Obama vs Clinton

The common wisdom among our mainstream media is that Senator Obama is "more correct" on Iraq than is Senator Clinton. The good folks at Talking Points Memo have done the unthinkable. They've actually looked at the facts. You may be surprised at what they've found.

Of all of the senate votes on Iraq they looked at, Senator Obama voted with Senator Clinton down the line -- with only one exception --- one vote where Obama sided with Bush and Clinton didn't. When it comes down to it, in a head to head comparison on Iraq votes in the Senate, Obama sided with Bush more than Clinton did.

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More Fools for Whitewater

Seems the NYTIMES Whitewater smear artist, Jeff Gerth, is up to his old tricks again. He's writing a book on Senator Clinton entitled "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Clinton, due to be released, you guessed it, just 6 months before the 2008 election. You may recall that it was Gerth's mis-reporting on the bogus Whitewater scandal that resulted in the several years long witch-hunt against the Clintons and their friends back in the 90s. Let's see what others are saying about Gerth's work:

"Gerth's writings about the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas spawned a highly politicized, $73 million federal investigation, which, as Joe Conason wrote on Salon.com, "found that Bill and Hillary Clinton had done nothing that could be prosecuted as a crime."

Writer Gene Lyons made a detailed criticism of Gerth's work in his book Fools for Scandal, and Alexander Cockburn said reading his writings "is like bicycling through wet sand.""

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Barack Edwards

"I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington, but I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." - Barack Obama, 2007

"I haven't spent most of my life in politics, which most of you know, but I've spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change Washington." - John Edwards, 2003

Coincidence?

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Guest Editorial: Time to Consider Impeaching Bush

The following is a guest editorial by my friend from the Boston Tea Party Chat Room, troublemkr.

---

I was against impeachment. I thought it was a waste of time/effort. It has become apparent to me, though, with the recent GSA no-bid contract and Doan's stewardship, with the recent Department of Justice US Attorney firings and the Attorney General's inability to be honest with Congress, that the administration does not believe in the rule of law. And the law is the foundation of our democracy.

This is not a government by the republicans for the republicans. The Hatch Act does not permit federal employees to act in partisan ways in the operation of government. (Go here for more on the history of the Hatch Act.)

Ironically, the republicans were instrumental in passage of the Hatch Act. Times have changed very much. I am a dissident republican because the values of our party are not evident to me now. It seems that these "republicans" are trying to force their will on the whole government, to govern with one-party rule. They conduct business secretly. They have broadened the executive branch control over the other two branches of our government. This was NEVER envisioned by our forefathers. The natural result of this is a dictatorship. Would the republicans want the democrats to win the white house and exercise these powers? Doubtful.

While Doan was advised by the Bush Administration attorneys not to pursue a no-bid contract for her friend's company, she disregarded this instruction. And the Bush Administration did nothing.

In an effort to circumvent possible subpoenas for the white house email system, the administration has used the Republican National Committee's email system. This indicates that some White House personnel conspired with Abramoff, at the very least, to hide communications from a possible prosecution in the future.

In the US Attorney scandal, one of Gonzales' assistants is asserting her fifth
amendment right on the basis that the committee has made up its mind. these
grounds have not been established as a circumstance that would permit a
witness to claim their fifth amendment right. The fifth amendment was never
designed to hide guilt from congress.

“ No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Congress is not a body that is trying criminal cases. Congress does not deprive the defendant of due process of law. but the assertion of the fifth amendment smacks of obstruction of justice. This says nothing about whether a defendant can choose to testify to congress or not.

If the US Attorneys that were not fired might be guilty of a violation against the Hatch Act, the citizens of this country should know that. US Attorneys are not just a political appointment. They are the prosecutors for the people of this nation. If White House personnel directed these firings for not carrying out Bush policy, then the White House personnel should also suffer the same punishment as the people that they directed. There should be no assertion of executive privilege because executive privilege was not designed to circumvent the law.

Violation of the Hatch Act requires removal from their position of authority. At this time, i feel ample examples exist to demonstrate the Bush Administration's incompetence in the operation of government. This administration cannot conduct itself outside of the law.

Therefore, i am willing to accept Bush's impeachment as the only reasonable alternative.

---

troublemkr, aka Suzanne Hamlet Shatto, describes herself as "a moderate republican" whose been "active in politics" "for many years."

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Topsy-Turvy Media World of Whores

The way it works is this. When President Clinton says he does not agree with Bush's decision to go to war, the media reports that he fully supports Bush's decision.

When Senator Clinton makes a speech from the Senate floor opposing Bush's threat to go to war, the media reports that she favors going to war.

Eventually, some of you will figure it out.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com seems to have figured it out.

"These Beltway media figures are not only completely vapid, shallow, and devoid of any objective other than to defend government leaders, but they are completely out of touch with the "Americans" whom they constantly invoke as props in order to depict their own biases and beliefs as being shared by the American mainstream.

In virtually every instance over the last six years -- from realizing that the country was misled into the invasion of Iraq to realizing that administration claims of success there were false to opposing the pardon of Lewis Libby by a wide margin -- Americans end up realizing the truth long before the national press comes close to it.

While our media stars continue to defend the administration, Americans have come to realize on their own just how profoundly inept and corrupt this President is. The President's real "base" -- his most loyal followers -- are not red state Republicans, but instead, are Norah O'Donnell and Gloria Borger and the stable of media elite feeding at the Republican power trough, boundlessly worshipful of those who fill it, and eager to defend them at all costs."

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Congressional Oversight

According to this report in the Boston Globe, there once was a time when it was considered "okay" to bring in Presidential aides and put them under oath.

"WASHINGTON -- Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors."

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More Whoring from Matthews

''Is Hillary willing to say she's against the war?'' - Chris Matthews - March 25, 2007

Uh, yes, Chris. She ALREADY said that in October, 2002.

''So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.'' - Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq - As Delivered

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Rove Lied in Plame Case

Why is it important that Rove be under oath and a transcript made of his testimonty to the Senate Judiciary Committee? Joe Conason tells us why.

"Rove is a proven liar who cannot be trusted to tell the truth even when he is under oath, unless and until he is directly threatened with the prospect of prison time. Or has everyone suddenly forgotten his exceedingly narrow escape from criminal indictment for perjury and false statements in the Valerie Plame Wilson investigation? Only after four visits to the grand jury convened by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and a stark warning from Fitzgerald to defense counsel of a possible indictment, did Rove suddenly remember his role in the exposure of Plame as a CIA agent.

Not only did Rove lie, but he happily let others lie on his behalf, beginning in September 2003, when Scott McClellan, then the White House press secretary, publicly exonerated him of any blame in the outing of Plame. From that autumn until his fifth and final appearance before the grand jury in April 2006, the president's "boy genius" concealed the facts about his leak of Plame's CIA identity to Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper."

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Hillary's Vote

A lot is said about Hillary Clinton's reluctant vote to give Bush authority to use force against Iraq, but we rarely get a glimpse at the struggle she went through in reaching a decision. This piece in Salon is obviously intended to mock her for her vote and later discussions about it, but unintentionally shows the sincerity and seriousness with which she approached the dilemma.

'"Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I will take the president at his word that he will try hard to pass a U.N. resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.

"Because bipartisan support for this resolution makes success in the United Nations more likely and, therefore, war less likely, and because a good-faith effort by the United States, even if it fails, will bring more allies and legitimacy to our cause, I have concluded, after careful and serious consideration, that a vote for the resolution best serves the security of our nation ...

"This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make ... but I cast it with conviction ...

I urge the president to spare no effort to secure a clear, unambiguous demand by the United Nations for unlimited inspections ... A vote for [the resolution] is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our president and we say to him: Use these powers wisely and as a last resort." '

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Booker T and the MG's

(Pictured from left to right - Booker T. Jones, Donald
"Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper, and Carla Thomas)

Okay, if you like good music, you'll dig Booker T.



Or try here, for another look, from Shindig.

Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions

[via FoxyTunes / Booker T. & The MG's]

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Love Story

Thanks to my good friend, Charlotte, for sending this.

A love story in three pictures.

1
















2
























3

Matthews - Media Whore

With Chris Matthews, his plan seems to be, when all else fails in his effort to smear Senator Clinton, just lie about her.

On his March 19 Hardball, Matthews stated, "Hillary Clinton said this weekend that she wants a permanent base over there. ... She made a very clear statement this weekend we cannot take our troops out of Iraq."

Matthews is simply lying, of course. She never said any such thing.

The good folks at Media Matters looked into it, and this is what they report:

"Matthews appeared to be referring to the Iraq position Clinton outlined in a lengthy March 13 interview with The New York Times in which she explained that she would, according to a March 15 Times article on the interview, "keep a reduced military force there [in Iraq] to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military" as part of her troop-withdrawal plan. Clinton did not, in the Times interview or elsewhere, say she wanted to keep U.S. troops in Iraq "permanently" or that she supported a "permanent base" in Iraq. A Media Matters for America search of the Nexis database did not turn up any instances of Clinton stating support for "permanent" U.S. troops in Iraq (search string Hillary w/2 Clinton and permanent!)."

There is no lie so bold these media whores will not tell in their effort to destroy Senator Clinton.

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Like Father - Like Son

Clinton-haters like to suggest that in 1993 he fired the US Attorney that was investigating his role in the Whitewater land deal. Rightwingers hope you won't remember the truth, or that you don't know where to go to refresh your memory.

According to a February, 1998 investigative report by Mollie Ivins, the fraud division of the Justice Department, shortly after Clinton's inauguration, concluded that the RTC's Whitewater referral didn't appear to "warrant any criminal investigation."

Even more interesting, in light of today's allegations of hanky-panky in Dubya's Justice Department, it appears that Daddy Bush's henchmen also tried to pressure a US Attorney into pushing ahead on an investigation for purely political purposes.

Daddy Bush's Attorney General William Barr was angry that things weren't moving quickly enough on the RTC's Whitewater referral, and ordered Little Rock US Attorney Charles Banks to get the lead out. This was despite the fact that Banks had already determined that "no action should be taken on the referral at that time." He also said he believed "no prosecutable case existed against any of the witnesses," particularly against the Clintons.

'On Oct. 8, Barr convened a joint FBI-Justice Department panel to examine the referral. But the panel concluded that the referral "failed to cite evidence of any federal criminal offense." The panel's comment about the referral ranged from "junky" and "half-baked" to that its allegations were "reckless, irresponsible" and "odd."

Nevertheless, Barr put a preliminary investigation into motion and ordered Banks to review it again and to report back by Oct. 16, two weeks before the Nov. 3 election.'

[Then the October 16, 1992 report back to Bush's DOJ]

As Banks noted in his report to the Justice Department dated Oct. 16, Barr's desire to expedite the Whitewater investigation smacked of improper political use of the federal judicial system. "I know in investigations of this type," wrote Banks, "the first steps, such as issuance of ... subpoenas ... will lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation all too often publicly purport to 'legitimize what can't be proven' ... I must opine that after such a lapse of time, the insistence for urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election ... For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario and to the possible denial of rights due to the targets, subjects, witnesses or defendants is inappropriate. I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy. I cannot be a party to such actions and believe that such would be detrimental to the Department of Justice, FBI, this office and to the President of the United States [George Bush]."'

Does this sound a bit familiar, boys and girls?

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Not All Firings Are the Same

Gleen Greenwald writes for Salon

"The fundamental difference between (a) a new administration replacing all U.S. attorneys (as multiple Presidents have done -- including Clinton, Reagan and even Bush 41) and (b) cherry-picking ones for firing in the middle of an administration, has been amply documented. Alberto Gonzales' own Chief of Staff recognized the unprecedented nature of what they were planning in an email he wrote to the White House. "

See this email from Sampson to Miers dated January 9, 2006.

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Most Dangerous Man in the World

"Today the world faces a single man armed with weapons of mass destruction, manifesting an aggressive, bullying attitude, who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed if he miscalculates. This person, belligerent, arrogant, and sure of himself, truly is the most dangerous person on Earth. The problem is that his name is George W. Bush, and he is our president." - - Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Ammendment, Yale Law School, September 22, 2002

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Media Smear of Gore

From Robert Parry:

"When historians sort out what happened to the United States at the start of the 21st Century, one of the mysteries may be why the national press corps ganged up like school-yard bullies against a well-qualified Democratic presidential candidate while giving his dimwitted Republican opponent virtually a free pass."

Parry recalls how the media, with help from the RNC, misquoted Gore, stripped his remarks out of context, improved on their misquoting of him, changed it a bit more to improve on the grammar, and then fed it into the Mighty Wurlitzer, and smeared Gore in just about every paper and every cable news show in the nation.

"The New York Times ran a slightly less contentious story with the same false quote: "I was the one that started it all."

The Republican National Committee spotted Gore's alleged boast and was quick to fax around its own take. "Al Gore is simply unbelievable – in the most literal sense of that term," declared Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson. "It's a pattern of phoniness – and it would be funny if it weren't also a little scary."

The GOP release then doctored Gore's quote a bit more. After all, it would be grammatically incorrect to have said, "I was the one that started it all." So, the Republican handout fixed Gore's grammar to say, "I was the one who started it all."

In just one day, the key quote had transformed from "that was the one that started it all" to "I was the one that started it all" to "I was the one who started it all."

These guys have no shame. And when you wonder how it was that an incurious oaf like Bush was able to get himself into the WH, thank our shameless news media.

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Bush Fired All 93 US Attys Too

The rightwinger whine that it's okay for Bush to politicize the Justice Department is okay because Clinton replaced the previous administration's US Attorneys isn't holding water. According to Glenn Greenwald of Salon:

"It is equally vital to note . . . that President Bush asked for the resignation of all U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration, and that (correctly) did not provoke any controversy because that action is routine and proper. "

As a matter of fact, even rightwinger blowhard Rush Limbaugh admitted in 1993 that it was proper for a new administration to replace all the US Attorneys. From Limbaugh's March 23, 1993 broadcast of his television show:

JANET RENO (US Attorney General): I haven't asked for Stephens' resignation. I've asked for the resignation of all the US attorneys as part of an orderly transfer to a new administration, so that the new administration can choose its US attorneys which it re--thinks is absolutely integral to the Department of Justice ought--and based on what we think the qualifications for US attorney should be.

LIMBAUGH: Now this happens. She's right. New administrations just come in and get rid of all the US attorneys.

And then, we have this from the New York Post in 2001 before Dubya's inauguration - regarding who might replace Clinton appointee Mary Jo White as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It seems they too thought that it was just a matter of routine for a new administration to replace the previous administration's appointees:

"It is anticipated White and the other U.S. attorneys around the nation will be asked to submit letters of resignation, standard operating procedure when the White House changes hands."

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Iraq: Worse off Under US

This piece from Robert Scheer makes for an interesting read. "The Americans are worse than the [Saddam] dictatorship," he says:

"Yep, you did it, George--mission impossible accomplished. Unbelievably, four years of a bungled occupation have managed to make Saddam Hussein's tyranny look good in comparison with "liberated Iraq."

At least, that is the view of the Iraqi weightlifter made famous through a video of him taking a sledgehammer to Saddam Hussein's statue. "I really regret bringing down the statue," Kadhim al-Jubouri said on British television this week. "The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.""

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Will Terrorists Follow Our Troops Home

How can Bush keep this myth alive? Ivan Eland discusses:

"The Bush administration, desperate for justifications to buy a little more time with the American people for its failed adventure in Iraq, markets the idea that if the United States rapidly withdraws from Iraq, the “terrorists will follow us home.”"

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The Spit Myth

Did war protestors really spit on returning war vets during Nam? Here's this report in Slate:

[Jerry] "Lembcke, a professor of sociology at Holy Cross and a Vietnam vet, investigated hundreds of news accounts of antiwar activists spitting on vets. But every time he pushed for more evidence or corroboration from a witness, the story collapsed--the actual person who was spat on turned out to be a friend of a friend. Or somebody's uncle. He writes that he never met anybody who convinced him that any such clash took place."

[...]

As press crimes go, the myth of the spitting protester ain't even a misdemeanor. Reporters can't be expected to fact-check every quotation. But it does teach us a journalistic lesson: Never lend somebody a sympathetic ear just because he's sympathetic."

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Senate Can Arrest Rove

I'm no lawyer, but if I'm reading this correctlty, either Sgt. at Arms can arrest Bush's people if they are found in contempt.

"It is conceded that the Senate was engaged in an inquiry which it had the constitutional power to make; that the committee1 had authority to require the production of papers as a necessary incident of the power of legislation; and that the Senate had the power to coerce their production by means of arrest. McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135 , 47 S.Ct. 319, 50 A.L.R. 1. No. question is raised as to the propriety of the scope of the subpoena duces tecum, or as to the regularity of any of the proceedings which preceded the arrest. The claim of privilege hereinafter referred to is no longer an issue."

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No Oath, No Public, No Transcript

Bush has to be out of his mind.

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Executive Privilege

With Bush's threat to invoke executive privilege, it will interesting to know if the wingers still believe that is an impeachable offense. From Article IV of the impeachment articles passed by the Judiciary Committee then:

"As President, using the Office of White House Counsel, William Jefferson Clinton frivolously and corruptly asserted executive privilege, which is intended to protect from disclosure communications regarding the constitutional functions of the Executive, and which may be exercised only by the President, with respect to communications other than those regarding the constitutional functions of the Executive, for the purpose of delaying and obstructing a Federal criminal investigation and the proceedings of a Federal grand jury. "

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Rove's "Altered" Testimony

A quick recount from Slate about Rove having to change his grand jury testimony:

"Rove first testified before the grand jury in February 2004. In that first visit, he said nothing about talking to Time's Matt Cooper. He also didn't mention Cooper in an earlier interview with the FBI. Then, eight months later, in October 2004, Rove returned to the grand jury to alter his earlier account and volunteered that he had talked to Cooper."

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Document Dump Embarrassing to DOJ

Interesting about Fitz - They say he was among those who had ''not distinguished themselves,'' yet according to TPMMuckraker, in 2002 they awarded him the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service.

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Clinton Acquitted

Interesting piece at Firedoglake about the failure to show that Clinton committed perjury.

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Gonzales Replacements Considered

Pretty good reporting on the Gonzales death watch by Ron Hutcheson and Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers.

""We've seen the e-mails now. They're damning," said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who called for Gonzales to step down. "He has a credibility problem, he has a trust problem and he has a growing national scandal problem. ... It's time that we restore justice at the Justice Department.""

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Was Plame Covert?

She was according to CIA Director Michael Hayden:

''Waxman said CIA Director Michael Hayden had informed the committee that at the time Wilson's identity was exposed, she was an undercover officer, and any disclosure of her employment status with the agency was prohibited by executive order.''

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Undercover, Covert, and Classified (Also Hush Hush)

Yup, she was covert. Special Thanks to Larry Johnson for this:

"What did we learn in school today? UNDERCOVER = COVERT = CLASSIFIED. Valerie Plame was UNDERCOVER, COVERT, AND CLASSIFIED. And Valerie Plame was betrayed by Bush Administration officials who played politics with her classified identity. Val put that on the record and is willing to go to jail if she lied. But she told the truth, at great personal cost. Speaking of jail, I wonder if Scooter Libby longs for a big, beefy roomate or prefers the Charles Manson variety? Just wondering."

Was Plame Covert?

It certainly looks that way accoring to the law.

"The term “covert agent” means—

(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or"

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Plame Star Witness

Kudos to FireDogLake for this bit of reporting:

"With the personal clearance of the Director of the CIA, Committee Chairman Henry Waxman read a statement declaring that Plame had been a covert agent when the White House exposed her identity and employment, that her status had been classified and that the CIA had taken active steps to protect her classified identity and employment."

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Lady Vols Victorious in Tournament

Lady Vols start with 34-0 run en route to second round victory.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The final score made it appear Tennessee had it easy. For a half, the Lady Vols found Drake to be anything but a pushover.

Tennessee limited the Bulldogs to two points in the opening 10 minutes of each half and Alexis Hornbuckle led a late surge in the first half that broke open a tight game, carrying the Lady Vols to a 76-37 victory Sunday night in the first round of the NCAA women's tournament.

The Vols (29-3), the top seed in the Dayton Regional, didn't expect much trouble with the 16th-seeded Bulldogs (14-19) but got exactly that for most of the first half - leading only 13-9 nearly 12 minutes into the game and 21-14 with 2:21 remaining before halftime.

Tennessee then went on a remarkable 34-0 run that lasted nearly 13 minutes and didn't end until midway through the second half, time enough for the Vols to push their lead to 55-14 before Drake's Monique Jones made two free throws with 10:36 remaining.

Hornbuckle scored 14 points, Candace Parker added 13 points and six rebounds, Shannon Bobbitt scored 11 and Dominique Redding finished with 10. No Drake player reached double figures as the Bulldogs shot 21.4 percent (12-of-56), with their starters a combined 9-of-49.

Vols coach Pat Summitt probably couldn't choose between being pleased with her team's shutdown defense or being exasperated with the long delay it took to generate any offense. Tennessee, No. 3 in the final Associated Press regular-season poll, hadn't played since a 63-54 loss to LSU in the Southeastern Conference tournament on March 3.

Earlier Sunday, North Carolina - the top seed in its region - needed fewer than 5 minutes to seize a 24-4 lead over another No. 16 seed, Prairie View A&M, in winning 95-38 in Pittsburgh. But Tennessee didn't reach double figures until well past the midway point of the first half and was visibly struggling against the smaller and less athletic Bulldogs until Hornbuckle and Parker took over late in the first half.

Parker scored on a spin-move layup with her left hand to make it 23-14, and Hornbuckle finished off the half with a fast-break layup, a shot off the glass and a 3-pointer as the Vols took a 30-14 halftime lead.

With Drake's shooting percentage hovering in the 14 percent range until late in the game, the Vols scored the first 25 points of the second half against a tiring opponent that was 10-18 until winning four games in four days on its home court to take the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

Parker scored the first two baskets of the half before Bobbitt, 0-of-4 in the first half, got going with a pair of 3-pointers, a driving layup and a basket following a steal.

Tennessee, a six-time national champion looking for its first title since 1998, is the top seed in its region for the 18th time. The Vols play the winner of the Pitt-James Madison game on Tuesday night - setting up the possibility they may have to play a much lower-seeded Pitt team on its home court.

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POST Double Standards

Media Matters blasts the Post for glaring double-standards. When no credible charges had been made against Clinton, the Post called for a special counsel. Not so with Bush, even though clearly his administration lied to congress about the purge of US Attorneys.

"Considerably less surprising is that the Post's editorial page once again refuses to hold the Bush administration to the standard it applied to the Clinton administration. In 1994, the Post insisted on a special counsel to investigate the Clintons even in the absence of a single credible charge against them because the Post thought it impossible for a Justice Department to conduct a credible investigation of a president. But today, faced with a burgeoning scandal that involves not only the president and top White House aides but also the Department of Justice itself, the Post still does not demand the appointment of an outside investigator."

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Watch for Smear of Hillary

They'll tell you that Senator Clinton refuses to directly contradict General Pace's view that homosexuality is immoral. When they do, tell them to read TMP Election Central:

""I do not think homosexuality is immoral . . . let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love.""

The Mighty Wurlitzer doesn't want you to know this. But you know it now; right?

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More Lies from the Culture of Corruption

ABC reports more on the lying from the WH and the Bush DOJ.

"New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House.

The e-mails also show Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel — weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.

The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers and was her idea alone."

Where will it all end?

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Whitewater Redux

This apparently isn't the first time a Bush WH has pressured a US Attorney to step-up a half-baked "criminal investigation" for purely political purposes. Seems that Daddy Bush's WH wasn't above putting the hammer on Charles Banks, the Republican-appointed U.S. attorney in Little Rock back in 1992 - just in time for the presidential election. See this piece by Mollie Dickenson writing in The Consortium:

"But Banks had already concluded -- and the FBI in Little Rock had agreed -- that "no action should be taken on the referral at that time." Banks had prosecuted Jim McDougal in 1990 for alleged bank crimes and lost.



Banks said further that he believed "no prosecutable case existed against any of the witnesses," most notably the Clintons.



In a report to the Justice Department dated Oct. 16, 1992, Banks indicated that Barr's desire to expedite the Whitewater investigation smacked of improper political use of the federal judicial system.



"I know in investigations of this type," wrote Banks, "the first steps, such as issuance of ... subpoenas ... will lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation all too often publicly purport to 'legitimize what can't be proven.'



"I must opine that after such a lapse of time, the insistence for urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election. ...



“For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario and to the possible denial of rights due to the targets, subjects, witnesses or defendants is inappropriate.



"I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy. I cannot be a party to such actions and believe that such would be detrimental to the Department of Justice, FBI, this office and to the President of the United States," George Bush." - http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c022599b.html

The acorn didn't fall too far from the tree, eh?

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WSJ: DOJ Tales Don't Add Up

Even the Wall Street Journal can no longer ignore the lying done by the Bush DOJ:

"WASHINGTON -- Emails between White House aides and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff show an orchestrated effort to fire several U.S. attorneys, counter to Mr. Gonzales's previous assertions that the firings weren't instigated by the White House."

They appear to contradict testimony offered by Gonzales and other top DOJ officials.

Tick, tick, tick.......

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Now Republican Joins Call for AG to Resign

It's growing, folks. Now Republican Sen. John Sununu has joined the Democrats in turning up the heat on Gonzales.

"WASHINGTON - Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press."

Tick, tick, tick..... Time is running out on the G man

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DOJ Heats Up

Emails show that the Bush WH worked out contingency plans to silence anyone who complained about their purge of US Attorneys.

"The documents offer an extraordinary look at political tactics within the Bush administration, and show the White House working closely with the Justice Department to justify the firings. The administration even adopted contingency plans for how to quiet anyone who complained. And it was the administration that gave the final go-ahead to fire eight prosecutors, all of them Bush appointees."

You might also want to read this NPR interview with Sen. Patrick Leahy We're talking serious problems here, folks.This is getting very ugly.

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Nothing to hide, nothing to fear in Bushworld

Since the Arkansas Democrat Gazette requires a subscription to read Gene Lyons, I've posted his March 14, 2007 column, here.

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Nothing to hide, nothing to fear in Bushworld
By Gene Lyons

LITTLE ROCK — Here’s an artifact of archaic, pre-9/11 thinking I stumbled across on the Internet:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Readers who remained alert through high school may recognize the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Awfully stuffy, don’t you think? Who says “shall” anymore? “Particularly describing,” indeed. No red-blooded patriot would use the phrase. It reads like something written by sissies in powdered wigs. Besides, who’s to say what’s unreasonable if not our glorious leader, George W. Bush?

In Bushworld, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. In Bushworld, we don’t need no stinkin’ warrants.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales emphatically assured Congress in November 2005 that a Washington Post article suggesting widespread misuseof so-called national security letters, or NSLs, by the FBI was substantially false. A veritable parade of administration witnesses assured congressmen contemplating the re-enactment of the Patriot Act that stringent Justice Department supervision prevented it.

NSLs are a potential police-state tool, essentially granting investigators sweeping powers previously enjoyed by such innovators in security as the Soviet KGB. Issued entirely without judicial oversight-no prosecutors, judges or grand juries-they allow the feds a secret peek at intimate aspects of our lives.

“The records it yields,” wrote the Post’s Barton Gellman, “describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys on-line, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.”

NSL recipients, like banks and telephone companies, are forbidden to notify customers that their records have been copied into FBI databases. Combined with widespread wiretapping conducted by the National Security Administration, they render privacy rights all but nonexistent.

And here’s the beauty part: It’s all top secret. Nobody can contest these abuses in court because nobody can prove they have legal “standing.” It’s not just George Orwell’s “1984” that needs frequent rereading, but Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”

So now we learn, courtesy of a report by the Justice Department’s inspectorgeneral, that the Post’s 2005 series greatly understated the FBI’s systematic abuse of NSLs. Exactly as those periwigged Founding Fathers, having had their fill of arbitrary seizures and arrests under King George III, would have predicted.

Unregulated executive powers not limited by courts or legislatures will be misused. Every single time. That’s why they designed a government of laws, not men, and why the cult of authority surrounding this White House, consisting equally of fundamentalist religious zeal and craven fear of terrorism, so endangers American freedom.

It seems the FBI’s been handing out NSLs like popcorn-at least 47,000 through 2005, often in cases bearing no relationship to national security whatsoever, and substantially without meaningful supervision.

The inspector-general’s report documented serious abuses: “We found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines and internal FBI policies.”

“Of just 77 files reviewed by the inspector-general, 17-22 percent-revealed one or more instances in which information may have been obtained in violation of the law,” the Post noted.

Furthermore, raw “intelligence” in FBI databases has been made available on-line to 34,000 government employees. I wonder how many are named Scooter Libby or Karl Rove.

Possibly mindful of Libby’s fate, Glenn Greenwald suggests in his salon.com weblog, Justice Department apparatchiks have been writing to Congress admitting that sworn assurances they gave in classified hearings have been rendered, um, inoperative.

Something we’ve also recently learned is that White House political operatives, including Rove, directly influenced the firing of eight GOP-appointed U.S. attorneys. But why, for the sin of prosecuting too many Republicans or not enough Democrats? Nationwide under the Bush administration, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans investigated is 7-to-1.

It would be interesting to learn exactly how many of Rove’s political enemies have been targeted by illegal NSLs. Don’t expect the authoritarian Gonzales to inquire. Last January, the attorney general casually suggested during a Senate hearing that the right of habeas corpus, guaranteeing a fair trial to every American, might not exist.

“The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus,” he placidly observed. “It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.

How long before Gonzales reminds us that the word “privacy” is not there, either?

Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of the National Magazine Award.

This article was published Wednesday, March 14, 2007.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 03/14/2007

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Gore Called It on Iraq

Some of you may recall that Gore warned us about Bush's rush to war.

"I believe this proposed foreshortening of deliberation in the Congress robs the country of the time it needs for careful analysis of exactly what may lie before us. Such consideration is all the more important because the administration has failed thus far to lay out an assessment of how it thinks the course of a war will run - even while it has given free run to persons both within and close to the administration to suggest at every opportunity that this will be a pretty easy matter. And it may well be, but the administration has not said much of anything to clarify its idea of what would follow regime change or the degree of engagement that it is prepared to accept for the United States in Iraq in the months and years after a regime change has taken place."

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Talk Show Right Wing Tilt

People are beginning to notice rightwing dominance on the Sunday talk shows.

"During the 109th Congress (2005 and 2006), Republicans and conservatives held the advantage on every show, in every category measured. All four shows interviewed more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives overall, interviewed more Republican elected and administration officials than Democratic officials, hosted more conservative journalists than progressive journalists, held more panels that tilted right than tilted left, and gave more solo interviews to Republicans and conservatives."

Imagine that.

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Clinton Opposed War from the Beginning

I invite any of you to find an instance of any other presidential hopeful speaking out against Bush's war before Senator Clinton did.

Bush's Psyche Studied

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve:

"A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in 'fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity'.

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them 'preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality'.

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

'This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes,' the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin."

What Liberal Media?

There they go again. McCain and Clinton both reversed themselves on ethanol. But guess which one gets the rap in the Washington Post? You guessed it. Here's more from The Daily Howler:

"Have Hillary Clinton and John McCain reversed their stands on ethanol subsidies? Yes, both hopefuls have done just that —but so freakin’ what? The giant photo atop this report features Clinton alone —not McCain. And Shailagh Murray’s 23-paragraph “news report” devotes 21 paragraphs to Clinton —and only two to Saint John McCain. "

They're just getting started, folks.

More from DOJ

This just in from Talking Points Memo:

"Less than a month before a Justice Department official told Congress that U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired for 'performance related' concerns, the Attorney General agreed to be a job reference for the guy."

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US Attorney Pressured to Bring Charges

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: "John McKay, fired US Attorney in Washington state, 'stunned' over Bush involvement in purge. About bogus voter fraud claims, 'There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.'
-- Josh Marshall "

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Firings Had Genesis in White House

First Head Rolls:

"Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress."

Have we seen the first head roll at DOJ in the firings scandal? Kyle Sampson resigned after admitting he sort of kinda --- lied about his contatcts with the WH.

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Mano a Mano

I'll let Cheney shoot me in the face, but I want to be able to close my eyes....and can I shoot a friend of his if I survive?

The World According to Karen Finley

Karen Finley gave this interview to The Nation in which she offers us her take on the Bush psyche:

"What I'm trying to do here is take an analytic approach and look at his pathology as the reason for our fascination. I think that I try to explore his reasons for going to war and his failures as a human being. I also think that his pathology is based on his desires of patricide. I feel that he wants to get rid of his own father. Bush's sister died of leukemia when he was very young and his father was not around...When children came to the door and asked him to play, he would tell them, 'I'm sorry, but my sister died. I have to take care of my mother.' I feel that he resents his father to a degree that's Oedipal and that he has disguised his own desire of getting rid of his father with his desire to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I could never understand why he was so fixed on tying Saddam to 9/11. I think he is replacing his wish to get rid of his father with Saddam's wish to get rid of his father. He's not protecting this country. He's actually destroying America with his death wish for his father. He's the evildoer. He's the man with the weapons of mass destruction. His psychology is so simple."

What's scary is this sounds quite plausible.

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Carter's Greatness

With the Mighty Wurlitzer spinning away, we sometimes lose track of the truth. The truth is, according to American President: An Online Reference Resource, President Jimmy Carter was one of the most successuful presidents we've seen:

"Carter gained a reputation for political ineptitude, even though his actual record in dealing with Congress belied that image. His success rate in getting presidential initiatives through Congress was much higher than that of his predecessors Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and successors Reagan and Bush. One might expect a president with a majority in Congress to do better than presidents facing the opposition party majorities. But Carter was also close to Johnson’s success rates, and higher than Kennedy’s record. Carter did not like to bargain and appeared arrogant and aloof, but at the end of the day, he usually wound up with much of what he sought from Congress. His major problem was that the perception of his leadership did not correspond with the reality of his performance." [emphasis added]

You won't read about this in the NYTIMES or in the Post, but American President: An Online Reference Resource presents "In-depth information reviewed by prominent scholars on each President and administration," and they give Carter high marks.

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The Dubya Report - Bush League

Ever wondered about Bush's work ethic? Ever wondered just how well-read he is? Here's a glimpse of what his work-day was like when he was governor of Texas.

"As Governor, Bush stuck to a routine with a rigidity that was arguably comforting to his dyslexic and A.D.D tendencies. Clay Johnson, his chief of staff described Bush's work day as broken up into a series of 10 or 15 minute meetings, with a two-hour break in the middle of the day during which he exercises and plays video games. Bush declines to read written reports, demanding oral summaries, instead. According to Johnson, Bush expects his staff to recommend a course of action. This, it would seem, relieves Bush of the responsibility for performing any analysis himself."

What do you bet not much has changed since then?

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Cheney's Feeling Good?

No matter how Dick Cheney feels, he always looks like he's ready to shoot someone in the face. Thanks to dpjc reader, Rr, for providing this pic from unfairlybalanced.com.

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What a Difference an Election Makes

A special thanks to dpjc reader, Dora, for tipping me off and to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy for writing this piece in the Post:

"It has been just 66 days since Congress changed hands, and already the results are remarkable. In my 45 years in Congress, I have never seen the Senate turn so rapidly from stalemate toward real progress. While the daily media focus may be on our internal debates or the next presidential election, the biggest news of 2007 is that the election mattered and that the Democrats have already delivered for the American people."

God Bless the Kennedys.

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Pitiful US Media

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake blasts our shameful media:

"It's hard to think back on [Dan] Rather's history and his iconic moments with Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush and think of him in the same breath with anyone else out there today — if the Libby trial made one thing clear, it is that nobody is willing to ask George Bush or Dick Cheney the hard questions that need to be asked, and worse yet they don't seem to feel any shame for their failure to do so. It's hard to be embarrassed for people who don't have the good sense to be embarrassed for themselves."

How do they look themselves in the mirror?

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What about Rudy?

If you don't read Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, you should bookmark it today.

"I mean, where to start and where to stop? As Mayor Rudy put a cop with numerous alleged mob ties in charge of the NYPD. And Kerik's main credential going in was that he'd been Rudy's driver."

Aside from what's beginning to look like a "rudy-watch," Josh and friends have been keeping a close eye on the US Attorneys' scandal.

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DOJ Scandal Goes Nuclear

The hell with evidence go out and arrest someone!

"Another fired prosecutor, John McKay, of Seattle, tells NEWSWEEK that local Republicans pressured him to launch a criminal probe of voting fraud that would tilt a deadlocked Washington governor's race. 'They wanted me to go out and start arresting people,' he says, adding that he refused to do so because there was 'no evidence.' "

Who will be the first republican to call for Gonzales's firing?

Confidence in Gonzales Failing

After Tough Week, Gonzales Says He Remains Focused - washingtonpost.com: "'This attorney general doesn't have anybody's confidence,' said one GOP adviser to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could be candid. 'It's the worst of Bush -- it's intense loyalty for all the wrong reasons. There will be other things that come up, and we don't have a guy in whom we can trust.'

Gonzales has always had an uncertain relationship with conservatives, many of whom opposed talk of appointing him to the Supreme Court and suspect that the former Texas state judge is more liberal on abortion and other social issues than they would like. Gonzales's predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, by comparison, was a conservative celebrity who once pondered a run for the White House as an evangelical Christian candidate."

Impeach Cheney

Robert Kuttner writes in the Boston Globe:

"My bet is that impeachable offenses will emerge from Congressional investigations. What will protect Bush and Cheney from that fate is less the merits of the case than the electoral calendar. It is simply too close to the 2008 election."

The same thing that saved Reagan.

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Newspapers Drop Coulter

Jamison Foser, of Media Matters writes a compelling piece on the nastiness we're seeing from Coulter, Down, Mattews, & gang:

"The MSM's failure to properly convey the extent of Ann Coulter's bigotry, nastiness, and irresponsibility hasn't resulted in her being 'marginalized' -- it has helped her become an icon of the right without any accountability for the conservative movement that embraces her. Coulter's column, receptacle of much of her hate speech, appears in numerous newspapers across the country. Media Matters, outraged emailers -- 834 by one editor's count -- and others have begun to put a real dent in her reach. Yesterday, we posted a list of papers running her column, as well as their email addresses, and the parade of op-ed pages announcing that they are dropping her is growing almost by the hour."

Let's hope in 2008 we have an election on the issues and not a rehash of the vile rightwing smears we've seen since seeminly forever.

Times Calls for Gonzales Firing

The Bush purge of US Attys isn't going away, folks.

This morning's NYTIMES editorial board calls for Gonzales's firing.

We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

As we've said in earlier entries, "Ouch!" I give him to maybe July.

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Pelosi Hammers Bush

Dear Nancy,

"With his veto threat, the President offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily."

You GO girl!

What about Fox?

A comment at the TPM Election Central website:

"If FOX had/has any intentions of becoming more neutral, FOX would have moved from the far right and more to the center a long, long time ago.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it."

Ouch!

Outing of Plame - Who's Going to Work for Us Now?

Think about it -- if you were an al qaeda insider, and you knew that Bush had outed Plame, would YOU agree to cooperate with the CIA now?

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Waxman's on the Case

Check out this from Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee.

"Committee Will Hold Hearing on Disclosure of CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson's Identity

Chairman Henry A. Waxman announced a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. At the hearing, the Committee will receive testimony from Ms. Wilson and other experts regarding the disclosure and internal White House security procedures for protecting her identity from disclosure and responding to the leak after it occurred. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16.

In addition, the Committee today sent a letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald commending him for his investigation and requesting a meeting to discuss testimony by Mr. Fitzgerald before the Committee.

The Oversight Committee will webcast the hearing live at www.oversight.house.gov."

The fun is just beginning, folks.

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Who Said Clinton Did Nothing?

From our trusty friends at Snopes Urban Legends:

"On 26 February 1993, a car loaded with 1,200 pounds of explosives blew up in a parking garage under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring about a thousand others. The blast did not, as its planners intended, bring down the towers — that was finally accomplished by flying two hijacked airliners into the twin towers on the morning of 11 September 2001.

Four followers of the Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman were captured, convicted of the World Trade Center bombing in March 1994, and sentenced to 240 years in prison each. The purported mastermind of the plot, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, was captured in 1995, convicted of the bombing in November 1997, and also sentenced to 240 years in prison."

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm

Bush Social Security Phase-out Stalled

Those of you who've read up on Social Security know that it's a defined benefits program. That is participants have a schedule of benefits defined for them, and they know exactly what to expect to receive in the way of benefits.



Bush wanted to phase out this program and replace it with a defined contributions plan. That is, where you decide now much to put into the program and then hope like hell there's money there when you need it. Think "ENRON."



So, for those who argue that Bush wasn't trying to phase out social security, remember this comment by Bush shortly after the election of 2004 when he thought he had a lot of "political capital."

The "question is whether or not our society has got the will necessary to adjust from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. And I believe the will will be there."

Don't tell ME these guys aren't out to destroy Social Security.

__________________

From the Washington Post: "We need to figure out a way to phase out this program . . .  and move to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not going to have anything." - Jeb Bush on phasing out Medicare - July, 2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/24/wonkbook-jeb-bush-wants-to-phase-out-medicare-heres-what-he-meant/?utm_term=.52df4842f284

"The people that are receiving these benefits, I don’t think that we should touch that," Bush went on to say. "We need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not going to have anything." comment

GOD OVERRULES SUPREME COURT VERDICT

Going through some old files, I came across this bit from my mother's former priest, Sherod Mallow. He sent this to us in an email shortly after the 2000 Florida debacle.

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God Speaks out on Election Theft

Bush to be smitten later today





In a rare public appearance God holds forth on the GOP shenanigans in Florida. This morning, in a stunning development, God invoked the "one nation, under God" clause of the Pledge of Allegiance to overrule the Supreme Court decision that handed the White House to George Bush. "I'm not sure where the Supreme Court gets off," God said this morning on a rare Today Show appearance, "but I'm sure as hell not going to lie back and let Bush get away with this bullshit."



"I've watched analysts argue for weeks now that the exact vote count in Florida 'will never be known.' Well, I'm God and I DO know exactly who voted for whom. Let's cut to the chase: Gore won Florida by exactly 20,219 votes."



Shocking political analysts and pundits, God's unexpected verdict overrules the official Electoral College tally and awards Florida to Al Gore, giving him a 289-246 victory. The Bush campaign is analyzing God's Word for possible grounds for appeal.



"God's ruling is a classic over-reach," argued Bush campaign strategist Jim Baker. "Clearly, a divine intervention in a U.S. Presidential Election is unprecedented, unjust, and goes against the constitution of the state of Florida."



"Jim Baker's a jackass," God responded. "He's got some surprises ahead of him, let me tell you. HOT ones, if you know what I mean."



God, who provided the exact vote counts for every Florida precinct, explained that bad balloting machinery and voter confusion were no grounds to give the White House to "a friggin' idiot." "Look, only 612 people in Palm Beach County voted for Buchanan. Get real! The rest meant to vote for Gore. Don't believe me? I'll name them: Anderson, Pete; Anderson, Sam, Jr.; Arthur, James; Barnhardt, Ron . . ."



God went on to note that he was displeased with George W. Bush's prideful ways and announced that he would officially smite him today. In an act of wrath unlike any reported since the Book of Job, God has taken all of Bush's goats and livestock, stripped him of his wealth and possessions, sold his family into slavery, forced the former presidential candidate into hard labor in a salt mine, and afflicted him with deep boils. Dick Cheney will reportedly receive leprosy.



More later.

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This Is Serious, Folks

Dave Johnson is the lead blogger at Seeing the Forest and a Fellow at the Commonweal Institute, where he studies the conservative movement’s network of foundations and think tanks and the extent of their influence on American society. Thanks to SmirkingChimp.com for posting this piece by Johnson.

First the wingnuts came for Bill Clinton,
I remained silent;
I am not Bill Clinton.

When they made up stuff about Gore,
I remained silent;
I am not Gore.

When they lied about John Kerry
I didn't speak up for him;
I complained about how he ran his campaign.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out;
I am a Democrat.

Libby & Al Capone

"Convicting him of perjury was like convicting Al Capone of tax evasion or Alger Hiss of perjury. It doesn't mean they were not guilty of other crimes." - Joe Wilson