Restoring more integrity to the WH

Now, if this was something really important, like personnel decisions in the Travel Office, I’m sure Rush, Hannity, et al would be outraged. But since this is just the Veep providing preferential treatment to the company from which he still receives checks so it can engage in numerous instances of war profiteering, I’m sure this will just be “overreaction by the liberal media”.

Freaking hypocrites.


Actually, I’ll wait to see what more comes out on this. But, as I looked for some more news on this, but Foxnews.com didn’t have a mention of this story…wonder why?

So, I'm still giving him the benefit of the doubt, I don't know why. This adminstration continually shows how crooked it is, but I'll wait for more proof.

Doesn't this make you feel safe?

I thought the Dept of Homeland Security was created so that there would be coordination between all the Federal Agencies? Maybe the Justice Dept. didn't get the memo?

Oregon giving John fits

Tough week for America’s scariest man: First, Johnny’s little material witness zealotry backfires and the Justice Department gets a rebuke from a Federal Judge and Freedom loving Americans everyone then, a SECOND court upholds States rights (formerly a Conservative tenet) over an overreaching political/religious based ideology.

Remember when Conservatives (not that the Bush Adminstration is holds to any "Conservative" beliefs) were for a SMALLER Federal Government?

Shrek @

So, me and the fam saw Shrek2 today. Good times. This movie is going to make a billion. We went on Sunday at the 9:30 AM show (when the god-fearing folks are at church) and the place was probably 60% full. Given that there was also a show at 9 and 10 tells me that S2 is going to rake in the dough.

Anyway, I'd give it 4 stars and maybe a bonus 1/2 star for using a Buzzcocks song and a Sanford and Son reference.

I give it a recommend

When you abandon the principles of this country...

This is what happens. Innocent men are sent to jail, without charge, without review. Our government could have kept him forever on this fake material witness crap.

This could have been you...

Wolfy gone Frenchie?

Every time I ever pointed out the poor planning or even the lame ass lies that made up the rationale for war to my Bushie friends, the always witty comeback was "you'd rather have Saddam" or "you're just like the French and we ALL know they're hiding something".

Well, Paul must have been eating too many of the French Fries.

Soprano's: Six Feet Under meets Fellini

What was up with tonight's Soprano's? I've never been a fan of dream sequences and tonight's sequence drove home it's point over and over again. Hey, I'm a big fan of blatant "Godfather" references as much as the next guy (and "Bugsy", etc)...and probably a ton of other references I didn't get, but OK, we get it.

After a while you're thinking a shot of Patrick Duffy in the shower is next or it turns out that Tnny's really a 10 year old kid staring at a snow globe (Ask your parents).

Charles Paul Freund has an interesting take on how brutality and stupidity seemingly often go hand in hand. And in the end, often the outcome is the opposite of the desired one. In this case, as in others, the barbarism simply emboldens America.

He almost had me...

When Bush announced he wouldn’t attend his daughters’ graduations, initially I thought, “That’s not very “family values”. Then I read that he wasn’t attending so as not to be a burden on the other families that would have to go thru metal detectors and searches, etc. And while I still thought “these are your daughters, but that’s a legitimate reason”. This would be about the first thing I’ve agreed with the Prez on in many many months.

Then I read that he’ll be speaking at three graduations. So, I guess I should have gone with my gut and realized that unless this man has a political motive, it’s just not going to happen.

Pierce on Alterman

Charles Pierce, who often fills in for Alterman when he's unable to blog, has another beauty today. In case you didn't know, he's damn funny, especially when mocking other bloggers. You can find this at Alterman's blog.

Pure COM O DEE

• May 14, 2004 | 11:01 AM ET

"And it follows that the revered Senator McCain, who has been declaring that he wants all the remaining photos released, is acting like a posturing, media-mad fool."
-- Mickey Kaus 5/12/04

Doc --
And, it follows, of course, Mickey is blogging like a college sophomore who discovered Ripple and Sun Tzu an hour ago. But, we digress.

Prisoner abuse

I haven't commented on this because it's mostly been said by people smarter than me, from John McCain and George Will to ALterman, Marshall and even Lindsey Graham. But, today's comments by Senator Inofe were very troubling. No one has said that this is a poor reflection on the hundreds of thousands of US troops doing their thing. But, he's outraged at the outrage...as if that our enemies our brutal it gives us a pass on brutality. Apparently the Senator's sense of irony is lost. Remember? we went their to free Iraqi's from torture (well, that was the reason after the WMD arguement had been abandoned).

It's like saying anti-semitism is ok, because Hitler killed 6 million Jews and denying Jews their rights, isn't as bad as that.

What the hell kind of freak logic is that?

He accussed Senator Kerry of turning the issue into a poltical one, while he grandstands. This whole war is political, it's Bush's political war. His disaster. He's put thousands of damn fine Americans in harms way, and someday when the WH stops lying we might know their true motivation for lying to us. We may learn the true motivation for this war. But, what we know now is that Iraq was no danger to us, it had no links to terrorism against America and that this WH had NO PLAN to rescue the country once we invaded.

Shameful

Politics trumps science...again

FDA administrator overrules scientists.

So, the GOP doesn’t want abortion, it won’t educate kids on sex, it won’t provide condoms, and now against medical evidence it won’t offer the “day after pill”. I wonder if it’s because if people used this pill and stopped having abortions then they wouldn’t have a devisive issue to wage war on “liberals”.

Idiots.

My Bushie friends finally agree with my view of 18 months ago

A Bushie friend of mine vehemently opposed my idea that if the Iraqis want democracy and freedom they should do it themselves. Now, he says that it's very important to hand over power because the Iraqis need to step up and create their own democracy.

I responded to him after I thanked him for finally accepting my middle east vision:

Hand over “power” to whom? Do we have a name yet?

And we ain’t handing power over to shit.

I’m sure their will be some pretty ceremony where Paul Bremer hands the keys to the city to some Chalabi like US-puppet and Bush will say "mission accomplished" again. Then, exactly who will be controlling the country with 150,000 US troops there? Remember, the guy with the gun has the power.

So, this player to be named later will have NO POWER. NONE.

He’ll be more of a figurehead than George Bush is.

Rummy Safe...for now

Bush supports Rummy.

I doubt Rummy will lose his job, but it’s a possiblity. So, I want to hear why he shouldn’t lose his job and then I’ll compare that with reasons why he should lose his job when he does.

But then again, since no one in this adminstration is EVER responsible for ANYTHING that happens on their watch, it would be hard to hold Rummy Accountable..shit no one in this administration has every apologiized for anything. The President has never even made a mistake…maybe those conversations with God have given him a messianic thing.

The War President who screwed up the War and the CEO president who doesn’t know how to control or even know what his underlings are doing.

It would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so tragic.

Worse than I imagined

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), the United States revealed on Tuesday as the Bush administration tried to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.

We all remember that I (and many others) thought the post-invasion Iraq situation would be bad. Some things are just as I said they would be, the roadside bombs, attacks on US soldiers, little support of infrastructure, etc. I hoped I was wrong, I remember saying “I hope the Iraqi’s greet us with Roses along the streets of Baghdad”. But, honestly, this is going worse than I imagined. I never for a moment thought that Americans would use the same prison that Saddam used to do the same barbarous acts. The fact that we went in there with the “moral authority” to wage this war means that our treatment of prisoners should be beyond reproach. Which makes these acts EVEN worse.

And when Generals and WH officials try to explain away this shit with “they weren’t trained in the Geneva Convention” it makes me ill. Do you mean that you need to have a special training that pulling an Abner Louima on prisoners is wrong? If that’s the case, then maybe the military needs to do a little better screening for psychopaths.

Bremer didn't really mean it or ANOTHER FLIP FLOP

Bremer didn't really mean it.

Why is this not a flip flop. IT’s not like he said this 20 years before 9/11. It was 6 months, just like Clarke. But, it’s not a flip flop when he does a little Cover my Ass in order to keep his job. How is that?

Kerry votes against an omnibus spending bill 15 years ago and the Bushies point out that he “Voted against” one of the millions of items in that package. Yet, when Bremer says something specific about the issue at hand and when Cheney says the US has to cut it’s military spending that’s not hypocrisy or flip flops.

Where is the liberal media on this one?

Who will the WH attack machine go after this time?

Joe Wilson's book is out.

No doubt, it's all lies right? A career diplomat who worked for Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton and investigated the Niger Nuke claim will no doubt be attacked once again. I wonder how his incompetencee and lies (that he will no doubtedly be accused of) slipped by those other 5 presidents.

The Rove/Cheney/GOP/Novak Attack machine ruined his wife's career and put who-knows-how-many intelligence contacts in jeopardy with their retribution, I wonder if they will attack his children this time.



Once again, SHAMEFUL.

Do the Marshal's only protect from journalists

David Souter was attacked last night. I wondered where the US Marshals were. Aren't they supposed to protect the Justices? Or do they only protect Justices from journalists recording their words.