Leaked emails claim Guantanamo trials rigged

Leaked emails claim Guantanamo trials rigged. 01/08/2005. ABC News Online

Leaked emails from two former prosecutors claim the military commissions set up to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay are rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused.

Two emails, which have been obtained by the ABC, were sent to supervisors in the Office of Military Commissions in March of last year - three months before Australian detainee David Hicks was charged and five months before his trial began.

The first email is from prosecutor Major Robert Preston to his supervisor.
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"I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people," Maj Preston wrote.
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The second email is written by another prosecutor, Captain John Carr, who also ended up leaving the department.
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"When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused," he wrote.

"Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged."

If the media run with this, it should give the Bush folks a chance to do some serious kick-down gymnastics. Blaming Lynndie Englund for this one will take some doing.

Bush finally meets up with Boy Scouts

It was Bush's third attempt to travel to Fort A.P. Hill, the Army base hosting the Jamboree where Scouts are trying to end their 10-day gathering with cheery memories of mountain biking, fishing, scuba diving and trading patches with newfound Scouting friends across the nation.

On Wednesday, scouting enthusiasts waited hours in the heat for Bush, who later canceled his appearance because of threatening storms. Scouts began collapsing from high humidity and temperatures in the high 90s. More than 300 people were treated for heat-related illnesses.

Bush's second attempt to visit the Jamboree was postponed from Thursday at the Scouts' request. Officials wanted to review safety procedures for large crowds and replenish water and other supplies.

The appearance came as the press is raising questions about Bush's own Scout service. While records confirm that Bush was a Cub Scout in good standing, there is no record of Bush completing his Aviation Merit Badge or his Citizenship Badge, or attending any meetings with his local troop.

The White House staunchly defended Bush's record as a member of the Boy Scout Reserves.

"The President was ready, willing and able to serve in the active Boy Scouts, had the need arisen," Scott McClellan asserted. "But he wasn't needed, and like Vice President Cheney, he had other priorities."

Of yellow stars and pink triangles

NYT via MercuryNews.com: Early clues to Nazi goals found

Who in Allied governments, the Vatican and the news media knew what about the Holocaust and when? What could and should have been done to save Europe's Jews? Ever since World War II, those questions have been fiercely debated.

In January 1942, the Nazis convened to map their Final Solution and by the following December the Allies knew or suspected enough -- mostly from escaped prisoners and other partisans -- to issue a public denunciation of Germany's ``bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination.''

Now, a U.S. government analysis suggests that while the evidence was incomplete, gruesome details from coded Nazi messages that Britain intercepted beginning in 1941 could have confirmed and exposed the scope of German genocide well before mid-1944, when Allied troops liberated the death camps and became witnesses to the horror.

In a striking parallel to assessments of intelligence gaps before Sept. 11, the analysis suggests that the Allies largely failed to understand the information they had, information that might not have given advance warning of the Holocaust, but could have prompted a military response that could have interrupted the deportations or mass exterminations, or at least a propaganda campaign against Nazi atrocities.

But there are more parallels.

Further, the report said, British and American efforts to sort evidence were hampered by large case backlogs and a shortage of translators.
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And the report suggests that anti-Semitism may have helped create an atmosphere that affected how communications intelligence -- or Comint -- was handled.

Today it isn't anti-semitism, of course:

Gay Linguists Get The Boot

Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.

The soldiers' dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.
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"We face a drastic shortage of linguists, and the direct impact of Arabic speakers is a particular problem," said Donald R. Hamilton, who documented the need for more linguists in a report to Congress as part of the National Commission on Terrorism.

And the problem is getting worse:

Despite more money, increased personnel and an attempt at improved technology, the FBI still has a backlog of untranslated terrorism-related audio intercepts. That's the unsatisfactory finding that Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine reported last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee FBI oversight hearing.
The backlog, Fine said, has more than doubled to 8,354 hours of unreviewed counterterrorism material from 4,086 hours in April 2004.

winning hearts and minds

RABIAH, Iraq (AP) - Some survivors of a suicide bombing targeting Iraqi army recruits were shot and wounded immediately afterward when U.S. and Iraqi soldiers opened fire at the scene, police, doctors and witnesses said Saturday.

We are winning their hearts and minds. And most other body parts, delivered a la carte.

Who writes this nonsense?

Somebody @ Bloomberg.com really needs to check the butts (and perhaps other body parts) of writers of their news stories for the White House's lipstick.

John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations may face fresh obstacles in the Senate after the State Department said Bolton failed to tell lawmakers he was interviewed about faulty intelligence on Iraq.

State Department spokesman Noel Clay said yesterday that Bolton forgot about a 2003 interview by the department's inspector general, who was examining how the U.S. concluded Iraq tried to buy nuclear material from Niger, when he filled out a questionnaire for his Senate confirmation hearings.

Thirty-six senators, 35 Democrats and one Independent, sent a letter to President George W. Bush today urging him to withdraw the nomination and requesting that he not make a unilateral appointment, as permitted by the U.S. Constitution, when Congress takes a vacation break at the end of the week.

``Mr. Bolton's excuse that he `didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General' is simply not believable,'' the letter said.

The Bush administration needs to send an ambassador to the UN to push its agenda of changes designed to make the 60-year-old body more accountable and aligned with U.S. interests in areas like human rights, peacekeeping and democracy building.

Yes indeedy. It is awfully inconvenient the way the Luddites at the UN refuse to align with our new positions on these issues. But I'm not sure our new positions have been effectively summarized in one place before, so for the benefit of Kofi Annan and friends:

Human rights: Against
Peacekeeping: Against, at least until after the US has captured the local mineral rights
Democracy building: Happy to have it, so long as democracy means "puppet state"

Get with the program, folks. Else you will join the Geneva Conventions on our list of "quaint' institutions.

And the Gannonesque wholesale regurgitation of WH talking points reminds me of a case I read about once where a map company sued a copyright infringer so brazen that the infringer's maps included the copyright notices from the stolen maps.

You need to be slightly less obvious in your recycling, fools.

Friday News Dump

Rocky Mountain News: News

Federal prosecutors have declined to press charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent against a White House volunteer who forcibly ousted three people from a speech by President George W. Bush in Denver on March 21.

The announcement was made without explanation today in a letter from the Secret Service to Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. Mark Udall and Diana DeGette, all Democrats who had asked for the agency to investigate the incident.

The three people who were ousted – Alex Young, 26, Karen Bauer, 38, and Leslie Weise, 39 – say the event staffer was dressed like a Secret Service agent, in a suit, radio earpiece and lapel pin that identifies people with security clearance. Bauer and Weise say that when they were pulled aside at the gate, they were told by another event staffer that they were waiting for a Secret Service agent, and then this man showed up. Though he did not tell them he was an agent, they said he did threaten to arrest them if they misbehaved.
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The incident raised questions in Congress about whether the man had committed the crime of impersonating a federal officer.

The man's identity has been a matter of mystery for four months. The three have repeatedly demanded his identity, saying they wanted to sue him on free speech grounds.
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The White House has described the man as a "White House volunteer." White House press secretary Scott McClellan backed the trio's ouster, saying in April, "If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave."

Hobbes (the philosopher, not the stuffed tiger) would be so proud.

Heart of darkness: How Bush knows what he knows

More spew up @ Raw story.

More subsidies, please

AOL News - Exxon Mobil 2Q profit jumps 32 percent

- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported a 32 percent increase in second-quarter profits as it reaped the benefits of soaring oil and natural gas prices.

Net income for the April-June quarter rose to $7.64 billion, or $1.20 per share, from $5.79 billion, or 88 cents per share, the year before. Excluding one-time items, earnings totaled $7.84 billion, or $1.23 per share, Exxon said on Thursday.
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Revenue totaled $88.57 billion, a gain of 25 percent from $70.69 billion a year earlier.

Profits from exploration and production jumped $1 billion to $4.9 billion, a reflection of strong crude and natural gas prices offsetting a 4.3 percent reduction in output, the company said.

Well of course we have to give them tax breaks. I mean, it isn't like you can award a corporation the Medal of Freedom.

Class (and the complete lack thereof)

The Stakeholder:: OH-02: DeLay Inc. Buys Schmidt

What prompted the committee's entry into the Schmidt-Hackett race was a comment made by Hackett in a USA Today article published Thursday. Hackett, talking about his service as a marine in Iraq, is quoted as saying, "I've said I don't like the son-of-a-b--- that lives in the White House. But I'd put my life on the line for him."

Because Hackett said that, Forti said, "we decided to bury him."

The first-order lesson here is clear -- if you are a young person with any aspirations of higher office, stay the hell out of the military. After the Swift Smear, after what they did to Max Cleland, it is clear that there just is no possible upside to serving in the military for folks on the right side of the socioeconomic tracks.

On a deeper level, the campaign seems to be about building a taller fence right next to those tracks. The Republicans are intent on maintaining a bright line distinction between the well-to-do, who give only Yellow Elephant lip service, and the proles who are herded into the military via poverty. The overlords don't think through their mission, don't protect them with body armor or up-armored HummVees, don't take care of the soldiers who come home broken -- because they don't give a shit if the fodder units come back at all. So long as conditions for the poor here keep the line into the abattoir that is Iraq full, the Bush-Cheney machine is happy, and unconcerned with how the slaughterhouse disposes of its byproducts.

The icing on the Bolton cake

There was always something that troubled me about the Boulton nomination. That is a plum assignment, and I didn't see how he had done anything that merited such an honor by Bush standards. I mean sure, there were his immortal words in Florida: "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count." And there was the time he chased a female NGO worker down the halls of a Russian hotel. And who could forget his yeoman efforts in Korea.

As laudable as those things were, I thought they wouldn't be enough to get him into the club. If he wanted to crack the Bremer/Tenet/Franks echelon, I figured he needed something more.

John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency into prewar Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

The admission came hours after another State Department official said Bolton had correctly answered a Senate questionnaire when he wrote that he has not testified to a grand jury or been interviewed by investigators in any inquiry over the past five years.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Unless there are a few extra Medals of Freedom sitting around the Oval, I think a recess appointment is now a done deal.

Attaboy, John!

A vintage McClellan performance

via www.toostupidtobepresident.com

The Standard - US Senate poised to pass law shielding gun firms

In a sign of the changing political calculus of gun control, the US Senate is poised to pass a top priority of the National Rifle Association - legislation that would shield the gun industry from lawsuits arising from the misuse of their weapons.

In related news, the House is taking up legislation that protect tobacco companies from liability to people who misuse cigarettes by smoking them, and to protect the nuclear power industry from claims by people who misuse radiation by exposing themselves to it when a reactor explodes. However a move to protect Enron executives from claims by investors who misused Enron stock by buying it was withdrawn.

How the White House will kill the Plame investigation

As have a bunch of other folks, I raised the red flag about the possibility that BushCo would smother the Fitzgerald investigation through pardons a la Iran-Contra.

But there is another, even darker possibility, which now looks increasingly likely. As you may recall, the Special Prosecutor in that case, Lawrence Walsh, got a bunch of convictions -- Oliver North, John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams, to name a few. But Poppy Bush's buddies on the bench, Laurence Silberman and David Sawtelle, threw out a bunch of the convictions because, it was claimed, the limited immunity these fine gentlemen received from Congress relating to their testimony tainted the case Walsh presented. (Kinda like those "technicalities" that so enrage the conservatives when they protect someone not in the club.) That made it possible for Bush the Elder to drive the final nail into the coffin by pardoning -- even before trial -- of Cap Weinberger and others, thus saving himself from the prospect of them publicly fingering him.

In other words, the Congressional Democrats, in trying to get to the truth, inadvertently gave the right wing judges who inherited the convictions the tool they needed to stop the bleeding before it reached the White House.

Our Republican Congress has generally shown itself to be utterly nonplussed by the burning of an entire covert op for political revenge, except when it rises to impugn Joe Wilson. But now -- two years after the story first broke, but mere days after the heat reached Rove -- we see that Senator Pat Roberts is talking about holding hearings.

If I were the kind of Machiavellian stooge that Senator Roberts seems to be, I would hold hearings and grant a few key underlings immunity in exchange for their testimony, and do it pronto. Under the Poindexter-North precedents, that would utterly contaminate Fitzgerald's case, and probably checkmate any chance of reaching the levels where the evil really lies.

Fitzgerald seems like the kind of guy who cannot be intimidated. And pardons, though probably effective, exact a political price. But I doubt anyone at 1600 Pennsylvania will have any second thoughts about sending their legislative lackeys out to monkey wrench the works for them.

We need to make some pre-emptive noise about this.

Poll: Majority say Bush lied us into Iraq

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration's credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.

By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

Welcome. We've been waiting for you -- for a long time, actually. But if you get with the damned program, and follow your new insight to its logical conclusion by voting out the perpetrators and enablers of the lies, we'll promise to stop making fun of you for riding the short bus for so long.

The gravest sin: being right

from AMERICAblog:

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."

Although the military is heavily engaged in the mission now, he said, future efforts require "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power." The solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military," he concluded.

But when John Kerry said this last year:

"In order to know who they are, where they are, what they're planning and be able to go get them before they get us, you need the best intelligence, best law-enforcement cooperation in the world," the Massachusetts senator said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort," he said. "And we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight."

the Busheviks went absolutely ballistic in their hellfire damnation.

Kerry and Joe Wilson are perhaps the best known victims of the campaign to extinguish truth, but clearly far from alone.

If there was some way to store and harness the kinetic energy that results from such fevered spinning, we could solve the energy crisis tomorrow.

50,000

Hits today. No, alas, not for the day, but cumulative since we started back in November. A good day for a first-tier blog, I know.

Still, I choose to be proud.

Missing White Woman! Missing White Woman!

from The All Spin Zone:

She's young. She has a seven year old kid. She's pregnant. She's been missing for eight days.

She's:

Latoya Figueroa.

Oh.

Nevermind.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Missing White Women Report.

Makes perfect sense to me

From Think Progress � 10/5/01: Bush Pulls Security Clearances From 92 Senators

“We can’t have leaks of classified information. It’s not in our nation’s interest.” - President George W. Bush, 10/9/01

President Bush’s defiant statement came in the immediate weeks following 9/11, as the administration clamped down on the information it provided to Congress. President Bush issued an order limiting access to classified intelligence only to 8 members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

What precipitated this course of action?

Gannett News Service reported on 10/1/01 that Bush was restricting information because, “The Washington Post reported last week that various lawmakers had been told there would be more terrorist attacks if the United States retaliated.”

There's no contradiction here -- our Father, who art in the White House, must have the absolute and unquestioned authority to restrict information to those who need it. Seantors don't need to know anything, being mere window dressing.They especially don't need to know anything that undermines the infallibility of the Chosen One. But Matt Cooper and Robert Novak needed to know that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Some leaks are just necessary, folks.

Oedipus Lex: that's why he nominated Roberts

Daily Kos: Bush won't release Robert's papers from Iran-Contra Pardon days!

The White House refuses to release documents relating to SCOTUS nominee Roberts as Deputy Solicitor General under Ken Starr. This was when Roberts might have advised on the reprehensible GWH Bush pardons of the Iran Contra Gang.

So the backstory is that if the Roberts work papers were turned over, they would most likely prove very embarassing to Poppy. Dubya won't do it, but can you imagine what the conversations between George I and George II would be like about now? II lets his father twist in the wind for a while before saving his butt in the end.

And so the Constitution, like the people of Iraq before it, becomes a mere pawn in Shrub's personal Oedipal struggle writ large.

DiFi: The Democractic Lincoln Chafee?

Dianne Feinstein is clearly the more Republican of California's two Democratic Senators. Despite her links to liberal San Francisco (which was once known as "Baghdad by the Bay"), she has carried an awful lot of water for the Repugs. But I don't remember a two-day period like this:

Yesterday, she did her best potted palm imitation when she appeared on CNN opposite Sen. Pat Roberts, who served up more absurdity than you'd find in a Monty Python film festival. Did DiFi point out the crack pipe in Roberts' knarled fist?

Of course not. Read the transcript over @ Digby's. Follow her as she tries to find the middle ground between reality and madness. But this kind of Neville Chamberlain appeasement has been her MO for years.

Today, though, she outdid herself.

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declined Monday to say why he was listed in a leadership directory of the Federalist Society and the White House said he has no recollection of belonging to the conservative group.

The question of Roberts' membership in the society — an influential organization of conservative lawyers and judges formed in the early 1980s to combat what its members said was growing liberalism on the bench — emerged as a vexing issue at the start of another week of meetings for President Bush's nominee on Capitol Hill.

Although no Democrats have publicly threatened to filibuster his nomination, they have said they're concerned that not enough is known about Roberts' personal and legal views. Questions about where he stands on a range of issues, including abortion, likely will be front-line matters at his confirmation hearings later this summer.

Roberts, nominated by Bush last week to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was asked by a reporter about the discrepancy during a morning get-acquainted meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

He smiled but didn't reply.

"I don't think he wants to take any questions," Feinstein interjected during the session with photographers and reporters that was part of the meeting in her office with the Supreme Court nominee.

Well OF COURSE he doesn't, lady. That is pages 1-20 of the Rove playbook here. Your job is to make him answer anyway, not throw him a goddamned lifeline.

Even if Dems don't pull the filibuster ripcord, the goal in our doomed effort should be to fight for the truth and its dissemination. Make him come clean where we can all hear. Find the dirt in his views and dish it far and wide. And if the Republicans want to affirm a soiled man as the next Supreme Court Justice, shine a white-hot spotlight on their partisan nonsense.

GM crops created superweed, say scientists

via Skippy the bush kanga:

Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.
The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government's three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.

The new form of charlock was growing among many others in a field which had been used to grow GM rape. When scientists treated it with lethal herbicide it showed no ill-effects.

Holy shit.

I am not one of those millenial doomsdayers who thinks all science is evil. But anyone who is sanguine about the risks inherent in genetic modifications after reading this is, well, insane.

I remember reading years ago that when the godfathers of the nuclear age first unleashed a chain reaction, they really didn't know if they would destroy the world right then and there.

We got lucky then. But every time something like this happens, I think we use up another chunk of our allotted Get Out of Hell Free cards.

What he said

Sharp-elbowed wisdom @The Smirking Chimp

Terrorism is the new black. It will remain in fashion until the War on Terror ends.

Two things have been proven by this so-called 'War on Terror', an idea that from its outset was as absurd as a 'War on Violence'. First, this escapade has demonstrated that terrorism works. It works better than anything: better than diplomacy, better than eloquence, better than the teachings of Gandhi or Jesus Christ or Martin Luther King. Second, the War on Terror has proven that the battleground of the future is at home, where the civilians are.
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Effective anti-terrorist action requires detective work, infiltration, and excision. These are instruments of law, not war. To believe that toppling nations will defeat terrorism is to believe that setting a dog on fire will rid the world of fleas.

Oh, that Federalist Society

Roberts Listed in Federalist Society '97-98 Directory

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory.

Having served only two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a long career as a government and private-sector lawyer, Roberts has not amassed much of a public paper record that would show his judicial philosophy. Working with the Federalist Society would provide some clue of his sympathies. The organization keeps its membership rolls secret, but many key policymakers in the Bush administration are acknowledged current or former members.

Roberts has burnished his legal image carefully. When news organizations have reported his membership in the society, he or others speaking on his behalf have sought corrections. Last week, the White House told news organizations that had reported his membership in the group that he had no memory of belonging. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Associated Press printed corrections.

Over the weekend, The Post obtained a copy of the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998. It lists Roberts, then a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, as a member of the steering committee of the organization's Washington chapter and includes his firm's address and telephone number.

I was having trouble drawing a bead on Mr. Roberts -- everything we were hearing about his personal style made it sound like he was a straight shooting, logical guy, which to the cabal is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

But lying about his past? Now I get it.

"Senator, I'm a legitimate business man, in the sanitation industry. There is no such thing as the Mafia."

Frank Rich nails it (again)

Eight Days in July - New York Times

Mr. Wilson's charge had such force that just three days after its publication, Mr. Bush radically revised his language about W.M.D.'s. Saddam no longer had W.M.D.'s; he had a W.M.D. "program." Right after that George Tenet suddenly decided to release a Friday-evening statement saying that the 16 errant words about African uranium "should never have been included" in the January 2003 State of the Union address - even though those 16 words could and should have been retracted months earlier. By the next State of the Union, in January 2004, Mr. Bush would retreat completely, talking not about finding W.M.D.'s or even W.M.D. programs, but about "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

That's right kids -- Saddam had the Cheez Whiz of WMDs -- pasturized, processed, imitation weapons food spread.

Doomed to repeat

Will we stand for another use of the executive pardon by a President named Bush in order to save his own ass?

Good refresher on the Iran-Contra pardons over @ buzzflash.

What you get for your $92.5 billion

The United States is expanding its preliminary missile defense system to address potential threats from the Middle East and China, and from ship-borne missiles off America's coast, the chief of the Pentagon's program said Thursday.

The Pentagon is upgrading radars in Britain and surveying four European countries for a new site for U.S. "interceptor" missiles, to better monitor and defeat incoming strikes from the Middle East, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency.
...
Still, Obering said the costly system suffers from a wide range of technical problems -- from workmanship to software -- and the rush to put it on alert before it is fully tested means the chances are limited that it would succeed in thwarting any missile attack today.

"We have a better than zero chance of successfully intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead," Obering said. "That confidence will improve over time."

I hereby submit my own proposal for a missile defense system. For $40.2 billion, or less than half to cost of the existing system to date, I propose to create a mile-wide sign that says "Osama is a bed wetter" and place it in the wilds of Saskatchewan. The cost reflects the difficulty of erecting the sign without any Canadians noticing, and the mandatory premium inherent in defending our nation.

While I cannot guarantee that the sign will distract any missiles inbound for the US of A, I am confident that its chances of working are "better than zero."

Mr. Rumsfeld, I await your response, and will forward wire instructions at your earliest convenience.

Jeebus

JustinLogan.com reports on a gobsmacker in the latest issue of the The American Conservative:

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

Just.

Jeebus.

I thought this Dr. Strangelove shit went out with the end of the cold war.

What's the opposite of a yellow elephant?

CNN.com - 'Raging Grannies' want to enlist, go to Iraq

A group of anti-war senior citizens calling themselves the "Tucson Raging Grannies" say they want to enlist in the U.S. Army and go to Iraq so that their children and grandchildren can come home.

Five members of the group -- which is associated with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom -- are due in court Monday to face trespassing charges after trying to enlist at a military recruitment center last week.

The group has protested every week for the last three years outside the recruitment center.

"We went in asking to be sent to Iraq so our kids and grandchildren can be sent home, but rather than listening to us, they called the police," said 74-year-old Betty Schroeder. "It was their place to tell us the qualifications, but they wouldn't even speak to us. They should've said, `You're too old."'

I would guess that they give up their seats on the bus to young Republican men, too.

John "Got Milk?" Bolton deep throating Judy Miller?

Steve Clemons reports that Bolton was a regular WMD source for the Queen of Iraq.

I don't believe a word of it. If Bolton had been involved to that level, we would have seen tangible evidence of his skullthuggery. The fact that he has not yet joined Paul Bremer and George Tenet as a recipient of the medal of Freedom strongly suggests his innocence.

2 out of 3... don't bet on it

A young, pregnant, single mom from South Philadelphia is missing and police say she could be in danger.

No one has seen Latoyia Figueroa, 24, since Monday, when she didn't pick up her seven-year-old daughter from day care.

Missing Hispanic Woman just doesn't have the same ring, does it? Unless Rove gets his frog-marching turn in the next 48 hours, the networks will never find sufficient reason to be distracted by this one.

Arsenic may be responsible for King George's madness - Yahoo! News

Fascinating. I would've bet it was from chronic alchohol abuse, combined with cocaine and, perhaps, his dysfunctional childhood. And that fundamentalist nonsense.

Oh, you mean the other King George. Never mind.

Troubled Times

There are so many things about the Times these days to get pissed off about. The righteousness Dr. Bloor points out below is a prime example.

Another that just occurred to me is that while we sputter and rage about their role in getting us into The Quagmire, the old saw about their leftist leanings still spews from the right. Which means the fools in New York smugly refrain, "If we get flack from both sides, we must be doing it about right."

That it possible to piss off everyone while doing it completely WRONG is far beyond their meager allotment of self-awareness.

Press Deliverance

There is a wonderful aphorism, famously murdered by Dubya: "fool me once, shame on you..." And it seemed the somnambulent press was rousted from its slumber in response to the ironclad revelation that Scott McClellan and Karl Rove had been lying their asses off. Then they reverted to their more comfortable glassy-eyed credulity. In thinking about the coverage of the lead-up to the Roberts nomination, I am struck by the spectacular confluence of stupidity and cowardice required to let the White House manipulate them yet again -- and to continue to protect the "anonymous sources" who see lying to the press as both sport and duty. Do Rove and his minions make their favored scribes squeal like pigs before violating them?

But it is too generous to these poltroons to think of them as Ned Beatty in "Deliverance." Imagine "Deliverance, Part III" in which Ned returns to the Georgia back country wearing his new pigskin overalls with velcro butt-flap. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that he likes the abuse.

The noose tightens

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

If the WaPo is right on this, I think we have now seen enough evidence to support a guilty verdict. Fitzgerald will still need to tie Rove to the memo, but the evidence on all the other elements of the crime are looking solid enough that even a circumstantial case might be enough. Rove had motive, and it is sure looking like he had opportunity.

And it is on page 1 tomorrow.

LATEOTT nominee #2

It was beginning to seem that Maj. Gen. William Webster was going to run unopposed for the monthly General William Westmoreland Light at the End of the Tunnel award for the most egregiously self-deluded pronouncement about the "progress" we are making in the Quagmire Formerly Known as Iraq.

But I would have been shocked if a month had gone by without a submission from Dr. Pangloss Strangelove, aka Donald Rumsfeld. And although it is not one of his better efforts, Rumsfeld offered this submission at a press conference spinning the forthcoming report to Congress about "progress" in The Quagmire.

"On the political front, terrorists have failed to derail the political process," he said. "A constitutional referendum remains on schedule for October 15th. And elections for a new assembly are scheduled for December 15th of this year."

He said ordinary Iraqis are growing more confident in their future, and there is progress on the economic and security fronts.

The committee will continue to accept nominations through the end of the month.

Fitzgerald makes his non-partisan bones

baltimoresun.com - 2 charged in Chicago patronage

One was a drunk. Some were laughed at as "goofballs." One was declared the best-qualified candidate for a job on the city payroll, even though he was dead.

All were recommended for city jobs or hired because they were politically connected and helped to get out the vote on Election Day, according to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
...
The new charges strike at the heart of political power in Chicago - the patronage system under which thousands of precinct workers who get out the vote are rewarded with jobs on the city payroll.

The charges bring the scandal closer than ever to (Mayor Richard M.) Daley, who has been mayor for 16 years and whose father, Mayor Richard J. Daley, oversaw a political machine that dispensed patronage with ruthless efficiency.

Being interested in good government and not purely partisan, I applaud Fitzgerald's move against corruption in Chicago regardless of the politics of the folks implicated. That is exactly what separates most of us on the left from our "my junta, right or wrong" counterparts. And it is going to be vital ammunition when the Plame war resumes.

When the Rove-scented shit really hits the fan, the Republicans will throw around wild unsubstantiated charges, and I would assume "partisan witch hunt" will be one of them. We need to make sure the press covers and is aware of Fitzgerald's work in Chicago so that there is at least some small chance that they will not play their normal co-conspirator role in trumpeting and validating the smears that come from Bush's Brain.

Hard Work

President George W. Bush's nomination of a new Supreme Court justice may give White House adviser Karl Rove a temporary reprieve from public scrutiny of his role in the disclosure of an intelligence operative's identity.
...
Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.

Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.

Because it is hard work avoiding any conversation with Karl Rove that might lead to actual knowledge about his skullduggery.

American Volkssturm

As World War II went badly for Germany, they became increasingly desperate for enough soldiers to man the fronts. In late 1944 they conscripted every male between the ages of 16 and 60 into the Volkssturm.

The Defense Department quietly asked Congress on Monday to raise the maximum age for military recruits to 42 for all branches of the service.

Under current law, the maximum age to enlist in the active components is 35, while people up to age 39 may enlist in the reserves. By practice, the accepted age for recruits is 27 for the Air Force, 28 for the Marine Corps and 34 for the Navy and Army, although the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve sometimes take people up to age 39 in some specialties.

The Pentagon’s request to raise the maximum recruit age to 42 is part of what defense officials are calling a package of “urgent wartime support initiatives” sent to Congress Monday night prior to a Tuesday hearing of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.

Can anyone point me to a situation in which the winning side of a conflict had difficulty mustering bodies?


(Note to any wingnuts wandering off the reservation: this is NOT a Nazi comparison. It has nothing to do with Nazi atrocities, comparing American malfeasance to Nazi atrocities, or comparing your Yellow Elephantitis to the actions of any German past or present. And, um, how old are you?)

Army Cites Drop in Suicides Among Soldiers

The overall mental health of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has improved from the early months of the insurgency, with a significant drop in suicides, but a majority still say morale is low, the Army said Wednesday.

An assessment by the Army surgeon general found that among soldiers interviewed last fall in Iraq and Kuwait, depression, anxiety or acute stress was more prevalent among National Guard and Reserve soldiers, as well as regular Army soldiers in transportation units, than among soldiers in combat units.

The report, dated January 2005 and covering the period from late August to mid-October of 2004, was a follow-up on a similar assessment done a year earlier, when the insurgency was taking hold. The earlier assessment found that mental health services were not adequately available to soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait and that a significant number of soldiers said they had little or no training in how to handle combat stress.

The follow-up report said mental health services have improved, with a higher ratio of behavioral health personnel to soldiers than in 2003. The number of suicides for the full year 2004 had declined to nine from 24 in 2003. Three possible suicides from 2004 are still being investigated.

Sure, I agree that it is wonderful that the numbers of our soliders who are killing themselves is going down. But c'mon now -- if things have gotten to a point that a reduction in the numbers of our kids being killed by their own hands is the closest we can come to good news about The Quagmire, we are in a pretty sorry-ass spot.

First thoughts re: Roberts

dkospedia has some early intel on Roberts, and it ain't encouraging.

This would be VERY high stakes poker, but what if they threw a war and nobody came? What if the Dems decided to hold their fire?

Paradoxically, avoiding the obvious lightning rods could backfire on The Architect. The submarine nominee strategy would fail to stir up a shitstorm, and thus fail to push Plamegate off the front page.

If they had gone for Janice Rogers Brown, (my incorrect prediction), Gonzo or another prime target, the resulting crossfire might have been a better distraction. If, on the other hand, Roberts sails through, Karl's wind-twisting stays on the front burner.

Countering the Rove spin

The Raw Story | When all else fails, read the instructions

New piece up @ Raw Story.

Democracy Now! | Bush Taps Iran-Contra Figure Elliot Abrams to Promote Democracy

Dear President Steadfast:

You weaseled your way back from your earlier pledge to fire anyone who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, saying Monday that "if someone committed a crime" he would be fired.

Well, President Integrity, perhaps you recall one Elliot Abrams? You know, the guy you picked earlier this year to be your deputy national security advisor? Yeah, him -- the one who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress as part of the Iran-Contra mess. (Your Dad pardoned him to protect his own ass, but that does not change the fact that he admitted committing the crime.)

So I assume Mr. Abrams will be testing out the generosity of federal unemployment benefits about now, right sir?

Vietnam-Era Commander Westmoreland Dies

A week after I announced the Westmoreland LATEOTT award, the man himself kicks. I didn't even know he was still around.

Not just the president .. I'm a customer, too!

from Sy Hersh's big story in The New Yorker about the Bush cabal's fixing of the Iraq election:

Les Campbell, the regional director of the N.D.I. for the Middle East and North Africa, told me that he immediately realized “how deep the American desire to do something to help Allawi was.” Campbell acknowledged that he and his colleagues had kept up a running dispute with Warrick. At first, it seemed that the N.G.O.s had won, and the forty million dollars was given in grants for the N.G.O.s to help plan and monitor the election. But the pressure from the Administration to provide direct support for specific parties was unrelenting, and Warrick’s idea didn’t go away. As the campaign progressed, Campbell said, “It became clear that Allawi and his coalition had huge resources, although nothing was flowing through normal channels. He had very professional and very sophisticated media help and saturation television coverage.”

The focus on Allawi, Campbell said, blinded the White House to some of the realities on the ground. “The Administration was backing the wrong parties in Iraq,” he said. “We told them, ‘The parties you like are going to get creamed.’ They didn’t believe it.”

In case anyone thought the "us vs. the reality-based community" stuff was just a tool used to enroll the God Squad in the Billionaire Boys club, here's your refutation. They aren't just dealing crack folks -- they're smoking it, too.

Bombing Mecca

CNN.com - Congressman suggests way to retaliate for nuclear terror

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Florida. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

"Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

I assume Brit Hume is busy shorting the Vatican about now.

Quixotic, but brilliant

from No More Mister Nice Blog:

The Democrats should call for ... a tax on the wealthy, but a dedicated tax, with all revenues going to troops in combat zones, in the form of pay increases and reenlistment bonuses. And here's the twist: The tax can be rolled back -- but only if the deployment of troops in war zones falls well below current levels.

Because the rich would get a tax cut if we withdraw from Iraq (or, alternately, find a way to actually defeat the insurgency), they'd have a reason to care how the war is going, a reason to question whether it's the right war, and whether it's being fought the right way. The Bush/Rumsfeld/Rove approach to Iraq -- endless war with inadequate troop strength -- would upset them, because it would take money out of their pockets.

Look! Over there! A Missing White Woman!

Lies, damned lies and religion

Bush's dance on vaseline

Much is being made, as well it should, of the President's retreat from his pledge to fire anyone who leaked Valerie Plame's identity. Part of the process has been to parce previous White House pronouncements, the better to hoist Bush by his own pitard.

All well and good. But I see another potential good here. One of the things Scott McClellan may regret saying is this:

In September and October 2003, McClellan said he had spoken directly with Rove about the matter and that "he was not involved" in leaking Plame's identity to the news media. McClellan said at the time: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion" and "It's not true."

I'm guessing they are going to be very torn up about whether and how to walk that one back. Because, without getting into a "depends on what your definition of 'is' is" discussion, I would not be surprised if Bush actually believed he did know it -- as he defines knowing. He knew Karl Rove was innocent in the same way he knew that there were WMDs, and that Osama got birthday cards from Saddam. More to the point, he knew it the way he know God wants him to be president.

In other words, he knows Rove is blameless in the way he knows his religious beliefs are true -- based not upon a survey of facts, evidence and expertise, but an inventory of only the desolate, monochromatic landscape of his own interior.

Thus it is likely that Bush will, to his ruin, continue to cling to his belief even as the tsunami of contrary facts engulfs him. And maybe, just maybe, we then finally have a meaningful confrontation between the "reality-based community" in which actions have consequences, and the fairy-tale world where Neocons, fundamentalists know things because, well, just because.

The closest we got to justice in Iran-Contra was Reagan's wistful confession that, although "in his heart" he believed otherwise, his administration had indeed traded arms for hostages. Well, I lived under Ronald Reagan, and Dubya, you're no Ronald Reagan. Reagan only rarely broke bread with reality, but he was no fundamentalist, either. Bush is perhaps the least pragmatic, most (small c) constitutionally rigid guy ever to be entrusted with the football.

That inflexibility will be his ultimate downfall. He will refuse to admit the obvious and inevitable, and it will cost him everything. If we are lucky, those who are so blind that shall not see will decide that following Bush lemming-like into that abyss might not be such a good idea after all.

Rude Punditry on Rove

The reason Rove must be destroyed - which means he needs to be sent up for something more than perjury because simply that would allow him to be a paid consultant for the rest of his life - is that a destroyed Rove would be a maelstrom in the White House. If you remove the center from a system, a system must collapse. And so would end the Bush presidency, for Bush without Rove is like a dalmatian without an owner - so stupid from overbreeding that if it ain't got someone to tell it what to do, it'll just sit in a corner and shit itself endlessly, licking its own anus out of fear and itch.

Mehlman at the NAACP National Convention

By the 70s and into the 80s and 90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out.

Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican Chairman to tell you we were wrong.

"The 'Southern Strategy' that worked from 1972 until pretty much now is dead. The new strategy is the 'Moron Strategy' -- now we focus on folks who refuse to read, embrace facts, or think," said Mehlman. "And we finally realized that stupidity knows no color. So no we are welcoming idiots of every race, color or creed.... ok, maybe not creed," he added.

LATEOTT awards: week 2

Daily Kos: What was that about insurgents in Baghdad?

Last weekend I announced the General William Westmoreland Light at the End of the Tunnel award for the most egregiously self-deluded pronouncement about the "progress" we are making in the Quagmire Formerly Known as Iraq.

I have not seen any submission to compete with Major General William Webster's, but events certainly are strengthening Webster's bid.

It ain't evidence if it contradicts me

Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq - The Boston Globe

A mere two days ago I lampooned the bald statement of shrill shill Hugh Hewitt that "There is zero evidence for the proposition that Iraq is motive rather than opportunity, but the "motive" theory is nevertheless put forward again and again."

Perhaps Mr. Hewitt has read today's Globe:

New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank -- both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States -- have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.

The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the ''central front" in a battle against the United States.

''The terrorists know that the outcome [in Iraq] will leave them emboldened or defeated," Bush said in his nationally televised address on the war at Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month. ''So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction." The US military is fighting the terrorists in Iraq, he repeated this month, ''so we do not have to face them here at home."

However, interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.

A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, ''the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."

Of course, it isn't evidence unless it supports your position, eh, Hugh? Oh, and pardon me for forgetting -- wingnuttery does not require factual support anyway.

Just like ours

Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote - New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 16 - In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.

In a statement issued in response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "in the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government adopted a policy that we would not try - and did not try - to influence the outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office."

The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.

Credit our wise and fair President with the vision to give the Iraqis not just a democracy, but a democracy in exactly the mold of the one he has given us.

The Empire Wiffs Back

KRT Wire 07/12/2005 Congressman's interest in court ruling raises ire of judiciary experts

Given the way the Plame investigation is going, and how hot the water in Karl Rove's bathtub/soup pot is getting, the thing I couldn't fathom is why Patrick Fitzgerald is still breathing. Given everything we know about the rigid omerta code inside the crime family, and the potential consequences of further revalations, I am simply amazed that they haven't found a way to torch him.

Well, it looks like they are finally trying, though the attempt is rather lame.

In an extraordinary move, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee privately demanded last month that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago change its decision in a narcotics case because he didn't believe a drug courier got a harsh enough prison term.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., in a five-page letter dated June 23 to Chief Judge Joel Flaum, asserted that a June 16 decision by a three-judge appeals court panel was wrong.

He demanded "a prompt response" as to what steps Flaum would take "to rectify the panel's actions" in a case where a drug courier in a Chicago police corruption case received a 97-month prison sentence instead of the at least 120 months required by a drug-conspiracy statute.
...
Sensenbrenner also wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, demanding that the decision be appealed further and that he investigate why the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago did not appeal Rivera's sentence.

Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said Sensenbrenner's letter was being reviewed.

"I can't say at this point when we might respond to the congressman," he said.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, declined to comment.

If that is the best the right-wing smear machine can do, I am even more impressed with the exemplary life Mr. Fitzgerald must have lived.

MWWA

Aren't we about due for a Missing White Woman Alert? I sense that our leaders are suffering from a severe deficit of small shiny objects to divert us with.

Plamegate in context: shooting messengers en masse

As we continue to hammer away at Plamegate, it is important to remember what the whole thing is really about: the Bush administration is so intent on crushing the truth that it will burn entire CIA covert operations in order to punish a whistleblower.

And if you are tempted to think that Joseph Wilson is the only victim of the adminstration's truth pogrom, let me remind you of this story from last February and linked to by us at the time. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility reported that:

The U.S. Special Counsel has dismissed more than 1,000 whistleblower cases in the past year, according to a letter from the Bush-appointed Special Counsel released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The Special Counsel appears to have taken action in very few, if any, of these cases and has yet to represent a single whistleblower in an employment case.

In a letter dated February 14, 2005 and addressed to U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Special Counsel Scott Bloch defends his stormy 13 months in office by pointing to a sharp drop in backlogged whistleblower cases.

“Everyone agrees that backlogs and delays are bad but they are not as bad as simply dumping the cases altogether,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that this letter is the first account that Bloch has released of his tenure and that his office’s report for FY 2004, which ended in October, is overdue. “If the Office of Special Counsel under Scott Bloch is not helping whistleblowers then there is no reason for the office to continue to exist.”

According to the figures released by Bloch, in the past year the Office of Special Counsel—

--Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case where he has ordered an investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch says that 100 disclosures are still pending; and
--Made 470 claims of retaliation disappear. In not one of these cases did Bloch’s office affirmatively represent a whistleblower to obtain relief before the civil service court system, called the Merit Systems Protection Board. Bloch says that another 30 retaliation cases remain in the backlog.

In order to speed dismissals, Bloch instituted a rule forbidding his staff from contacting a whistleblower if their disclosure was deemed incomplete or ambiguous. Instead, OSC would simply dismiss the matter. As a result, hundreds of whistleblowers never had a chance to justify why their cases had merit.

Joe Wilson is unique only in that he has the means and gravitas to make his story known despite the efforts of the administration to stifle him. But there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of others like him, with stories of other corruption, lies and malfesance who we will never hear from because of the administration's preference for omerta over truth.

If we lose on Plamegate, we lose not just that battle but the whole war Bush is fighting against truth. If Joe Wilson's battle is won, we have a chance at hearing the claims of the many other whistleblowers whose stories have not yet been heard.

Stupid Standard Time

Hugh Hewitt is Breeding Stupidity at the Standard

I tried to forget everything I saw when I wandered into the Standard's site yesterday, but I forgot to close this window and sickened myself again tonight. The wit and wisdom of Mr. Hewitt:

The fact that foreign fighters are streaming across Syria into Iraq in the hopes of killing America (sic) is not evidence supporting the "breeding ground" theory. "Opportunity" to act is not the same thing as "motive" for acting. There is zero evidence for the proposition that Iraq is motive rather than opportunity, but the "motive" theory is nevertheless put forward again and again. As recently as Wednesday the Washington Post account of the aftermath of the London bombings included the incredible--and unsubstantiated in the article--claim that the "the profile of the suspects suggested by investigators fit long-standing warnings by security experts that the greatest potential threat to Britain could come from second-generation Muslims, born here but alienated from British society and perhaps from their own families, and inflamed by Britain's participation in the Iraq war."[emphasis added]
...
(Christopher) Hitchens's point, which must be made again and again, is Blair's point: The killers are killers because they want to kill, not because the coalition invaded Iraq, or Afghanistan, or because there are bases in Saudi Arabia, or because Israel will not retreat to the 1967 borders.

Until and unless the left gets this point, and abandons the idea that "breeding" of terrorists is something the West triggers, they cannot be trusted with the conduct of the war.

Ummmmm.... so let me get this straight. A group of Muslims were born and raised in England and seemed for all the world like assimilated westerners right up until the moment they become suicide bombers, and you feel like the intellectual heavy lifting is complete with the formulation of this brilliant tautology: "the killers are killers because they want to kill."

Hewitt's argument reminds me of both (a) the ridiculous "they hate us for who we are, not what we do" meme advanced by that other leading light of the right-wing, Victor Davis Hanson (and deconstructed here), and (b) the Monty Python sketch in which ordinary Englishmen suddlenly and inexplicably transform into kilt-wearing Scotsmen.

On the other hand, the Pythons thought absurdity was funny. How quaint.

Oh, and if you don't want to let us borrow the keys to your war, that is just fine, given what a dandy job you all are doing, Hugh.

A bad week gets worse...

via theChicago Tribune: General contradicted Abu Ghraib testimony

An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.

Gen. Geoffrey Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004 that he had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not talk to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or his top aides about the fact-finding trip.

But in a recorded statement to attorneys three months later, Miller said he gave two of Rumfeld's most senior aides-- then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone--a briefing on his visit and his subsequent recommendations.

Perhaps Rummy, Wolfie and Rove will end up as cellmates. They could share hoods and bras for their heads.

The curse of low Standards

I don't think I had ever wandered over to The Standard before today. I don't know if I will ever have the stomach to do so again. Take for instance, this screed: The Mother of All Connections. The authors actually try to make the case that the Al Queda -Saddam connection claims were correct after all. So here's the evidence they lead with:

There could hardly be a clearer case--of the ongoing revelations and the ongoing denial--than in the 13 points below, reproduced verbatim from a "Summary of Evidence" prepared by the U.S. government in November 2004. This unclassified document was released by the Pentagon in late March 2005. It details the case for designating an Iraqi member of al Qaeda, currently detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an "enemy combatant."

1. From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan.
5. The Taliban issued the detainee a Kalishnikov rifle in November 2000.
6. The detainee worked in a Taliban ammo and arms storage arsenal in Mazar-Es-Sharif organizing weapons and ammunition.
7. The detainee willingly associated with al Qaida members.
8. The detainee was a member of al Qaida.
9. An assistant to Usama Bin Ladin paid the detainee on three separate occasions between 1995 and 1997.
10. The detainee stayed at the al Farouq camp in Darwanta, Afghanistan, where he received 1,000 Rupees to continue his travels.
11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars.
13. Detainee was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar, Pakistan, in July 2002.

Got that? Because a single Iraqi infantryman joined Al Quida FIVE YEARS after his military service, Saddam and Osama are butt buddies, and the invasion was justified.

Well, my wingnut friends, do you mean to say that if a single national of a country joins Al Quida, that country deserves to be invaded?

OK, then. I'd like to (1) introduce you to someone:

and (2) ask which half of the United States you think should invade the other half?.

What will the lapdog do now?

Bush admin may be responsible for botching effort to thwart London bombing

The story is a little complex to be summarized in a sentence or two. But ther relevant old news is, in essence, (1) because of the many boy-who-cried-wolf embarassments with prior terror alerts, when George Tenet pulled the alarm just before the Democratic convention last summer, (2) the Administration leaked information to bolster its claim that burned our one and only Al Queda mole, (3) forcing British anti-terror officials to prematurely chase down the mole's contacts.

(4) The pissed-off Brits hoped they had broken up a domestic terror plot to... wait for it .. blow up London subway trains. (5) Today, it was revealed that the bombers last week were probably part of the same plot.

In other words, the Bush administration's political machinations burned an undercover operative, (sound familiar?) which lead to 50-plus deaths in London.

It might not get much play here, but I'll wager the UK press will do to Blair what the White House press corps is now doing to McClellan. Unless the lapdog takes a bite out his master's ass soon, his real owners are going to put him down.

Not Enough Caskets for the Iraqi Dead

via the Turkish Zaman Daily:

Coffin makers are unable to keep up with the demand for caskets in Iraq where tens of people die every day due to the continual armed attacks and bombings.

While casket prices increased due to the ever increasing demand, it is impossible to find caskets for the bodies of the poor and homeless. The price of a coffin varies from between $35 and $50 in Bagdat (Baghdad), in a city where one person dies every hour. Caskets have become a major necessity of the country due to the increasing number of deaths. Although around 10 or 15 caskets are constructed per day, they are still not able to supply enough caskets to keep up with demands, say coffin makers, one of them, Abbas Hussein said: "Not everyone in Baghdad has the money to buy a coffin. People have difficulty earning their living, how will they find money for a coffin? Poor people bury their relatives using the coffins that individuals have donated to the mosques."

A Swiss international studies group has claimed that 39,000 of the 100,000 civilian deaths that have occurred are the result of the bombings in Iraq.

Of course, if Faux News picks this story up, John Gibson will crow about how the economy is "booming," and local merchants can't keep up with demand for their goods.

Joe Wilson on Today

Well, they didn't pull a Lauer on him. But it sure looks like they did edit out the part where Wilson read the letter from HW Bush to Wilson -- Wilson has his reading glasses on during the interview, but never read anything in the clip they showed.

Still, the "we asked the White House if they wanted to rebut and they said no" was wonderful stuff.

More Yellow Elephant fun

Democratic Veteran :: Chickenhawk Squawking Whining

Nevada's chapter of the Young Republicans has basically imploded, leaving its chairman with up to $25,000 in personal debt and allegations that he mishandled money.
All but three people have resigned from the statewide group, but the fallout could prove increasingly embarrassing to the entire state Republican Party.
Today, the chairman of the group, Reno resident Nathan Taylor, plans to hold a press conference attacking three of the state's party leaders -- Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter.
Taylor argues that the state's Republican delegation should have helped him fund the national Young Republican convention held last week at Mandalay Bay.
"I've got bills at the hotel I can't pay," said Taylor, a 29-year-old political science senior at UNR who said he had to quit his food service job and drop classes to plan the convention.
Taylor estimates that the convention, attended by about 600 people from around the nation, is at least $10,000 -- and up to $25,000 -- in the red.
As the chairman, he said he'll personally have to cough up the cash.
"It's a really sad day when my congressmen and my senator, who are sitting on millions, can't cut me a check for $25,000," Taylor said. "I don't think I'm asking for much."

Doesn't he sound just like one those welfare queens Republicans always whine about? Sniveling for a government handout like that. Who does he think he is, Haliburton?

Well, Mr. Taylor, perhaps an enlistment bonus would be enough to satisfy your creditors.

Will Lauer pull a Kitty Kelly redux?

You may recall that when Kitty Kelly was pushing her tell-all book on the Bush family, NBC booked her on Today, then thought the better of it (wonder why?) and chose to send Matt Lauer in to do a blatant hatchet job on her.

I would wager that the word has already come down from the bowels of major defense contractor General Electric to its subsidiary NBC: stick it to Wilson.

But Wilson ain't no Kitty Kelly. I might even watch.

Oedipus Wrecks

Joe Wilson is coming out swinging, and he seems to know exactly which buttons to push. I was thinking earlier today that if the press wants to get under Junior's skin, they will ask something along the lines of: "How can you be certain that Karl Rove did not leak Valerie Plame's identity to reporters including Robert Novak when your father fired Karl Rove for leaking information to Novak in 1992?"

Joe Wilson is way ahead of me. He's going to be on NBC's Today on Thursday.

(H)e told The BRAD BLOG that he planned to read a letter on air which he received from Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush shortly after an article of his was printed in the San Jose Weekly News, on October 13, 2002, in which Wilson related his concerns about the pitfalls of the approach to Iraq being taken at the time by both the U.N. and the U.S.

In reply to that article, Wilson said that the former President wrote that he had "read your article and I agree with a lot of it."

Additionally, Wilson explained, Bush 41’s own National Security Advisor, Brett Scowcroft had contacted him to ask whether he "could walk on over to the White House with the letter" at the time. Which apparently he did.

Wilson also had sent the article to Bush 41’s Secretary of State, James Baker.

"None of them responded saying you’re a Democratic partisan hack and your views suck," said Wilson.

Comparing Junior to Poppy is as good a way as any to push his buttons.

Push, push, push the Bush.

The Light Of Reason

The Light Of Reason , which is both a blog and, at least in this case, a source of well-lit reason, answers the question: why aren't conservatives outraged about what Rove did?

(T)he question assumes that the ideas conservatives talk about actually mean something to them. That in turn means something else, and something much more important: it assumes that conservatives’ ideas properly connect back to the facts out there in the world to which they refer. Rather than engage in a technical discussion about epistemology, let me put the point more simply: ideas and concepts are the means by which we hold knowledge—but the knowledge expressed in terms of ideas must always refer back to specifics in reality. If the ideas don’t ultimately refer back to reality in this manner, they are literally meaningless. They refer to nothing. Everything that exists is something particular. Ideas as such don’t exist at all, except as symbols and summations of the particulars in a certain category to which they refer.

But conservatives lionize a President who speaks of “freedom,” as he enacts a program which threatens civil liberties here at home on the most fundamental level (some recent examples: here, here and here), and who speaks of “progress” in Iraq as that country descends further into bloody chaos with each day that passes. Bush is a man for whom concepts mean precisely nothing. The phrases he employs to justify his actions are devoid of content, and they refer to no specifics at all. And almost all his actions lead to results in reality which contradict the “ideas” he says he supports in utterly disastrous ways.

This is much deeper, and much worse, than mere hypocrisy, which is almost clean in intellectual terms by comparison. When someone is hypocritical, there is at least the hope of reaching him if we are able to make him see and acknowledge how his words are contradicted by his actions (and/or by other words). If someone alters his behavior after understanding his error, it is because he acknowledges at least to some extent the connection between words and particulars.

But if someone uses words and concepts in a manner which consistently reveals that those words mean absolutely nothing to him, it is not possible to reach him at all. There is nothing to reach—in the sense that there is no mind there capable of understanding what you are saying. On the most basic level, such people do not know how to think. When someone functions in this way—that is, when he is not capable of thinking in the most rudimentary manner—there is one method of survival that tends to overshadow all the others: membership in a group, or tribe, which he hopes will protect him.

It is this kind of tribalism that conservatives exhibit today in a very extreme form. (Many liberals are guilty of it, too, but they’re not in power now and therefore less of a danger.) We see this tribalism in Bush, who speaks of “loyalty” to his friends as one of his supreme values, and we see it in conservatives generally. This is why they defend Rove so desperately: the attacks on Rove are perceived as attacks on their tribe, and it is the tribe that must always be protected against outsiders. In this case, the law, the press, and those who criticize Rove and the Bush administration are all outsiders. Outsiders are the enemy, and they must be destroyed.

In other words, reasoning with these folks is like wrestling with a pig: you just get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.

Silber also makes a plausible argument that George II's disregard for the CIA has an Oedipal component.

Is Britain flypaper, too?

Bush renews linking Iraq war to 9/11

After the London bombings, the White House has embarked on a new effort to link the war in Iraq with the war on terrorism, beginning with a speech by President Bush yesterday saying it is vital to fight terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and "across the world, so we do not have to face them here at home."

I'm sure Tony Blair will be happy to explain to the back benchers in Parliament that their lot is to be blown up so that Americans aren't.

The Novak-Rove pipeline

For a bunch of reasons, it is worth looking back on the history between these two:

Rove fired from Bush Sr's '92 campaign over leak to Novak.

Karl Rove was fired from the 1992 re-election campaign of Bush Sr. for allegedly leaking a negative story about Bush loyalist/fundraiser Robert Mosbacher to Novak. Novak's piece described a meeting organized by then-Senator Phil Gramm at which Mosbacher was relieved of his duties as state campaign manager because "the president's re-election effort in Texas has been a bust." Rove was fired after Mosbacher fingered him as Novak's source.

Important because (1) it obviously supports the "ridiculous" notion that Rove leaked Plame to Novak, and (2) it tells us something about how tenaciously George II is likely to cling to his precious turd blossom. Bush hired Rove (if their relationship can be characterized that way; the other way 'round may be closer to the truth) knowing all of this. Rove got him elected Governor; Rove got him into the White House twice. As another wag pointed out, Bush firing Rove would be like Charlie McCarthy firing Edgar Bergen.

Make Rove Tom DeLay's cellmate and he'll be running our government from stir.

John Gibson, Faux News -- Give Rove a Medal

Oliver Willis has the footage. Gibson says we have a right to know who was trying to influence US policy (based on his assertion that Valerie Palme tried to influence US policy by sending "peacenik" Joe Wilson to Niger).

Um... so I assume you came out strongly in favor of the lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and others to force Vice President Haliburton to tell us who sat at the table when The Dick formulated our national energy policy...

If Faux had been around in the '50's, they would have been lobbying for the Medal of Freedom for Joe McCarthy.

Wall Street Pravda

Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson.

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

Unfrigginbelievable. Unsnarkable. As the Administration slowly takes on water, examples of high-level ass-kissing like this are going to increasingly stick out like sore thumbs.

Unless, of course Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald wakes up with a horse's head next to him.

I like it

Murray Waas, who has scooped Plamegate before, says the reason Novakula hasn't been off to jail is that he sang like a canary. And, perhaps, lied his ass off.

Those of us on the outside have no basis to argue this one either way. But Occam's razor certainly favors the explanation: Novak has been keeping his mouth shut because the truth would be so personally humiliating. Admitting that Judy Miller has bigger stones than he does just wouldn't play well down at the Press Club.

What would make it even better is if Fitzgerald can make the case that Waas suggests -- that Novak lied to protect Rove.

Then we can have a serious discussion about blogger ethics.

They can dish it out, but...

Republicans blast Sen. Clinton on Bush attack

Republicans took aim at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday for a speech comparing President Bush to Mad magazine's freckle-faced, "What, me worry?" kid, Alfred E. Neuman.

A Republican National Committee official said the former first lady was "part of today's angry and adrift Democrat Party," while a spokesman for one of her potential 2006 Senate rivals said she was guilty of "insulting the president."

Personally, I think the keepers of the flame at MAD are the ones who ought to feel insulted.

But I digress.

Perhaps we should ask how the RNC feels about the angry and adrift Ann Coulter, who compared President Bill Clinton to OJ Simpson, and called him "a pathological liar, a sociopath, and felon." Or the Republicans in Congress a few years ago who compared Bill Clinton to Hitler.

Six Flags Over Jesus Ducks Property Tax

A Florida judge has ruled in favor of a Christian theme park seeking an exemption from property taxes.

The Holy Land Experience in Orlando is operated by a nonprofit, nondenominational Christian ministry called Zion's Hope, which is devoted to converting Jews to Christianity.
...
In her ruling, the judge said Zion's Hope is using The Holy Land Experience "to spread what it considers to be God's word."

The park features scenes from ancient Jerusalem and biblical settings complete with costumed characters.

The $16 million, 15-acre park opened in 2001.

This is just the beginning. I can't wait to see what will happen when other churches begin building their own theme parks. Perhaps a radical Islamic group will open a Gitmoland. Madonna will offer up Kabbalahpalooza Park. And of course, we can anxiously await the coming centerpiece of the Church of the Sub Genius, BobDobbia. All far from the clutches of those confiscatory liberal property taxes paying for fire and police departments, roads schools, etc.

Rovegate questions

Looking back at the "bring it on"-style comments our bullshitter in chief made about his lack of knowledge about who leaked Plame's identity, I have to wonder: why? If his very own Turdblossom made the decision to burn a CIA asset without checking with his boss, I would have to admit that even I underestimated the extent of Shrub's absence from his own administration.

More likely is that he knew all along. So if he knew, why did he feel free to lie about it, and to send McClellan out to do more of the same?

This, I think, is exactly what they mean by the old saying about how power corrupts. These guys have gotten away with so much for so long that they begin to believe that nothing will ever catch up with them, and they stop worrying about consequences and the hobgoblin of consistency.

Chicago Officials Turn Off 'Jesus' Light

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. -- City officials have turned off a streetlight that drew more than 250 people to see a shadow that some say resembles the image of Jesus Christ.

East Chicago Police Chief Angelo Machuca called an emergency meeting Sunday to recommend the light be turned off in the interest of public safety after nearby residents complained about blocked cars and visitors congregating until 5 a.m.

Several arrests were made Friday night after a large fight broke out in the area.

"The city respects everyone's religious beliefs, but it's getting to the point now where it's almost too dangerous" to leave the light on, said Damian Rico, the city's public relations director.

People have flocked to the site since Wednesday, when a woman first claimed to see the image on the side of a tree. The image is only visible at night when the streetlight near the tree is illuminated.

Machuca said his department doesn't have the manpower to maintain regular patrols and control the crowd.

If Chief Machuca had only been reading this blog, he would already know how to pay for the necessary plice presence -- auction off the streetlight on ebay, where this evanescent Jesus could follow his sandwich-bound mother's path to the Golden Palace casino.

Olbermann nails it

Karl Rove -- soft on terror - Bloggermann - MSNBC.com

To paraphrase Mr. Rove, liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers; conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared to ruin the career of one of the country’s spies tracking terrorist efforts to gain weapons of mass destruction -- for political gain.

Politics first, counter-terrorism second -- it’s as simple as that.

In his ‘story guidance’ to Matthew Cooper of Time, Rove did more damage to your safety than the most thumb-sucking liberal or guard at Abu Ghraib. He destroyed an intelligence asset like Valerie Plame merely to deflect criticism of a politician. We have all the damned politicians, of every stripe, that we need. The best of them isn’t worth half a Valerie Plame. And if the particular politician for whom Rove was deflecting, President Bush, is more than just all hat and no cattle on terrorism, he needs to banish Rove -- and loudly.

There is a lot of bile rising in the throats of a lot of reporters about now -- witness the meltdown in the White House press room today.

If we are not at critical mass yet, we are damned close.

Yo, JimmyJeff..

This is how to snark:
The Swift Report: Jeb Bush: Hurricane Dennis Could Be Fault of Michael Schiavo

Just hours after Hurricane Dennis made landfall across the Florida Panhandle yesterday, Governor Jeb Bush asked a state prosecutor to investigate possible links between the category 3 storm and Michael Schiavo. In a statement to reporters, Mr. Bush noted that the issue of Mr. Schiavo's involvement in the strongest hurricane to develop this early in the Atlantic storm season "remains unsettled."

Any questions?