It's Bush's Way Or The (Hell) Highway

From Stranger at Blah3:

One step closer to Constitutional Crisis. They ain't budging.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter today, told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, that the White House has not budged in its refusal to allow the panels to question several White House aides, including Karl Rove, about what they know regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, moving the two sides closer to a constitutional battle over the scandal.

Fielding also appears to be trying to head off an attempt by Conyers to obtain e-mails and documents from the Republican National Committee regarding the firings. Roughly 50 White House officials, including 22 curent aides, used e-mail accounts controlled by the RNC to send messages, including some related to the prosecutor firings, and Conyers asked RNC Chairman Mike Duncan to turn over those records today.

Fielding also said that "it was and remains our intention to collect e-mails and documents from those accounts as well as the official White House e-mail and document retention systems" as part of a broader deal with the two committees on staffer testimony.

Fielding has offered to allow Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and other Bush aides to be questioned by committee investigators, but only behind closed doors, and not under oath. Fielding also won't allow any transcript of those interviews to be made. Conyers and Leahy have rejected the offer as woefully inadequate, and while both committees have authorized subpoenas for Rove, Miers and the others, only Conyers has issued up until now and those were for documents only.

Presidential temper tantrum?

Don Imus (AKA The Big Brass Ass)

You may want to read this piece on the Don Imus/Rutgers University debacle from The Times.

What really pisses me off are those who go after the woman athletes and others for "ruining" poor, dear, good-hearted, already-had-2097-other-chances-and-blew-them-too Imus.

For all the decency he claimed this week, I can't think of a single time that Donny Boy offered even the faintest apology without, in the same breath, making it clear he thinks it's someone else's problem for taking it badly.

Perhaps it speaks of Imus' fan base to learn that the Rutgers women team has received death threats and a host of other pure nastiness.

Hey, Don, don't let the door hit you in the ass where you carry the coke stash on your way out.

Religious Persuasion And The Presidency

I am NO fan of Mitt Romney, for a variety of reasons. I won't bother to list them all since all we have to do is look at his very recent "sudden conversions" against a woman's right to choose, etc. to tell you Mitt is, as Rudy Giuliani, something of a political whore.

But as I read this news byte at Taegan Goddard's Political Wire re: Mitt Romney's religious affiliation (Mormon) being a detriment (not Taegan's issue, just reporting it), I'm not very happy about it regardless of how much I dislike Mitt.

While I may not be extremely happy about Mormonism because of some of its tenets, I think it is terribly wrong to exclude someone simply based on their religious affiliation, or lack thereof. Of course, religion isn't the only buggaboo, is it? After all, the press is messing its collective pants that we have both a woman AND an African-American running for the Dem nomination for 2008 presidency. In 2000, people went nuts because Lieberman, a Jew, was running for VP.

As much as I believe we MUST have separation of Church and State, excluding anyone because of their religion, their race, or some other issue is just wrong. Period. Because Mitt's running Republican, it will (inappropriately) matter more because there are too many GOPeeupons who feel someone else's choices are everybody's business.

Lee Iacocca Asks: "Where Have All The Leaders Gone?"

You must - you really must - read this from the former auto CEO's latest book, quoted from Taegan Goddard's "Political Wire."

Lead, follow, or get the (fuck) out of the way, anyone?

Are We Having A Fantastic Friday The 13th?

I mean, there is very little to get in the way of our enjoyment of this religion-free holiday, unless you count pesky little points like:

• Bush and the Pentagon are soooo desperate for warm bodies to stand in harm's way in Iraq that they're wondering how much hardware would be needed to resurrect dead soldiers and return them to active duty
• Similarly, they're so desperate for soldiers in Iraq that they're forcing U.S. soldiers with traumatic brain injury, lost limbs, acute psychiatric symptoms, and other illnesses that require constant followup medical care back out on enemy lines
• Most of the rest of the world, and some of the smarter voices here, believe the U.S. is in for a financial meltdown that will make the dustbowl days of the '29-mid-30s Great Depression seem like a Paris Hilton birthday party
• Thanks to Bush, America probably should have filed for bankruptcy at least five years ago
• No one at the Department of (In)Justice - or the White House, for that matter - knows how to tell the truth
• When, after weeks of delay because the Iraqi Parliament would not show up for work in Baghdad's Green Zone in part because it was so dangerous, a big blast at the Parliament building claims the lives of both parliamentarians, guards, and support staff
• George Bush and John McCain and Dick Cheney insist on portraying Iraq as "Club Med" when it's more like Hub Dead
• If we arrested, tried, and found the entire Bush Administration guilty of crimes of treason against the United States tomorrow, it's still going to take decades to simply begin to resurrect our nation from the damage we've done, and perhaps a century or more before the U.S.'s once strong standing will return

I could go on... but if I did, I'd probably have to shoot myself. ::sigh::

Damn. It's nights like this I wish I liked alcohol. But this is an inopportune time to express what a cheap drunk I am.

And So It Goes

For those, like me, already missing the bloody hell out of Kurt Vonnegut, let me point you to this lovely picture (courtesy of First Draft) of the man for whom "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", who welcomed us into the Monkeyhouse and to the Player Piano and into Mothernight, served me endless portions of "Breakfast of Champions", who bore our "Palm Sunday", shared the strange life of Kilgore Trout many times not to mention introduced us to Mr. Rosewater, who made me love Indianapolis simply because he did, delighted me with Timequake and, oh yes, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian", a slim novel I cannot recommend highly enough.

And, once more, speaking for KV:

"Ting-a-ling, god damn it! Ting-a-ling!"

Anyone For a Bet?

How long will it take some right-right or sleaze station (Fox Noise, perhaps?) to hire Don Imus now that CBS has outright fired him right after MSNBC kicked him to the curb?

Mind you, as a pre-teen, back when Imus was pushed off to odd channels/times because he DJed totally stoned (and not marijuana either), I loved Don. Why? Because he was nuts (so was my family, but at least Don was interesting nuts). But this nutcase has had many revisions and the worst yet has been his new "right wing" vista.

Someone told me today how sad this is since Don's about to do a telethon for his "sick kids" ranch. But - and I'm sure this is just a chance phenomenon - all the kids I see in video at his ranch are uh... um... how do I say this? Uh... as fish-fbelly-flesh white as I am (I may be 1/8th Native American by genetics but my coloration is more Brit).

More Of The Effects Of U.S. Attorney Gate/GonzalesGate

From Make Them Accountable:

An April 11 article in The Washington Post on the House Judiciary Committee's decision to subpoena hundreds of Justice Department documents related to the U.S. attorney firings noted that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has "joined other members in demanding records and additional information about a federal public corruption case" in Wisconsin. Regarding the case, the Post reported only that a federal appeals court in Chicago ordered a former state employee to be "released after overturning her conviction." The article did not report that Georgia Thompson -- who was not identified by name -- was convicted on charges brought by a Bush-appointed U.S. attorney just before the 2006 election, that Wisconsin Republicans used her conviction to attack Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) during the campaign, that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit took the highly unusual action of ordering the defendant released during oral argument because of the lack of evidence to support the conviction, and that Feingold and five other senators have requested information about the case to investigate whether "politics may have played an inappropriate role" in the prosecution.

Wanted: Habeas Corpus' Return - LOTS of Questions Asked (Like, How Could We Give It Up?)

I love this from the ACLU. Link is here.

The World Has Lost A Friend: Kurt Vonnegut Entertained, Informed, Inspired, and Made Our World And Our Own Minds So Much Richer

I am speechless at the death of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.

For years and years and years, I reread every Vonnegut novel of the many, many volumes on a regular basis. I just went through "Timequake" again.

But what many don't know about this beautiful man, one of the best of the humanists we are blessed to have, is how much Kurt worked for peace, for justice in a much more important sense than "an eye for an eye" (please don't insist to me that the Biblical "eye" statement is what God wants; it's ONLY what more than 20 centuries of authors, and editors and rewriters, and copiers, and kings and other men NOT of God have told us).

Since Kurt was very badly injured in a fire several years ago, I knew both by his age and the situation we would not have him for long. Yet Kurt continued, leading up to the Iraq War, to write beautifully in alternative publications such as "In These Times."

I will mourn Kurt tonight. But - damn it - it won't be just for one night. Kurt is part of me, as I suspect he is part of many others; helped us look closer than just the immediate sight, helped us question authority and what is "done" by our governments in our names, helped me be a little smarter (and sarcastic).

No, I suspect I will mourn the loss of him for the rest of my life. But the blessing is that I also get to read and reread him, praise and thank him, strive to be a little better for what he (and hey, his brother the scientist was no slouch) made me see, to look above and beyond and under "the facts", and pray that there will be more Vonneguts, just as I know there will never be quite another man exactly like Kurt.

Good night, Kurt. Thank you. Love you.

Gotta Love Those Gas Prices, Eh?

King Bush keeps sniping at Iran while dancing with the Saudis and the rest of us pay BIGtime.

Dear Democrats: The Voters Are Getting Antsy

See my piece here on why Democrats need to step it up a notch on Iraq or risk losing some serious recent gains.

Has Anyone Read About Ford CEO Keeping Our President From Getting Blown Up?

[In the OOOPS, Found It Department: Ford Motor CEO Saves Bush From Setting Himself on Fire And finally the CEO of Ford Motor Company is being credited with literally saving President Bush's life. Alan Mulally said the president almost plugged an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of a special Ford hybrid vehicle at the White House last week. Mulally said he violated protocol and grabbed the president"s arm to prevent Bush from setting himself on fire.] Idiot. And no, I'll leave you to wonder if I mean Bush for trying something so stupid or Ford's CEO for.. well... taking care of a large problem wrapped up in a very tiny mind and soul.

I caught just a part of this story on Democracy Now today, yet it's not in their show headlines. I wrote briefly about Bush's 3-20-07 trip to Ford for a photo op with a hybrid Ford Escape (and god nows we need to escape from the Bushiess) documented here.

But nowhere do I see the story referenced about Ford's CEO having to jump in before Bush did something assinine (which he seems to do every second of every day) like trying to insert an electrical hose into a hydrogen only conduit, which would have resulted in a healthy-sized B-O-O-M!

If anyone knows of a link, please give a shout.

Say Hello to...

A great place to get politically and socially cynical/comical/right on material at CafePress for Dems and Progressives and, oh yes, Liberals .

Belated Happy Easter/Passover/Whoopeee Day

Sorry, I've been suffering with a nasty headache for several days so I haven't been posting.

Unfortunately, there's a LOT out there to write about, too. So I'll see what I can get written between holding my head between both hands and crying, "If only Bush had anything in HIS head to hurt!"