Monday, April 23, 2007

KARL ROVE BULLIES SHERYL CROW

For the FUNNIEST, best, political cartoons, go to Stephen Pitt Political Cartoons copyright 2007 Stephen Pitt




Huffington Post | April 22, 2007 10:39 PM
At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people..."

for the rest of the story: KARL ROVE vs SHERYL CROW

A side note: I worked with Laurie David's husband, Larry David, on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and a more delightful spirit is hard to find. He raves about his wife and her committment to saving our planet. Who could argue with wanting to conserve energy, stop waste and stop global warming?

EARTH DAY should expand into EARTH YEAR. EVeryone must see this Discover Series PLANET EARTH. It is stunning and will change your life. The polar bear swimming for his life is so tragic. These beautiful creatures must be saved. We are all togehter on this. Rove and certain right-wingers who are mired in archaic mentality, want to paint this as a liberal agenda, but aren't we past that mudslinging?

***************************************

PRAYERS FOR VIRGINIA TECH
On April 16, 2007, a Virginia Tech student shot and killed more than 30 students and faculty, including himself. Reactions to this terrible incident have ranged from stunned shock to angry outrage as people try to understand how—why—this could happen.

But there's another way to approach this tragedy: with a spiritual perspective that helps us recognize that even in the darkest moments, God, good, is present, comforting and protecting everyone. And that all people can feel the healing blessings of our prayers. Hear inspiring and powerful ways people are turning to prayer in response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Special Sentinel Radio program
In silence, feeling the presence and power of God

Download MP3

Check out my other site: BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK

372 comments:

  1. I don't find it inconsistent that the right wingers would defend Rove.

    Hell, the bastards that infest this blog have exploited a woman's rape to try to score some cheap points at my expense! Look who their master is!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tall Texan said...
    Carl, nobody knew she was raped until you mentioned it.



    That is one weak-ass excuse. Maybe when you all were searching so diligently for information to smear me with, you might have taken one more step and made sure no one else was getting hurt.

    When it was me that you were all so certain had "done the deed" you all gladly smiled and laughed about posting it.

    Now who's laughing, Texasshole?

    You and your pity party boyfriends are in the soup big time. May you ALL rot in hell.

    Don't blame ME for your inadequacies, Widdle Cowboy. Blame your father for being a woman.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sheryl Crow might want to think about having that hand examined for venom.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Can you believe the lack of manners Rove conveyed? Just simple common courtesy works wonders.

    To shove Sheryl Crow's hand off of his sleeve, and say "Don't touch me!" what a bozo!!

    What straight man on earth would do that?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I mean, what "non-gay" man wouldn't want to have Sheryl Crow softly touch his arm and enage in a real conversation! I would be so thrilled to talk to her, I'd get all flustered.

    Rove has painted all concerned citizens as raving Hollywood liberal elite, but he is so full of hate and judgement, he can't see the forest for the trees.

    How can we have a presidential adviser behave this way? After dancing in public?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I mean, what "non-gay" man wouldn't want to have Sheryl Crow softly touch his arm and enage in a real conversation! I would be so thrilled to talk to her, I'd get all flustered.

    Rove has painted all concerned citizens as raving Hollywood liberal elite, but he is so full of hate and judgement, he can't see the forest for the trees.

    How can we have a presidential adviser behave this way? After dancing in public?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lydia,

    What man, period, wouldn't want an articulate lovely young woman with an intellect to match her beauty to talk to her?

    Heck, who wouldn't, no matter their gender or sexual preference?

    ReplyDelete
  8. All that was missing from Rove's recent dance was the black facepaint.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mitt Romney Endorses Hitler

    Gee...sounds like he's just up your alley, Widdle Cowboy, Widdle Twucker....

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lydia,
    I'm not surprised at Rove's reaction after all this man is one the main proponents of the Neo-Con's whole "Philosper King" style of government.
    As for Sheryl Crow, I would be happy to be in her company even for a moment.
    There is a website that I visit a lot called www.talk2action.org It has a lot of really good reporting on the Religious Right. Plenty of interesting and scary stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Frank,

    He reacted like he caught teh AIDS from her or cooties or something...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lydia Cornell said...
    I mean, what "non-gay" man wouldn't want to have Sheryl Crow softly touch his arm and enage in a real conversation! I would be so thrilled to talk to her, I'd get all flustered.

    Rove has painted all concerned citizens as raving Hollywood liberal elite, but he is so full of hate and judgement, he can't see the forest for the trees.

    How can we have a presidential adviser behave this way? After dancing in public?"


    Lydia I said the same thing last night on the previous thread.............i guess Rove isnt accustomed to being touched by a woman.

    ReplyDelete
  13. And Tomcat that was a very interesting and thought provoking post you posted on the previous thread.......I meant to comment on it but got sucked up into the troll games last night.....my apologies.

    Its amazing that your fasther could be so set in his beliefs that even someone savings his Son's life would not alter or change those beliefs even a little.

    You also illustrated the point i brought out yesterday that just because people are in positions of authority does not mean they are right about what they say or believe..........the repugs provide perfect examples of this with their brainwashed thinking that the president is right merely BECAUSE he is the president and as the President he can do no wrong and not break the law and we SHOULD support him.......thats riddiculous dangerous thinking, the same type of thinking that lead to the rise of hitler and the Nazi's.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mike,

    It's not even that they support the President because he's the president and it would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

    After all, they smeared Clinton left and right, and HE was President.

    No, it's that Bush is a Republican and that gives them their knee-jerk reaction to him.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Carl said...
    Mike,

    It's not even that they support the President because he's the president and it would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

    After all, they smeared Clinton left and right, and HE was President.

    No, it's that Bush is a Republican and that gives them their knee-jerk reaction to him."

    Exactly Carl.........its all partisan and political with these hippocritical fools..........they DID attack Clinton but defend Bush on EVERYTHING.

    Look at Volt yesterday defending Rove all afternoon then he "claims" he wasnt defending Rove and doesnt like or support him that much...........dont know about you but I dont waste a whole afternoon of my life defending someone I "claim" I dont REALLY like or support that much.

    It all goes back to credibility and any credibility I attributed to volt is evaporating with his double standards double talk and hippocrissy!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I mean Volt ACTUALLY tried to argue that Crow was claiming Rove worked ONLY for her...........last I checked Crow "IS" an American Citizen and "IS" part of the American public that people like GWB and Rove were elected and appointed to serve...........are you denying that Volt or saying thats not the case????????

    ReplyDelete
  17. Mike said...
    Volt said "Secondly, I can't control what TT, FF or Johnny say. I don't have MY finger on the delete button.

    If you have been wrongly smeared, that is condemnable, and I do condemn it."

    Thats an "interesting" LIE.......because

    1) YOU certainly CAN control what Moo Moo, Rusty, and TT say because you DO have your finger on the delete button in YOUR blog yet you choose to let Moo Moo and others lie and smear us and spew vulgarities on your blog while hippocritically feigning outrage when the same is done here.

    2) I have NEVER once seen you condemn Rusty, Moo Mo or TT for spewing vulgar insults or telling blatent bald faced lies and manufacturing rascism to smear their political opponents in Lydia's blog.

    Therefore the only reasoned conclusion Volt is that you are a hippocrite and a liar who has double standards based on politics!

    Sorry Volt........but I call em like I see em!

    ReplyDelete
  18. See you trolls just like your repug masters have a credibility problem which is a nice way of saying your liars and hippocrites and its my job to cut through your lies and let the American see the truth.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Lets see, Cheryl Crow was married to Lance Armstrong, who the idiot in chief likes to have around and the gutless moron who is behind most of the political crimes of Bush doesn't know who the wife of one of Bush's buds is................

    Right and Tiny the Liar and Dolty Boy ain't reichwingnut fooles either.....

    You two idiots are so full of sh*t it ain't funny any more...........

    ReplyDelete
  20. Democrats want to change the AMT,

    people earning less than $250,000 EXEMPT,

    people earning 250,000 500,000 only partial tax,

    people earning OVER 500,000 10-15% upper tax, well I guess the AMT is going back to where it really belongs.......... getting the rich greedy bastards to pay their fair share with all their special tax breaks and Havens they get.

    ReplyDelete
  21. clif said...
    Lets see, Cheryl Crow was married to Lance Armstrong, who the idiot in chief likes to have around and the gutless moron who is behind most of the political crimes of Bush doesn't know who the wife of one of Bush's buds is................


    I'm thinking now we understand why Armstrong abandoned his fiancee just after she found out she had breast cancer.

    Typical Republican abusing a woman...shameful, shameful little men.

    ReplyDelete
  22. WORFEUS said...
    Guys like you Johnny are the wart on the liberals ass today.

    You subtly pretend to be their friend, but you constantly work to guilt them out fighting back, trying to play the peace card, and the you're bigger than that card.

    You convince them to tone it down, back it off, give in, say uncle, discuss silly nonsense, and generally show what "nice guys" they are without getting "too combative".

    But I see it for the load of crap that it is.

    See, the dems lost 2 races for backing off from a fight, because of guys like you, who said they they might look bad, or because they needed to appear, the "bigger" man.

    Your bullshit is just that, bullshit.

    No one in here is going to apologize for having their game face on, and NO one is going to back off on these world shaking issues that are now in play.

    Not one little bit.

    I came to play ball.

    If you didn't come to suit up, then get on the sidelines and stay out of the way, cause the balls in play and we're coming down the field.

    If you want to knit doily's or something, then I hear Martha Stewart has a blog going"

    A great post that i felt NEEDED to be reposted........THIS is exactly what people like Volt and Goo goo do they subtlely undermine and try to convince liberals to tone it down and not speak the truth to power very forcefully and to be nice and play fair while they subtlely undermine and attack and while their associates forcefully attack personally, slander and derail with midless innane drivel to distract from the REAL issues.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Clif,

    I've had to pay the AMT now for almost a decade, because between my income and my deductions for state and local taxes (nevermind mortgage interest!), I trigger it.

    I'm glad the Democrats are revisiting this. Altho it's likely I'll still have to pay some of it, I'm OK with that.

    This is a great country and deserves my support.

    ReplyDelete
  24. clif said...
    Democrats want to change the AMT,

    people earning less than $250,000 EXEMPT,

    people earning 250,000 500,000 only partial tax,

    people earning OVER 500,000 10-15% upper tax, well I guess the AMT is going back to where it really belongs.......... getting the rich greedy bastards to pay their fair share with all their special tax breaks and Havens they get."

    Thats the way it SHOULD be Clif with the wealthy elite paying their fair share.........NOT stealing from the poor and working class like pigs at the trough!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Mike,

    Damn straight. The trolls would like nothing better but to see sheep on this blog, bleating like Alan Colmes, the only other "liberal" they have regular contact with.

    There's wolves here, boys. Deal with it. My fang's are bared, and I will take no prisoners.

    ReplyDelete
  26. BTW since it is spring I have a garden to attend to and a fishing hole that is calling, too many more important things than listen to Tiny the Lying gutless punk, Dolty the lying gutless punk or the pedophile Goo Goo screech their Bullsh*t, enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Have fun, Clif! Catch a big one for me.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Already caught a 22" walleye, gonna go again a bit later.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Fishing.

    So much more civilized than hunting and far less dangerous to humanity.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Gave up hunting when I got back from the desert.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Voltron said...
    You guys are being a little disingenuinous here.

    All Ann was saying is personal grief and tragedy DO NOT put you above reproach. It doesn't give you the ability to attack without expectation of counter attack.

    The Gurnsey - err Jersey girls put themselves out there attacking conservatives and backing liberals thinking that their grief would be a shield to protect them from those who disagree.

    Freedom of speech works both ways. Your personal pain doesn't cancel out my right to speak out if you advocate something I don't believe in.

    Regardless of what Nina Totenberg thinks just because someone lost a family member DOES NOT give them ABSOLUTE MORAL AUTHORITY.

    Regardless of what you personally went through you can't poke me in the eye and expect not to get poked back.
    It's true for the Jersey girls,
    It's true for Cindy Al-Sheehani,
    and it's true for the Ditzy Twits."

    interesting Doltron the defender of free speech is railing and ranting that the 9/11 widows dont have absolute moral authority are not above reproach and should not be able to attack with out getting attacked back......

    Another pack of lies by a slimy Reich wing spinmeister.

    1) The 9/11 Widows NEVER attacked Ann Coulter or anyone else personally like Coulter attacked them........they may have called attention to or attacked a persons words actions or competency......but they NEVER attacked Coulter or ANYONE else with lies and unsubstantiated smears.

    2) No one ever said these widows were above reproach, Coulter, Bush or anyone else could have debated the truth of what they said, they could have focused on facts and attacked these womens words......instead Coulter showed she was afraid of truth and the facts so she attacked them personally with all lies and unsubstantiated smears......such as they are glad their husbands were killed, they were going to be divorced any way etc.......without one shred of evidence to back it up.


    you say these women poked Coulter or Conservatives in the eye and attacked them..........its you that did the attacking they merely focused the light of truth on lies, corruptin and deception and YOU dont like that and have to stop that YOU fear people who can expose you and Bush and Coulter for what you are a pack of criminals and lying fools.

    You howl at the moon when Carl attacks and smears you without proof but you lick your chops and defend Couilter or Moo Moo or TT or rusty for doing the same thing you cry foul about.

    There's that double standard and hippocrissy again..........like I said before you and your troll associates have a credibility problem and i'm just getting started exposing you clowns......you wanna play your litte troll games be prepared to have the truth rammed down your throat till it makes you sick!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Great analysis of neo-conservatism from a conservative writer for a conservative publication:

    "Why does the movement seem so discredited? Partly for practical reasons. They misread intelligence about WMD and links between al-Qaeda and Saddam (though some still believe in both notions). They bungled the war in Iraq. They had little real experience of either the Arab world or soldiering. Many of them were even poor managers. Gary Schmitt, a fellow neocon, complained of Mr Feith that he “can't manage anything, and he doesn't trust anyone else's judgment”. General Tommy Franks describes him as the “dumbest fucking guy on the planet”.

    But, more important, neocons have been discredited for ideological reasons. Most of the recent mistakes can be traced back not just to flawed execution but to flawed thinking. The neocons argued that democracy might be an antidote to the Middle East's problems: but democracy proved too delicate a plant. They claimed that the assertion of American power might wipe out “Vietnam syndrome”: but it has ended up making America more reluctant to intervene abroad. They talked about linking American power with American ideals: but it turned out, at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, that power can corrupt those ideals.

    The tragedy of neoconservatism is that the movement began as a critique of the arrogance of power. Early neocons warned that government schemes to improve the world might well end up making it worse. They also argued that social engineers are always plagued by the law of unintended consequences. The neocons have not only messed up American foreign policy by forgetting their founders' insights. They may also have put a stake through the heart of their own movement. "

    I'd go ol' Lexie here one better: neo-conservatism was doomed from the get-go as a cynical, backwards thinking set of ideologue stances, and no positions that advance humanity in any way, shape, or form.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Mike,

    That's the M.O. of right wing thugs like Coulter and Widdle Boy and the Boy-ettes: pick on people who can't fight back but whine whenever someone else does it for them.

    These guys couldn't take us on merit of argument, so they resorted to lies, then lies about lying, then lies about lying about lies, and finally, just making stuff up altogether.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Karl Rove Gets Thrown Under the Stop Global Warming Bus


    Last night Thelma and Louise drove the bus off the cliff or at least into the White House Correspondents Dinner. The "highlight" of the evening had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming.

    We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

    We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country.

    We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?)

    At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.

    In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

    At that point Mr. Rove apparently decided he had had enough. Like a groundhog fearful of his own shadow, he scurried to his table in an attempt to hibernate for another year from his responsibility to address global warming. Drama aside, you would expect as an American citizen to be able to engage in a civil discussion with a public official. Instead, Mr. Rove was dismissive, condescending, and quite frankly a bully.

    Ultimately, we were left wondering what on Earth Mr. Rove was talking about when he said "the American people." If more than 60% of American voters, the Supreme Court, over 400 cities, the US National Academy of Sciences, numerous major US corporations, and others don't constitute the American people, then what does? The truth is, if this administration cared one iota about the American people, they would have addressed this problem long ago, and the sad reality is that this problem has been left to us, all of us, since the current administration has abandoned this issue entirely. In the absence of true leadership, we must guide ourselves. We can solve this, but we had better act fast.

    ***********************************

    Thus dolty the gutless boy and Tiny the LIAR are full of SH*T, but then again what else is new?

    ReplyDelete
  35. I'm still hunting, Clif, but now it's trolls....

    ReplyDelete
  36. Great minds, Lydia. We blogged the same story again. Did you consider that Rove might have felt repulsed from having been touched by a WOMAN? Perhaps it was Rove that Gannon/Gluckert went to see. She could touch me anytime. :-)

    Mike, thanks. To be truthful, it amazes me that the thinking people here waste as much effort as they do on the trolls. When someone has an absolute mind-set like the trolls, or like my father, they think that whop they are justifies whatever they say and do. They love it when we trade insults with them, because that put us on the same level.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Mike said...
    Voltaire said "Mike, not EVERYONE believes that.
    So we should all just shut up and let them say whatever they want without fear of rebuttal?

    Their husbands died, so we should just hand everything over to you guys without saying a word or having a debate or vote?"

    No Voltaire but if what you have to say is credible and convincing it should stand on its own without using personal attacks to discredit those who suffered from a tragedy, but I guess that just shows Coulter doesnt even believe her own drivel is powerful enough to convince anybody.

    ReplyDelete
  38. That's right, Clif. Look at the cowards they salivate over...

    ReplyDelete
  39. Mike said...
    she figures she will attack them so venomously with riddiculous crap like they want their husbands dead that they will be overcome with grief and frustration and throw in the towel, she used the same low blow tactics with Lydia by publishing her number, she figured after all the death threats and hate mail Lydia got she would just throw in the towel and go away.

    Answer me this, how come its only the ReichWingnut fanatics that threaten to kill people or send hate mail or advocate nuking other countries or genocide, I havent heard of one liberal threatening to kill someone over politics, WHY IS THAT??????????????????????????????????????????

    ReplyDelete
  40. Tomcat,

    We do more than trade insults. We make them so furious they have to leave in order to not burst an aneurysm ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Later guys, the fish are calling.............

    ReplyDelete
  42. Good luck, Clif!

    ReplyDelete
  43. Mike said...
    I'm sure Coulter has our country's best interest at heart and some well reasoned ideas, lets see...................

    Execute liberals, attack victims of a tragedy, poison Supreme Court Justices, insult and crap on the poor and victims of natural disasters, torture people, give out people's personal phone numbers etc........yeah Coulters gots lots of real ideas and sound arguments, NOT...................

    ReplyDelete
  44. Mike said...
    So your saying the widows cant speak their mind? seems like you want them silenced??

    And who did they attack personally, they may have spoken out about the Bush Administration's policies but they didnt attack bush's family. Coulter attacked the widows personally and through some supposed form of clairivoyance, with absolutely no evidence to support her argument stated that "THEY WERE GLAD THEIR HUSBANDS WERE DEAD"

    You tell me how this waste of skin should be considered credible, for spewing disrespectful BS with NO EVIDENCE to back up what she says, she is a disgrace and a laughingstock

    ReplyDelete
  45. Mike said...
    Mike said...
    she figures she will attack them so venomously with riddiculous crap like they want their husbands dead that they will be overcome with grief and frustration and throw in the towel, she used the same low blow tactics with Lydia by publishing her number, she figured after all the death threats and hate mail Lydia got she would just throw in the towel and go away.


    And then Bwave Widdle Soldiers like Widdle Cowboy, Widdle Twucker, Widdle Pedophile and Widdle Fawnbot came over here, trying to win brownie points with the bitch by taking on the posters.

    I'm thinking they're learning a hard lesson.

    ReplyDelete
  46. So lets see here, Volt cries fowl when he is attacked and smeared without proof,,,,,,,,,but yet be cheers Coulter on for doing the very same thing..........but denies it when recently called on it..........seems you have a credibility problem there Volt........your posts seem to contradict each other...........too hard to keep all the lies and spin straight?

    ReplyDelete
  47. WORFEUS said...
    From Hero to Patriot in 1.9 seconds.

    Just speak out against Bushy, and you're the bad guy.

    Doesn't matter what service you've rendered for your country. Doesn't matter whether you've lost a limb, or a loved one, you merit nothing from this sordid hive.

    From the likes of these, all one must do to be a hero, an all American Flag draped Star Spangled Hero, is just "agree" with them.

    And all one must do to be a Traitor, regardless of any service or sacrifice you've made for your nation, is disagree with them"

    Its all about politics, power and money with these thnugs and criminals..........THEY HAVE NO CREDIBILITY!

    ReplyDelete
  48. See Coulter's motto is if you cant win the argument with logic and credibility and honest debate, kill the messenger.

    ReplyDelete
  49. First of all exactly what damage is done, seems to me you guys hiding behind your supposed patriotism and bravery in an attempt to stifle our freedom to speak up and disagree is hiding behind a pretend unassailable position a million times more than the widows you guys attempt to attack and discredit.

    But the difference is I defend your right to speak your mind and challenge the widows argument via honest debate however I condemn your trying to smear and discredit them with lies like they are glad their husbands are dead, I would like to see one shred of evidence to support this other than Coulters clairavoyance that this is how they feel.

    See you guys know your arguments are weak hence the character assassination and lies, time to man up and open your eyes oltaire and see who is really trying to surpress free speach, hell coulter said women dont deserve the right to vote, does that sound like an advocate of free speech and open debate or someone trying to supress the voice of the people.

    ReplyDelete
  50. George Bush To Receive Purple Heart

    I kept hoping the word "posthumously" was in there somewhere...

    ReplyDelete
  51. Lydia Cornell said...
    Can you believe the lack of manners Rove conveyed?


    He acted like a pig.

    He clearly demonstrated the hubristic arrogance of these guys for all to see.

    You know, the very arrogance that every time we mention it, TT and Volt say, "huh, what arrogance"?.

    ReplyDelete
  52. TT said "Back when there were only three TV stations and no Internet, talk radio or Fox News, it used to be so easy for the MSM to destroy reputations -- Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Robert Bork, Dan Quayle, Oliver North, Clarence Thomas, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Paula Jones and Linda Tripp, to name a few of the MSM's prey.

    Oh, the civility of having only three TV stations back in our parents' day! It was even more civil in the Soviet Union where there was only one TV station.

    Ah, the civility of the old media! Sadly for the MSM, the Silent Majority is silent no more."

    Funny TT that with ONLY 3 tv stations back in the day the MSM was much more fair and balanced instead of a tool of the RightWingnuts to deceive and influence the weak minded.

    Also Funny how you seem to relate to Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, two people this administration seems to have patterned themselves after with their McCarthy like fear tactics and penchant for illegal spying.

    Now as for your portraying your people as victims I guess you are trying to say freedom of speech is not a good thing and these people should be beyond attack from dissenters, funny though your girl Ann Coulter seems to disagree, she seems to think anyone is fair game for personal attacks and slander whether she can support her lies and drivel or not, wonder if she got her line that the widows of 9/11 are happy their husbands are dead from the Psychic Friends Network Huh Troll Texan???

    And as for your reference to the silent majority, the voices of dissent aka "the silent majority" has never been more silent my friend, all while you psudo patriotic hyppocrites claim to support freedom of speech and say that no one is above speaking out against or attacking personally, yet you paint anyone who disagrees with the president or Neo Con agenda as an unpatriotic traitor.

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  53. If I were them I'd be distancing myself from this administration, as far away from it as I could get.

    Rather than sit here passively defending it day in day out for a year and a half.

    ReplyDelete
  54. I WORFEUS said...
    If I were them I'd be distancing myself from this administration, as far away from it as I could get.


    It's magical child thinking, iWorf. If they try and pray really REALY hard, big mean old God will make it all go away, and then there will be lollipops and rainbows and Iraqi children will mysteriously regain their limbs...

    ReplyDelete
  55. "Mike said...
    Exactly Coulter is a shill supported and financed by the Big Money Powers that be, without her backers she is nothing!

    10:55 AM"

    Two words, Mike: George Soros.

    11:00 AM

    Mike said...
    George Soros is a good man TT, him and Warren Buffet despite being 100 times richer than any of you clowns on your best day, they constantly speak out against corruption and support the poor, the little working class guy and speak out about dangerous policies that enrich the few elite but create long term inbalances in the economy that can have devasting consequences for EVERYONE.

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  56. I am firmly grounded in reality, I believe (some of my friends on the farther left would quickly add "in concrete shoes").
    -Carl

    Actually PP is firmly grounded in the fantasy of liberal ether. For example, he imagines that those who wish to fit him with concrete shoes are "friends", and that there could possibly be anyone farther to the left than he.

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  57. I know, Carl, but are they worth the effort?

    ReplyDelete
  58. Troll Tex said "Newsflash to Larry C JOHNSON: the GOP has taken back the CIA. Get used to it and get over it."

    Interesting how you are not only confortable but gloating and supportive that the Bush Administration has politicized the Cia and the DOJ and the focus has become partisanship and blind partsan loyalty rather than Justice and National Security.........most american citizens who value freedom would be appaled by what you just said.........yet you show gleeful joy that the system has been compromised by blindly loyal partisan cronnies.

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  59. Fascism Fan said...
    and that there could possibly be anyone farther to the left than he.


    or any farther to the right than thee...

    ReplyDelete
  60. Or are you still kidding yourself...?

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  61. Freedom Fan said...
    Actually PP is firmly grounded in the fantasy of liberal ether. For example, he imagines that those who wish to fit him with concrete shoes are "friends", and that there could possibly be anyone farther to the left than he.


    Oh look! Mommy let Widdle Wizard out of his cave!

    Whatcha get for Christmas, Widdle Wizard? Was Santy good to you?

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  62. TomCat said...
    I know, Carl, but are they worth the effort?


    Is free, unfetterd dialogue worth it?

    Hell yes. This is America, not Amerikkka...

    ReplyDelete
  63. Speaking of "magical children," here comes the biggest baby of them all!

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

    Is that dunce cap you got on tight enough fer ya, Widdle Wizard?

    ReplyDelete
  64. Go on, Fawnbot, sputter some of your patented overwrought, overthought bullshit...

    BIG SHMILE! BIG SHMILE! Master Racist, we salute you! *clicking heels*

    ReplyDelete
  65. Mike said...
    Troll Tex said "Newsflash to Larry C JOHNSON: the GOP has taken back the CIA. Get used to it and get over it."


    Newsflash to Widdle Cowboy:

    The CIA ain't liking the Republicans very much right now, ever since they saddled the agency with the blame for Iraq.

    Almost daily, seasoned operatives are quitting, the very people we need to fight terrrorists.

    Thanks, dickweeed. Glad you're gloating. Pray it's not your house that's next.

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  66. Mike,

    Would that be, um, Bush the Immature?

    ReplyDelete
  67. You guessed it Carl!

    ReplyDelete
  68. I WORFEUS said...
    Or are you still kidding yourself...?


    He's a hemaphrodite. The only way he can "kid" is by f*cking himself in his own ass.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Oooh! Ooh! Ooh! Do I win a prize?

    No. Of course not. I get to pay through the nose for it for the rest of my life.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Wow. I've knocked off Widdle Twucker, Widdle Pedophile, and Widdle Cowboy already this week.

    And now Widdle Wizard has to come off the bench to fill in!

    They had to send in the third string!
    BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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  71. So Widdle Wizard, do you support and condone the rape of an innocent woman that occured here last night, yes or no? Will you speak out against your fellow....bloggers *snark*...who dragged her through the whole experience yet again?

    My money's on yes, and I usually come out ahead in casinos...

    ReplyDelete
  72. If I was Reid, I'd walk to the White House, news cameras in hand, kick in the door to the Oval and dare that Coward-In-Chief to veto the bill on camera.

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  73. Published on Monday, April 11, 2005 by TomDispatch.com
    Oil, Geopolitics, and the Coming War with Iran
    by Michael T. Klare

    As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, one thing is certain: the Bush administration will never mention oil as a reason for going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. "We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran]," is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the administration's use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so its claim that an attack on Iran would be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential should invite widespread skepticism. More important, any serious assessment of Iran's strategic importance to the United States should focus on its role in the global energy equation.


    Just exactly how much weight the oil factor carries in the administration's decision-making is not something that we can determine with absolute assurance at this time, but given the importance energy has played in the careers and thinking of various high officials of this administration, and given Iran's immense resources, it would be ludicrous not to take the oil factor into account -- and yet you can rest assured that, as relations with Iran worsen, American media reports and analysis of the situation will generally steer a course well clear of the subject (as they did in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq).

    One further caveat: When talking about oil's importance in American strategic thinking about Iran, it is important to go beyond the obvious question of Iran's potential role in satisfying our country's future energy requirements. Because Iran occupies a strategic location on the north side of the Persian Gulf, it is in a position to threaten oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, which together possess more than half of the world's known oil reserves. Iran also sits athwart the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which, daily, 40% of the world's oil exports pass. In addition, Iran is becoming a major supplier of oil and natural gas to China, India, and Japan, thereby giving Tehran additional clout in world affairs. It is these geopolitical dimensions of energy, as much as Iran's potential to export significant quantities of oil to the United States, that undoubtedly govern the administration's strategic calculations.

    Having said this, let me proceed to an assessment of Iran's future energy potential. According to the most recent tally by Oil and Gas Journal, Iran houses the second-largest pool of untapped petroleum in the world, an estimated 125.8 billion barrels. Only Saudi Arabia, with an estimated 260 billion barrels, possesses more; Iraq, the third in line, has an estimated 115 billion barrels. With this much oil -- about one-tenth of the world's estimated total supply -- Iran is certain to play a key role in the global energy equation, no matter what else occurs.

    It is not, however, just sheer quantity that matters in Iran's case; no less important is its future productive capacity. Although Saudi Arabia possesses larger reserves, it is now producing oil at close to its maximum sustainable rate (about 10 million barrels per day). It will probably be unable to raise its output significantly over the next 20 years while global demand, pushed by significantly higher consumption in the United States, China, and India, is expected to rise by 50%. Iran, on the other hand, has considerable growth potential: it is now producing about 4 million barrels per day, but is thought to be capable of boosting its output by another 3 million barrels or so. Few, if any, other countries possess this potential, so Iran's importance as a producer, already significant, is bound to grow in the years ahead.

    And it is not just oil that Iran possesses in great abundance, but also natural gas. According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has an estimated 940 trillion cubic feet of gas, or approximately 16% of total world reserves. (Only Russia, with 1,680 trillion cubic feet, has a larger supply.) As it takes approximately 6,000 cubic feet of gas to equal the energy content of 1 barrel of oil, Iran's gas reserves represent the equivalent of about 155 billion barrels of oil. This, in turn, means that its combined hydrocarbon reserves are the equivalent of some 280 billion barrels of oil, just slightly behind Saudi Arabia's combined supply. At present, Iran is producing only a small share of its gas reserves, about 2.7 trillion cubic feet per year. This means that Iran is one of the few countries capable of supplying much larger amounts of natural gas in the future.

    What all this means is that Iran will play a critical role in the world's future energy equation. This is especially true because the global demand for natural gas is growing faster than that for any other source of energy, including oil. While the world currently consumes more oil than gas, the supply of petroleum is expected to contract in the not-too-distant future as global production approaches its peak sustainable level -- perhaps as soon as 2010 -- and then begins a gradual but irreversible decline. The production of natural gas, on the other hand, is not likely to peak until several decades from now, and so is expected to take up much of the slack when oil supplies become less abundant. Natural gas is also considered a more attractive fuel than oil in many applications, especially because when consumed it releases less carbon dioxide (a major contributor to the greenhouse effect).

    When considering Iran's role in the global energy equation, therefore, Bush administration officials have two key strategic aims: a desire to open up Iranian oil and gas fields to exploitation by American firms, and concern over Iran's growing ties to America's competitors in the global energy market. Under U.S. law, the first of these aims can only be achieved after the President lifts EO 12959, and this is not likely to occur as long as Iran is controlled by anti-American mullahs and refuses to abandon its uranium enrichment activities with potential bomb-making applications. Likewise, the ban on U.S. involvement in Iranian energy production and export gives Tehran no choice but to pursue ties with other consuming nations. From the Bush administration's point of view, there is only one obvious and immediate way to alter this unappetizing landscape -- by inducing "regime change" in Iran and replacing the existing leadership with one far friendlier to U.S. strategic interests.

    In this sense, more than any other, the current planning for an attack on Iran is fundamentally driven by concern over the safety of U.S. energy supplies, as was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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  74. National GOP Multimedia Web Page Is ... Fox News Video Clips

    Great Moments In Fox News Dept. If there was any doubt left that Fox News is just a media organ of the Republican Party, then take a look at this screen capture of the National Republican Senatorial Committee's multimedia page.

    You might think the term "multimedia" would imply that it's a collection of stuff from various news organizations, plus in-house content from the NRSC. It turns out, though, that it's nothing but ... a collection of Fox News video clips.

    Every clip in the NRSC's "multimedia" section is from Fox:

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  75. Wanna bet the MSM doesn't spend a week bloviating about this senseless killing?

    MNF: Task Force Lightning Patrol Base Attacked - 9 killed


    Nine Task Force Lightning Soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion near a patrol base in Diyala Province, Monday. 20 Soldiers and one Iraqi civilian were wounded when a suicide vehicle born IED attacked the patrol base...


    85 US soldiers have been killed in the first 23 days of this month, but the MSM almost totally ignores their continuing senseless deaths for a lost cause because Bush can't admit he was and still is WRONG.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Wanna bet a gutless draft dodger thinks these deaths are justified by the LIES he spews for those who sold the BIG lie about 9-11 to the American People.

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  77. Well FF, I know everyone here is SOOOO concerned about the environment and global warming that I'm sure they're taking Sheryl Crow's advice about only using 1 square of toilet paper for each bathroom trip.

    (I guess you get to use 2 or 3, but ONLY for those "pesky" bathroom trips...)

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  78. Hey Volt,

    As a good Republican, I drive an SUV (at least until CA slaps a $2500 fine on me) but I have a 60 foot tree in my yard.

    Does that count as a "carbon offset"?

    Personally I think it is a big enough tree that the government should also allow me to smoke a Nicaraguan cigar.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Only IF you own the company that planted the tree FF.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Since Sheryl's only using 1 square of tp for her bathroom visits, I wonder if she has a "carbon offset" in her pants?

    ReplyDelete
  81. At least he adds a little more flair to it than Larry. I've seen SciFi movies where the robot has more personality than Larry.

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  82. Hey FF, what exactly IS a "pesky bathroom trip" anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  83. So far, AlGore's solution to global warming is to build a couple massive mansions and shovel billions of dollars to archer daniels midland and the corn farmers.

    Methanol production consumes darn near as much energy as it produces, but at least we have "alternative energy".

    Meanwhile the greenies are suing to shut down hydro-production because the salmon aren't happy.

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  84. I MAY be taking her too seriously though, maybe she meant it like Babs Striesand did, you know just for everybody else, not her?

    ReplyDelete
  85. Hey FF, what exactly IS a "pesky bathroom trip" anyway?
    -Volt

    Got me there Volt, but I'm pretty sure that a "trippy bathroom pest" would be PP.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Yeah, I was reading something awhile back about the forests. They're now saying that only tropical rainforest's produce much oxygen, the ones outside of that zone hold in heat contributing to global warming.

    So are we still supposed to hug trees, or just cut 'em down?

    ReplyDelete
  87. Hey Volt, if'n I were Sheryl Crow, I wouldn't be assaulting (that's what trial lawyers call it when you touch somebody) the Vice President -- remember what he did with the shotgun.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results

    Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

    The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

    Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote- from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves -- must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

    Numerous tech-savvy bloggers, starting with the online investigative consortium epluribusmedia.org and their November 2006 article cross-posted by contributor luaptifer to Dailykos, and Joseph Cannon's blog at Cannonfire.blogspot.com, outed the RNC tech network. That web-hosting firm is SMARTech Corp. of Chattanooga, TN, operating out of the basement in the old Pioneer Bank building. The firm hosts scores of Republican websites, including georgewbush.com, gop.com and rnc.org.

    The software created for the Ohio secretary of state's Election Night 2004 website was created by GovTech Solutions, a firm co-founded by longtime GOP computing guru Mike Connell. He also redesigned the Bush campaign's website in 2000 and told "Inside Business" magazine in 1999, "I wouldn't be where I am today without the Bush campaign and the Bush family because the Bushes truly are about family and I'm loyal to my network."

    Ohio's Cedarville University, a Christian school with 3,100 students, issued a press release on January 13, 2005 describing how faculty member Dr. Alan Dillman's computing company Government Consulting Resources, Ltd, worked with these Republican-connected companies to tally the vote on Election Night 2004.

    "Dillman personally led the effort from the GCR side, teaming with key members of Blackwell's staff," the release said. "GCR teamed with several other firms -- including key players such as GovTech Solutions, which performed the software development -- to deliver the end result. SMARTech provided the backup and additional system capacity, and Mercury Interactive performed the stress testing."

    On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, the final presidential swing state, through a secretary of state who was a co-chair of the Bush campaign, but it also controlled the technology that allowed the tally of the vote in Ohio's 88 counties to be reported to the media and voters.

    Privatizing elections and allowing known partisans to run a key presidential vote count is troubling enough. But the reason Congress must investigate these high-tech ties is there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio's 2004 election while tinkering with the results.

    Did Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell or other GOP operatives inflate the president's vote totals to secure George W. Bush's margin of victory? On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the Secretary of State were based on local precinct results that were impossible. In Clyde, Ohio, a Republican haven, Bush won big after 131 percent voter turnout. In Republican Perry County, two precincts came in at 124 percent and 120 percent respectively. In Gahanna Ward 1, precinct B, Bush received 4,258 votes despite the fact that only 638 people voted for president. In Concord Southwest in Miami County, the certified election results proudly proclaimed at 679 out of 689 registered voters cast ballots, a 98.55 percent turnout. FreePress.org later found that only 547 voters had signed in.

    These strange election results were routed by county election officials through Ohio's Secretary of State's office, through partisan IT providers and software, and the final results were hosted out of a computer based in Tennessee announcing the winner. The Cedarville University releases boasted the system "was running like a champ." It said, "The system kept running through the early morning hours as users from around the world looked to Ohio for their election results."

    All the facts are not in, but enough is known to warrant a serious congressional inquiry. Beginning with a timeline on Election Night after a national media consortium exit poll predicted Democrat John Kerry would win Ohio, the first Ohio returns were from the state's Democratic urban strongholds, showing Kerry in the lead.

    This was the case until shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 5, when for roughly 90 minutes the Ohio election results reported on the Secretary of State's website were frozen. Shortly before 2am EST election returns came in from a handful of the state's rural Republican enclaves, bumping Bush's numbers over the top.

    It was known Bush would carry rural Ohio. But the vote totals from these last-to-report counties, where Karl Rove said there was an unprecedented late-hour evangelical vote giving the White House a moral mandate, were highly improbable and suggested vote count fraud to pad Bush's numbers. Just how flimsy the reported GOP totals were was not known on Election Night and has not been examined by the national media. But an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff begun after Election Day 2004 and completed before the Electoral College met on Jan. 6, 2005, was first to publicly point to vote count fraud in rural Ohio.

    That report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio," cited near-impossible vote totals, including 19,000 votes that were mysteriously added at the close of tallying the vote in Miami County. The report cited more than 3,000 apparently fraudulent voter registrations -- all dating back to the same day in 1977 in Perry County. The report noted a homeland security emergency was declared in Warren County, prompting its ballots to be taken to a police-guarded unauthorized warehouse and counted away from public scrutiny, despite local media protests.

    In our book, "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election" (The New Press, 2006), we go beyond the House Judiciary Democratic report to analyze precinct-by-precinct returns and we print copies of the documents upon which we base our findings. We found many vote-count irregularities based on examining the certified results, precinct-level records and the actual ballots.

    The most eyebrow-raising example to emerge from parsing precinct results was finding 10,500 people in three Ohio's 'Bible Belt' counties who voted to re-elect Bush and voted in favor of gay marriage, if the official results are true. That was in Warren, Butler and Clermont Counties. The most plausible explanation for this anomaly, which defies logic and was not seen anywhere else in the country, was Kerry votes were flipped to Bush while the rest of the ballot was left alone. While we have some theories about how that might have been done by hand in a police-guarded warehouse, could full Republican control of the vote-counting software and servers also have played a role?

    The early returns on the Secretary of State's website suggest Blackwell's vote-tallying and reporting system could manipulate large blocks of votes. Screenshots taken during the early returns in Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, gave Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb 39,541 votes, which was clearly incorrect. Similarly, early return screenshots in Lucas County, where Toledo is located, gave Cobb 4,685 votes, another clear error. (The screenshots are in our book). Were these innocent computer glitches or was a GOP vote-counting and reporting system moving and dumping Kerry votes?

    There's more evidence the late returns from Ohio's Republican-majority countryside were not accurate. During the spring and summer of 2006, several teams of investigators associated with Freepress.org, notably one team led by Ron Baiman, a Ph.D. statistician and researcher at Chicago's Loyola University, examined the actual election records from precincts in Miami and Clermont Counties. These records -- from poll books where voters sign in, to examining the actual ballots themselves -- were not publicly accessible until last year, under orders from Ohio's former Republican Secretary of State. Baiman compared the number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes attributed to precincts. He found hundreds of "phantom" votes, where the number of voter signatures was less than the reported vote total. That discrepancy also suggests vote count fraud.

    There was other evidence in the observable paper trail of padding the vote, including instances in Delaware County where in one precinct, 359 of the final punch-card ballots cast on Election Day contained no Kerry votes, which means the day's last voters all were Bush supporters, which also is improbable. In another Delaware County precinct, Bush allegedly received the last 210 votes of the day. Were partisan local election workers trying to mask what was happening electronically to tilt the vote count?

    Ohio's 2004 ballots were to be destroyed last September. However that fate was blocked by a federal judge, who ruled in the early phase of trying a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that accused Ohio officials of suppressing the minority vote in Ohio's cities. The state's new Secretary of State and Attorney General, both Democrats, are now holding settlement talks for that suit, suggesting its claims have merit. However, unlike Florida after the 2000 election, there still has yet to be a full accounting of Ohio's presidential vote.

    What's clear, however, is the highest ranks of the Republican Party's political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush's re-election to the presidency. Moreover, it appears the votes that gave Bush his 118,775-vote margin of victory -- the boost from Ohio's countryside -- have yet to be confirmed as accurate. Instead, the reporting to date suggests that what happened on the ground and across Ohio's rural precincts is at odds with the vote tally released on Election Night.

    As numerous congressional committees attempt to retrieve and examine the secret White House e-mails surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors, those panels must also probe the privatization and partisan manipulation of the 2004 presidential vote count in Ohio. The lessons from 2004 have yet to be fully understood or learned.

    Similarly, the House Administration Committee, which is expected to soon mark up H.R. 811, a bill by Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ, to regulate electronic voting technology, also must take heed. The vote count and outcome of American elections cannot be left in the hands of known partisans, who can control and manipulate how the votes are counted and what is reported to the media and American people.

    Public vote counts on private, partisan servers and secret proprietary software have no place in a democracy.

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  89. "Buying the War"

    NOTE: I've updated this below the fold with a very sharp review of "Buying The War." PBS's own Frontline and Newshour are criticized. Even Oprah! And there's a list of those who refused to be interviewed.

    From Eric Alterman's column "Altercation" at Media Matters:

    Bill Moyers' 90-minute program, Buying the War ["How did the mainstream media get it so wrong?"] ... will be broadcast on PBS this Wednesday night. Everyday Altercation readers will be familiar with the contours of the piece and much of the evidence -- as it speaks directly to what is perhaps the primary obsession of this website -- but the piece is incredibly compelling and satisfying nonetheless because Moyers, being Moyers, is able to demand a measure of accountability from those responsible. It's fascinating to see how the ones who are brave enough to show up react to the questioning of their responsibility for helping to lead their nation so far astray. Yours truly is not in the documentary and had nothing whatever to do with it -- though I suppose I should disclose my longtime personal and professional relationship with Moyers while writing this. Greg Mitchell, who has no such relationship, writes this terrific intro to the doc, and calls it "devastating," and per usual, we are down with him on that. There's also a fine article here in USA Today where we also learn, in a sidebar, that Bill's returning to PBS, back on Fridays at 9, when he will be interviewing Jon Stewart and Josh Marshall.

    From the Bill Moyers Journal's preview:

    How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?

    In this clip from the premiere of BILL MOYERS JOURNAL on PBS, Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, talks about the reporting he was seeing and reading out of the beltway, and John Walcott and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers (now The McClatchy Company), discuss their work burrowing deep into the intelligence agencies to determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war. On Wednesday, April 25 at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), watch "Buying the War," a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, which includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the Press; and Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN.

    I'm glad he's featuring the exception-to-the-rulers pre-war work of the Knight-Ridder reporters.

    It'll be interesting to see if Moyers can get Russert to 'fess up how he contributed to the drumbeat for war.

    UPDATE: FROM "On TV: A strong return for Moyers," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's fascinating review of "Buying The War" -- and check out the last part, the names of those journalists who refused to allow Moyers to interview them:

    [...]

    Mainstream journalists of all stripes were bludgeoned into submission by threatening organized attacks via e-mail, partisan blogs and opinion-driven shout fests on cable.

    This is in no way an adequate excuse for soft reporting, however. The government has been lying to the fourth estate since its founding. The journalist's duty to cut through the fog on behalf of this country's citizens comes with the press pass.

    [...]

    As medicinal as it is sobering, this is the kind of work that should be shown to journalism students as a warning about how dangerous a cowed press can be to democracy's health.

    That's made clear in the opening segment, showing a White House press conference that everyone in the news corps apparently understands to be scripted. President Bush consults a list of reporters to call upon, provided to him by his staff, calling on one reporter cold. Two weeks before the war began, that woman lobbed Bush a softball about -- what? -- his faith.

    These images, frustratingly accepted as commonplace back then, are especially frightening in the context of where the war has taken us.

    [...]

    He and the array of media figures interviewed as part of the documentary, including authors Eric Boehlert and Norman Solomon, are not shy about naming names, either. Time and again they list the primary sources for the trickling down of misinformation: The Washington Post, The New York Times, newsmagazines and newspapers around the country.

    Even PBS's "Frontline" and "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" take their knocks.

    So does Oprah, who is shown interviewing disgraced former Times reporter Judith Miller and Ahmed Chalabi's right-hand man on her show. She also silences a member of the audience who infers that the host is passing off propaganda as truth -- which she was.

    Among those interviewed for "Buying the War" are former CBS anchor Dan Rather, "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, former CNN president Walter Isaacson, and three reporters who boldly did their jobs, finding evidence that the WMD alarm was a sham: Knight Ridder's John Walcott, Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay.

    Moyers doesn't shield the identities of those who rebuffed his requests for interviews either, all of whom played key roles in the sale, many still making the talk-show rounds today. That includes Miller, the Times' Thomas Friedman and William Safire, the Post's Charles Krauthammer, Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Bill Kristol.

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  90. Reid to Bush: "Suck It"

    by clammyc
    Mon Apr 23rd, 2007 at 04:04:14 PM EST
    Not only has Senator Reid issued a smackdown of Bush’s veto threat by challenging him to come up with his own alternative to this latest failure of a strategy, but he has also apparently rounded up enough support to call for a “change of course” and a timetable for withdrawal on the compromise Iraq and Afghanistan funding bill that, on the surface, makes Bush look the damn fool.

    According to the articles released:

    Defying a fresh veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass legislation within days requiring the start of a troop withdrawal from Iraq by Oct. 1, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.

    The legislation also sets a goal of a complete pullout by April 1, 2008, he said.

    In remarks prepared for delivery, Reid said that under the legislation the troops that remain after next April 1 could only train Iraqi security units, protect U.S forces and conduct "targeted counter-terror operations."

    Now, it does remain to be seen what will happen if the compromise bill is vetoed, however Reid has been nothing short of stellar throughout these past few weeks. Of course, the fact that polls are showing an increasing support for cutting off funding altogether or to tie the funding to a timeline. Or it could be helped by the fact that it is painfully obvious that there has been a tremendous worsening of the violence, the latest “wall” idea is an absolute embarassoment not to mention the fact that the administration has already backed off it.

    But in the battle to push the debate in Congress and the actions of America closer to an exit strategy, Reid has now not only hung tough in the face of blistering blathering by the right wing noise machine, the administration’s mouthpieces and the talking meatsticks. He has said that the “war is lost”. He has not backed down – calling for a tougher bill co-sponsored by Senator Feingold that would flat out call for a withdrawal of all combat troops by next year. And he has held his caucus together despite tremendous odds and factors to pass a bill (and the compromise version) which seems to be better than the one passed by the House.

    In addition, the article quotes Reid today as saying:

    "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

    Reid said that in addition to the timetable, the legislation will establish standards for the Iraqi government to meet in terms of "making progress on security, political reconciliation and improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis who have suffered so much."

    The measure also would launch diplomatic, economic and political policy changes, Reid said. ---snip--- Bush "is the only person who fails to face this war's reality - and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq's future, but for ours."

    Not only this, but Reid dared Bush (as the republicans have done to the Democrats so many times before) to come up with another alternative if he doesn’t like what Congress has passed, saying:

    "If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative. Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve."

    Of course, “clap harder” hasn’t worked yet, and since McCain said that he too has no “Plan B” it is the republicans who are not only backed into a corner, defending an unpopular and failure of an occupation, but do not have any alternatives – alternatives that the American public is SCREAMING for.

    To quote a great movie, “it looks like the foot’s on the other hand now”.

    Bush has looked more and more like the bumbling idiot that he is since he first threatened to veto a bill that gives him all the money he wanted. As for our Senate Majority Leader – you have to hand it to him. He took the onslaught of this administration’s and country’s propaganda machine over the past few weeks, chewed it up and spit it back in their face. And even better – he is still standing and has the support of the American people. Even more than before this bill was first passed.

    There is a new set of rules in Washington DC. Whether Bush likes it or not, the rules were set by the American people back in November. And the Democrats in Congress are doing, in Bush’s words, a “heckuva job” so far in trying to extricate us from this colossal disaster.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Boehner’s time is up on “the surge”



    Update: Contact House Minority Leader Boehner at Capitol switchboard: (800) 828 0498
    Direct line: (202) 225-6205

    Time is up for Boehner—Duncan calls him out on what he promised! Boehner told CNN it was the last, best chance in Iraq 90 days ago today…Today is the day…

    video_wmv Download (1791) | Play (1651) video_mov Download (842) | Play (1014)

    Q: How long can you and your membership give the Iraqi military before you say, you know what? You're not doing your job.

    BOEHNER: I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. And, again, that's why we need to have close oversight, so that we just don't look up 60 or 90 days from now and realize that — that this plan is not working. We need to know, as we — as we're — we move through these benchmarks, that the Iraqis are doing what they have to do.

    Let's take a look at what's happened in Iraq last week—shall we? It's a clusterf*&k!

    McClatchy:

    Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces. Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

    CNN:

    Gunmen shot and killed 23 members of an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths, while car bombings in the capital killed at least another 20 people.

    AP:

    A suicide car bomb struck a restaurant in Iraq on Monday, killing at least 19 people and wounding 35, police said. The attack occurred on a highway near Ramadi, a city that is 70 miles west of Baghdad, a policeman said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own safety. Three suicide bombers launched attacks in different parts of Iraq on Monday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 60 on Monday, police and politicians said.

    CongressDaily:

    Pentagon lawyers abruptly blocked mid-level active-duty military officers from speaking Thursday during a closed-door House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee briefing about their personal experiences working with Iraqi security forces. The Pentagon's last-minute refusal to allow the officers' presentations surprised panel members and congressional aides, who are in the middle of an investigation into the effort to train and organize Iraqi forces.

    New York Times:

    American military commanders in Baghdad are trying a radical new strategy to quell the widening sectarian violence by building a 12-foot-high, three-mile-long wall separating a historic Sunni enclave from Shiite neighborhoods… A doctor in Adhamiya, Abu Hassan, said the wall would transform the residents into caged animals.

    Army Times:

    After an hour of bench-pressing a log weighing several hundred pounds during Army Special Forces selection training in February 2006, five soldiers lying on their backs at Fort Bragg, N.C., reacted quickly to the next order: "Drop back!" So quickly, in fact, that when they dropped the log, it landed on Spc. Paul Thurman's head. "I shook for a moment, and then went limp," Thurman told Military Times. "I was unconscious for a minute or two, and then I went back to training." An MRI later showed that Thurman had lesions on the right parietal lobe of his brain, a condition that led to a "don't deploy" order — which the Army violated, according to Thurman. Worse, rather than providing compassionate understanding of the symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury, he said leaders at Fort Carson, Colo., have harassed him, refused him medication and pushed for an Article 15.

    AP:

    The 65-year-old Sunni sheik was the only one who campaigned to take the helm of the Fallujah city council after three previous chairmen were gunned down by suspected Sunni insurgents. Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili was eager for the job and once he got it, promised to improve services and work with the Americans to ease traffic-clogging checkpoints in the city with an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people. But Abdul-Amir died Saturday as his predecessors had - in a hail of bullets. It was a blow to recent U.S. optimism about efforts to tame Anbar province - a vast desert area that includes Fallujah - after alliances were struck with influential Sunni sheiks once arrayed against American-led forces.

    New York Times:

    A U.S. Army officer said Sunday that the coalition has no technology capable of detecting all suicide bombers before they strike, and that the only solution is for Iraqi forces, government officials and civilians to work together to stop the terrorist cells that plan such attacks while hiding in populated areas. (h/t C&lers for some of the articles)

    ReplyDelete
  92. Volt, I hear that trees produce about as much carbon dioxide when they die and rot as the CO2 they absorb when alive. So the only rational thing to do is cut em down to make houses.

    I wonder how many trees it took to produce this house?

    ReplyDelete
  93. Wow! Four massive scroll-by yawners! Isn't that some kinda record for GI Jane?

    ReplyDelete
  94. I know it's not the pink pajama circle jerk crowds favorite topic of discussion toilet paper, but real people are dying in a war these clowns are all for but were far too gutless to offer to go when it was their time.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Later you gutless draft dodger.

    ReplyDelete
  96. I dunno FF, I was thinking four massive yawn-by scrollers...

    ReplyDelete
  97. Perhaps GI Jane hasn't heard; the war is old news. Now the dire threat to humanity is global warming.

    The Iraq war just killed a couple billion Iraqi babies and their mothers by stealing their oil for Halliburton. Global warming will kill everyone, starting with the cuddly polar bears.

    Coincidentally, both of these atrocities were created by George Bush.

    Say what ever happened to that sinister monster, Diebold -- creation of that evil genius, Karl Rove? I suppose we can stop worrying now that some dhimmicrats have been elected.

    ReplyDelete
  98. This is how you gutless punks really support th=e troops you were too scared to stand side by side in a combat zone with;

    From ABC News by Bob Woodward (a journalist who was also injured in Iraq):

    April 23, 2007 — - On July 4, 2003, Carol and Richard Coons had planned to welcome home their son Master Sgt. James Coons, a career soldier who had seen action in Iraq in 2003 and during the first Gulf War. Instead, they found out James was dead.
    >
    He had committed suicide in his room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and was found hanging from a bed sheet just inside his room in an outpatient hotel. Walter Reed staff did not find him until at least two days after his death, and only then at the insistence of his family, who were desperate to locate their son.
    >
    In their first network television interview since their son’s death, Carol and Richard Coons sat down with me to talk about their family’s anger and quest for answers. “They didn’t take care of my son. They just didn’t take care of him,” Carol said.
    >
    Watch “World News With Charles Gibson” tonight for Bob Woodruff’s full interview.
    >
    Just a few days earlier, Coons, 35, had been evacuated from a base in Kuwait because he had overdosed on sleeping pills. An Army doctor at a combat hospital labeled the action a “suicidal gesture,” according to Coons’ medical records.
    >
    Coons told medical personnel that he had visited a morgue on the base to pay his respects to the fallen soldiers and had been haunted by one of the faces — that of a Navy corpsman who had been badly burned and disfigured by an IED.
    >
    His parents knew from talking to him on the phone that he was troubled — they say his voice began to sound different, and they could tell that he was under a lot of strain. “He said, ‘The things that I’ve seen are really bothering me,’” said Carol. “He would see demons and he was trying to control his demons,” added Richard.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Hall and Gagnon: "A Very Bad Idea"



    This is a guest op-ed by Charles Hall and Nate Gagnon.

    Dr. Charles Hall is a Systems Ecologist who has written seven books and 200 scholarly articles; Professor Hall teaches Systems Ecology and Geographical Modeling courses and workshops at SUNY-ESF and in many locations in Latin America. Nathan Gagnon is a graduate student in the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences at the State Univ NY College of Environmental Science and Forestry; his interests are the changing EROI of global and US oil.

    The recent front page article “Oil innovations pump new life into old wells” by Jad Mouawad (March 5 page 1) is dangerously misleading. The author would have us believe that technological innovations will increase the proportion of oil recoverable from known fields sufficiently to compensate for the dearth of new discoveries. It gives a false sense of security about our difficult oil situation based on a very selective interpretation of data. For example, the graph used to support the article undermines the author’s main thesis. It shows that steam injection is not new but has been used in the Kern River field since 1965 and also that oil production in this field peaked in 1984 and has been declining sharply since about 1997. In fact most of the “oil innovations” mentioned in the article, including the injection of steam and various gases, are old technologies, first implemented in the 1920s. Innovations have always been occurring in the oil industry. The important question is whether these technologies are increasing production more rapidly than depletion is decreasing it.

    Considerable information indicates that depletion is a more important force in petroleum extraction than is technological development. The increases in production from the Kern River and Duri fields that the article mentions, and indeed even from the much larger Alberta and Orinoco Tar sands deposits, are small relative to the far larger production declines from many of the world’s most important oil fields, including the North Sea, Cantarell in Mexico (recently the world’s second largest producer), America’s largest fields including Prudhoe Bay, East Texas and Yates, Samotlor in Russia, Yibal in Oman, Rabi-Kounga in Gabon, probably Burgan in Kuwait and so on.

    All of these fields have been subject to the kind of technologies mentioned in the Mouawad article, sometimes for many decades, and all except possibly Burgan are clearly in steep decline or have virtually ceased production. The best oil field technology in the world has not stopped the US production from declining by 50 percent since its peak in 1970. Likewise clear peaks in oil production have occurred in such important producers as Argentina, China, Egypt, Indonesia (a founding member of OPEC), Mexico, Norway and the United Kingdom, even while prices were increasing. It is not clear yet whether modern technologies such as horizontal drilling will principally increase total yields or simply increase rates of extraction.

    Furthermore, many of the technologies mentioned in the article tend to be extremely expensive. This is so not only in dollars but also in energy. The importance of the increasing energy cost has been documented in reports, published in quality journals, that show that the energy return on investment (EROI) for US domestic oil production has dropped from greater than 100 Btu returned per Btu invested in the 1930s to about thirty to one in the 1970s to perhaps 15 to one in 2000. Our research indicates a similar declining trend for world oil. Making steam and pumping it into the ground, or moving gases from their source points to dispersed oil-field sites, requires enormous investments of energy. Thus while increasing prices can indeed make more low-quality resources economically available they generally also mean that more energy is being expended relative to production returns. Eventually we may reach the energy break even point. Thus much of the oil cited as “probable” or “contingent” reserves is unlikely to be worth exploiting regardless of price

    The article’s dismissive comments about peak oil theory and its advocates are ill informed and ignore the importance of the message coming from a sophisticated and growing community that includes many hundreds of geologists, other scientists, environmentalists, financiers and citizens who see a serious situation ahead of us for oil and, especially in North America, natural gas. Whether peak oil production (or as has been suggested an “undulating plateau”) has occurred, is occurring now or will not occur for several years or possibly decades makes little difference from the perspective of the life times of our children. Hiding our heads in the sand and putting our faith in technological developments that so far have been unable to compensate for most depletion seems to us to be a very bad idea.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Wow Volt! The Breck Girl certainly has built a fitting mansion, carved out of the lush green oxygen-generating forest.

    But hey, I'm pretty sure he has purchased lots and lots of carbon offsets, so it's not as if he and AlGore are like hypocrites or anything.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Didn't Clif just say "later" to us?

    Were we supposed to go somewhere or was he?

    ReplyDelete
  102. Volt, I believe cliffy is out "mowing his lawn". After all, he is quite an adrenaline junkie.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Naw FF, he only does that at 3 in the morning, it probably does give him an adrenaline rush what with the neighbors yelling and dogs barking and all...

    ReplyDelete
  104. I am gonna turn in now though FF.

    I gotta get a decent nights sleep, gotta go back to Chicago AGAIN tomorrow morning...

    (about the same traffic as LA freeways only not as many lanes, real fun in a truck with several thousand pounds of steel on it...)

    ReplyDelete
  105. No gay-dalf I'm reading another blog which has more than toilet paper as the topic of discussion, but you guys seem to have an anal fixation there in the pink pajama circle jerk romper room and the widdle dollies you and dolty boy like to UNDRESS

    but to each pedophile their own like YOU son.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Volt, do you remember reading the Population Bomb the lib tome about how the world would become overpopulated and everyone would die of famine? Then agriculture, led by innovative American farmers produced the
    the green revolution -- dustbin time for Paul Ehrlich and the libs.

    Then do you remember how the libs told us that unless we unilaterally destroyed all our nukes, that we would be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust? Then Ronnie Reagan happened -- dustbin again.

    Now we have the global warming scare. Could it be more of the same? Nah, this time will be different, I'm pretty sure.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Volt, I see you failed to address my post of your double standards and hippocrissy............So i'll post it AGAIN until you do!

    Volt said "Secondly, I can't control what TT, FF or Johnny say. I don't have MY finger on the delete button.

    If you have been wrongly smeared, that is condemnable, and I do condemn it."

    Thats an "interesting" LIE.......because

    1) YOU certainly CAN control what Moo Moo, Rusty, and TT say because you DO have your finger on the delete button in YOUR blog yet you choose to let Moo Moo and others lie and smear us and spew vulgarities on your blog while hippocritically feigning outrage when the same is done here.

    2) I have NEVER once seen you condemn Rusty, Moo Mo or TT for spewing vulgar insults or telling blatent bald faced lies and manufacturing rascism to smear their political opponents in Lydia's blog.

    Therefore the only reasoned conclusion Volt is that you are a hippocrite and a liar who has double standards based on politics!

    Sorry Volt........but I call em like I see em!

    ReplyDelete
  108. Carl said...
    Mike,

    It's not even that they support the President because he's the president and it would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

    After all, they smeared Clinton left and right, and HE was President.

    No, it's that Bush is a Republican and that gives them their knee-jerk reaction to him."

    Exactly Carl.........its all partisan and political with these hippocritical fools..........they DID attack Clinton but defend Bush on EVERYTHING.

    Look at Volt yesterday defending Rove all afternoon then he "claims" he wasnt defending Rove and doesnt like or support him that much...........dont know about you but I dont waste a whole afternoon of my life defending someone I "claim" I dont REALLY like or support that much.

    It all goes back to credibility and any credibility I attributed to volt is evaporating with his double standards double talk and hippocrissy!

    ReplyDelete
  109. I mean Volt ACTUALLY tried to argue that Crow was claiming Rove worked ONLY for her...........last I checked Crow "IS" an American Citizen and "IS" part of the American public that people like GWB and Rove were elected and appointed to serve...........are you denying that Volt or saying thats not the case????????

    ReplyDelete
  110. Mike, Cheryl Crow replied to the idiot KKKarl she was an American citizen, and the idiot KKKarl ran to his table to hide from HER.

    they all are gutless widdle punks even our own toilet paper crowd, you know the pink pajama circle jerks.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Dolt is just another LYING gutless punk.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Just like Tiny the Liar, goo goo, and gay-dalf the draft dodger.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Therefore the only reasoned conclusion Volt is that you are a hippocrite...
    -MTM

    Hey Mikey,

    For future reference:

    This is a hippo.

    Whereas this is a hypocrite

    Capiche?

    Oh and this is AlGore's 'Carbon Offset'.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Well Foole........since most of you repugs have such big fat mouths like hippos.......and since it seems to annoy Troll Tex I will CONTINUE to call you hippocrites capiche Fascist Fan?

    ReplyDelete
  115. Nice romper room dolty boy;

    Voltron said...

    It should be about ideas and world views, not THEIR worthless arses.
    April 23, 2007 8:06 PM
    Freedom Fan said...

    Thanks Volt. I did make a copy of his pictures and address, just for fun, tho.
    April 23, 2007 8:11 PM
    Voltron said...

    LOL, DAMMIT!

    You know me too well FF.
    April 23, 2007 8:12 PM
    Voltron said...

    It looks like Cliffy is trying to bury us FF...
    April 23, 2007 8:38 PM
    Freedom Fan said...

    I do. You're a great guy, Volt. Now let's kick some booty you Ruffian you!
    April 23, 2007 8:39 PM
    Voltron said...

    By the way FF, I found new hope for the younger generation.

    Wish I were about 30 years younger myself...heh heh
    April 23, 2007 9:07 PM

    ReplyDelete
  116. Looks like the Foole ran away again!

    ReplyDelete
  117. Gutless as usual.....

    ReplyDelete
  118. Rove is a pig.

    Anyone dumb enough to defend him is going to feel awfully stupid for the rest of their lives.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Well Worfeus, they defended Dumsfeld, Limpballs, coulterguist, bush, Cheney, the neo=cons, O'Liely, Fox lies, so why not defend another gutless chicken hawk re-pubie who is a war criminal to boot?

    ReplyDelete
  120. If ANYONE needs to be brought to justice and charged with treason..........its Rove!

    ReplyDelete
  121. Glen Beck is "CLAIMING" that:

    1) Al Gore will run for President

    2) Him and his Reich wing idiot he had on are claiming that get this :::: To many trees is MORE of a global threat than global warming.

    No wonder the trolls were attacking global warming......looks like they got their talking points and marching orders.

    They were CLEARLY TRYING to discredit al Gore and Cheryl Crow!

    ReplyDelete
  122. why does this NOT surprise me?

    Bush Administration Gains Support for New Approach on Food Aid


    A Government Accountability Office report released on the eve of this conference described in stark detail a system rife with inefficiencies: the amount of food shipped over the past five years has fallen by half as shipping and other logistical costs have soared. Only a little more than a third of federal food aid spending actually buys food. The United States feeds about 70 million people a year now instead of the more than 100 million it fed five years ago.

    And experts worry that the food aid budget will feed even fewer of the world’s 850 million hungry people as soaring demand for corn to make ethanol drives up the cost of that staple, a mainstay of food aid programs.


    They charge MORE money for delivering LESS food and claim reichwingnuts and their privatization is the only way to go.

    ReplyDelete
  123. If ANYONE needs to be brought to justice and charged with treason..........its Rove!
    -Mikey

    Agreed. He needs to be sent to prison because what he has done is far worse than even what Scooter Libby did. Libby did not "out" a secret agent who wasn't actually a secret agent, then failed to remember what he didn't do. Despicable!

    Yes Rove did the unthinkable: He asked a presumptuous rock star not to touch him. After all the rock star was only begging him to stop the madness -- end the global warming caused by greedy corporations and SUV drivers before it is too late!

    But even far worse than that: He put a Republican in the White House illegally by stealing the election with the help of dastardly Diebold-- twice!

    ReplyDelete
  124. Yo gay-dalf the CIA said she was a cover agent a$$wipe, and NOC is the deepest cover the CIA has stupid, try selling your crap to people who don't know your a draft dodger son....

    Like your pedophile pink pajama circle jerk romper room chicken hawk friends son.

    ReplyDelete
  125. NBC News and news services
Updated: 4:34 p.m. ET April 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday declined to challenge assertions that President Bush authorized the leaks of intelligence information to counter administration critics on Iraq. 

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., citing Bush’s call two years ago to find the person who leaked the CIA identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, said the latest disclosures means the president needs to go no further than a mirror.

In July 2003, Wilson’s accusation that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat “was viewed in the office of vice president as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president, and the president,” Fitzgerald’s court papers stated.

Part of the counterattack was a July 8, 2003, meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller at which Libby discussed the contents of a then-classified CIA report that seemed to undercut what Wilson was saying in public.

Separately, Libby said he understood he also was to tell Miller that prewar intelligence assessments had been that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium, the prosecutor stated. In the run-up to the war, Cheney had insisted Iraq was trying to build a nuclear bomb.

The conclusion on uranium was contained in a National Intelligence Estimate, a consensus document of the U.S. intelligence community. Libby’s statements came in grand jury testimony before he was charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame probe.

    ReplyDelete
  126. I guess lying and obstructing justice is ok as long as they are repugs right foole?

    ReplyDelete
  127. And Rove and Libby were part of the orchestrated outing of a covert NOC agent of the CIA working on weapons of mass destruction proliferation in both Iraq and Iran in 2003 as a slimy attempt to discredit Joe Wilson because he showed Bush and Cheney were FULL of SH*T with their LIES about Saddam's supposed purchase of yellow cake Uranium from Niger which never happened, the Italian docs they used were proved to be forgeries.

    Damn you even more stupid this time around then you were before you gutless draft dodger.

    ReplyDelete
  128. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Well son it was not just Diebold stupid both Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell's illegal actions which the Justice Department refuses to investigate had a lot to do with it, and of course since the GOP controlled network Rove used to break the law using their RNC email servers for government work in violation of the law was also the same network used to tabulate the Ohio vote in 2004 which probably also they broke the law with, just like the white house did with the emails and erasing 5,000,000 emails illegally.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Of course the gutless draft dodger has NO reply to FACTS just his stupid smart a$$ answers with NO factual, then do what he always has done RUN away and HIDE from the truth and service when he was needed.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Speaking of Diebold foole.......heres an article for you!

    here you go Tall Texan, here's a test as well as article to support the position enjoy:

    South Florida Sun Sentinel Sunday March 26, 2006 by Howaqrd Goodman
    hgoodman@sunsentinel.com (561)243-6638

    Vote Macines can't Go Wrong, Go Wrong, Go Wrong

    Its Simple in close elections, we need to be able to recount the votes. thats most obvious in Palm Beach County, where voters booted out the long serving supervisor of elections, Theresa lePorem in 2004 partly because she didnt think the new touch screen technology, brought in to replace those disasterous punch cards, needs paper backups.

    unfortunately the paper trail has gone cold under lePore's successor. Instead of leading the charge for change, Arthur Anderson is taking it slow.

    But Anderson's complacency isnt the only roadblock to a paper trail.

    Here's a potentially bigger hurdle: Florida has rewritten its election law to eliminate almost all manual recounts in touch screen voting.

    The reasoning is that the computerized touch screens are incapable of error. After all the machine wont let you overvote or undervote,-that is vote for too many candidates or unintentionally leave blanks, the major problems in past election challenges.

    Just one problem, the machines can be wrong. Ion Sancho, Leon County elections heaqd since 1988, is a self described maverick and stickler for making every vote count. In the shambles of 2000, voting here went virtually error free.

    Last year, sancho discovered the supposedly impossible- that Diebold election Systems touch screens and optical scanning machines had serious security flaws.

    And now he;s paying for his audacity. Possibly with his job. sancho challenged hackers to break into his voting machines four times. They always succeeded.

    in December for example, a Finnish security whiz named Harri Hursti manipulated a memory card that records votes in an optical scanning machine that uses a technology similar to a touch screen machine's.

    Sancho tested the results with a little in-house referendum. The question was: "Can the votes on this Diebold system be hacked using a memory card?"

    Most of the veight participants filled out their paper ballots "No"

    but guess what? The Machine that read the votes gave the victory to "yes"

    sancho raised alarms, florida Secretary of state Sue Cobb, a Jeb Bush appointee, ignored him. and then took away a $564,000 federal grant for disabled-accessible voting machinery.

    but in Calafornia, where Diebold machines are in wide use, top elections officials heard about Hursti's experiment and commissioned a study. Researchers in Berkely confirmed: Someone could easily gain access to the system, change votes and leave no trace.

    "the only way to detect and correct the problem "they reported last month, "would be by recount of the original paper ballots"

    Assuming there are paper ballots.

    Diebold now refuses to deal with Leon County. So do the other two manufacturers authorized by Florida, Election systems and Software and Sequoia Voting System (which makes Palm Beach County's equipment). Both cite business reasons.

    Sancho says he's been "blackballed". A Miami election-reform group agrees and wants Attorney General Charlie Christ to investigate.

    If this werent trouble enough, Cobb has threatened Sancho with legal action for missing a deadline to obtain accessible voting machines. Worst case, the state senate could remove him from office.

    "Excuse me?" Sancho argues. "You set up a monopoly by telling me I can only buy three machines? And now i'm a derelictbecause the manufacture's wont sell to me because i've exposed security flaws?

    "There's something wrong with this picture"

    Sure is.

    And how's this for Irony? After California verified Sancho's finding, Florida's Elections Supervisor issued a "technical advisory" on March 3 urging a tightning of security procedures for "all voting systems deployed in Florida"

    Not one word acknowledging Sancho or Leon County's role in flushing this problem out.

    Sancho is rare among Florida's 67 elections supervisors in challenging the industry's claims of inerrancy. "All of these systems are very complex" he notes, "One switch gets improperly pushed and you have what they call a glitch or a snafu or a hiccup.

    "Actually you have a problem thats depriving a citizen of his vote"

    By raising the right questions about the new voting technology, this official in a distant county has performed a crucial public servive for all of us.

    Sancho should be hailed as a hero. Instead, he is an object lesson in the perils of blowing the whistle.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Lydia Cornell said...
    So Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell OWNS stock in Diebold electronic voting machines! And he was the one who certified George Bush in the run-off in 2004. It was all in his hands. Read on Bradblog about how Sequoia-Diebold is owned partially by Hugo Chavez -- which is driving the wingnuts crazy, unless this has now been discovered not to be true.

    The one thing I know about Brad, he works tirelessly and he's not a liberal. He's a Libertarian/Independent. And he is so by the book, so ethical, I can't even get him to tell a white lie. He has worked underground to uncover SERIOUS criminal voter fraud.

    ReplyDelete
  133. How many conflicts of interest will come out for the Repugs, Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell is the one who certified Bush in 2004 and he owns stock in Diebold, if thats not a conflict of interest I dont know what is, you guys seem to like the fox guarding the chicken coop though dont ya??.

    BTW you guys asked for proof that the voting machine's are not secure and can be compromised and I provided it, mean while your silence is deafening. I asked for one shred of evidence proved via independent tests that verify that under no circumstances can the voting machines be compromised and the votes altered and not one response, being that producing voting machines is Diebolds livlihood, you would think they would be willing to come forward and prove their machines are tamper proof if they could wouldnt ya? but yet they are taking the 5th and are speechless kinda like you guys FF, Voltaire and TT, whats a matter cat got your tongue???

    ReplyDelete
  134. BTW, in Nazi Germany much of the media and government were held accountable for allowing Hitlers rise to power and the subsequent war crimes......I'm still wondering if our Goverment and media will be held accountable for the lies they spewed and the justification for war and the war crimes that resulted from those lies?

    ReplyDelete
  135. And Rove and Libby were part of the orchestrated outing of a covert NOC agent of the CIA working on weapons of mass destruction...blah b-blah blah...
    -GI Jane

    See the problem for libs is that the bogus secret agent valarie plame was "outed" by Richard Armitage and this fact was known by the special prosecutor before the investigation ever began.

    Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation has not determined whether the public exposure of Plame's name violated any criminal statutes. No one has been charged specifically for leaking Plame's identity. "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, however, was charged with covering up facts about his role pertaining to the leaks.
    Wikipedia

    So Libby did not "out" Plame and there was never even a determination that the "outing" by Armitage constituted any crime.

    ...[S]pecial counsel Patrick Fitzgerald investigated Armitage's role "aggressively", but did not charge Armitage with a crime because he "found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status..."
    Wikipedia

    Ergo, Scooter Libby is an innocent victim of a vicious lib witch hunt. This was a game of "gotcha" about who remembered what and when. I am confident that these bonehead charges will be overturned upon appeal.

    ReplyDelete
  136. You know FF, you'd do well to stop slandering Americans who work for the CIA.

    Valerie Plame headed the group assigned to "ANTI NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION".

    I don't think theres an American out there that will take kindly to your obvious and seedy attempts to discredit her. All you're doing is revealing your own true nature as an individual who will attack the character of any American who dares speak out against Bush or the war in Iraq.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Your minority is ever shrinking, and soon the number of Americans standing behind you will fit nicely on the White House lawn.

    People see you now for what you are, and more importantly,for what you do, that is to trash the character of any US Citizen who dares to voice an opposing voice.

    ReplyDelete
  138. I see a brighter future for America than we have known under your rule.

    I see massive repeals of "Bush law" accompanied by a Constitutional Ammendment that will permit the congress to impeach the president with only a majority in conjunction with a majority popular vote of no confidence by the people.

    It will be nicknamed, the "Bush Act", not because he created it, but because he necessitated it.

    ReplyDelete
  139. History books will teach our childrens children about the "Bush years", when the executive in chief propped up by a partisan congress, ran amuck, and brought America to the verge of global war.

    I see statues and monuments and museum exhibits, that teach "NEVER AGAIN".

    ReplyDelete
  140. And I predict several generations will pass away before our international allies will let us live down the folly of the first years of the first decade of the 21st century.

    They will not soon let us forget Bush.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Yes, plame was so "covert" that she eagerly posed for photo ops at every chance. Her face was plastered all over the newspapers and she appeared on the talk show circuit like a celebrity.

    She was so "covert" that the actual guy who "outed" her has never been charged with the crime of "outing" her, which would be an egregious felony in violation of federal law.

    And you're right, my pointing out the fact that she was not a secret agent and that no real crime was committed is tantamount to evil "slander".

    Of course Libby is the real villian; he was just a puppet of Karl Rove.

    ReplyDelete
  142. I WORFEUS said...
    Your minority is ever shrinking, and soon the number of Americans standing behind you will fit nicely on the White House lawn.

    People see you now for what you are, and more importantly,for what you do, that is to trash the character of any US Citizen who dares to voice an opposing voice."

    A very apt characterization........your followers are dwindling more and more every day as intelligent thinking repugs look in horror at what GWB has done to their party and their country.

    Many are think just of saving themselves in future elections but many also look in horror that they were brainwashed and deceived by such a pack of vile evil fools.

    ReplyDelete
  143. Never Again should be this countries mantra.

    ReplyDelete
  144. I WORFEUS said...
    I see a brighter future for America than we have known under your rule.

    I see massive repeals of "Bush law" accompanied by a Constitutional Ammendment that will permit the congress to impeach the president with only a majority in conjunction with a majority popular vote of no confidence by the people.

    It will be nicknamed, the "Bush Act", not because he created it, but because he necessitated it."

    Thats actually a good idea!

    ReplyDelete
  145. fascism fanny said:

    See the problem for libs is that the bogus secret agent valarie plame was "outed" by Richard Armitage and this fact was known by the special prosecutor before the investigation ever began.


    Why do you f***ing LYING f***tards cling to this trash? It's been disproven by documentation, by the recollections of the players themselves, and by a criminal conviction. How is it possible for supposedly grown men to be so irredeemably f*****g STUPID?

    Tell us how we're winning in Iraq next. And how the Taliban was vanquished. And how them stupid 9th Warders waited around to drown (except for the ones Nagin refused to ship out in school buses.)

    There is no way to have a respectful conversation with a despicable idiot. There's no use even trying.

    ReplyDelete
  146. BTW foole Libby lied to a properly constituted grand jury and Patrick Fitzgerald said HE was lied to so he could NEVER properly determine if a CRIME was committed, but since you gutless fooles LOST in 2006 and are right in the reichwing LYING track to lose even bigger in 2008 you will just remain the little minded hate filled gutless punk you always have been here and elsewhere like Brad blog and other sites where you post your false generalizations LIES and just plain STUPID comments which actually do nothing but convince More and more people the reichwing goose steppers like YOU should never be trusted again.

    Your just the irrelevant Volkstrum of a dying idea.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Baghdad:

    Nine U.S soldiers were killed and twenty people were wounded in a car bombing near Baghdad.

    Bush's "surge" goes on.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Presidential daddy George Bush says that there may be a "little Bush fatigue" settling in the U.S.

    Wishful thinking from his daddy!

    ReplyDelete
  149. There have been 85 U.S troops killed during the first 23 days of April.

    Bush is dancing in the streets.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Your just the irrelevant Volkstrum of a dying idea.

    You have to believe that Stalin would have deported the lot of them to Siberia once his power was secured. Who wants to be known for having such stupid followers?

    Yeah yeah.... we know the answer to that question.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Presidential daddy George Bush says that there may be a "little Bush fatigue" settling in the U.S.

    Last time I checked, it was more like a Bush hatred.

    Oh, and the "beautiful mind" had yet another of her nuggets of wisdom regarding Mormons. Why doesn't someone duct tape her mouth shut? She makes Chimpy look thoughtful.

    ReplyDelete
  152. Impeach Bush and Cheney rallies will be held in 100 different locations this SATURDAY April 28th across the U.S.

    ReplyDelete
  153. World Bank officials have asked Wolfowitz to resign.

    What about his mistress?

    ReplyDelete
  154. Office of Special Counsel has launched an investigation into Karl Rove using political influence over government affairs.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Toyota has moved into the number one U.S automaker over General Motors.

    ReplyDelete
  156. Chrysler and the United Auto Workers are in talks for a possible sale.

    If this transaction takes place, Chrysler will be employee owned.

    ReplyDelete
  157. Freedom Fan said...
    Volt, do you remember reading the Population Bomb the lib tome about how the world would become overpopulated and everyone would die of famine?


    Still true, by the way, and thanks to global warming an even bigger threat, Widdle Wizard.

    Nice dunce cap, idjit. How did you enjoy raping Juliet?

    ReplyDelete
  158. I ask that, because "rape" implies you have a penis, which clearly you do not.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Voltron said...
    I am gonna turn in now though FF.

    I gotta get a decent nights sleep, gotta go back to Chicago AGAIN tomorrow morning...


    Which rape trial is this one, Widdle Twucker?

    ReplyDelete
  160. Time to get my Widdle Wizard stomping mojo back on.

    HEY! MASTER RACIST!

    Since you support rape, you must support Widdle Twucker's racist bigoted comments, as well.

    So tell me, what race is a "lawn nigger", anyway? You have your masters in racism....

    ReplyDelete
  161. While you're at it, maybe you could answer the long-standing question, "what race is Lenny Kravitz?"

    C'mon, you know more about racism than any of us liberals...surely you can answer that!

    ReplyDelete
  162. Larry said...
    Toyota has moved into the number one U.S automaker over General Motors.


    Yea, that Bush economy, just sailin' along...

    ReplyDelete
  163. Larry said...
    Office of Special Counsel has launched an investigation into Karl Rove using political influence over government affairs.


    Please say this isn't Rense.com...you're getting my hopes up!

    ReplyDelete
  164. PP, you're a sad incoherent little man, whose favorite way of "debating" is to smear opponents with pointless, vicious ad hominems. Any baseless charge will do, but you especially like to use the "n" word as you project your obvious racism on others.

    jolly roger is another brilliant debater whose idea of proof in a rebuttal is simply to use "f*" every other word as in "everybody knows that so you're just 'f*' stoopid -- nerny nerny nerny".

    Hey vewwy convincing and articulate; what are you now jr, about 11 years old or just severely synaptically challenged?

    This is a target rich environment of typical douche bag libs who have little use for truth or honor and even less capacity for critical thought or debating skill. Gotta luv it.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Larry said...
    World Bank officials have asked Wolfowitz to resign.

    What about his mistress?


    She's on her knees....begging....to keep her job.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Freedom Fan said...
    PP, you're a sad incoherent little man, whose favorite way of "debating" is to smear opponents with pointless, vicious ad hominems.


    Listen, just because my posts are beyonf your comprehension, don't presume they are incomprehensible.

    You don't like it? You don't like me?

    Leave. It's a free country, Raping Widdle Wizard.

    ReplyDelete
  167. BIG SHMILE, MASTER RACIST! BIG SHMILE!

    So...now...let's get back to your racism....you've already cyberlynchaed blacks and Latinos on this blog...anyplace else you'd like to come clean about? Maybe your front lawn?

    ReplyDelete
  168. Jolly Roger said...
    How is it possible for supposedly grown men to be so irredeemably f*****g STUPID?


    C'mon, Rog, you know the answer to that.

    They're children!

    Just look! They take character names and icons, little Wizards and toy superheroes, as they're avatars here.

    That tells you all you need to know, in a nutshell. THey think if they just hang onto their childhoods one more day, maybe some miracle will happen and the world will become lilly-white and male all over again!

    BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    ReplyDelete
  169. Think about it, Rog...they exploited the rape of a perfectly innocent woman for their own vile and small-minded needs...some asshole's "good name"...what does that say about being "growed up" to you?

    ReplyDelete
  170. Mike,

    I apologize. The story of Rove being investigated it true.

    Apparently the GSA, which operates from within the White House, was asked by Rove to see how it could influence the results of 40 Democratic congressional seats.

    Unfortunately for Rove, the Hatch Act of 1994 specifically requires the GSA to remain above politics. With this kind of mandate, Congress would have the ability to wrest the investigation from the GSA and conduct it with full subpoena power, and little executive privilege claims available.

    So rather than let the Democrats run the show, the GSA will be running it internally.

    Not the most pleasant of prospects, but they are accountable to the Senate.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Interesting analysis of The Rise of Fascism In The US

    BIG SHMILE, WIDDLE WIZARD! BIG SHMILE!

    ReplyDelete
  172. what does that say about being "growed up" to you?



    Says I can continue to treat them with the contempt they've earned for themselves.


    i have less than no use for Chimpletons. Talking points never solved one problem that I know of, and ideologues are only capable of setting off things like the Holocaust, the starvation of the Ukranian peasants, the Cultural Revolution.....

    ReplyDelete
  173. And yet they continue to whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine about the unfair treatment they receive at this blog.

    They want sheep. Not here, they will not find them here. In one breath, Widdle Wizard complains about how dehumanizing & personal I can be, and then calls you names and says "This is a target rich environment of typical douche bag libs"...

    Keep kicking him in the nuts. I'm aiming for the teeth.

    But only cuz I'm taller...

    ReplyDelete
  174. gay-dalf said...

    **, you're a sad incoherent little man, whose favorite way of "debating" is to smear opponents with pointless, vicious ad hominems.

    (snip)

    This is a target rich environment of typical douche bag libs who have little use for truth or honor and even less capacity for critical thought or debating skill. Gotta luv it.

    Look in the mirror much.......

    More false generalizations by the master of the dishonest ad hominem, and juvenile incoherent ranting psuedo intellectual who has been handed his ass here time after time, like when he denied Prescott Bush aided and abetted Adolph Hitler in his rise to power, even when the proof was in front of his face he prefers to live in his delusional fairy tale world of strawman attacks and inept coulterguist writing style that a high school debating team could rip to shreds.

    Nice to see your still suffering from cranial rectitus son, the pointy hat helps shove it further up doesn't is foole?

    ReplyDelete
  175. Today's Must Read

    You know it's bad news for the White House when agencies you'd never even heard of start launching investigations into the administration.

    This time, it's the Office of Special Counsel, a federal investigative unit that's charged with monitoring federal employees, not to be confused with a special counsel or special prosecutor such as Patrick Fitzgerald. The OSC is charged with policing Hatch Act violations and protecting whistleblowers, among other duties. It's a permanent federal agency, and it's prosecutions are not criminal prosecutions.

    But the OSC does have teeth. If it successfully prosecutes a federal employee before the Merit Systems Protection Board (which acts as its judge), then that employee can be terminated. That employee, in this instance, is Karl Rove.

    Well, it's Rove and others in his office... and possibly others still. Here's how The Los Angeles Times frames the OSC investigation:

    ... the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

    The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House....

    "We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."


    Bloch (who is, by the way, a Bush appointee) seems to have combined a host of investigations -- 1) whether U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias was wrongly terminated due to his Navy reserve service, and 2) the White House's use of RNC-issued email accounts to conduct government business, and 3) Rove's and his deputy's presentations to federal employees about Republican electoral prospects -- into one big stew pot of wrongdoing.

    Of all three, Rove's now-infamous briefings would seem to be the most fertile investigatory ground for Bloch. As Tom Hamburger reports, Rove has been giving those presentations to federal employees since the beginning of the administration:

    ...Rove and his top aides met each year with presidential appointees throughout the government, using PowerPoint presentations to review polling data and describe high-priority congressional and other campaigns around the country....

    A former Interior Department official, Wayne R. Smith, who sat through briefings from Rove and his then-deputy Ken Mehlman, said that during President Bush's first term, he and other appointees were frequently briefed on political priorities.

    "We were constantly being reminded about how our decisions could affect electoral results," Smith said.


    Employees, Hamburger reports, "got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans."

    It's hard to imagine how such presentations are not violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits using federal resources for political ends. But that doesn't mean that the White House isn't already trying out a line of defense. Yesterday, 25 Democratic senators wrote the White House to demand answers about the presentations. And the White House replied, via a spokesman:

    "It is entirely appropriate for the president's staff to provide informational briefings to appointees throughout the federal government about the political landscape in which they implement the president's policies and priorities."

    It sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? Much more innocuous than the slides themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Clif,

    Widdle Wizard wants us to dredge up past topics so he can distort, distract and distend our blogging on today's stories.

    I imagine now, he'll go into a four hour rant about Prescott Bush.

    Let him. He's a mindless f*cktard master racist. He earned no coin here today.

    ReplyDelete
  177. well Carl I remember how batsh*t insane gay-dalf went when the truth about Israeli's history was posted here, he screeched how we were anti Israel and anti-semites just because we posted the truth about what happened in Palestine from 1915-1950.

    You'd almost think Tiny the Liar and Gay-dalf the lying draft dodger were agents for AIPAC, the way they both act here sometimes.

    AIPAC certainly does not have the United states best interests at heart, but these two gutless chicken hawks screech the AIPAC neo-con line and have for over a year here..

    ReplyDelete
  178. From Cheryl Crow and Laurie David;

    To the Pink Pajama Circle Jerk Crowd;

    And by the way guys, the toilet paper thing...it was a JOKE!!


    Damn are you clowns STUPID.

    Have a nice day fooles.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Clif,

    I agree. While I firmly support the right of Israel to exist, I do not support giving away a disproportionate share of our GDP to a nation whose religious "relations" are supposed to tithe earnings to them anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  180. Enjoy the fishing, buddy.

    ReplyDelete
  181. Why Alberto Gonzales Can't Resign as Attorney General

    by Steven D

    I know, everyone but the President thinks Mr. Gonzales performed atrociously at the most recent Senate hearings investigating the US Attorneys' scandal. I can't remember how often he said "I don't recall," or "I have no recollection," but I'm sure it set some sort of record. And yes, he's a miserable failure at best as a lawyer, administrator and human being.

    But there is one very good reason he can't resign as Attorney General. It's because, that's not really his job. The real Attorney General in the Bush administration, regardless of who holds that title officially, is Karl Rove.



    For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Department of Justice political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates. [...]

    Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy last April when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association. [...]

    Questions about the administration’s campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians. Civil rights advocates charge the administration’s policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats. By filing state and federal lawsuits, civil rights groups have won court rulings blocking some of its actions. [...]

    The administration, however, has repeatedly invoked allegations of widespread voter fraud to justify tougher voter ID measures and other steps to restrict access to the ballot, even though research suggests voter fraud is rare. Since President Bush’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, launched a “Ballot Access and Voter Integrity Initiative” in 2001, justice department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases and the department’s Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights.

    On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division’s Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.

    Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.

    “As more information becomes available about the administration’s priority on combating alleged, but not well-substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens,” he said.


    Alberto Gonzales is no mastermind capable of formulating such strategeries, nor was his butt even warming the chair in the Attorney General's office when these policies were first conceived and implemented. He's a loyal Bushie, a foot soldier, a designated scapegoat, nothing more. He may have been involved in the decision to determine which US attorneys were going to get the axe last year, if by involved you mean he signed off on a decision made by someone else higher up in the administration's food chain, but to a large extent he was merely following orders. And it should be clear by now whose orders he obeyed.

    Karl Rove has had a hand, and often a controlling hand at that, in every nefarious deed perpetrated by this administration. Meetings with Jack Abramoff to distribute political favors ran through his office at the White House. The plan to sell the Iraq war to the American public, as if it were just another horror film from Hollywood was his campaign. The outing of Valerie Plame was a task he helped carry out. And of course, subverting the US Department of Justice for political gain. Not that he hasn't had help:

    U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan might have played a role in determining which of her colleagues got the ax, and the House Judiciary Committee wants her to provide details of what she knew and when she knew it.

    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Senate investigators that he consulted with Buchanan about which U.S. attorneys should be asked to step down, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee aide who read a transcript of Sunday's interview to The Associated Press. [...]

    A Justice Department official said Sampson consulted Buchanan while she was director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, which provides administrative support for U.S. attorneys offices across the country. Buchanan held that job from June 2004 to June 2005. During that time, a Justice Department chart rating U.S. attorneys was sent to the White House.

    Working for Buchanan at that time was Monica Goodling. The former counsel to Gonzales and liaison to the White House has refused to cooperate with congressional investigators about her role in orchestrating the firings.


    Mary Beth Buchanan is another loyal Bushie who had earned her wings by serving to pleasure the President. While US attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania based in in Pittsburgh, she emphasized prosecuting pornography cases, an administration sop to its radical Christian supporters. She also followed the party line when it came to investigating political corruption:

    Her office has opened at least five investigations into prominent Democrats over the past five years. Critics say she has ignored allegations against fellow Republicans during that time. [...]

    "There's no greater adherent to using public corruption charges against the other party than Mary Beth Buchanan," said Jerry McDevitt, a defense lawyer representing Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a Democrat, against charges he abused his former public office as Allegheny County coroner for private financial gain.


    Her work as the US attorney in Western Pennsylvania demonstrated she knew what was most important aspect of her job -- helping the President and the Republican party win elections. No wonder (Karl) the administration rewarded her with a critical position at the Justice Department: director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA). As EOUSA's director, she was uniquely placed to assist the White House in formulating a plan for dismissing those recalcitrant US attorneys too dim witted or ethically challenged (i.e., they actually believed that ends don't justify means) to see the big picture:

    Heading the [EOUSA] was largely administrative and dull until 9/11, when the Justice Department began to use it to control U.S. attorneys, said Fred Thieman, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh under President Clinton.

    "I can't understand why someone would want that position, unless there was some other purpose," Thieman said.

    Buchanan said she works hard and with determination, finding it an honor to serve President Bush and the Justice Department in whatever role necessary. Those who know Buchanan said she is a hard worker and does what's needed to please her bosses.

    "They ask, and she responds," said Roscoe Howard Jr., former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. "Certainly, the objective evidence is that they like her."


    Substitute "Karl Rove" for "they" in the above quote by Roscoe Howard, Jr., and it all makes sense. She was brought back to the DOJ for a reason: to help pressure other US Attorneys to follow Mr. Rove's dictates when it came to subverting their offices for the political benefit of the Republican party. Those that did as they were told kept their jobs. Those that didn't were purged, even when they were Ms. Buchanan's friends:

    Both H. E. "Bud" Cummins and Daniel Bogden said their relationships with Ms. Buchanan were cordial.

    Even though she served from June 2004 to June 2005 in the Executive Office, the men said they knew Ms. Buchanan in more of a social sense, running into her at U.S. attorney conferences and meetings.


    Party before friendship, party before country, party before everything. That's the Republican way, according to Rove. He'll do anything to win an election for his party. And given the power of the Executive Branch of the federal government to wield ....

    Let's be clear. Alberto Gonzales is too incompetent to have devised this scheme, or to have overseen it's implementation. He's a front man, someone to take the flack for the President and the President's Brain when the political thermostat is turned up a notch or two. Which is why Bush was so happy with Gonzales' testimony last week. Alberto did what he was supposed to do: play the fool, and obstruct the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation into who was really responsible for turning the Justice Department into the enforcement wing of the Republican National Committee. And we all know who makes, and then carries out, the political decisions for this President, don't we?

    So Gonzales can't resign. The President and (especially) Rove need him to hide the evidence of their own skulduggery in this affair. And so he won't. But he also won't call the shots at the Department of Justice. That's Karl's job.

    Here endeth the lesson.

    ReplyDelete
  182. So...now...let's get back to your racism....you've already cyberlynchaed blacks and Latinos on this blog...
    -PP

    That's another ugly vicious charge; care to back it up with a link to a quote of some sort? Of course not, because there is no such quote.

    Here PP illustrates how libs like him often project their own racism. PP enjoys repeatedly using the "n" word, but somehow it is someone else who is the "racist".

    BTW, here's an interesting article called Anxiety at 40 by a deranged fellow named carl salonen. Proly just a coinkydink.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Freedom Fan said...
    So...now...let's get back to your racism....you've already cyberlynchaed blacks and Latinos on this blog...


    And your lawn? Still "crossfree since (only) 2001"?

    BIGSHMILE, MASTER RACIST! BIGSHMILE!

    ReplyDelete
  184. Yo gay-dalf get Cheryl Crow's joke YET FOOLE?

    ReplyDelete
  185. I'm beginning to think, Clif, that the Senate may insist on confirming all political appointments in the White House as well.

    ReplyDelete
  186. Talk about thew humorly challenged blog Idiots, you take the cake gay-dalf......

    ReplyDelete
  187. Poor Widdle Wizard.

    He can't beat me on the blog's terms, so he has to smear and slander and shame himself to try to find a way to get a rise out of me.

    Nice try, Naziboy...nice dunce cap.

    ReplyDelete
  188. clif said...
    Talk about thew humorly challenged blog Idiots, you take the cake gay-dalf......


    You wonder how his wife puts up with him.

    Oh wait! I forgot! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  189. So, Clif, even if Gonzo resigns, he won't really have resigned because the job was never really his in the first place?

    ReplyDelete
  190. Hey, Widdle Wizard?

    How does it feel to be part of a gang rape?

    This is for posterity, so your honesty would be welcome.

    Assuming you can be honest.

    ReplyDelete
  191. dead eye to gutles 5 deferment chicken hawk is screeching about how well the war is going the day after the worst Bomb attack on US troops 9 killed 20 wounded because the surge idea was to put them out in a small very hard to defend out posts where large truck bombs will continue to take a very grisly toll on both the troops and the credibility of the gutless lying chicken hawks who still support the senseless waste of the troops lives to Bush's ego and the GOP corruption machine.

    Too bad the gutless chicken hawks who foment this corrupt policy of party and corporate profits over the troops lives, and the gutless trolls here ran and hid when it was their time.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Clif,

    Michael Moore said it best in his masterpiece (and Oscar-should-have-won), "Farehnheit 9-11"

    "I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"

    We wasted tens of thousands of the best and the brightest, to use Halberstam's words, on an unnuecessary, unneeded and illegal war, and these crackheads can only sit back and chuckle, unaware that there will come a day when they themselves will be facing a real crisis and no one will come to protect them.

    ReplyDelete
  193. An island made by global warming

    The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn. A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland's enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming.

    ***********************************

    Yo gay-dalf and dolty boy still think the Greenland ice sheet ain't melting, you dumb morons?

    ReplyDelete
  194. Should-have-won, but for the conservative Hollywood studio heads who stopped the vote counting.

    ReplyDelete
  195. Clif,

    At last, a suitable island to exile the Widdle Boy Twolls...

    ReplyDelete