lundi 31 octobre 2005

All of your daughters belong to us


Unintentionally hilarious photo of the week:


"If this guy is confirmed, I'm taking the girl. Got it?"


Note how the family of the nominee who thinks women are owned by their husbands is posed under a photo of randy ol' Bill Clinton, and Bill's hand appears to be on Alito's daughter's shoulder.

Hat tip: Lakshmi Chaudhry)

Well, well, well...


Bush's choice for the Supreme Court is another chickenhawk -- a guy who got a cushy reserves gig even though his draft lottery number was 12.

PNIOnline has the story:

A lot has been said this morning about Samuel Alito, President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, and his impeccable legal resume. Well, here's one portion of his resume we hope gets some very, very close scrutiny over the next few weeks, before his confirmation hearings.

Where were you in '72?

Specifically, what were the circumstances of Alito getting a coveted slot in the Army Reserves that year, while the Vietnam War was still raging? Is Alito yet another "chickenhawk" who avoided the war and now will be deciding on life-or-death cases involving our young men and women fighting in Iraq and elsewhere today?

We don't know the answer -- it's only been about four hours since Bush nominated Altio to replace Sandra Day O'Connor -- but it's a question that needs to be asked, especially in light over the controversies over how Bush and Dick Cheney avoided Vietnam.

Alito was born on April Fool's Day -- April 1, 1950. He entered Princeton University as an undergrad in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, at a time when there was still a college deferment for the draft. That meant that full-time students working toward a degree were not in jeopardy of being sent to Vietnam.

However, in 1971 Congress voted to essentially end the college deferment, and by then the U.S. Selective Service had switched to a draft lottery -- the higher your number, based upon your birthday, the more likely that you would be drafted.

In February 1972, the service held its draft lottery for 1973 inductions -- and Alito, in essence, lost. His birthday, April 1, came up as No. 12 that year, a certain ticket to induction, or so it seemed.

In fact, the draft class of 1973 would never be called. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam was substantially winding down in 1972, to just 49,000 troops from a high in the 1960s of more than half a million. But as Richard Nixon's Christmas bombings that year showed, no one had a crystal ball to predict the final American withdrawal at the start of 1973.

By then, young Sam Alito -- who was graduating Princeton on his way to Yale Law School -- was already in the Army Reserves, which, as this article notes, "became a haven for those avoiding service in Vietnam." The future judge served in the reserves until 1980 and left with the rank of captain.

How did he get that coveted slot? The judge's father, Sam Alito Sr., was the director of New Jersey's Office of Legislative Services in 1972, so he surely knew some powerful politicians. Did someone make a phone call? We're curious.


Why does it matter if Alito is a chickenhawk? Because the Supreme Court may very well find itself hearing cases having to do with veterans' health benefits, rights of soldiers to dissent, torture, and holding people without charges.

Bush has really thrown down the guauntlet with this one. Let's see if the Dems have the spine to take him down. If necessary, let Frist invoke the nuclear option, and we'll see who benefits.

Why is no one paying this man to write?


All of us toil at this blogging thingie for different reasons. We like to rant, or we want to make a difference, or we think anyone actually cares what we think.

But at a time when absolute blithering morons like Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro are getting publishing contracts, there is someone who's arguably the best political writer in America today...and only a few thousand people at most read him.

I've extolled the virtues of Driftglass before, but this may be the most profoundly patriotic manifesto I've ever read -- anywhere.

Cynicism, thy name is Bush


This is truly repellent. Atrios is reporting that the Bush Administration plans a photo op of Samuel Alito in front of Rosa Parks' casket today, presumably so he can spit on it, the way he tends to spit on minority rights as a judge:

I think it would've been quite nice if Judge Alito had stopped by to pay respects to Rosa Parks... yesterday. The idea that they're going to parade him in front of her casket after his nomination is truly demented, especially given Alito's dissent in Bray v. Marriot Hotels which , as explained in the majority opinion:

The dissent's position would immunize an employer
from the reach of Title VII if the employer's belief that it had selected the "best" candidate, was the result of conscious racial bias. Thus, the issue here, is not merely whether Marriott was seeking the "best" candidate but whether a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Bray was not deemed the best because she is Black. Indeed, Title VII would be eviscerated if our analysis were to halt where the dissent suggests.



These people are truly, truly vile. And so are their supporters.

Kura, Haymarket

Isn't it funny how for x number of years you can walk past a noodle shop without ever seeing it enter your field of vision. When you do finally notice, you stare at the menu, you peer inside curiously, you make plans to eat there, and finally you head for a table, you have a great meal, and you wonder how you could've ever been so blind.Kura is my case in point. It's located on one of the busiest

Kura, Haymarket

Isn't it funny how for x number of years you can walk past a noodle shop without ever seeing it enter your field of vision. When you do finally notice, you stare at the menu, you peer inside curiously, you make plans to eat there, and finally you head for a table, you have a great meal, and you wonder how you could've ever been so blind.Kura is my case in point. It's located on one of the busiest

Of course you know, this means war


I can't say I'm surprised, but it looks like C-Plus Caligula's bubble has him thinking he still has a mandate to turn this country into a patriarchal theocracy.

He's so terrified of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade, afraid they'll tarnish his so-called "legacy", that he's named one of the worst possible judges to replace Harriet Miers as his nominee for the Supreme Court.

His choice is Samuel Alito, known affectionately on the right as "Scalito", for his affinity with Fat Tony Scalia, another theocrat.

Alito is probably American women's worst nightmare. He not only doesn't believe that a woman with an unplanned pregnancy has a right to control over her own body, he believes that once married, her husband, no matter if he's abusive, absent, or whatever, has a right to complete control over her.

Alito is best known for his dissent in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision, in which the 3rd Circuit Court overturned Pennsylvania's 1989 Abortion Control Act. This law required the following:


(1) a woman seeking an abortion must give her informed consent prior to the procedure and be given state-provided information concerning her decision 24 hours before the abortion is performed
2) a minor seeking an abortion is required to obtain the informed consent of one parent or guardian, but has an option of judicial bypass
(3) a married woman is required to sign a statement indicating that she notified her husband of her intended abortion
(4) exemptions can be made in the event of a medical emergency
(5) facilities providing abortion services are required to keep records of the events


There are arguments to be made about whether a minor child should be required to notify/obtain permission from parents before obtaining an abortion, though my own feeling is that the state cannot legislate family relationships, and that even girls with loving, healthy families can feel enough trepidation about telling their parents to make notification unviable. After all, if a child is injured in an automobile accident, emergency room doctors need not track down the parents before treating the child.

But in the case of spousal notification, an adult woman is just that -- an adult woman. And the idea of a woman having to notify a husband before seeking an abortion reduces her to the status of a child. It implies a notion of male spousal ownership of his wife that NO ONE outside the most hard-core members of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade thinks should be codified in law.

In most marriages, the decision to abort is a joint one. And if it isn't, such as in the case in which a wife doesn't want the child and the husband does, the fact remains that NO ONE should be able to compel a woman to carry a child she does not want for nine months. To do so reduces that woman to the stateus of mere vessel, stripping away her own humanity. This is NEVER acceptable (except in rare and extreme cases such as that of Susan Torres, the brain-dead woman kept physically "alive" until her fetus became viable, a case in which the child had been wanted by both parents at the time she became pregnant).

I don't think anyone seriously believes that Roe is going to survive the Bush Administration, and I think the time to wail and rend garments about that particular decision was last November, not now. However, the kind of judges Bush is appointing are not only opposed to Roe, but opposed to any kind of self-determination for women whatsoever. These are frightened, small men, just like those who burnt witches centuries ago, who are so terrified of women that they have to control them at all costs. And obviously the primal place to control is the womb.

But Alito's status as an insulting and objectionable nominee isn't JUST about abortion. It seems also that ethically questionable behavior is also a Bush Administration qualification for high-level positions. WaPo reports that:

Three years ago Alito drew conflict-of-interest accusations after he upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against the Vanguard Group. Alito had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested with the mutual fund company at the time. He denied doing anything improper but recused himself from further involvement in the case.


Funny how he didn't recuse himself until AFTER he was found out.

dimanche 30 octobre 2005

Sydney Food & Wine Fair

If there's one thing that Sydney does well at, it's eating outdoors. Good food outdoors.All the necessary factors were in play for the annual Sydney Food & Wine Fair, one of the final events for Good Food Month. The sun was out, the skies were a glorious blue, and the crowds were flocking and ready to eat.Over 70 food stalls and more than 30 wine and drink stalls lined the grassy verges of

Sydney Food & Wine Fair

If there's one thing that Sydney does well at, it's eating outdoors. Good food outdoors.All the necessary factors were in play for the annual Sydney Food & Wine Fair, one of the final events for Good Food Month. The sun was out, the skies were a glorious blue, and the crowds were flocking and ready to eat.Over 70 food stalls and more than 30 wine and drink stalls lined the grassy verges of

That sound you hear is Ann Coulter shrieking as her reality explodes into dust


So much for the "George Bush is a moral, ethical men" meme:

A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.

In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office.

The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Americans consider the charges against Libby to be serious. A majority -- 55 percent -- said the decision of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to bring charges against Libby was based on the facts of the case, while 30 percent said he was motivated by partisan politics.

[snip]

The ethics findings may be particularly upsetting to a president who came to office in 2000 vowing to restore integrity and honor to a White House that he said had been tainted by the recurring scandals of the Clinton years.


These numbers are interesting. There's that 28-30% figure showing up again, representing those Bushofascists who would support Bush no matter what he did. But that 55% believe the Libby case is representative of a larger pattern indicates that the American people really ARE waking up with their kool-aid hangover and realizing just what last November's election hath wrought. Now, why they're waking up now is obvious: it's because the mainstream media is finally doing its job, and the drumbeat of "Bush = Jesus" is no longer heard so relentlessly once you get outside of Fox News.

Especially galling to the wingnuts has to be that Bush now has lower ethics ratings than Bill Clinton did. I always knew that history would be relatively kind to Bill Clinton, painting him as a man who could have been our greatest president, but like so many men before him, couldn't keep his brain out of his dick and in his head where it belonged. But already we're seeing signs of this legacy -- of Bill Clinton as a reasonably good president, and even a reasonably ethical one, save for a personal weakness to which all too many men in Washington -- even the Christian conservative ones -- have fallen prey.

I can't even imagine what the scene is at Bush family dinners these days. I can't, But Steve Gilliard can. Go check out Parts I and II of his continuing series, "Inside the Bush White House." It's entertaining reading, and frighteningly plausible.

samedi 29 octobre 2005

Compassionate Conservatism in action


Lost in all the hubbub over Fitzmas yesterday was the Republican Party yanking foods out of the mouths of babies so they can keep their tax cuts:

- On a party-line vote, a Republican-run U.S. House of Representatives committee voted to cut food stamps by $844 million on Friday, just hours after a new government report showed more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.

About 300,000 Americans would lose benefits due to tighter eligibility rules for food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, under the House plan. The cuts would be part of $3.7 billion pared from Agriculture Department programs over five years as part of government-wide spending reductions.

Agriculture Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte defended the decision, saying only a sliver of food stamp spending was affected and, for the most part, the cuts would eliminate people not truly eligible.


After all, God forbid someone should get an extra quart of milk; after all, Dick Cheney needs more tax cuts!

On food stamps, the House committee agreed to require immigrants to wait seven years, instead of the current five, to apply for aid. That would affect an estimated 70,000 people.

It also would deny food stamps to people who automatically get food stamps because they receive help through other welfare programs but whose income is above food stamp levels. About 225,000 people fall in that category.

North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy complained that 40,000 children would lose free meals at school because of that provision.

"You have not even come clean that kids are going to lose school breakfast and school lunch under this," he said.

Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said states unfairly "have taken the opportunity to expand food stamp eligibility" beyond what the federal government intended. Democrat John Barrow of Georgia said Goodlatte was punishing states for using welfare reform laws to respond to local needs.

A new Agriculture Department report found 38.2 million Americans "were food insecure" in 2004, an increase of nearly 2 million from the previous year. Tufts University food economist Parke Wilde food insecurity "now equals the worst levels" since recordkeeping began a decade ago.

USDA said 11.9 percent of households, "at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources."

Food stamps help poor Americans buy food. About 25 million people get food stamps monthly.


No one likes to pay taxes. But if I have a choice between giving kids who need it a lunch in the middle of the day so that they can learn and become productive citizens; and shoveling more money into the pockets of guys like the ones who are running the government right now so that they can try to fill up the black holes in their souls, I know which check I'd rather right.

Spring on a plate

I'm not a big fan of nachos (too much melted cheese goo everywhere for my liking) but I do appreciate crunchy nibbles topped or dipped with tasty goodness.Feeling peckish the other day I conducted a random search of the kitchen for something, you know, yummy. The last remaining Lebanese bread round was becoming rapidly dry and crusty. An abandoned wedge of goats cheese bleated in the fridge, and

Spring on a plate

I'm not a big fan of nachos (too much melted cheese goo everywhere for my liking) but I do appreciate crunchy nibbles topped or dipped with tasty goodness.Feeling peckish the other day I conducted a random search of the kitchen for something, you know, yummy. The last remaining Lebanese bread round was becoming rapidly dry and crusty. An abandoned wedge of goats cheese bleated in the fridge, and

Bush's Hobson's Choice


So which is it?

Either Bush really had no idea what the neocons, led, emboldened, and abetted by Cheney and the neocons, were doing; or he knew full well about the plan to discredit Joseph Wilson.

If he had no idea, then his image as a strong leader heading up a highly disciplined White House flies right out the window, and the suspicion that he's just a sock puppet put in front of the people to hide the Cheney/neocon plan for world hegemony and self-enrichment looks more and more like the reality. The flight suit, the cowboy business, the so-called war on terror -- all an illusion, just like Oz the Great and Terrible.

If he knew what was going on, then for all his talk about national security, he participated in a scheme to discredit a political foe by leaking the name of said foe's CIA NOC wife, thereby putting not just individuals, but national security at risk.

So which is it?

Meanwhile, the situation with Turdblossom continues to evolve. The wingnuts are already spinning that Rove has been "exonerated", but that's not necessarily the case. I could be wrong, but I suspect that like most bullies, when it comes to the choice between talking and being Billy Joe Bob's prison bitch, Rove is going to sing like a canary.

WaPo implies that Libby could be the small fish being pressured to net the big one:

The biggest piece of unfinished business involves Rove. Fitzgerald appeared set to charge Rove with making false statements until the White House deputy chief of staff provided new information on Tuesday that gave the prosecutor what two people described as "pause."

It is unclear what information Rove turned over. It is also unclear if it will be enough to prevent a grand jury from indicting him in the weeks ahead. If he decides to seek charges against Rove, Fitzgerald would present the evidence to a new grand jury because the one that indicted Libby expired yesterday and its term cannot be extended.

"The Special Counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he has made no decision about whether or not to bring charges," Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said in a statement. "We are confident that when the Special Counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong."

Fitzgerald refused to comment on Rove. A source close to Rove added, "There is still the chance that Mr. Rove could face indictment." Lawyers involved in the case said Fitzgerald is likely to put pressure on Libby to provide evidence against Rove or other potential targets.


I wonder who the other potential targets are? Perhaps even BIGGER fish?

Meanwhile, the sheer political theatre of the whole mess is both thrilling and terrifying to watch. And Patrick Fitzgerald is already being touted as the new Eliot Ness. My guess is that the movie script is already being written and pitched to Hollywood studios?

So who's YOUR pick to play Fitzgerald? Costner's too old, Cruise is too weird.

My money's on Peter Saarsgard. AFTER he finishes The Tucker Carlson Story.

vendredi 28 octobre 2005

Quote of the Day


“So now it looks like there are going to go after Joe Wilson, which is what got them in trouble in the first place.” -- Paul Begala, to Wolf Blitzer on CNN


(hat tip: Mark Leon Goldberg)

Scooter Skedaddles


As expected, Scooter Libby has been indicted on five charges, including obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent’s name.

He's resigned his office.

Turdblossom has not been charged with anything, but is still under investigation. This is actually pretty interesting, because it may mean that Fitzgerald is going after bigger fish and thinks he can strongarm Karl into squealing like a pig in order to avoid becoming Billy Joe Bob's prison bitch.

Of course the Rove apologists will crow that a lack of an indictment of Bush's Brain means he has done nothing wrong, conveniently ignoring that a continued investigation is not good news. Indeed, no less a personage than the wingnut di tutti wingnuts, Ann "Adam's Apple" Coulter, calls this the worst possible scenario:

O’BRIEN: So there you have it, Karl Rove apparently escaping indictment, but that’s the good news. The bad news is, on goes the investigation. What are your thoughts on that one?

COULTER: That is like the worse possible outcome.

O’BRIEN: Oh, an indictment would be better?

COULTER: I think so. I mean, I don’t think indictments are particularly big deal politically. They’re a big deal for whoever gets indicted, but I don’t think it really matters to the White House. I’ve just been thinking, this is going to be lancing the boil. Let’s just get it done one way or the other this Friday. Either they get indicted and they leave, or they’re not indicted and it’s over. To stay under investigation — that is not the best possible outcome.


The indictment is posted at The Smoking Gun. It's worth reading the whole thing, because it's a meticulous timeline detailing the entire story of how an Administration official endangered national security for cheap, petty political revenge.

Useful information:

At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.


So much for "Everyone knew she worked for the CIA."

On or about June 14, 2003, LIBBY met with a CIA briefer. During their conversation he expressed displeasure that CIA officials were making comments to reporters critical of the Vice President's office, and discussed with the briefer, among other things, "Joe Wilson" and his wife "Valerie Wilson" in the context of Wilson's trip to Niger.


Here's where Kneepads comes in:


On or about the morning of July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. When the conversation turned to the subject of Joseph Wilson, Libby asked that the information LIBBY provided on the topic of Wilson be attributed to "a former Hill staffer", rather than to a "senior administration official", as had been the understanding with respect to other information that LIBBY provided to Miller during this meeting. LIBBY thereafter discussed with Miller Wilson's trip and criticized the CIA reports concerning Wilson's trip. During this discussion, LIBBY advised Miller of his belief that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.



If you read the entire document, it makes clear that high-level Administration officials, quite possibly with the knowledge and consent of the President and/or Vice President, who came to office on a promise to restore "honor and dignity", thought they were above the law.

So now we have a greedy, venal Vice President under a cloud because his chief aide is up on federal charges, a dry-drunk President with a chief adviser who's under an investigative cloud, a House Minority leader under indictment, and a Senate Majority leader under an SEC investigation.

And you know what? I'll just bet there's a blowjob in there too that we just haven't heard about yet.

Doing the oil math


I usually have to gas up our little Civic or Corolla about every week and a half. I don't use a lot of gasoline because I'm only about nine miles from my job. The last time I put gas in the car, I paid $3.17. Yesterday I paid $2.49. That's a huge drop in a week and a half.

The drop in the price of crude is bad news for petroleum brokers. The higher the oil price, the more money they make. And now there's plenty of gasoline. So given that we have limited refinery capacity, who's getting stiffed?

Home heating customers:


Then there are the heating oil and natural gas bills that are starting to sting -- all this even as the price of oil has dropped by $10 a barrel in just a few months.

What gives? How is it that one price seems to be dipping while another is skyrocketing and both are based on the same raw product?

The answer lies in the differences between driving and home heating. It is strictly supply and demand for what are essentially completely different products, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, which devoted its weekly petroleum report on Wednesday to this puzzle.

"Certainly crude oil prices are stabilizing, but we expect (heating) prices to remain significantly higher than they were last year," said Doug Mac-Intyre, senior oil market analyst for the agency.

Right now, gasoline, which had spiked upward because of hurricanes and higher driving demand during the summer, are declining; the local AAA fuel gauge report pegged the South Jersey average at $2.40 a gallon, down 42 cents from a month ago but still up from $1.91 last year.

This is, in part, because people are home from their summer travel and the soon-to-end hurricane season, which tends to disrupt the Gulf of Mexico oil supply. But it is also in part because of a record level of gasoline imported from Europe over the past couple weeks, Mac-Intyre said.

Nevertheless, much has been made of the spiraling heating costs America is facing this winter. This, too, has to do with supply and demand for not only heating oil (very similar to diesel) but also natural gas.

Crude oil is still expensive compared to last year, natural gas production is down and global demand for both is extremely high.

New Jersey's public utilities have already applied for rate hikes of 4 percent to 10 percent (including South Jersey Gas).

Finally, there's the weather. With a cold winter predicted, prices will only go higher.

"I do think the market is overreacting a bit, but people are worried," said Michael Lynch, an oil analyst with Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Massachusetts. "There is fear because the weather is so cold so early, and people are already turning on their furnaces. That's usually a bad sign of what is to come."

This is why home heating bills are expected to grow 50 percent to 70 percent this winter, as much as $350 or more on average here and across the country. Already prices for home heating oil are up more than 22 percent since last year, and natural gas is at least 10 percent higher, according to the Energy Information Administration.


Meanwhile, guess who's reaping the rewards? You guessed it:

A sudden interruption in oil supplies sent prices and profits skyrocketing, prompting Exxon's chief executive to call a news conference right after his company announced that it had chalked up record earnings.

"I am not embarrassed," he said. "This is no windfall."

[snip]

This year is shaping up as an exceptionally lucrative one for the oil industry, thanks to strong global demand, tight supplies and high prices for oil and natural gas. While the idea that the Bush administration was considering imposing a windfall profits tax was knocked down yesterday by officials, longstanding resentments against Big Oil are resurfacing and could end up imposing some additional burdens on the industry.

The sense that government should step in to curb the phenomenal wealth and power often enjoyed by oil companies goes back to Exxon Mobil's corporate ancestor from the late 19th century, the Rockefeller oil trust known as Standard Oil.

Today, Republicans and Democrats alike, aware of the politically sensitive issue of high energy prices, are putting increasing pressure on the oil and gas industry to return some of its profits. The ideas include forcing the industry to invest in more refining capacity, to increase inventories to cushion energy shocks, or to provide money directly to the government program that helps low-income people pay heating bills.

Simmering resentment of the oil industry has heated up as gas lines reappeared in some cities this summer and gas prices rose above $3 a gallon, a record even when adjusted for inflation. Gasoline prices, already well above what Americans are accustomed to, spiked after two Gulf Coast hurricanes curbed domestic production and briefly pushed oil prices above $70 a barrel.

This winter, Americans can expect to pay much more for heating their homes than they did last year.

Senator Bill Frist, the Republican leader, said yesterday that executives of major oil companies will be summoned to Capitol Hill to testify about high energy prices. Some of Mr. Frist's language harked back to the 1970's and early 1980's when cries of price gouging at gasoline pumps were common.

"If there are those who abuse the free enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans," he said, "they ought to be exposed, and they ought to be ashamed."


This is actually fascinating, that Bill Frist, a conservative Republican, is calling for investigation of oil companies for windfall profits. Just another sign that the GOP coalition is disintegrating...

jeudi 27 octobre 2005

Wagamama, Sydney

I still remember the first time I ever ate at Wagamama. It was in Dublin of all places, and after a relentless fortnight of fish and chips, seafood chowder, pub roasts and haggis around England, Scotland and Ireland we were dying for a re-acquaintance with Asian.Chopsticks were pined after like a long lost lover, invoking dreams of graceful wooden limbs and the delicate transferral of tasty

Wagamama, Sydney

I still remember the first time I ever ate at Wagamama. It was in Dublin of all places, and after a relentless fortnight of fish and chips, seafood chowder, pub roasts and haggis around England, Scotland and Ireland we were dying for a re-acquaintance with Asian.Chopsticks were pined after like a long lost lover, invoking dreams of graceful wooden limbs and the delicate transferral of tasty

Miers out


I wonder whose decision this was:

Confronted with criticism from both the left and right, Harriet Miers on Thursday withdrew her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a statement, President Bush said he “reluctantly accepted” her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down.

Bush blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.


Uh, I hate to tell the AP this, but the left has pretty much been quiet on the Miers nomination, especially since the Republican Party decided to become a circular firing squad. Sure, she was a ridiculously unqualified nominee, but it seems that the Democrats, understanding that the right would do their work for them, decided to hold their fire for now.

Of course now, this embattled White House, unrepentant and arrogant till the end, is likely to give us one of the wingnut horrors about whom we worried in the first place.

Democrats, start your engines. It's time now.

Sweet! The blue-collar blue state team sweeps the oil team in Bush's backyard


It's really hard to care about the World Series when you have zero investment in either team or its players.

Still, the clean sweep of the Houston Astros by the Chicago White Sox last night smells sweet as a spring morning today. And this most blue-collar of teams in this most blue-collar neighborhoods in this blue state; this largely minority team with its Venezuelan manager, African-American GM, and Jewish owner, did it in Bush's backyard.

And this team which has been scarred for 86 years by the infamous "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, one which saw "Shoeless" Joe Jackson banned from baseball for all eternity even though he didn't take the dive, finally won the series in a year in which two ballplayers were caught doing steroids -- and neither one was banned.

Fitzgerald is being careful


Well, we didn't see indictments yesterday, but Fitz Watch certainly became even more interesting:

The special counsel in the C.I.A. leak inquiry met for more than three hours with the federal grand jury on Wednesday and later talked privately with the district judge in the case as the White House waited out another day in the expectation of possible indictments.

After the grand jury session, the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, discussed the case for about 45 minutes in the chambers of Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the district court who has presided over the leak case, said the judge's administrative assistant, Sheldon L. Snook.

The grand jury deliberations and the special prosecutor's meeting with the judge ratcheted up fears among officials that Mr. Fitzgerald might have obtained an indictment from the grand jury, and was requesting that it be sealed. He could also seek an extension of the grand jury's term, which expires on Friday. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, would not comment on the case.

Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr., who is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Both have been advised that they could be charged with wrongdoing, possibly for false statements to the grand jury about their conversations with reporters.

Other possibilities are obstruction of justice or perjury charges, and possible violations of the statute that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert intelligence agent.

Some lawyers have suggested that Mr. Fitzgerald may also have investigated possible conspiracy charges or violations of an espionage law that makes it illegal to communicate classified information to people not authorized to receive it.


It also looks like Fizgerald is addressing the "Everyone knew she was CIA" issue, giving some credence to the rumors about civil rights violations charges:

Whether anyone else is at risk of criminal prosecution remains unknown. The C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, was identified in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist, and if a government official was Mr. Novak's main source, that official could be charged with violating a law making it illegal to divulge the identity of a covert officer like Ms. Wilson.

A series of interviews by F.B.I. agents on Monday revived the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald might be considering such a charge. Several neighbors of Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, were asked whether they knew that Ms. Wilson, also known by her unmarried name, Valerie Plame, had covert status.

Several neighbors, some who have known her for years, said they did not know before Mr. Novak's column that she worked for the C.I.A.

"They said they were basically tying up loose ends," David Tillotson, a next-door neighbor, said of his interview by two agents. "They wanted to ask neighbors how well they knew the Wilsons and whether they knew what Valerie did."

Mr. Tillotson said he and his wife, Victoria, thought Ms. Wilson was a business consultant and had no idea she worked for the C.I.A.


Of course, we can speculate all we want, especially given the fact that Fitzgerald has just leased additional office space in DC; but we won't know what's going to happen until it happens.

Mike Allen of Time Magazine thinks, however, that Fitzgerald got some indictments yesterday, that today he's going to offer a plea to the targets, and if they don't play ball, he's going to go back to the grand jury and get some more.

The consensus now seems to be that we'll know what's going on by tomorrow.

Let me just make one thing clear: This particular progressive is NOT looking forward to the kind of national crisis that's going to occur if Rove and Libby are indicted, let alone what happens if Dick Cheney himself is indicted (which is not beyond the realm of possibility). For all that we've had visions of everyone in the Administration from C-Plus Caligula on down being marched out of the Whitehouse in handcuffs, we are in for a rough road ahead.

This is NOT to say that I don't want it to happen. The fact today, as it has been since December 12, 2000, when a judicial coup gave us the worst, most corrupt president we've ever had, is that this Administration is rotten to the core, run by men whose ONLY priority is consolidating their own wealth and power. They deserve to be removed from office, and I hope that the process does exactly that.

And then we'd better be prepared to tear ourselves away from the XBox long enough to try to repair the country that many of us sat by and allowed them to ruin.

The Bush family motto: Blame Someone Else


When I hear the acronym "BSE", I usually think of "breast self-examination" or "bovine spongiform encephalopathy." But we can add the Bush family credo, "Blame Someone Else" to the mix:


Bush also noted that residents were told days before Wilma made landfall Monday that they should stock enough supplies to get them through three days on their own. "People had ample time to prepare," he said. "It isn't that hard to get 72 hours' worth of food and water."

[snip]

In Washington, FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said the agency can't get supplies to affected residents immediately following a storm because it takes time to get roads cleared so trucks carrying ice, water and food can make their way into heavily damaged cities and neighborhoods.

"Obviously we can't put our supplies into harm's way (before a storm hits) because then our supplies and workers become victims themselves," she said.

Echoing Bush, she said residents had several days to prepare for Wilma and "it's really disappointing to see how underprepared so many people were."


Now, one could argue that people of means in Florida DID have ample time, and indeed, my own family members in the hurricane zone emerged from the storm relatively unscathed. They had food, water, and a propane grill, so they were pretty much dining just fine by candlelight. The biggest issue for them was toilet flushing -- not the first thing people think of when they evaluate how much water they're going to need.

But what about people like, oh, say, just for argument's sake, the Immokalee tomato pickers, or the guys who operate the mowers in the gated communities of the Gulf coast, who don't have cars to lug three days' worth of gallon water jugs home from the local Walgreen's, and in most cases don't have the ready cash to BUY three days' worth of gallon water jugs? What are THEY supposed to do? Oh yeah. In the Bush Family, they don't trouble their beautiful minds about people like that.

New York on a Fork

That's right. Yours truly is heading for the Big Apple.I fly into JFK in early December and depart a month later.Here's where you come in.Let me know your tips or favourite haunts in New York. I'm looking for cheap eats, pretzel stands, best bagels, pastry paradises, green markets, delicious delicatessens, gourmet grocers etc etc.The more it epitomises New York the more I want it. But I also want

New York on a Fork

That's right. Yours truly is heading for the Big Apple.I fly into JFK in early December and depart a month later.Here's where you come in.Let me know your tips or favourite haunts in New York. I'm looking for cheap eats, pretzel stands, best bagels, pastry paradises, green markets, delicious delicatessens, gourmet grocers etc etc.The more it epitomises New York the more I want it. But I also want

mercredi 26 octobre 2005

In case the actual statute isn't enough, here's more on why it's a crime


Everyone else is reprinting this, so I'll join the party.

Former Sen. Gary Hart, at HuffPo (emphases mine):

It is now fashionable among columnists supporting the Bush administration, New York Times journalist Judith Miller, Robert Novak and the increasing network of senior administration officials implicated in the Valerie Plame Wilson outing to say, "So what? Where's the crime?"

The federal statute making it a criminal penalty to knowingly divulge the identity of anyone working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency was not enacted in a vacuum.

In the early 1970s, in part as a result of the radicalization of individuals and groups over the Vietnam War, a former CIA employee named Philip Agee wrote a book revealing the identities of several dozen CIA employees, many under deep cover and some including agency station chiefs in foreign capitals.

Many of the countries in which those CIA employees were working themselves had extremely radical and violent elements stirred to hatred over their opposition to America's conduct in the Vietnam War. So, by revealing their identities, Agee had knowingly and willingly placed these American citizens at risk. Violent consequences were predictable.

Richard Welch, a brilliant Harvard-educated classicist, had been stationed in Greece as CIA station chief only a few months before he was murdered, by a radical Greek terrorist organization called the 17th of November, in the doorway of his house in Athens on Dec. 23, 1975. Had Agee not divulged his name, there is every reason to believe that Welch would be alive today after decades of loyal service to his country.

Largely as a result of Agee's perfidy and Welch's unnecessary death, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) of 1982 was enacted, making it a felony to knowingly divulge the identity of a covert CIA operative. It carries penalties of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for each offense. There are those who dismiss the crime by saying, "Oh, Wilson only had a desk job." That is not a defense under this felony statute. It is for the CIA, not Karl Rove or Robert Novak, to determine who requires identity protection and who does not.

The political irony of all this is that conservative elements in America have always proclaimed themselves more concerned than anyone else with national security, the sanctity of classified information, protection of sources, support for our intelligence and military services, and so on. At radical times in our past, irresponsible leftist groups thought it was their duty to try to reveal the names of CIA agents. Now, under a conservative administration, it is these conservative national security champions who are saying, with regard to the "outing" of a CIA undercover officer, "Where's the crime?"

There is further irony in the fact that now the premier intelligence agency of the United States, the CIA, is in utter disarray. Morale is desperately low. Many of the best career officers are leaving. As the source of unbiased professional intelligence, the CIA has been diminished and pushed aside by the Department of Defense. This at a time when it is critical to national security to have the best possible intelligence to protect us from terrorism.

I served on the first Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee in the late 1970s and have continued to be a strong believer in and supporter of the CIA. I deplore those who want to diminish it, politicize it, or require it to produce bogus intelligence it would not otherwise produce simply to fit some preconceived political or ideological agenda. In almost every case where the CIA has malfunctioned, it did so under pressure from one political administration or another.

So, there's the crime. To casually and willfully endanger the life of an undercover CIA agent is a felony. You either believe in taking the laws of the United States seriously or you do not. Citizens - even highly placed ones - do not get to pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they will not. Miller and her publisher may think she's a hero, but I don't. It is well established that there is no First Amendment protection for a journalist or anyone else to withhold evidence of a crime.

There is one final irony to this story. On Christmas Eve in 1975, I got a call at my home from the director of the CIA, William Colby. He asked if I would intervene with the White House to obtain presidential approval to have Welch buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero fallen in service to his country. I quickly called President Ford's chief of staff on Colby's behalf and made the request. Within two hours, the president had agreed to sign the order permitting Welch to be buried at Arlington.

The chief of staff's name was Richard Cheney.

Update: I incorrectly stated above that Philip Agee included the name of Richard Welch in his book naming CIA operatives. That statement was inaccurate. Mr. Agee did not identify Richard Welch, but other sources did. Nevertheless, the Agee book and subsequent Agee actions did contribute substantially to the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. I apologize to Mr. Agee for this incorrect assertion.

She's not the only one; I have 'Bullet in a Bible' on my Amazon wish list


Back in the late 70's, I wasn't one of those big fans of the really angry brand of punk rock. Oh, sure, I listened to WPIX-FM in those days, back when Mark Simone was a punk DJ instead of a right-wing asshole, and his Sunday morning show would feature Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Police, Lene Lovich, and other then-luminaries of the genre, along with some delicious skewers of The Knack. But you wouldn't have caught me dead at CBGB's with a ring through my nose.

By then I was too old for adolescent angst (though my particular brand of said angst ran more towards depression, moody poetry, and Joni Mitchell's Blue album than the kind of rage required for a true appreciation of punk rock.

Of course back then, Jimmy Carter was president, and while gas lines were a pain in the ass, I don't recall feeling angry at our leaders all the time the way I do now. Of course I was working a retail management trainee job and trying to pay the rent on the apartment that gave me my much-needed independence.

It wasn't until much later, after I'd met Mr. Brilliant during the Reagan years, and he'd given me a cassette of Elvis Costello's Trust, that I began to regard the angry music of youthful alienation is not just fun to listen to, but necessary.

Of course since then, Sting has become the Moral and Environmental Police, Elvis Costello is delirious over his Big Canadian Torchsinger Wife, Joe Strummer is dead, and while I like the Dave Matthews Band, their latest release twelve years on sounds simply like more of the same. It's no wonder that my music listening tends these days towards American roots music like neo-bluegrass and the blues -- and towards vintage jazz from the 1920's.

Until American Idiot came out, and it all came back to me like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist (TM Firesign Theatre).

Recently I want to the theatre with a friend, and showed her what was in the CD player in the car. It was American Idiot, and her reaction was "You've got to be kidding. My daughter loves Green Day. She's ten!"

It's almost enough to make you wish you had a ten-year-old, so you too could go to see Green Day live without feeling like a pathetic old dork.

Well, Salon writer Joyce Millman doesn't have a ten-year-old, but she has a 13-year-old, and therefore was able to enter the current Inner Sanctum of Punk Rage:

When I was 13, there was no freakin' way my parents would have taken me to a rock concert. Now here I was, 34 years later, with my husband and (slouchy, unkempt) 13-year-old on a clear, crisp September night, at what was, for my son, the equivalent of that Rolling Stones concert: Green Day at SBC Park in San Francisco. The East Bay trio was celebrating the biggest album of their career, the ferociously anti-Bush cannonade "American Idiot," and this show was their triumphal homecoming. When I first heard Green Day on the radio 11 years earlier, I nearly wept at how much they echoed the Clash, my defunct heroes, the greatest band, ever. The musical revolution that the Clash promised had only been delayed, blooming again in Billie Joe Armstrong's fractious singing and the band's exhilarating three-chord thrash.

When my son discovered my Green Day CDs, I quietly rejoiced. He had previously resisted my musical suggestions and was content listening to his lightweight Smash Mouth CDs and (ick) the Dave Matthews Band. But Green Day lighted a fuse and he was soon riffling through my collection to sample the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, as well as the Who and the Kinks, all of them Green Day's spiritual fathers. Billie Joe, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt are much cooler teachers than I am, and I thank them for it.

I also thank them for the unvarnished anger of the "American Idiot" album, which has become the soundtrack for my son and his friends' nascent liberalism. I wasn't sure how to talk about the war or about the erosion of civil liberties to my son without seeming like a ranting old lady. But "American Idiot" gave me an opening. Note to politicians: The 13- and 14-year-olds of today get their news from "The Daily Show" and their attitude from Green Day and the cool-again '70s punks. Their hair is long or color-streaked, they think the president is a bozo, they know we're in Iraq for the oil and they aspire to own Priuses, not Hummers. Fear them. They are the old antiwar movement redux.

"This song is not anti-American, it's anti-waaaaaaaaaaar!" screamed Billie Joe at SBC Park, kicking into "Holiday" ("I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies/ This is the dawning of the rest of our lives"), and 45,000 fists pumped the air. I looked around at all the families like us, and felt a curious sense of time shrinking and falling away. I was as happy as I had been at that Stones show at 14, and at Clash shows at 22. Earlier that night, we had sat in the golden San Francisco dusk waiting for the show to begin. We watched the people wandering around the stadium: Parents and kids, lone adults wrangling four or five preteens, pierced, plaid-skirted girls and waifish, T-shirted boys taking pictures of each other with their camera phones. An Irish punk band called Flogging Molly ambled onstage while the sky was still light and blew us away. They dedicated a song to the Clash's Joe Strummer, my poor, dead idol, and my son and I clapped loudly. Two girls on the edges of left field danced a jig to the music and one suddenly turned a running cartwheel. The night was full of joy and release.


I don't think anyone would say that Green Day is a musically ambitious band. The sound combines really aggressively bad drumming, some clever lyrics that still aren't as clever as the stuff Elvis Costello used to crank out like a cocaine-fueled Tin Pan Alley songwriter, the musical proficiency of the Ramones, and the most aggressively catchy pop hooks heard on a rock record since the heyday of Squeeze. They're derivative as hell; a tribute band echoing the sound of a hundred punk and even metal bands that came before them. In fact, there are times when I can even hear "All the Young Dudes".

But if all that's old is new again, if we're reliving the past on a vastly accelerated timetable so that punk is the soundtrack of an antiwar movement instead of an outgrowth it, well, count this old broad as one of the marchers...even if the meaning of "this is the dawning of the rest of our lives" has a different meaning at fifty than it does to a ten-year-old.

MoDo!!


Maureen Dowd can be a twit, but when she unsheaths her mighty sword o'snark, she has no equal:


After W. was elected, he sometimes gave visitors a tour of the love alcove off the Oval Office where Bill trysted with Monica - the notorious spot where his predecessor had dishonored the White House.

At least it was only a little pantry - and a little panting.

If W. wants to show people now where the White House has been dishonored in far more astounding and deadly ways, he'll have to haul them around every nook and cranny of his vice president's office, then go across the river for a walk of shame through the Rummy empire at the Pentagon.
The shocking thing about the trellis of revelations showing Dick Cheney, the self-styled Mr. Strong America, as the central figure in dark conspiracies to juice up a case for war and demonize those who tried to tell the public the truth is how unshocking it all is.

It's exactly what we thought was going on, but we never thought we'd actually hear the lurid details: Cheney and Rummy, the two old compadres from the Nixon and Ford days, in a cabal running the country and the world into the ground, driven by their poisonous obsession with Iraq, while Junior is out of the loop, playing in the gym or on his mountain bike.

Mr. Cheney has been so well protected by his Praetorian guard all these years that it's been hard for the public to see his dastardly deeds and petty schemes. But now, because of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and candid talk from Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson, he's been flushed out as the heart of darkness: all sulfurous strands lead back to the man W. aptly nicknamed Vice.

According to a Times story yesterday, Scooter Libby first learned about Joseph Wilson's C.I.A. wife from his boss, Mr. Cheney, not from reporters, as he'd originally suggested. And Mr. Cheney learned it from George Tenet, according to Mr. Libby's notes.

The Bush hawks presented themselves as protectors and exporters of American values. But they were so feverish about projecting the alternate reality they had constructed to link Saddam and Al Qaeda - and fulfilling their idée fixe about invading Iraq - they perverted American values.

Whether or not it turns out to be illegal, outing a C.I.A. agent - undercover or not - simply to undermine her husband's story is Rove-ishly sleazy. This no-leak administration was perfectly willing to leak to hurt anyone who got in its way.

Vice also pressed for a loophole so the C.I.A. could do torture-light on prisoners in U.S. custody, but John McCain rebuffed His Tortureness. Senator McCain has sponsored a measure to bar the cruel treatment of prisoners because he knows that this is not who we are. (Remember the days when the only torture was listening to politicians reciting their best TV lines at dinner parties?)

Colonel Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, broke the code and denounced Vice's vortex, calling his own involvement in Mr. Powell's U.N. speech, infected with bogus Cheney and Scooter malarkey, "the lowest point" in his life.

He followed that with a blast of blunt talk in a speech and an op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times, saying that foreign policy had been hijacked by "a secretive, little-known cabal" that hated dissent. He said the cabal was headed by Mr. Cheney, "a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces," and Donald Rumsfeld, "a secretary of defense presiding over the death by a thousand cuts of our overstretched armed forces."

"I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less," Colonel Wilkerson wrote. "More often than not, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal."

Brent Scowcroft, Bush Senior's close friend, let out a shriek this week to Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker, revealing his estrangement from W. and his old protégé Condi. He disdained Paul Wolfowitz as a naïve utopian and said he didn't "know" his old friend Dick Cheney anymore. Vice's alliance with the neocons, who were determined to finish in Iraq what Mr. Scowcroft and Poppy had declared finished, led him to lead the nation into a morass. Troop deaths are now around 2,000, a gruesome milestone.

"The reason I part with the neocons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful," Mr. Scowcroft said. "If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse."

W. should take the Medal of Freedom away from Mr. Tenet and give medals to Colonel Wilkerson and Mr. Scowcroft.

Compassionate conservatism in action


Well, SOMETHING is going to have to pay for the elimination of the estate tax and the war.

Fuck the poor and the elderly, sayeth the Republicans, for lo they do not voteth for us:


A Republican-led effort to slow spending on health care programs for the poor, elderly and disabled survived a stern test in the Senate Tuesday.

That chamber's Finance Committee, voting along party lines, approved legislation that would trim overall spending on Medicare and Medicaid by about $10 billion over five years. The committee's 11 Republicans supported the legislation. The committee's nine Democrats opposed it.

[snip]

Grassley had to maintain support from all 11 committee Republican to ensure the measure's passage. But some wanted more significant reductions in Medicaid than others were willing to accept.

In the end, the legislation the panel approved Tuesday would reduce Medicare spending by about $5.8 billion over five years and Medicaid by about $4.3 billion during that time.


I guess the "pro-life" Republicans favored active euthanasia of the poor and the elderly. Or if they don't, perhaps they should. At least then we couldn't call them hypocrites.

mardi 25 octobre 2005

Thanks for clearing that up, Danny, now renew Marc Maron's contract and no one gets hurt


I kid, I kid. I'm not threatening Danny Goldberg. Sheesh.

Today Eric Alterman uses his blog to shoot holes in the relentless refrain by the gasbags on the right that Air America Radio is in dire straits. Because Alterman is a Real Journalist and Big Name Blogger, and I am just a loyal Air America listener who only has the station on 3 radios at a time when I'm home, he's been able to get the straight poop from AAR CEO Danny Goldberg:


Air America is in strong financial shape. Last week we started broadcasting from our new multi-million dollar studios. Several weeks earlier the Board of Directors of Air America’s parent company accelerated re-payment of a loan from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of $875,000 two years in advance of a previously agreed upon re-payment plan.

The Air America Associates Program was created in response to our listeners requests to support our programming financially and is modeled after the Nation’s Magazine program, “The Nation’s Associates,” which is also a for-profit company.

Rush Limbaugh’s Web site offers his fans the “Limbaugh Letter” for $34.95 a year and a totally separate service called Rush 24/7 which includes access to archived programs at the cost of $49.95 a year. The Limbaugh site also features the “EIB Store” which sells such items as $19.95 polo shirt which amusingly says, “My Mullah went to G’itmo and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

The Sean Hannity Web-site features a “subscription” to something called, “The Hannity Insider” for $5.95 a month.

But no one tops the self proclaimed non-spinner Bill O’Reilly. Bill O’Reilly.com offers a “premium membership” for either $4.95 a month or $49.95 a year. He also offers a “Gift certificate” for $14.95.

[snip]

On a nationwide basis the most recent Arbitron ratings Spring 2005 book showed that our affiliates reach over three million people per week, each of whom listens for an average of several hours a week. This is more than triple the amount of people who were listening when measured one year earlier in the Spring, 2004 book.

According to the most recent Arbitron Report, Summer 2005 Metro:

Mon-Sun 6a12m, AQH, Share and Cume have all increased for both Persons 12+ and Adults 25-54.
For Adults 25-54, WLIB’s target audience, AQH is up 29%, Share increased 40% (from 1.0 to 1.4) and Cume increased 9%; for Persons 12+, AQH is up 6%, Share is up 20% and Cume is up 11%.
WLIB ranks #2 in A25-54 TSL MSu6a12m (10h30m per week) among NY Talk stations, a 20% increase since the Spring 2005 book.

- The ratings for the Bill O’Reilly radio show in New York were worse in the demo of A25-54 than those on Air America that he described as “catastrophic.”
- In the key 25-54 demographic which talk radio offers to advertisers, the Summer 2005 Arbitron ratings showed that Monday-Friday from 2-4 PM when O’Reilly is on WOR-AM and which at Air America’s 1190 WLIB-AM contains the last hour of “The Al Franken Show” and the first hour of “The Randi Rhodes Show,” that O’Reilly had a 0.6 share and Air America a 1.8 share. O’Reilly had a cumulative audience of 45,800 and Air America had a cumulative audience of 95,700.

Mr. Shit, I'd like you to meet Miss Fan


Today could be a Very Big Day.

Raw Story is reporting that source confirm that indictments are coming from our friend Mr. Fitzgerald.

And TAPPED links to some astounding articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Republicca, claiming that Niccolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002, meeting with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Whether this is the "Very explosive news out of Italy today on the Niger/uranium front" referred to by Josh Marshall remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE from Josh Marshall:

Nicolo Pollari is the head of Italian military intelligence, SISMI. The Repubblica article claims that over the course of 2002 Pollari -- knowing the documents were fakes -- made repeated attempts to get them into the DC information stream by going around the CIA, which discounted them as fakes. This was to satisfy the expressed needs of Bush administration officials who were searching for some information to validate their claims about an Iraqi nuclear program.

Remember, too, that Pollari attended the secret Rome meetings in late 2001 arranged by Michael Ledeen and attended by Manucher Ghorbanifar, Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode.

Pollari's efforts were apparently in concert with the man who is now the Italian ambassador to the United States. And, perhaps most explosively, Pollari apparently arranged a secret meeting with Stephen Hadley -- then deputy National Security Advisor, and now National Security Advisor -- to discuss the documents.

The alleged date was September 9th, 2002.

The context here is important. The source of endless suspicion about when the documents first surfaced has been the timing and how that related to what was then happening in Washington. They surfaced just after the White House and the CIA had had a roundhouse battle over whether the President could make the Niger accusation in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio. The CIA eventually prevailed, at least winning that round. The documents surfaced in Italy a couple days later. And the president eventually succeeded in levelling the claim in his subsequent State of the Union address.

That White House-CIA argument was happening in late September 2002. The speech, if memory serves, was to be given on October 7th.

That puts the alleged Hadley-Pollari meeting only a week or so earlier.


And it looks like tomorrow is Fitzmas, though the indictments will be sealed until Thursday. Stores are open till 9:30 PM tonight and tomorrow night, so you have plenty of time to finish your shopping.

Golden Century, Haymarket

There is something uniquely comforting about the atmosphere within a Chinese restaurant. The clang of chopsticks echoing inside ceramic bowls, the musical chatter of Chinese mingled with English, the rush rush of waiters with plastic bags holding writhing live fish, and the fussing of Grandmas over children as they impatiently escape, scampering up to fish tanks with pointing fingers and giggles

Golden Century, Haymarket

There is something uniquely comforting about the atmosphere within a Chinese restaurant. The clang of chopsticks echoing inside ceramic bowls, the musical chatter of Chinese mingled with English, the rush rush of waiters with plastic bags holding writhing live fish, and the fussing of Grandmas over children as they impatiently escape, scampering up to fish tanks with pointing fingers and giggles

Must be 'cuz of those infections Gingrich talked about


England has had a woman Prime Minister. So has India. Hell, frickin' PAKISTAN, a Muslim country, has had a woman in charge.

But here in the U.S., we're not "ready":

26% of registered voters say they are likely to support a woman for president regardless of whether she is a Democrat or a Republican. At the other extreme, 28% would not support a woman for the United States’ top job regardless of which political party nominated her. 25% would support a woman if she became the Democratic nominee for president, and 21% would support her if she were the Republican nominee.

One person can still make a difference


It's interesting that on the day Cindy Sheehan is getting ready to lash herself to the fence outside the White House, the woman with whose name she's often been linked in progressive circles has passed away.

Rosa Parks has died:

This mild-mannered black woman refused to give up her seat on a city bus so a white man could sit down.

Jim Crow laws had met their match.

Parks' refusal infused 50,000 blacks in Montgomery with the will to walk rather than risk daily humiliation on the city's buses.

This gentle giant, whose quietness belied her toughness, became the catalyst for a movement that broke the back of legalized segregation in the United States, gave rise to the astounding leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and inspired fighters for freedom and justice throughout the world.

Parks, the beloved mother of the civil rights movement, is dead, a family member confirmed late Monday.

But already it's evident that her spirit lives in hundreds of thousands of people inspired by her unwavering commitment to work for a better world - a commitment that continued even after age and failing health slowed her in the 1990s.

In death as in life, she touched the well known and the little known people of the world.


The fact that it's so difficult today to imagine a refusal to give up a bus seat as a profoundly subversive act is a testimony to the courage and influence of this one woman. It's not an exaggeration to call her the mother of the civil rights movement. Since that day in 1955, Rosa Parks has inspired activists of all stripes. It's impossible to overstate her importance and influence.

Rest well, Mrs. Parks. And thank you.

(hat tip: Radical Russ at Pam's House Blend)

Can Hackett hack it?


I just LOVE this guy. He's smart, he's got cojones, he does not suffer fools gladly, and as a bonus, he's hotter'n a two dollar pistol.

Paul Hackett is going to be a real test of whether Americans REALLY want a no-bullshit kind of guy, or whether they only give honesty lip service but really want dissemblers who tell them that the sky is green. Yes, Mr. Bush, I'm talking about guys like YOU.

A sample of the wit and wisdom of the reality-based Mr. Hackett (for the rest, go to Salon and get a day pass):


Q: In your congressional race, your opponent praised your service but said she thought you should "support our president" with regard to the war. What do you say to people who fault you for criticizing a war you volunteered to fight?

A:This is the United States and freedom of speech and freedom of political dissent are what make this country great. I served and I'm entitled to speak my mind. I back the president to the extent that I was willing to fight in his war -- and I did it voluntarily and happily, and I'd do it again.



Q: Let's talk about the so-called moral values issues that you say spurred you to run for Congress last summer. You were upset about what you called Republican grandstanding on Terri Schiavo, abortion and gay marriage.

A: Why are these the No. 1 issues in the United States when we've got an economy which is in even more dire danger of reaching rock bottom than it was when I embarked on the congressional race? Frankly, these social issues are simple and straightforward. I'll be happy to take each one individually. Gay marriage and gay rights: I'm fond of saying, "Who cares?" The debate is about whether or not American men and women can walk into a courthouse and get equal treatment under the law regardless of their sexual preference. Anything less than that is un-American.



Q: And the right-wing uproar over Terri Schiavo?

A: Outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. And most Americans agree with that. The only Americans that don't are religious fanatics. They've got more in common with Osama bin Laden than I've got with them.



Q: You sound like someone who could be held up as a liberal champion. Still, your position on guns is probably upsetting to doctrinaire liberals. How do you reconcile your position on gay marriage and gun control?

A: I don't need Washington, D.C., or the government in my private life. Period. I don't need them to dictate to my wife the decisions she can make with a doctor. I don't need a Washington politician to tell my neighbors what they can do in the privacy of their bedroom. And I don't need Washington politicians to tell me what guns to keep in my gun safe.


And this one's for Barry N. Johnson:

Q: What do you think of the drug war as it's been "fought" for the last 30 years? What would you do differently to deal with the drug problem?

A: Obviously the drug war is not working. With many Republican and Democratic administrations their solution is to build more prisons and put more people in jail. I'm not comfortable saying legalize it, but I think there needs to be an honest discussion about providing money to educate people and to treat people who have an addiction. Many Americans ask why we have to get touchy-feely about this. Well, I'll tell you why: because we're spending billions and billions of dollars to warehouse people in jail, and that ain't workin'.


Damn. I promised myself I wouldn't let anyone do this to me again. OK, I'm weak. I admit it.

If you're swooning too, hit the ActBlue button in the sidebar, then click the little box next to Mr. Hackett's name and toss his campaign some cash. He's going to need it in what could be a brutal primary contest with an entrenched Washington insider.

Cheney's up to his eyeballs in scandal filth


No surprise here for any of us who've had our eyes open, but it looks like Scooter Libby's source was none other than the Big Kahuna himself, Dick "the Dick" Cheney:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her undercover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.


OK, now I'm wondering why George Tenet brought up Wilson's wife.

It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry.


I guess that would be what Kay Bailey Hutchison would call "some obstruction of justice technicality."

Hey, Republicans! YOU guys made the rules. YOU decided that lying about sex was worthy of impeachment. YOU're the ones who clapped your hands with glee when Martha Stewart went to jail for lying to investigators. YOU guys have been flapping your gums about "rule of law! rule of law!" Time to pay the piper.

lundi 24 octobre 2005

This is what's called projection


Projection is the hallmark of the Bush Administration. Listen to what they say about others, and you'll know they're describing themselves.

Exhibit A:

As the White House and Republicans brace for possible indictments in the CIA leak probe, defenders have launched a not-so-subtle campaign against the prosecutor handling the case.

"He's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things," one White House ally said, referring to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.


No, Mr. White House Ally, that's YOUR boss who believes that:

'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'

Here is why the right for a woman to control her own body HAS to be inviolate


Life for women in George W. Bush's America:

Although it is safe, effective and legal, emergency contraception - the "morning after" pill - can be hard to find in Tucson.

After a sexual assault one recent weekend, a young Tucson woman spent three frantic days trying to obtain the drug to prevent a pregnancy, knowing that each passing day lowered the chance the drug would work.

While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug.

When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.

"I was so shocked," said the 20-year-old woman, who, as a victim of sexual assault, is not being named by the Star. "I just did not understand how they could legally refuse to do this."

But many stores are. A 2004 survey of more than 900 Arizona pharmacies found less than half keep emergency contraception drugs in stock, with most saying there is too little demand, but some cite moral reasons, according to the Arizona Family Planning Council.

Yet, family-planning agencies say they've seen a 60 percent increase in demand for the drug in recent years. The statistics are creating what advocates say is a frightening situation for some women. But others are glad pharmacists have a choice.

Women who report sexual assaults to police receive treatment, examination and the immediate offer of emergency contraception at a local emergency room, according to the policy of most Tucson hospitals.

But, like many sexual assault victims, the 20-year-old woman did not report the assault because she felt traumatized and guilty she had put herself in a situation that left her vulnerable. She was mistakenly locked outside a gathering at a friend's house and accepted the offer of a neighbor to stay at his place.

"This (sex) was with someone I did not even know and did not want to have intercourse with, and I am in no place now to have children," she said. "I just don't think this should be the pharmacist's decision."


This is just inexcusable. It's obvious that the Christofascist Zombie Brigade has decided to make America's pharmacies the front line in their battle to make sure that unchaste women are punished -- even if they're raped.

The other aspect of this story is the notion that because a woman does something not terribly bright (i.e. getting locked out of a party and accepting what was obviously not just a kind offer from a neighbor), that she somehow deserves to be punished.

These people hate women. They are so terrified of our sexuality that they can't stand it. Since they can't burn us all as witches, they'll make sure we're punished for "tempting men."

And this, my friends, is why I hate western religious tradition.

(hat tip: Americablog, where John also has an update on Target's policy allowing its pharmacists, and presumably any other employee, to act out their fear and loathing of women in the course of their jobs.)

Here's why the Fitzgerald investigation isn't "some perjury technicality"


Every time I type those words, I get angrier and angrier, and more astounded at the cynicism required for the same people who tried to hound Bill Clinton out of office for lying about a tawdry sexual liaison to justify perjury when it's Jesus H. Bush.

But here, for your edification and enjoyment, is the statute at the heart of the case (emphases mine):

50 U.S.C. § 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources (a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent - Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information - Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents - Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. 50 U.S.C. § 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources.

Quote of the Day


From a letter to Eric Alterman:

treasure those mornings on which I can feel like I'm on mushrooms while not having to go to the considerable time, the even more considerable expense, and the extremely considerable legal risk of actually BEING on mushrooms. Yesterday was one of those mornings. First, there was Tim Russert, for about the 37th consecutive week, convening a panel to pretend that he's confused about the basis for an investigation in which he has already given testimony. Has there ever been a performance like this on national television? Tim Russert, on NBC, playing the role of Tim Russert, while the actual Tim Russert is back in the green room, hanging in the chiffarobe and talking to his lawyers. This would have driven poor Derrida to abandon the life of the mind and take a job serving clam rolls on Cape Cod.

And you thought I was inflammatory...


This guy takes the cake.

Here is one Cenk Uygur, who in HuffPo, states definitively that if you are a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, Everything You Know Is Wrong.

It's hard to argue, though, with gems like these:

George W. Bush is the most powerful man alive. He is a class A imbecile. He is far less intelligent than the average Christian. But like most of the others, he believes Jesus died for his sins. That idea is so perverse and devoid of logic it should shock the conscience. Instead, it gets him elected, and earns him the reverence of a great percentage of America. America! The most advanced country in the world -- run by a bunch of villagers who still believe Santa Claus is going to save them.


Uh...this goes for all you guys Photoshopping Santa hats on Patrick Fitzgerald, too...

Jesus is said to have said on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Because Jesus was insane and the God he thought would rescue him did not exist. And he died on that cross like a fool. He fancied himself the son of God and he could barely convince twelve men to follow him at a time when the world was full of superstition.


Good point.

If a man today killed his only son to show how much he loved other people, he would be considered a madman, locked in jail and earn society's contempt. Yet we think this is some sort of noble act by our Father in Heaven.


Jesus was a lunatic. God is not coming to your rescue. He hasn't come to anyone's rescue in thousands of years, including Jesus. Mohammed was a power hungry, scam artist and ruthless conqueror. Moses and Abraham were figments of the imagination of some long dead rabbi. He would probably laugh his ass off at all of you who still believe the fairytales he made up thousands of years ago. He probably wouldn't even believe it if you told him.

How long are we going to dance around the 800-pound gorilla in the room? The world is run by madmen. It's not just Bush and bin Laden. It is the leader of all of the countries in the Middle East, almost all of the Americas and most of the rest of the world.

Have I offended you? That's too bad. Stop killing each other in the name of false and ridiculous Gods and I will stop ridiculing you. Trust me, your offense is much worse than mine.

Right now as you read this, there are ignorant, hateful Muslims teaching other ignorant Muslims how to put on a suicide belt. There are orthodox Jews telling other Jews how they must never leave their "holy land" no matter what the consequences are to other human beings. They assure their followers -- remember, they are not the chose ones, we are. If we crush and oppress them, don't worry, God will excuse it, and even desires it, because He is on our side.

There are maniacal Christians who are praying for the end of time. Who are hoping that most of the world's population is wiped off the face of the Earth by their vengeful and murderous God. Whom they believe is, ironically, a loving God. Unless, of course, you make the fatal mistake of not kissing his ass and appeasing him, in which case he will slaughter you and condemn you to eternal torture. What kind of sick people believe this?

The kind who live next to you. The kind who voted for George Bush. The kind who send their religious leaders to the White House to argue against even-handedness in the Middle East because it would prevent their sick prophecy. The kind who have undue influence over how we use the greatest and most lethal army ever built by man.

If you don't want to be called ignorant or misinformed, then get informed. Learn the real nature of our universe and put aside old wives tales about resurrected Gods, omniscient prophets and a guy who could split the Red Sea but couldn't find where he's going in the desert for forty years.


I have no idea who this guy is, but let's face it, folks...if you strip away the "I need to know that I don't cease to exist after I die", factor, he makes a lot of sense.

I do think, though, that my good friend Vern should sue for Theft of Style.

Not enough to quit my day job




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If Republican perjury is now trivial, Frist can rest easy


Because like all his compatriots, Bill "Justice [Billy] Sunday" Frist is a liar too:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family's hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings.

Managers of the trusts that Frist once described as "totally blind," regularly informed him when they added new shares of HCA Inc. or other assets to his holdings, according to the documents.

Since 2001, the trustees have written to Frist and the Senate 15 times detailing the sale of assets from or the contribution of assets to trusts of Frist and his family. The letters included notice of the addition of HCA shares worth $500,000 to $1 million in 2001 and HCA stock worth $750,000 to $1.5 million in 2002. The trust agreements require the trustees to inform Frist and the Senate whenever assets are added or sold.

The letters seem to undermine one of the major arguments the senator has used throughout his political career to rebut criticism of his ownership in HCA: that the stock was held in blind trusts beyond his control and that he had little idea of the extent of those holdings.

The extent of Frist's knowledge of the inner workings of his trusts and his family's health care company is related to a recently launched federal investigation of possible insider trading involving the liquidation this summer of Frist's HCA stock. Within weeks of Frist's decision to sell his holdings in June, HCA shares fell sharply because of a weak earnings report. Frist has said he possessed only publicly available and not "insider" information about the company when he directed the sale and, therefore, did nothing wrong.


The [re-?] selection of George W. Bush emboldened Republicans to drop their mask of civility; to drop their pretenses that they, not the Democrats are the party of the people. Since last November's election, they've felt confident in blatantly and gleefully flaunting their power, flaunting their ability to take from the poor and working people and shovel more cash into the pockets of those who already have more money than they can spend in a lifetime -- all the while preaching piously about being Christians.

Are we going to hold them accountable next year?

The Trivialization of Treason


The very same Republicans who were hysterical during the last administration about a consensual blowjob as being the biggest threat to the nation are now shrugging their shoulders about the leaking of a CIA NOC officer for petty political gain. Kay Bailey Hutchison yesterday referred to Patrick Fitzgerald's case as "some perjury technicality" and William Kristol has referred to the "criminalization of politics" In short, supporters of the Administration have all but said what they obviously believe: Everything is Permissible When You're A Republican. Yes, they really DO believe in this kind of double standard, in which a Democratic sexual encounter is a threat to the Republic, but Republican treason is A-OK.

The embattled New York Times is reporting today on these Bush surrogates:

On Sunday, Republicans appeared to be preparing to blunt the impact of any charges. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, speaking on the NBC news program "Meet the Press," compared the leak investigation with the case of Martha Stewart and her stock sale, "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."

Ms. Hutchison said she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

President Bush said several weeks ago that Mr. Fitzgerald had handled the case in "a very dignified way," making it more difficult for Republicans to portray him negatively.

But allies of the White House have quietly been circulating talking points in recent days among Republicans sympathetic to the administration, seeking to help them make the case that bringing charges like perjury mean the prosecutor does not have a strong case, one Republican with close ties to the White House said Sunday. Other people sympathetic to Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have said that indicting them would amount to criminalizing politics and that Mr. Fitzgerald did not understand how Washington works.

Some Republicans have also been reprising a theme that was often sounded by Democrats during the investigations into President Bill Clinton, that special prosecutors and independent counsels lack accountability and too often pursue cases until they find someone to charge.


All of this would be less infuriating if it wasn't coming on the heels of Karl Rove telling the nation that Democrats were soft on terrorism. After all, what's softer on terrorism than putting a CIA front company involved in investigation of weapons of mass destruction at risk for petty political revenge? How dare they say that Democrats don't care about America's national security, when they were willing to put those working for Brewster-Jennings at risk because a previously-unknown former ambassador dared to say in public print what half a million protesters had said in the street five months earlier -- that the Bush Administration's justification for war was a LIE, that the war was based on a LIE, and that this so-called pro-life Amdinistration sent American kids to die based on what they KNEW was bullshit.