Reed Between The Lines

Good Night for Democrats; Good Night Republican

2005-11-09T01:48:00.000-06:00

Democratic Senator Jon Corzine won the New Jersey governor's seat over Doug Forrester, and Tim Kaine beat Republican Jerry Kilgore. In St. Paul, Chris Coleman won in a landslide over Randy Kelly:

Randy Kelly suffered a resounding defeat on Tuesday, the first St. Paul mayor in 33 years to lose his job at the polls.

Voters elected former City Council Member Chris Coleman in his stead by a better than 2-to-1 ratio.

It was, by all measures, a crushing defeat, the widest election loss by an incumbent mayor in the city's 151-year history. It even topped the 17,600-vote gap in 1972, when Larry Cohen defeated one-term Mayor Charles McCarty, who had been dubbed "Supermayor" for his crime-fighting exploits.

Kelly's defeat, however, was generally expected: Opinion polls in recent weeks gave Coleman a lead of more than 40 percentage points. The same polls showed general satisfaction with the way the city was being run but also documented voters' unwillingness to forgive Kelly, a Democrat, for campaigning on behalf of Republican President Bush during the 2004 election.

Coleman's lopsided victory over the incumbent shows that Bush, who claimed he received a "mandate" by his narrowest of election wins in 2004, is becoming a liability in the Republican party rather than an asset. It will be interesting to see how Republicans deal with Bush as the midterm election campaigns get into high gear.

Atrios has more here. Talking Points Memo has more about how Bush is becoming an albatross for the Republican party.

More Evidence of Misleading Case for War by the Bush Administration

2005-11-07T18:31:00.000-06:00

From the AFP:

US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according to a declassified report.

Nevertheless, eight months later, President George W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had trained members of Osama bin Laden's terror network in manufacturing deadly poisons and gases.

These same accusations had found their way into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council, in which he outlined the US rationale for military action against Iraq.

"This newly declassified information provides additional, dramatic evidence that the administrations pre-war statements were deceptive," said Democrat Carl Levin, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who pushed for partial declassification of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document. read on

With all the evidence that has surfaced about how this administration misled the country into war, how can Republicans claim that Harry Reid's call for a closed session to investigate this administration's handling of intelligence in the run-up to the war a "political stunt?" How can Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist claimed that the Senate "has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership" that has "no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas?" How can Frist claim that he had been "slapped in the face with such an affront...for the next year and a half, I can't trust Senator Reid?"

It seems finding out the particulars of a blowjob is of the utmost importance to the Republicans, while looking into something important, such as the handling of prewar intelligence that got us into a war that has claimed the lives of over 2,ooo American soldier's (not to mention thousands of innocent Iraqis) and injured thousands more, is something that can simply wait.

The Biggest Issue Is Bush In St. Paul

2005-11-07T17:54:00.000-06:00

From the Christian Science Monitor:

By all conventional wisdom, the mayor's race here in Minnesota's capital city should be an easy win for first-term incumbent Randy Kelly.
Unemployment is low, property taxes haven't gone up, new development has come in, and most residents are happy with the direction the city is headed. A sitting mayor hasn't lost a reelection bid here in more than three decades.

But if the polls are right, Mayor Kelly faces not just defeat but a trouncing in Tuesday's election. He was defeated in the open primary by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, and the latest poll has him trailing his opponent, former city council member Chris Coleman, 66 percent to 25 percent. Kelly's mistake? This moderate Democrat endorsed President Bush last November.

It may be the clearest example yet of the ripple effect of Bush's sinking popularity. And it's drawing an unusual amount of attention. Even Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts and former New York mayors Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch have stumped for the candidates in what would normally be a local race in a small city.

"St. Paul is Exhibit A of the damage the president's weak political standing is having on his allies," says Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance...In this highly Democratic town - Mr. Kerry won 73 percent of the presidential vote here - few seem prepared to forgive what they see as the ultimate act of political apostasy.
"When you endorse a political candidate you endorse his policies, and pretty much everything George Bush does I disagree with," says Kyle Larson, a musician and barista at Amore coffee shop. "Kelly may have done an OK job for St. Paul, but thinking in the larger picture, I just can't get past [the endorsement]." read on

This story is starting to get national attention. If the polls accurately reflect how the election will turnout tomorrow, it could be used as a barometer to gauge the coming mid-term elections. It will be interesting to see how, or more importantly if, conservative candidates use the current administration to promote their campaigns.

With Friends Like Bush, Who Needs Enemies?

2005-11-05T09:07:00.000-06:00

The mayoral race here in St. Paul, Minnesota's capital city, is coming to its end. It is essentially a race that pits to democratic candidates, the incumbent, Randy Kelly, and the challenger, Chris Coleman (no relation to Norm...thank god!). According to the polls it will be a landslide victory. One local columnist even went so far as to claim that "even if there were a 50 point margin of error, it wouldn't matter." Randy Kelly, for the most part, has done a good job for the city of St. Paul...yet he's the one that is behind in the polls by over a 2 to 1 margin. Why? Well, Kelly endorsed George W. Bush for president and is facing the repercussions, namely being voted out of office. Many conservatives and Kelly supporters are upset because they believe the endorsement was meaningless, and the voters will simply base their vote on a grudge. Well, the people of St. Paul don't view it that way. By endorsing Bush, Kelly endorsed Bush's policies (I should say failed policies). Furthermore, if an endorsement of a political candidate is meaningless, what's the point of an endorsement? For a city that voted over 70% for Kerry, Kelly made a huge error. He claimed he made his decision "on principle". The people of St. Paul, as a result, are going to vote him out on principle. It seems, finally, that a politician is going to be held accountable for his actions.

What is transpiring in St. Paul says a lot about the current political environment that this president has created. Bush ran in 2000 claiming he was a uniter, yet I don't know if there has ever been a time in recent history where the country has been so divided...and it's getting worse. As a result, his story is starting to gain national attention. I was actually just interviewed by a reporter Thursday from the Christian Science Monitor, and will link to it when it is published.

Crooks and Liars also picked up the story from my tip and printed an excerpt from this post.

Morris Claims Indictment May Implicate Cheney

2005-10-29T10:04:00.000-05:00

Former presidential advisor Dick Morris told partisan hack John Gibson on Fox News that Libby's indictment may lead to trouble for Cheney (via Think Progress):

JOHN GIBSON: How bad is this damage? And what does the president need to control it, Dick?

DICK MORRIS: Well, it depends on whether we are just talking about Libby. If the prosecutor is happy with an indictment of him, a conviction, and that scalp on the wall is sufficient for him, then it just goes away. It’s one bad chapter and it passes.

But it is very possible that the prosecutor looks up the food chain to Vice President Cheney. These investigations have a way of rising. And according to the terms of the indictment, Cheney told Libby about Valerie Plame and then Libby lied to the grand jury about how he found about it, saying that he got it from a reporter. Well, if that’s the case, the vice president knew that Libby was lying.

And it wasn’t like his grand jury was secret. It was all over the place, you could read it in any newspaper. So my question is, why didn’t the vice president say anything? Why didn’t he speak up? And when you’re out there committing perjury and your boss is silent, and your boss knows that you’re doing that, it’s [the silence is] a subtle signal from your boss to say, “I appreciate it.”

Crooks and Liars has the video.

While Fitzgerald has remained tight-lipped about where the investigation will lead after the Libby indictments, it is certainly reasonable to assume that this administration is not out of the woods yet. Common sense tells me that if Libby is in fact convicted of these charges, some illegal activity outside of obstruction and perjury occured. Why else does one try and cover up? Why would Libby say he first heard about Valerie Plame from Tim Russert, and when talking to other reporters he was "just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls," when, in fact, he "discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife." Sounds a little fishy to me.

If we assume that Libby is guilty of the charges levelled against him in the indictments, and we assume he committed these crimes to cover up another crime, we have to ask ourselves one question: Would this administration actually be this petty and childish that they would leak information about a classified CIA officer simply to get back at her husband for disagreeing with them? In short, the answer is a resounding "YES." These kinds of underhanded tactics have been a trademark of the Bush administration. After Bush lost the 2000 New Hampshire primary to John McCain, Karl Rove directed a slanderous campaign in South Carolina against McCain, claiming that his Bangladeshi daughter Bridget, who McCain and his wife had adopted from an orphanage run by Mother Theresa, was actually the Senator's illegitimate black daughter. Rove's "whisper campaign" in South Carolina also included the idea that McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five and a half years, was an informer on fellow prisoners back in Hanoi, and a nut case whose war ordeal had left him too wobbly to be president. Nevermind the fact that when the North Vietnamese discovered he was the son and grandson of admirals and was offered a chance to be released, he refused to break the military code that POWs be released in the order that they are captured. Nevermind that McCain had been a Senator or Congressman since 1982 and generally voted on what he thought was right, rather than along party lines. Nevermind this...Bush had an election to steal.

Then there's former Georgia Senator Max Cleland. Like McCain, Cleland made sacrifices during his military services--specifically both his legs and one of his arms. Instead of respecting his service to the country, the Rove candidate Saxby Chambliss ran attack ads that transformed Cleland from a war hero to a close buddy of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. But nevermind this...Rove had an election to win.

Then of course there's John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, Kerry received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. In a time where patriotism appears to be the single most important quality a politician is judged on, Kerry's service in the military should have been a defining quality for Kerry in the eyes of voters, especially when compared to Bush's military service in...Alabama (which it seems he didn't bother to show up for). Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth changed that. They claimed that Kerry made "phony war crimes charges," he "exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam," and they "challenged the legitimacy of each of the combat medals awarded" to Kerry. Nevermind that the claims were "contradicted by the statements of several other veterans who observed the incidents, by the Navy's official records, and, in some instances, by the contemporaneous statements of the SBVT supporters." Nevermind that John McCain said the claims were "dishonest and dishonorable," and "I think it is very, very wrong." Nevermind that The New York Times investigated the claims and found that "the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies." Nevermind that an ABC news investigation claimed "the Swift Boat ad and their primary charges about Kerry's medals are personal, negative, extremely suspect, or false." Nevermind that a Los Angeles Times editorial opined that "not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false" because "Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation." Though the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth appeared to not actually care about the truth, but rather the "truth" that best served George Bush," the wall to wall coverage by the media of the claims appeared to provide enough leverage to raise a doubt in the mind's of the voters...even with the lack of evidence.

Oh yeah...the Bush administration has ties to the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. A request was made using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain records revealing any Bush administration contacts with prominent individuals connected with Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. The White House denied the request.

I could go on. The point is that the Bush administration will do anything to win. The truth doesn't matter. Morality doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. America doesn't matter. Winning matters. Destroying the opponent matters.

This leads to Libby and his indictment. If the charges are true, are we to believe that Libby acted alone in getting back at Joe Wilson? Are we to believe that Libby is a single, isolated incident rather than one cog in a full scale campaign by the White House to destroy a man's credibility and his wife's career (not to mention compromise the lives of her contacts and national security). Based on this administrations history, I have to say NO.

If justice is to be served, Libby's indictment is only the first step of many to come before the full extent of the corruption of this administration, on this single issue, is exposed.

Libby Indicted; Resigns

2005-10-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and one of the most powerful figures in the Bush administration, was formally accused today of lying and obstruction of justice during an inquiry into the unmasking of a covert C.I.A. officer.

A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Libby on one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and two of making false statements in the course of an investigation that raised questions about the administration's rationale for going to war against Iraq, how it treats critics and political opponents and whether high White House officials shaded the truth.

The charges are felonies. Obstruction of justice carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, while perjury and making false statements 5 years. Each of the five counts can also be punished with a $250,000 fine. Perjury is lying under oath, to a jury or other investigative body, while making false statements consists of lying to investigators while not under oath.

Karl Rove was not indicted today, but will remain under investigation for his role in the leak or obstruction in the investigation.

A Little Fun at Aww-Nolds Expense...

2005-10-27T23:54:00.000-05:00

and Bush...and Rove...and Cheney...and Lay...and Hannity...and O'Reilly...and Coulter...but mostly Aww-Nold. (via Crooks and Liars)

Early Report Claims "Scooter" Indicted; Rove Still Under Scrutiny

2005-10-27T23:27:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times:

Lawyers in the C.I.A. leak case said Thursday that they expected I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to be indicted on Friday, charged with making false statements to the grand jury.
Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

Souces close to the investigation claim that Fitzgerald's announcement will come tomorrow, and with all the discussions surrounding the case, there could be a "possibility of last-minute surprises." Whatever happens, we can only hope that this administration's corruption is finally catching up with them.

You Point Out a Mistake, You Hate?

2005-10-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

(via Atrios)

Assrocket from Power Line claims strong economic growth, but the claim is based on a Washington Post article from May. In all fairness to Ass Rocket, he did update his mistake, yet he just had to claim it was a "left-wing hate site" that pointed it out. First of all, just because Atrios has a different perspective than you, that doesn't translate to a "hate site." Secondly, you made a mistake, and name-calling doesn't change that.

Anything to Save Their Own

2005-10-27T00:02:00.000-05:00

It seems Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Rep., Tx.) thinks lying about a blowjob is a serious, impeachable crime, yet lying to cover up treason and breeching national security is just a minor "technicality." Crooks and Liars has the video of this woman's hypocritical bullshit.

Oh yeah, and this is what she had to say about Clinton and perjury back in 1998:

...the laws of our Country are applicable to us all, including the President, and they must be obeyed. The concept of equal justice under law and the importance of absolute truth in legal proceedings is the foundation of our justice system in the courts...Willful, corrupt, and false sworn testimony before a Federal grand jury is a separate and distinct crime under applicable law and is material and perjurious if it is 'capable' of influencing the grand jury in any matter before it, including any collateral matters that it may consider...If only the President had followed the simple, high moral principle handed to us by our Nation's first leader as a child and had said early in this episode 'I cannot tell a lie,' we would not be here today.

With all the lies and deceit coming from this administration these days, you'd think this woman would be ashamed to call herself a Republican. In the words of the wise Kay Bailey Hutchinson, I say this: "If only Kay Bailey Hutchinson (and Karl Rove...and Scooter...and Cheney...and Dubya...and Condi...and Rummy...and every other Republican schill) had followed the simple, high moral principle handed to us by our Nation's first leader as a child and had said early in this episode 'I cannot tell a lie,' we would not be here today."

Casualties Not Slowing Down

2005-10-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

I wonder how Dubya is going to spin this into his iditoic "We're making good progress" talking point:

A year and a half ago, at the first anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the death rate for American troops accelerated. Since then, none of the political milestones or military strategies proclaimed by U.S. officials have succeeded in slowing the toll. This is among the most striking conclusions of a Times analysis of the fatalities, which have reached 2,000, U.S. officials announced Tuesday. Two other findings stand out:

• The number of deaths attributed to roadside bombs has sharply increased. The bombs have overtaken rockets, mortars and gunfire as the greatest threat to U.S. troops and were responsible for more than half of combat deaths in the last year.

• The war has taken a growing toll on National Guard and reserve units. Their soldiers now account for nearly one-third of the deaths, up from one-fifth earlier in the conflict.

Dubya's Legacy Threatened?

2005-10-25T01:29:00.000-05:00

From the New York Daily News:

Top White House imagemakers and Republican political operatives say the steadily rising Iraq death toll is a sobering reminder that an unpopular war not only threatens the remainder of President Bush's term, but also jeopardizes his legacy...In the long run, many Bush aides believe his legacy will rise or fall largely on how Iraq plays out. "If a year from now they have a functional government with even a semblance of democracy and U.S. deaths are lower, that will give Bush a huge boost," said a senior Republican political strategist. "But if there's a civil war and Americans are still dying, Bush will end his term as one of the most unpopular Presidents in history."

All partisan politics aside, I would be hard pressed to think of a single thing that Bush and his administration has done for this country or abroad that has been beneficial. He has screwed up Iraq, tried destroying the most popular social program this country has ever known (Social Security), created or destroyed legislation to benefit the super wealthy or corporations at the expense of the majority of Americans or the environment (bankruptcy bill, Clear Skies initiative, estate tax, etc.), racked up a seemingly insurmountable deficit while cutting taxes for the richest Americans, and lied us into to a war that costs thousands of lives. So now we are debating how he will be viewed down the road? Dubya's legacy was decided the moment the Supreme Court, not the American people, elected him president.

Ugly Mug

2005-10-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

Rep. Tom Delay turned himself in Thursday at the sheriff's office and was fingerprinted, photographed and released on $10,000 bail on conspiracy and money-laundering charges...DeLay and two political associates are charged in an alleged scheme to funnel corporate donations to candidates for the Texas Legislature. State law prohibits donations of corporate money for direct campaign purposes.

Even in his mugshot Delay has a look on his face that says he's going to fuck you over and there's nothing you can do about it. He looks like the happiest accused felon in our nation's history.

Wag the Dog

2005-10-19T01:16:00.000-05:00

Keith Olberman has the video (via Crooks and Liars) of the President's highly-criticized, scripted, and well-coached teleconference, along with video of the press briefing with Scott McClellan. Oh yeah...there's also video of the coach telling soldiers what to say and what mannerisms they should make to make their words more powerful (it seems the Bush people didn't realize cameras actually record!):

"Master Seargent Lombardo, when you're talking about the President coming to see you in New York, take a little breath before that so you can actually be talking directly to him. He's got a real message there, okay?"

Indictments in the White House Soon?

2005-10-19T00:49:00.000-05:00

Larry Johnson, who worked with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, writes in No Quarter that there could be as many as 22 indictments handed down as a result of the outing of Valerie Plame:

Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at for potential indictment . These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House.

The Nexus of Politics and Terror

2005-10-13T01:47:00.000-05:00

Kieth Olbermann has a great piece about the timing of terror alerts after negative press for the Bush administration:

Last Thursday on Countdown, I referred to the latest terror threat - the reported bomb plot against the New York City subway system - in terms of its timing. President Bush’s speech about the war on terror had come earlier the same day, as had the breaking news of the possible indictment of Karl Rove in the CIA leak investigation.
I suggested that in the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences - a political downturn for the administration, followed by a “terror event” - a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning...

We bring you these coincidences, reminding you, and ourselves here, that perhaps the simplest piece of wisdom in the world is called “the logical fallacy.” Just because Event “A” occurs, and then Event “B” occurs, that does not automatically mean that Event “A” caused Event “B.”

But one set of comments from an informed observer seems particularly relevant as we examine these coincidences.

On May 10^th of this year, after his resignation, former Secretary of Homeland Security Ridge looked back on the terror alert level changes, issued on his watch.

Mr. Ridge said: “More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert)… there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said ‘for that?’”

Read the list here, or watch the video here (via Crooks and Liars).

More Evidence of Bush Failures

2005-10-13T01:08:00.000-05:00

From the USA Today:

A newly released report published by the CIA rebukes the Bush administration for not paying enough attention to prewar intelligence that predicted the factional rivalries now threatening to split Iraq.

Policymakers worried more about making the case for the war, particularly the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, than planning for the aftermath, the report says. The report was written by a team of four former CIA analysts led by former deputy CIA director Richard Kerr.

In an ironic twist, the policy community was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program), where the analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis was right, they write...

Intelligence analysts, the report says, failed to question their assumptions that Iraq had maintained chemical and biological weapons and had reactivated nuclear weapons development. Doubts about the intelligence received little attention, hastening the conversion of heavily qualified judgments into accepted fact.

How often have we seen the "conversion of heavily qualified judgments into accepted facts" since this administration took office? The Bush Crime Family has shown time and time again it has no qualms about distorting facts or creating their own "facts" to justify their actions. The Iraq War, Social Security "reform," the bankruptcy bill, the estate tax, tax cuts for the excessively rich, the Patriot Act, and countless other ventures by the right have been predicated on heavily qualified judgements or falsities that have been left unchecked by the media and a large portion of the American population. Reading these stories should outrage America, yet for the most part there is...there is...there is.........NOTHING. Meanwhile, we are closing in on 2,000 American soldiers dead and 15,000 wounded.

Civil War Over Rove

2005-10-12T01:09:00.000-05:00

Howard Fineman, NBC''s chief policital correspondent, claims the Whitehouse may be head for a civil war (via AmericaBlog):

Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it‘s Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain…And that runs through a whole lot of things, whether it‘s Harriet Miers or Katrina. But it all starts with Iraq.

And some submerged, but now emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it. There are people out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.

My understanding, from talking to somebody quite close to this investigation, is that they think there are going to be indictments and possibly Karl Rove could be among them, if not for the act of the leaking information about Valerie Plame, then perhaps for perjury, because he‘s now testified four times.

If Rove is indicted for perjury, I wonder if those who claimed the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal wasn't about "the sex," but the fact that Clinton lied under oath, will still feel the same. My hunch is no.

Dick's Cashing In

2005-10-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

According to Think Progress, Vice President Cheney's Halliburton stock options, worth $241,498 a year ago, are now valued at more than $8 million. That’s a 3,281% gain.

Not a bad day at the office for Dick.

As Gas Prices Go Up, So Do the Profits

2005-10-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

From the Center for American Progress:

INDUSTRY HITS THE GAS ON PROFITS: American Progress has released a report that shows that while working families are struggling to pay their bills because of rising gas prices, the oil and gas industry is taking in record profits. According to data reported by the Energy Information Agency (EIA), the price of a gallon of regular gas has gone up $2 since January 2002, or 174 percent. The steep increase in prices mirrors the steep increase in industry profits. “Oil companies reported record profits last year -- and not just records for oil companies.” ExxonMobil broke the profit record for all American companies with $25.33 billion. ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP have profited handsomely as well. These companies are funneling the profits to their own CEOs – whose median compensation has increased by 215 percent since 2002 - and political activities totaling more than $440 million over the last six years. It’s been a worthwhile investment: the energy bill contained $4 billion in tax breaks for companies already making record-breaking profits.

I'm just waiting for Bush to say "he's encouraged" by his administration's progress getting gas prices under control.

Plame Leak: What We Know

2005-10-08T11:39:00.000-05:00

Think Progress has compiled a list of administration officials with known connections to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Here's the list and what we know:

Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush

The Corruption Continues

2005-10-08T11:13:00.000-05:00

The Hill:

In its first big legislative test without indicted former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) at the helm, the House Republican leadership held open a vote on energy legislation for forty-five minutes while the GOP whip operation - including DeLay - persuaded enough Republican lawmakers to secure passage, 212-210. The energy package's sputtering finish is the latest in a series of mishaps for Republicans, who have been hampered by legal questions and power struggles ever since lawmakers returned from their August recess...Democrats called the vote yet another example of Republicans bending the rules to achieve their ends. "What you saw on the floor this afternoon was a shameless display of the culture of corruption in the House of Representatives these days," Pelosi said. Hoyer echoed her comments; "There has been a process going on in Washington for over half a decade of undermining democracy. We see another example of that today." According to a tally provided by Democrats, this afternoon's vote was the second time this year and the seventh time since the start of the 108th Congress that the GOP has held open votes beyond the 17 minute time limit with the intention of changing votes.

Daily Kos: Funny that regardless how much of the GOP's Culture of Corruption becomes public, they continue with business as usual. Their hubris is unparalleled.

Think Progress has the video.

Plame Leak Indictments on the Horizon?

2005-10-06T00:17:00.000-05:00

From Reuters:

The federal prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative is expected to signal within days whether he intends to bring indictments in the case, legal sources close to the investigation said on Wednesday. As a first step, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was expected to notify officials by letter if they have become targets, said the lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter...The inquiry has ensnared President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.

Rumor has it Fitzgerald will handing down 22 indictments related to the Plame case. Add these 22 with Delay's two indictments and the five felony counts in the indictment of David H. Safavian (the Bush administration's former chief procurement official), and you're left with a whole lot of indicting going around. It couldn't have happened to nicer group of people.

How Funny is That?

2005-10-05T01:49:00.000-05:00

I think it is safe to say that a majority of Americans believe that this country is extremely divided. I think it's pretty safe to say that there is a tad too much corruption emerging from the conservatives in the House (Delay, for instance) and Senate (Frist, for instance), not to mention the White House (Dubya, Penis Cheney, Rove, and "Scooter," for instance). And finally, I would say it is fairly safe to say that this administration's agenda is reckless (let's see...war, war, death by war, death by war, attempt to destroy Social Security, unfathomable spending, unfathomable deficit, rising poverty rates, rampant cronyism, and a complete disregard for the Constitution, to name just a few).

What's my point? Well...I found a very interesting article in The Guardian from October of 2000. This article, written just before Dubya was annoited president by the Supreme Court, was some sort of endorsement for Bush as the new president. What was their endorsement based on? Three things:

Does America need continuity for the next four years, or does it need to change the tone and direction of our nation's course?

We believe a fundamental shift is needed. True, the last eight years have brought unrivalled peace and prosperity. Yet this period in our national life also has led to the diminution of respect for the office of the presidency, a greater incivility on Capitol Hill and an exhausted New Democrat agenda.

A clear turning point has arrived. We strongly believe Texas governor George W Bush should become the nation's first president of a new century. We base our decision upon three crucial points...a president who can build bipartisan relationships, restore honour to the White House and promote a responsible agenda.

I guess they were a little off the mark. Imagine passing over "unrivalled peace and prosperity" for what we have now. Unfortunately we live in a world where common sense has been replaced by ignorance

Convicted Soldier Contradicts Pentagon's Claims

2005-10-05T00:28:00.000-05:00

Private First Class Lynndie England, who was court-martialed and convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, said in an interview on NBC's "Dateline" that not only did top US commanders know and encourage the behavior, but there were "worse things" going on:

But England, appearing on NBC's "Dateline" program, said the pictures did not convey the full extent of the abuse that took place in the cell block. "I know worse things were happening over there," admitted the 22-year-old convict. She said one night she heard blood-curdling screams coming from the block's shower room, where non-military interrogators had taken an Arab detainee. "They had the shower on to muffle it, but it wasn't helping," she recalled. "They never screamed like that when we were humiliating. But this guy was like screaming bloody murder. I mean it still haunts me I can still hear it just like it happened yesterday."

Officials at the Pentagon have maintained that it was simply a "small group of out-of-control soldiers," and as a result, "did not amount to torture." This claim has always struck me as a bit odd. Soldiers are trained to follow orders, and I would imagine any commanding officer would know when any of his or her soldiers had a bowel movement, let alone "Abu Ghraib inmates piled up naked on the floor in front of US soldiers, cowering in front of snarling military dogs, chained to beds in stress positions and forced to stand naked in front of female guards."

I'm certainly not defending England, but her claims provide yet another example of this administration deflecting blame and allowing others to take the fall. Unfortunately, those who support Bush and his administration don't hold them accountable, so why should they?

"I'm so indicted...again"

2005-10-04T01:20:00.000-05:00

Don't mess with Texas:

A Texas grand jury on Monday re-indicted Rep. Tom Delay on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering after the former majority leader attacked last week's indictment on technical grounds.

The new indictment, handed up by a grand jury seated Monday, contained two counts. The money laundering charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison. The charge of conspiracy to launder money is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Of course the master of hyperbole dismisses it as an "abomination of justice," just as last week he claimed his first indictment was the weakest, most baseless indictment in American history."

No Tom, your indictments are not a travesty of justice, you fucking tool, but this is...and so is this...but certainly NOT this.

Judge allows photos of prison abuse released

2005-10-03T01:16:00.001-05:00

From the New York Times:

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled yesterday that the Defense Department must release dozens of withheld photographs and videotapes that show abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, rejecting an argument by top military officials that publishing the images would endanger American troops.

"Our nation does not surrender to blackmail," wrote the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court.

Judge Hellerstein was responding to a statement by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said publication of the images could provoke acts of terrorism against American soldiers. read on

It seems to me that the best way not to endanger American troops would be to avoid sending them to fight in war based on lies and fabricated evidence.

2005-10-03T01:00:00.000-05:00

While Bush claims that our involvement in Iraq had absolutely no bearing on the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, a top National Guard commander tells another side of the story:

The National Guard has only a third of the equipment it needs to respond to domestic disasters and terrorist attacks and will need $7 billion to acquire the radios, trucks, construction machinery and medical gear required, the Guard's top commander told a Congressional committee on Wednesday...after Hurricane Katrina, guardsmen using old radios were unable to talk to active-duty troops with the latest communications systems as they patrolled New Orleans. Addressing Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania who served in the Marine Corps during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, General Blum said, "I'm dealing with radios, sir, that you probably saw the last time you were in battle fatigues." read on

3 - 2 = "I'm Encouraged"

2005-10-02T00:09:00.000-05:00

I have to scratch my head at this one:

The number of Iraqi army battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday, adding that the security situation in Iraq is too uncertain to predict large-scale American troop withdrawals anytime soon...Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who oversees U.S. forces in Iraq, said there are fewer Iraqi battalions at "Level 1" readiness than there were a few months ago. read on

...and the next day:

President George W. Bush sought on Saturday to dispel concerns about the readiness of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, declaring himself "encouraged" even though his top generals say the number of battalions that can fight insurgents without help has dropped. read on

It's a sad day for America when the president doesn't understand that 1 is actually less than 3. I tried to think of something witty to say in response to Dubya's moronic logic, but I think he probably said it best...on more than one occasion (all quotes from DubyaSpeak.com):

"When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall. Otherwise you're not riding hard."

"I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend."

"That's a chapter, the last chapter of the 20th, 20th, the 21st century that most of us would rather forget. The last chapter of the 20th century. This is the first chapter of the 21st century."

"One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected."

"I think we agree, the past is over."

"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?"

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right."

"You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

Well said, Dubya. Well said.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

2005-10-01T15:40:00.000-05:00

Hunter from Daily Kos has a great piece on the Blogs for Bush response to the Delay indictment. Here's a little snippit:

This is the world of the Republican Party, split open like a rotting pumpkin. Crime after crime after crime being investigated, all revolving around the Republican money machine. Every seed connected by the strands of money they share between them. Barely-laundered campaign money passed in the palm of every flabby handshake. Every player in boldface, underlined print in the Rolodex of every other.

And still, this same bottom-tier world of flag-waving supporters still obsessed over an extramarital sex act, but offended to the point of sad, blustering threats at the notion that crimes by gilded and worshipped Republicans are really still crimes.

Your party has set aflame the entire political landscape, and now, once burned, you warn sternly from the branches of a burnt-out tree about "playing with fire". You used the ashes of one of the great liberal cities of America, New York City, as war paint for your own sick, racist dreams. You shudder at a burning flag, yet are willing to snip-and-cut basic tenets of the Constitution as needed or convenient. read on

The rest of it is just as good...if not better. It really is a MUST read.

The Bush Crime Family strikes again...

2005-10-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

This story has been around for awhile, but now the G.A.O., an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, has made the corruption official:

Federal auditors said today that the Bush administration had violated the law by purchasing favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" inside the United States, in violation of a longstanding, explicit statutory ban. read on

How will conservatives dismiss this one? Partisan fanactics? Terrorists? Hollywood? Perhaps they'll just go back to old faithful...it was all Bill Clinton's fault.

Brown Failed to Heed Warnings

2005-09-29T01:59:00.000-05:00

A day after Michael Brown blamed everybody but himself for the failed Hurricane Katrina response, it turns out he failed to mention an interesting bit of information:

Former FEMA director Michael Brown was warned weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit that his agency's backlogged computer systems could delay supplies and put personnel at risk during an emergency, according to an audit released Wednesday.

An internal review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's information-sharing system shows it was overwhelmed during the 2004 hurricane season. The audit was released a day after Brown vehemently defended FEMA for the government's dismal response to Katrina, instead blaming state and local officials for poor planning and chaos during the Aug. 29 storm and subsequent flooding...

In an Aug. 3 response, Brown and one of his deputies rejected the audit, calling it unacceptable, erroneous and negative. read on

I wonder if Brown will try and pass that off on Louisiana Governor Blanco.

The Hammer Gets Nailed!

2005-09-29T01:03:00.000-05:00

House Majority Leader Tom Delay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution. read on

Delay claims this is only the work of a "partisan fanatic," and that "this is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history...It's a sham." He certainly thinks a lot of himself. It is a little hard to take him seriously considering Delay has been admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee (unanimously), of which they stated:

"In view of the number of instances to date in which the committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions to assure that you are in full compliance at all times with the applicable House rules and standards of conduct."

Even at the time of the third admonishment by the five Democrat, five Republican committee (again, they voted unanimously), Delay stated that the complaint "should have been thrown out immediately. . . For years Democrats have hurled relentless personal attacks at me, hoping to tie my hands and smear my name." So the five Democrats were just trying to smear Delay, but what about the Republicans on the committee? How can he explain that?

Think Progress has a few important facts about Ronnie Earle, the prosecutor Delay claims is nothing but a "partisan fanatic."

The Nation has a great article about the "growing public awareness of the culture of corruption the GOP has created."

Daily Kos has a funny yet insightful look at partisanship...Hammer Style!

"The State of the GOP"...or... "Why the GOP Doesn't Care What You Think."

2005-09-28T01:46:00.000-05:00

Liberal Oasis has a great post on the GOP's failures and how the Democrats need to respond.

"I am happy to be a scapegoat."

2005-09-28T01:06:00.000-05:00

Former FEMA head Michael Brown appeared before a House select committee Tuesday. Brown blamed everyone for the failures in New Orleans...minus himself.

A combative Michael Brown blamed the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him for the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina in a fiery appearance Tuesday before Congress. In response, lawmakers alternately lambasted and mocked the former FEMA director...Well aware of President Bush's sunken poll ratings, legislators of both parties tried to distance themselves from the federal preparations for Katrina and the storm's aftermath that together claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. read on

Funny how liberals were criticized for playing the "blame game," but now that's it's in their best interest to distance themselves from Brown, politicians are more than happy to play.

"I'm happy you left," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. "Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren't capable to do the job."

"You get an F-minus in my book," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

"I don't know how you can sleep at night," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. "You lost the battle."

Brown's claim that Louisiana Governor Blanco "fostered chaos" and that she failed "to order a mandatory evacuation more than a day before Katrina hit" appear to be either groundless or simply a lie. Think Progress has the story.

Delay indicted tomorrow?

2005-09-28T00:45:00.000-05:00

According to the AP, a Texas grand jury is wrapping up it's investigation of Tom Delay's political organizations Wednesday and could possibly indict the House Majority Leader.

Conspiracy counts against two DeLay associates this month raised concerns with DeLay's lawyers, who fear the chances are greater that the majority leader could be charged with being part of the conspiracy...the grand jury has charged that Texans for a Republican Majority and the Texas Association of Business worked together to circumvent the election code and funnel "massive amounts of secret corporate wealth" into campaigns, said Earle, the Travis County prosecutor...the conspiracy charges were brought against Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee — Americans for a Republican Majority — and John Colyandro, former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority. They had previously been indicted on charges of laundering $190,000 in corporate donations. read on

Obstruction of justice...again.

2005-09-27T01:25:00.000-05:00

From the New York Times:

The Justice Department's inspector general and the F.B.I. are looking into the demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment nearly three years ago shut down a criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, current and former department officials report...read on.

Take a look here for a little background on Abramoff's checkered past. It makes one wonder why the Bush administration is so eager to cover up for him.

Talking Points Memo has more on the New York Times article.

Cronyism Part II

2005-09-27T00:47:00.000-05:00

CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate its response following Hurricane Katrina.

What the hell do you have to do to get fired in this administration? What will it take? Rehiring Michael Brown to be a consultant to evaluate FEMA's response following Hurricane Katrina is a lot like appointing John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations...err...wait...I guess that DID happen!

Cronyism

2005-09-26T01:35:00.000-05:00

cro·ny·ism n.

Favoritism shown to old friends without regard for their qualifications, as in political appointments to office.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." This is how George Bush greeted former FEMA director Michael Brown after his poor handling of New Orleans. This is nothing new of course. Bush has a way of rewarding those who perform poorly--Condi, Rummy, Wolfowitz, and Bolton were all promoted or allowed to keep their jobs after poor (certainly an understatement) performances in Bush's first term. Perhaps the president sees a little bit of himself in those he rewards for failing. After all, he has failed in pretty much every positions he's held...and now he's the leader of the free world. Michael Brown didn't have the same fate as the others, but it certainly shed a light on another disturbing trend in the Bush White House: cronyism. According to a Time magazine inquiry, "the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience."

In presidential politics, the victor always gets the spoils, and chief among them is the vast warren of offices that make up the federal bureaucracy. Historically, the U.S. public has never paid much attention to the people the President chooses to sit behind those thousands of desks. A benign cronyism is more or less presumed, with old friends and big donors getting comfortable positions and impressive titles, and with few real consequences for the nation.
But then came Michael Brown. When President Bush's former point man on disasters was discovered to have more expertise about the rules of Arabian horse competition than about the management of a catastrophe, it was a reminder that the competence of government officials who are not household names can have a life or death impact. The Brown debacle has raised pointed questions about whether political connections, not qualifications, have helped an unusually high number of Bush appointees land vitally important jobs in the Federal Government. read on

Bush ran his 2004 election campaign on national security, yet he places an extremely unqualified person as director of FEMA, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

"Bushie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Evolve TV

2005-09-26T01:21:00.000-05:00

Check out the first episode of EvolveTV.com. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos interviews Juan Cole, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. Cole discusses several Iraq war related issues, including media bias, the Shiite role in Iraq, Kurd/Sunni roles in Iraq, Iran's role in Iraq, and who is to blame for the poor planning of the war.

Americans cashing out...Oil companies cashing in.

2005-09-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

If the oil companies are reporting record profits, how can they not be price gouging? The BostonHerald.com reports:

Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis...that's $110 million a day, and more net income than any company has ever made in a quarter.

There are some rumblings in the Senate. The New York Times reported that New Mexico Republican Senator Pete V. Domenici said:

"Why are the oil companies making record profits, and what are they doing with them?...Our job is to make sure that one, price gouging, and, two, unfair profiteering and unconscionable profiteering, do not take place and especially does not take place as a result of the hurricane."

While members from both parties are raising concerns, Democrats are taking a more proactive stance:

Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said he was introducing a bill to tax oil companies for high oil profits and pay a rebate to consumers. "There is nothing about this market that is free," he said, arguing that the OPEC cartel sets prices and that the consolidation of petroleum companies had made the pricing situation worse for consumers.

Anti-War Rally in Washington.

2005-09-24T18:03:00.000-05:00

From ABC News:

WASHINGTON Sep 24, 2005 — Opponents of the war in Iraq marched by the tens of thousands Saturday in a clamorous day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead, some showing surprisingly diverse political views even as they spoke with one loud voice in wanting U.S. troops home.

The surging crowd, shouting "Bush out now" and "Peace now," marched in front of the White House and then toward the Washington Monument in an 11-hour marathon of dissent.

They were young people with green hair, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest...read on

Brad Blog has some videos and photos from the rally.

Katrina and Beyond: Bush's Economic Failures

2005-09-23T01:08:00.000-05:00

Gene Sperling has an excellent column in the Center for American Progress called Katrina and Deficits: Right Topic, Wrong Question. He points out that all the clamor for coming up with a "one-time savings to pay for the one-time cost of this horrible natural disaster" is not the problem, rather it's simply a distraction from "far more damaging long-term fiscal deterioration" caused by Bush's poor economic policies:

Why is it that the entire policy establishment and press corps have only asked how we can pay for Katrina, but have virtually never asked how we can pay for the dramatic, perpetual costs of permanent marginal, estate, dividend and capital gains tax cuts for America’s most fortunate or the escalating tab for the president’s prescription drug bill? How is it that the media repeatedly ask how we will pay to rebuild the communities and lives devastated by Katrina, but never ask how we will pay for the $500 billion it will cost us during the next decade to implement the president’s proposal to eliminate the estate tax for the very few well-off couples with estates over $5 million?

Consider the following: prior to Katrina, Goldman Sachs estimated that the next 10 years – which had been projected to be surplus years when Bush took office – will now see a cumulative deficit of $4.75 trillion. Projections from Economy.com came in lower, but still over $4 trillion, while the bipartisan Concord Coalition had projected an even higher $5.7 trillion deficit. It is this dramatic swing from projected 10-year surpluses of over $5 trillion to near $5 trillion deficits – and not the one-time costs of Katrina – which poses the most serious threat to global economic stability, our long-term national savings rates, and our ability to address Medicare and Social Security, while still investing in our children. Simply finding one-time savings to pay for the one-time costs of Katrina just means that Goldman Sachs’ estimate will stay at $4.75 trillion and not $5 trillion. Not a staggering accomplishment...
The White House tries to shun responsibility for what former Nixon Secretary of Commerce Pete Peterson has called “the worst financial deterioration in our history” by falsely suggesting that the run up was due only to war and recession. This is not even close to true. The largest cause of today’s fiscal deficits has been the administration’s insistence on passing tax cuts and at least one major new entitlement bill without ever asking – no less taking seriously – how they should be paid for. Indeed, the cost of these unpaid for Bush initiatives is higher in a single year than the highest multi-year estimates of the costs of rebuilding after Katrina.

Bill O'Reilly has a meltdown!

2005-09-22T00:41:00.000-05:00

Phil Donahue was on the O'Reilly Factor and Bill flipped his lid. The shoe was on the other foot as Phil rarely gave Bill a chance to talk, and he certainly didn't let that blowhard interrupt him.

Crooks and Liars has the video. This is a must see!

A valley girl with bowtie

2005-09-21T20:52:00.000-05:00

Republican shill Tucker Carlson had Bill Maher on The Situation with Tucker Carlson. It wasn't quite as intense as Stewart vs. Tucker (Maher didn't call Tucker a dick, that is), but Tucker's adolescence is as present as always.

CARLSON: Almost aesthetic level, aren't you repulsed by Clinton's never ending self-righteousness? The other day, over the weekend, he says essentially, I would have done a better job responding to Katrina because I am a better person, great guy, look at me, great administration. Doesn't the constant bragging make you want to throw up?

MAHER: You know what makes me want to throw up, seeing dead bodies floating in New Orleans, that makes me want to throw up...You're angry at his self-righteousness at a time when there are hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies that are on the tab of George Bush? Why don't you focus your anger on the guy who really deserves it?

CARLSON: Night after night after night my anger has been focused on the local, state, and federal authorities who allowed this tragedy to happen. Merely pointing out that Bill Clinton's opportunity to say something to America, devolves as usual into another, “Look at me, aren't I'm a great guy,” lecture. And it just makes me want to throw up. My only point.

MAHER: I'll hold the bag for you.
read full transcript

Crooks and Liars has the video.

2 to 991

2005-09-21T00:28:00.000-05:00

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff repeated the tired claim of liberal bias in the media in a 9/20 post, citing two instances where Katrina stories were proven false. It's funny how conservatives make a mountain out of a mole hill when they are criticizing liberals (or in this case, the "liberal media"), yet they conveniently are able to make a mole hill out of a mountain when they are criticized. Media Matters for America has an archive of 991 instances where Fox News distorted, misrepresented, or simply lied when delivering "news."

Fox's featured programs (Fox & Friends, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity & Colmes) often advance misinformation that furthers the conservative position on an entire slate of issues. Besides the network's self-identified conservatives, Fox's "straight news" anchors and reporters continually amplify misinformation that favors the conservative viewpoint and on occasion have even admitted their own conservative perspective.

Of course everyone knows this, even Paul Mirengoff and the rest of the Power Line stooges...but actually reporting on that might contradict their claims of a liberal bias in the mainstream media. What conservatives don't want people to understand is that conservative viewpoints are very much a part of the mainstream media. Eric Alterman writes about this in What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News:

Social scientists talk about "useful myths," stories we all know aren't necessarily true, but that we choose to believe anyway because they seem to offer confirmation of what we already know (which raises the question, If we already know it, why the story?). Think of the wholly fictitious but illustrative story about little George Washington and his inability to lie about that cherry tree. For conservatives, and even many journalists, the "liberal media" is just that--a myth, to be sure, but a useful one...

Given the success of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, the Washington Times, the New York Post, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, the New York Sun, National Review, Commentary, Limbaugh, Drudge, etc., no sensible person can dispute the existence of a "conservative media." The reader might be surprised to learn that neither do I quarrel with the notion of a "liberal media." It is tiny and profoundly underfunded compared with its conservative counterpart, but it does exist. As a columnist for The Nation and an independent weblogger for MSNBC.com, I work in the middle of it, and so do many of my friends. And guess what? It's filled with right-wingers.

Unlike most of the publications named above, liberals, for some reason, feel compelled to include the views of the other guy on a regular basis in just the fashion that conservatives abhor. Take a tour from a native: New York magazine, in the heart of liberal country, chose as its sole national correspondent the right-wing talk-show host Tucker Carlson. During the 1990s, The New Yorker--the bible of sophisticated urban liberalism--chose as its Washington correspondents the belligerent right-winger Michael Kelly and the soft, DLC neoconservative Joe Klein. At least half of the "liberal New Republic" is actually a rabidly neoconservative magazine and has been edited in recent years by the very same Michael Kelly, as well as by the conservative liberal-hater Andrew Sullivan. The Nation has often opened its pages to liberal-haters, even among its columnists. The Atlantic Monthly--a mainstay of Boston liberalism--even chose the apoplectic Kelly as its editor, who then proceeded to add a bunch of Weekly Standard writers to its antiliberal stable. What is "liberal" Vanity Fair doing publishing a special hagiographic Annie Leibovitz portfolio of Bush Administration officials that appears, at first glance, to be designed (with the help of a Republican political consultant) to invoke notions of Greek and Roman gods? Why does the liberal New York Observer alternate National Review's Richard Brookhiser with the Joe McCarthy-admiring columnist Nicholas von Hoffman--both of whom appear alongside editorials that occasionally mimic the same positions taken downtown by the editors of the Wall Street Journal? On the web, the tabloid-style liberal website Salon gives free rein to the McCarthyite impulses of both Sullivan and David Horowitz. The neoliberal Slate also regularly publishes both Sullivan and Christopher Caldwell of The Weekly Standard, and has even opened its "pages" to such conservative evildoers as Charles Murray and Elliott Abrams.

Move over to the mainstream publications and broadcasts often labeled "liberal," and you see how ridiculous the notion of liberal dominance becomes. The liberal New York Times Op-Ed page features the work of the unreconstructed Nixonite William Safire, and for years accompanied him with the firebreathing-if-difficult-to-understand neocon A.M. Rosenthal. Current denizen Bill Keller also writes regularly from a DLC neocon perspective. The Washington Post is just swarming with conservatives, from Michael Kelly to George Will to Robert Novak to Charles Krauthammer. If you wish to include CNN on your list of liberal media--I don't, but many conservatives do--then you had better find a way to explain the near-ubiquitous presence of the attack dog Robert Novak, along with that of neocon virtuecrat William Bennett, National Review's Kate O'Beirne, National Review's Jonah Goldberg, The Weekly Standard's David Brooks and Tucker Carlson. This is to say nothing of the fact that among its most frequent guests are Coulter and the anti-American telepreacher Pat Robertson. Care to include ABC News? Again, I don't, but if you wish, how to deal with the fact that the only ideological commentator on its Sunday show is the hard-line conservative George Will? Or how about the fact that its only explicitly ideological reporter is the journalistically challenged conservative crusader John Stossel? How to explain the entire career there and on NPR of Cokie Roberts, who never met a liberal to whom she could not condescend? What about Time and Newsweek? In the former, we have Krauthammer holding forth, and in the latter, Will.

I could go on, but the point is clear: Conservatives are extremely well represented in every facet of the media. The correlative point is that even the genuine liberal media are not so liberal. And they are no match--either in size, ferocity or commitment--for the massive conservative media structure that, more than ever, determines the shape and scope of our political agenda...read on

Military death toll reaches 1900.

2005-09-20T17:37:00.000-05:00

U.S. officials reported nine more Americans were killed.

Iraq's missing billion

2005-09-20T01:50:00.000-05:00

One billion dollars that was supposed to be used to train and equip Iraq's army has apparently been looted from Iraq's Defence Ministry and "was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared." The Independent reports:

The carefully planned theft has so weakened the army that it cannot hold Baghdad against insurgent attack without American military support, Iraqi officials say, making it difficult for the US to withdraw its 135,000- strong army from Iraq, as Washington says it wishes to do...Given that building up an Iraqi army to replace American and British troops is a priority for Washington and London, the failure to notice that so much money was being siphoned off at the very least argues a high degree of negligence on the part of US officials and officers in Baghdad...read on

We're not winning = We're Winning...huh?

2005-09-20T00:57:00.000-05:00

Rush Limbaugh used a Washington Post story to prove that we are winning the war in Iraq. The only problem is that Ellen Nickmeyer's article said the opposite.

Crooks and Liars has the audio.

Dr. Zhivago accused of being a "little commie"

2005-09-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia about Boris Pasternak and Dr. Zhivago:

As he could not find a publisher for his novel inside the country, Dr. Zhivago was smuggled abroad and released in Italy in 1957. This led to a wide-scale campaign of persecution within the Soviet Union up until his death. Although nobody of his critics had a chance of reading the proscribed novel, some of them publicly demanded to "kick the pig out of our kitchen-garden", i.e., to expel Pasternak from the USSR.

So why is Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace calling Pasternak's novel a little commie?

Galloway/Hitchens debate

2005-09-19T01:34:00.000-05:00

Amy Goodman moderated a debate about the Iraq war and other topics between British MP George Galloway and Bush apologist Christopher Hitchens. Galloway, if you remember, was the outspoken critic of the Iraq war who was cited by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee for allegedly being involved in the UN Oil for Food scandal. His remarks during the hearing, specifically those directed toward the panel's Republican chair, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, made headlines:

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001...Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives -- 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies, 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever, on a pack of lies...Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported."

The months that have passed since this hearing certainly didn't tone down Galloway's fiery speech, as is evident by the debate with Hitchens. The debate often took on a boxing pre-fight press conference atmosphere...the only thing missing was Don King and his hair.

Democracy Now has the video.

"We've got ourselves a conundrum here."

2005-09-19T00:40:00.000-05:00

It seems Republicans feel the best way to pay for Katrina relief is not to repeal the tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy or forget about getting rid of the estate tax, but rather to cut government spending. Republicans are always chomping at the bit to eliminate social programs, which according to Senator Joseph Biden could hurt programs needed to help victims of Hurricane Katrina such as health, education, insurance and employment..."We've got ourselves a conundrum here.''

Liberal Oasis has more from the Sunday talk shows which include comments from President Clinton and Barack Obama.

A president talking sense...too bad it's not the current one.

2005-09-17T14:59:00.000-05:00

President Clinton was on the Today Show and had some really good thoughts on how to pay for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast:

"I would repeal the tax cuts for upper income people. I myself have gotten four tax cuts while young Americans have gone out to risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan while we've had this massive natural disaster and we've run up this huge deficit. How are we covering this money? We are borrowing the money from China, Japan, Korea, and Saudi Arabia to pay for the suffering of our people in the Gulf area, to pay for the Iraq war, and to cover my tax cut and we're expecting our children to pay the bills. We've made a decision to lower the living standard of our children and grandchildren and to soak other people around the world, who don't have the money we do by and large, to cover our self-indulgence. And I think it's crazy. So the first thing I would do is say we cannot afford to keep giving people in very high income groups these massive tax cuts when we've got men and women in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan and a massive rebuilding effort largely concentrated on low-income people in the Gulf Coast area."

Same old rhetoric

2005-09-16T02:26:00.000-05:00

President Bush addressed the nation tonight to lay out a plan for rebuilding the areas of the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Katrina, specifically New Orleans. As is his par for the course, Bush's speech was generally uninspiring and sprinkled with references to 9/11, terrorism, and even WMD's. Despite this, he did say what any rational person would expect a president to say of a disaster of Katrina's magnitude, namely that the federal government would do all that it could to help the city of New Orleans and it's citizens rebuild and move forward. This is all fine, but I couldn't shake one nagging question as I listened to his speech: When is enough going to be enough for the American people?

Let's look at the record. As of today the United States has a monstrous deficit, an unemployment rate that may be falling but was high to begin with, a poverty rate that rose for the fourth year in a row, new EPA rules that actually allow for more pollution, a government dominated by a party that promotes itself as believing in a smaller, more frugal government, yet has a Congress on a record binge of spending and a rubber stamp president, and a war we got into (with no end in sight) based on at best a failure in intelligence and at worse a flat out lie. Conservatives and conservative pundits will tell you we are making great progress in Iraq, but I see things like the nearly 200 people killed in the last two days. To make matters worse, any concern voiced about the direction of this war is immeadiately dismissed or ridiculed.

Any way you look at, Bush failed in New Orleans. Certainly nobody believes Bush caused the Hurricane or that a proper response would have allowed New Orleans come through Katrina unscathed. But Bush failed...and he lied by attributing the breach of the levees as an unknowable outcome. In Katrina: The Politics of Incompetence and Decline, Immanuel Wallerstein had this to say:

The initial reaction of George W. Bush to Katrina was to say, how could anyone have predicted that the levees would be breached and 80% of the city of New Orleans flooded? As a matter of fact, the Houston Chronicle predicted it in 2001. The New Orleans Times-Picayune predicted it in 2002. And the National Geographic, one of America's most widely-read magazines (and one totally apolitical), predicted it in 2004. As a matter of fact as well, such a catastrophe was listed in documents of the government published during Bush's own presidency as one of three potential major catastrophes that were quite possible. In addition, anyone listening to the television two days before Katrina struck heard the mayor of New Orleans warn the citizens of New Orleans (and the world) that this time, this was a really serious storm, and he ordered mandatory evacuation of the city. As everyone knows now very well, only 80% of the residents had the car and the money with which to evacuate. Did the U.S. government think urgently to send in buses before the storm hit and the levees broke, in order to evacuate the other 20 percent? Of course not.

So now what? Allow this administration more opportunities to show their incompetance and dishonesty?

I'd say it's time for accountability.

Number 1 or 2?

2005-09-16T01:54:00.000-05:00

Dubya writes a note to Condi to ask permission for a bathroom break while sitting with the UN Security Council for the first time during his presidency.

David Brock on the Al Franken Show

2005-09-15T02:53:00.000-05:00

Media Matters for America president David Brock was on the Al Franken Show to expose faulty claims of conservative and mainstream media coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Brock fouses on the claims by conservative pundits that the city of New Orleans had 2,000 school buses at their disposal to evacuate those who could not leave before the Hurricane hit. According to Media Matters' research, the New Orleans public school system had 324 buses, 70 of which were broken down, leaving 254 total. Franken plays clips from Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich berating New Orleans Mayor Nagin for not utilizing the 2,000 buses, though 1,746 didn't exist.

Because many believe Bush's failure in New Orleans was related to the poor economic status of many of the victims of Katrina, conservative pundits are trying to praise the president's record on reducing poverty. Reverend Joe Watkins, a CNN contributor, radio talk-show host, and Bush/Cheney campaign advisor said,"Under Bill Clinton, 15.1% of the population was poor. Under President Bush, 12.7% of the population is poor. That's a reduction. That's a good thing." Brock points out that the opposite is true. The 15.1% attributed to Clinton was actually the poverty rate he inherited from the Reagan/Bush administrations when he took office in 1993. The poverty rate decreased every year Clinton was in office. On the other hand, Bush inherited an 11.7% poverty rate from Clinton and it has risen every year he has been in office to the 12.7% we have today.

Watkins was correct on one point: reducing poverty is a good thing. Unfortunately, his loyalty to his party rather than the truth gives us yet another example of how this administration manipulates and misleads the American people to serve their own agenda.

Did he really say that?

2005-09-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

Dubya has a new strategy to combat low approval ratings...just tell everyone your actions were extraordinary! In response to a question of when he realized the severity of Katrina, Bush stated "I knew a big storm was coming ahh...Monday, which is why I spoke to the country about it on Monday. I said 'there's a big storm coming.' I pre-signed emergency declarations in anticipation of a big storm coming." Midway through the next reporters question, Bush added "Which is, by the way, extraordinary...most emergencies the president signs after the storm has hit."

Crooks and Liars has the video. Notice how jovial Dubya is, which is a striking contrast to the somber expression of New Orleans Mayor Nagin standing in the background.

If this were only a joke...

2005-09-11T23:43:00.000-05:00

In a recent post by the Powerline twist machine, Assrocket uses a somewhat peculiar line of reasoning to show that President Bush and his administration did a fine job responding to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Rather than providing specific evidence in support of Bush, he blames poor poll numbers on Democrats for "attacking" the president, thereby fooling the majority a Americans into believing that our leaders screwed up.

What is noteworthy, I think, is that the numbers on Hurricane Katrina per se are bad, but not abysmal. The public seems to think that everyone dropped the ball; state and local governments actually fare worse than the federal government and President Bush...So what's the problem? The problem is that the Democrats' relentless attacks on President Bush are hurting him across the board... issue by issue, Bush's ratings are terrible.

The numbers are bad, but not abysmal? State and local governments actually fare worse? So according to Assrocket, the federal government did a good job because the state and local governments did worse. Unfortunately for Bush, bad is bad regardless of any other organization's grade. I should also point out that it is not only Democrats that are critical of this administration's failures in New Orleans.

Assrocket goes on to say that his party needs to stop being noble and fight back:

And it seems clear that Hurricane Katrina, and the outrageous attacks that the Democrats have pursued over the past week, have dealt him, and the Republican Party, another blow. I see no evidence that the Democrats are paying a price for their dishonorable tactics. And they won't pay a price, unless the Republicans start defending themselves and attacking the Democrats the way they deserve to be attacked. The "turn the other cheek" approach that the administration has followed for years--don't respond to attacks, no matter how unfair, just try to ride out the news cycle and move on--has resulted in one needless wound after another, and cumulatively they have now damaged President Bush's standing with the public, likely beyond repair.

This is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. The only Republican in recent years that has turned the other cheek is John McCain...when he was attacked by Rove and Co. during the South Carolina primary. Pharyngula put it best, stating "This is the party for whom the term "swiftboating" was invented, and the administration whose campaign tactics are dictated by Karl Rove, that master of slander ...read on.

And Kanye West said he doesn't care about black people.

2005-09-11T00:02:00.000-05:00