Loyalty without truth
is a trail to tyranny.
|
a middle-aged George Washington
|
|
Sunday, 22 January 2006 at 16h 51m 47s | Why I love Atrios | ... Because he sees through all of the Bulls**t. [SOURCE
]
I imagine that there are some out there who wonder why a factual error in an
ombudsman's column combined with the dismissive attitude about complaints
pisses people off so much. It's very simple. Time and time again those of us
who pay attention see how right wing narratives grow to dominate ongoing news
stories. Factual errors, distortions, and general misinformation on which those
right wing narratives are hung are repeated over and over again both by right
wing hacks and mainstream journalists.
Since the Abramoff story broke there has been a concerted effort by right wing
hacks, journalists, and their editors to paint this as a bipartisan scandal
when it simply isn't one. Doing so requires a degree of ignorance about who
Abramoff is and what his role was which, no matter what one's opinion of the
general intelligence of the Washington press, simply has to be deliberate.
Reporters understand how lobbying works in DC. They also understand who
Abramoff was, what his history was, what his role was, what his entire
existence in Republican politics was about.
Small factual errors aren't in themselves the biggest deal in the world, but
nor are they in the words of the increasingly wankerific Michael
Crowley "foolish semantics." The propogation and repetition of these errors
provides the structure onto which the false narrative can be hung.
Are their corrupt Democrats in congress? Quite possibly. I have no illusions
that having a 'D' after your name guarantees your purity. Will their be
lobbying scandals which bring down Democrats at some point in the future? Quite
possibly. But this isn't a general "lobbying scandal," this is a Jack Abramoff
scandal. It is a Republican scandal. That is what this story is about, and any
seasoned media observer who hasn't yet figured out how bullshit right wing
narratives are constantly wrapped around "foolish semantics" just hasn't
figured out how this game is played.
Thank you Atrios, a true patriot.
| Saturday, 21 January 2006 at 1h 23m 54s | The people speak out | Recently Monsieur Chris Matthews compared Michael Moore to Bin Laden, calling
what Bin Laden said in the latest terrifyingly scary audio similar to "Michael
Moore."
Then Scarbourgh on Scarbourgh Country brings on Clinton smear-artist Kellyanne
Conway to say
Conway: If you held a piece of tissue paper between some of the comments
that Bin Laden today and some of the comments that the president's detractor's
say-it would be very difficult to stick more than a piece of tissue paper
between--there's not much of a difference.
Scarborough: When you look at what Osama Bin Laden said it sounds an
awful lot like what we hear the President's political enemies domestically---
not only like what a lot of democratic senators have been saying, but also what
one or two movie makers have been saying over the past several years...
There is a video here.
I mean just look at this B***h !
Look at that smug smirk she has on her face, posing as the "expert" who somehow
knows soooooooo much that she deserves the make baseless speculative assertions
akin to taking a crap outside in an open pit.
This is absolutely disgusting.
The time to act is now folks. We need to stand on the streets on January 31st
when Herr Bush attempts to lie once again to the American public in what is
called the State of the Union. You know this is true. All we have to do is
stand outside where we live, together. That's all we have to do.
The rest will follow, right after we all go back into our houses and quickly
turn the televisions on to tell us what just happened.
| Saturday, 14 January 2006 at 4h 20m 29s | The brainwashing begins |
"A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm
had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say.
That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of
the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly
creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled
over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves.
That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for
the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the party was the eternal
guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come,
sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought
Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe
it. You could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times
better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation
the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept
them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no
difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought
Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives
your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?"
-- Winston Smith , 1984 , by George Orwell
| Saturday, 14 January 2006 at 19h 1m 0s | The Chronicle sucks, don't bother reading it | Dear Chronicle headquarters,
-- or should I say Hearst Corporation headquarters?
I must say, your paper not only sucks, it sucks real bad. But let me not just
utter pejorative iconography. Allow a few recent examples.
You publish a story about the horrible mining accident, but never mention once
that the company had violated 105 federal regulations -- 54 alone during the
prior 30 days to the accident. You didn't detail that Bush administration
appointee Jack Spiderro's interpretation of coal dust might be related to the
high levels of coal dust that was 40% of the above mine violations. Methane
gas and coal dust are the 2
reasons mine explosions occur, which your pathetic paper also neglected to
discuss. You didn't also outline that the same mining corporation has other
mines that
also have a history of problems.
Instead, the story you put on the front page was how you made a mistake, and
that actually 11 of the 12 miners died. Yep, that was THE story. Then the
story became what this
political hack said, and how it was a sad event, and how the surviving family
members would have a hard time adjusting. Oh but at least the paper did say
that mining is a dangerous occupation. Wow, that's really chomping at the bit
folks, telling everyone the obvious.
No kidding. But how did that particular mine get to become dangerous? How
come that story was not on the front page?
And today's earth-shattering events on the frontpage ... ( January 13, 2006 .)
3 killed at store in 1980
- Stacy Finz
Big changes sought in how UC raises pay
Regents asked to give president more power to set salary levels
- Todd Wallack, Tanya Schevitz
Bleak audit of S.F. public golf courses
- Becky Bowman
Parents, teachers fight for schools
S.F. education board postpones vote to close or merge 26 of them
- Heather Knight
SOMBER PROCESSION FOR SLAIN EAST PALO ALTO OFFICER
State steps in to help seniors get medicines
Golf courses? Seriously, on the front page?
Way back in ... 1980? Wow.
Sad people at a police funeral. Like Duh.
Stay on that pay raise story. The public really, really needs to know about
how the public university system is not causing pay raises to get outta hand.
We can't let that happen, right?
Hmm, how'bout a story about how nominee Alito promised the Senate that he would
recuse himself from any cases involving the financial company that manages his
stock portfolio, which he breaks the very first time a case comes up, makes odd
legal decisions, and then writes an adamant letter complaining when another
judge asks him to recuse himself from the very case. Or a judge who rules that
it was acceptable to strip search a teenage girl when she didn't have her id?
Or ... ?
Oh but how nice of the state to help Seniors? Don't you think an in depth
detail of
the pork of the Medicare Act of 2004 would be a great idea? Or actions by
Schwastikanigger on California medical regulations?
Seems to me like you don't want to leave the shoe box to get to the bigger
picture, and in that box are only three things : 1) opinions of political
hacks, 2) over-flowing grandeur about the personality or hard-ships involved
without the details or even an outline on the connections between the people
and the
historical context, and last but not least: 3) loaded adjectives with subtle
conjectures not
supported by facts.
Look at the way you numb-skulls stretch to avoid to put a story about Alito's
judicial history, or anything relevant on the NSA circumvention of the FISA
laws, or anything about the details concerning the pathetic "reconstruction"
process going on during Katrina, or how the Diebold and ES systems corporations
are having their voting machines recinded in counties of North Carolina,
Florida, New York, Texas, and Minnesota when Governor Schwastikanigger's
appointed Secretary of State is currently reinstalling the Diebold machines
that Kevin Shelley himself recinded after the Schwastikanigger recall hoax
election.
Oh but Shelley did what over a $10,000 check? Did y'all bother to even print
the fact that he was NEVER indicted after he resigned because "the
irregularities
were not sufficient to warrant a full investigation." How come you could'nt
give
that fact the same everyday frontpage treatment that the hoax scandal got?
And was Schwastikanigger paid $1 million by Chevron? And what was the 9 billion
Energy Market Rigging lawsuit that Schwastikanigger cancelled his very first
day in office? And how much digging did your paper due into this man our
Governor when he meet with various Enron and Reliant energy officials during
the
summer of 2001 at a Los Angeles hotel? But that $10,000 check was front page
for close to 2 weeks.
How come the attack dogs have highly selective noses?
Oh, and nice job printing 5 pages of high-quality photography trying to prove
that only 65,000 people attended the 2003 protest. Now that was quality
journalism morons. You'd think you would also print the White House's
involvement with the tainted justifications used to drag the country down their
megalomaniacal path to war and dictatorship. Scotter Libby, Karl Rove, Stephen
Hadley, Bolton, Wolfowitz, etc could have used at least 20 percent of the space
you filled up with trying to prove that an exact number of people filled Market
street completely for 8 hours.
Christ, don't you idiots recognize historical moments at all. When was the last
time that many people marched down Market Street?
And what the blarney-stone is Laura Slanders doing on any paper news staff? A
Conservative philosophy is not equivalent to a lying, deliberately misleading
stale ruthlessly opinated hack.
And I won't forget how you served as the springboard for mendacious
propagandista Kenneth Garcia's entrance into the world of columnists with
opinions so biased that they manage to obviate the relevant issues rather than
enlighten the public with ideas and thoughtful perspectives. Kenny-boy has
since moved over to the less sophisticated but still slanted pages of the
Examiner,
but it was you who gave him some years as a farce of reason.
And how can the Sunday paper be ready for sale on Saturday morning? Ugh, I
want to throw up.
You disgrace this city. It disgusts me that you actually publish and yet can't
even be even 20 percent close to the quality of the Sacramento Bee or the San
Jose Mercury News. How much of the staff was fired when the Hearst corporation
decided to double the profit margin at the expense of the paper's content?
Ever wonder maybe that is why subscriptions are down and a lot of folks are
having the New York Times delivered?
So when will you guys just admit the Chronicle is just a haven for corporate
shills.
Sincerely,
Gino Napoli.
| Saturday, 7 January 2006 at 2h 3m 59s | History repeats |
"When they came for the trade unionists and socialists, I said nothing because
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the homosexuals and the gypsies, I said nothing because I
was neither.
When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not a Jew.
When they came for the Catholics, I said nothing because I was not a Catholic.
And when they came for me, there was nobody left to say anything."
-- Rev. Martin Niemoller, A German who lived through the 1930's in
Germany.
| Friday, 6 January 2006 at 1h 34m 36s | A crime is a crime | From James Moore, author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made
George
W. Bush
Presidential. These quotes are culled from a syndicated op-ed Mr. Moore
penned on October 28, 2005 . [SOURCE
]
Leaking the names of CIA agents is not politics; it is a crime. Lying to
congress about evidence for a war is not politics; it is a crime. Failing to
tell a grand jury that you met with a reporter and talked about the CIA agent
is not forgetfullness; it is a crime. Deceiving your entire nation and
frightening children and adults with images of nuclear explosions in order to
get them to support a bloody invasion of another country is not politics; it is
a crime. Anyone other than Karl Rove and Lewis Libby and Tom Delay who does not
get this, please raise your hand. The three of you will need to stay after
class for further instruction in civics.
Fortunately, as the leaves of the Aspens continue to turn in Colorado (where
she vacations) the suspects are also turning in Washington. Targets will be
pleading and dealing and soon will be singing. We are, hopefully, seeing the
beginning of an investigation that will broaden until it disabuses the final
few million Bush supporters of their naievete'. Special counsel Patrick
Fitzgerald must surely just be at the beginning of rendering justice. An
indictment or two will hardly serve to answer the critical questions. The leak
and any lies to the grand jury were most likely motivated by a deep and abiding
fear that a much greater crime was at risk of being uncovered. Karl Rove is
vindictive, yes. But he is not stupid. Rove would never risk treason unless he
thought it served a political purpose. And this was the most important
political purpose of all: protecting his most precious asset, George W. Bush.
Ethics have never been a consideration of Rove's and he sees the law as only
marginally instructive. Karl might have been more concerned about the leak and
talking to reporters if somewhere along the line he had been held accountable
for any of his other political tricks. But he has not.
We the people expect Fitzgerald to do more than indict a few leakers. There was
a grand scheme behind what happened and it was put together by the big brains
in the administration. Unlike the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rove will have
a hard time making an argument that this leak just spontaneously occurred to
harm Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife in a timely political fashion. What
is hiding back there behind the curtains? The mainstream media is now beginning
to report on the forged Niger documents in Italy and the names of Bush
administration operatives who met in Rome with Italian intelligence and defense
officials before the phony yellowcake papers began to circulate. Is that what
Fitzgerald is beginning to pursue? If Joe Wilson was threatening to uncover the
fact that our government had deployed agents to act as covert operatives
against the very citizens they are sworn to serve, well, that's more than a
crime; that's a John le Carre' novel. Small wonder Democrats suspect Rove of a
smackdown of Wilson.
We have no real shot at the truth without Patrick Fitzgerald. And he will soon
be demonized. He will discover that being 42 and unmarried makes him the
practitioner of an alternative lifestyle and that he may have once had a beer
at an airport in Milwaukee with a Democrat. First they called him accomplished
and capable when he was appointed. What will they call him now? Perjury was a
high crime when Bill Clinton fibbed about the blue dress girl but it is being
spun into a technicality when you stand accused of historic deceptions that
have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents. And that's not
politics. That's a crime.
Ain't him a good writ-ah!
Mr. Moore has now found himself on the TSA "No fly watch list" because his
criticisms of the Bush Administration and Karl Rove in particular have gotten
his attention to these sick-nazi mentalities. This is true. James Moore is no
terrorist, but he is on the "No fly watch list", so what else are we left to
conclude? Why else would this veteran journalist from Texas find his name on
the "No fly watch list"?
Now, to clarify, this does not make Mr. Moore unable to fly per se, but he
has to now go through a timely procedure where he has meet with a special TSA
agent. The forms that get filled out and sent to get off the list aren't
working at all, and Mr. Moore has to go through this everytime he wants to
travel. In other words, it's a form of harassment. Apparently, there are
another 80,000 persons on this list, and the list is getting bigger everyday.
Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi also found themselves on the list. Accidentally
I'm sure, but then how come no Republican legislator or "book-writer" media
type has yet to find themselves "accidentally" on the list?
Answer: this is no accident. The NSA spy program is not about terrorism
either. They are tapping the phones for other less patriotic reasons, as will
eventually be revealed.
| Thursday, 5 January 2006 at 2h 19m 57s | When the shoe fits, throw it at someone else | Thinking hurts too much these days. The nazi's are crawling
everywhere,
inhabiting and destroying everything.
Remember all the hubub made about Al Gore meeting a Chinese buddhist in a
temple in 1996, that turned out to be nothing at all? Well now we have George
Bush pioneer fund raiser Jack Abramoff involved in the largest web of
corruption since the Credit Mobilier
of the 1870's, involving fake charity
funds that accepted $100,000 checks from a law firm in England that got the
money from Russian lobbyists.
Oh but will the corporate nazi media pound on this story like they pounded on
the Buddhist temple?
Of course not.
Today's f***ing Chronicle headline blasts out that Abramoff is a "rogue
lobbyist"
as if Abramoff was all alone and independent in bad guy land. Hey hack
Chronicle reporter : would you care to mention his already convicted or being
prosecutied cohorts in crime over the last year : namely, public relations
executive --and former aide to House Majority Leader DeLay-- Michael Scanlon;
chief of staff at the
General Services Administration David Safavian, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
and Ohio Bush Pioneer Tom Noe? ALL ARE CONNECTED dumb asses.
And David Safavian was appointed by George Bush in 2003. [Read
on ...]
So what the hell then does Bush mean when he says that Abramoff was "equal
opportunity" corruption? Oh, Byron Dorgan(North Dakota) and Harry Reid(Nevada)
both accepted small donations by local indian tribes ($18,000 and $5,000
respectively) in their districts that also
happened to be clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- but that is and was not
illegal.
Bush himself got more than $100,000 from Abramoff and his other connected
pioneers, in addition to appointing officials helpful to the purposes of Mr.
Abramoff. There's more here from Lou Dubose at the Texas Observer:
"In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in
annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush
advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in
bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on
the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He
had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as
Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar
fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so
closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of
his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the
President. "
Some "roque" operator.
And from the Bloomberg News: [SOURCE]
"Now you have two people instead of one," said Stan Brand, a former counsel to
the House of Representatives when it was controlled by the Democrats. "What
you're building is a ladder. You have Abramoff at the intermediate step,
elected officials above him, and Scanlon and Safavian underneath."
In other words, this vast network of corruption was orchetrated and abetted by
the Republican party.
Liars and heinous hypocrites. They speak of themselves when they pilory the
perceived opposition.
Bush even gets to recess appoint the prosecutor Alice Fisher -- during the
weekend of the Hurricane Katrina debacle -- to oversea the Abramoff
investigation. Alice
Fisher has no prosecution experience but used to work with the law firm of now
Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff and has done work with Tom Delay's
legal action network.
At law.com she is lauded a bit maniacally for
her "great" work investigating Enron. Oh you mean that lame investigation
where all but a few scapegoats (including the two big boys Ken Lay, and ex-
Secretary of the Army Thomas White) walked away scott free.
Yeah, she's great at investigating.
But even from law.com , you can still get a glimpse of why Bush had to
sneak her appointment over the Katrina weekend ...
"I suck up to and wash the dirty laundry of powerful Republicans and gain
legal experience from shamefully farcical investigations."
Fisher first worked with Chertoff in 1995, when he hired her as deputy special
counsel to the Senate Whitewater investigation. She had graduated from the
Catholic University of America School of Law in 1993, and worked as a
litigation associate in the Washington office of New York-based Sullivan &
Cromwell.
Then Chertoff brought her into the Senate investigation of investments that
President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton made in the troubled
Whitewater Development Corp.
Following her work in Whitewater, Fisher moved into the Washington office of
Latham & Watkins in 1996.
So I'm sure she'll be spiking the investigation. Why else would Bush so
secretively appoint her over that particular weekend? Was her services in such
dire need that Bush had to rush her through without following the
Constitutional requirement of Senatorial "advice and consent."
I really, really hope I am wrong.
| Friday, 30 December 2005 at 3h 31m 32s | Too much computer time | I thought this was hilarious
| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 14h 22m 22s | Larry Johnson blog | Larry Johnson is an ex-CIA career professional who has been an excellent source
of realistic an relevant information about anything related to the CIA and
government operations.
Go
here to
read Larry Johnson's blog.
Larry recently posted a lot of good points about why fighting "terrorism" with
conventional military is wasteful and stupid, since it is more effectively
attacked with law enforcement covert operations.
Killing civilians and destroying cities (aka, Falluja) only create more
terrorists.
But don't just listen to me. Go read Larry Johnson.
| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 14h 25m 32s | President spoiled rotten | Steve Chapman over at the Chicago Tribune, has
this to
say: [
SOURCE]
Steve Chapman
Beyond the imperial presidency
Published December 25, 2005
President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal
government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He
wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't
think he should be constrained by their intentions.
He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he
insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man
at the helm of government.
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives
of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret
eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust
executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good
for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power
weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
Even people who should be on Bush's side are getting queasy. David Keene,
chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to enlarge
executive authority, Bush "has gone too far."
He's not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose Padilla, a
U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a "dirty
bomb." For three years, the administration said he posed such a grave threat
that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy combatant. In
September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.
But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court, the
administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on
comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court for
permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the once-
cooperative court flatly refused.
In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the administration
suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common purse snatcher--a
reversal that, they said, comes "at substantial cost to the government's
credibility." The court's meaning was plain: Either you were lying to us then,
or you are lying to us now.
If that's not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written by
conservative darling J. Michael Luttig--who just a couple of months ago was on
Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question Bush's use of
executive power is like Bill O'Reilly announcing that there's too much Christ
in Christmas.
This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn't
need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, the
administration also detained him as an enemy combatant rather than entrust him
to the criminal justice system.
But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he could
present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too
much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where
he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was
too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.
The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal
monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people
overseas again raises the question: Why?
The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic
surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists.
The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at
the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.
He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it
authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true.
Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision
of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because
Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the
administration decided: Who needs Congress?
What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like
this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need
it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In
their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be
bothered to earn it.
Herr Bush is an alcoholic degenerate spoiled-rotten brat. He is also mean and
vindictive. And he is also the President.
Oh shit.
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