Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies |

Just a thought, floating through my consciousness; what would you do is you were told that you had, maybe, a year to live, at best?

It's a question we might want to be asking ourselves.

Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies | Iran | Guardian Unlimited:

Transatlantic rift emerges over how to handle crisis
· America builds up its naval forces in the Gulf

Ian Traynor in Brussels and Jonathan Steele
Wednesday January 31, 2007
The Guardian

Senior European policy-makers are increasingly worried that the US administration will resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its suspect nuclear programme.

As transatlantic friction over how to deal with the Iranian impasse intensifies, there are fears in European capitals that the nuclear crisis could come to a head this year because of US frustration with Russian stalling tactics at the UN security council. 'The clock is ticking,' said one European official. 'Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed.'

Bush's tall tales of terrorist plots get K.O.ed

How stupid does Bush believe we are?

Well, he is the champion of "projection," after all.

Lawdy, Miss Claudy!

Crooks and Liars:

Keith Olbermann takes a look at Bush's claims about thwarted terrorists plots and fact checks them. Pray tell, what shall he ever find?

Olbermann: Upon his appointment, Sir Norman Bettison made one of the strangest comments of the year: 'The threat of terrorism,' he says, 'is lurking out there like Jaws 2.' Sir Norman did not exactly mine the richest ore for his analogy of warning. A critic once said of the flopping sequel to the classic film: 'You're gonna need a better screenplay.'

Does Anyone Believe Anything These People Say?

The Libby Trail begins to draw a caricature of the Bush White House and just how it has always functioned, from November 2000, before it was a White House, right up to the present.

For most of us, the Libby trial has brought no real surprises. We venture to guess, however, that it will be an eye-opener for quite a few.

White House Watch -- News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration - washingtonpost.com:

From the first time the White House was asked about allegations that senior officials had exposed a CIA agent's identity as part of a plot to discredit an administration critic, the answer was consistent.

As spokesman Scott McClellan put it as early as July 22, 2003: 'That is not the way this President or this White House operates.'

Hold Out Bush/Cheney Republicans – and Lieberman – Betray our GIs and Help Sign Their Death Warrants

Well said.

Hold Out Bush/Cheney Republicans – and Lieberman – Betray our GIs and Help Sign Their Death Warrants | BuzzFlash:

The likes of McCain, Graham, McConnell and Lieberman betray our GIs and abandon them to their deaths.

Nothing could be more tragically ironic at this time than the issuance of a report from the Inspector General for the Defense Dept. that our troops are inadequately supplied, protected and armed.

According to Business Week, 'The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn't been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to 'effectively complete their missions' and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General's office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.'

Report: FBI conducting sweeping Internet wiretaps that mirror warantless NSA surveillance

My response to this: Increase criticism of the Bush administration 10 fold; cc. email to the FBI and blog-posts as well.

Actually, we are not at all surprised by this. The minute Gonzales said they were putting NSA surveillance under FISA (well sort of) we suspected that they had simply moved the program.

The Raw Story | Report: FBI conducting sweeping Internet wiretaps that mirror warantless NSA surveillance:

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed,' according to a story posted Tuesday on ZDNet, a technology news website.

Agents engaging in investigations appear to be amassing huge databases of data on thousands of Internet users, rather than eyeing the activities of particular suspects -- similar to the sweeping approach employed by the National Security Agency. The NSA wiretaps program drew congressional uproar after it was revealed the program was taking place without supervision by a court.

Chavez a threat to democracy, US intelligence chief says

We need to start calling people on their use of the term "Democracy," when what they are really talking about is "free markets," (which are never really free) not necessarily free, self-determining people.

It isn't Democracy that leads to a lack of prosperity for the many, but the incredible greed of the few and lust for power in some.

That can be said of any economic system, capitalism or communism.

Unless governments recognize the problem as a problem of human nature, and institute laws which discourage such demons of our nature and encourage our better nature, no economic system will be anything but deeply flawed and bound to fail, taking down, with it, any form of government.

The Raw Story | Chavez a threat to democracy, US intelligence chief says:

Washington- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez exports a form of 'radical populism' throughout Latin America that poses a threat to democracy, the top US intelligence official said Tuesday. John Negroponte, during hearings on his nomination to become deputy secretary of state, warned that frustration in Latin America about the lack of prosperity under democratic governments could further fuel the populism advocated by Chavez.

US-Venezuelan relations have suffered during Chavez's presidency. Chavez has traveled the world lambasting what he considers American imperialism and in September called US President George W Bush 'the devil.'

Can Humanity Survive? Want to Bet on It? - New York Times

Will our own fear do us all in?

A far more likely scenario, I think. Fear does strange things to people, one of which is to make them stupid and gullible. The years since 9/11/01 are a perfect example of that phenomenon, in the U.S.

I'm getting a little annoyed with the term, "existential threat," being thrown around by simply everyone, these days.

Being born is an existential threat, because it means you're gonna die. It's only a matter of time.

On that, I will bet.

John Tierney: Can Humanity Survive? Want to Bet on It? - New York Times:

Sixty ago years, a group of physicists concerned about nuclear weapons created the Doomsday Clock and set its hands at seven minutes to midnight. Now, the clock’s keepers, alarmed by new dangers like climate change, have moved the hands up to 11:55 p.m.

My first reaction was a sigh of relief. After all, the 1947 doomsday prediction marked the start of a golden age. Never have so many humans lived so long — and maybe never so peacefully — as during the past 60 years. The per-capita rate of violence, particularly in the West, seems remarkably low by historical standards. If the clock’s keepers are worried once again, their track record suggests we’re in for even happier days.

But there’s one novel twist that gives me pause. When the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced two weeks ago in Washington that it was adjusting the clock, it was joined in a trans-Atlantic press conference by scientists at the Royal Society in London. One of them was the society’s president, Martin Rees, a new breed of doom-sayer.

World Scientists Near Consensus on Warming

Time is clearly of the essence.

Can we afford two more years of Bush and his science hating administration?

World Scientists Near Consensus on Warming - New York Times:

PARIS, Jan. 29 — Scientists from across the world gathered Monday to hammer out the final details of an authoritative report on climate change that is expected to project centuries of rising temperatures and sea levels unless there are curbs in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Scientists involved in writing or reviewing the report say it is nearly certain to conclude that there is at least a 90 percent chance that human-caused emissions are the main factor in warming since 1950. The report is the fourth since 1990 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is overseen by the United Nations.

The report, several of the authors said, will describe a growing body of evidence that warming is likely to cause a profound transformation of the planet.

Three large sections of the report will be forthcoming during the year. The first will be a summary for policy makers and information on basic climate science, which is expected to be issued on Friday.

Among the findings in recent drafts: (Read On ^)

Bush Enablers in The Senate Plan To Halt Iraq Vote

Seems they want to protect the preznit from embarrassment.

God forbid that Bush should feel the pangs of embarrassment.

After all, he has only been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and even more, who are maimed for life.

Senate Allies of Bush Work to Halt Iraq Vote - New York Times:

With the Senate expected to reach votes on possible resolutions sometime next week, the signs of the new campaign seeped out after a weekly closed-door lunch in which Republican senators engaged in what participants described as a heated debate over how to approach the issue.

The new effort by President Bush’s allies, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is aimed at blocking two non-binding resolutions directly critical of the White House that had appeared to be gaining broad support among Democrats and even some Republicans.

Republicans skeptical of the troop buildup said some of their colleagues had begun to suggest that opponents of the White House plan ran the risk of undermining Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new military commander in Iraq, as well as Mr. Bush.

Judith Miller (yes, that one) Torpedos Libby

...and it's back to the Libby Trial!

Kinda makes you feel sorry for Libby's lawyers. Seems they are pulling at loose straws.

Judge Walton had better be extremely careful; the only chance they have is a technicality of some kind.

Miller Testimony Contradicts Libby Story - washingtonpost.com:

"WASHINGTON -- Reporter Judith Miller testified Tuesday that former vice presidential aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby identified a CIA operative to her on two occasions on dates earlier than he has told investigators he first heard the information from another reporter.

Miller, the former New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail trying to avoid revealing these conversations, said Libby identified the wife of a prominent Iraq war critic as a CIA employee in face-to-face meetings on June 23 and July 8, 2003.

Reverend Moon's Anti-Obama Agit-Prop

The Chief Moonie Ding-bat, new world messiah needs to stay the hell out of American politics, unless he wishes to lose a lot of money in these United States.

Robert Parry | Reverend Moon's Anti-Obama Agit-Prop:

If you've ever wondered how agit-propaganda works, you might take a look at the latest case study from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's media empire - a bogus story about Barack Obama attending a Muslim 'madrassah' when he was six years old, a smear that was then attributed to operatives of Hillary Clinton.

The shrewdness of Moon's Insight magazine story is that it hit two enemies with one anonymously sourced stone, a strategy of slime and divide straight from the textbooks of a spy agency like the CIA.

Only in this case, it is not the CIA planting black propaganda in a foreign publication to undermine some U.S. enemy. It is Moon using his media outlets subsidized by his mysterious foreign money to manipulate and distort the U.S. political process, again.

The Insight 'madrassah' story also turned out to be false. As CNN reported on Jan. 22, the Indonesian school that Obama attended as a child was not a 'madrassah' where sometimes extreme forms of Islam are taught, but rather a well-kept public school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Jakarta.

The boys and girls wear school uniforms and are taught a typical school curriculum today as they were 39 years ago when Obama was a student there, while living with his mother in Indonesia, reported CNN correspondent John Vause.

Off the Rails

Bush and his Rat-licking lies and razors in policy apples.

Greg Palast | Off the Rails:

There was that tongue again. When the President lies he's got this weird nervous tick: He sticks the tip of his tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat.

In his State of the Union tonight the President did his tongue thing 124 times - my kids kept count.

But it wasn't all rat-licking lies.

Most pundits concentrated on Iraq and wacky health insurance stuff. But that's just bubbles and blather. The real agenda is in the small stuff. The little razors in the policy apple, the nasty little pieces of policy shrapnel that whiz by between the appearances of the Presidential tongue.

First, there was the announcement the regime will, 'give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers.' In case you missed that one, the President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.

There's a problem with that idea. It's against the law. The law in question is the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers thought the government had no right to keep track on a citizen unless there is evidence they have committed, or planned to commit, a crime.

Fleischer Testimony Contradicts Libby Defense

Common sense contradicts Libby defense.

Fleischer Testimony Contradicts Libby Defense:

Defense won't know ex-White House spokesman immunity details.

Washington - Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday that then-colleague I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby told him over lunch that the wife of a prominent war critic worked at the CIA.

Fleischer said the conversation happened on Monday, July 7, 2003, the day after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's op-ed article appeared in the New York Times, and he was a guest on 'Meet the Press,' accusing the administration of 'twisting' intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs. Libby - according to prosecutors - told Fleischer at lunch at the White House that the information that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA was 'hush-hush.'

That is the same day that the White House issued a statement saying that the '16 words' in the State of the Union address about Iraq seeking nuclear materials from Africa, should not have been included in the speech.

Fleischer was about to go overseas with the president and a number of other officials on an official delegation to various African countries. Fleischer would be traveling with the White House press corps on the trip.

.

Libby Trial: Will Ari Hang 'Em All

Could be...........

His testimony begins today, and by the time he's through the trial could be over, except for the rest of the witnesses Fitzgerald can crucify, as the rest of the trial drags on, gouging bigger and bigger holes in the administration's case for war and revealing more criminal slime.

"Bush Administration Is Focus of Leak Inquiry":

On the evening of September 27, 2003, Ari Fleischer logged onto a computer and read a story published on the Washington Post's web site - a story that would be printed above the fold on the front page of the paper the next morning.

'Bush Administration Is Focus of Leak Inquiry,' the headline read. 'CIA Agent's Identity Was Leaked to Media.'

The story, reported by the Washington Post's Mike Allen and Dana Priest, said that 'two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife' and that as a result the Justice Department was launching an informal inquiry to find out who leaked the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to syndicated columnist Robert Novak two months earlier.

Fleischer cringed when he read the news. Worse, the story said that whoever was responsible for the leak might have violated an obscure 1982 federal law that carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison and tens of thousand of dollars in fines 'for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.' (The law actually states that officials who 'knowingly' disclose information about an undercover agent could be prosecuted under this statute. The Washington Post incorrectly characterized the law.)

THE ANGRY ONE: Chuck Hagel Sounds Off

Go, Chuck, Go. Tell it like it is.

Hagel is one of us who learned the lessons of Vietnam, while Cheney, Bush and the idiots in this administration learned nothing but how to dodge serving in the wars they believe in.

THE ANGRY ONE: GQ Features on men.style.com:

Chuck Hagel came home from Vietnam in 1968 with shrapnel in his chest, scars on his face, and an unyielding certainty that the freedom of men is theirs alone to win. As an infantryman, he had not bombed from above or commanded from behind; he had stood knee-deep in the muck, face-to-face with the enemy, firing on men and watching them die. It’s a hard memory to leave behind. Even after four decades and a lifetime of change—a fortune earned in the investment-banking business; a decade as a senator from Nebraska; and a position as one of the GOP’s conservative torchbearers with a shot at the White House—Hagel has put everything on the line to oppose the war in Iraq, refusing to send a “surge” of new troops into battle, or to forget the lessons he brought home from the killing fields long ago.

Sitting in his office on a recent afternoon, Hagel leaned back in his armchair to explain, in a voice reminiscent of sandpaper on rough oak, how he was deceived by the president, and won’t let it happen again.

Media Downplays Anti-War March Size

Again, what else is new?

The march in August 2004, the Sunday before the RNC was at least 1/2 million strong, but it went uncovered, by the MSM.

September, 2005, saw, at least, 350,000 encircle the White House.

Nothing new here, except that this protest was, at least, mentioned, even if it was downplayed.

Danny Schechter: Media Downplays Anti-War March Size | BuzzFlash:

New York: January 28: This past weekend's anti-war march was big, say the organizers and I have no reason to doubt them. They made this claim:

'

Washington, D.C. -- In a massive showing of public opposition to the Iraq war, 500,000 people filled the streets around the Capitol today, completely surrounding the building. Participants converged on the National Mall from all over the country to voice their support for an end to the conflict in Iraq.

Three hundred buses rolled in early this morning, coming from more than 40 states and including at least 20 buses filled by New York City trade unions. United For Peace & Justice, the march coordinator, called this one of the largest and most diverse demonstrations since the war began.

According to UFPJ National Coordinator and veteran peace and justice leader Leslie Cagan, 'This is a decisive moment in the history of this country and of our peace movement. In November, the people of this nation voted for peace. We are here today, all ages, from all walks of life, to hold our elected officials to the mandate of the people.'

Add in protests in the rest of the country and it was even bigger.

Worldwide, 'War on Terror' Used as Excuse to Oppress, Charge Activists - Yahoo! News

C'mon everyone, all together now:

"WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!"

It is our right to peacefully assemble and petition our government. We plan on doing a lot more of it.

Start messing with our Bill of Rights or rounding us up and a lot of people will get hurt or wake up dead.

Don't push us, Junior!

Worldwide, 'War on Terror' Used as Excuse to Oppress, Charge Activists - Yahoo! News:

NEW YORK, Jan 24 (OneWorld) - Government leaders across the world must stop using anti-terror laws as a tool to suppress opposition movements and deprive ordinary citizens of their due civil and human rights, say international civil society groups attending the World Social Forum in Kenya this week.

'The 'so-called war on terror' is being used by both democratic and repressive governments alike to justify restrictions on civil society activities,' said Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of the World Alliance for Citizens' Participation (CIVICUS), a Johannesburg, South Africa-based coalition of hundreds of advocacy groups.

On Tuesday, in collaboration with the international human rights group Oxfam and the U.S.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Naidoo's group held a news conference where they charged that many governments were committing human rights abuses and imposing unlawful restrictions on the movement of activists.

From Tunisia to Tonga and from the United States to Uzbekistan, the voices of activists and organizations are being silenced, said the groups' representatives, noting that many governments were trying to justify new security laws as a means to protect their citizens, but in practice, they were using them to create a climate of fear.

Bush Definat in Face of Protests in D.C.

So, what else is new?

It isn't as if these protests haven't been happening ever since before the war began.

Independent Online Edition > Americas:

As thousands of demonstrators protested against the Iraq war outside the Capitol yesterday, top Congressional Republicans have warned President George Bush that his controversial troop increase has a few months at the very most to show results.

The threat that his own party will turn against him is the clearest sign yet of the intensifying pressure on Mr Bush after the cool reaction to his State of the Union plea to lawmakers to 'give a chance' to his plan to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and al-Anbar province, seat of the Sunni insurgency.

But the public overwhelmingly opposes the plan, by a majority of two to one, while the Iraq débâcle has driven down Mr Bush's approval rating to barely 30 per cent, a level rarely reached since Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate.

The 'bring the troops home' rally, held in brilliant sunshine on the Washington Mall, was intended to highlight not only the 3,100 US troops who have died, but also the countless thousands of Iraqi civilian dead.

Biden: Only 20 Senators Will Support Troop Increase

I hope Biden is right!

Biden: Only 20 Senators Will Support Troop Increase | The Huffington Post:

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee predicted today that no more than 20 senators would vote to support the president's troop increase for Iraq, and he and other Democrats angrily contested the Bush administration's suggestion that their criticism of the war was emboldening the nation's enemies.

It remains to be seen whether this prediction by the Democratic chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, will come to fruition once debate begins this week or next on resolutions critical of President Bush's new war plan. Republican leaders are working hard to limit defections, and competing resolutions may dilute support for that resolution backed by Mr. Biden that finds a troop increase would not be 'in the national interest.'

Schumer: Iraq Vote Will Send Shockwaves Through White House

No it won't!

Junior and Vice have made it abundantly clear that they do not give a rat's ass what anyone thinks, and nothing Congress can do will stop them from plowing forward with the PNAC Doctrine.

Schumer: Iraq Vote Will Send Shockwaves Through White House | The Huffington Post:

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer predicted a large number of lawmakers in Bush's Republican Party -- possibly 'even a majority' -- would support the resolution condemning the proposed deployment.

'And that will send shockwaves through the White House and through the country,' Schumer told NBC.

Republicans Scared Stiff of Bush's War Bumbles

They ought to be!

If they think 2006 was bad for the GOP, they should try to imagine what 2008 will look like.

Wonder when it will dawn on them that Junior doesn't give a damn about the party of his father?

The Blog | Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Republicans Scared Stiff of Bush's War Bumbles | The Huffington Post:

A bull-headed President Bush has made a career out of thumbing his nose at Congressional Democrats that take shots at his Iraq war folly. And now he's doing the same with the few Republicans that have dared break the code of silence and slam his Iraq war policy. When Republican Senator Olympia Snowe said she would back the Senate's non-binding resolution that gently put the brakes on war escalation, Bush lashed out that it wouldn't change anything.

And in his State of the Union speech, he again made it clear that he'll do as he pleases when it comes to squandering more billions and wasting more American lives in the quagmire.

But defiance on Iraq is one thing, and domestic political realities are another. Massive public discontent with Bush's hopelessly flawed and failed Iraq war policy cost the Republicans big in the mid-term elections, and with a slew of key Republicans up for reelection in 2008, they are terrified that it cost them even bigger in the 2008 elections, and that includes the loss of the White House.

Bush can't dodge Webb's critique

Well said......

Bush can't dodge Webb's critique - Newsday.com:

The president's State of the Union address was rocked Tuesday by the improvised explosive device set off by the freshman senator from Virginia. The eight-minute rebuttal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb tracked closer to the reality of the current affairs of state than the 49-minute ramble of George W. Bush.

Having squeaked past Republican George Allen for his seat, Webb is stranger neither to conflict nor to the written word. The novelist, filmmaker, Vietnam veteran and author of books on military strategy is also a former U.S. secretary of the Navy. Not one to suffer fool politicians, Webb reportedly resigned as secretary rather than shrink the Navy.

Iran is Going to Be Attacked

Who, indeed?

We cannot except anything less than full accountability under the law. Doing so would be treason on our part.

Our national well-being depends on official accountability, this time.

There must be no pardons, as the court of public opinion will not recognize any such pardons, on the grounds of national security or ending long national nightmares. That won't fly this time.

There can be no bargains. No such bargains can be made in the name of the people. We want the entire force of the law to be applied to members of this administration.

If Congress allows Junior and company to attack Iran, given that they must surely know, or they are much less informed than we are, that Bush is doing his dead level best to lure Iran into over-reacting to on-going provocations . It is always possible, that if the Iranian government doesn't over-react to Bushite taunting, an incident may still happen.

Congress would never know what hit them.

The time to act is now!


Iran is Going to Be Attacked:

Who gets to decide what laws are followed and what laws are not followed? Who decides who will be charged with a crime and who will give 'state's evidence' and be given amnesty, or just not charged and allowed to walk after the commission of a crime? The one that usually decides that is the District Attorney that has jurisprudence over the crime. Things that they consider are what the crime was, the person who committed the crime, whether that person that committed the crime is likely to do it again, what is on the court calender, the severity of the crime, and also if the crime was the kind of a crime that if ignored, might set a dangerous precedent and therefore a dangerous message to the community.

CHENEY IN HIS ' LAST THROES '

Most all of it goes all the way to the Oval, not just the OVP.

The president is not allowed to plead out-of-the-loop.

Loopy won't work either.

They are all toast!

CHENEY IN HIS ' LAST THROES ':

Like a rabid bear being smoked from its lair, America's most dangerous unindicted criminal Dick ' Iraq resistance in its last throes ' Cheney has been forced out of his self imposed bunker by the ' Scooter ' Libby trial revelations that Cheney himself ( as predicted here three years ago ) was personally involved in an effort to try to discredit a critic of the Iraq War ~ U.S. Envoy Joseph Wilson.

The Pandora's box of Cheney/Bush abuses of power is starting to open ~ and virtually all of its deceptions and scandals begin with Cheney

Here's another perfect example ~ courtesy of the American Progress Report. (LINK ABOVE)

Putting it on the Table: Kucinich Says Bush Risking Impeachment

WTF?

Do we have to wait for the fool to start a nuclear war before we impeach and try him and his gang of thugs?

Would it not be a just thing to start preemptive impeachment?

Putting it on the Table: Kucinich Says Bush Risking Impeachment:

'The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding.' - Dennis Kucinich"

Will Rove Testify?

Does he have a choice?

I imagine he has already given up just about everyone to save his own sorry, fat ass. Can he stop cooperating now, and risk getting indicted?

Rove would throw his own wife under a bus, if he had to.

Will Rove Testify? - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com:

Jan. 26, 2007 - White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.

Returning to the scene of the original crime

Anyone who will steal an election in a Democracy is capable of anything.

If we don't know that by now, we are hopeless.

Those who steal power will abuse it.

The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President (Paperback):

With the ongoing crisis of America being held hostage by a rogue, runaway executive branch, we thought it was time to return to the scene of the original crime that made this horror possible: the theft of an election from the American people by five members of the Supreme Court.

It may be January of 2007 when we write this updated commentary on Vincent Bugliosi's indictment of the Supreme Court coup leaders, which Molly Ivins (now seriously ill with a relapse of cancer) called the 'J'Accuse' of the new millenium, but we are not getting over it.

How can you get over a man who lost a presidential election by more than 540,000 votes acting like a dictator for six years -- and doing everything in his power to build the institutional constructs of fascism?

Focus Is on Cheney at Libby Trial

The focus should be on Cheney.

Libby didn't commit perjury and obstruction in a vacuum, nor did he out a CIA operative, who just happened to be an expert on non-proliferation, with Iran as her main focus, all by himself.

Libby is a lawyer, with Washington, D.C. experience. He had to have known that outing a CIA NOC was an unlawful act, especially when doing so took down a CIA front company and put the lives of CIA assets, abroad, in danger. I doubt seriously that he would act on his own.

The very fact that he lied his ass off shows a consciousness of guilt. He knows damn well, what he did was unlawful, as well as amoral.

NPR : Focus Is on Cheney at Libby Trial:

January 27, 2007 · A week of testimony in the perjury trial of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, reveals more about the defense strategy, and about the way the vice president's office works behind closed doors.

Clinton concedes role in authorizing war

Clinton says authorizing Bush's war was a mistake, but says that he misused the authorization.

No Shit. Did anyone expect this president to do otherwise. Bill could have told her that the Bushites were hell-bent on carrying out a Neocon plan which he had seen and refused to act on.

Senator Clinton needs to get real!

Clinton concedes role in authorizing war - Yahoo! News:

DES MOINES, Iowa - New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton blamed President Bush on Saturday for misusing authority given him by Congress to act in Iraq, but conceded 'I take responsibility' for her role in allowing that to happen.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton also said she would not cede black votes to Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) and that she had proven as a U.S. senator that gender is irrelevant.

Of her husband, the former president, she said he would have a role in the campaign but 'I'm the one running for president.'

Clinton was making her first campaign swing through this early nominating state, which twice voted for
Bill Clinton for president. She met with key activists and held a raucous town hall meeting with 1,500 cheering backers and hundreds of journalists.

'I have said clearly and consistently for quite some time that I regret the way the president misused the authority,' said Clinton. 'He misled Congress and the country on what he was seeking and what he intended to do.'

The responsibility Clinton said she accepts was helping clear the way for Bush's path in Iraq.

Crowds on both coasts protest Iraq war

Silence, now, is treason!

Crowds on both coasts protest Iraq war - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of
Iraq.

Celebrities, a half-dozen lawmakers and protesters from distant states rallied in the capital under a sunny sky, seizing an opportunity to press their cause with a Congress restive on the war and a country that has turned against the conflict.

Marching with them was Jane Fonda, in what she said was her first anti-war demonstration in 34 years.

'Silence is no longer an option,' Fonda said to cheers from the stage on the National Mall. The actress once derided as 'Hanoi Jane' by conservatives for her stance on Vietnam said she had held back from activism so as not to be a distraction for the Iraq anti-war movement, but needed to speak out now.

The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.

Sen. Kerry blasts U.S. foreign policy

The sickening thing about it all is that we knew it all in 2004.

We knew that the war in Iraq was bogus, a war of choice and, therefore, a war crime. We knew that crimes against humanity were being committed. We knew that ignoring Iran and North Korea, except when Bush decided to name-call or saber-rattle, was a horrible mistake.

Sen. Kerry blasts U.S. foreign policy - Yahoo! News:

DAVOS, Switzerland - Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry slammed the foreign policy of the Bush administration on Saturday, saying it has caused the United States to become 'a sort of international pariah.'

The statement came as the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee responded to a question about whether the U.S. government had failed to adequately engage
Iran's government before the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005.

Kerry said the Bush administration has failed to adequately address a number of foreign policy issues.

'When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we sent a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy,' Kerry said.

'So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East — in the world, really. I've never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today.'

McCain TV performance dings candidacy

We can't figure McCain out anymore. His support for Junior is stunningly stupid and was from the git-go

Union Leader - Robert D. Novak: McCain TV performance dings candidacy - Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007:

WASHINGTON – Democratic strategists who had feared Sen. John McCain as the potentially unbeatable Republican candidate for President in 2008 were surprised and delighted by his dour appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday.

One Democratic leader referred to McCain’s performance, in suggesting President Bush’s additional 21,000 troops may be inadequate, as “comatose.” A Republican adviser to McCain said it was one of the worst performances ever on “Meet the Press.” The senator’s defender said he could not be expected to be cheerful about a plan to send additional U.S. troops in harm’s way.

A footnote: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is picking up support for President among House Republicans, headed by former Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Iraq National Intelligence Estimate Will Advise Against Sending More Troops

Hey Congress, No NIE, No surge!

You let them get by with that once, as what you were given before the Iraq war was more like a scrubbed White Paper than an NIE.

Don't make the same mistake again!

NPR: Iraq National Intelligence Estimate Will Advise Against Sending More Troops... | The Huffington Post:

Six months ago, Harper's Ken Silverstein reported that 'in spite of pressure from CIA analysts, intelligence czar John Negroponte was blocking a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq.' National Intelligence Estimates present the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Despite pressure from Congress, the administration insisted it could not complete the NIE until January 2007.

Last week, however, an administration intelligence official told senators that the report is still not complete. According to Silverstein, Senate hearing attendees 'believe that senior intelligence officials are stalling because an NIE will be bleak enough to present a significant political liability.'

Notes: Gergen on Bush's Handling of Iran: "This is Nuts!"

That's putting it mildly.

The Blog | Arianna Huffington: Davos Notes: Gergen on Bush's Handling of Iran: "This is Nuts!" | The Huffington Post:

'This is nuts! It's just crazy to me.'

That was David Gergen's assessment of the Bush administration's failure to use diplomacy to confront the looming Iran nuclear crisis (he is clearly far more unplugged in Davos than he is on CNN).

We were wrapping up our early morning panel, taking a look ahead at the key economic and political issues on America's horizon. Our fellow panelists were Nicholas Kristof and Jay Nordlinger. Paul Laudicina moderated.

Gergen started off the session by evaluating Bush's State of the Union on the two criteria Aristotle said are essential to a great speech, logos and pathos (logic and emotion). He thought the problem with the speech was that it was light on pathos. I thought it was light on pathos, too -- but utterly devoid of even a wisp of logos.

Is McCain becoming a bit unhinged?

Could be....

Nevertheless, why is it that anyone who opposes any Republican's goofy ideas is automatically labeled part of the left fringe or far left?

I wish, that just once, someone would ask these people to explain who they are talking about. Who exactly is the far left?

The Blog | Arianna Huffington: Davos Notes: John McCain Bites My Head Off | The Huffington Post:

Toward the end of the conversation, I raised my hand and asked McCain:

'Given that you've said that you are 'scared to death that it's going to be a very hot spring in Afghanistan,' and given that you have also said, repeatedly, that only a substantial increase in troops in Iraq would make a real difference, why not send the 21,000 troops headed to Iraq, in what is clearly an act of desperation, to Afghanistan instead?'

During his response, McCain equated those opposing his position with 'the far left.'

'Do you consider Sam Brownback part of the far left?' I jumped in.

The Senator flared and told me that if I'd only let him finish his answer instead of interrupting, we could have 'a civil discussion.'

He then continued on about why he supports the escalation (see his speech to the AIE if you need a refresher). Along the way, he denied that he had used the phrase 'the far left.'

Wow, I thought, the Straight Talk Express has run so far off the rails McCain is now denying things he'd said in front of close to two-dozen note-taking journalists not half-a-minute before.

Stop The Iran War Before It Starts

If Bush launches an attack on Iran, he's coming down!

NewsTrust - About this Story - Stop The Iran War Before It Starts:

The Nation - By Scott Ritter - Jan 27, 2007 - Full Story

Democrats in Congress have the opportunity to nip this looming disaster in the bud. The fact that most of the Democratic members of Congress who enjoy tenure voted in favor of the resolutions giving the President such sweeping authority is moot. Democrats are all capable of pleading that they were acting under the influence of a Republican-controlled body and unable to adequately ascertain through effective oversight the genuine state of affairs. This is no longer the case. The Democrats in Congress are in firm control of their own destiny, and with it the destiny of America. A war with Iran will pale in comparison with the current conflict in Iraq...

Bush's Nixonian Poll numbers

Jan. 27, 2007 - President George W. Bush concluded his annual State of the Union address this week with the words “the State of our Union is strong … our cause in the world is right … and tonight that cause goes on.” Maybe so, but the state of the Bush administration is at its worst yet, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. The president’s approval ratings are at their lowest point in the poll’s history—30 percent—and more than half the country (58 percent) say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over, a sentiment that is almost unanimous among Democrats (86 percent), and is shared by a clear majority (59 percent) of independents and even one in five (21 percent) Republicans. Half (49 percent) of all registered voters would rather see a Democrat elected president in 2008, compared to just 28 percent who’d prefer the GOP to remain in the White House.

http://msnbc.com

....and the truth shall set us free.

D.C. Protests! This ain't goin' away!

If the peace movement can live through years of shunning and smearing by the mainstream media and scumbags on the radio and blogosphere; pundits who have no clue what the peace movement of today is about, we can surely endure more time in D.C.. We are talking citizens' occupation of the National Mall.

George"the-decider" Bush cannot seem to hear us when we do our duty, as citizens, and vote. Perhaps he needs to see us in order to hear us. He does have a learning disorder, after all.

WASHINGTON - Protesters energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday that drew tens of thousands and brought Jane Fonda back to the streets.

A sampling of celebrities, a half-dozen members of Congress and busloads of demonstrators from distant states joined in a spirited rally under a sunny sky, seeing opportunity to press their cause in a country that has turned against the war.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. “George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing,” he said, looking out at the masses. “He can’t fire you.” Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: “He can’t fire us.

Story continues ↓

....and the truth shall set us free.

Beyond Net Neutrality: Internet Freedom

Bush likes to talk about the defining fight of our time.

Well, in my mind, that fight is over Net Neutrality.

The Internet is the Central Nervous System of the Peace Movement of today. Without its democratizing effect, public opinion would not have turned against the war in Iraq so soon.

If, as in past American military misadventures, we had only our own corporate news media to rely on for information and background, we would be ill-informed, indeed.

If the Peace Movement only had protests to express our dissent, no one would have heard it at all, even now. No major protest has been covered by the news media, since before the bombing began, in March 2003.

Even though there have been hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of NYC, L.A, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle and other cities around the country, unless one was there, one might never know it.

The Internet is a huge market place of ideas and creativity in finding solutions to the huge problems facing all of us; climate change and fossil fuel depletion , madmen running nations with nukes, health-care and a big population of boomers reaching retirement age.

Finding ways to transit this dangerous time and, in the process, transform our nation and its institutions to better serve the people, is made possible by the Internet.

It isn't technology, in an of itself, that is bad or good, but how we use it. Some have chosen to employ the Net for evil or less than noble purposes. Others try to employ it for good purposes

Some used fire for evil purposes, while others used it to cook food and heat and light their homes.

And so it has been, throughout history, and so it will always be until the hearts of mankind catch up with the minds of mankind and there is grounded balance, making way for right action.

Fight for our Internet!

TomPaine.com - Beyond Net Neutrality: Internet Freedom:

Ben Scott is policy director for Free Press, the national, nonpartisan media reform group.

A year ago, the future of the free and open Internet looked pretty grim. The telephone companies were firing up the engines of one of the biggest lobbying campaigns in history. All told in 2006, they would spend more than $100 million on advertising, lobbying, campaign contributions, slanted research from coin-operated think tanks and an array of astro-turf groups—in an attempt to rewrite communications law. At the top of the priority list was the destruction of “network neutrality.”

Net neutrality is the basic principle that keeps the companies connecting your house to the global network from discriminating against content flowing over the Internet based on its source or ownership. As a result, the Internet has grown into the greatest engine of democratic participation, free speech and economic innovation since the printing press.

When the dust cleared in the 2006 fight in Congress over Net neutrality, the telephone lobby—and its hundreds of millions of dollars—fell short. They were thwarted by the grassroots SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which brought together more than 800 organizations and collected 1.5 million petitions supporting Net neutrality.

Senator Hagel: If He Declares Independence He Will Change The World

Hagel is definitely one of the good guys.

Don't agree with his votes on domestic policies, but he is a genuine hero when it comes to foreign policy and the criminals in the White House.

Senator Hagel: If He Declares Independence He Will Change The World.:

At a time of crisis for America, carnage and chaos throughout the Middle East, renewed danger of East-West conflict, the possiblity of the nuclear arms race rearing its head again, and our country hungering for unity but divided against itself, Senator Hagel Has a historic opportunity that comes once in a generation.

When he said that the Republican Party he voted for during he heroic service in the Mekong Delta is not the Republican Party that exists today, his words were true, and potentially profound.

The Republican Party today is no longer the Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosvelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Under George Bush the United States is no longer the leader of the free world. We are feared by our friends as well as our enemies.

When Senator Hagel joined with Democrats and sponsored the Iraq resolution, and was the only Republican to vote with them in the Foreign Relations Committee, it was a major moment.

When he pointed to the Democrats, then the Republicans, and said the President has no plan, and the Senate damn well better know the plan before sending the troops, it was a true and magic moment in the Senate.

What if Congress Unanimously Voted to Nuke Iran?

Let me just say this about that:

Ordering a nuclear strike,anywhere, is a real good way to die!

What if Congress Unanimously Voted to Nuke Iran?:

What is going on in America today is equivalent to the following fictitious news story:

Jan. 31, 2007: By unanimous vote, the two Houses of Congress passed today a joint 'sense of Congress' resolution directing President Bush to 'launch nuclear strikes against any non-nuclear-weapon state that undertakes military programs or operations that threaten US interests or those of allies and friends'.

The passage of the joint resolution followed a series of appropriation bills enacted by Congress to fund the development, building and deployment of nuclear earth penetrators (so-called 'bunker busters') of a wide range of yields, with the ability to destroy targets of adversary non-nuclear nations that are 'able to withstand non-nuclear attack', particularly UGF's ('underground facilities for military purposes').

The text of the resolution emphasizes the importance ascribed by Congress to launch strikes as soon as possible, to 'demonstrate US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD'.

Bush rebuke draws fire from both war camps

These days, we think someone should throw a net over D.C.

The whole damn place is a loony-bin.......

Bush rebuke draws fire from both war camps - Politics - MSNBC.com:

A non-binding resolution declaring President Bush’s troop increase plan against “the national interest” is stirring debate among pro- and anti-war voters, with neither side sure of its impact.

A day after Bush stood before Congress and asked for the benefit of the doubt, the Democratic-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent its rebuke to the Senate floor on a 12-9 vote, with just one Republican senator in support – Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

Why Bush is no Lyndon Johnson

One difference is, Johnson knew when to go home.

(LBJ wasn't a total murderous idiot, either, but that isn't what our point here.)

Bush doesn't seem to know that the time to go home is yesterday. He should resign, but he won't.

Maybe, it is just as well.

Could be that a constitutional crisis is just what we need in order to deal with the on-going national crisis, called the Bush administration, and their enablers in the GOP and in the corporate news media.

Why Bush is no Lyndon Johnson - Tom Curry - MSNBC.com:

WASHINGTON - The parallel seems irresistible: two presidents, two Texans, each caught in an unpopular war, hobbled in their last two years in the White House, with prospects getting dimmer for persuading Congress to enact their domestic agenda.

When President Lyndon Johnson, mired in the Vietnam War, went before Congress on Jan. 10, 1967, he stood at the same point in his presidency that George Bush stood on Tuesday night: two years to go before the end.

Last week presidential historian Robert Dallek drew the LBJ-Bush parallel, writing that “the two presidents' wartime predicaments represent a strange convergence of two men with vastly different backgrounds and political philosophies.

Memory issues abound in Libby CIA leak trial

Are we to conclude that there is an Alzheimer's epidemic in D.C.?

Memory issues abound in Libby CIA leak trial - Politics - MSNBC.com:

WASHINGTON - The CIA leak trial has, so far, been memorable for forgetfulness.

One by one, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's first three witnesses said they discussed with former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby the fact that a prominent Bush administration critic was married to a CIA operative.

And one by one, each witness conceded a memory problem. One could not actually remember the conversation. Another recalled it differently than when he first spoke to investigators. A third said his memory improved as time went on.

Demanding Truth from Power

How much more of this can we bear?

Can Fitz rescue us from these deranged war-mongers?

Chant it: Fitzmas, Fitzmas, Fitzmas.......

Hey, Congress are you paying attention? You had damned well better be, unless you want to be conspirators after the fact, if not out-right conspirators.

Don't make us have to remind you for whom you are working. If we have to, it won't be pretty.

Demanding Truth from Power:

By David Swanson, TomPaine.com

David Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, Washington director of Democrats.com and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America.

It was disturbing to see so many members of Congress in both parties clamoring to get Bush's autograph on their copies of his State of the Union-not because it was such a dishonest speech that did such a disservice to this country, and not because they should have been handing him subpoenas instead. Rather, my concern arises from the habit Bush has developed following the signing of any document. Typically he goes home, talks to his lawyers, and issues a 'signing statement' the next day radically altering what he has just signed. Bad as that speech was, it could get a lot worse.

Of course the state of our union is what it is regardless, and Bush had almost nothing to say about it. He claimed our economy was thriving, a claim fairly well debunked by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's Democratic response. But, for the most part, when the president got at all specific in his speech, he proposed new initiatives and said little or nothing about the past six miserable years. In the seventh year of his presidency, he proposed balancing the budget in five years and reducing gasoline usage in 10 years.

The Plame Plot thickens; sort of like Molasses in Winter

Merry Fitzmas to us all, and to Bush, Cheney and the NeoCons, a very bad night!

Consortiumnews.com:

In the opening statements at the trial of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, new evidence emerged pointing toward a criminal conspiracy at the highest levels of George W. Bush’s White

Webb to Deliver an Aggressive Rebuttal to Bush Iraq Policy - washingtonpost.com

We tuned Junior out several minutes ago, when the same old lies became to tiresome to bear.

We are now waiting for Senator Webb and hoping in him.

Webb to Deliver an Aggressive Rebuttal to Bush Iraq Policy - washingtonpost.com:

Virginia Sen. James Webb (D) tonight will deliver a blistering eight-minute response to the President's State of the Union address. Aides promised it will be an aggressive challenge to Bush's Iraq policies from the newly empowered Democratic majority in Congress.

Webb will speak live from an historic Capitol Hill meeting room and is likely to display the same pugnacious scowl and blunt manner that won over Virginia voters in November and later generated headlines in a face-to-face exchange with Bush at the White House.

BREAKING: Libby Destroyed Evidence Prior To Testifying, Cheney ‘Deeply Involved’#comment-1511145

Fitzmas has begun!

Think Progress » BREAKING: Libby Destroyed Evidence Prior To Testifying, Cheney ‘Deeply Involved’#comment-1511145:

Under oath, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby told a grand jury that he first learned that Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent from conversations with the media. In fact, he first learned that information from Vice President Cheney himself.

Libby is now on trial for perjury. His defense is that he simply forgot who told him that Plame worked for the CIA. But in court today, prosecutors outlined a powerful case establishing that Libby had reason to remember who told him and motive to cover it up. MSNBC’s David Schuster said today’s revelations from prosecutors are “new and will astound a number of people, even those who have been following this case.” Among the new claims: (Click over^)

Liz Cheney has inherited Dad's insanity

Well, Josh, she doesn't seem to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. She would probably be working construction, if it were not or her family's super-fortune.

If we have our way, some of that forune will be confiscated and returned to the treasury!

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall January 23, 2007 02:38 AM:

Cheney's Daughter: More Iraq war is the only answer.

Actually, give it a read. Is it just me or does this column read like it was written by someone in junior high?

Anytime there is an only one answer, it is a stupid question.

War Frenzy

These people, the Bushites, are as insane as the people they want to obliterate

STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!

The Washington Monthly:

The LA Times says that George Bush is expected to claim during tonight's State of the Union address that Iran is deeply involved in Iraq's civil war:

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case.

Golly. Overstating its case? The Bush administration?"

War Frenzy

These people, the Bushites, are as insane as the people they want to obliterate

STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!

The Washington Monthly:

The LA Times says that George Bush is expected to claim during tonight's State of the Union address that Iran is deeply involved in Iraq's civil war:

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case.

Golly. Overstating its case? The Bush administration?"

Programs Let Homes Produce Green Power

This is a program that should be available in every state and should be heavily subsidized for home and property-owners, like landlords, making less than $100,000/year and not through tax right-offs, but directly, through grants and rock-bottom interest rate loans.

Tax incentives are fine for people making more than $100,000/ year.

Programs like this are essential for the welfare of the nation and its citizens.

This is an emergency and we should behave accordingly.

Programs Let Homes Produce Green Power:

January 22, 2007 by the Associated Press
by Michael Hill

When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward.

Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system. The Bagnalls 'net meter,' a state-sanctioned setup that allows homeowners to adopt renewable energy without taking the more radical step of disconnecting from their local electric utility, Central Hudson Gas & Electric.

On the Electronic Campaign Trail

The Net is making lying and flip-flopping much harder for Pols

On the Electronic Campaign Trail - washingtonpost.com:

By noon on Jan. 10, Matt Rhoades and Kevin Madden knew they had a problem.

The two men handle communications for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's presidential exploratory committee and had been told about a video flying around the Internet that spliced clips from Romney's 1994 debate with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). In it, Romney (R), then running for the Senate in a losing campaign against Kennedy, voiced support for abortion rights and gay rights -- positions he has since renounced.

Storms will worsen, climate scientists admit | UK News | The Observer

Just when you think things can't get any worse........

Storms will worsen, climate scientists admit UK News The Observer:

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.

FRANK RICH: Lying Like It's 2003

No doubt, the same asshats are lying through their collective fangs again, but is anyone buying it?

Welcome to Pottersville: FRANK RICH: Lying Like It's 2003:

Those who forget history may be doomed to repeat it, but who could imagine we’d already be in danger of replaying that rotten year 2003?

Scooter Libby, the mastermind behind the White House’s bogus scenarios for ginning up the war in Iraq, is back at Washington’s center stage, proudly defending the indefensible in a perjury trial. Ahmad Chalabi, the peddler of flawed prewar intelligence hyped by Mr. Libby, is back in clover in Baghdad, where he purports to lead the government’s Shiite-Baathist reconciliation efforts in between visits to his pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

Rep. believes Democratic media reform bill may prevent possible 'fascist' takeover of US media

This is one of the top three issues facing Americans today!

Something must be done, quickly, to stop the right-wing echo-chamber and fascism in America.

The Raw Story Rep. believes Democratic media reform bill may prevent possible 'fascist' takeover of US media:

Rep. Hinchey: New bill would break up media monopolies and restore fairness doctrine
Warns media reform critical to prevent 'end of democratic republic'

Concerns about monopolies and fears of a possible 'fascist' takeover of the US media have prompted a Democratic congressman to push to restore the Fairness Doctrine, RAW STORY has learned.
'
Media reform is the most important issue confronting our democratic republic and the people of our country,' Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said at the Free Press National Media Reform Conference held in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend. 'This is a critical moment in history that may determine the future of our country…maybe forever.'

Republican opposition to Iraq plan grows

If Bush is allowed to escalate Iraq, WWIII has begun.

Republican opposition to Iraq plan grows - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans pushed back Monday against President Bush's decision to increase troop strength in Iraq, some voicing opposition while others urged holding the administration and Iraqi government more accountable for the war effort.

'We've had four other surges since we first went into Iraq,' said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), referring to the administration's plan for an additional 21,500 troops. 'None of them produced a long-lasting change in the situation on the ground.

'So I am very skeptical that this surge would produce the desired outcome,' said the Maine Republican.

In the Senate, Collins joined two Republicans and one Democrat to unveil nonbinding legislation expressing disagreement with Bush's plan. The president should consider 'all options and alternatives' involving a smaller force, the measure said.

Rush of Entries Gives ’08 Race Early Intensity

The electorate will probably be sick to death of all of them by November 2008.

Rush of Entries Gives ’08 Race Early Intensity - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Two years before the next president is inaugurated and a full year before the first vote is cast, the contest for the White House is off to a breathtakingly fast start, exposing an ever-growing field of candidates to longer, more intensive scrutiny and increasing the amount of money they need to remain viable.

Pentagon's Gates mild-mannered but no soft touch

Not mentioned here, is the fact that Gates lied like a rug during Iran/Contra.

Plus, how the hell can he claim ignorance when he was a part of the Baker-Hamilton Group, AKA, the ISG?

We want to know why Bush chose him to head up the Pentagon and ignored the findings of the ISG, of which he was a member.

Pentagon's Gates mild-mannered but no soft touch Politics News Reuters.com:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates' mild-mannered public persona could hardly be more different from his outspoken predecessor Donald Rumsfeld but his early decisions indicate he is no soft touch.

'One of my favorite quotes is from Frederick the Great,' he said on a seven-nation trip including stops in Afghanistan and Iraq that wrapped up on the weekend. 'Negotiations without arms are like notes without instruments.'

In his first month in the job, he has approved an increase in the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, backed a new Iraq plan that involves more than 21,000 extra troops and indicated he favors more forces for Afghanistan too.

U.S. Tries to Interpret Silence Over China Test - New York Times

This makes no sense...

U.S. Tries to Interpret Silence Over China Test - New York Times:

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Bush administration officials said that they had been unable to get even the most basic diplomatic response from China after their detection of a successful test to destroy a satellite 10 days ago, and that they were uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were fully aware of the test or the reaction it would engender.

As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse

These people are bat-shit crazy; a danger to themselves and others.

It's commitment time!

AlterNet: War on Iraq: As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse:

Christian Zionists are dancing the hora in San Antonio. Armageddon appears to be at hand.

As George W. Bush sets his sights on Iran, even Republicans are wondering how to constitutionally contain the trigger-happy king. But for an influential group of Christian fundamentalists -- White House allies that garner not only feel-good meetings with the President's liaisons to the 'faith-based' community but also serious discussions with Bush's national security staff -- an attack on Iran is just what God ordered.

Biblical literalists, convened together through San Antonio megapastor John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI), are now seeing the fruits of their yearlong campaign to convince the Bush administration to attack Iran.

War on Iraq: Escalation Forces Bush to Resort to Recruiting Convicts

Too bad Reagan closed all the asylums....

Guess Junior plans on emptying the prisons, now.

This is a nightmare!

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Escalation Forces Bush to Resort to Recruiting Convicts:

Escalating the war in Iraq means the military will grant more 'moral waivers' -- permitting recruits with criminal records and emotional problems who would otherwise be unfit to serve.

The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11

Who would know where to start? People, like this jackass, just leave me sputtering!

This man is either a blathering idiot or he is an agitator for civil war in this country. Who publishes crap like this?

The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 - By Dinesh D'Souza. - Books - Review - New York Times:

At first Dinesh D’Souza considered him “a dark-eyed fanatic, a gun-toting extremist, a monster who laughs at the deaths of 3,000 innocent civilians.” But once he learned how Osama bin Laden was viewed in the Muslim world, D’Souza changed his mind. Now he finds bin Laden to be “a quiet, well-mannered, thoughtful, eloquent and deeply religious person.” Despite being considered a friend of the Palestinians, he “has not launched a single attack against Israel.” We denounce him as a terrorist, but he uses “a different compass to assess America than Americans use to assess him.” Bin Laden killed only 3,000 of us, with “every victim counted, every death mourned, every victim’s family generously compensated.” But look what we did in return: many thousands of Muslims dead in Afghanistan and Iraq, “and few Americans seem distressed over these numbers.”

Isn't it interesting that the people who do care about the deaths of inncoent Muslims are the very liberals this man blames for 9/11, not the other right-wing nutjobs like him?

Senators seek support against Iraq surge

Best line of the day: Senator Biden said that the VP doesn't know what he's talking about and that everyone knows it!

Vice hasn't been right aboout one single thing regarding this war, or anything else we can think of, right off hand.

Vice thinks that any Resolution against the war will embolden "our enemies." Yeah right, like the ill-advised actions, of this administration, do not only emboldened "our enemies," but have made enemies out of people who weren't our enemies before this insanity began.

Who, in D.C., will have the guts to rid us of these fools?

Senators seek support against Iraq surge - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - Two leading Senate Democrats sought to build support Sunday for a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush's war strategy in Iraq, cautioning that division over whether it goes far enough could spell defeat.

'The worst thing we can do is to vote on something critical of the current policy and lose it,' said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'The public doesn't support his policy, a majority of Congress doesn't support his policy.'
'
If we lose it, the president will use the defeat of a resolution as support of his public policy,' Levin said.

The new Democratic-led Congress heads this week toward its first vote on the war, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning debate Wednesday on a resolution condemning Bush's proposal to send 21,500 more troops to Baghdad and Anbar province. A vote could come as early as that same day.

The proposed nonbinding resolution, which is largely symbolic and would have no affect on money for troops, states that 'it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq.'

PAUL KRUGMAN: Gold-Plated Indifference

George Bush is a goddamned idiot of the first degree, and if Congress falls for this stunt, they should all be run out of town on a rail!

Welcome to Pottersville: PAUL KRUGMAN: Gold-Plated Indifference:

President Bush’s Saturday radio address was devoted to health care, and officials have put out the word that the subject will be a major theme in tomorrow’s State of the Union address. Mr. Bush’s proposal won’t go anywhere. But it’s still worth looking at his remarks, because of what they say about him and his advisers.

On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”

Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.

Iarq war: Stupidity or Treason

Ah, we see that someone else is thinking like us.

When people can get rich(er) and retain almost absolute power from "blunders,: why not just keep making them? No one ever got locked up on a charge of stupid.

Can we spell NO-BID CONTRACTS?

So, how so we prove treason?

This Can't Be Happening!:

Was Iraq War a `Blunder' or Was It Treason?

New Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), is calling President Bush's invasion of Iraq a 'stark blunder' and says that his new scheme to send 21,500 more troops into the mess he created is just digging the hole deeper.

I wonder though.

It seems ever more likely to me that this whole mess was no blunder at all.

People are wont to attribute the whole thing to lack of intelligence on the president's part, and to hubris on the part of his key advisers. I won't argue that the president is a lightweight in the intellect department, nor will I dispute that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and that whole neocon gang have demonstrably lacked the virtues of reflection and humility. But that said, I suspect that the real story of the Iraq War is that Bush and his gang never really cared whether they actually would 'win' in Iraq. In fact, arguably, they didn't really want to win.

What they wanted was a war.

She’s In: Hail Hillary, the Ralph Nader of 2008

We agree!

Given what good buddies Bill is with Poppy, perhaps a defeat for more traditional Democrats (read; those who are not closely allied with the DLC) is the goal.

Then it won't matter who wins; Clinton or McCain.

Pensito Review » She’s In: Hail Hillary, the Ralph Nader of 2008:

It seems to me that by grabbing all the true believers for whom being their idea of right is more important than being elected, Hillary Clinton will be the Ralph Nader of the 2008 elections. By syphoning off primary votes from candidates who stand a chance in the general election, she will lead us to ultimate loss in November.

She’s In: Hail Hillary, the Ralph Nader of 2008

We agree!

Given what good buddies Bill is with Poppy, perhaps a defeat for more traditional Democrats (read; those who are not closely allied with the DLC) is the goal.

Then it won't matter who wins; Clinton or McCain.

Pensito Review » She’s In: Hail Hillary, the Ralph Nader of 2008:

It seems to me that by grabbing all the true believers for whom being their idea of right is more important than being elected, Hillary Clinton will be the Ralph Nader of the 2008 elections. By syphoning off primary votes from candidates who stand a chance in the general election, she will lead us to ultimate loss in November.

Extremists in the Military

Knowing that these people are being given training in urban warfare should be highly disturbing to everyone.

What the hell are the Pentagion brass thinking?

SPLCenter.org: Extremists in the Military:

A Department of Defense investigator who went public with allegations of extremists and gang members being tolerated in the armed forces has left the military. Scott Barfield resigned Aug. 15 from his position at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Wash., after being reprimanded for violating regulations on interactions with the media.

Barfield went on the record with the Intelligence Report regarding his investigations of extremists in the U.S. armed forces out of frustration at what he perceived to be an insufficient response by military leaders to a growing problem. He had also spoken earlier to the Chicago Sun-Times about street gang members joining the military.

'I knew [talking to the media] would eventually cost me my [military] career, but I figured I could move somewhere else,' Barfield told the Tacoma News-Tribune. Barfield has since found employment as a patrol officer with the police department in the town of Renton, Wash., near Puget Sound.

The New Crusaders (including Mel Gibson)

An ironic topic for a Sunday, but an important one.

The "religiously insane" are playing a powerful role in the problems with which we are faced today, and they seem to come in many different colors and hues.

SPLCenter.org: The New Crusaders:

The radical traditionalist Catholics, who reject the teachings of the modern papacy, may form America's largest group of anti-Semites.

Jackases of the Christian Right (which is neither)

Crusading-crackpots show their true colors, again.

SPLCenter.org: One More Enemy:

A prominent member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is under fire for publishing an essay in which he argues that Africans were fortunate to have been sold into slavery, and that the civil rights movement was 'irrational.'

'There is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,' writes Gerald Schoenewolf, a member of NARTH's Science Advisory Committee. 'Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle… . Life there was savage … and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off.' A prominent member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is under fire for publishing an essay in which he argues that Africans were fortunate to have been sold into slavery, and that the civil rights movement was 'irrational.'

'There is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,' writes Gerald Schoenewolf, a member of NARTH's Science Advisory Committee. 'Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle… . Life there was savage … and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off.' "