One sick, delusional, hateful SOB (and I'm not talking about Cheney)

I caught this guy on the Colbert Report the other night.

I couldn't believe my ears or my eyes.

Number 1. : I happen to be a liberal and I don't watch obscene things ( gratuitous violence and explicit sex, just to name a couple) on television and I don't go to the theatre to see such things either. I simply do not support entertainment and not much else, if find offensive or distasteful.

Why is it that the cultural warriors have yet to master the remote?

Further, why do they believe that Muslims are so inferior that they cannot decide for themselves what to watch or subject their minds to in some other way?

Does he think the entire world is as much of an unconscious dufus as he apparently is?

Dinesh D’Souza’s Bizarre New Book:

Dinesh D’Souza is at it again.

In his new book, “The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11,” conservative ideologue D’Souza blames the American left for Sept. 11.

Here’s how his reasoning goes: The Muslim world is angry at the United States for the moral and cultural breakdown that liberals brought about in this country, and then exported to the Middle East. In addition, the left exhibits an anti-Americanism in its critique of U.S. policy that is quite similar to the worldview of Islamic fundamentalists.

“The cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world,” D’Souza writes in the portion excerpted on the book’s back cover. “Without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”

As a fellow Indian immigrant, I have a particular interest in D’Souza. I have been following his work since the early 1990s, when he first made a name for himself with “Illiberal Education,” which lambasted the supposed epidemic of political correctness on campuses by stringing together the worst incidents of this phenomenon and making it seem like an all-pervasive curse across the nation.

He followed this up a few years later with “The End of Racism,” which posited that African Americans suffer from inherent cultural pathologies that keep them down. The book’s take on race was so vile that two African-American conservatives associated with the American Enterprise Institute, Glenn Loury and Robert Woodson, resigned from the think tank in protest over “The End of Racism”.....

Show Me The Intelligence

Congress had damned well better demand the new NIE now!!!!

Bush is already moving the troops in.

Show Me The Intelligence:

Have you noticed?

Neither President George W. Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney have cited any U.S. intelligence assessments to support their fateful decision to send 21,500 more troops to referee the civil war in Iraq. This is a far cry from October 2002, when a formal National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was rushed through in order to trick Congress into giving its nihil obstat for the attack on Iraq.

Why no intelligence justification this time around? Because there is none.

Having successfully cooked intelligence four years ago to get authorization for war, the Bush administration has zero incentive to try a repeat performance. Nor is there any sign that the new Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees will even think to ask the intelligence community to state its views on the likely effect of the planned “surge” in troop strength. This, even though an NIE on Iraq has been “almost ready” for months.

For the Bush administration, it has been difficult enough whipping its fickle but ultimately malleable generals into line. The civilian intelligence chiefs have proven more resistant. So the White House is playing it safe, avoiding like the plague any estimate that would raise doubts about the wisdom of the decision to surge. And that is precisely what an honest estimate would do. With “sham-dunk” former CIA director George Tenet and his accomplices no longer in place as intelligence enablers, the White House clearly prefers no NIE to one that would inevitably highlight the fecklessness of throwing 21,5000 more troops into harm’s way for the dubious purpose of holding off defeat for two more years.

Internet as Political Force Grows, Poll Finds

The corporatists are having an ang-dang, no doubt.

This is a huge threat to the power-elite in this country and around the world.

The fight for freedom of speech and information is just beginning.

Internet as Political Force Grows, Poll Finds:

"Candidates and those who run their campaigns have known for some time how the Internet has energized politics and reshuffled the old rules of how office-seekers, the media and the public operate. A survey released Wednesday about online activities and the 2006 election shows just how dramatic that shift has been.

Americans who received most of their political information online (15 percent) has doubled since the previous midterm election in 2002. And almost a third of the public -- 31 percent -- used the Internet during the 2006 campaign to get political news and discuss the election through e-mail.

Those findings came from a telephone survey of 2,562 adults, conducted for the Pew Internet and American Life Project between Nov. 8 and Dec. 4, and included interviews with 200 people who use cell phones only, to reflect the growing number of people without traditional land lines.

Spurred by greater broadband use, a growing number of Internet political activists -- about 14 million people, according to the survey -- are generating and sharing political content, including video clips that had a major impact on some races.

ACTION ALERT: ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union:

ACLU Calls on Lawmakers to Demand Accountability from Gonzales, Seeks Torture Memos and Answers on Increased Surveillance

WASHINGTON - January 18 - As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the American Civil Liberties Union called on panel members to hold the administration's feet to the fire for its approval of torture policies and warrantless surveillance. This will be Gonzales' first appearance before the committee under the new leadership of Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

'This is the first real test to see if the new Congress will conduct meaningful oversight on the administration - a test it must not fail,' said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. 'We urge the attorney general to explain the Justice Department's justification of torture and increased secrecy. Lawmakers must reject any attempts by Mr. Gonzales to stonewall their constitutional duty to find out how laws Congress has passed are being implemented. We are looking to Chairman Leahy to bring back real oversight.'

Gonzales blames bloggers for opposing terrorist surveillance

This has got to be the most incredibly absurd thing I have heard yet, out of this lame-brain administration.

What a total asshat!

I read a lot of blogs and I have yet to read any opinion, by anyone, on any blog, that even remotely suggests that anyone is against wire-tapping terrorists.

I am, however, against skirting FISA to wiretap political opposition, reporters, dissenters an anyone else, who has nothing to do with terrorism.

Since when does the White House give a damn what anyone says, least of all bloggers.

The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » Gonzales blames bloggers for opposing terrorist surveillance:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is spending the day being grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a whole host of fascinating subjects, but this exchange deserves special attention. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), to his enormous credit, reminded Gonzales of the political debate over warrantless searches over the last year. (Click over to read the exchange between Lil Alberto and Senator Feingold)

U.S. plans envision broad attack on Iran

Emails and phone calls to Congress are the order of the day.

U.S. plans envision broad attack on Iran: analyst - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Friday.

'I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike,' said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005.

'You're talking about a war against Iran' that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank.

'We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets' by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability, White said.

'I'm much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear infrastructure,' which would prompt vigorous Iranian retaliation, he said, than civil war in Iraq, which could be confined to that country.

Friend: Cheney says Washington is 'all BS,' full of 'suffering fools'

We think that Cheney is a suffering fool (who hasn't suffered enough) and is full of BS, but must not be ignored because he is one of the most dangerous psychotics on earth.

The Raw Story Friend: Cheney says Washington is 'all BS,' full of 'suffering fools':

Vice President Cheney believes Washington is full of 'suffering fools' and 'all BS' that should be ignored, according to a friend quoted today in the Washington Post.

The Post's David Ignatius ponders how Vice President Dick Cheney manages to retain so much power in the White House in spite of the ruinous political consequences that his policy has had for the Bush presidency. One insight Ignatius offers is that Cheney is driven by a belief that politics in the nation's capital is 'all BS' that he believes should be ignored.

In his column, Ignatius suggests that 'Cheney has been the political equivalent of a black hole -- exerting a powerful but mostly invisible force on decisions. The Office of the Vice President has had a gravitational weight that sucked in other personalities and entire branches of the government without emitting light or heat that would explain the decision-making process.'

Andrew Greeley:: Bush is a picture of defeat

A useless surge....so why?

To drag out the quagmire so that it can be ceremoniously dumped into the lap of the next president?

Is it a prelude to an attack on Iran?

Is it a test of the New Congress? Put out the dumbest of all possible plans, just to see if the Congress will let them get by with it.

Congress should tell Junior that his war resolution of October 2002 is null and void.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Andrew Greeley :: Bush is a picture of defeat:

The presidential address last week was pathetic enough to make one feel sad for the poor dear man, as they say in the old country. With little emotional affect he read a lecture about his ''new strategy,'' which was in fact nothing more than a new tactic, growled at Iran and Syria, threatened the Iraqi government, and promised that the United States would emerge the winner in Iraq.

The notion that 20,000 more American troops would pacify Baghdad was farcical. If one really intended to stop internecine war between two religious tribes, one would have had to promise a lot more Americans. John Keegan, the famous English military historian and commentator, estimated that pacification would take 50,000 troops. Various American military experts suggested that it would require at least 100,000 soldiers and Marines. If one calculates two American soldiers or Marines for every 1,000 people in a city, as does the Army's counter-insurgency manual, 140,000 fighting men (which excludes the half of the troops in Iraq who are not combat soldiers) would be required.

The mountain labored and gave birth to a mouse.

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America

A must read book; you can buy it from Buzzflash

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America (Hardcover):

In a 2004 article that served as the basis for his new book pulling the fire alarm on thuggish Christian fascism, Chris Hedges recalled:

'Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the 'Christian fascists.'In a 2004 article that served as the basis for his new book pulling the fire alarm on thuggish Christian fascism, Chris Hedges recalled: For more of this book review^

Mondale: Cheney cooks up lousy advice - Yahoo! News

Mondale was a lot more polite than he should have been.

Cheney is a criminal, period. He has done more than step over the line.

Furthermore, this president has been served as he has wished to be served.

He knew in 2004, that the Vice had been the nexus of stove-piped Intel. in an effort to deceive the nation into an unnecessary and disastrous war; a war that this president wanted.

He could have dumped Cheney from the ticket if he was being ill-served. He chose not to. No more needs to be said about this president being ill-served. He has been told the facts, by Generals and others. He doesn't listen and people who speak up get fired.

Mondale: Cheney cooks up lousy advice - Yahoo! News:

ATHENS, Ga. - Vice President Dick Cheney has bullied federal agencies and given absurd advice about the nation's risk and Iraq, Walter Mondale said Friday, adding that never would have been tolerated when Mondale was vice president.

'I think that Cheney has stepped way over the line,' Mondale said at the opening of a three-day conference about former President Jimmy Carter at the University of Georgia.

Mondale, who served under Carter, said Cheney and his assistants pressured federal agencies as they prepared information for President Bush.

'I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq,' he said.

That does not serve the president, because he needs facts, Mondale said.

Huckabee spent State Funds to Destroy Hard Drives in His Office

Another Rethug is hiding something!

This man plans to run for president, maybe. We need to et to the bottom of this, before 2008

NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas' News Source:

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee depleted the governor’s office emergency fund in the final weeks of his administration in part to pay for the destruction of computer hard drives in his office.

That left Gov. Mike Beebe, who replaced Huckabee on Jan. 9, with no emergency funds for the last half of fiscal 2007.

Documents that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, describe the destruction of the computer drives, as ordered by Huckabee’s office, and Huckabee complaining strongly about his cell phone and Blackberry not working.

A memo dated Jan. 9 from a state Department of Information Systems official to Huckabee told of the “disposition of data maintained” by the department “for the office of the governor” during Huckabee’s tenure.:

“All drives have been subsequently crushed under the supervision of a designee of your office,” wrote Gary Underwood, the agency’s chief technology officer and a former Huckabee staff member.

Transcript of Gonzales-Leahy exchange on Arar

A must read:

Little Albert could be looking at impeachment, himself.

TheStar.com - Unassigned - Transcript of Gonzales-Leahy exchange on Arar:

This is an edited transcript of the exchange yesterday between U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy.


LEAHY: You know, I live about an hour's drive from Canada and go up there often. And in Vermont, we tend to get a lot of Canadian news, just radio and so on.

But something that made the news here in the United States was the question of Maher Arar. -- M-A-H-E-R A-R-A-R, in case I mispronounce it.

He's a Canadian citizen. He was returning home from a vacation. Plane stops at JFK in New York and continues on to Canada.

He was detained by federal agents at JFK airport, 2002, on suspicion of ties to terrorism.

He was deported to Syria; was not sent on the couple of hundred miles to Canada and turned over to the Canadian authorities, but he was sent thousands of miles away to Syria. He was held for 10 months.

He was held in abhorrent conditions there and those sending him back must have known he was going to be tortured.

The Canadian government has apologized for its part in this debacle. In fact, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police actually resigned over it. The country is prepared to compensate him for it. This is an edited transcript of the exchange yesterday between U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy.

Fox Poll: More Americans Dislike Bush Than ... Cheney!

Only because they have to see more of Bush. Familiarity does breed contempt, as they say.

Cheney stays in his hidey-hole quite a bit. when he isn't slithering around back channels, doing God knows what.

Fox Poll: More Americans Dislike Bush Than ... Cheney! TPMCafe:

This has to be a milestone: A new poll has found that the American people dislike President Bush more than they dislike ... Dick Cheney. The poll — by Fox News, of all people — finds that President Bush's unfavorable rating is 58%, while Cheney's unpopularity rating is five points lower at 53%. Bush can, however, still take some small solace from the fact that his approval rating is one point higher than Cheney's; the President's is 38%, while the VP's is 37%.

Judge sends Ney to prison for 30 months

He should be barred from lobbying as well.

Otherwise, he will just be back in D.C. in a few months, working for some defense/security contractor.

Judge sends Ney to prison for 30 months - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - Former Republican Rep. Bob Ney was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Friday for trading political favors for golf trips, campaign donations and other gifts in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Ney, the first congressman convicted in the federal bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides and Bush administration officials, pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy and making false statements.

The six-term lawmaker from Heath, Ohio, who once chaired the powerful House Administration Committee, accepted golf and gambling trips, tickets to sporting events, free meals and campaign donations arranged by Abramoff and his associates.

'You violated a host of laws that you as a congressman are sworn to enforce and uphold,' said U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, who recommended that Ney serve his time at a federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va., about an hour-and-a-half drive from his birthplace in Wheeling.

Ney will also serve two years probation and must pay a $6,000 fine. Huvelle recommended he enter a prison alcohol rehabilitation program for treatment of a drinking problem Ney has spoken of in recent months. Completing the program could knock about a year off his sentence.

Pelosi comments draw White House ire

Spokeswoman says that Pelosi's remrks are "poisonous," and not in keeping with bipartisanship, as Pelosi questions Bush's motives, not his policies.

Memo to Dana Perino:

What has been poisonous to this country is a Congress that has alllowed a delusional president to tear two nations to pieces: Our and the Iraqis.

What is equally poisonous, is Juniors cult following, who keep threatening to kill people and bomb buildings, or simply suggesting, to the more slack-jawed of the group, that such acts would be patriotic and a fine thing to do.. Bush, nor any member of his administration has, even once, disassociated him from any of these deranged remarks.

What do you think bipartisanship is, never uttering a discouraging word, while Junior and the Dick drive this nation over a cliff, continue to do irreversible damage to the enviornment, thus affecting the enitre world and refusing all advice on the nightmare in the middle-east they have created and how to get the hell out of it, and by all accounts, fully intend to make matters worse by blindly following the NeoCon game plan straight through the gates of hell?

That is not bipartisanship. It is treason!

Furthermore, it is not what we elected Democratic leaders to do. We want them to challenge Bush. Actually, we want them to impeach and convict him for his mmany crimes.

You people have called anyone who dissents, or even runs against a Rethug, a terrorist appeasers; treasonous pile of camel poop. That wasn't very bipartisan either.

Junior's policies have been questioned by damned near every conscious being in this planet, still he keeps falling in the same hole, over and over again; taking actions that have no chance of accomplishing his own stated goals. Sooner or later, someone should start questioning his motives, because either he is the most retarded person in officialdom, and that's going some, or he is lying about what his ever-changing motives and goals are.

Pelosi comments draw White House ire - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - In a critique the White House labeled as 'poisonous,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) charged Friday that President Bush is wading too deeply into Iraq and said it should not be 'an obligation of the American people in perpetuity.'

Pelosi said Bush 'has dug a hole so deep he can't even see the light on this. It's a tragedy. It's a stark blunder.'

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino retorted that Pelosi's comments were 'poisonous,' referring to the portion of Pelosi's statement that asserted Bush is rushing new troops there and betting that Congress won't cut off funds once they're in battle.

'It's certainly not in keeping with the bipartisan spirit and civility that the Democrats pledged and that we looked forward to,' Perino said. 'Speaker Pelosi was arguing in essence that the president is putting young men and women in harm's way for tactical political reasons. She's questioning his motivations rather than questioning his policies.'

Democratic support is building around a resolution that would rebuff Bush's plans for more troops to Iraq, and more Republicans are looking for ways to sign on to the measure.

And Now for Something Not Completely Different

Yep, the knot-head in the W.H brought this on himself, when he said that we owned space and would do as we damned well pleased with it. There would be no treaties about that.

What are he and his corporate buddies gonna do if the Chinese decide to hit communication satellites. So much for global communication, corporate or otherwise.

p m carpenter's commentary: And Now for Something Not Completely Different:

At least this morning's above-the-fold story didn't contain the word, 'Iraq.' My geopolitical awareness was beginning to suffer the narrowness that every international crisis brings, and the Iraq crisis, nearly four years grinding, was taking a predictable toll: The only real estate that mattered any longer, it seemed, was a parcel of desert populated by warring Sunnis and Shiites sandwiched between other warring Sunnis and Shiites in training.

So God bless the Chinese, who literally went ballistic and zapped a weather satellite in orbit last week. Their high-wire act of technological demolition caused 'concern' of crisis proportion among U.S. officials, reminding me that once we dispense with laying waste to the cradle of civilization, we do have at least one other enemy -- this time a worthy one -- waiting geopolitically elsewhere in the wings.

PAUL KRUGMAN: Surging and Purging

Soviet-style purges won't be the last or worst thing they do. They are running scared.

Welcome to Pottersville: PAUL KRUGMAN: Surging and Purging:

There’s something happening here, and what it is seems completely clear: the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.

Last month, Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Eastern District of Arkansas, received a call on his cellphone while hiking in the woods with his son. He was informed that he had just been replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican political operative who has spent the last few years working as an opposition researcher for Karl Rove.

Mr. Cummins’s case isn’t unique. Since the middle of last month, the Bush administration has pushed out at least four U.S. attorneys, and possibly as many as seven, without explanation. The list includes Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for San Diego, who successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham, a Republican congressman, on major corruption charges.

Dems seek to bar U.S. attacks on Iran

....and if he does it anyway?

Then what?

Dems seek to bar U.S. attacks on Iran - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - Democratic leaders in Congress lobbed a warning shot Friday at the White House not to launch an attack against Iran without first seeking approval from lawmakers.

'The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization,' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., told the National Press Club.

The administration has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs and contributing technology and bomb-making materials for insurgents to use against U.S. and Iraqi security forces.
President Bush said last week the U.S. will 'seek out and destroy' networks providing that support. While top administration officials have said they have no plans to attack Iran itself, they have declined to rule it out.

This week, the administration sent another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf — the second to deploy in the region. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the buildup was intended to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made America vulnerable. The U.S. is also deploying anti-missile Patriot missiles in the region.

Impeach Gonzales

WTF does this mean?

Oh, by the way, doesn't the Declaration of Independence plainly state that if a government fails to take the best interests of the citizens to heart and behaves in a tyrannical fashion, the people, not only have the right, but a duty to replace it?

This country was born out of rebellion against tyranny, so why should Habeas Corpus be suspended for such a rebellion, in this country?

Our founders knew damn well that tyrants would rise to power in this country, sooner or later, even with all the safeguards they put in place. Tyranny is as much a part of human nature as, say, authoritarianism.

So, how are tyrants brought down and a new government established and what is the official definition of "rebellion"?

Daily Kos: Impeach Gonzales:

Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

Gregory To Tony Snow: "What's An Appropriate Way To Dissent"?

Tony Snow is insufferable; the perfect choice to speak for this insufferable administration.

Gregory To Tony Snow: "What's An Appropriate Way To Dissent"? | TPMCafe:

In today's press briefing, David Gregory pointed out that Dems opposing this or that aspect of President Bush's war policies have long been painted by the White House as friends of the enemy. He then asks the key follow-up question: 'What's an appropriate way to dissent?' It's a good question, and Snow has a fair amount of trouble coming up with an answer to it -- at first he appears to start denying that this charge has ever been lodged at Dems before cutting himself off. View it here.^