In any event, hopefully it's got some stuff that's of interest.
SPC C. Flowers
CENTCOM Public Affairs
The depravity keeps getting worse...
From The Times on Saturday:
The White House has a sorry history of withholding information that the public and Congress need to make informed policy judgments. A proposal in President Bush's new budget would take that damaging tendency one step further by eliminating a government survey that captures the real-world impact of welfare reform, Medicaid, child-support enforcement and many other policies and programs.
Started by the Census Bureau in 1984, this study, called the Survey of Income and Program Participation, questions thousands of the same people every four months for two to four years and gathers details about their lives, including their use of government aid. It is particularly valuable for the way it uncovers the actual effects of government programs and the way people move in and out of them. Most other polls simply capture data at a given point in time.
Take welfare reform, for example. Rather than evaluating it simply by the number of people on welfare before and after, researchers using the survey have isolated the factors — social, economic and personal — that have allowed some men and women to successfully leave welfare for work and the factors that caused others to fall into deeper poverty. Such information is vital to build on what works, to amend what doesn't and to allocate scarce government resources accordingly.
Getting rid of the survey this year, as the new budget proposes, would make it very difficult to study the fallout from deep cuts in food stamps, child care, Medicaid and other programs for the poor that Congress passed and Mr. Bush signed last month. That would be great for politicians who don't want to be held accountable. But it would be a big loss for anyone who wants government to work well.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
From DailyKos:
He really needs to return to diagnosing comatose women by video.Via Glenn Greenwald, we learn that once again, when Republicans can't follow the rules, they change them:
Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House's agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.
Oh dear. I know they visit here, but I certainly haven't gotten a love letter from CentCom.
Sorta like Brownie (ex FEMA director, Michael Brown, whom Bush and Homeland (In)security czar Michael Chertoff could not praise enough while black people in New Orleans washed away).
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (hurray!):
The Bush administration has a substantial credibility problem. Things it says turn out not to be true. Again and again.
Two troubling examples made the news last week, and they illustrate a serious problem rooted in a combination of political arrogance, incompetence and disdain for the audience. Often it seems the White House, or the president himself, offers the American public an incredulous shrug to punctuate the plea, "Who could have known?"
In Iraq, a virulent insurgency is killing civilians and American soldiers. Before the war, the Bush administration said the U.S. military would be greeted as liberators by a grateful public. Almost three years of mayhem and chaos later, the White House blames the insurgency on the residue of Saddam Hussein's supporters and foreign terrorists.
Who could have known?
In 2003, the White House was repeatedly warned the insurgency had deep local roots and could lead to civil war. Local conditions, not foreign terrorists, would fuel the flames. The information was prepared by a committee of senior intelligence analysts at the request of the U.S. military command.
As the insurgency gained strength, what did President George W. Bush have to say? "Bring 'em on."
[Snippy snip]
...Transcripts and a government video revealed the administration and the president were warned in advance about the perils of Hurricane Katrina, the vulnerability of levees and the potential for catastrophe.
The president is not directly responsible for making sure ice and cots are available, but he is accountable for the urgency of the response by his team.
Before the storm hit, he was told firsthand about the dangers. So, it is mystifying how he could stand before the American public four days later and declare no one could have anticipated the levees being breached.
Earlier, a room full of people he presumably leads told him exactly that.
President Bush is great at sales, but he cannot deliver a product — time after time.
While I'm not much of a Koufax award follower, I know some of you participate regularly. For those interested, you can see the categories and vote for your favorites in said categories starting here.
You heard him, Condi: lay down that crack pipe NOW!
From the NY Daily News:
Firebrand director Spike Lee has found an unlikely new target for his latest spray: the secretary of state.
Says Lee: "I dislike Condoleezza Rice more than [President] Bush. The thing about it is that she's gotten a free ride from black people."
Oh no, he didn't.
"People say, 'She's so successful' and 'Look at her position as a black woman.' She is a black woman who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and said that she never experienced a day of racism in her life," Lee tells the April issue of Stuff magazine.
"Condi, stop smoking that crack!"
"I know you love your Ferragamo shoes, but come on. While people were drowning in New Orleans, she was going up and down Madison Ave. buying Ferragamo shoes. Then she went to see 'Spamalot.'"
You heard the man, Madame Secretary. Put down the crack pipe.
From CNN, although I've heard about this nutcase before:
NAPLES, Florida (AP) -- If Domino's Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan has his way, a new town being built in Florida will be governed according to strict Roman Catholic principles, with no place to get an abortion, pornography or birth control.Why is it I have no doubt whatsoever that Viagra, Cialis, liposuction, and really bad toupees and hair waves WILL be allowed?
The pizza magnate is bankrolling the project with at least $250 million and calls it "God's will."
Civil libertarians say the plan is unconstitutional and are threatening to sue.
The town of Ave Maria is being constructed around Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in about 40 years. Both are set to open next year about 25 miles east of Naples in southwestern Florida.
We freed them all right. We freed them of their money, their oil, their jobs, their institutions, and their lives. Remember, too, as you read this, that we only report a fraction of the number of Iraqis who have died.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgency-related violence last year killed more than twice as many Iraqi civilians — 4,024 people — as Iraqi soldiers and police, according to government figures obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
And the civilian death count in the first two months of this year already stands at more than one-quarter of last year's total — due in part to sectarian violence triggered by the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine and car bombings in Shiite neighborhoods around Baghdad.
The large number of civilian deaths — many in Baghdad, where 25 percent of the population lives — has created a climate of fear where parents are afraid to send their children to school, women spend their days huddled inside their homes, and husbands send wives and children abroad.
Figures compiled by the Health Ministry put the civilian death toll for 2005 at 4,024. The ministry's civilian death count for the first two months of this year is 1,093.
Unless the leaker is named Dick Cheney and the target is Joe Wilson and his former CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame.
From Saturday's WaPo:
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.
In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.
"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."
President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was "helping the enemy," and said in December that he was hopeful the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the disclosure.
Tillman, as you may recall, left a lucrative sports career to join Bush's call for heroes to bring down Osama bin Forgotten. Tillman was not only killed, his death was covered up to hide friendly fire being a facotr.
From the NY Daily News, which seems to be tipping to sanity right now, please note how Halliburton may get its greedy fingers in the deal (do we really want to trust national security to Duck! It's Dick! Cheney?
WASHINGTON - The White House is quietly pushing a Dubai company to "significantly restructure" and partner up with a U.S. outfit to keep the port deal from sinking, sources told the Daily News yesterday.
"It's in the hands of the company now. ... They're going to have to significantly restructure," said a Republican source familiar with White House expectations...
[snippy snip]
One snag to such a deal may be that sources say the U.S. company best equipped to partner with DP World is Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Cheney.
After undergoing so much scrutiny for its no-bid Iraq contract and the handling of some of its duties there, Halliburton may not be able to help DP World land the deal, a source admitted.
According to the source close to the White House, Team Bush believes that in addition to clearing an extended 45-day review, DP World will have to come up with a deal that will pass muster with Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
King is seen as a key lawmaker because he broke with the White House over the Dubai deal despite his strong relationship with President Bush and top aides like Karl Rove.
As the good folks at Buzzflash point out, someone at CNN got a clue today. Under a picture from the love-fest tryst going on between Pakistan PM Pervez Musharrif and Mr. Bush, CNN called it Mr. Bush's so-called War on Terror.
Finally. Yes, I agree with Buzzflash, the poor truthteller will probably lose his or her job. But it was nice to see someone finally acknowledge the truth.
| Gasoline Prices |
| energy policy |
| Pounds of CO2 this year |
Cost of the War in Iraq
Vermonters and Vermont Lovers? Click above to visit our Vermont "sister" blog, Vermont, Now & Zen.
NEW: Buy Peter Lance's
Buy David Kuo's
Buy Amy Goodman's
"Static: Gov't Liars...And The People Who Fight Back"
Buy Frank Rich's
"The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of the Truth from 9/11 to Katrina"
Buy Bob Woodward's
Buy Keith Olbermann's
"The Worst Person in the World"
Buy John Dean's
"Conservatives Without Conscience"
Buy Thom Hartmann's
"Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class"
Buy David Sirota's
Buy Kate J. Chase's
Buy Kate J. Chase's
"Savvy Guide to Car Maintenance & Repair"
Buy Kate J. Chase's
