Outside the Spectrum

You might be shocked to learn that democrats haved caved on the Iraq funding bill until September, though the leaders, as The Hammer pointed out, voted the right way. Did I not predict this when Nancy Pelosi, three monthes ago, told the dems in the House they would have to pas a funding bill sans deadlines if they couldn't pass the bill they were working on?

John McDumbass may think he can outflank Obama and Clinton to the right on this issue, but only a man with suspect arithmetic skills could think he could outflank a 2/3 majority of the country by taking the position of the extreme 1/3 and have it turn out to be a politically clever move. Arizona isn't exactly the reddest of the red states, either. I feel a little sorry for Arizonans, being treated like idiots by their senator (shit, Jon Kyl isn't the best, either).

Aaah, Republicans. When you go home this weekend, when leave office in a year and a half, the only thing in store for you is opprobrium.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers. And so far as I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew. But again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General.

That was March 13th of this year. Of course, since then it has come out that Gonzales was at a meeting where these firings were discussed on November 27th of 2006.

“…was not involved in any discussions about what was going on” indeed. Also note, in the same USA Today article, “Internal e-mails disclosed by the Justice Department have indicated that Sampson worked closely with the White House in developing the plan for removal.” That would be Karl Rove, Harreit Miers, and maybe the president himself involved in firing prosecutors whose performance was hardly bad. And note the emails that indicated that a day after Carol Lam announced she would be pursuing Hookergate Kyle Sampson shot off an email saying that she was a “problem.”

This administration is rotten from crotch to crown.

Mr. Kyle Sampson, you DO indeed have “a real problem.”

Sweet baby Jesus. So many scandals, so little time. Kyle Sampson, who wisely resigned as soon as this scandal broke, is on the record in these emails asserting that the administration had “a real problem” with a US attorney who indicted and convicted Duke Cunningham (R-CA) of the biggest bribery case in US history and was pursuing an investigation into Hookergate, an investigation into crooked Iraq War contracts and hookers (quite a quid pro quo, eh?) involving high-ranking CIA officials. She announced the continuance of that investigation on May 10th. On May 11th Sampson indicated in his email that she was a “problem.” She was later fired.

Democrats (and some republicans) have responded with outrage and calls for an investigation and the ouster of Alberto Gonzales. Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Leahy has been adamant in his call for subpoenas of officials involved like Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. White House Counsel Fred Fielding just sent a letter to Congress saying that he would “permit” Congressional interviews of these people but that "Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas.”

If I were a democrat on Capital Hill I would tell Fielding to stuff his offer and issue subpoenas. Democrats have already stated that they would insist on subpoenas and oaths, but now Senator Schumer sounds ambivalent, saying that he will “try” to make those things happen. ­­

Robert Parry of Consortium News has an excellent piece up on Alternet concerning the President’s State of the Union Speech. Some choice excerpts:

To heighten the fears of Americans, he again misrepresented the goals, capabilities and even the identities of the enemy. He blurred diverse and even antagonistic Muslim Sunni and Shiite groups, shoving them under the umbrella of "the Islamist radical movement."
"The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," Bush said. "Whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent they have the same wicked purposes. They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East, and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale."

That last paragraph is quite a masterpiece of either boneheaded political thinking or deliberate deception. Shia and Sunni extremists hate each other: its quite stretch to call them “different faces” on anything except some ridiculously broad category of people, like “violent people” or “violent Muslims.” Then he calls them a “totalitarian threat,” which is ridiculous. Terrorists are not members of some massive, fascist industrial state like WWII Germany. They are brigands and religious extremists. But we know “they have the same wicked purposes. They want to kill Americans” blah blah blah. Right. And Hexbollah is such a threat because they bombed a marine barracks in Lebanon 23 YEARS ago. Most of our soldiers weren’t even alive when that happened.

This administration is an ongoing, never-ending, slow motion disaster. But there are those who support it still, though they number 28%, last time I checked. Glenn Greenwald has a ruinously effective post here about the likes of Bill Kristol. Have watched Greenwald do this for a year or more, I must say, it’s starting to look too easy for him, like watching Lennox Lewis whip Tony Tucker over and over.

# posted by BitterHarvest @ 11:11 PM 0 comments

When I and a few others say that this president is neglecting the so-called “War on Terror” this is what we mean. And this. Afghanistan and Pakistan spiraling out of control, the president actually drawing troops out of Afghanistan as this happens, worldwide terror attacks rising every year, etc.

Darth Cheney explains to the curious N­ewsweek reporter: “We are a criminal syndicate. I don’t know why Chuck Hagel has gone off the reservation, but our code of silence, as articulated by Ronald Reagan, our omerta, stipulates that we may not point out when a member of the family is lying, wrong, or doing something illegal.”

That is what is known as a code of silence­­, ladies and gentlemen. According to wikipedia, when someone "witnesses or is privy to the knowledge of an illegal or embarrassing act, but puts comradery, or loyalty to the 'unit' above informing the public or the proper authorities."

The Republican Party usually operates like a criminal syndicate, as I have written before. This is what I'm talking about.­

He’s just playing with you now. It’s funny, now, to him. In the words of Mcjoan, “willfully obtuse” to the point of being impeachable. In my words, insultingly coy. What kind of theater is it to ask a ridiculous liar like him questions at all?

# posted by BitterHarvest @ 11:51 AM 0 comments

Dinesh D’Souza has a particularly repulsive book out now, blaming 9/11 on liberals, of course. The reviewer at the New York Times Book Review rightly pans it as a “national disgrace” and calls D’Souza a “childish thinker.” I couldn’t agree more, though I’m sure the members of his political movement like good friend Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh will be happy to support his every putrid argument. If you would like to purchase this slurry shit of a novel, you can also get a deal on Jonah Goldberg’s masterwork Liberal Fascism: the Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton here. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Chicago Tribune for syndicating such an eminent scholar as Jonah Goldberg.

This stuff speaks for itself. I love this quote: “The legislation also prohibited some of the worst abuses of detainees like mutilation and rape, but granted the president leeway to decide which other interrogation techniques are permissible.” Oh, well, thank God we outlawed mutilation and rape. Now we can be assured that the electrodes and waterboarding will all be used decently and fairly.

Hows about that surge plan? Retired generals no likey.

How about Carter’s new book? How about the wiped off the map phrase?

# posted by BitterHarvest @ 10:39 AM 0 comments