Roberts

The Sister:

[. . .]

. . . He's been a judge for two years, and the rest of his career has been spent in the pockets of GOP power players. This is, in the end, just more of the same from Bush & Co.

And could we really have expected any different? Of course not.

[. . .]

Did anybody on the left expect a consensus nominee? Bush needs a smoke show now more than ever (© Travis), he needs something the media will push to the front burner and forget about Plamegate. The fight over a SCOTUS nominee is his best chance.

DemVet has more on this clown:

. . . People, this is a guy who hates anyone's civil rights, the constitution and will be down-the-line supporter of the 1600 Crew's planned descent into fascism . . .

Update: 14:45:

And the Rude One:

[. . .]

When Bush said he was going to announce his nominee in prime time on TV so that today's news cycle might shift away from Karl Rove, what wonders should we have expected? That he'd nominate a half-Mexican, half-Asian one-legged blind female midget who farts Bach perfectly? . . .

Marine Corps Shortens Slogan To 'The Few'

From The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC - In light of recruiting shortfalls, a near standstill in re-enlistment, and rock-bottom troop morale, U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee announced Monday that the Marines will alter their unofficial slogan, abbreviating it to the more accurate "The Few." Hagee said, "We are still the Marines, the premier combat arm of the U.S. military." The Marines will also change their motto to Semper Fidelis, Sic Non Sapienti, or "Always Faithful, But This Is Just Ridiculous."

You may occasionally hear Marines say "Semper Fi", usually among themselves. In its shortened form it means something like, "I've got mine. You're on your own", or "Pull up the ladder, I'm on board."

Brain Gear

Brain Gear. More to come. I put a link in the sidebar.

Civil war

My man, Kevin Hayden, smells the inevitability of civil war in Iraq.

From all accounts, it looks like the mission of Saddam's old crew is nearing its goal. Iraq's about to bloom into a full-scale civil war. In fact, the critical point may have already passed.

[. . .]

The list

Jami has a list of probable SCOTUS nominees, a short bio of each, and their qualifications. In depth, great research.

Cool

Since it's hot and humid in New York (and elsewhere), a little nostalgia.



My backyard a few short months ago.

Rove-Bush Conspiracy Noose Tightens

I just love that title! I get all goose-pimply thinking about it! From the ConsortiumNews:

A key Republican defense of Rove has been that the White House deputy chief of staff only recycled rumors from reporters in 2003 when he told other reporters about Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, and her covert identity as a CIA officer who worked on issues related to weapons of mass destruction.

But two new facts contradict that assertion and show that Rove was coordinating his leaks about Plame with officials in Bush's National Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

The first new piece of evidence is a little-noticed part of Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper's testimony last week before a federal grand jury in Washington.

Some news articles have noted Cooper's statement that Rove brought up Wilson's wife during an interview on July 11, 2003, and that Rove volunteered that she worked for "the agency" on WMD issues. Cooper said Rove cited these facts in claiming that Plame was responsible for Wilson's trip to Africa in February 2002 to investigate whether Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger.

What's been overlooked, however, is another part of Cooper's account. Cooper said his notes reveal that Rove then added that "material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings." In ending the conversation, Rove said, "I've already said too much," according to Cooper. [Time, July 25, 2005, issue]

Rove's assertion that he knew about plans to declassify material on Wilson indicates that Rove was not just a loose-lipped talker repeating stuff he'd heard from reporters, but he was a participant in internal White House discussions about how to counteract Wilson's criticisms by releasing then-secret information.

Damn good point. I bet Fitzgerald is on it like stink on shit. Much, much more in the article. Go read. The last paragraph is good:

But that has not stopped the RNC and the conservative news media from continuing the P.R. war against Wilson. The Bush administration and its allies seem to believe that the best way to prevent a conspiracy from collapsing is to expand it.

It's expanding like the Universe. When it collapses around their ears, I hope they get a Big Bang out of it!

Sleight of hand

Via Rook from Liberal Oasis:

Keep An Eye Out...

...for a[n] accelerated announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, in order to change the subject.

They're hoping the announcement tonight raises enough of a dust storm to obscure Rove's problems. Not here, bitches.

Pick me, pick me!

My hero, the Rude One:

[. . .]

What's happening here, with polls showing that very few Americans believe the Bush administration on the whole issue, is the American public, having been fed years of propagandistic books, films, and television shows, since the Cold War, about how magnificent the CIA is in protecting our freedom (despite, you know, having often done quite the opposite), feels as if it's looking out for Jack Ryan. You know Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy's CIA agent, played by AlecBaldwinHarrisonFordBenAffleck in the movies. By this point in a Clancy novel or film, Jack Ryan (or someone) would have grabbed the tweedy, bespectacled, fat, balding asshole politico, who thought a CIA agent's identity was just more political capital to be spent when expedient, and beaten the shit out of him, leaving him bleeding, glasses broken, pissing himself on the floor of the Oval Office. Hell, where do you wanna go with this? Jason Bourne? Sydney Bristow? Bill Cosby on I Spy? George Smiley? James fuckin' Bond? All of the spy glorification in pop culture has made it a cardinal rule: you don't blow someone's cover.

[. . .]

More on Veterans' Funding

Following up on Fixer's post on Veterans' funding, this from the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune:

Fellow Republicans warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay more than a year ago that the government would come up short - by at least $750 million - for veterans' health care.

The leaders' response: Fire the messengers.

Some lawmakers say the shortfall is a product of the administration's scrimping on veterans' care to reduce the size of federal deficits.

It doesn't surprise me even a little bit that my #1 sleazeball and his dancing monkey, neither of them Veterans, had a hand in this scam.

Molly on PlameGate

Molly Ivins, as usual, nails it.

But even that is superseded by what lies at the heart of Plamegate, and that is lying in order to get this country into war. If the Washington press corps had a memory bank longer than 10 minutes, they could have exposed this years ago: the lies so often directly contradict one another. Before the war, the CIA was such a wussy organization it kept trying to downplay weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: After the war, it was all the CIA's fault, they had exaggerated the weapons of mass destruction. And so on and so on.

She has a few words to say about the cabal going after the ACLU as well.

Rove's Talking Points

Go see Tom Tomorrow.

Grime Pays

Grime Pays
Boy makes bad: a Karl Rove chronological tour, making all local stops

If you a little shaky on your Karl Rove history, this article is a great way to brush up on your Rovian facts. Some of these gems include:

1960: At age 10, he becomes a Republican, supporting Nixon in his losing race to John F. Kennedy. A meanie girl who's a Kennedy supporter beats him up.

FALL 1970: Rove pays visit to Chicago campaign headquarters of Alan Dixon, a Democrat running for state treasurer. Disguised as a volunteer, Rove steals official campaign letterhead and sends out 1,000 invitations to people in the city's red-light district and soup kitchens, offering "free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing" at Dixon headquarters. When hundreds of homeless and alcoholic Chicagoans show up at a fancy Dixon reception, Rove succeeds in embarrassing the candidate. Dixon still wins the election.

A brief timeline that gives one a basic introduction on what it is to be Rove.

Censorship Alive and Well

Some of you may have missed a post over at Shakespeare's Sister this past Friday. Emails containing the phrase "afterdowningstreet.org" have been filtered as spam by Comcast.net domain.

"Comcast is pointing the finger at Bright Mail, part of Symantec, with whom they have a contract and who, according to Comcast, control the filter. Bright Mail refuses to lift the ban, claiming to have received 46,000 spam messages containing the above cited URL, thought they refuse to show AfterDowningStreet.org a single such message)."

See you in Hell

Cathie:

There are many things written in this article that upset me, but mainly that Westmoreland lived to be 91 when Americans and Vietnamese died by the hundreds of thousands 35 years ago.

[. . .]

Only the good die young, darlin'.

To live and die in polling land

Stolen fully and completely from Kevin Drum:

LIVE BY THE POLLS, DIE BY THE POLLS....Garance Franke-Ruta reports that a new ABC News poll shows plummeting support for the White House's handling of Plamegate. Only 25% of the respondents felt that the administration was cooperating with the investigation - and that was before both Time and Newsweek splashed Karl Rove's picture all over their covers this week. At that level, it means that even some true believers are starting to doubt George Bush's sincerity in the matter.

Why? Probably because a lot of Bush's supporters genuinely believe that exposing the identity of a CIA agent is a bad thing to do even if you're mad at her husband. They might be running out of patience with Bush on this. [my emphasis]

Exposing the identity of a CIA agent working to halt the proliferation of WMD and the financing of terror cells. In all, thanks to the Plame outing, nearly 100 covert operators, those working for her front company, were rendered useless and probably marked them for execution. In other words, we're only fighting the 'War on Terra' if it's politically and financially expedient for Chimpy Inc.

Yay!

Skippy loves us. Well, at least the decor.

Welcome

I'd like all of our readers to welcome Morrigan (BaltimoreLenore) of Morrigan's Web to regular blogging duties here at the Brain. I think she'll be a good fit with the rest of the team and I'm honored she accepted my invite. Welcome aboard!

I'm moving this up here for the rest of the day because it moved down the page pretty quickly since I posted it. I'm sure some of you were scratching your heads at the new byline. New posts start below this one.

Speechless

This gets me so pissed off I don't have the words:

The Bush administration was unprepared to meet the needs of military veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One scheme they've come up with to make up the cost of health care and other services for this new cadre of U.S. veterans is to shortchange some of this country's most vulnerable older veterans.

[. . .]

Those standards would render 85 percent -- 85 percent! -- of the veterans in Washington's three veterans homes ineligible to stay there, according to Alfie Alvarado, assistant director of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. At that rate, she says, the state's veterans homes would "not be able to operate." [my emphasis]

[. . .]

The way this government treats the people who've sacrificed their minds and bodies for this nation is unconscionable.

I owe somebody credit for the link, but I'll be damned if I can remember who. Update: Thanks to Jillian at Skippy's.

PlameGame

Here's a blog devoted to the Rove deal. I just saw this on one of the "inside the blogs" segments on one of the MSM TV shows. Go see PlameGame. On the right side, just under the picture of Bush holding a beer mug, are links to some blogs devoted to "other scams". Worth a look.