The Bush Flu

The Administration's planned response to the avian flu issue is on its way in the coming days. I'm surprised that they're even coming up with a plan. Probably a bit late, but hey...

Up for discussion soon, kids!

Alito the Hero

Forget the fact that he has ruled that women's uteruses are property of their husbands, and that AIDS infected people have no right to legal protection in the work place.

The dude's a hero! I mean, check it out- he went out and bought pizza!

One weekend in 1986, two young lawyers working for Samuel A. Alito Jr., then a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, faced a looming deadline for a legal analysis and realized they would have to work all night to get it done.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has "more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years," President Bush said.

"In the legal world, most bosses would say, 'This is what I want on my desk in the morning,' " said John F. Manning, one of the lawyers. "Sam stayed with us. He went out and got pizza and he pulled the all-nighter with us. I've never seen anything like that before or since."

Alito- our hardcore-best-est nominee EVER???

Note that this actually passes as reasonable fluff material for the lunatic fringe on the Ann Coulter Wing of the Republican Party.

Polling for Ethics

As though we needed a poll to tell us that the White House suffers from serious ethics issues. There's little doubt that every administration since America's conception has developed ethical quandries of their own. But the core of the Libby case is the fraud inflicted upon, and with utter disdain for, America's people. The sham of shilling such a ridiculous and overrought case for purposes which have never been disclosed, have not proven beneficial, and present, at best, a frightening world for Iraqis...

The ethical violations in The Administration are astounding, but truthfully, Scooter Libby's timing inconsistencies with the truth are not indicative of questionable personal ethics. They are part of a terrible culture of governance reflected in every decision and shortcoming shown in The Administration.

And while the Bush Administration should be comended for the positive actions they've taken [promotion of African trade and debt justice, although with severe shortcomings in health initiatives and various other problematic requirements] we can count the many inflictions of cultural harm brought by The Administration's lurching ideological stance of "conservative" greed: disdain for women's health, Katrina's broken social contract, manipulation of intelligence to go to war, undermining national security with intention of going to war, poor humanitarian performance while at war, a broken education system, nonexistant healthcare, skyrocketing living costs with huge wealth divides, fraudulent war, propagandizing, a culture that condones torture, and more. The list is long.

So the ethical indictment in the VP's office likely falls short, and it's not really an "indicator." If the indictment demonstrates to the American public that The Administration has ethics issues, then they bought the Bush Line of Accountability while remaining ignorant that The Administration is the lease accountable in memory. That's just foolishness.

I Tried To Stop the War

Who is this diplomat who insists he tried to halt the Bush obsession with invading Iraq? Why, Italien PM Silvio Berlusconi, of course!

Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's closest allies, says he repeatedly tried to talk the US president out of invading Iraq, in comments to be broadcast today.

In the television interview, which goes out on the day the Italian prime minister flies to Washington to meet Mr Bush, Mr Berlusconi says he even enlisted the help of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, in behind-the-scenes efforts to stop America going to war.

"I have never been convinced war was the best way to succeed in making a country democratic and extract it from an albeit bloody dictatorship," he says. "I tried on several occasions to convince the American president not to wage war."

His version of events, recounted in an interview with the La7 private TV station, with excerpts reported by the Apcom and Ansa news agencies at the weekend, was backed by his deputy, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former neo-fascist party, who said: "We tried right up to the end to persuade Bush and Blair not to launch a military attack."

Quite the turn of events for Mr. Burlesconi, up to this point one of the staunchest allies of The Administration's G.W.o.T. The Italians have suffered in the war, and they have had a major crisis of their own in Iraq. Burls's been burned by his ineffectiveness to confince fellow rightwinger Bush not to be so hawkish...

Salvage

55% of people think the Bush Presidency is a Failure.

That's what resurrecting the conservative madate is for Bush with this nomination. He doesn't care about anything other than having a minority vocal interest ready to defend his presidency in history books as something other than a dismal exercise in ideology.

Nominee

Lots to talk about, once again. First, the fact that the Libby indictments have been swept off the table is of vital importance for the President. We may find that, in fact, his choice of Samuel Alito is more reflective of the dual importance of his situation. Remember, Bush was boxed in nearly completely and we all knew he'd come out swinging. His goals were two-fold: remove the dire circumstances of his corrupt indicted advisory board, and placate his conservative fanatics who had viciously turned on him. In many ways, this is a more important goal. The far-right wing of the Republican party has been out for blood- they'd been pandered to like children, and like children spoiled, threw a tantrum when their every wish was sidestepped for political viability.

The Administration could previously withstand most storms by simple brutal force if they maintained extremely high relations with their Far-Right faction [Let's call them the "Ann Coulter Wing of the Republican Party"]. This worked well despite terrible scandals [Iraq, Katrina, etc] and terrible approval ratings [They can't top 40% right now]. If they maintained the Ann Coulter Wing, they could maintain enough forward momentum to pretend to sustain ligitamacy of purpose. That's their first, and most pressing, need- relief of the internal political pressure.

However, it should be noted that nearly 2/3 of the country strongly disparages of this fact. The Democrats need to isolate this manouver as cowing to the interests of the Ann Coulter Wing of extremists, and there will be plenty of evidence for this nominee to support that.

The political opportunism of this nomination should be expected, but Democrats and pundits alike should attack the disgusting display of Frist escorting Alito around the body of Rosa Parks today. Had they done this yesterday, when the body was on display, certainly we could accept this as reverence. But doing so simple moments after the announcement of the nomination is disgusting political parasitism.

All of this needs to be put into action by the Democrats, or the opposition forces as they are. The immediate discussion will likely be on the Gang of 14 and the potential filibuster crisis, another tool which the Democrats should examine closely. But don't misstep- the filibuster crisis last round unified and calcifed conservatives while striking a wedge through the American public. The key is to isolate the 1/3 of the Republican party which has taken control of American politics, the Ann Coulter Wing, and craft them for the extremists they are. They are the SAME PEOPLE as Scooter Libby and Karl Rove, all of this is the same single problem. Do not allow them to become separate issues. Isolate the extremist faction, slap that label on them, and shear them away.

Questions for Official A

Wendy Button asks 16 questions of the unnamed Official A, deeply tied up in Scooter Libby's Indictment, and believed to be Karl Rove.

Brewster Jennings

For those of you looking to get in on the excitement of the Plame CIA, pre-outing, check out Brewster Jennings Protects America. It's an online Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, using Google maps and all hot tips of a CIA cover company.

Nation Building

Of course, we're "not in the business of nation-building." And this truth is more and more evident:

As the money runs out on the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction of Iraq, the officials in charge cannot say how many planned projects they will complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to operate the projects that have been finished, according to a report to Congress made public today.

The report, by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, describes some progress but also an array of projects that have gone awry, sometimes astonishingly, like electrical substations that were built at great cost but never connected to the country's electrical grid.

With more than 93 percent of the American money now committed to specific projects, it could become increasingly difficult to solve those problems.

Issues like those "should have been considered before," said Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the inspector general's office. "It's very critical right now, with so little of the U.S. money left to be committed, that they're going to have to make these determinations very quickly," Mr. Mitchell said.

A Man of His Word

Harry Reid:

"I think not only should the president appear before the American public and explain what is going on and take a few questions from the press, but certainly the vice president should do that," Sen. Harry Reid told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

The Nevada Democrat referred to past comments from the president that anyone found to have been involved in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the media would be fired. Bush later amended his comments to say that anyone guilty of a criminal act would be fired.

"Everyone knows Karl Rove is involved," Reid said. "If the president is a man of his word, Rove should be history."

Rove is widely believed to have been named as "official A" in the five-count indictment handed up Friday against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Good call, Mr. Reid. One can't help but to ask why these firm messages weren't put forward by the Democratic leadership, or at least heard by the public, until now, but that question can wait. The fact is that there's a setup here- Reid challenges Bush as being a "man of his word," which is something that Bush, you know, ran on.

Harry, enlist some other strong-willed Dems to help you with this one. You've got the setup- have somebody knock this one home. Force Bush to either be what he claims, or hammer this home until it exposes him for what he is. Keep hitting this one on the head.

Buffalos in Baghdad

No new al-Zarqawi news, but the beefy Buffalo is on the hunt.

In Defense of Forgetfulness

Libby's developing a potential defense strategy. Anybody else feel that the "I was so busy fleecing a nation by crafting lies about Iraq's WMD stockpiles, of which I'm an expert, that I couldn't keep track of the details concerning a primary figure, Ambassador Wilson, who had first-hand knowledge which detracted from our pretense and potentially exposed the entire sham, and whom I'd also become obsessed with discrediting" defense rings, oh, just a little bit hollow?

Top 10 Celebrity Egos

Knight Ridder Newspapers
Oct. 27, 2005 11:57 AM

A ranking of the 10 most egotistical celebrities has just been published by Teen People. The stars were selected by virtue of comments they have made which indicate a breath-taking degree of self-involvement.

The winners are (drumroll, please):

10. Lindsay Lohan
9. R. Kelly
8. Avril Lavigne
7. Justin Timberlake
6. Jack White
5. Christina Aguilera
4. Beyonce
3. Usher
2. Kanye West
1. Paris Hilton

The "Simple Life" star topped the list for her observation: "(By) channeling my inner heiress, I created a new opportunity for young heiresses."

[In Other News-

Vice Presidential Chief of Staff and a primary architect of the Invasion of Iraq has been forced to resign after he was indicted today on Obstruction of Justice and other serious charges. And, by the way, both he and Dick Cheney knew Plame's status in the CIA before her outing. And they were actively investigating Wilson nearly a month before he had even written his editorial. They were looking for a reason to take him out before he'd even publically criticized them. That's dedication. ]

"The Sand Thrown in Our Eyes"

Arianna's thoughts are that these particular counts, as well as the current philosophy being told by Fitz himself, put the spotlight back onto Iraq.

"The sand thrown in our eyes" - WMDs fraudulently crafted to drag us into a war because of ideology.

This is all about Iraq.

No word on anybody else [Rove], however the investigation hasn't yet completed. "I will not end this investigation until I can look everyone in the eye and tell them that we have done this sufficiently and be able to tell them that we have completed this investigation."

DaySide

Listening to Fox News in the bkground, Day Side with Linda Vester. They've broken down the charges against Scooter Libby, and then just spent at least 5 minutes discussing whether or not Bush will announce his SCOTUS replacement. In the minutes following the 5-count felony indictments against the number 2 in the VP's office, Fox News spent minutes talking about whether or not Bush would announce....

That's called distraction tactics.

Libby Indicted- 3 Charges

2 counts Perjury, 1 count Obstruction of Justice, and 2 counts Making False Statements.

All 3 felonies, 5 counts total.

Ann Hates It

Apparently Ann Coulter thinks the possibility of Rove not being indicted, and an investigation continuing and spreading indefinitely, is a "worst case scenerio." As though Ann has any valid thoughts, but amusing nonetheless. Perhaps she fears it because it will A) haunt The Administration forever, and B) potentially uncover the whole weave of lies, misdirections, manipulations, and frauds her prodigal son has inflicted on the State?

Keep your eyes on the page. Rumored that documents will be posted at noon...

The Post Miers Doldrums

President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers on Oct. 3 was made from a position of weakness by a White House beset by political problems and eager to avoid a fight over the Supreme Court. Twenty-four excruciating days later, the supposed safe choice crashed, exposing the president as even weaker than before.

Bush now has an opportunity to recover from one of the biggest political miscalculations of his term, the failure to anticipate the backlash Miers would cause with his own conservative base. But in repairing that breach, he risks a new confrontation with Democrats and further estrangement from the political center -- precisely the situation he hoped to avoid when he tapped his loyal and unassuming personal lawyer in the first place.

Few Republicans in Washington saw the timing of Miers's withdrawal as coincidental. With potential indictments of senior White House officials looming in the CIA leak case, the president could ill afford a sustained and increasingly raw rupture within the GOP coalition.

The Miers nomination was more than a humiliation for Bush, however. It was an episode that seemed wholly out of character with the president's style. No Republican president -- not even Ronald Reagan -- has catered to the right more methodically than Bush. But on a matter of first-order significance to many conservatives, the president let personal loyalty override what had been a central tenet of his political strategy.

There's a lot of chatter about the next step by The Administration. [The Truthiness of it: (a)Miers was attacked because she was potentially anti-abortion. (b)She couldn't sustain the onslaught from the right because of her cronyism and lack of qualifications. (c)She withdrew because of a pretext of client privilege.] The Conservative activists are in a tizzy over this- and making some pretty stern demands of their president. Like children, they are exhibiting the "give them candy once, they'll throw tantrums if you don't each time" syndrome- except Bush has spoiled them rotten his entire career. It is interesting to note that the one time in this Administration that Bush has had to do something political, his "base" refused to support him. Pretty fickle base, isn't it? All or nothing, dead or alive.

John over at AmericaBlog had some very interesting thoughts yesterday and there continues to be a slew of progressive blogs who are saying things like "the talking points are dead!" Here's my criticism with this concept: the talking points, as the conservatives have designed them, don't just die. That's the fact. It's foolish to simply compile a list of what they said and when they said it and how now they can't defend it.

Of course they can defend it, or build new talking points in support of whatever insane scheme comes next. Why? Because there's no viable opposition force speaking against it. And I'm not talking about the blogs- these memes of "they killed their own talking points," and "This is what they said, this is what they did. Note the disconnect" have to get injected into the political debate and have to start making the rounds on television for this to be meaningful. There have got to be Democrats that actually step up and take these lines.

So: Bush either cows to the conservative base in the next couple days and nominates somebody with more "conservative credentials" or decides to take some time and build a consensus candidate. It's more politically viable for him to patch relations across the aisle- but this will alienate further his conservative base. Which will he do?

Bush is inherently a weak man, and his Administration shares this trait. I think he'll cow- grovel at the knees of the conservatives.

Which is fine. The left and the progressive network needs to do three things as I see them:

1. Demand their representatives participate in this process by demanding full disclosure.
2. Demand in the next day or so that Democrats to take a stance which states "any nominee brought forward with a true consensus process will be welcomed, any stance which cows to any political ideology for the sake of appeasement will be strictly scrutinized."
3. Begin developing strategies to deal with the various memes and cultural threads they'll be sending out in self-defense. The progressives above anything need a strategy to deal with this.

Remember: under no circumstances in the SCOTUS search under Bush actually a good outcome for progressives in terms of judicial stance. So we have to continuously push for the best outcome for the country- which is a moderate nominee with an open mind and a clear judicial philosophy. That's what we have to hold our representatives to maintaining.

What else can/should we do in this situation?

Something Classy

Our Government has chosen to do something...

... get this...

Classy. And valuable. And Honorable.

Rosa Parks will lie in honor in the US Capital Rotunda. She will be the first woman to lie in honor in US history, and the first notable person since Reagan's funeral to have the honor- and, in this General's estimate, more important figure in history than Reagan.

Salutes, Ms. Parks. Thanks for your service.

Indictments Tomorrow: Rove Unindicted...?

Drudge and Fark link to an NYT story that says that Indictments will land tomorrow- Scooter gets hit but Rove is left unscathed this round, though "still under investigation," hinting that the special investigation may pick up once again...? If both Drudge and Fark hit it, it must be news.

Criminalization of Conservative Politics

"What we're fighting is so much larger than a single court case or a single district attorney in Travis County," the Texas Republican wrote. "We are witnessing the criminalization of conservative politics."

No, I'm sorry, sir, we're witnessing the karmic justice of law. I would rephrase this statement as "We are witnessing the criminalization brought because of conservative politics." The criminal acts, Mr. Hammer, sir, are those which you and your deficient cronies have inflicted upon America and upon the world. It's not us who turn conservatives into criminals- criminality is the tool you apparently had to use it to inflict your ideology upon us.

In related news: former Alabama Gov. Don Siegleman, a Democrat, has just been indicted for 30 counts of criminal activity. He says he's still going to run for office in 06- Wrong choice, buddy. Get the hell out of the race.

In Other News

Because we're so enraptured by the tension and anxiety of current events ["current events" hereby is defined as "Waiting for Fitzgerald's Plame Affair Indictments" and "Bickering over the SCOTUS replacement nominee"], it's hard to gain perspective on what else is going on with vital American values-based policy.

Let's take a look at Other News.

1. Wal-Mart:First, after the most recent fresh-kill of an increase of the federal minimum wage, by the ultra-wealthy "representative" body of the US government, one of the biggest minimum-wage abusers, Wal-Mart, has actually had representatives call out for a higher minimum wage. Why? Because it "helps business" for them, and is "out of date with the times." As good for business as it might be, of course, Wal-Mart is nowhere near actually taking the initiative and doing it- because in the free market economy, wages don't actually raise when they need to [this concept occassionally comes up as a reason not to increase minimum wage- that the corporate interests will pay the value of their employees. WRONG. They want to, but they apparently won't.]
2. Guantanamo: Many of us have basically forgotten about the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where detainees have been held since the inception of the War on Terror. Most of us have been completely unaware of the Hunger Strike that has been going on in Guantanamo, or the 26 detainees we're currently keeping alive with feeding tubes because they have willed themselves to death in the prison. But, more importantly, very few of us are aware that one of those "activist judges" has ruled that this is completely inappropriate, and that these files must be opened; that the legal teams attempting to represent some of these detainees be allowed, at the very minimum, to be told what is happening to their clients.
   
3. Mini-Nukes: America has decided that actually building more nuclear weapons, even littler ones, probably doesn't help with a viable global promotion of non-proliferation.
   

The Next Nominee is....

Maybe coming VERY SOON, according to the National Journal's blog, hotline. Very soon as in "maybe later today, or even tomorrow, and by the middle of next week at the latest." Or, wait a minute, give that post about an hour to settle in...

Nope. Not today. But hey, maybe tomorrow!

With the announcement that Fitz would likely be announcing indictments tomorrow, one can only gesticulate that there's some kind of cause-and-effect connection between this announcement and the Indictment of the top advisors of the Bush White House. Am I just speculating, or has The Administration been using the SCOTUS nominees as an attempt to wipe dirty Karl Rove off the front pages for months...?

Harriet's Withdrawl

HarrietMiers disparages Harriet Miers' withdrawel from consideration. Atrios has some good points: that the left has every right to demand more from a nominee, but that the Right, in reactionary anger, killed this nomination because they want a conservative activist justice that will force upon society their puritanical ideological desires.

Also just listened to Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on C-SPAN talk about his concerns on the judiciary committee. His take- the pretext of the "oncoming crisis over turning over documents" was just that- a pretext. Paraphrase: He gives us a nominee who has no documented judicial philosophy and then refuses to give us the documents which would explain her judicial philosophy. That's a pretext for something else. And that the Pretext of this stonewall allows the Preznit a convenient way out of not pleasing his base and not divulging secrets.

Schumer offers this insight- You'll notice that both the nominees thus far have been stealth nominees. We know little about them and they can't release the documentation to provide knowledge about them. Bush is doing this because he's stuck "in a box." The conservative base, filled with vitriolic demands, wants a very conservative justice to determine the law from the bench. Yet the American People do not want that- they want a justice more in line with O'Connor- a moderate more sensitive to the culture. So- rather than dealing with either of these two issues, The Administration nominates near unknowns.

Interesting thoughts. Schumer thinks that the better solution is a clear nomination with clear dialogue from both sides.

Of course... this isn't something of which I think The Administration is capable.

Could Be Bad...

No indictment announcements thus far. But Hunter's post today indicates that things could be very very bad for the Boys in Red... He points to Raw Story's report of this count: 2 for Scotter, 1 for Rove, 1 apiece for two other unnamed individuals.

But, potentially, the big news in Hunter's post: It's far from over. He aims at reporter Richard Sale, a typically very accurate and reliable reporter, who says that Fitz has requested another, separate Grand Jury to open- this indicates not only has his investigation widened considerably, but he feels it warrants essentially a new investigation. Potentially huge news.

For those wondering about the cost of such a long-term, potentially damning investigation, letslook at Armando's examination of Precendent.

Not a Snub

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry W. Kilgore has decided not to appear with the President when Bush is in his state on Friday because he's got other things to do.

Bush has scheduled a speech on terrorism in the Hampton Roads region, home to one of the largest concentrations of military personnel on the East Coast. But Kilgore, who is in a dead-heat battle with Democratic Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, said that Bush's address is a "policy" speech and that he has an important appearance at a luncheon for the state NAACP at the same time.

"I'm not ignoring the president," Kilgore said. "I just understand their policies on official business. He's been here for me. The first lady has been here for me. The chief of staff has been here."

The decision highlights some concerns among Virginia Republicans, who have watched nervously in recent weeks as Bush's popularity has waned and as scandals involving presidential aides and congressional leaders have dominated news coverage. Although it is unclear how the national political environment affects voters choosing who should lead their state, even small shifts are important in races that are as close as the Virginia contest.

"No, really, Mr. President. I'm so excited that the leader of the free world, who happens to be in my same political party, is visiting a state in which I need to build last-minute political capital. It's just, I've got other things to do... surely you understand. Dogs to walk, babies to kiess, all that."

A year ago any Republican that did not show up with The Administration patting his back would have suffered. It's not a snub, Mr. President; it's self-preservation. You see- VA's got a tight race, and Kilgore can't afford to lose one single more vote by associating with you.

Demon Days

On the eve of a political scandal of unknown proportions, but that will likely be very damaging for her prefered political party, Michelle Malkin weighs in. Only... she's not going to waste her energy time on such a trivial matter as pending indictments in the top-most levels of her corrupt government. She's more interested in this: DEMONIZING CONDI!

Yes. She literally has put effort into [her brand of banal] srutinization over whether or whether not USA Today's online edition "demonized" Condi by photoshopping the whites of her eyes. Granted, the picture is somewhat creepy. But hardly worth my time. Apparently Malkin is engaged in a process of self-distraction... Seems to be a relatively popular game on the right these days.

Thanks for your thoughts, Ms. Malkin. As always, you're just a national treasure with pure insight into the most important of today's news.

Hinderaker

From Is That Legal, we have John Hinderaker thru-the-years:

John Hinderaker, yesterday:
Tomorrow may bring indictments of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby on charges that can charitably be described as trivial. Tonight, one of our readers urged us to link to President Bush's great speech to the Joint Armed Forces Officers' Wives' group rather than being distracted by the minutiae of the day. Good suggestion.

John Hinderaker, December 17, 1998:
"Like many others, we have been frustrated by the apparent inability of much of the American public to take the Clinton scandals seriously. "It's not about sex," we have patiently repeated to our benighted friends. "It's about perjury. It's about obstruction of justice. The sex is only incidental. At most it was the motive for the crimes. You wouldn't think murder was unimportant just because the motive for the murder was sex, would you?" So goes our argument."

There is one core difference between the Clinton scandals as Mr. Hinderaker saw them then and the Plame Affair as we must understand them now. The Clinton affairs was not about "sex, which was consequential to the perjury," where the Plame Affair is whole heartedly about Purjury- everything done both to Plame and Wilson and to the American people is a form of Purjury on the part of The Administration- they have consistently, intently, and maliciously lied to the American people and to the global community. Every time they spoke about the Iraq war in the run-up has been a form of purjury, an intentional misleading attempt to promote thier own agenda.

asd

The Plame Affair: Lies Through the Years

Arianna has some of the best and consistent coverage of The Plame Affair [Please, Ms. Huffington, we like "Plame Affair" better than PlameGate... ick] . Here, she outlines the continuation of the cascade of lies passed down through the years from the myriad of characters.

The Plame Affair illustrates the central corrosive truth of the build up to the war in Iraq. It is the embodyment of "one small lie leads to another;" it is the illustration of The Administration's cast of ideologues and their vehement desire to enact policy which has no place [the Invasion] and then to violently attack those who discount their flawed, manipulative goals. Each of these lies is a link in the chain of the coverup. Perhaps not a coverup in the sense of a criminal act [a la Watergate] but certainly a coverup of the fraudulent manipulation of this country.

Chickenhawks Ride Again

Atrios gives us this link about a Bowdin student who goes off to war, and the local chapter of Chickenhawk's response:

While Cornell du Houx has actively rallied against many of President Bush's policies, he feels that his involvement in the Marines is not a conflict of interest.

"Regardless of my opinions regarding the war in Iraq, it is my duty as a U.S. Marine to serve and I am ready and willing to do my job to its fullest extent," he said.

Others on campus, particularly his political opponents in the Bowdoin College Republicans, feel differently about his service. Daniel Schuberth, a leader of the Bowdoin College Republicans and College Republican national secretary, said, "I applaud Mr. Houx for his service, just as I applaud any other soldier who is brave enough to take up arms in defense of his country. I find it troubling, however, that one of the most vocal opponents of our president, our country and our mission in Iraq has chosen to fight for a cause he claims is wrong. Mr. Houx's rhetoric against the war on terror places him in agreement with the most radical fringes of the Democratic Party, and I am left to question his logic and motivation."

His logic and motivation may be that he made a commitment to his country and he intends to honor it? Not so bright, these chickenhawks.

Atrios talks about the commitment made and the value system whereby Houx defines his role as an American and a Marine based on the needs of his service. But there's more to this strange disconnect. Houx is fighting an elective war that he actively has disparaged- certainly his right; while Schuberth refuses to consider his role in that war as being more than an American-bound acedemic. Houx has seen this war unfold and understands, among whatever else his beliefs are, that the war is wrong, undertaken for the wrong reasons, but his conflict is real- he must fulfill his committments of service. This is a pandemic of self-interest on the right- a rhretoric of ideology without any moral core of service, or even capability. They're so hung up on discrediting their rivals, and they're just using it as a method that they refuse the irrefutable: that this Invasion has been a monumental error.

I'm proud of Houx, I think he's a model of American values which we should all admire. We're increasingly told that we don't have to follow through with our commitments- Bush's Administration, who had, in 1999, promised to usher in an "era of Accountability" has done anything but, and has coded into our society a sense of moral ambiguity [at best] when it comes to commitments and accountability.

See Gen. JC Patriot's letter for some ideas.

Rising Oil

Those steeply rising oil prices [doubled from only two years ago] have us all severely pinched, right? Well, not everybody- Big Oil is loving it.

Even for Big Oil, the numbers have never been as big as this.

When major U.S. energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. announce their third-quarter earnings in the next few days, the results are certain to be staggering.

Pumped up by soaring prices of oil, natural gas and gasoline in August and September, Exxon Mobil alone is expected to report quarterly profit of about $8.7 billion. That would be more than what such titans as Coca-Cola Co., Intel Corp. and Time Warner Inc. earn in an entire year.

For the energy companies, the record results amount to an embarrassment of riches — an invitation for attack by foes and even by some traditional allies.

"The question increasingly is going to be, what is the industry going to do with this money?" said Amy Jaffe, head of the James A. Baker Institute Energy Forum at Rice University in Houston.

On Tuesday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called on the companies to spend more to build refineries and boost production to help "ease the pain" of high energy prices.

"It's time to invest some of those profits," Hastert said at a news conference in Washington.

With oil holding above the $60-a-barrel mark, double the level of two years ago, some Democrats in Congress have another idea: Slap the industry with a windfall-profit tax like the one imposed in 1980.

Some consumer advocates, meanwhile, want Congress to mandate that a share of oil and gas earnings be plowed into alternative-energy research.

The sheer size of the industry's profit mountain makes it a tempting target. Together, the 29 major oil and gas firms in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index are expected to earn $96 billion this year, up from $68 billion last year and $43 billion in 2003.

Huge prices at the pump, which have also bolstered high utility prices across the board and further constricted the homes of many Americans, has been very beneficial for the big oil companies. Grossly beneficial, even.

Indictment Updates...?

Steven Clemons gives his potential scoop:

An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN (since confirmed by another independent source):

1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.
2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.
3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and "filed" tomorrow.
4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

The shoe is dropping.

More soon.

Kos has his thoughts: it's not the quantity, but the quality that matters. Agreed.

2,000: "Not A Milestone"

NEW YORK - CNN reported this morning that the U.S. death toll in Iraq had reached 2,000, and a little later The Associated Press confirmed this. AP said the 2,000th military fatality was an Army sergeant who was wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad and died in Texas last weekend. He is Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas.

But the chief spokesman for the American-led multinational force has called on the media not to consider the 2,000 number as some kind of milestone.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force's combined press center, wrote in an e-mail to reporters, "I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq. The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

Boylan, according to AP, added: "The 2,000th Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine that is killed in action is just as important as the first that died and will be just as important as the last to die in this war against terrorism and to ensure freedom for a people who have not known freedom in over two generations."

He complained that the true milestones of the war were "rarely covered or discussed," and said they included the troops who had volunteered to serve, the families of those that have been deployed for a year or more, and the Iraqis who have sought at great risk to restore normalcy to their country. It also includes, he added, Iraqis who sought to join the security forces and had became daily targets for insurgent attacks at recruiting centers, those who turned out to vote in the constitutional referendum, and those who chose to risk their lives by joining the government.

"Celebrate the daily milestones, the accomplishments they have secured and look to the future of a free and democratic Iraq and to the day that all of our troops return home to the heroes welcome they deserve," Boylan wrote.

But 2,000 soldiers is a valuable milestone that must be considered, in every way as much as the first deaths of Americans in this war. But 2,000 reminds us of the most important cost we have- our soldiers. It should, as well, remind us of the many costs of this war- the civilians, political disruption, etc, but for the most part, these concerns fall flat. We need to consider the value of these lives, the purpose of what we're doing in Iraq, and the aimlessness with which it was enacted. We're still there, things have not improved, nor are they going to. 2,000 is a huge road marker on a road which has gone nowhere.

Exception to the Rule

The Administration has ramped up their conflict with certain Senators by demanding that the CIA be held exempt from a new ban on detainee abuse enacted by a law written by John McCain.

Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the handling of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected Qaeda militants and other terrorists.

The Senate defied a presidential veto threat nearly three weeks ago and approved, 90 to 9, an amendment to a $440 billion military spending bill that would ban the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any detainee held by the United States government. This could bar some techniques that the C.I.A. has used in some interrogations overseas.

But in a 45-minute meeting last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism, said two government officials who were briefed on the meeting. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the discussions.

Mr. McCain rejected the proposed exemption, which stated that the measure "shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defense and are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party, if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack."

Even Janice Karpinski, General in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, on WNYC's Leonard Lopate show, has just denounced this action a a regression. [Karpinski has a new book out, with some interesting insights into the aimless, goal-less invasion of Iraq which built the confusion that led to the disastrous photography expirament we've all seen.]

Rosa

Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, revolutionary, simple humane citizen Rosa Parks.

1913-2005


Godspeed and good luck, Ms. Parks. Our love.

Cheney In The Middle

Append to this previous post on the Plame Affair

UPDATED info- The NYT has uncovered notes from a meeting Libby took with VP Dick Cheney several weeks before the leak of Valerie Plame's name. Anybody think Cheney wasn't involved in this? Think again:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.

It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.

The Rope and The Knot

Must Read- The Plame Affair.

Raw Story has the presumed thread, and it goes like this:

then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Int'l Security Affairs John Bolton [current mustacheo'd recess appointed LoudMouth US Ambassador to the UN] has an assistant named David Wurmser, a Middle East Advisor, who he loaned out to VP Dick Cheney's office. Cheney's office, itchin' to push the CIA toward development of intelligence that supports Iraqi WMD development [developing, not "analyzing existant intelligence," btw], taps Wurmser's deep CIA contacts for whatever information he can get- Wurmser is a point of pressure from the VP's office.

After The Prez' State 'o' Union address, where he wrongly affirms that Iraq had saught Nigerian yellowcake for WMD, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had gone on the trip to determine the validity of this claim, goes public. His statement: that the Prez has used intelligence that is incorrect according to his own reports. meaning that a full third of the WMD justification to invade this country is fraudulent. Fake documents are produced to support the yellowcake claims, but Wilson's testimony exposes them as falsified.

The Truthiness of the situation: Cheney's office, headed by Scooter Libby, is furious. He's on the hunt for professional character assassination. Wurmser, with his CIA contacts, has the goods- the name is slipped to Libby via Wurmser. Libby consults numerous others, including, possibly the entirity of The Iraq Group, but likely Rove and others.

Plame is leaked.

The rest- history. Unfolding before our eyes. We're watching a great, caluclated reactionary fraud, a fascinating attempt at a highly charged political character assassination of the worst kind. And now, Fitz may have significantly expanded to include the false documents. But the clearer picture is that there is true malicious intent on the part of The Administration, and that there seems to be an umbrella of conspiracy surrounding that viciousness. Remember- this is all about the piss-poor justification we were given, as the public, to Invade another country in our name. This is about the falsification of war- this is about the political reaction that comes at the cost of fraudulent invasion.

We shall see what happens...

Weaseling Out...?

AMERICABlog thinks this, Bush refusing to release Miers' documents, means this, that he's desperate to find a way out of nominating Miers. Interesting developments...

The Presidential Onion

I'm sure everybody feels that The Administration's legalese threats against satire news source The Onion for using the Presidential Seal are a good thing, right? After all, there aren't hardly any important legal or ethical issues The Administration needs to be working on right now anywhere in the world, are there?

Nah. Let's go after The Onion.

The Onion was amused. "I'm surprised the president deems it wise to spend taxpayer money for his lawyer to write letters to The Onion," Scott Dikkers, editor in chief, wrote to Mr. Dixton. He suggested the money be used instead for tax breaks for satirists.

More formally, The Onion's lawyers responded that the paper's readers - it prints about 500,000 copies weekly, and three million people read it online - are well aware that The Onion is a joke.

"It is inconceivable that anyone would think that, by using the seal, The Onion intends to 'convey... sponsorship or approval' by the president," wrote Rochelle H. Klaskin, the paper's lawyer, who went on to note that a headline in the current issue made the point: "Bush to Appoint Someone to Be in Charge of Country."

Moreover, she wrote, The Onion and its Web site are free, so the seal is not being used for commercial purposes. That said, The Onion asked that its letter be considered a formal application to use the seal.

No answer yet. But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said that "you can't pick and choose where you want to enforce the rules surrounding the use of official government insignia, whether it's for humor or fraud."

O.K. But just between us, Mr. Duffy, how did they find out about it?

"Despite the seriousness of the Bush White House, more than one Bush staffer reads The Onion and enjoys it thoroughly," he said. "We do have a sense of humor, believe it or not."

Bombings in Iraq

This is comforting:

While a 3-pronged bombing attack occurred this morning at the journalist-thick Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, killing 11 bystanders, Raw Story and others cover a secret British Military survey which shows that Iraqis are not in favor of the occupation, have no faith in it, and actually support the attacks in many cases. Originally published in the Sunday Telegraph, the numbers show a staggering disdain for the powers of "liberation:"

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

Body Count

Anybody else distressed with the upturn in publicised Body Counts in Iraq? For instance, last week we heard that the US had "killed 70" in various counterinsurgency strikes, while the US dodged the concerns that civilians, including numbers of children, were killed in the strikes.

As America nudges closer and closer to having lost 2,000 troops [we're at 1,992], the need for justification for this crazy war increases.

The revival of body counts, a practice discredited during the Vietnam War, has apparently come without formal guidance from the Pentagon's leadership. Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said they knew of no written directive detailing the circumstances under which such figures should be released or the steps that should be taken to ensure accuracy.

Instead, they described an ad hoc process that has emerged over the past year, with authority to issue death tolls pushed out to the field and down to the level of division staffs.

So far, the releases have tended to be associated either with major attacks that netted significant numbers of enemy fighters or with lengthy operations that have spanned days or weeks. On Saturday, for instance, the U.S. military reported 20 insurgents killed and one captured in raids on five houses suspected of sheltering foreign fighters in a town near the Syrian border. Six days earlier, the 2nd Marine Division issued a statement saying an estimated 70 suspected insurgents had died in the Ramadi area as a result of three separate airstrikes by fighter jets and helicopters.

FYI- Civilians killed as a result of this Invasion? Near 30,000.

Charges and Spin

Potential Charges coming soon. Fitz may send announcements to the legal teams of potential defendents very soon.

And check out Salon for a nice breakdown of the current Spin in the Plame Affair. It's worth noting.

List of Foiled Plots

The Administration, appealing to the calls of security-minded Americans along the lines of "exactly what have you accomplished in the GWOT?" has released a list of 10 successful plot-thwartings. These are the successes- all that work with the intelligence community, booking shoe-bombers, American Taliban, Paris-NYC flight cancellations, all those second-in-command Al Qaeda operatives we've arrested, NYC subway warnings, our highly effective color-coded terror warning system. It all has to add up to something, right?

A White House list of 10 terrorist plots disrupted by the United States has confused counterterrorism experts and officials, who say they cannot distinguish between the importance of some incidents on the list and others that were left off.

Intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the White House overstated the gravity of the plots by saying that they had been foiled, when most were far from ready to be executed. Others noted that the nation's color-coded threat index was not raised from yellow, or "elevated" risk of attack, to orange, or "high" risk, for most of the time covered by the incidents on the list.

The president made it "sound like well-hatched plans," said a former CIA official involved in counterterrorism during that period. "I don't think they fall into that category."

...
Counterterrorism experts said they could not explain why some of the U.S. government's bigger successes did not make the list, including the thwarted attack by Richard Reid, who tried to set off explosives in his shoes aboard a transatlantic flight in December 2001, and the capture a year later of Ali Saleh Kahlah Marri, a graduate student at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., who officials believe had ties to Sept. 11 terrorists.

"We don't know how they came to the conclusions they came to," said one counterterrorism official, who spoke anonymously for fear of angering the White House. "It's safe to say that most of the [intelligence] community doesn't think it's worth very much."

Ahhh yes, that's nice. A nice compendum of concensus-minded successes.

So here's what we can take from this article:

1. The value, liklihood, and success of these incidences seems to be irrelevent. Other incidences not added to the list could have been more important, ones on the list may have been completely useless. The problem is that The Administration put out a list without any criteria, arming Americans and intelligence agencies with no tools of preparation or guidance. This is a purely political list, drafted as a PR excercise.
2. Many of these incidences occured at times when our threat-index color codes were not raised. This again supports the theory that the color coded system is a tool of political opportunism and fear-mongering, and regularly has little to do with valid concerns of national safety.
3. Intelligence sources who are critical of this list, or of anything, refuse to offer up their credentials and identity for FEAR OF ANGERING THE ADMINISTRATION. This is horrifying in itself, and hearkens back to the political fear endured by the McCarthyist witch hunts.

Good work on compiling that list, there, The Administration. Looks like just yet another success to add to your long, long list of ambivalent, self-negated successes you take credit for.

Perjury

Interesting, don't we think, that Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson has, today, so eloquently derided the potential Fitzgerald indictments that might rock Washington's Plame Affair this week? Interesting that she denouces the crime of Perjury, an important and serious crime, when it's suddenly become inconvenient for her power-grubbing? Remember these statements, Ms. Hutchinson, when you eloquently discussed Perjury's vital aspect in articles of impeachment against your precious' Administration's predecessor?

MY VOTES ON THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

Based upon my analysis of the facts of this case and my own conclusions of law, I have concluded:

(i) The President of the United States willfully, and with intent to deceive, gave false and misleading testimony under oath with respect to material matters that were pending before the Federal grand jury on August 17, 1998, as alleged in Article I presented to the Senate. I, therefore, vote `Guilty' on Article I of the Articles of Impeachment of the President in this Proceeding.

(ii) The President of the United States engaged in a pattern of conduct, performed acts of willful deception, and told and disseminated massive falsehoods, including lies told directly to the American people, that were designed and corruptly calculated to impede, obstruct, and prevent the plaintiff in the Arkansas Federal sexual harassment case from seeking and obtaining justice in the Federal court system of the United States, and to further prevent the Federal grand jury from performing its functions and responsibilities under law, I, therefore, vote `Guilty' on Article II of the Articles of Impeachment of the President in this proceeding.

ARTICLE I, PERJURY--EXPLANATION OF VOTE

This Article accuses the President, while giving sworn testimony on August 17, 1998, before the Federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., of willfully corrupting and impeding the judicial process and the administration of justice by giving false and perjurious testimony about his relationship with the White House Intern, about his January 17, 1998, deposition testimony in the Arkansas sexual harrassment case, about his role in developing and tendering to the Federal Judge in the Arkansas case an affidavit that was knowingly false while giving his deposition in the Arkansas case, and about his attempts to influence the testimony of White House employees and other witnesses in the Arkanksas case who were at the time also subject to the jurisdiction of the grand jury.

In reaching my decision with respect to this Article, I have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the President gave false and misleading testimony in the Arkansas sexual harrassment case and in his appearance before the Federal grand jury.

At the trial in the Senate, the President's Counsel argued that, even if it were to be admitted that the testimony in both instances were false and misleading, the testimony would, nevertheless, not amount to perjury because it does not reach the level of `materiality' that is required for a lie to rise to the level of a crime under Federal law.

They attempt to trivialize the issues raised by Article I [wow- that itself sounds familiar, Ms. Hutchinson -GS] by reference to such questions as `Who touched whom, and where,' and to answers to questions by the President such as `It depends on what the meaning of `is' is.'
...


CONCLUDING STATEMENT

[...]
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. We would not be sitting in judgment of a President. We would not be invoking those provisions of the Constitution that have only been applied once before in our Nation's history.

But we should all be thankful that our Constitution is there, and we should take pride in our right and duty to enforce it. A hundred years from now, when history looks back to this moment, we can hope for a conclusion that our Constitution has been applied fairly and survives, that we have come to principled judgments about matters of national importance, and that the rule of law in American [sic] has been sustained.

Eloquent thoughts, Ms. Huthinson. Let's hope, for the greater good, that they do, in fact, outlast the scandals we've had brought upon the highest leves of national governance in the last fea administrations, but greater still- let us hope that history judges the application of these laws equally and justly, beyond even the tenets of your personal/political ethic of convenience.

You Knew He Was An Asshole...

... But seriously... what an asshole!

The Motivation

This is what the whole of the Plame Affair is all about: a smear campaign brought on by political motivations against critics, and the disastrous results of that campaign. Scooter Libby's office has let slip that Libby was so incenced with Ambassador Wilson's criticism that he has closely monitored him for the past 2 years. Motivation? There it is. Libby, of course, was part of The Iraq Group with Rove and many others. Complicit in Libby's obsession? Possibly.

No Child Left Behind Because All Of Them Are Equally Unimpressive

The Administration's revered [and only, up to Social Security attempt #1 and Katrina failure #s 1-6] domestic policy, the No Child Left Behind Act, which has fallen under intense scrutiny and even states' rebellions, has been granted the expected: unimpressive results.

The first nationwide test to permit an appraisal of President Bush's signature education law rendered mixed results on Wednesday, with even some supporters of the law expressing disappointment.

Math scores were up slightly but eighth-grade reading showed a decline, and there was only modest progress toward closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, which is one of the Bush administration's primary goals. In many categories, the results indicated, the gap remains as wide as it was in the early 1990's.

By some measures, students were making greater gains before the law was put into effect.

"The absence of really bad news isn't the same as good news, and if you're concerned about education and closing achievement gaps, there's simply not enough good news in these national results," said Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust...

Now, Mr. Bush was, of course, delusional, saying that he was pleased with the results that show growth [either delusional or the easiest, and least effective, educator EVER], but surely Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is the voice of reason, with sure-footed analyses which highlight educational districts with useless teacher pay rates, district funding imbalances, and teacher to student ratios, which are among the most persistent inhibiters of learning:

She said the less robust increases and outright declines in some reading scores were understandable in part, because the nations schools are assimilating huge numbers of immigrants.

"We have more non-native speakers, there are lots of so-called at-risk, hard-to-educate students, and in spite of that, steady progress is being made," she said. "We're on the right track with No Child Left Behind."

Whoa-

So all of a sudden the flagship of the President's domestic policy, the education policy that he ran on, has become a propaganda for his anti-immigration cronies. Despite the Education Department's illegal propaganda activities in support of No Child, the real secret is that it's always been a failure, and now, incredibly, even the failure can be recycled into propaganda for an anti-immigrant agenda! It's not our fault for not paying the teachers! It's the damn unMurricans' faults! It's Mexico's fault, Canada's! All those damn unMurrican speakers!

Met With Silence

Just to clear things up: Michael Brown did jack shit in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. Even when FEMA agents on the ground reported the absolute worst. Nothing. Okay?

The Worst Nightmare

The Pakistani earthquake has quickly become the UN's "worst nightmare," and as we've talked about here, funding has been abysmal for the needs of the second great global disaster in one year.

In the rural landscape of Pakistan, the death toll has sharply risen to 50,000. A huge number of fatalities. The earth has become cracked, scarred, crumbled- roads largely do not exist. The only way to get aid to the survivors is airlifts, which, largely, aren't quick to happen.

Mr Egeland said an airlift was needed of the proportions of the Berlin blockade of the 1940s, when Allies flew in supplies to the divided city in communist eastern Europe. He said aid had to be sent in, and tens of thousands of homeless and injured people flown out, of remote regions before winter set in.

Mr Egeland said of the aid sent so far: "This is not enough. We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare ever. We thought the tsunami was the worst we could get. This is worse."

The tsunami, which struck on 26 December, killed more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

Mr Egeland, speaking in Geneva, said the quake situation was becoming worse by the day.

"Tens of thousands of people's lives are at stake and they could die if we don't get to them in time."

The disaster will stretch into months in Pakistan because of the remoteness of the worst-affected. This is the risk: if aid does not reach these people, they will simply starve to death. This is the death quotient deemed "unnecessary" in earlier warnings- those who die because they are constrained by the earth, who could be helped, but help reaches them far too slowly to provide.

One of Katrina's most important lessons could have been, should have been, the intricate compassionate connection between Americans and the world. But we watched in horror as we discovered how terrifyingly disconnected American leadership is from citizens, how much we are disconnected from ourselves, much less from the suffering of the rest of the world. There is sympathy, of course, at a certain bargaining price. And yet, as predicted among the post of the "unnecessary," without the quake on the tv screens, we've all already lost touch. Back to our own fears.

Like, Scooter MADE ME

From the junior high school hallways of The Administration's advisory board, we learn this vital fascinating fact about Rove's recent testimony in the Plame Affair hearings: Scooter Libby did it. It's all his fault. Nanner nanner nanner.

White House adviser Karl Rove told the grand jury in the CIA leak case that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, may have told him that CIA operative Valerie Plame worked for the intelligence agency before her identity was revealed, a source familiar with Rove's account said yesterday.

In a talk that took place in the days before Plame's CIA employment was revealed, Rove and Libby discussed conversations they had had with reporters in which Plame and her marriage to Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV were raised, the source said. Rove told the grand jury the talk was confined to information the two men heard from reporters, the source said.

Rove has also testified that he also heard about Plame from someone else outside the White House, but could not recall who.

So without a doubt, Turd Blossom's smarmy actions weren't really his fault at all, he just learned the information from another Administration inside source in the Veep's office. So, really, like, not his fault At. All.

Pretty fascinating development. Is this a game-board move whereby Scooter "takes the fall," as it were, in a kind of calculated pre-indictment plea-bargain? Does it further implicate Rove's involvement, say in a conspiracy charge, now that he admits he "may" have known Plame's name prior to to pulbication of it? Does this answer any questions?

Nope. Not a one. We'll know more soon if indictments come, but until then... whatever.

[ginormous hat tip to EZ writer at dKos]

The Absolute Minimum

This is the amount of service, leadership, social mobility, and vision the US Senate is prepared to give us: The Absolute Minimum.

The national minimum wage has not been raised in eight years from $5.15 [only two dollars over a gallon of gasoline, and that spread will likely decrease quickly], and it certainly didn't get raised today. The typical argument in support of keeping the minimum wage low is that it hurts small business, does not create jobs, stifles the free market, promotes outsourcing, etc. Check here for a reference chart of the arguments, heavily weighted toward abolishment of the minimum wage for economic philosophy reasons. It should be noted that on this chart there are eight reasons to abolish the minimum wage, and three to maintain it. The reasons to maintain it should be carefully considered, however: Workers need a minimum amount of income from their work to survive and pay the bills; Businesses have more power to abuse the labor market.

Much of the middle wage debate is an economic philosophical argument- on both sides of the debate ideology infuses argument more than reality. But let's look at today's report in the NYT:

Kennedy, D-Mass., said Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the depth of poverty in the country and he pointed out that a single parent with two children working a minimum wage earns $10,700 a year, $4,500 below the poverty line.

He said it was "absolutely unconscionable" that in the same period that Congress has denied a minimum wage increase, lawmakers have voted themselves seven pay raises worth $28,000.

But Republican opponents, echoing the arguments of business groups, said higher minimum wages can work against the poor if they force small businesses to cut payrolls or go out of business.

"Mandated hikes in the minimum wage do not cure poverty and they clearly do not create jobs," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., who offered the Republican alternative.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked Wednesday about Kennedy's measure, said President Bush "believes that we should look at having a reasonable increase in the minimum wage. ... But we need to make sure that, as we do that, that it is not a step that hurts small business or prices people out of the job market."

Starting with Enzi. Enzi is an accountant from Wyoming. His state is one of the very few in America where, in many places, somebody can actually make it by on minimum wage. They are just squeaking by, but they can. In Wyoming, there are rich people- very rich- but they aren't being joined by the people making minimum. Wyoming is a state whereby the minimum wage operates adequately for what it is intended: enabling the status quo. If Enzi is "serving his constituents," he is doing so by making sure that nothing changes for them- at least very quickly.

Kennedy strikes two emotional chords- first, that the Senate's wealth disconnect has an absurdity to it. But this isn't unconscionable so much as it is simply absurd, simply the wealth complex of America's representation in action.

That a single parent makes only 70% of the poverty rate, which is truly unconscionable. He doesn't add the other factors into his equation of poverty, however, which must be considered- that a single parent makes only 70% on minimum wage, has to then take multiple jobs, misses out on their education which will enable their upward social mobility out of poverty. Plus there is the extremely volatile problem of health insurance and other benefits- in minimum wage jobs none of these exist. So, if, say, you're a single mother working two jobs, you have to take a third in order to pay any health bills your child might have that aren't covered by medicare.

In the end, this costs America lots of money; and costs insurance providers lots, and insurance subscribers [read- everybody else] even more. Because we end up paying for all of the deficiencies which are, by virtue of our minimum wage's provision of 70% of poverty level, not being adequately provided to our workers.

You think it's cheaper to pay to maintain poverty in America like we're doing, pay to maintain the status quo which we're preserving with this? Or cheaper to raise wages a buck and provide meaningful health care services?

WANTED

Tom DeLay
Conspiracy and Money Laundering.

Warrant for arrest issued with $10,000 bail.

On the Hunt.

Battered and Fried: The CIA

Cheney's efforts to reconstruct the CIA in an image that would be far more conducice to his desired intelligence seem to have had really fantastic results. The Plame Affair, a broken CIA. Looking good. I'm glad he forced the CIA to doctor all their intelligence according to the needs of The Administration in their runup to Invasion. Loookin Goooood.

Ham-Handed and Bush-League

via Eschaton-

Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush's claim that Saddam Hussen tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

So, now we're seeing that Bush actually doesn't have any particular moral outrage with the actions of his staff, which would explain his relative disinterest in fettering out the problem 2 years ago by firing Rove and others. But that, in fact, what he was outraged by at the time he heard of the problem 2 years ago is the way they marketed the problem.

And that, in fact, the following two years of his administration from that point, Bush has been
completely complicit in aiding the coverup- only upset when his people got caught.

That's the kind of leadership we love and need, eh?

The Supreme Corp.

One area in which Bush has succeeded with his nomination of curiouso Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is another Corporate institutional player. This is the great known of The Administration- their interests will always be in line with the corporate interest: both Roberts and Miers have extensive white collar pedigree, and, presumably, will always keep that in mind.

The Administration: Changing the Face of the Court for ALL Our Benefit
One Nominee At A Time

Fightin' Democrats

The new mascots of Air America Radio- the Fightin' Democrats! Check out the site hosted by Air America and dKos highlighting Democratic candidates running for congress, including heavyweight Paul Hacket of Ohio. It's a good place to start.

Ahh, Democracy

We're all so glad we decimated Afghanistan post 9/11 and essentially abandoned it to fight in Iraq so that its opium fields could be replanted and the democratic system we demanded could usher in the exact same warlords, clerics, and tribal leaders who we removed from power to begin with. Guys like Taleban leader Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, who was regional governor who oversaw the destruction of the huge, 5th Century Buddha statues in his province [videos of the destruction were used as Al Qaeda recruitment tools, fyi]. Welp, that little experiment went well.

Glad we could help out- return things to normal for you, Afghanistan. You're welcome. Invoice is in the mail.

Big Time Rumors

Rumors over at the VP's office buzzing. Via AmericaBlog:

Rumors fly about Cheney possibly resigning

And the talk is that Condi would replace him.

Yep, the very-single, football-loving, "mildly pro-choice" Condi Rice.

LOL

Have anything to do with this magic file rumor from Larry Johnson at No Quarter, as well...?

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.

Aik.
Rumors- still got to see how this thing pans out. It would, of course, be in the GOP's general interest to have somebody like Condi, relatively unscathed, reliably "fresh and genuine" for the 2008 elections as an incumbent with experience, as well- so I'll chalk this up to "seemingly plausible possibility if the cards fall right."

Disfunction and Disarray

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional." Michael Brown, FEMA Director during Katrina response
-------------

Really, Brownie? You had everything else sorted out, except for the disfunction of the state of Louisiana? Everything taken care of, nice and clean?

As Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on Aug. 29, Michael D. Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appeared confused over whether Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had put him in charge, senior military officials could not reach Brown and his team became swamped by the speed of the unfolding disaster, according to e-mails to and from Brown.
...
The e-mails also show that the government's response plan, two years in the making, began breaking down even before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Before the storm hit, Brown's deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, said White House pressure to form an interagency crisis management group was irrelevant, even though a task force and principal federal officer are key parts of the plan.

"Let them play their raindeer games as long as they are not turning around and tasking us with their stupid questions. None of them have a clue about emergency management," Altshuler told Brown and Brown's chief of staff, Patrick Rhode.

The documents offer a glimpse of the disarray in preparations for and the response to Katrina, for which FEMA has been widely criticized. A misunderstanding of national disaster plan roles, communications failures, delayed decision-making and absent voices of leadership mark the documents, which came as a partial response by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to a request by a House select investigative committee.

...
The documents show a quick breakdown in communications after the hurricane hit Aug. 29. With telephone and wireless reception spotty, FEMA's operations center resorted to e-mailing Brown the next afternoon to ask him to call Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England.

As late as Sept. 1, the head of the military's Hurricane Katrina Task Force, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, was unable to reach Brown and asked FEMA officials to track down his satellite phone.

"He [Honore] wants to speak with Mike very badly," FEMA aides wrote at 1 p.m. Three hours later, the reply came from a Brown aide: "Not here in [Mississippi.] Is in [Louisiana], as far as I know."

The first FEMA request to the Defense Department was not reported in Brown's e-mails until 10 a.m. on Sept. 2 -- nearly three days later -- seeking "full logistical support to the Katrina disaster in all [emergency] declared states."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) requested 40,000 U.S. troops on Aug. 31.

It's not that we're upset with you, Brownie. It clearly wasn't your fault. Nobody, except for you, ever actually that that you could handle such a huge disaster, which is why an equestrian judge overseer [who was fired] was hired for the job. And clearly, nobody thought you ever would have to deal with such a frightening problem, which is why the rest of our moronic government stripped FEMA of all funding.

But at least you had everything sorted out. Nice and orderly. I'm glad people were able to get in touch with you regularly, just like you testified. I'm glad you understood your role so clearly, just like you testified. I'm glad that our President hired such a clean-cut, organized, willful individual; and that he didn't hesitate at all, and stemmed what would have been a socially devastating crisis from devolving into madness.

I mean, ha! If you and he weren't so organized and swift in your response, that little hurricane called Katrina would have been just a nightmare! Phew! Crisis averted!

Old School II

Some may remember a post on the AntiC from a month or so ago about a group of "Raging Grannies" in Tucson, AZ, arrested for patriotically attempting to sign up for service in Iraq in order to send their sons, daughters, and grandchildren home.

Fortunately these wise and active seniors are still at it- in New York, this time. This has to be one of my favorite protests against the Iraq war- Grandmothers literally willing to enlist, trying to enlist during severe enrollment troubles in the US military, in order to protest their progeny fighting this war. Brilliant.

Too Little

Too Late. Truly Sad.

Thousands are being sentenced to death because help given by world leaders to deal with natural disasters is "too little, too late", charity Oxfam says.

Its paper "2005: Year of Disasters" suggests that the level of aid depends on the publicity given to a tragedy.

The responses to Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and southern Africa were inadequate, it said.

Oxfam wants to see the setting up of a multi-million pound UN fund to speed up the aid process.

'Unnecessary deaths'

In a year which has seen the Asian tsunami, the hurricane devastation of New Orleans, mudslides in Guatemala and now the Asian earthquake, the report says that 2005 is part of a worsening trend.


The key donor governments have failed to respond in the way that we would have liked
Oxfam

Not only have there been more natural disasters in the last five years than previously, but they have affected far more people, particularly in poor countries.

The report says that humanitarian assistance does not cover all needs and often arrives too late.

Oxfam's Brendan Cox said that key donor governments had "failed to respond in the way that we would have liked".

"That has resulted, unfortunately, in thousands of lives being lost unnecessarily," he told BBC News.

"These lives could have been saved but because donor governments have... failed the people of these crises, people have unfortunately lost their lives unnecessarily."

...


Lots of crises don't make it onto our TV screens, like the Congo where three million people have died over the last 10 years, or northern Uganda, where children are abducted every day
Oxfam

In the first week after the flooding in Guatemala this month, which received comparatively little media attention, the UN's appeal raised just 1% of what was needed.

"Time and again, they [donor governments] have been either too slow to respond to these emergencies or have responded to some emergencies above others," Mr Cox said.

"Lots of crises don't make it onto our TV screens, like the Congo where three million people have died over the last 10 years, or northern Uganda, where children are abducted every day.

"Those crises - they're not in the media spotlight - simply don't get the attention, don't get the funding that they need."

For fuck's sake.

Heartbreak...

Links on the right.