Dick and Dubya's Excellent Sedition Adventure
Dearest Readers, yesterday's hearings in the Senate with Gone-Zo's former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson on the hot seat were not to be missed. Try to catch the a clip of it if you can here on C-Span 'Firing of U.S. Attorneys'. Rover should have known not to mess with lawyers, that's what he gets for being too busy scheming for neorepublicans instead of graduating college...
Gone-Zo, as you know, is the finger in the dyke. And when the dam bursts the indictments are going create such a flood, they'll have to call the military home to clean up the mess for sure...Dearest Readers, you all know Prissy would go and fetch them herself, if she could round up enough planes and ships.
Senate republicans know its over, when we hear the 'rest of Gonzo's story'. The part they heard yesterday from Sampson frightened them so much, it was enough to make the cowards call a temporary halt to the hearings. What did they expect? Excuse me ladies and gentlemen; this is how your government works. That's why we hired you. Oh, you didn't wish the work involved? As Chuckie said, then go sell shoes. Thank goodness if they did; because then Prissy could avoid them forever...
Kyle, who looks like a younger version of the dull-eyed Karl Rove, thought he could just say it was all a big mistake. Golly, he just mixed bad ideas with good ideas and he shouldn't have handled it that way-oops my bad, sorry.
There is no question a young ideologue who has mere a handful of cases to his credit-lead counsel on none-and only one criminal case- certainly has no business evaluating any career justice attorney performance.
You'll notice how Kyle's voice gets higher with each tale he tells-it was a giveaway. Especially when he was reminded he was under oath. Prissy bets if his mother watched it on C-Span 3, she could tell us when he was lying.
It was Kyle who said he cooked up the idea to get rid of US Attorneys who didn't meet the Bush administrations standard of blind loyalty to the all mighty Dubya.
Of course Rover's blood drenched hands were involved as email show and Sampson's "Uh, I don't remember, I'm not sure if I was aware of that" type non-statements. RAW Story reports he said "I don't remember 122+ times! Maybe he should call Scooter Libby's "memory expert"...
At 37, he's awfully young to have such memory problems, but maybe its in the GOP koolaid. He seemed to make a remarkable memory recovery when his testimony favored him. He didn't like fronting out Gone-Zo, but why not? He's next on firing line. Kyle knows his days in government are over, thankfully for justice. Did criminal violations occur?
Prissy thinks its certainly probable, considering Ms. Goodling, another 'collaborator', is on an indefinite leave of absence from the DOJ and took the 5th amendment protection to avoid being questioned on the attorney firings. Who ever heard of a Department of Justice employee taking the 5th? After all, no one was asking her, "Do you have a crush on Pat Fitzgerald?"
Speaking of Irish catholics-Prissy's Granny equates Ms Goodling's refusal with a Catholic who won't make the sign of the cross in church-the height of blasphemy!
When Alberto's reign of terror is over, Dubya will be left to twist in the wind- legally speaking. And you know he's got no talent or patience in explaining legal terminology...
When the DOJ is no longer held hostage to Bushite politics, they will be busy prosecuting political corruption leftovers from the Bush era for the next twenty years. Its enough to make Prissy want to sign up for law school.
Hot Links
And here comes the tidal wave...
NYT Ex-Aide,Matthew Dowd Details a Loss of Faith in Bush
In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.
In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.
Honesty from the republican party, now that's a breath of fresh air...
Yahoo, why Rudy will never make it to the primary Giuliani faces questions about Sept. 11
While the former mayor of the nation's largest city was widely lionized for his post-9/11 leadership — "Churchillian" was one adjective, "America's mayor" was Oprah Winfrey's assessment — city firefighters and their families are renewing their attacks on him for his performance before and after the terrorist attack.
"If Rudolph Giuliani was running on anything but 9/11, I would not speak out," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was among the 343 FDNY members killed in the terrorist attack. "If he ran on cleaning up Times Square, getting rid of squeegee men, lowering crime — that's indisputable.
"But when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem."
They know the truth about 9/11. Most people suspect they were fed a line on the official story-word eventually gets around. So let's all stop pretending-got that corporate media?
Judicial Watch files Violations Force Feinstein Military Committee Resignation
She wielded quite a bit of power and succeeded in steering hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts to companies partially owned by her wealthy husband, Richard Blum. One company alone earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by Feinstein’s committee and another $759 million.
The blatant ethics violation and obvious conflict of interest was first exposed earlier this year by a weekly Northern California publication. The story details how Feinstein voted over the years for appropriations that enriched her husband’s firms and that her top legal advisor also happens to be one of her husband’s longtime business partners; in other words, a financial beneficiary of the senator’s decisions.
Flashback from Sunday Times US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack February 25, 2007
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”
A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.
The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.
AP Bush to visit with troops at Walter Reed
He will meet with soldiers once housed in Building 18, who endured moldy walls, rodent infestation and other problems that went unchecked until reported by the media. Bush declared the situation unacceptable and ordered a full-scale review of care for veterans.
Walter Reed is considered one of the Army's premier facilities for treating the wounded. The revelations of shoddy treatment for those wounded in war was an embarrassment to Bush, who routinely speaks of the need to support the troops.
Bush will tour both Abrams Hall, where soldiers transferred after Building 18 was recently vacated, and the main hospital.
He will award Purple Hearts to several soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and are now recovering from serious wounds.
He said he was sorry and that he would take care of things. The same thing he told the residents of New Orleans.
LA Times, blame Bush for preferring the bully pulpit over debateAbuse, threats quiet bloggers' keyboards
"If you're writing to say that my research is weak, that's fine," he said. "But saying I should be shot is a little over the edge. I mean, we're talking about iTunes here, not politics."
The issue is not an easy one, because it gets to the heart of the free-speech culture that allows bloggers to reveal every aspect of their lives and thoughts. The medium's openness leaves writers vulnerable to cruel invective from angry readers or troublemakers.
"They're idea terrorists," said Scoble, a former Microsoft executive whose postings about software once prompted someone to call him to say they wished they could kill him. His wife, Maryam, was also vilified on the sites that attacked Sierra. "If they don't agree with your ideas, they try to terrorize you or make you feel bad."
Keep it to yourself keyboard terrorists and take careful notice of Prissy's book list.
MSN Money Central How CEOs rob workers, customers (is this the strategy of CEO's running our government?)
In 1914, Henry Ford made a "bet the company" decision. Conventional thinkers thought he was insane. Those without Ford's imagination were certain his decision would send Ford Motor (F, news, msgs) into bankruptcy.
He chopped the workday down to eight hours, and he doubled employees' daily wages. But he did not do this out of compassion. He had no desire to share the wealth. He made a hardheaded business decision.
Absenteeism plummeted. Worker turnover virtually disappeared. So did the number of accidents; ditto the number of manufacturing defects. Meanwhile, productivity soared. And the automotive age was born.
Today, the reverse is happening. The entire structure that promotes worker security, health and devoted service is being systematically dismantled. As investors, we benefit from this. But the largest beneficiaries are corporate executives. Every dime they squeeze out of payroll drops to the bottom line. The same money takes them a step closer to realizing gigantic stock-option gains.
Scientific American(?) Prissy thought Dubya didn't allow that. Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese Americans in WWII
Officially, Seltzer notes, the Secret Service made the 1943 request based on concerns of presidential safety stemming from an alleged March 1942 incident during which an American man of Japanese ancestry, while on a train from Los Angeles to the Manzanar internment camp in Owens Valley, Calif., told another passenger that they should have the "guts" to kill President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The incident occurred 17 months before the Secret Service request, during which time the man was hospitalized for schizophrenia and was therefore not an imminent threat, Seltzer says.
And...Census data is routinely used to enforce the National Voting Rights Act and other policies, but not in a form that could be used to identify a particular person's race, sex, age, address or other information, says former director Prewitt. The legal confidentiality of census information dates to 1910, and in 1954 it became part of Title 13 of the U.S. Code, which specifies the scope and frequency of censuses.
"The law is very different today" than it was in 1943, says Christa Jones, chief of the Census Bureau's Office of Analysis and Executive Support. "Anything that we release to any federal agency or any organization … all of those data are reviewed," she says, to prevent disclosures of individual information.
Are we supposed to believe the "Patriot Act" does not allow the Census Bureau to do it again?
Great blog...George Washington's Blog WHO's Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy?
First, let's look at the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks.
As reported by the New York Times, the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had -- at the last minute -- cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake power for real explosives, against the infiltrator's strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view). See also this TV news report.
And the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11.
Indeed, the government appears to have trained a number of the hijackers at military bases.
Shocking, well cited read...
Zuna fish Zuna Fish Prissy doesn't usually promote stuff-however, this looks like a site readers might enjoy;-)
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Just list the stuff you want to get rid of, pick the stuff you want to get, and watch the trade offers arrive!
WaPoEx-Partner Of Giuliani May Face Charges Kerik Counts Said To Include Deception During Cabinet Bid
Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.
Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.
That Kerik, such an oaf...
ABC Bush Calls on Iran to Free U.K. Sailors
President Bush on Saturday said Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was "inexcusable" and called for their immediate, unconditional release.
Bush said Iran plucked the sailors out of Iraqi waters. Iran's president said Saturday they were in Iranian waters and called Britain and its allies "arrogant and selfish" for not apologizing for trespassing.
Dubya, haven't you 'helped things' with Britain and Iran enough already? Hush now...Let us pray the president of Iran believes in Geneva. So far he has not broken it.
Reuters Bush backs Gonzales, says no evidence of wrongdoing
Bush also said Gonzales, the nation's top law enforcement officer, was providing documents to Congress and would "tell the truth" when he testifies about the matter before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April.
"Attorney General Al Gonzales is an honorable and honest man and he has my full confidence," Bush said.
"I will remind you there is no credible evidence that there has been any wrongdoing," he added.
Is there no C-Span on at the White House? Apparently no one has told him about Sampson and Goodling...
Speaking of more fantasy of the right TPM Cafe Toensing Doesn't Know Dick About Val by Larry Johnson
It never occurred to even one of us, working on those laws at that time, that the identity of a covert officer would ever be revealed by the highest officials in American government in leading newspapers and syndicated columns of high level Washington insiders. In those days the revealers of identities ended up taking refuge in Castro's Cuba, not Washington dinner parties or high level corridors of insider power.
It is immaterial whether the CIA Identities Act was technically violated. In my view it probably was; reasonable people can disagree; Patrick Fitzgerald said that lies threw sand in the gears of justice, so perhaps we will ultimately find out, perhaps not.
Understand the protestations of those who argue most aggresively for pardon, are those who argue most aggressively that the identity law was not broken, but support the pardon in large measure because they also fear the ultimate revelation of the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Countless people who I respect and admire have urged me to aggressively attack Victoria Toensing. I don't believe she is very important to this. She has the right to her views, though they are close to universally rejected by those who know the most of this matter, witness how few Republicans came to the Waxman hearing to offer their support.
Victoria Toensing might...talk about a loose cannon.
Seattle Times News Source General sought to warn Bush not to say Tillman died in enemy ambush
Just seven days after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
It was not until a month afterward that the Pentagon told the public and grieving family members the truth -- that Tillman was mistakenly killed in Afghanistan by his comrades.
The memo reinforces suspicions that the Pentagon was more concerned with sparing officials from embarrassment than with leveling with Tillman's family.
In a memo sent to a four-star general a week after Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that it was "highly possible" the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire. McChrystal made it clear his warning should be conveyed to the president.
The Bushie White House... Always in *CYA mode, no matter who gets hurt-whether it be career spies’ outed or military families and soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice to their country. (For Dearest international readers, CYA stands for 'cover your @ss')
Prissy Patriot endorsed poller John Zogby, news UPI Poll: Iran could set off arms race
Nearly 90 percent of UPI-Zogby International poll participants said Iran's nuclear program could set off a Middle East arms race.
While Iran says its uranium enrichment program is solely for peaceful purposes, some Western countries say Tehran, in fact, is looking to develop nuclear weapons. Zogby interactive poll respondents said this would likely cause other countries in the region to seek a nuclear capability.
Some 49.7 percent of those asked said it was "very likely" countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt would want to join the nuclear club if Iran was proved to be a member and another 38.5 percent said it was "somewhat likely."
Dubya and Diplomacy mix like, say, oil and water... Quotes of the Day
Any appeasement of tyranny is treason to this republic and to the democratic ideal.--William Allen White, American editor, journalist
Though those that are betrayed Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe.-- William Shakespeare
The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities states and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses generally referred to as 'international bankers.' This little coterie... run our government for their own selfish ends. It operates under cover of a self-created screen...[and] seizes...our executive officers... legislative bodies... schools... courts... newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.--John F. Hylan, Mayor of New York City from 1918 to 1925.
Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.--Thomas Jefferson
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that -- however bloody -- can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.--Lysander Spooner, Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur, legal theorist and political radical.
