A Voice in the Wilderness

I mean, what would we think if we were -- if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

Posted by Matthew Carnicelli at May 17, 2007 01:25 PM

I'd be fighting like hell, and I'd damn sure be fighting dirty

yeah, and furthermore Rooty, never once did Mr. Paul say we "invited" anything... the questioner used that phrase.... and Mr. Paul actually gave a plausible explanation for the reasons behind it, not an "absurd" explanation. fyi, your soundbites bite.

people wooped it up in the crowd because they think these things are the equivalent of the jerry springer show, and for once, they are right.

p.s. nice combover

Nice to see you are writing again, Matthew.

Rep. Paul scored some points toward truth during the first Republican debate as well. I remember thinking then "he doesn't stand a chance because the Establishment is not backing him."

Very sad that anyone who tells the truth doesn't stand a snowball's chance of making it to the Oval Office.

I missed the latest Republican debate, so thanks for your article, Matthew.

What a sad day for America when we are startled by someone telling the truth from a podium. It's even sadder when you know that person will never have a chance to lead this nation to recovery.

I think perhaps the Establishment would like Guilliani because he might be quite hawkish. If someone is a hawk the Establishment might quite forget his stance on "moral issues". Viva la cash-ola.

Wouldn't it be funny if the Republican party splintered over the hawks and the religious right?

That's why Bush met with right wing religious conservatives yesterday.

It's going to be quite a dilemma because this war is very unpopular, but yet the religious right might want to stay in the Middle East because of the Iran/Iraq situation.

"Which" combover?

I have to say though that Rudy Guiliani certainly seems comfortable in his own skin.

I just don't think being the spokesman for 9-11 qualifies someone to be POTUS.

Gee, next Republican debate most of them might come out with choir robes on, carrying the good book.

Posted by: TSP at May 17, 2007 02:04 PM

I meant Iran/Israel situation.

Blogmeister, can you change that for me?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Senate Democrats said Thursday they will seek a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over accusations that he carried out President Bush's political agenda at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, who have led the investigation into the conduct of White House officials and Gonzales, said the attorney general has been too weakened to run the department.

Just when such a vote might occur in the Senate was uncertain.

Their announcement is the latest in a series of blows suffered by Gonzales this week, including new criticism from Republicans and the prediction of one GOP veteran that the investigation into the firings of federal prosecutors would end with the attorney general's resignation.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the Justice Department can't properly protect the nation from terrorism or oversee Bush's no-warrant eavesdropping program with Gonzales at the helm.

"I have a sense that when we finish our investigation, we may have the conclusion of the tenure of the attorney general," Specter said during a committee hearing. "I think when our investigation is concluded, it'll be clear even to the attorney general and the president that we're looking at a dysfunctional department which is vital to the national welfare."

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18716394/

Asked twice during a news conference Thursday if he personally ordered Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft's hospital room, Bush refused to answer.

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen. I'm not going to talk about it," Bush said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18716394/

Coming apart at the seams...that's what's happening on the R-side.

On Rudy: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/16/daily-show-presidential-candidates-abandon-their-moms-on-mothers-day/

Jon Stewart nails him.

Ron Paul's pretty much a Libertarian. Someone from his staff even sent things to Alex Ford's conspiracy site before. He livens up the mix.

Hey what if Gingrich jumps in? Free Republic favors him heavily.

Another wedge among conservatives should be immigration, as Bush's plan could open the door to alot of eventual citizens from outside the country (south of the border). He's always pro-business but we do need more earners per Baby Boomer, since we didn't reproduce in sufficient quanties to pay for our social security and medicare (assuming we will still have those programs). With low wage earners, we will need a lot of them! & alot of the biggest complainers wouldn't pick lettuce if they were starving.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz will leave office June 30 amid a controversy over his handling of a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee, the institution's board of directors announced Thursday.

In a statement announcing the decision, the bank said "a number of mistakes were made by a number of individuals" in the matter. (World Bank's statement)

Wolfowitz said the bank board accepted his contention that he acted "ethically and in good faith."

In a statement from Wolfowitz, he said it is "necessary to find a way to move forward. To do that, I have concluded that it is in the best interests of those whom this institution serves for that mission to be carried forward under new leadership."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/17/world.bank.wolfowitz/index.html

Another wedge among conservatives should be immigration

Posted by: not my president at May 17, 2007 06:57 PM

Very true, but as you know and I stress all the time, today's immigrants are often tomorrow's social conservative voters.

Korean and Vietnamese immigrants are way up the ladder in California's state Republican Party.

Conservatives ignore this at their own peril.

Posted by: monkey at May 17, 2007 07:02 PM

You beat me to it again! :)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Andrew Bacevich repeatedly railed against the Iraq war in op-ed columns and interviews, calling it a "catastrophic failure." But the Boston University professor rarely, if ever, said that his son was serving in the conflict.

Friends say he did so to protect Andy Bacevich Jr. and to avoid any question that he was proud of his son's service.

Bacevich, himself a veteran of the Vietnam and Gulf wars, learned this week that his 27-year-old son had been killed by a bomb in Iraq.

Bacevich's critiques of the war have been measured, with the professor emphasizing that the war's architects are not evil but disastrously mistaken. Now that he has suffered a personal loss, that approach could change, a colleague said.

"If this happened to me, I could not predict, you know, the effect it would have on me. It would be so devastating," said professor William Keylor, who teaches with Bacevich in BU's international relations department. "So I honestly think that's an open question that he's going to be wrestling with."

The younger Bacevich, who died in Balad, Iraq, was a charismatic man so determined to follow his father into the military that he enlisted even after being forced to leave the university's ROTC unit for medical reasons.

After joining the Army in 2005, he headed for the conflict that the elder Bacevich had warned in 2003 could test the nation in ways that would "make the Vietnam War look like a mere blip in American history."

But Bacevich, a West Point graduate and retired lieutenant colonel, would never have tried to discourage his son from joining the Army, said Erik Goldstein, chairman of the international relations department.

"He had the highest regard for people who wore the uniform," Goldstein said. "The appreciation for what the military does is differentiated from his opposition to the conduct of this particular war."

The younger Bacevich, born in West Point, New York, majored in public relations with a concentration in international relations.

The university's ROTC office manager, Beri Gilfix, remembered a man with a strong resemblance to his father and a determination to carry on the family's military tradition.

"I think he really admired his father a great deal and wanted to be just like him," Gilfix said.

But Bacevich was not allowed to continue in ROTC because of childhood asthma, a restriction he made look absurd when he began running marathons in college.

After graduating from BU in 2003, Bacevich worked in politics, first as an intern for the late Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and later as a legislative aide to then-Gov. Mitt Romney. When the asthma restriction was relaxed, Bacevich attended officer training in 2005.

The elder Bacevich, a conservative, viewed the war as a delusional overreach by political and military leaders who overestimated the power of the American military to transform the Middle East.

"There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity," he wrote in the Washington Post in July 2006.

Bacevich advocated withdrawal from Iraq, writing in The Boston Globe in March that the war had made the world more dangerous for the United States.

"Our folly has alienated friends and emboldened enemies" he wrote.

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/17/war.critic.son.killed.ap/index.html

Posted by: monkey at May 17, 2007 07:02 PM
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at May 17, 2007 07:20 PM

One down...and how many more to go...

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Fredo, Addington, Hadley etc. etc. etc...

Can someone tell me - what is the military background of Wolfowitz (exWldBank)? He was architect to the war in Iraq, apparently.

Posted by: woz at May 17, 2007 10:20 PM

If I am not mistaken, Wolfowitz is a chicken hawk.

He's a textbook example of a former Democratic Jew who went over to the Republicans, because Republicans are supposedly more pro-Israel. Never mind that Republican support of Israel is for Christian reasons, and Christian reasons only, the Jews be damned.

But aside from that, Wolfowitz is nothing, really.

http://www.pbs.org/now/index.html#poll

Michael E. Baroody, a senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers has been nominated by President Bush to head up the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Association is set to pay Baroody a $150,000 departing payment before he takes his new government job, which enforces consumer laws against members of the Association.

Is it acceptable for Baroody to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission?

Woz

This is information I took from The Guardian, Seymour Hirsh's New Yorker articles and Wikipedia. Deconstructing neocons is a hobby of mine. I have tried to be concise.

Wolfowitz is a chickenhawk civilian neocon ideologue and advocate of pre-emptive strikes. He has no military experience but is an academic armchair zealot. He was Asst Secy then Deputy Secy of Defense, worked for the State Dept., was an Ambassador, then Prez of the World Bank. He does speak 5 languages but doesn't change his socks or comb his hair.

At one time, Wolfowitz was a liberal and marched on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. but then came under the spell of the neocon Strauss at Univ. of Chicago. Richard Perle was a schoolmate and they championed antiballistic missiles as interns for Senator "Scoop" Jackson, a "Cold War liberal" in the vein of Joe Lieberman. These systems were so dangerous that even Nixon signed a treaty to limit them. One of his students was "Scooter" Libby. Wolfowitz and the other budding neocons worked behind the scenes through several administrations, particularly against the Communist "menace" and won over Rumsfeld and Reagan.

Wolfowitz moved to the Pentagon under Carter and was supposed to examine sources of threat to the US in the Thrid World. He believed we ought to defend the oil fields against Soviet or other threat. The 1991 Gulf War and the later 2003 invasion of Iraq were theoretically based on this.

The neocons actually started out in the hawkish sector of the Democratic party and migrated to the Republicans and Reagan. Wolfowitz joined up with a conservative thinktank, believing the Democratic party had become too weak on security and that democracy should be installed using force.

Wolfowitz denounced Saddam when Rumsfeld was still supporting him. He opposed Nixon and Kissinger visiting China, and even Secy of State Haig found Wolfowitz too ideological, wanted him replaced. When he was diplomat to the Philipines, "Scooter" Libby went with Wolfowitz on many of his trips to Manila. Then he was assigned to Indonesia and kept quiet about abuses in East Timor.

Under Bush's father, Cheney was Secy of Defense and Wolfowitz was Undersecretary, and in this capacity he encouraged the idea of the Shiites and Kurds rising up to knock over Saddam, then acted horrified at the aftermath. Powell and Bush I believed in containment, Wolfowitz in pre-emption.

Wolfowitz left government under Clinton and went back to the neocon thinktanks and fundraised for Bob Doleunder Bush II. He was a charter member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) a neo-conservative think-tank founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, architect of the latest "surge" into Iraq. Wolfowitz stands for American global hegemony through military strength. He did draft an open letter to Clinton, which was signed by other prominent PNAC neocons.

Here is an excerpt:
"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War" and "it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production" as well as (concern for) "the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil" and that "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power...needs to become the aim of American foreign policy." PNAC advocat permanent bases throughout the world they can to protect U.S. interests abroad.

Wolfowitz and Rice were foreign policy advisors to Bush II for his 2000 campaign, calling themselves The Vulcans. He returned to goverment under Rumsfeld and 9/11 created the climate for his middle east social engineering ideas. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz pushed the idea of going into Iraq via secret meetings, with Colin Powell not invited, and advocated the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.

Wolfowitz has met behind the scenes with Chalabi, with Karzai, with Netanyahu, was involved with the "cabal" of the Office of Special Plans, which came up with fake evidence for invading Iraq. He saw a "liberated Iraq" as paradigm for future strikes and it was supposed to be doable, laughed at General Shinseki's concern that the army was too small, envisioned thousands of Iraqi "freedom fighters" jumping up to fight Saddam, thought the operation could be done easily in months, trusted the info from Chalabi.

It is understandable that the World Bank was horrified to have him appointed by the US as its head, doubtful that he would stand up to the Mugabes of the world. He appointed cronies and selectively withheld funding to those he considered corrupt.

Posted by Matthew Carnicelli at May 17, 2007 01:25 PM

While I agree with Ron Paul's statements about Iraq, etc. (a 'Publican who uses his reasoning ability... who knew?!?), he's not likely to get mainstream support from women if this exchange is anything to go by... I posted this link on the last thread.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/16/ron-paul-schools-hannity-on-blowback/
Ron Paul Schools Hannity on “Blowback”
{{{Huh? Unless I missed something in the cross-talk, Ron Paul's position on abortion won't get him support from women, even if what he says about Bush's war is accurate.}}}

Did anyone else catch the snooze conference today? I caught some of the sound byte on The News Hour (PBS) earlier this evening and cringed and covered my head in shame.

Tony Blair, in best diplomatic fashion, called DimWit by his official title... and when DimWit then next answered the next reporter's question, he referred to Blair by last name only, no title, no first name, just his last name, and spoke about him as though he were not even in the room standing less than six feet away.

How uncouth and boorish!

DimWit has no common manners, no diplomatic skills, and if ever anyone's taught him how to speak to/about a foreign dignitary, the lessons didn't sink in. He's the prime example of a bad example. A parent can point to him and say to their own child(ren): "See how he's acting? Do you hear what he's saying and how he's saying things? Don't be like him and don't ever act like that because you'll bring shame upon the entire family if you exhibit such bad manners! The proper way to address a guest is...."

Still, I cringed when I heard DimWit speak, and then I remembered what he's also done to Angela Merkel. He shames us all with his bad manners.

Gore Book Excerpt: "The Assault on Reason"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051707R.shtml
Al Gore writes in an excerpt from his book "The Assault on Reason": "American democracy is now in danger - not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas."

Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a New Plan for the Environment
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/051707EB.shtml
A new bill in the US Senate will advocate adoption of an "agrichar" method that could lessen our dependence on fossil fuel and help avert global warming.

Scientists Foresee Extinction Domino Effect
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/051707EC.shtml
Climate change is accelerating species extinctions and unraveling the intricate web of life, experts fear. Birds, animals, insects and even plants are on the move around the Earth, trying to flee new and increasingly inhospitable local weather conditions.

Brita Belli | Natural Baby, Poisonous World
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/051707WA.shtml
"While raising a child more naturally does involve buying more organic and nontoxic products, it's also about fostering the kind of instinctive bond that's so easily lost in our high-stress, pre-packaged world," writes Brita Belli.

Bush Dynasty: Delusions of Grandeur
Note the similarities in pose, lighting and background for Michaelangelo's David in Florence, Italy and the statue of George H.W. Bush at the Houston International Airport. This has been bothering me for several years.

See also Wolfowitz with his Holy Socks.
http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/

Posted by: non ma presidente at May 17, 2007 11:39 PM
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at May 17, 2007 10:55 PM

Thanks for the responses. I'm finding it incredible that experience in the military to some extent is not a prerequisite for holding the most important positions in the defence of America. I haven't been paying attention to the British system, although I'm pretty sure that ours grew from theirs over the past 200+ years.

John Howard is the decider here - but ONLY because we left the houses open to total abuse of political power. The House of Reps and the Senate are both under Howard control and he has put far more legislation through in these last 3 years than has ever been done before.

Australians were carried along by lies and fear in 2004, just as Americans were. I voted early that day and came home utterly depressed. I considered moving to New Zealand. I didn't even want to know what was happening. It was the first federal election that I didn't watch minute by minute counts and recounts and projections.

I hope that we have learned from this and will not let it happen again, regardless of the party in power.

Getting back to my original comments. From go to wo, Howard has consulted with our top military officers. In fact, they are the people who give out the military information, who take the interviews. Howard goes to farewell our troops and visits them in the field, but decisions are announced by the military. Except in terms of extra troops we've sent to Afghanistan. He announced that one all by himself. We also have a minister for defence who is pretty short on knowledge of all things military. And that's ok because he doesn't actually do anything useful. He's a nonentity really.

Speaking of blowback, here's an intereview with Stephen Kinzer, the author of "All the Shah's Men" and "Overthrow":

Interview with Stephen Kinzer: 1953+1979=2001
(Well, There's a Link)
By Rick Shenkman

Mr. Shenkman is the editor of HNN.

Mr. Kinzer is the author of All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). He is a correspondent with the New York Times.

RS: Let's start with history. In 1953 the Eisenhower administration backed a coup against the elected leader of Iran, a man named Mossadegh, who had sought to nationalize the country's oil industry. The British wanted to overthrow him to save their control over Iran's oil. But why did the United States become involved? In your book you seem to argue that Ike was conned into helping the British out.

Kinzer: The idea that Mossadegh should be overthrown originated with the British. They were apoplectic at the prospect of losing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which Mossadegh's government had nationalized with the unanimous approval of the Iranian parliament. Their efforts to carry out a coup, however, were disrupted when Mossadegh learned of their plan and responded by shutting the British embassy and expelling all British diplomats from Iran. Among these diplomats were the secret agents who had been assigned to carry out the coup. That left the British with no way to depose Mossadegh. Prime Minister Churchill tried to persuade President Truman to carry out the coup as a favor to the British, but Truman refused. Only after Eisenhower came into office did the United States change its mind.

The British agent who came to Washington to present the coup plan to Eisenhower's team, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, wrote afterward that he knew the Americans would not respond to an appeal based on Britain's desire to regain its oil company. He decided instead to argue that Mossadegh was leading Iran toward communism. This argument was patently false, but Woodhouse sensed it would move John Foster Dulles and the rest of the Eisenhower administration into action. He was right.

RS: In your book you assert that a red line can be drawn from the CIA's overthrow of Mossadegh to the revolution to overthrow the Shah in 1979 to the events of September 11. How are these events connected?

Kinzer: The CIA deposed Mossadegh and allowed Mohammed Reza Shah to reclaim his throne. The Shah's repressive rule lasted 25 years, finally provoking the revolution of 1978-9. That revolution brought to power a group of fundamentalist clerics who capitalized on Iran's anger at the United States for having destroyed Iranian democracy. Their regime inspired Muslin radicals around the world, including in next-door Afghanistan, where the Taliban came to power and gave sanctuary to terrorists who carried out attacks including the ones on September 11.

- more -

http://hnn.us/articles/15825.html

I'm finding it incredible that experience in the military to some extent is not a prerequisite for holding the most important positions in the defence of America.

Posted by: woz at May 18, 2007 12:51 AM

Come on, since when did experience or actual qualifications matter when naming people to important positions in the Bush administration?

Shlock & Awful

Bushies Behaving Badly
A Guide to GOP Scandals

http://www.slate.com/id/2165980/

Bushies Behaving Badly
A Guide to GOP Scandals

http://www.slate.com/id/2165980/

Posted by: madame defarge at May 18, 2007 07:27 AM

Wow. That's pretty bad when you need a Cliff Notes book of their crimes and scandals to replace the Encyclopedia version.

I know the WaPo goes whichever way the political wind blows, but here's a rather damning op-ed in today's edition:

Caller ID
It's not whether the president called. It's what he did.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051701974.html?

And from the NYTimes Select:

Who’s Worse, Nixon or Bush?

--snip--
Having been in Washington for only 53 years, I cannot from personal exposure espouse the view that the current president is the worst in American history. I have observed only 10 of them since reaching the age of reason, so I can judge only that he is the worst in my adult lifetime.

--snip--
While Bush continues to have the power of the veto with which to combat the Democratic challenge, he is staggering toward the finish line of his presidency. Whatever happens in Iraq, there seems little chance that history will accord him any positive legacy for his eight years of over-reaching in foreign policy and abuse of civil liberties at home.

Nixon’s fall from grace in 1974 cast a heavy shadow over some historic achievements, most notably his opening to China. But his sins, deplorable as they were, mostly concerned domestic matters. They did not leave his party in the hole that Bush’s radical adventurism abroad has dug for the Republicans, and for the country he has so catastrophically led, without any compensating accomplishments akin to Nixon’s, domestic or foreign.

During the Nixon years, I never thought I would see another president who would almost make me wish we had him back. Almost. Thankfully, 21 months from now the voters will have other choices, whatever they turn out be.

http://campaigningforhistory.blogs.nytimes.com/

Woz

Flight of the Chickenhawks

http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/chickenhawks.htm

Most of our "deciders" never went to war. Cheney had five deferments, for example. I think Limbaugh, though a mere "pundit", got out for anal cysts.

Posted by: sparrow at May 18, 2007 07:50 AM

That's just a list of the known scandals & scoundrels.

The day is young...

Wolfowitz is the new O.J.

Positive Deposit d'Jour

I highly recommend a morning drive in a convertible, temp around 73, mmm, say w/ JJ Cale's "They Call Me The Breeze" performed by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers live in Hamburg, Germany blastin' away.

It'll cure what ails ya (it worked for me not 10 minutes ago, so far no side effects)

TGIFF

Wolfowitz is the new O.J.

Posted by: madame defarge at May 18, 2007 09:19 AM

If it doesn't fit, who gives a sh*t?

Bucking Fronco

2 ABC News journalists killed in Baghdad
Iraqi cameraman, soundman ambushed driving home, network says

BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi journalists working for ABC News in Baghdad were ambushed and killed as they drove home from work, the television network announced Friday.

The attack took place Thursday afternoon, when two cars filled with gunmen stopped the car carrying cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, ABC said in a statement posted on its Web site. The gunmen, then forced the two journalists to get out of the car, the statement said.

The death of the men was only confirmed Friday morning, the statement said.

"Today we've lost two family members. It really hurts," ABC News correspondent Terry McCarthy told "Good Morning America."

"They are really our eyes and ears in Iraq," he said. "Many places in Baghdad are just too dangerous for foreigners to go now, so we have Iraqi camera crews who very bravely go out without them we are blind, we cannot see what's going on."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18734470/

the new O.J. ??????

WASHINGTON - Buried in the dense spreadsheets of the annual financial disclosure forms for President Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, that the White House released this week is this intriguing entry: "*Henry G. Freeman Jr. Trust -- $12,000."

Follow that asterisk and there's a fascinating tale about a 16th century practice, a 19th century millionaire and an unusual sense of civic duty that will live on as long as the United States.

The payment was to Mrs. Bush from an annuity created by Freeman, a prominent Philadelphia landowner, when he wrote his will in 1912.

Freeman, who died in 1917, directed that after the last named beneficiary of his estate died, $12,000 a year would be paid "to the lady termed the first lady in the land; that is, the President of the United States [sic] wife, or anyone representing the president as such, should he not be married or should she die during his administration." He specified that the money be for the first lady's "own and absolute use" and the payments "shall continue in force as long as this glorious government exists."

The sum of $12,000 in 1912 is the equivalent of about $185,000 today.

Why such an unusual bequest? "I feel the President of the United States receives such a miserable pittance for a man holding the greatest position on earth," Freeman wrote in his will. At the time, the president was paid $75,000 a year, the equivalent of $1.15 million today. The current presidential salary is $400,000 a year.

Freeman's final heir died in November 1989, but the matter was tied up in the courts until December 1992.

Even though George H.W. Bush had already lost to Bill Clinton by then, Barbara Bush got $36,000 in retroactive payments. She used the money for "private donations" and to "do something nice for her grandchildren," a Bush family spokesman said at the time. Hillary Clinton donated the money to charity. Laura Bush's office has not been able to answer what she does with the money.

Freeman's will said the posthumous generosity "shall be termed and styled 'The Henry G. Freeman Jr. Pin Money Fund.' "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18736411/

Ultra-wealthy old bag who looks like the Quaker Oaks dude takes free money and gives it to her grandchildren, who already have more money than anyone needs.

Not-so-well to do young first lady donates said money to charity.

Current first lady takes money and, like her husband, cant explain what she does with it.

If you listen closely, you can hear the ocean.

never off topic, but you ought to check out Terri Gross "Fresh Air" from last night .. she interviewed Alice Cooper. (Before there was Marilyn Manson, there was Alice Cooper) I am a biography freak so enjoy it all. I don't even have to know who the person is. In this case though, I saw Alice Cooper in South Dakota in 1970 and he had quite the impact (like MM, son of a preacher man).

Posted by: monkey at May 18, 2007 09:28 AM

Good idea. I like to drive through republic party territory with the top down (the car's, that is) & "Not Ready to Make Nice" blaring...and of course, me singing at the top of my lungs.

Posted by: woz at May 18, 2007 10:10 AM

O.J. Simpson.

Well, what a surprise... CNN online has replaced the top story of Wolfie resigning with double whammy story about doping & sexual abuse.

Iraq Math 101

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/11/8120/56872

Wolfie is into doping and abuse too? What a pig.

H.R. Huffenpuff

Posted by: madame defarge at May 18, 2007 11:57 AM

Standard Operating Procedure - Friday afternoon bad news dump; no one pays attention to "news" releases on Friday because everyone's making plans for their weekend. By Monday morning this will be "old news" and the story will get even less attention, if mentioned at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/washington/18wolfowitz.html
Paul D. Wolfowitz, ending a furor over favoritism that blew up into a global fight over American leadership, announced his resignation as president of the World Bank Thursday evening after the bank’s board accepted his claim that his mistakes at the bank were made in good faith.
~~~~~
During the day, as word spread throughout the institution that Mr. Wolfowitz was close to a deal, some officials said that one of the obstacles was his compensation package. But there was no information Thursday night on whether he would receive any sort of severance package or pension, or be reimbursed for legal fees from his long battle.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s pay package was $302,470 in salary as of 2004 — the bank pays any of the taxes on that sum — and $141,290 in expenses. His contract calls for him to be paid a year’s salary if he is terminated, but it was unclear whether his resignation would be considered a termination as defined by the contract.

{{{Bwahahahaha.... The wording on that opening sentence indicates to me that someone needs to go back to school and take some lessons in composition: "mistakes at the bank were made in good faith." Huh...?!?!? How does one "make mistakes in good faith"? I note the resignation does not take effect until June 30, so that's still time enough for Wolfie to make more 'good faith mistakes' on behalf of his PNAC co-conspirators and his puppet-masters, Dickie and Turd Blossom, et al. Adding insult to injury is the "compensation package." For doing absolutely nothing but being fired he gets money and someone else pays the taxes on that, plus the legal fees for his 'good faith mistakes'?!?}}}

http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/05/051807_gonzales.html
Another One of Gonzales' Detainees

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/05/18/notes051807.DTL&nl=fix
The Sad, Quotable Jerry Falwell
It's bad form to speak ill of the dead. Good thing this man's own vile words speak for themselves

http://www.michaelmoore.com/
"Sicko" is Completed and We're Off to Cannes!

ATTORNEYS SCANDAL: AN ILLEGAL WHITE HOUSE-COORDINATED EFFORT TO SWING ELECTIONS TO REPUBLICANS
By Marie Cocco, Truthdig
Connect the Justice Department dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It's Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/52037/

AMERICAN CORPORATIONS GETTING RICH ABROAD
By Robert B. Reich, TomPaine.com
America's largest corporations' overseas subsidiaries are booming even as their American operations stagnate. General Electric expects more than half its revenue this year to come from outside the U.S. for the first time.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/51399/

Christian right leader writes off Giuliani
May 18, 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Religious conservative leader James Dobson will sit out the 2008 presidential election if former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the Republican presidential nominee, he wrote Thursday in an online column.

In a piece published on the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily, Dobson wrote that Giuliani's support for abortion rights and civil unions for homosexuals, as well as the former mayor's two divorces, were a deal-breaker for him.

"I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision," he wrote.

"If given a Hobson's -- Dobson's? -- choice between him and Senators Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran -- or if worse comes to worst, not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else."

Dobson, 71, is the founder and chairman of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, but said he was writing as "a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party."

He endorsed President Bush in 2004, the first time he endorsed a presidential candidate.

Dobson attacked Giuliani for publicly saying he hates abortion but supports a woman's right to have one. Giuliani had been criticized for being ambiguous on his abortion views, but firmly stated last week that he supports abortion rights.

"Is Rudy Giuliani presidential timber? I think not," Dobson wrote. "Can we really trust a chief executive who waffles and feigns support for policies that run contrary to his alleged beliefs? Of greater concern is how he would function in office. Will we learn after it is too late just what the former mayor really thinks? What we know about him already is troubling enough."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/17/giuliani.dobson/index.html

Hmmmm, lets see, will "WE" learn before its too late how a person will function in office... lemme think for a second...

Falwell, Party of Two, Your Hibachi is ready

White House rejects new war funding offer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered the first concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush's top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they'd strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no deal was struck.

"To say I was disappointed in the meeting is an understatement," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. "I really did expect that the president would accept some accountability for what we're trying to accomplish here."

White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who rejected the deal, said any timetable on the war would undermine the nation's efforts in Iraq.

"We consider that to be not a significant distinction," he said. "Whether waivable or not, timelines send the wrong signal."

At stake is the more than $90 billion the president says is needed to cover the costs of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan through September. The Democratic-controlled Congress on May 1 sent Bush a bill that would have funded the war but also would have demanded that troops start coming home October 1.

Bush swiftly rejected that bill. Unable to override his veto, Democrats have been trying to find a way to pass a new bill by Memorial Day that funds the troops but still challenges Bush's Iraq policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said negotiations with the White House were not dead, but she and Reid made it clear they would proceed this weekend on their own in drafting a new bill they could be widely supported in Congress. The leaders said the plan remained to send Bush a bill by the Memorial Day recess.

"It is clear that the difference between the president and Democrats is accountability," said Pelosi, D-California. But ultimately, she later added, "Our troops will be funded."

Also attending the meeting on Capitol Hill was Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and Rob Portman, the White House budget director, as well as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Reps. Jerry Lewis and David Obey. Lewis, R-California, is the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee and Obey, D-Wisconsin, is chairman.

The Democrats declined to say what their next bill will look like in light of Friday's meeting. But they insisted, as they have done for weeks, that nothing -- including a timetable on the war -- was off the table.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio accused Democrats of seeking "an arbitrary surrender date" and said the GOP has enough votes "to sustain the president's veto on any bill" along those lines.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/18/us.iraq.ap/index.html

This is the feedback that I got.

Do you know that ABC and CBS News have not mentioned anything about Alberto Gonzales and Card (Bush's chief of staff) going to John Ascroft's Intensive Care Unit room after his gall bladder surgery while he had pancreatitis and was on a morphine drip to get him to sign a non-warrentless wire tapping law? The assistant attorney general had to call in the FBI to protect Ascroft. This is big news. I believe they are criminal for not putting this in their news, covering up the news is a conspiracy and they are just as guilty.

Please contact ABC and CBS News and tell them to air this story.

Thanks, Rita

----- Original Message -----
From: "User Feedback"

Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:25 AM
Subject: A Message from ABCNews.com

Dear ,

Thanks for sending us the feedback. We read every piece of information
we get from our users, and will forward your contribution to the right
people here at ABC News. Please stay in touch.

Sincerely,
The ABCNEWS.com team

more on ratio of US/Iraq:

http://www.airamerica.com/maddow/node/2105#comment-19404

think of the ocean as a blocked sink..

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1266401,00.html

Nice work, Rita...

Clean energy claim: Aluminum in your car tank
Professor says Energy Department ‘egos’ blocking hydrogen breakthrough

A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.

Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water — a process that he thinks could replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global warming.

But Woodall says there's one big hitch: "Egos" at the U.S. Department of Energy, a key funding source for energy research, "are holding up the revolution."

Woodall says the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen — two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy.

"The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need when you need it," he said in a statement released by Purdue this week.

So instead of having to fill up at a station, hydrogen would be made inside vehicles in tanks about the same size as today's gasoline tanks. An internal reaction in those tanks would create hydrogen from water and 350 pounds worth of special pellets.

"No extra room would be needed," Woodall said, "and the added weight would be the equivalent of an extra passenger, albeit a pretty large extra passenger."

-snip-

Funding speed bump
For Woodall, the biggest speed bump lies elsewhere. "The egos of program managers at DOE are holding up the revolution," he told msnbc.com.

"Remember that Einstein was a patent examiner and had no funding for his 1905 miracle year," Woodall added. "He did it on his own time. If he had been a professor at a university in the U.S. today and put in a proposal to develop the theory of special relativity it would have been summarily rejected.

"Likewise, since I won my National Medal of Technology for compound semiconductors and not making hydrogen, DOE does not recognize me as a member of the club." As evidence, Woodall said DOE last summer rejected two "pre-proposals" for funding, "i.e., I was not invited to send in full proposals on my work."

Patrick Davis, who heads the DOE hydrogen program, said he could not immediately comment. "We are in the middle of our annual program review (offsite, with 1000 attendees), so a vetted response through our press office is not possible until next week," he told msnbc.com in an e-mail.

Woodall said that his "bottom line" is that "it will take me a little longer to launch the revolution."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/

Once again, while they look for a way to not do anything, our troops keep gettin blown up for oil holdings.

Hydrophobics

The "compromise" Senate Immigration bill that was announced yesterday allows for a doubling of H-1b visas - in English, visas for foreign high tech workers who are, according to the latest numbers, likely to be paid dramatically less than an experienced, American worker would be paid to do the same job

Current law requires companies with more than 15% of their workforce already comprised by H-1b employees to first offer any new position to an American worker. But companies whose current workforce is comprised of less than 15% of these type workers (the vast majority) are under no such requirement to hire an American first.

This unconscionable giveaway to the high-tech industry needs to be dropped from the current bill. If American corporate management truly wants to remain competitive, the best place to start is by reducing out-of-control executive compensation. And if these companies are not ready to start tightening their belts in the place where the most fat resides, then the Congress should consider repealing the deductibility of executive compensation above the traditional 30-1 ratio (between the lowest and highest paid employees in any company) that existed throughout most of modern American history.

It's high time that Congress stopped kowtowing to corporate interests, while selling out American high-tech workers and their families.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at May 18, 2007 02:02 PM

Man, you have no idea how well said and well timed that post was to me...

Oh, and read this gem...

Newsweek
Offshoring Overblown
Recent research shows that only a small percentage of mass American layoffs could be attributed to jobs going overseas.

By Robert J. Samuelson
May 16, 2007

May 16, 2007 - Remember the great "offshoring" debate? It was all the rage a few years ago. Modern communications allowed white-collar work to be zapped around the world. We faced a terrifying future of hordes of well-educated and poorly paid Indians and Chinese stealing the jobs of middle-class engineers, accountants and software programmers in the United States and other wealthy nations. Merciless multinational companies would find the cheapest labor and to heck with all the lives ruined in the process.

What happened? Well, not much.

read more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18699042/site/newsweek/?nav=slate?from=rss

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at May 18, 2007 02:02 PM

This category also happens to be one that has the most demand. So many high-tech workers want to come to the US.

H-1 has no promise of permanent residency though, and no requirement to hire an American first is indeed a disgrace.

Also, the US education system needs to crank out more qualified high-tech workers.

Another disgrace in the immigration bill is practically the end of family reunification as we know it. While I do believe that the vast majority of immigration needs to be based on the skills the immigrants can offer to the American society, these qualified individuals should have the ability to bring in family members as well. That's pretty much over.

And I still have a feeling that the Republicans' favorite nationalities will have workarounds to this new immigration bill. They will continue to be given freebie amnesties, and will still be able to bring their families at will, regardless of the American job market situation.

Posted by: monkey at May 18, 2007 02:06 PM

While the article is correct in saying that job creation at home is the best defense against layoffs and outsourcings, it does not mention that under W, job creation has been at a virtual standstill.

So much so, that Republican special-interest immigration alone vastly outnumbers the number of jobs created within the last 6 years.

Hydrophobics
Posted by: monkey at May 18, 2007 02:01 PM

Yup. Just what I've been biatchin' about for longer than my patience level allows me to remember: all talk, no action.

Name a topic: bringing troops home (not increasing their numbers!), war crimes, torture, stopping the war & war crimes, setting deadlines, withdrawing funding for Georgie's war, global warming, the environment... whatever... whether it's neoCons or Dems holding up legislation, it is still, consistently, all talk, NO action!!!

Seems to me we're gonna hafta get a wee bit "tough" on the Dems we've been pampering along for the last six years who flap their gums and do nothing.... Are they all so scared of Georgie and Dickie and Turd Blossom that they are rendered mute and scared senseless...? Do the corporations really have THAT much hold on all of the Congress Critters that they are totally helpless before their money?

I don't get it.

Meanwhile, neoCon and Dems alike: all talk, no action.

Paul Krugman | Don't Blame Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051807H.shtml
Paul Krugman writes: "I've been looking at the race for the Republican presidential nomination and I've come to a disturbing conclusion: Maybe we've all been too hard on President Bush. No, I haven't lost my mind. Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined the rule of law; he has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor. But the leading contenders for the Republican nomination have given us little reason to believe they would behave differently."

Excerpt:

What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration's no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there's a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job - and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

And the Republican nomination will go either to someone who shares these beliefs, and would therefore run the country the same way Mr. Bush has, or to a very, very good liar.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6665945.stm
Global net censorship 'growing'
The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests.
The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering.

Websites and services such as Skype and Google Maps were blocked, it said.

Such "state-mandated net filtering" was only being carried out in "a couple" of states in 2002, one researcher said.

"In five years we have gone from a couple of states doing state-mandated net filtering to 25," said John Palfrey, at Harvard Law School.

Mr Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, added: "There has also been an increase in the scale, scope and sophistication of internet filtering."
~~~~~
"What's regrettable about net filtering is that almost always this is happening in the shadows."
John Palfrey, Harvard Law School

{{{More on link. The US isn't mentioned, so the lack of mention of censored web sites for the military apparently wasn't considered to be 'filtering' (aka censorship)...?}}}

There's a couple of serious videos in among the rest. But the satirists still nail the pompous windbags who have advocated torture or even englarging Gitmo (Hello Mitty!). I cringed and withered in shame when the advocates of torture were cheered. My gawd; do those ignoramuses know for what they're cheering?!?!?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/turley-on-nsa-spying-i-dont-know-of-a-more-potential-charge-of-impeachment/
Turley on NSA Spying: “I don’t know of a more potential charge of impeachment”

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/hitchens-brutally-eulogizes-falwell-on-hannity-colmes/
Hitchens Brutally Eulogizes Falwell on Hannity & Colmes

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/colbert-and-dean-go-head-to-head/
Colbert and Dean Go Head To Head

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/jon-stewart-analyzes-the-fox-news-gop-debate/
Jon Stewart Analyzes the FOX News GOP Debate

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/daily-show-republican-debate-blooper-reel/
Daily Show: Republican Debate Blooper Reel

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/colbert-knows-why-pro-torture-responses-got-loud-applause-at-gop-debate/
Colbert Knows Why Pro-Torture Responses Got Loud Applause at GOP Debate

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/colbert-debates-himself-on-the-future-of-iraq/
Colbert Debates Himself on the Future of Iraq

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/17/bush-refuses-to-respond-to-kelly-odonnells-questions-about-comeys-testimony/
Bush Refuses to Respond To Kelly O’Donnell’s questions about Comey’s testimony
{{{I wonder how many times DimWit and his fall guys have had to rehearse answers like that one. This time it was repeated twice, practically verbatim (altho we've heard the same thing many times before). I don't get why neoCon supporters don't deconstruct the scare-tactic rhetoric, since it's obviously such a well-rehearsed answer....}}}

if the war between America and Iraq was a war of
equals, then the 655,000 Iraqis killed, so far, would be the equivalentof 7,860,000 people being killed, or roughly the entire population of
New York City.

Which story is pre-empting the Wolfowitz scandal?

Is it the body-harvesting funeral directors
or
Is it the sex attack caught by church surveillance cameras?

Posted by: NonnyO at May 18, 2007 02:51 PM

Krugman's right. The kind of nonsense that still sells among GOP primary voters is astonishing to behold. That said, according to the latest polls, only 27% of Americans describe themselves as Republicans (and only 32% as Democrats). So maybe the public is beginning to wake up.

The White House is moving fast to appoint a World Bank Chief. The world economic situation is so interconnected and precarious.

A sample:

While Chinese export contracts are still denominated mainly in dollars, Chinese companies increasingly ask their foreign customers to agree to provisions requiring the buyer to pay extra if the dollar starts falling faster against the yuan.

Chinese officials have acknowledged that there are economic arguments for faster appreciation of the yuan, but contend that this could threaten what they describe as "social stability" - the risk that Chinese workers and farmers who lose their jobs as a result of currency appreciation might protest against the government.

Two-thirds of the population still lives in rural areas, and the agricultural sector is barely competitive with imports at current currency levels, raising the prospect of increased rural unemployment if the yuan were to rise sharply and food exports drop as a result.

more at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/18/business/yuan.php

Washington Post | What Did Bush Know, and When?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051807A.shtml
The editors of the Washington Post write: "It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously,
however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely-ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that
mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality
had been called into question by the Justice Department."

Marie Cocco | Watergate Without the Break-In

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051807B.shtml
Marie Cocco writes, "It is time to stop referring to the 'fired US attorneys scandal' by that misnomer and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans."

So maybe the public is beginning to wake up.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at May 18, 2007 03:15 PM

PLEASE let that be true! I'm still SO ashamed over the issue of torture and illegally-held prisoners and the illegal war that if I had a choice I'd move and give up my citizenship. I am having a horrible moral crisis over these issues. The other things also horrify me, yes, true, especially the fact that impeachment did not begin by the end of January this year at the latest, but by far the worst things (for me, personally) are the illegal, unethical, immoral, dishonorable facts surrounding the illegal war and torture and prison camps, all counter to the Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and US law, and all made worse by the passing of the Military Commissions Act of '06.

I know. I know. I keep hammering those issues over and over to the point I know people are bored senseless with my mentioning them. But the level of my horror and shame over these issues knows no bounds and I feel overwhelmed....

Ahem, is THIS on topic or what????...
Martin: Paul's 9/11 explanation deserves to be debated
POSTED: 3:41 p.m. EDT, May 18, 2007
By Roland S. Martin
CNN contributor

Roland S. Martin is a CNN contributor and a talk-show host for WVON-AM in Chicago.

(CNN) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was declared the winner of Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, largely for his smack down of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who suggested that America's foreign policy contributed to the destruction on September 11, 2001.

Paul, who is more of a libertarian than a Republican, was trying to offer some perspective on the pitfalls of an interventionist policy by the American government in the affairs of the Middle East and other countries.

"Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years," he said.

That set Giuliani off.

"That's really an extraordinary statement," said Giuliani. "As someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq; I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11."

As the crowd applauded wildly, Giuliani demanded that Paul retract his statements.

Paul tried to explain the process known as "blowback" -- which is the result of someone else's action coming back to afflict you -- but the audience drowned him out as the other candidates tried to pounce on him.

After watching all the network pundits laud Giuliani, it struck me that they must be the most clueless folks in the world.

First, Giuliani must be an idiot to not have heard Paul's rationale before. That issue has been raised countless times in the last six years by any number of experts.

Second, when we finish with our emotional response, it would behoove us to actually think about what Paul said and make the effort to understand his rationale.

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/18/martin/index.html

Nice post, Matthew. Thanks.

NPR is discussing possible replacements for Wolfie...

Tony Blair's name was mentioned. Interesting that Wolfie's resignation is effective June 30, the same time that Blair steps down...

What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration's no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there's a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job - and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

Posted by: NonnyO at May 18, 2007 02:51 PM

I live in such a bubble. *raises hand*

Posted by: madame defarge at May 18, 2007 05:40 PM

Oy.

Posted by: Ally McRepuke at May 18, 2007 05:45 PM

The whole country has lived in such a bubble since 2000. Well, maybe several bubbles - at least in the cities with TeeVee stations in them and an internet access to neoCon media sources who put out so much propaganda.

Still, some of the sloganeering and false impressions (from people we're supposed to regard as "intelligent") that makes it to the air waves - like the excruciatingly embarrassing references to torture and the cheers those comments got at the RNC "debates" - well, that's enough to make me dive under the covers in abject shame and depression and horror and fear that anyone would approve of such lawlessness. I don't want anyone from a foreign country to think I agree with the audiences who cheered such horror as a "value" held by the actual majority of people in this country who don't agree with it.

The thing I wonder about is the "moderators" of such tripe. How could they ask such leading questions to elicit such embarrassing and horror-filled answers from politicians who "should" know better...? It's fear-mongering propaganda at its basest level of barbarity. Shame on them! Shame on them all!!!

I don't get it.

WASHINGTON - Is Republican presidential contender Ron Paul destined to be remembered for saying that terrorists attacked the United States on Sept 11, 2001 “because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years”?

It was a critical moment in Tuesday night’s GOP presidential candidates’ debate in South Carolina.

Paul gave former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani the opportunity to rebuke him and dominate the news coverage of the event.

But Paul’s passionate supporters don’t think Giuliani was the winner — and their man the loser — in that skirmish.

In fact, Paul said Thursday that in the hours immediately after Tuesday night’s debate, supportive phone calls to his campaign and donations via his web site soared.

“I was amazed. People donate money in the middle of the night, so all that night there was money coming into our website,” Paul said in an interview with MSNBC.com.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18727094/

Posted by: NonnyO at May 18, 2007 02:59 PM

NonnyO, Thanks for the link showing Hitchens's angry response to the media and especially to the interviewer's coverage of the death of Falwell.

Last night on an ABC program, Lateline, in Australia was Hitchens talking about the appalling witch hunt that went on over Wolfowitz and his partner. Hitchens obviously holds views as strongly and passionately as we do here at the DCP.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1927334.htm

My view is that Wolfowitz must be incredibly weak if he was unable to simply insist that he couldn't participate in any promotion or financial situation that involved his partner. Anyone with this lack of backbone has no business being at the head of such an organisation as the World Bank.

So, I agree with everything that Hitchen's said about Falwell. I disagree with most of what he says about Wolfowitz. I also think it's galling that Wolfowitz who commits a pretty bad crime, gets away with an enormous payout. I assume it's big.

with an enormous payout. I assume it's big.

Posted by: woz at May 18, 2007 09:33 PM

'tis the American way, anymore.

The AG has a severe memory deficit. And so does the president himself. Either that, or he has bribed so many people that he's finding his 8 years a bit short to deliver them all.

GWB must be the world leader who has made the most unpopular appointments for high positions within and without his administration. Inevitably they fail in their post. Or, like Gonzales, they continue to scoff at the people who pay their wages, knowing that with the president's support, they are untouchable. Through his distaste for all American people who were not *born-to-rule*, GWB continues to flout their wishes and shunts yet another disaster into each vacated post.

Now, he's insisting on having another go at getting the worst person into one of the most important positions in the world. Is GWB really this untouchable? Is he the God of Wrath? Or perhaps the God of the Ridiculous?

Posted by: woz at May 18, 2007 09:33 PM

The thing few realize about Wolfowitz and others like him who have been given their positions by Georgie, Dickie, or Karl Rove is that these are (almost all) incredibly mediocre and very boring and unintelligent people whom normal people of average intelligence would ignore under normal circumstances. That's why they despise educated and knowledgeable people and ridicule their betters (like those who know global warming is happening, for instance, or those who know there's no 'winning' a war that was a war crime to begin with). It's why they suddenly can't remeber anything when they have to avoid directly lying about the crimes they've committed (most recently, Gonzo); to tell the truth would get them fired or thrown into jail for their crimes and/or unethical behavior. None take responsibility for anything they have done; it's always someone else's fault. They are emotional children who have been caught with their hands in a cookie jar, and the dog ate their homework (lies to rationalize their illegal war in Iraq based on "false" intelligence because their objective was to invade Iraq before they got their power).

They are in positions of power because they know how to inflate the ego(s) of the figureheads in power with fawning flattery, and they equate getting rich at the expense of others as moral and ethical.

Worse, Lamestream Media bobbleheads talk about them like what they're doing is excusable as childish pranks of spoiled children, and that's precisely how our Congress Critters treat them - they appease the childish temper tantrums by constantly giving in to the spoiled brats in power, and continue to excuse their behavior. It's why when Georgie mumbles his latest incoherent phrases (or repeat propaganda slogans) the bobbleheads who call themselves political analysts re-interpret "what he really said" - and, in fact, he utters meaningless nonsense to rationalize his criminal behavior.

Since the SCOTUS decision of December 2000, no matter how many times I try to look at this situation from whatever angles, I still come up with the same conclusions. Transparently stupid people with criminal minds who refuse to learn from their intellectual betters are "leading" this country. That makes them dangerous bullies with a lot of money who are determined to get their own way, and if they can't "legally" commit their heinous acts (by forcing legislation through Congress that makes their criminal acts questionably "legal," or at the very least, unethically "legal"), they will commit any criminal behavior and then try to rationalize their actions with patriotic propaganda slogans.

And our Congress Critters refuse (for whatever reasons known only to them) to use their constitutional powers to remove that lot of criminals....

I had to go to the Rude Pundit to see what he'd been saying lately and I wasn't disappointed!

I just put Robert Byrd's latest up on our blog because he is such a great orator and he's right too (clicking on my name leads to the blog).

I just found out Jim McDermott will be in town 5/30 and arranged to see him because he never lies to his constituents and will answer any question.

I heard that Bill Moyer was going to have a tv blockbuster tonight so hope to see it via some link. When I was working out at the gym I did watch some CNN without the sound and it was a long story about the entire month of January. A guy wrote up all the deaths on a white board calendar for the month and then the story examined what heinous deeds had happened on each day. It was probably even more horrendous without the sound, with wailing widows, rubble and devastation exceeded only by what my imagination comes up with.

I've been listening to Anne Garrels on NPR, as she's covering "the surge" - she never reveals a bias but if you've heard her for a long time, you can hear things in her voice and she goes where most don't.

Can't we just have a normal day without out all this? The answer is "NO!" - thanks to the neocons and the morons who were too blind to see.

As for Hitchens, doesn't he realize Wolfowitz was criminal all along and didn't belong at the World Bank?

nonnyo - That's been my take on it pretty much too. I also discovered that GWB is an absolutely brilliant man with high moral principles - according to one of the most awful media owners in the world - Murdoch. He says that George comes across completely differently on TV than he does in real life. Without cameras, GWB is highly intelligent. Apparently the cameras and microphones suck up that intelligence when they're rolling. And of course we'd believe the media mogul's views. *shudder*

nmp - Hitchens has known the woman longer than he's known Wolfowitz. Sadly, I think that I'd have liked this woman under other circumstances - but hey - she has chosen to be with Wolfowitz. On the interview with a woman tv anchor he was extremely outraged at the unfair treatment this absolutely wonderful man who has shown such amazing integrity that he's resigned.

WHAT??? Hitchens has certainly slid downhill in my estimation.

Jeebus, and here I thought that *we* lived in a scary horrorshow fear-filled world...

.

"I must admit, I can't imagine anything more awful than polygamy."
-- Mitt Romney

NYTimes op-ed today...

Their Master’s Voice

In March 2004, the acting attorney general distrusted Alberto Gonzales so much that he wouldn’t meet with him at the White House without a witness. Eight months later, President Bush promoted Mr. Gonzales from White House counsel to attorney general, the top law enforcement job in the land. The president is still standing by his man, ignoring Mr. Gonzales’s efforts to mislead Congress, his disregard for the Constitution and his gross neglect of even basic bureaucratic duties.

It’s a familiar pattern: Mr. Bush sticks by his most trusted aides no matter how evident it is — even to the Republican Congressional chorus — that they are guilty of incompetence, bad judgment, malfeasance or all three. (George Tenet, the director of central intelligence; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; and the Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers spring to mind.)

Each time, we’re told Mr. Bush repays loyalty with loyalty. We’re told it’s a sign of character.

We don’t buy the explanation. The more persuasive answer is that Mr. Bush protects his embattled advisers because they are doing precisely what he told them to do.

Mr. Tenet was not off freelancing on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He delivered what the White House wanted: claims that sounded dire enough to herd Americans into war. (His recent self-serving insistence that he admires the president but was shocked at the lack of thought and planning behind the war comes too late.) Mr. Tenet put the party line and his own career above the good of the country, and for that, he was rewarded with a Medal of Freedom.

Mr. Rumsfeld wasn’t conducting a rogue operation when he planned the war in Iraq. He gave the president his victory on the cheap, which could be presented to Americans as sacrifice-free. When the plan literally exploded in the faces of an undermanned, poorly armored and badly led American force, Mr. Rumsfeld did Mr. Bush’s bidding by denying failure after failure. The president stuck by him until the 2006 campaign ended in the one condition that trumps loyalty in the Bush family playbook: losing an election.

The president also clung to his nomination of Ms. Miers to the Supreme Court long after there was a bipartisan consensus that she was unqualified. Now we know that there is powerful evidence that Ms. Miers helped to orchestrate the political purge of United States attorneys.

The more of these White House psychodramas we get to witness, the more obvious it is that Mr. Bush’s warm embrace is really a payoff to yes-men who didn’t challenge his orders or question ideology-driven policies. It is a cynical way to run the United States government. And, as Mr. Tenet’s recent book shows, it doesn’t even buy silence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/opinion/19sat1.html?

Apparently the cameras and microphones suck up that intelligence when they're rolling. And of course we'd believe the media mogul's views. *shudder*
Posted by: woz at May 19, 2007 01:41 AM

Bwahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Impeachment Moves from Front Page to Funny Page
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=6352838&nav=4QcSMJOz

(Which link, conveniently enough, segues us quite smoothly into the ** new thread ** )