[. . .]
The Homeland Security angle: How can someone who is so suceptible to extortion and blackmail get so close to the (p)resident? God knows what he could have been coerced into doing to keep his 'cover'. Why was he included in the distribution of the Plame memo? Who does security checks at the White House? If the Secret Service vetted this guy, the (p)resident better start walking around in body armor and a helmet. They suck.
[. . .]
CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."
A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions.
Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.
Now, I didn't mind being on the losing side of the last election. But as a loser, I guess I have some "unpopular" opinions — and I'd like to keep them. I'd even like to continue to say them right out loud on TV, because if I just get up there every Friday night and spout the Bush administration's approved talking points, that's not freedom or entertainment. It's Fox News.
Yo. This one goes out to all my fellow vets. The "Blog of the Year" dissed President Jimmy Carter, a vet and an honorable man. I don't know about you, but I have now become officially as hell sick of right-wing too-busy-to-have-served punks calling me and those I respect, terrorist-loving lefties. What are we going to do about it? Suggestions welcomed.
For my part, I was thinking that we can start by pointing out that those men and women of the Boomer Generation and slightly younger who sat out the Cold War in the comfort of our shadows must be commie-lovers. Yup, Lovers of Lenin all. Otherwise why were they not willing to stand on the walls to keep the heathen commies penned up within their own borders? Why? Because, by using the same logic that they use to conflate us with the likes of such miserable people as Osama, they loved Brother Joe Stalin like a sibling.
[. . .]
. . . That's one reason I served, because of my belief that every American has an equal right to be right and to be wrong. I did not serve to one day turn my country over to loud-mouthed self-absorbed reactionaries who want to dishonor me and those who believe as I do by calling me a traitor for not sharing their worldview . . . [my emphasis]
[. . .]
I don’t actually think at all well of Ward Churchill, but I now regret attacking him a week or so ago. He’s just the first of a long list of names that they’re going to go after. They’re smart enough to attack the least appealing individuals first, in a classic salami-slice operation.
If I turn out to be wrong in this, I will be very happy and will let the whole world insult me with impunity.
But here's one last item from TheConservativeGuy, which you have to love for its retrospective irony:Taking on liberals 24/7/365 I'M CALLING YOU OUT, TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT!
Indeed, the recently released 2004 edition of Gallup's annual survey of what Americans think of the honesty and ethical standards of various professions found that journalists ranked behind not only nurses, grade school teachers, clergy and judges but behind auto mechanics, state and local officeholders and seven other professions as well (but slightly ahead of business executives, congressmen, lawyers, advertising practitioners and car salesmen). Only slightly more than 20% of poll respondents said they considered journalists to have "high" or "very high" ethical standards.
The president, in an interview published Wednesday in several regional newspapers, left the door open to the idea of raising the cap on wages subject to the Social Security tax as a way to help cover the transition costs of private accounts. Earnings above $90,000 are not subject to tax now.
Dear Mr. McClellan:
I am writing you in regard to the now-vacant position of White House press corps plant.
It is my understanding that your previous press corps plant, James D. Guckert - to whom you issued White House press credentials under the name Jeff Gannon - is no longer with the administration.
I realize, of course, that because of the flap over the administration's policy of having conservative columnists on the payroll, it may not be politically feasible to fill Mr. Guckert's position right away. However, when you do begin hiring again, I hope you will consider me.
Again, thank you for your time, sir, and I will be waiting to hear from you.
P.S. The three columns for $1,399 offer is still good while supplies last.
Inserting an agent directly into the White House press corps was a daring operation. Until his exposure, he proved useful for the White House. But the longer-term implication is the Republican effort to sideline an independent press and undermine its legitimacy. "Spin" seems quaint. "In this day and age," said press secretary McClellan, waxing philosophical about the Gannon affair, "when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist." It is not that the White House press secretary cannot distinguish who is or is not a journalist; it is that there are no journalists, just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power.
In the fourth to last paragraph concluding my post The Great Pretender, TCF made a bold, self-righteous and exasperated pledge to expose the now obvious Conservative grip (bias now an inadequate description), on the Mainstream Media in America. I hoped to also enlist the help of others in this quest, having now an abundance of evidence in hand, and no takers (so far) from The Right willing to contradict it.
[. . .]
With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes. If you're their critic, nothing goes. They're waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they'll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs and replacing them with ringers.
At last month's press conference, Jeff Gannon asked Mr. Bush how he could work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." But Bush officials have divorced themselves from reality.
They flipped TV's in the West Wing and Air Force One to Fox News. They paid conservative columnists handsomely to promote administration programs. Federal agencies distributed packaged "news" video releases with faux anchors so local news outlets would run them. As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with "news" articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home, but you have to look hard for the disclaimer: "Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense." The agencies spent a whopping $88 million spinning reality in 2004, splurging on P.R. contracts.
[. . .]
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The assassination of a political leader. The forming of alliances. Where have I heard this one before?
Along with Steve Soto, I can't quite tell on what grounds the Bush Administration is going after Syria for the assassination of Hariri. It seems forced and over the top, and when combined with our recent saber rattling towards Iran, a little unnerving. I'm still not sure whether Bush is audacious and stupid enough to start another war (a much bigger war), or whether he is just ratcheting up the rhetoric. I'm also not very confident that he can do the latter without also starting the former. [my emphasis]
[. . .]
With obesity among children rising steadily, health experts say our school's physical education programs are woefully inadequate. What do you think?
"Well, what do people expect? How are today's gym teachers supposed to motivate kids, now that homophobia, verbal harassment, and physical abuse are off limits?"
"I don't want my kids missing out on all that gym class offers. That's why I give them cruel nicknames, make them shower together, and snap them with wet towels."
"You know, sex burns a lot of calories. Teens love sex. I can't see why no one has thought of this before."
Bush would do well to listen to his own words, such as this comment on "Meet the Press" last weekend: "See, free societies are societies that don't develop weapons of mass terror and don't blackmail the world."
He is, of course, incapable of sensing the overwhelming hypocrisy of statements like this, and will, of course, never apply its rationale to his own policy.
[. . .]
The point being, the U.S. (often through its client state, Israel) is determined to retain the lion's share of weapons contracts, and it is willing to play Nuclear Roulette in order to maximize product viability. It GREATLY DESIRES a new global arms race, and is willing to "bungle" its foreign policy in order for the Irans and North Koreas of the world to join in the fun.
WASHINGTON - The last time Dr. Floyd Baker served in the U.S. Army, Harry S. Truman was president, Dinah Shore's "Buttons and Bows" topped the music charts, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" won an Oscar and the bikini made its debut on American beaches.
[. . .]
"I was honorably discharged in 1948," said Baker, who was drafted in 1946 and left the Army with captain's bars on his shoulders. "I thought the letter belonged to somebody else, knowing when I got in the Army and when I got out. I thought it was a mistake."
[. . .]
Baker's letters may be a simple bureaucratic mistake, but they're also symptomatic of how the U.S. military is struggling to fill its ranks as it's stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq. To help keep its numbers up, the Army recently expanded a little-used program to recall officers and enlisted personnel to serve voluntarily for up to a year.
More than 300 Army retirees from their mid-40s to their late 60s are on active duty through the program, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army personnel spokesman.
[. . .]
This is all happening because the Navy lost its testing and practice grounds on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. A popular uprising, including everyone from churches to pop stars to pro athletes, eventually forced the Navy to leave, after they had occupied much of the island for nearly fifty years. Now they need to shift testing to sites in the U.S., where the prime candidates include a series of locations in Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, where live bombing exercises will take place at three ranges in the panhandle and central Florida.
Would George W. Bush have been re-elected president if the public understood how much responsibility his administration bears for allowing the 9/11 attacks to succeed?
And let's be clear: The failure to fully disclose what is known about the 9/11 tragedy is not some minor bureaucratic transgression. Not since the Soviets first detonated an atomic bomb more than half a century ago has a single event so affected decision-making in this country, yet the main questions as to how and why it happened remain mostly unanswered.
Writing for the right-wing media advocacy group, Accuracy in Media, Cliff Kincaid dismissed the controversy as "laughable," insisting Guckert's only "crimes" were "that he was too pro-Republican, attended White House briefings, and asked questions unfair to Democrats." And at Power Line, the conservative outpost that wrote relentlessly about CBS's troubles with its Bush National Guard story last year, the site has confessed bewilderment about the Guckert controversy. "I can't figure out what the story is," wrote one of Power Line's contributors . . .
* Bush said: "Americans were still barred by law from hotels and restaurants, made to drink from separate water fountains, forced to sit in the back of a bus – all because of the color of their skin. We need to teach them about the heroes of the civil rights movement, who by their courage and dignity forced America to confront the central defect of our founding."
What he meant: "Back in the '50s and '60s, a lot of the mentors of the right-wing politicians I'm now tight with were fighting against desegregation and vilifying the civil rights movement as a sinister force for judicial activism that threatened to undermine the sacred covenant of states' rights. Well, times have changed. Fortunately, the old power base of the Dixiecrats in Congress has been transformed into the country's most solid bedrock of Republican power. Blacks can use those water fountains, but we'll keep slashing social programs and skewing the tax structures so my rich pals can get richer while lots of people will stay near the bottom of the economic ladder. And I'm not just whistling Dixie."
And that's just a random week in the first month of Bush's second term. We're on the Doom Train with the Masters of Disaster at the throttle. They are drunk on power and determined to run America off the tracks. And nobody seems to care, or really even notice.
[. . .]
Republican Senators have been threatening for a year or more to “go nuclear” on the Democrats if the Democrats inist on exercising advice and consent on Bush’s extremist judicial nominations. The Democrats need to counter with nuclear deterrence - a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction. It’s worked in the past. It can work now.
[. . .]
How can the Democrats respond? Clearly, the balance of power must be maintained, but the Democrats must come up with a response that ups the ante for the Republicans as well. Here’s my suggestion: threaten to retaliate.
Eventually, the Democrats will return to majority status in the Senate. It may be a bare majority, but the Republicans have demonstrated that simple majority power can be wielded tyrannically. The Democrats must do so.
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This is not the Washington Post that had the courage to go after the Watergate story. It would rather focus on the frustration Democratic lawmakers have getting serious matters investigated.
[. . .]
Meanwhile, back at the White House, they’re busy defending their working relationship with a ‘reporter’ who appears to be a male hooker. Maybe it really does depend in this insane government on whose whistle’s getting blown.
But the Washington Post used to be a credible news organization that could at least find the important parts of a story that matter to people outside the beltway. What caused them to think that corruption was boredom and made them choose the life of whoredom?
Have they been paid off? Or are they just lusty advocates for the buggering of Americans? Has the medium become the massage? [my emphasis]
[. . .]
Dear Senator,
Did President Bush know that "Jeff Gannon" was a prostitute using a false name when he called on him at his most recent news conference?
[. . .]
Sincerely,
Pudentilla
The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq."
So what's the prize? An end to occupation, as the voters demanded? Don't be silly--the US government won't submit to any "artificial timetable." Jobs for everyone, as the UIA promised? You can't vote for socialist nonsense like that. No, they get Geraldo Rivera's tears ("I felt like such a sap"), Laura Bush's motherly pride ("It was so moving for the President and me to watch people come out with purple fingers") and Betsy Hart's sincere apology for ever doubting them ("Wow--do I stand corrected").
And that should be enough. Because if it weren't for the invasion, Iraqis would not even have the freedom to vote for their liberation, and then to have that vote completely ignored. And that's the real prize: the freedom to be occupied. Wow--do I stand corrected.
Or as we like to say in Republican Dictionary land:
PERSONAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS, n. Chinese Communist Party loans.
ACCOUNTABILITY, n. Buck? What buck? (Martin Richard, Belgrade, Mont.)
BI-PARTISANSHIP, adj. When Democrats compromise. (Justin Rezzonico, Keene, N.H.)
CHECKS & BALANCES, pl. n. An antiquated concept of the Founding Fathers that impedes autocratic efficiency; see also REFORM. (Robert B. Fuld, Unionville, Conn.)
Anyone in the White House satisfied? The rallying cry should be "It's the client list, stupid." How could this unqualified "reporter"/hooker gain regular access to the briefing room? Remember, this loser sat only a few rows from Chimpy at times. What is going on and who is pulling the strings?
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the agreement, revealed yesterday after it was secretly signed in January, the Labor Department agreed "to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime."
[. . .]
The Occupational Safety and Health Act prohibits inspectors from warning employers about planned inspections, but no such provisions exist in many other labor laws.
. . . Bipartisanship has gotten Democrats nowhere for four years, has earned them nothing more than a fine spittle of contempt falling like a constant drizzle. They should let a smile be their umbrella as they enjoy the spectacle of House and Senate Republicans promoting Social Security privatization as if they'd been ordered by their commander in chief to suck lemons.
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MSNBC Breaking News
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Shiite-led list wins big in Iraq elections, results show -
Figures released Sunday by Iraq's election commission show a Shiite-led list won 4.075 million votes, Kurds 2.175 million and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's list 1.168 million, The Associated Press reports.
You see, that’s what tends to happen when Howard Dean’s message is not filtered through Wolf Blitzer, Tim Russert and Cokie Roberts. This was not the Party establishment’s failure in making the unappealing case against installing just ‘another Northeastern Liberal’, it was Dean’s triumph in proving anyone propagating such Republican ‘talking points’ has no damn business running the Democratic Party.
That’s all behind us now. And, here’s where it’s important for TCF to make clear to his readers that the future of the Democratic Party does depend upon you.
[. . .]
Presiding over the healthy coffers of the Party, dictating and directing 50 state organizations, and more importantly, not having to concern himself with the pervading, skewed ‘Conventional Wisdom’ of the Beltway, Dean is free to make an impact out where it counts.
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