When book flogger Novak said Valerie Plame was NOT covert, all you needed were 2 words:
Brewster Jennings.
Thanks for nothin' Diane.
Showing posts with label impeach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impeach. Show all posts
Monday, August 06, 2007
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Monday, July 09, 2007
remember when oil was 20 dollars a barrrel?
And Bush's war only cost We the People (the American taxpayers) a billion a week?
Good thing we have soma (24-7 television coverage of a rock concert for dead Diana, and Paris-and-Brittany's latest doin's) to paralyze our brain cells... otherwise... We'd be ticked.
Report: Wars Cost US $12 Billion a Month
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.
All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.
The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.
The $12 billion a month "burn rate" includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion.
Among the reasons for the higher costs is the cost of repairing and replacing equipment worn out in harsh conditions or destroyed in combat.
But the estimates call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost only $5.6 billion through the end of September.
If Congress approves President Bush's pending request for another $147 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1, the total bill for the war on terror since Sept. 11 would reach more than three-fourths of a trillion dollars, with appropriations for Iraq reaching $567 billion.
Also, if the increase in war tempo continues beyond September, the Pentagon's request "would presumably be inadequate," CRS said.
The latest estimates come as support for the war in Iraq among Bush's GOP allies in Congress is beginning to erode. Senior Republicans such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Richard Lugar of Indiana have called for a shift in strategy in Iraq and a battle over funding the war will resume in September, when Democrats in Congress begin work on a funding bill for the war.
Congress approved $99 billion in war funding in May after a protracted battle and a Bush veto of an earlier measure over Democrats' attempt to set a timeline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq.
The report faults the Pentagon for using the Iraq war as a pretext for boosting the Pentagon's non-war budget by costs such as procurement, increasing the size of the military and procurement of replacement aircraft as war-related items.
The new estimate comes as the White House and Democrats are fighting over spending bills for next year. That battle is over about $22 billion _ almost the cost of two months' fighting in Iraq.
"Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to protecting Americans from terrorism, improving security at our ports and airports, and increasing border security," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
Good thing we have soma (24-7 television coverage of a rock concert for dead Diana, and Paris-and-Brittany's latest doin's) to paralyze our brain cells... otherwise... We'd be ticked.
Report: Wars Cost US $12 Billion a Month
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.
All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.
The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.
The $12 billion a month "burn rate" includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion.
Among the reasons for the higher costs is the cost of repairing and replacing equipment worn out in harsh conditions or destroyed in combat.
But the estimates call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost only $5.6 billion through the end of September.
If Congress approves President Bush's pending request for another $147 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1, the total bill for the war on terror since Sept. 11 would reach more than three-fourths of a trillion dollars, with appropriations for Iraq reaching $567 billion.
Also, if the increase in war tempo continues beyond September, the Pentagon's request "would presumably be inadequate," CRS said.
The latest estimates come as support for the war in Iraq among Bush's GOP allies in Congress is beginning to erode. Senior Republicans such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Richard Lugar of Indiana have called for a shift in strategy in Iraq and a battle over funding the war will resume in September, when Democrats in Congress begin work on a funding bill for the war.
Congress approved $99 billion in war funding in May after a protracted battle and a Bush veto of an earlier measure over Democrats' attempt to set a timeline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq.
The report faults the Pentagon for using the Iraq war as a pretext for boosting the Pentagon's non-war budget by costs such as procurement, increasing the size of the military and procurement of replacement aircraft as war-related items.
The new estimate comes as the White House and Democrats are fighting over spending bills for next year. That battle is over about $22 billion _ almost the cost of two months' fighting in Iraq.
"Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to protecting Americans from terrorism, improving security at our ports and airports, and increasing border security," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
Why I love Buzzflash.com
...editorials like these, that make me think!
Nobody Marched To Impeach Bill Clinton!
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Linda Milazzo
NOBODY marched to impeach Bill Clinton. Angry citizens DIDN'T fill the streets, carry signs, and beg a non-responsive Congress to do its Constitutional duty and remove Bill Clinton from his job. Panels WEREN'T held across the nation, moderated by Constitutional scholars who loved their country so much that they traversed its full span to inform packed audiences of the high crimes Bill Clinton had done.
Nope. That DIDN'T happen.
In 1998, thousands upon thousands of Americans DIDN'T call, write, fax, and visit their elected leaders every day imploring them to impeach Bill Clinton. Millions of citizens DIDN'T believe the rest of the world wanted Bill Clinton impeached. Groups of citizen activists DIDN'T band together to camp out at their Representatives' homes and district offices for days, sometimes weeks, holding "Impeach Bill Clinton" signs and wearing "Impeach Bill Clinton" T-shirts. Thousands of cars DIDN'T bear "Impeach Bill Clinton" bumper stickers.
Nope. That DIDN'T happen.
Average citizens DIDN'T travel to Washington, DC to walk the halls of Congress and seek audiences with their elected officials demanding to have Bill Clinton impeached.
Nuh-uh!
"Impeachment Centers" WEREN'T opened dedicated to impeaching Bill Clinton like the one in Los Angeles that opened on the Fourth of July, dedicated to impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Hundreds of people DIDN'T join together in a park on a national holiday for an impeach-Bill-Clinton-rally the way they joined together in a park in Los Angeles on Wednesday for an impeach-Bush-and-Cheney-rally.
In 1998, the people DIDN'T need to inspire Congress to impeach Bill Clinton. The 105th Congress couldn't wait to throw the popular President out of his job. In fact they impeached Bill Clinton even though we-the-people implored them not to.
Of course, there were some Americans in 1998 who bought the smear and destroy campaign by the rabid Republican spin-machine and rabid Republican legislators to impeach Bill Clinton under the guise of restoring the Presidency. These duped citizens were conned by mainstream media's daily theatrics, directed by then-adulterer Congressman Henry Hyde, then-adulterer Speaker Newt Gingrich, then drug-addict Rush Limbaugh, future-indicted Congressman Tom Delay, and Special Pornographer Kenneth Starr. (My apologies to Larry Flynt).
How ironic for Gingrich and Hyde that Clinton was caught with his pants down just as they were dropping theirs. How further ironic that the lynchpin asserting the case for Clinton's impeachment was Ken Starr's obsessively compiled pornographic tome, whereas Americans today have a virtual library of scholarly books on the Constitutional merits of impeaching Bush and Cheney. Thanks to Mr. Starr's salacious expose, it is likely his lurid accounting of a private consensual affair will be his singular most powerful climax.
The fact is, during the 105th Congress's impeachment of Bill Clinton, Clinton's public APPROVAL rating was a positive 73%. Conversely, as the current 110th Congress takes NO action to impeach George W. Bush, Bush's public APPROVAL ratings range between 28% and 36%.
This means the people's well-liked President Clinton was penalized, while the people's despised President Bush is allowed to stay on. If this isn't a failure of democracy of, for, and by the people, then what is?
link for rest of article
A chorus of hypocrites, that's what the right is.
On ANOTHER DAY Buzz flashed this one...
Smartest thing I read all day.
Subject: How Do You Do It BuzzFlashers?
How do you all keep up the faith? In early May I returned from a trip to Vegas with a girlfriend. My husband asked if I had heard the news that week. No, says I because we never turned on a TV or read a newspaper. He then informed me of the vote wherein congress gave Bush a blank check. I went immediately to my computer and deleted ALL my political sites, have hardly watched the news, changed from our best newspaper to the fluff one and turned a deaf ear to anything political. The news of Scooter Libby tempeted me to return to Buzz. I will vote in 2008 because I have always done so and because women fought and won a difficult battle to get the vote. What I will not do is vote for a Republican or a Democrat. Members of congress will do or say anything to get elected or re-elected. I still believe in our democtatic principles but can not find the words to express the contempt I feel for congress!
Sandra Boynton
Rathdrum, Idaho
To All:
This was sent to President Bush yesterday.
King George the First: 3 July 2007
Delighted to know you commuted the jail portion of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence for perjury. He does not deserve jail for covering your and Cheney's part in a felony, the leak of classified CIA information. Now, American people know Libby was the fall guy for both of you.
Along with this, they also know, as long as you are President, the Executive Branch of government will not be held accountable for any crimes. After all you have executed near 1000 Presidential Signing Statements into law which only pertain to "We The People"' and not you or your Executive Branch. This truly earns you the title of King George the First, of the USA since our representative form of government with true justice for all is null and void.
Disgusted,
Colonel Colin J. N. Chauret,
USAF Retired Fighter Pilot 31 Years Active Service, 1942-1973
Universal City, TX
Subject: Impeachment
Of commutation, executive privilege & impeachment
The commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter Libby was the last straw!
The Bush Administration has constantly ignored the rule of law and the constitution. While the commutation is within the guidelines of the law it is a direct affront to the citizens of the the jury comprised of "Scooter's" peers, the legal system and the citizens of the United States. Following a lengthy trail, the jury and the judge found the sentence to be impartial and fair. President Bush -- please excuse "President" and "Bush" in the same phrase -- have never recognized a cognizant or a fair and impartial decision. Because of that philosophy, Bush still decided to commute the 2-1/2 year sentence. To minimize the impact of the commuted sentence he agreed to impose the $250,000 fine and two-year probation ... what he thinks is a politically viable solution. IT'S NOT!
It is time for American citizens to say enough is enough. Commutation, executive privilege and impeachment are no longer "off the table." It is time to take "corrective action!" And it is time to begin articles of impeachment for the "ring leader" -- George W Bush -- as well as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and "Condosleezza" Rice.
This has to happen in order for the USA to regain its reputation -- not only with its citizens, but with the world community.
It is time to act now! IMPEACH ' EM ALL!
AL Ainsworth
Portland, Oregon
Subject: David Brooks: A kinder, gentler bastard
BuzzFlash,
I have long wondered whether the pundit David Brooks was just stupid or an extremely clever master of deception. He projects a kind image by two means; a soft and gentle apologetic persona, and admitting mistakes were made by the extreme right. However, the mistakes are always admitted long after it can do any good. For example, he was a big supporter of the war with Iraq when it mattered. When public opinion needed to be swayed. Now, years later, he admits, that there is a slight possibility it might have been a mistake. That shows, of course, how reasonable he is.
He is oh so gentle, in supporting things like torture, with his gestures and quiet voice, struggling to find a "middle ground." The article he wrote on the Bush pardon of Libby leaves no doubt that he is just a gentler, kinder gentler bastard not at all naive.
Here the facts are well known, at the time of the event. All the evil of the outing of Valerie Plame appears in numerous reports and the sworn testimony during the Libby trial. For him to toe the party line has to be an extremely deliberate and evil act. I am sure a few years from now his rhetoric will soften, when it doesn't matter anymore. But there will be no new facts. He will just use the change in tone to show again how reasonable he is.
A Memo for David Brooks (davidcorn.com)
The soft-on-torture liberal
Subject: The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige
If you saw the movie “The Prestige,” you have an inkling of the magic act George W. Bush just performed by commuting I. “Scooter” Libby’s legally derived, appealed and reaffirmed jail sentence imposed by a court of law and a jury of his peers.
According to the movie, a magic act consists of three parts. The “Pledge” is the part of a magic act where the magician shows the audience a common object or person and then promises they will see something special happen on stage. In the case of the United States vs. “Scooter” Libby, Mr. Cheney, Bush's stagehand, took Mr. Libby and either convinced him to lie to a Federal Grand Jury or, at the very least, turned the other way while Rove and Libby conspired to block a special investigation of the Valerie Plame national security leak.
The “Turn” is the part where the magician distracts his audience and then proceeds to involve his subject in an amazing feat of magic. In the case of Mr. Libby, the audience was fed a continual stream of disinformation about prosecutor Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame, and Joe Wilson while the affable looking Libby wove a fabric of lies to protect himself and his superiors from spending time in jail. Magically, he claimed his hitherto well-documented keen memory failed him while testifying. He was just confused, his attorneys said. Given his years of service in which he used that very same memory to execute the complexities of his job at the highest levels of government, the loss of memory has become a legendary piece of Houdini history.
The “Prestige” is the final part of the trick, where the magician asks his audience to suspend their disbelief and accept that the magic and reality are one in the same. The willing subject mysteriously escapes one box and appears in another. The audience claps and scratches their heads’ as they leave the theater wondering how it was done.
In three carefully crafted acts our magician, our President, executed his well planned trick. First, he allowed his Vice President and staff to conspire to leak highly classified information. Second, he denied he or any member of his staff participated in the Plame affair and assured us if they did they would be punished according to the law. Third, our President waved his magic pen, ignored the law he told us he would abide by and commuted the jail sentence of his willing subject, I. “Scooter” Libby, who slipped quietly out the back door.
In the end, the “Prestige” had been executed perfectly. But as in any magic act, the reality is always hiding behind the curtain. Everyone knows it. Everyone has come to expect it. Everyone accepts it.
And so we are left wondering, when will George W. Bush and his stage hands be back in town for another performance? Will it be today, tomorrow or perhaps during the next Presidential election? Will the tricks and the tricksters ever leave the stage? Only the magician has the answer and it is unlikely he will ever reveal the secret. Poof!
George Gerber
Doylestown, PA
Nobody Marched To Impeach Bill Clinton!
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Linda Milazzo
NOBODY marched to impeach Bill Clinton. Angry citizens DIDN'T fill the streets, carry signs, and beg a non-responsive Congress to do its Constitutional duty and remove Bill Clinton from his job. Panels WEREN'T held across the nation, moderated by Constitutional scholars who loved their country so much that they traversed its full span to inform packed audiences of the high crimes Bill Clinton had done.
Nope. That DIDN'T happen.
In 1998, thousands upon thousands of Americans DIDN'T call, write, fax, and visit their elected leaders every day imploring them to impeach Bill Clinton. Millions of citizens DIDN'T believe the rest of the world wanted Bill Clinton impeached. Groups of citizen activists DIDN'T band together to camp out at their Representatives' homes and district offices for days, sometimes weeks, holding "Impeach Bill Clinton" signs and wearing "Impeach Bill Clinton" T-shirts. Thousands of cars DIDN'T bear "Impeach Bill Clinton" bumper stickers.
Nope. That DIDN'T happen.
Average citizens DIDN'T travel to Washington, DC to walk the halls of Congress and seek audiences with their elected officials demanding to have Bill Clinton impeached.
Nuh-uh!
"Impeachment Centers" WEREN'T opened dedicated to impeaching Bill Clinton like the one in Los Angeles that opened on the Fourth of July, dedicated to impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Hundreds of people DIDN'T join together in a park on a national holiday for an impeach-Bill-Clinton-rally the way they joined together in a park in Los Angeles on Wednesday for an impeach-Bush-and-Cheney-rally.
In 1998, the people DIDN'T need to inspire Congress to impeach Bill Clinton. The 105th Congress couldn't wait to throw the popular President out of his job. In fact they impeached Bill Clinton even though we-the-people implored them not to.
Of course, there were some Americans in 1998 who bought the smear and destroy campaign by the rabid Republican spin-machine and rabid Republican legislators to impeach Bill Clinton under the guise of restoring the Presidency. These duped citizens were conned by mainstream media's daily theatrics, directed by then-adulterer Congressman Henry Hyde, then-adulterer Speaker Newt Gingrich, then drug-addict Rush Limbaugh, future-indicted Congressman Tom Delay, and Special Pornographer Kenneth Starr. (My apologies to Larry Flynt).
How ironic for Gingrich and Hyde that Clinton was caught with his pants down just as they were dropping theirs. How further ironic that the lynchpin asserting the case for Clinton's impeachment was Ken Starr's obsessively compiled pornographic tome, whereas Americans today have a virtual library of scholarly books on the Constitutional merits of impeaching Bush and Cheney. Thanks to Mr. Starr's salacious expose, it is likely his lurid accounting of a private consensual affair will be his singular most powerful climax.
The fact is, during the 105th Congress's impeachment of Bill Clinton, Clinton's public APPROVAL rating was a positive 73%. Conversely, as the current 110th Congress takes NO action to impeach George W. Bush, Bush's public APPROVAL ratings range between 28% and 36%.
This means the people's well-liked President Clinton was penalized, while the people's despised President Bush is allowed to stay on. If this isn't a failure of democracy of, for, and by the people, then what is?
link for rest of article
A chorus of hypocrites, that's what the right is.
On ANOTHER DAY Buzz flashed this one...
Smartest thing I read all day.
Subject: How Do You Do It BuzzFlashers?
How do you all keep up the faith? In early May I returned from a trip to Vegas with a girlfriend. My husband asked if I had heard the news that week. No, says I because we never turned on a TV or read a newspaper. He then informed me of the vote wherein congress gave Bush a blank check. I went immediately to my computer and deleted ALL my political sites, have hardly watched the news, changed from our best newspaper to the fluff one and turned a deaf ear to anything political. The news of Scooter Libby tempeted me to return to Buzz. I will vote in 2008 because I have always done so and because women fought and won a difficult battle to get the vote. What I will not do is vote for a Republican or a Democrat. Members of congress will do or say anything to get elected or re-elected. I still believe in our democtatic principles but can not find the words to express the contempt I feel for congress!
Sandra Boynton
Rathdrum, Idaho
To All:
This was sent to President Bush yesterday.
King George the First: 3 July 2007
Delighted to know you commuted the jail portion of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence for perjury. He does not deserve jail for covering your and Cheney's part in a felony, the leak of classified CIA information. Now, American people know Libby was the fall guy for both of you.
Along with this, they also know, as long as you are President, the Executive Branch of government will not be held accountable for any crimes. After all you have executed near 1000 Presidential Signing Statements into law which only pertain to "We The People"' and not you or your Executive Branch. This truly earns you the title of King George the First, of the USA since our representative form of government with true justice for all is null and void.
Disgusted,
Colonel Colin J. N. Chauret,
USAF Retired Fighter Pilot 31 Years Active Service, 1942-1973
Universal City, TX
Subject: Impeachment
Of commutation, executive privilege & impeachment
The commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter Libby was the last straw!
The Bush Administration has constantly ignored the rule of law and the constitution. While the commutation is within the guidelines of the law it is a direct affront to the citizens of the the jury comprised of "Scooter's" peers, the legal system and the citizens of the United States. Following a lengthy trail, the jury and the judge found the sentence to be impartial and fair. President Bush -- please excuse "President" and "Bush" in the same phrase -- have never recognized a cognizant or a fair and impartial decision. Because of that philosophy, Bush still decided to commute the 2-1/2 year sentence. To minimize the impact of the commuted sentence he agreed to impose the $250,000 fine and two-year probation ... what he thinks is a politically viable solution. IT'S NOT!
It is time for American citizens to say enough is enough. Commutation, executive privilege and impeachment are no longer "off the table." It is time to take "corrective action!" And it is time to begin articles of impeachment for the "ring leader" -- George W Bush -- as well as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and "Condosleezza" Rice.
This has to happen in order for the USA to regain its reputation -- not only with its citizens, but with the world community.
It is time to act now! IMPEACH ' EM ALL!
AL Ainsworth
Portland, Oregon
Subject: David Brooks: A kinder, gentler bastard
BuzzFlash,
I have long wondered whether the pundit David Brooks was just stupid or an extremely clever master of deception. He projects a kind image by two means; a soft and gentle apologetic persona, and admitting mistakes were made by the extreme right. However, the mistakes are always admitted long after it can do any good. For example, he was a big supporter of the war with Iraq when it mattered. When public opinion needed to be swayed. Now, years later, he admits, that there is a slight possibility it might have been a mistake. That shows, of course, how reasonable he is.
He is oh so gentle, in supporting things like torture, with his gestures and quiet voice, struggling to find a "middle ground." The article he wrote on the Bush pardon of Libby leaves no doubt that he is just a gentler, kinder gentler bastard not at all naive.
Here the facts are well known, at the time of the event. All the evil of the outing of Valerie Plame appears in numerous reports and the sworn testimony during the Libby trial. For him to toe the party line has to be an extremely deliberate and evil act. I am sure a few years from now his rhetoric will soften, when it doesn't matter anymore. But there will be no new facts. He will just use the change in tone to show again how reasonable he is.
A Memo for David Brooks (davidcorn.com)
The soft-on-torture liberal
Subject: The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige
If you saw the movie “The Prestige,” you have an inkling of the magic act George W. Bush just performed by commuting I. “Scooter” Libby’s legally derived, appealed and reaffirmed jail sentence imposed by a court of law and a jury of his peers.
According to the movie, a magic act consists of three parts. The “Pledge” is the part of a magic act where the magician shows the audience a common object or person and then promises they will see something special happen on stage. In the case of the United States vs. “Scooter” Libby, Mr. Cheney, Bush's stagehand, took Mr. Libby and either convinced him to lie to a Federal Grand Jury or, at the very least, turned the other way while Rove and Libby conspired to block a special investigation of the Valerie Plame national security leak.
The “Turn” is the part where the magician distracts his audience and then proceeds to involve his subject in an amazing feat of magic. In the case of Mr. Libby, the audience was fed a continual stream of disinformation about prosecutor Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame, and Joe Wilson while the affable looking Libby wove a fabric of lies to protect himself and his superiors from spending time in jail. Magically, he claimed his hitherto well-documented keen memory failed him while testifying. He was just confused, his attorneys said. Given his years of service in which he used that very same memory to execute the complexities of his job at the highest levels of government, the loss of memory has become a legendary piece of Houdini history.
The “Prestige” is the final part of the trick, where the magician asks his audience to suspend their disbelief and accept that the magic and reality are one in the same. The willing subject mysteriously escapes one box and appears in another. The audience claps and scratches their heads’ as they leave the theater wondering how it was done.
In three carefully crafted acts our magician, our President, executed his well planned trick. First, he allowed his Vice President and staff to conspire to leak highly classified information. Second, he denied he or any member of his staff participated in the Plame affair and assured us if they did they would be punished according to the law. Third, our President waved his magic pen, ignored the law he told us he would abide by and commuted the jail sentence of his willing subject, I. “Scooter” Libby, who slipped quietly out the back door.
In the end, the “Prestige” had been executed perfectly. But as in any magic act, the reality is always hiding behind the curtain. Everyone knows it. Everyone has come to expect it. Everyone accepts it.
And so we are left wondering, when will George W. Bush and his stage hands be back in town for another performance? Will it be today, tomorrow or perhaps during the next Presidential election? Will the tricks and the tricksters ever leave the stage? Only the magician has the answer and it is unlikely he will ever reveal the secret. Poof!
George Gerber
Doylestown, PA
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Impeach.
WHY CHENEY? To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies whether foreign or domestic. Cindy quit, and said 'it's up to us.'
The Iraq War is a symptom. The Constituion is the cure. But the people we elected to defend the Constitution are busy playing politics, another name for the shell game.
They fiddle while Rome burns.
Cheney and Dubya know about Rome falling. They figure some rich patrician Imperial Roman folk got out with their riches intact, and became kings.
We are heading toward feudalism in every way I can think of, only worse.
Wake up, we the people.
The dark ages are coming if we don't change course.
June 3, 2007
NYT Editorial
Dick Cheney Rules
Americans are accustomed to Vice President Dick Cheney’s waiting out a terrorist threat in a “secure undisclosed location.” Now it seems that Mr. Cheney wears the cloak of invisibility in secure disclosed locations.
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.
This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.
In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to “demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.”
Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll.
From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Cheney received “deferred salary payments” from Halliburton that far exceeded what taxpayers gave him. Mr. Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of stock options that have ballooned by millions of dollars as Halliburton profited handsomely from the war in Iraq.
Reviewing this record — secrecy, impatience with government regulations, backroom dealings, handsome paydays — it dawned on us that Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
============================================
And the criminality was intentional - that makes it treason.
Fitzgerald Again Points to Cheney
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/05/29/BL2007052901024.html?hpid=topnews
Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Libby was convicted in February of perjury and obstruction of justice. Fitzgerald filed a memo on Friday asking U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who will sentence Libby next week, to put him in prison for at least two and a half years.
Despite all the public interest in the case, Fitzgerald has repeatedly asserted that grand-jury secrecy rules prohibit him from being more forthcoming about either the course of his investigation or any findings beyond those he disclosed to make the case against Libby. But when his motives have been attacked during court proceedings, Fitzgerald has occasionally shown flashes of anger -- and has hinted that he and his investigative team suspected more malfeasance at higher levels of government than they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
In Friday's eminently readable court filing, Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.
Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."
It was established at trial that it was Cheney himself who first told Libby about Plame's identity as a CIA agent, in the course of complaining about criticisms of the administration's run-up to war leveled by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. And, as Fitzgerald notes: "The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the Vice President apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment."
The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President."
Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President."
Up until now, Fitzgerald's most singeing attack on Cheney came during closing arguments at the Libby trial in February. Libby's lawyers had complained that Fitzgerald was trying to put a "cloud" over Cheney without evidence to back it up -- and that set Fitzgerald off. As I wrote in my Feb. 21 column, the special counsel responded with fire: "There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week. . . . He had those meetings. He sent Libby off to [meet then-New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting, the two-hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife. We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant has obstructed justice and lied about what happened. . . .
"That's not something that we put there. That cloud is something that we just can't pretend isn't there."
To those of us watching the investigation and trial unfold, Cheney's presence behind the scenes has emerged in glimpses and hints. (The defense's decision not to call Cheney to the stand remains a massive bummer.) But I suspect that people looking back on this story will see it with greater clarity: As a blatant -- and thus far successful -- cover-up for the vice president.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Rats Betrayed Us
I ask you, Why Would I Bother to spend an hour fighting traffic, and paying $3.50 a gallon for gas to get there, to spend a day in Detroit attending a townhall meeting on the impeachment of the biggest criminal in American history, when Representative JOHN CONYERS, who HOLDS the GAVEL, has said time and time again that he will not proceed on impeachment?
He sent his wife to the last townhall meeting on the War on Iraq in Flint, afraid to show his face to the same crowd of Progressives who brought him in to speak about giving him the gavel before the last election. We served his purpose, to get him reelected, and now he ignores us. SHAME.
The 14 NO votes
The 14 N0 votes:
These are the only loyal opposition left.
The rest have essentially voted for Emperor Bush to do as he pleases, and he pleases to invade Iran and rob the American taxpayer's treasury.
DemocRATs, you will be blamed in years to come for your spinelessness.
Fill your pockets now, boys, then go home and stay there.
Senator Levin, where were you?
Is your loyalty to Israeli lobbyists trumping you oath to the American Constitution?
Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
These are the only loyal opposition left.
The rest have essentially voted for Emperor Bush to do as he pleases, and he pleases to invade Iran and rob the American taxpayer's treasury.
DemocRATs, you will be blamed in years to come for your spinelessness.
Fill your pockets now, boys, then go home and stay there.
Senator Levin, where were you?
Is your loyalty to Israeli lobbyists trumping you oath to the American Constitution?
Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Hope Springs Eternally
Good quality sign, made it through almost a full year. None of the neighbors have complained yet. Yes, I know the birdbath needs a scubbing and yes, that is a dandelion. Nobody's perfect.At least I don't invade other countries.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Dear Senator Leahy
Subpena them (the Bush Crime Gang)?
Heck, why wait? Just do what THEY do, snoop.
They data mine their fellow citizens phone, email, snail mail, library records, credit card purchases... what sets them above their fellow citizens?
Time for some fairness.
Equality under law(lessness.)
They don't want to show up to answer questions: how about some extraordinary rendition?
They'd do it to us in a New York minute.
They don't want to swear their testimony?
Waterboards.
It's not torture.
What's good for the goose...
Knitting away, beneath the guillotine...
Heck, why wait? Just do what THEY do, snoop.
They data mine their fellow citizens phone, email, snail mail, library records, credit card purchases... what sets them above their fellow citizens?
Time for some fairness.
Equality under law(lessness.)
They don't want to show up to answer questions: how about some extraordinary rendition?
They'd do it to us in a New York minute.
They don't want to swear their testimony?
Waterboards.
It's not torture.
What's good for the goose...
Knitting away, beneath the guillotine...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
a case for impeachment
****************************
Published on Thursday, October 12, 2006 by Ted Rall
America's Nuremberg Laws
The End of the U.S. as a Civilized Nation
by Ted Rall
SEATTLE - Students of historical hysteria immediately saw 9/11 as America's version of the Reichstag Fire. Both incidents were organic acts of terrorism (contrary to popular misconception, the Nazis didn't set the 1933 fire) seized upon by power-hungry government officials to justify the crushing of political dissent and the rolling back of civil liberties. Hitler began marching his people into the abyss immediately upon seizing power in 1933, but Nazi Germany's fate as a rogue nation wasn't sealed until two years later, in the late summer of 1935.
Before then there had been heinous violations of human rights. Nazi authorities detained thousands of socialists and communists in concentration camps (death camps weren't built until 1941). Many were tortured; some died in custody. Stormtroopers enforced state-sanctioned boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses. Brownshirts beat Jews in the streets as the police stood by and watched. Ignoring Germany's treaty obligations, Hitler poured millions into the armed forces and threatened to use them against Germany's neighbors. No one could doubt that Germany was in the hands of militaristic right-wing thugs.
Until 1935, however, the home of Goethe and Beethoven had not entirely abandoned the universal values accepted by civilized states. True, top German officials and street-level Nazi Party members were breaking all sorts of laws, including constitutional protections against racial and religious discrimination. That's precisely the point: the law endured. Pre-Nazi legal infrastructure and laws, including the 1920s-era "Weimar" Constitution--still the Western world's gold standard for protecting individual rights and privileges--remained in force. Technically, anyway.
Had there been the political will, Hitler and his goons could have been arrested and tried under German law. The German government was a lost cause, but the German nation still had a (slim) chance. Until 1935.
That's when Germany officially codified the Nazis' uncivilized anti-Semitism by passing the Nuremberg Laws. Jews were stripped of citizenship and banned from marrying or dating non-Jews. The laws were a form of legalized harassment, prohibiting Jews from displaying German flags or shopping in stores at certain times. Turning Jews into legal pariahs paved the way for the Holocaust. More immediately, the barbaric ipso facto policies of the Nazi government had corrupted Germany's lofty and admirable system of legal guarantees. Even though German law hadn't been of much help to Jews before--well, there had been the occasional arrest and prosecution of a brownshirt who had gone "too far"--now there was every reason for them to succumb to hopelessness. Germany was no longer a civilized nation in the clutches of gangsters. It had become a gangster nation.
Similarly, the recently passed Military Commissions Act removes the United States from the ranks of civilized nations. It codifies racial and political discrimination, legalizes kidnapping and torture of those the government deems its political enemies, and eliminates habeas corpus--the ancient precept that prevents the police from arresting and holding you without cause--a basic protection common to all (other) modern legal systems, and one that dates to the Magna Carta.
Between 2001 and 2006, George W. Bush worked tirelessly to eliminate freedoms and liberties Americans have long taken for granted. The Bush Administration's CIA, mercenary and military state terrorists kidnapped thousands of innocent people and held them at secret prisons around the world for months and years at a time. These people were never charged with a crime. (There was good reason for that. As the government itself admitted, fewer than ten had actually done anything wrong.) Yet hundreds, maybe even thousands, were tortured.
Under American law these despicable acts were illegal. They were, by definition, un-American. Although it didn't help the dozens of Bush torture victims who died from beatings and drowning, the pre-Bush American judicial system worked. The Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court handed down one decision after another ordering the White House to give its "detainees" trials or let them go. For a brief, shining moment, it looked like there was hope for the U.S. to find its way back to the light.
Now, thanks to a gullible passel of Republican senators and an unhinged leader who is banking that Americans are just as passive as the Germans of the mid-1930s, we have our own Nuremberg Laws.
Under the terrifying terms of the radical new Military Commissions Act, Bush can declare anyone--including you--an "unlawful enemy combatant," a term that doesn't exist in U.S. or international law. All he has to do is sign a piece of paper claiming that you "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." The law's language is brilliantly vague, allowing the president to imprison--for the rest of his or her life--anyone, including a U.S. citizen, from someone who makes a contribution to a group he disapproves of to a journalist who criticizes the government.
Although Bush and his top officials ordered and endorsed torture, the courts had found that it was illegal under U.S. law and treaty obligations. Now torture is, for the first time, legal.
"Over all," reports The New York Times, "the legislation reallocates power among the three branches of government, taking authority away from the judiciary and handing it to the president." Bruce Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale, notes that the MCA trashes the centuries-old right of a prisoner to petition to the courts: "If Congress can strip courts of jurisdiction over cases because it fears their outcome, judicial independence is threatened."
How did we get here? Good Germans--and many of them were decent, moral people--asked themselves the same thing. The answer is incrementalism, the tendency of radical change to manifest itself in bits and pieces. People who should have known better--journalists, Democrats, and Republicans who are more loyal to their country than their party--allowed Bush and his neofascist gangsters to hijack our republic and its values. They weren't as bad as Bush. They just couldn't see the big picture.
Just as no single rollback led marked the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, no event is individually responsible for America's shocking five-year transformation from beacon of freedom to autocratic torture state. It wasn't just letting Bush get away with his 2000 coup d'état. It wasn't just us standing by as he deliberately allowed his family friend Osama bin Laden to escape, or as he invaded Afghanistan, or as he built the concentration camps at Guantánamo and elsewhere, or even Iraq. It was all of those things collectively.
The Military Commissions Act signals that our traditional system of beliefs and government has irrevocably devolved into moral bankruptcy. Memo to Senator McCain: You don't negotiate with terrorists, and you don't compromise with torturers.
It doesn't matter how much food aid we ship to the victims of the next global natural disaster, or how diplomatic our next president is, or whether we come to regret what we have done in the name of law and order. Our laws permit kidnapping, torture and murder. Our laws deny access to the courts. The United States has ceded the moral high ground to its enemies.
We are done.
Ted Rall is the author of the new graphic travelogue "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?"
Laura and Dubya on "Sacrifice"
ANN CURRY: Do you know the American people are suffering… watching [Iraq]?
LAURA BUSH: Oh, I know that very much, and, believe me, no suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the commander-in-chief who has asked our military to go into harm’s way.
AC: What do you think the American people need to know…
LB: Well, I hope they do know the burden of worry that’s on his shoulders every single day for our troops. And I think they do. I think if they don’t, they’re not seeing what the real responsibilities of our president are.
AC: It must be hard for you to watch him in this.
LB: It’s hard. Of course, it’s absolutely hard.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
traitors should be impeached, at least
They Were Talking about Wilson’s Wife before Wilson’s Article Came Out
by MARGIE BURNS
Why were there all these administration colloquies about Wilson’s wife circulated before Wilson’s article came out? Retaliation is too simple an answer.Every major news outlet reporting on the CIA leak and the Libby trial has taken the line that CIA analyst Valerie Plame was outed in retaliation for a column by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, published on July 6, 2003. But unrefuted testimony and documents in the trial of I. Lewis Libby, formerly Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, reveal that administration discussion of Mrs. Wilson, her CIA status and Wilson’s trip began several weeks before Wilson’s column appeared.
If Wilson’s New York Times op-ed column, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” had set off the chain of events that resulted in exposing Plame, those events would have begun on July 6 of that year.
Instead the perjury and obstruction trial of Libby, convicted on four of five counts, has demonstrated that tense colloquies about Mrs. Wilson took place in the administration substantially before Wilson’s column came out:
May 29, 2003 – Libby calls then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, according to Grossman’s testimony, asking how and why Joe Wilson was sent on a trip to Niger about uranium.
“late May and early June, 2003” -- Grossman gives oral interim reports to Libby that Wilson was the ambassador who went to Niger (mentioned but not named in a May 6 New York Times piece by Nicholas Kristof, “Missing in Action: Truth”).
June 9, 2003 -- Grossman has a conversation with Wilson, who is “upset” that Condoleezza Rice had claimed on "Meet the Press" that the White House was unaware of doubts about the Niger uranium story. (In his book, Wilson says this conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself”; he got in touch with the New York Times the same day. p.332.)
June 9, 2003 – classified documents from CIA are faxed to the Office of the Vice President to Libby and colleague John Hannah, mentioning the Wilson trip but not naming Wilson.
June 10, 2003 – a classified State Department memo written by State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) gives Grossman the background on Wilson’s Niger trip, names Valerie Wilson as Wilson’s wife and as “a CIA WMD manager.” The memo, like previous memos, also debunks the Niger uranium story.
June 11, 2003 – Robert L. Grenier, longtime CIA official and “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq” in 2002 and 2003, receives a phone call from Libby, then Libby summons him from a meeting with the CIA Director to follow up about Wilson; Grenier tells Libby that Wilson’s wife is in CIA. (Grenier now works for Kroll Associates.)
June 11/12, 2003 – Marc Grossman has a “30-second discussion” about Mrs. Wilson with Libby, according to Grossman’s testimony.
June 12, 2003 – Libby is informed by Cheney in a phone call that Wilson’s wife is in CIA (handwritten note: “CP: his wife works in that div”). Walter Pincus' Washington Post article that day mentions the trip but not Wilson by name.
June 12, 2003 – David Addington, Cheney’s government lawyer, receives the same notes from Libby’s office mentioning that Wilson’s wife worked in the Counter-Proliferation Division (typed copy).
June 13, 2003 – Richard L. Armitage, then Deputy Secretary of State and formerly a PNAC signatory boosting war with Iraq, tells Bob Woodward in a taped interview, with expletives, that Mrs. Wilson works for CIA. Bogus macho-man duet suggests that Mrs. Wilson sent Wilson on the Niger trip.
June 14, 2003 – CIA daily briefer Craig Schmall briefs Libby at Libby’s home; notes question about Wilson (“ex-amb”) and the Niger trip; notes Wilson and Valerie Wilson by name.
June 23, 2003 – Libby has a discussion with Judith Miller, mentions Wilson’s wife at CIA. (Miller had returned to the U.S. from Iraq on June 8.)
July 6, 2003 – Joseph Wilson’s op-ed criticizing the Niger story appears in the New York Times.
Additionally, according to a statement by Bob Woodward in the Washington Post, Woodward brought a list including the terms “yellowcake” (unprocessed uranium) and “Joe Wilson’s wife” with him when he met with another official on June 20, spoke with Libby on the phone on June 23, and then met with Libby on June 27. Woodward’s statement leaves unclear whether the terms were dealt with in these communications, all of which occurred before the July 6 op-ed.
So why were there all these colloquies in the administration, about Wilson’s wife, before Wilson’s article came out?
Retaliation is too simple an answer. Wilson had appeared on television expressing doubts about the war and about Iraq WMD from January through April, 2003. He pulled his punches—undoubtedly wondering whether the White House might actually have some evidence—but still made plenty of public comments that could have provoked a White House counterattack. There is no sign of one until May 2003, when Wilson made few public remarks.
Nor does the administration seem to have tipped its hand to the Wilsons beforehand to stop Wilson from going public.
What did happen in regard to Niger uranium—before Kristof’s piece—is that Seymour Hersh published a devastating New Yorker article, “Who Lied to Whom?" in March, which reappeared on April 22 as "Iraq Post Mortem” in the British magazine Prospect. The article emphasized the blatantly forged Niger documents about “yellowcake.” (Judith Miller, for one, seems to have backed down on Iraq WMD immediately following the definitive debunking in Prospect.) Did the administration simply launch a pre-emptive strike against Wilson, fearing that his going public on the “mushroom cloud” would be the last straw? With its usual tin ear, did it fear that Joe Wilson and Seymour Hersh would join forces? Or did it go for a two-fer, moving to disrupt analysis in the WMD unit at the CIA where Mrs. Wilson worked?
By the time Wilson’s column appeared, his wife’s name and CIA connection had already been leaked to Bob Woodward of the Post and Judith Miller of the Times—two of the most famous reporters in the U.S.—for 23 days and 13 days, respectively.Armitage, Woodward’s source, is another longtime Cheney-Rumsfeld man since the “Team B” days of previous GOP administrations.
Going into the trial, I too thought of the CIA leak as retaliation for Wilson’s column and took the same line in previous postings, like most other writers. Joseph Wilson’s book, The Politics of Truth, takes the same tack. But Wilson did not have access to the behind-the-scenes discussions about his wife now revealed publicly. Retaliation there was, in spades, but retaliation cannot have been the whole story. Theorists who believe the aim was partly to disable the Counter-Proliferation Division in CIA where Valerie Plame worked may be right.
Margie Burns [link to her blog at margieburns.com] is a freelance journalist in the DC area. A previous version of this article was posted at www.bradblog.com.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
