Friday Cattle Dog Blogging

Princess Shayna thinks Sen. Pat Leahy should get on the ball and issue subpoenas forthwith.



This won't go back to being a weekly thing, but Shayna's appearances have been rare lately so I thought I'd put up a pic.

More cute animals at Modulator and Cute Overload.

Shiny shit

We always kid the Indian at work about how he (and his people) are easily distracted by shiny stuff (Harry remembers when the Dutch bought Manhattan ... heh). He swears he pays the Indian with paper clips and flat washers (there is no such thing as political correctness at the shop).

The Bush administration is doing that now, throwing Khalid Mohammed at us to distract us from the misdeeds regarding attorney-gate. The wonderful TRex wonders about the redactions in his 'testimony':

...

What, you mean the parts where he was screaming, "Oh, God, please make it stop! I'll say whatever you want! No more, please! AHHHH, GOD, NOOOOOO!! NOOOOOO!!"?

...

So we get to what we all know, this 'confession' was merely an attempt to have us look at shiny shit:

...

Yes, look! Over there! Arabs are violent and evil! Pay no attention to the Presidential Aide behind the curtain!

...

What they don't get is that without a Rethug-controlled Congress, they don't have the cover to sweep this shit under the rug while we're distracted. Besides, nobody believes shit coming out of 1600 anymore (well, except for the 23% who'd believe the Chimp is really Jesus in disguise). Fool us once ...

"Clinton fired 93 U. S. Attorneys"

Just a quick note because I feel that this should get wide distribution. If you should encounter the "Clinton fired 93 U. S. Attorneys" meme, and you will because the righties are desperate on the prosecutor firings, the counter too it is here:


WHITE HOUSE AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
BEGIN U.S. ATTORNEY TRANSITION

"WASHINGTON, D.C. - Continuing the practice of new administrations, President Bush and the Department of Justice have begun the transition process for most of the 93 United States Attorneys. Attorney General Ashcroft said, "We are committed to making this an orderly transition to ensure effective, professional law enforcement that reflects the President 's priorities.""

IOW, standard operating procedure for a new administration. If they are stooping this low (why am I not surprised?), things must really look bleak on the prosecutor firings.

Please get this circulated as far and wide as you can.

A tip of the Jersey fedora to Seeing the Forest for the link.

R.

No Jesus for you

Jesus weeps.

Run, Rudy, Run*

Thanks to Res for the pic. Need I remind you, Bernard Kerik is a convicted felon.

*Part of an ongoing, semi-regular series.

Credibility ...

JG has been having some fun with Khalid Mohammed confessing to everything including the Chicago fire, but Digby brings up a good point:

...

It may all be true. But because this government has insisted that "sending a message" of toughness will make suicide bombers turn tail and give up --- and seems to truly believe that a false confession is a good as a real one, we have no way of knowing. This guy is by all accounts a very bad man, I don't doubt it. But the details of his confessions are meaningless because of this administration's short sighted and immoral policies.

...

I mean, does anybody with a brain believe this is anything more than a way to deflect attention from the other scandals taking up news time this week?

The Army is scraping the bottom of the barrel

Joseph Galloway

An Army already stretched painfully thin is now being asked to find the additional 25,000-plus troops to man President Bush's escalation in Iraq and, it's now obvious, prepare for additional combat rotations next year.

All the easy sweeping up of manpower already has been done. All the obvious moves to rob Peter to pay Paul have been carried out just to keep this unending war going.

You shouldn't rob Peter to pay Paul. It makes Peter sore and you can't do business with a sore Peter!

That might be one solution to the scandalous treatment of soldiers on outpatient status at Walter Reed Army Hospital - rate them good to go and send them back to Iraq.

The Army, that once-magnificent Army we counted on as our shield in a dangerous world, is being bled to death in the streets and on the roads of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Politicians only now are talking about adding 100,000 more soldiers to the Army and Marine Corps, when that's something that should have begun on Sept. 12, 2001.

Where and how do they propose to find and enlist 10,000 or 20,000 more troops each year when it is literally all the recruiters can do to find enough young men and women to fill the existing quota of at least 80,000 each year?

Again, all the cheap fixes have been used. They've raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 42. Should we kick that higher, say 65? Then you would have your choice: Medicare or boot camp?

Goddammit, Joe, STFU! Don't give 'em ideas!

We've doubled the number of convicted felons permitted to enlist. We've lowered the minimum standards to allow for more high school dropouts, more people who test in the lowest quarter on mental aptitude, more people who are tattooed from elbow to ear.

Of course, if the economy does a meltdown there could be a boom in enlistments and all our problems would be solved.

All of these costs are being pushed down the line to be borne by our children and grandchildren and their children in the form of burgeoning budget deficits seen and, as yet, unseen.

When is someone, somewhere in this country going to stand up and demand an accounting for all we've lost in a foolish, unjustified and unnecessary war in the wrong place, against the wrong people, at the wrong time - conducted by a president who got every bit of it wrong?

When are we going to cut our incredible losses in Iraq - human, spiritual and monetary - and get back on the road to being a better country and a better people whose leaders believe, as we do, in the U.S. Constitution and habeas corpus and the right to privacy?

Pretty soon, no Army left. Then, no problem.

It's past serious, folks.

AIPAC pals up with Holocaust denier

Normally I don't do much on AIPAC as there are others who are much more familiar with it than I am and do a great job, like Moderate Man and Lurch. I just know they're a buncha very influential hard-right lobbyists who only want to perpetuate Israeli apartheid dominance over the Palestinians and foment war with Iran and Muslim countries. They don't seem to care much who they have to get in bed with to do it, either.

Max Blumenthal

It does not necessarily matter to AIPAC if you preach "New World Order/Illuminati" conspiracy theories involving "international bankers," a classic coded anti-Semitic trope. Nor does it necessarily matter to them if the rhetoric you have spewed about the Holocaust sounds like a Christian version of Mahmoud Ahmadenijad. AIPAC doesn't even necessarily care that you've lionized Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. What matters more to AIPAC and its allies -- all that matters perhaps -- is that you back the hardline Israeli government without reservation, support the institutionalized dehumanization of Palestinians and offer crucial moral support for the illegal usurpation of Palestinian land. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that you lust for war with Iran.

It should come as no surprise then that an anti-Semitic Holocaust apologist like Pastor John Hagee was invited to AIPAC, and was given a raucous ovation. As I reported for the Nation last year, through his new lobbying organization, Christians United for Israel, Hagee is emerging as the most influential leader of the Christian Zionist movement, which has bolstered the Israeli right with the grassroots muscle of the evangelical right. I go on to explain in detail that Hagee is a dangerous crackpot whose stated desire is to see Israel engage in an apocalyptic nuclear war with Iran.

Go see Max explain it in detail. Video and many links.

All I know is that when you get a conglomerate of disparate right-wing warmongers together to do evil shit in the Middle East, ya got big trouble.

Late Breaking News!

Khalid Sheik Mohammed confesses to supplying the apples in the Garden of Eden. Tape at 11.

:)

R.

The Washington Sex Scandal That Wasn't? Drat!

WaPo follows up on my previous post:

Guess what.

Change of plans.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey's client phone numbers aren't up for auction anymore -- at least according to her lawyer.

The alleged Washington call-girl madam, recently indicted on federal racketeering charges, has decided she wouldn't feel right doing business with some gossipy media outfit that pays for sleaze, her attorney said yesterday.

So it is possible that the nation's capital will not become embroiled in a raging sex scandal after all. Not right away, anyhow.

Sorry.

Palfrey, who employed college-educated women, mostly in their mid-20s, says that as far she knew, her employees and clients engaged in legal sex play -- at $275 per 90-minute session -- in the men's homes or hotel rooms. Her firm, Pamela Martin & Associates, was in business from 1993 until last year. If the women performed sex acts for the money, Palfrey says, they are to blame, not her.

Hey, I've been around a little bit, but that's a new one on me: what the hell is "legal sex play"? Sitting across the hotel room from the client talkin' dirty on cell phones? $275 for 90 minutes? Gimme a break!

Actually, that's pretty cheap. If you spend 90 minutes in a legal Nevada brothel and only spend $275, you never left the bar!

Ohhhh, it comes to me - we're talkin' strange getups and a toy box here...legal, but nothing they'd want their wives and pastors findin' out about. Or 'film at 11'.

I am reminded of a phrase in several articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, some including barnyard animals and every conceivable orifice of any kind anywhere including possible snake-infested bushes, "penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense".

What about the sex scandal that Palfrey kept promising?

"If you want to call it a scandal, you can. But I think potentially it speaks more to the hypocrisy of the Beltway community."

I don't doubt for a minute that the mere threat to out her client records promoted a voluntary influx of checks. The only way for politicians and others in D.C. to avoid being called 'hypocrites' is simply not to be found out.

Inquiring minds still want to know. Heh.

House overturns Bush order on papers secrecy

Editor & Publisher

The House Wednesday passed three bills to open government records to the public, brushing aside White House opposition, and in one case, a veto threat.

The measures, highlighting the media-led Sunshine Week, would force government to be more responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests, make contributions to presidential libraries public and overturn a 2001 presidential directive giving the president authority to keep his records from public view.

The White House issued a veto threat on the presidential records bill and voiced opposition to the FOIA legislation. It also said the president would veto a fourth bill the House is to debate later Wednesday on whistleblower protections. Democrats say the bills, several of which were also taken up in past Republican-led Congresses, were needed to shine light on what they say has been one of the most secretive administrations in decades.

Creepy-crawlies hate sunshine!

Related, from Reuters:

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.

The "specific need" I see will be for "evidence". I understand why Bush is trying to hide this stuff, and also why he is threatening to veto it: something, somewhere, in his and his father's records is stuff that could send them both to jail. We'll see how it goes.

His own worst enemy, and ours

Robert Scheer

While he is still as dangerous as any cornered animal, Cheney stands brightly revealed as the main culprit in cherry-picking the evidence to make the case for a stupid, failed war. He has been exposed as a vindictive, inflexible ideologue, who attempts to destroy all who publicly disagree with him, such as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson's CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame Wilson. His extensive ties and loyal political service to energy and defense companies such as Halliburton (which now, in a burst of honesty, is moving its headquarters to Dubai), reveal him to be a man of deep corruption.

Like Nixon during Watergate, Cheney is now shrilly on the defensive. "National security made me do it!" he insists, clinging to pseudo-patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels. But it is an argument that no longer flies with a public that has caught on to the rhythm of his screechy lies. After all, this is the leader, dominating a weak president, who pushed so hard for a complete occupation of a Muslim country not linked to 9/11. A man who hung his arguments for adventuristic war on known falsehoods, such as the attempted purchase of yellowcake uranium in Niger.

It is thus Cheney who has played right into al-Qaida's plans, heightening tension between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim worlds by evoking an image of U.S. imperial conquest of Mideast oil resources. His palpable disdain for civil liberties, bald-faced lies and support for torture have even tarnished the reputation of democracy itself, which has to please tyrants and theocrats everywhere.

If the occupation had gone well, of course, Cheney wouldn't be under fire. But as it heads into its fifth year, the only winners in this war are the aforementioned radical Shiites, Iran, mercenaries, al-Qaida, oil companies and military contractors such as Halliburton, which has scooped up $27 billion in contracts paid with our taxes. Now Halliburton is making its home in an undemocratic oil-garchy so distasteful to Americans that we wouldn't let a company from there manage our ports.

Perhaps Cheney, in disgrace, can build his retirement cave there.

I'm glad The Dick is getting outed for the evil that he is, but let's not take our eyes off the ball: if Bush had a teeny fraction of the toughness he claims, he could have said 'no'.

. . . and I've got a bridge across the East River if you're interested

From the SF Chronicle (and just about every other news source you can name)

Al-Qaida No. 3 Says He Planned 9/11

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed cemented his position as al-Qaida's most ambitious operational planner when he confessed in a U.S. military tribunal to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.

The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001 — which killed nearly 3,000 — to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a U.S. Marine.

Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterror authorities."

Yeah, and I'm suprised we don't have the Lincoln, Kennedy and King assassinations thrown in for good measure. If I had spent the last 4 years incommunicado at the concentration camp known as Guantanamo , I would confess to just about anything that the boys from the CIA suggested too. And then there's this:

"The transcripts refer to a claim by Mohammed that he was tortured by the CIA, although he said he was not under duress at Guantanamo when he confessed to his role in the attacks. The CIA has said its interrogation practices are legal, and it does not use torture."

He was tortured, but wasn't under "duress". Right. See subject.

Also curious is the timing of this. Interesting how this has pushed the Gonzalez/Rove thingy out of the headlines, isn't it. Goebbels could have taken lessons from these guys when it comes to manipulating news.

R.

They write letters ...

From an Army Colonel to General Petraeus just before he put a bullet in his temple:

...

"Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name] - You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff - no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied - no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more.

"Trust is essential - I don’t know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it." [my em]

...

Iraq is a dishonorable, illegal attack and occupation of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us. It drove a good, honorable man to take his own life because he could not square what he was taught about duty and honor with the fabrications of the Bush administration and their henchmen.

And you see why I have zero sympathy for mercenaries? You might think I'm naive when I talk about honor but in a war, after doing things you would never consider any other time, honor is the only thing some of these guys have left. They have to know that what they did was in defense of their nation, for the honor of their nation. If they believe they are nothing mote than pirates and hired muscle, that is the force you will end up with.

Great, great thanks to Jersey Cynic and Rook.

It's happening ...

This week was a good week for those of us who are sick and tired of seeing Bush administration scandals surface and then be swept under the rug by the White House and the 109th Congress. For those of us who've been living in Left Blogtopia (y!sctp!) over the past few years, I ask this. Remember the 'Downing Street Memos'? Remember how the Rethugs thwarted every one of John Conyers' attempts to schedule a hearing, let alone to reserve a hearing room? I think the Rethugs let him have a closet. The MSM only gave it about 30 seconds' time one day and then it was shoved aside.

Not no more, ladies and germs. 'Berto's going before Congress to 'splain himself and a whole buncha generals have been cashiered for something other than speaking the truth. The waste in Iraq has been uncovered and publicized and many Republican voters have opened their eyes (this is anecdotal but I work in the reddest county in NY and I hear it from my customers). People are allowing themselves to believe what all us dirty hippies have been saying for years.

We've been fortunate to see Fox 'News' take some big hits lately too, the Rethug propaganda machine finally being exposed for what it is, and we got to see Dems use their newfound testicles to tell Murdoch and Ailes where to get off. Truly amazing; didn't think they had it in 'em.

I know many of us don't feel things have moved fast enough since November. Hell, I don't either, but they are moving. I'm positive next week will bring more bad news and circumstance; it has to because the light is starting to shine on their corruption and that light won't be snuffed out for a while. Things will work out ... eventually.

My only fear is when the White House gets desperate, still with finger on trigger. I do not put anything past them to preserve their power and that will be the most dangerous time, when Cheney and the Chimp feel backed into a corner. We'll see, but if progress comes at the current rate, I'll be one happy camper.

Whew ...

Well, it took since Monday to get my new laptop set up (the biggest headache was migrating my email from Thunderbird on the old to the new). Yes, I got another Gateway because the old one served me well. I spent under a grand for a 17" widescreen and it came with MS Office. The widescreen is something I'm still not used to yet but I'll get over it. Movies and hi-res pics look great on it.

About the operating system, it came with Windows Vista. It's XP on steroids. It has some cool shit but it's cumbersome and it's got a lot of extra crap I don't feel is needed, especially for experienced users. It's mostly special effects and I don't see the big deal.

My old laptop below. As you can see, it's been a lot of places.

Click to embiggen.

To all Mac users: Please don't tell me about Macs. I've never used a Mac. Never saw anyone use one. I've had PCs for 15 years and I'm too old to learn something new, and too cheap to experiment.

Faux Noise can't take a punch

Eric Boehlert, Media Matters

The cheese has really fallen off the cracker at Fox News over the Nevada Democratic Party's decision to break its presidential debate partnership with the cable news channel because the outlet is not seen as being fair. On Saturday night, Beltway Boys co-host Morton Kondracke completely lost it while discussing the snub and compared Nevada Democrats to communist propagandists. On Monday night, Fox News talker Bill O'Reilly went one better and likened the "radical" Nevada voters to Nazis.

O'Rally's statement is funnier'n shit! Nevada voters are getting less like Nazis all the time. Nevada is getting bluer all the time like most Western states, but it's still redder'n the dick on a dog.

More importantly, the latest confrontation simply highlights the fact that Fox News can't take a punch. Then again, isn't that always the case with bullies?

I really like it if someone starts whining right after I hit him. It means the fight's over and I won.

And now Nevada Democrats, pressed into action by online activists, have moved the ball forward. "The lies of FOX News and Roger Ailes have no place in public discourse, journalism, or the Democratic Party presidential debates," insisted blogger Matt Stoller, who helped launch the Nevada pushback on his blog MyDD and who stresses that it's important "to not ratify Fox News as a legitimate news source."

That's why the Nevada defection stung so badly, and that's why Kondracke and others lashed out in such outlandish fashion. Fox News does not want to be in a fight about whether it's a legitimate news organization. Why? Because Fox News can't take a punch.

Lotsa good shit and links in between the quotes. Read. Enjoy. I think that Fox Noise, like the Bush administration (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) is on the ropes. 'Bout fuckin' time.

Update:

Anti-Fox Campaign, African-American Edition. Video.

Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?

Antonia Juhasz, NYT

TODAY more than three-quarters of the world's oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn't always this way.

Until about 35 years ago, the world's oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe. Those seven have since merged into four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. They are among the world's largest and most powerful financial empires. But ever since they lost their exclusive control of the oil to the governments, the companies have been trying to get it back.

Iraq's oil reserves - thought to be the second largest in the world - have always been high on the corporate wish list. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to."

It's simple, Kenny - just get an oil patch guy, the dumber the better, installed as p-resident, get him to start a war, and just go take it. Oh, wait, you already tried that...well, it still might work.

A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq's oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.

What's a few million in bribes compared to billions in profits anyway? Screw the ragheads, who says it's their oil just because they've been sitting on top of it forever? The dumb shit fuzzy-wuzzies wouldn't know what it was for if it wasn't for us enlightened Westerners. Hell, you can't run camels on it. We need it more than they do.

The law would transform Iraq's oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies.

The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known - and all of its as yet undiscovered - fields open to foreign control.

The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq's current "instability" by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq's oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country's economic development.

Iraqis may very well choose to use the expertise and experience of international oil companies. They are most likely to do so in a manner that best serves their own needs if they are freed from the tremendous external pressure being exercised by the Bush administration, the oil corporations - and the presence of 140,000 members of the American military.

Why do you think we're building permanent bases? So the troops can stay there forever - or at least until they've ensured the O.C.s have pumped all the oil riches into their own pockets. Troops are just peasants, their blood is a cheap price to pay for corporate greed and the American way.

Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International, a watchdog group, is the author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."

Buh-bye 'Berto

TBogg

The reviews are in.

At the end of Dana Milbank's report:

Even. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the administration's most faithful legislator, said "the appearances are troubling" for Gonzales. "I'm concerned," Cornyn said with Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) at his side. "This has not been handled well." The best Cornyn could offer Gonzales: "In Texas, we believe in having a fair trial and then we have the hanging."

If they've lost Cornyn, 'Berto is a goner.

I'm guessing Friday afternoon... late in the day.

¡Adios, pendejo!

Gingrich Loses Longtime Supporter

Newsweek

March 13, 2007 - In what many political observers consider a bruising blow to a potential 2008 White House bid by Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House lost one of his longtime supporters today when Satan announced that he would not support a Gingrich candidacy.

[...] Dressed in his traditional red cape and carrying a smoldering pitchfork, Satan stated in no uncertain terms that he would be withholding his endorsement from his former colleague: "Not only am I not supporting Newt, I am giving his soul back."

Gingrich with a soul? He's doomed politically...

Ease yer mind, Ol' Scratch, you'll get him back eventually.

Satan's announcement was particularly hurtful to the potential GOP presidential candidate because, in the words of Gingrich supporter Tracy Klujian, "Newt and Satan have worked so closely together in the past."

Gingrich supporter Klujian remains hopeful, however, that the breach between the two infernal colleagues can somehow be mended: "You can win the GOP nomination without Satan's help, but it's not easy."

As we've said before, satire and irony are way too close to the truth these days.