| |
 |
|
(JavaScript Error)
|
| Archives |
|
|
|
|
Subscribe
|
| Now you
can subscribe to this blog and receive new blogs direct to
your email! |
|
RSS/XML Syndication
| |
|
|
|
|
Video: Alternative
Views
|
|
Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
|
|
|
Video: Alternative
Views
|
|
Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
|
|
|
Doug's New Books & Related
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TV/Radio
|
|
|
| |
 |
| |
|
|
|
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
|
Robert Parry: 'The U.S. disconnect on Bush abuses'
Connect the dots everyone: the Bush-Cheney regime was a national and global disaster on every imaginable front, they have totally screwed up
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Lionel S. Lewis: 'Academic freedom under siege from right'
the Rightwing dares attack the Left when their side has screwed up the country and the world and we're the voice of reason and sanity. How dare they!
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Charlie Cray: 'Grand theft Baghdad'
Time for a serious Congressional Inquiry into How Did we Get into Iraq, what mistakes were made, what laws were broken, and who should be held responsible. A serious inquiry into this would jail top Bush administration officials and clean out of government all of the incompetent NeoCons ideologues and blunders who undertook this fiasco and screwed up so badly
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300
escalating violence in Iraq as the country careens into Civil War; Bush has opened a Pandora's Box and Gate to Hell...
Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300
|
|
Monday, February 27, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday, February 26, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, February 25, 2006
|
TomPaine.com - Restoring The Public Trust
Bill Moyers has a great article on crisis of US Democracy, opening with an insightful and original analysis of the Cheney Shooting Episode: " will leave to Jon Stewart the rich threads of humor to pluck from the hunting incident in Texas. All of us are relieved that the Vice President’s friend has survived. I can accept Dick Cheney’s word that the accident was one of the worst moments of his life. What intrigues me as a journalist now is the rare glimpse we have serendipitously been offered into the tightly knit world of the elites who govern today.
The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)
The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 million acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come “at the expense of ‘The Deer Hunter’ crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west.” Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits. The magazine (hardly a Marxist rag, remember) describes Mr. Cheney’s own expedition as “a lot closer to ‘Gosford Park’ than ‘The Deer Hunter’ – a group of fat old toffs waiting for wildlife to be flushed towards them at huge expense.”
At the heart of this story is a metaphor of power. The Vice President turned his host, the lobbyist who is also the ranch owner, into his de facto news manager. She would disclose the shooting only when Cheney was ready and only on his terms. Sure enough, nothing was made public for almost 20 hours until she finally leaked the authorized version to the local newspaper. Ms. Armstrong suggested the blame lay with the victim, who, she indicated, had failed to inform the Vice President of his whereabouts and walked into a hail of friendly fire. Three days later Cheney revised the story and apologized. Don’t you wonder what went back and forth with the White House that long night of trying to agree on the official line?
We do know someone from the hunting party was in touch with Karl Rove at the White House. For certain Rove’s the kind of fellow you want on the other end of the line when great concoctions are being hatched, especially if you wish the victim to hang for the crime committed against him. Watching these people work is a study of the inner circle at the top of American politics. The journalist Sidney Blumenthal, writing on Salon.com, reminds us of the relationship between the Armstrong dynasty and the Bush family and its retainers. Armstrong’s father invested in Rove’s political consulting firm that managed George W. Bush’s election as governor of Texas and as president. Her mother, Anne Armstrong, is a longtime Republican activist and donor. Ronald Reagan appointed her to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board after her tenure as Ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Ford, whose chief of staff was a young Dick Cheney. Anne Armstrong served on the board of directors of Halliburton that hired Cheney to run the company. Her daughter, Katherine Armstrong, host of the hunting party, was once a lobbyist for the powerful Houston law firm founded by the family of James A. Baker III, who was chief of staff to Reagan, Secretary of State under the first George Bush, and the man designated by the Bush family to make sure the younger Bush was named President in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. According to Blumenthal, one of her more recent lobbying jobs was with a large construction firm with contracts in Iraq.
It is a Dick Cheney world out there – a world where politicians and lobbyists hunt together, dine together, drink together, play together, pray together and prey together, all the while carving up the world according to their own interests.
TomPaine.com - Restoring The Public Trust:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, Rats & a Sinking Ship
Robert Parry on heavy hitting GodFatherCon William Buckley and major neoCon Francis Fukuyama are bailing out on Iraq and Bush
Consortiumnews.com
But so are scores of others: here's blogger Glenn Greenwald's analysis:
"Friday, February 24, 2006
A dying Presidency
(updated below)George Bush's presidency is in deep trouble. He is vulnerable on every front, including within his own increasingly fractious party. While polls have long indicated that all Americans beyond his alarmingly loyal "base" have abandoned him, even that base is beginning to turn on him. None of his old tricks are working, and the new ones are backfiring.As Taylor Marsh notes, a new poll by Rasmussen Reports (the polling outfit most trusted by Bush followers) was released today, and it contains not bad news, but panic-inducing news, for Bush and his followers:
For the first time ever, Americans have a slight preference for Democrats in Congress over the President on national security issues. Forty-three percent (43%) say they trust the Democrats more on this issue today while 41% prefer the President.The preference for the opposition party is small, but the fact that Democrats are even competitive on the national security front is startling. In Election 2002, the President guided his party to regain control of the Senate based almost exclusively on the national security issue.If Republicans don't have an electoral advantage on national security, what do they have? (To witness a little spastic panic from Bush followers, see here). And after two months of endless attacks on the President's lawless eavesdropping -- after which his approval ratings are pitifully low and Americans now distrust him even with regard to national security -- can we at least have those genius Democratic consultants stop announcing to the world that pursuing the NSA scandal will destroy the Democrats' electoral chances by making them look weak on national security?And Rasmussen has very bad news for Bush followers beyond just this startling national security data. The lopsided disapproval of Bush by Americans which has long been reflected in every other poll is now reflected by Rasmussen as well:
Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove. Worse (for Bush followers), of the paltry 44% who approve of Bush's performance, only 23% strongly approve, as contrasted with the 38% who strongly disapprove. That means that not only do far more Americans disapprove of his performance than approve, but the disapproval is more intense and more strongly felt than is the approval.At some point, won't it be difficult for Bush followers and their media allies to keep depicting Bush critics as fringe, deranged freaks, given that a solid majority of Americans are now Bush critics? And, as a corollary, won't it be equally difficult to continue to suggest that anyone who opposes Bush's policies on the war in Iraq or terrorism is a subversive and a traitor, given that this category, too, clearly includes a majority of Americans?As the 2006 elections approach, Congressional Republicans are going to engage in increasingly strenuous efforts to show independence from this unpopular President by stepping up the attacks and defying the White House more and more. It won't work. The "Republican" brand has been marketed for the last five years as an indivisible, Bush-based product, and the only result which will come from their attempts to extricate themselves from the President to whose apron strings they have been so tightly attached is to increase even further the appearance of confusion, disarray and desperation.There will be a temptation on the part of Democrats to simply sit back and watch all of this fratricide take place. And that would not be an unreasonable strategy. There is an old courtroom adage which advises that one ought to not get in the way when the other side is self-destructing. When one's adversary in a courtroom is digging himself a deeper and deeper hole with the judge, the last thing you want to do is interfere.But now is not the time for passivity. Democrats need to step up the aggression now more than ever and take advantage of this wobbly, weakened President. Now is exactly when the Democrats need not fear anything. Americans have abandoned Bush. They no longer trust anything about him - not his integrity, his veracity or his competence. Not even his ability to protect them. And he will not even have Congressional Republicans to protect him, as they will be looking for ways to distance themselves as much as possible.The absolute worst thing the Democrats could do now is follow the advice of the chronic loser Beltway consultants who excessively calculate every step and drain the life, principle and passion out of everything they touch. More than anything else, what accounted for Bush's popularity in the past (which is where his popularity lies) was the fact that he projected firm, resolute conviction about things that he espoused. It's time for Democrats to demonstrate that attribute as well. Taking an emphatic stand for the principle that the President does not have the right to break the law would be a good place to start."
|
|
Friday, February 24, 2006
|
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Prof. Cole's latest on Middle East and Iraq, including a just foiled suicide bombing of a Saudi oil complex; Bush's policies have enraged the Arab world and made the Middle East a site of violence and chaos
Informed Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Salon.com | Business as usual
It's easy to explain why Bush is pushing Dubai/UAE so hard: the sheiks have longed supported his family, bailing out Bush Jr from his Harken fiasco;p Bush Daddy and James Baker have their Carlyle group there and now brother Neil is there doing biz, what a sleazy family.... Here's Salon article by Joe Conason=
"Business as usualBush's strong support of the Dubai ports deal isn't so surprising in light of his family's many financial ties to Arab sheikdoms.
By Joe Conason
Feb. 24, 2006 To hear George W. Bush urge calm upon the nation is a refreshing change from his administration's habitual encouragement of fear for political advantage. No more color-coded terror alerts, election-timed warnings or partisan-tinged posturing will emanate from the White House, or at least not until Dubai Ports World has safely completed its takeover of several major American shipping terminals. The president's shift in tone is as remarkable as his threat to use his first veto in five years to protect the Dubai deal in the face of bipartisan congressional opposition.
But Bush's passionate defense of the United Arab Emirates and the ports deal inevitably raises questions -- not only about the due diligence of his administration in this instance but about his and his family's long-standing ties to the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, and specifically to the UAE's rulers. His insinuation that skepticism is equivalent to bigotry cannot deflect such concerns, which first arose in the months after the 9/11 attacks.
By now, everyone paying attention to the furor over the Dubai ports deal should be aware of the UAE's mixed record with regard to terror and global security. The Emirates' ruling families formerly maintained close relationships with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, whose hunting camps in Afghanistan they frequented; two of the 20 hijackers in the 9/11 plot were UAE nationals who used safe houses and banks in Dubai; and the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network also used facilities there to mask its operations. Since 9/11, however, the Emirates have cooperated with U.S. operations against al-Qaida, and their state-owned corporations have eagerly participated in American attempts to improve transportation security.
What seems worrisome even to some who might ultimately accept the Dubai ports deal is the "casual attitude" of the Bush administration in vetting the company, as Sen. Carl Levin put it. Considering the history of Bush entanglement with the oil despots of the Gulf, that lax indulgence was bad policy and worse politics.
For the president, his administration's lenience toward the Emirates recalls the unpleasant history of Harken Energy, the loser oil exploration firm that provided him with a handsome profit when he unloaded his shares during the summer of 1990. Years earlier, Harken had been rescued from bankruptcy by timely investments of millions of dollars from the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International, also known as the "bank of crooks and criminals." Although dominated by Saudi friends of Dubya's dad, BCCI was headquartered in the Emirates, specifically in Abu Dhabi.
That may seem like old history, but the first family's intimate connection with the UAE royals has continued without rupture over the past two decades.
Consider the Carlyle Group, the huge, politically wired private equity firm that has employed both the president and his father -- and from which the members of the Bush family and their closest associates, such as former Secretary of State James Baker III, have profited handsomely in recent years. With its sole Middle East office headquartered in Dubai, Carlyle has managed to attract substantial funding from the UAE government, which controls most of the tiny nation's oil wealth and channels that money into foreign investments.
Last year, to cite only the most recent example, Carlyle's newest buyout fund won an infusion of at least $100 million from the Dubai Investment Corp. -- another state-owned outfit created by the ruling families to reinvest the enormous inflows of capital from rising oil prices and oil consumption. If that individual deal with Carlyle represented only a small fraction of the Emirates' investments, the upside potential of the relationship could be far greater in the future. The directors of Dubai Investment expect to invest as much as $5 billion every year for a long time to come.
No doubt Carlyle will ardently bid to manage a slice of those billions -- and the president surely understands that maintaining good relations with the Emirates will enhance the prospects of the family's favorite equity firm. But to deprive Dubai of its $6.8 billion ports acquisition might well have the opposite effect. For a company that trades on its political influence as well as its business acumen, such incidents can be pivotal.
The ports controversy could cause similar problems for Neil Mallon Bush, the president's most troublesome brother, who has become a familiar face in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Neil Bush seems to be in constant pursuit of investors and government contracts in the Emirates, and is treated there with a respect and deference that have always eluded him in his own country. For reasons that must be painfully obvious, UAE royals have been quite eager to engage the former Silverado Savings and Loan director ever since his eldest brother entered the Oval Office. That embrace only intensified after 9/11.
In October 2001, only a month after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Neil Bush showed up in Dubai to attend a technology trade fair -- and to meet with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. While peddling the products of Ignite!, his educational software company, Bush was feted as the guest of honor at a gala dinner for a charitable foundation, also hosted by the crown prince. (Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, who had been scheduled to travel to the Emirates around the same time, both canceled their attendance at those events.) According to the UAE's official news agency, Bush's discussions with Sheikh Mohammed and with Information Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan focused on "the world economy in light of recent events." During that visit Bush also met with the UAE's finance industry minister.
Exactly how much money Neil Bush raised in the Emirates as CEO of Ignite! isn't clear, but he managed to acquire a local partner, known as Trans-Data Systems, which is required for doing business there. He returned to Dubai in January 2002 to deliver a lecture on educational reform to a "select" audience of 200 government and education officials from the seven emirates that comprise the UAE. The signs of state patronage could not have been more plain. The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry sponsored his seminar, and the official news agency made sure to note that "the younger brother of U.S. President George W. Bush ... agrees with the vision of General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defense Minister, about adopting new ideas into the existing education system."
During his seminar Bush noted that the "UAE is facing a golden opportunity to lead the world by putting in place a high-speed, broadband access to rich-media content which will revolutionize education in this part of the world." He illustrated this point by streaming a video clip of his son, Pierce, appearing on a television show to discuss his own learning difficulties.
"My father was the 41st president and my brother is 43rd; I think that if Pierce finishes high school, he'll be the 50th president of the United States," quipped Neil Bush. And should he fail to graduate, perhaps he will become a global businessman, just like dear old Dad. Young Pierce -- bearing the name of his mother's family and descended indirectly from Franklin Pierce, one of the worst presidents ever -- must only hope that an indulgent relative will still be in the White House. "
Salon.com Business as usual
|
|
Thursday, February 23, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
Informed Comment
Juan Cole is the best source of information on unfolding events in Iraq. Yesterday, he wrote: "Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very, very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss." Here's his update of an explosive and potentially apocalyptic situation.....
Informed Comment
|
|
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Smirking Chimp - Joe Conason: 'Bush puts port safety in some dubious hands'
I've been trying to figure out why Bush came out so strongly yesterday in favor of the Dubai port connection and figured his family or some Republicans must have had some connection with the sheiks running the country. Indeed, as Joe Conanson reminded me, the infamous banking company BCCI was run out of Dubai: this institution funded the contras and CIA and other money was laundered through the institutions that members of the Reagan-Bush administration, including Bush Daddy were connected with; so this is a long and dangerous Republican connection to the Dubai sheiks: here's their connection to terrorism and the BCCI:
"Not so many years ago, those same ruling families were deeply involved in financing terrorism, dating back to their investment in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Emirate leaders formerly maintained intimate ties with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Indeed, a missile strike intended for Osama bin Laden had to be called off in 1999 because certain Emirate royals were present at his hunting camp in Afghanistan. Later, the 9/11 conspirators--who included at least two U.A.E. citizens--operated through safe houses and bank accounts located in Dubai, according to the 9/11 Commission report.As President Bush pointed out in 2004, the U.A.E. also provided a convenient cover for A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani physicist who operated an Islamist nuclear-weapons ring that threatened global security. Undisturbed by the usually meddlesome government, Mr. Khan's deputy ran a computer firm in Dubai for years as a front for the ring.Now, that unfortunate history notwithstanding, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security promise that the Dubai deal will not jeopardize our safety. Bland assurances from Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Chertoff mean little, given their own poor records and stupid decisions. The United States has no obligation to trust its ports to the Emirate sheiks--and every obligation to place public safety above oligarchic profit."
Will the corporate media look into BCCI, CIA, Dubai, Bush and other republican connections?
The Smirking Chimp - Joe Conason: 'Bush puts port safety in some dubious hands'
|
|
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, February 20, 2006
|
Tollbooths on the Internet Highway - New York Times
will the Information Superhighway become a tollroad? anything could happen under the bandits now controlling the country fed and enabled by greedy corporations....
Tollbooths on the Internet Highway - New York Times
|
|
Saturday, February 18, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
Not Exactly Clearing Things Up
the corporate media are probably ready to drop the Cheney shooting story although many, many questions remain, here's a good summary
Not Exactly Clearing Things Up
|
|
|
|
|
|
Friday, February 17, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The photos America doesn't want seen - World - smh.com.au
more torture scandal pictures are coming out via Australia, will we see these in the US? will they set off another round of riots in the Muslim world? The Bush-Cheney Gang have been playing a dangerous, dangerous game....
The photos America doesn't want seen - World - smh.com.au
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cheney to Discuss Shooting on Fox
Hah! the coward Cheney goes on Fox to discuss his shooting; the last media guy he talked to was Rush Limbaugh; nonetheless, we'll watch closely....
Cheney to Discuss Shooting on Fox
|
|
|
Media Notes Extra
Knives out sharpened for Cheney and not just in the blogosphere....
Media Notes Extra
|
|
|
Cheney's Response A Concern In GOP
Repubs are more than aware that Cheney is a major liability and could take the party down in the next elections....
Cheney's Response A Concern In GOP
|
|
|
The Smirking Chimp - John Nichols: 'Media's aim misses real Cheney misdeeds'
the Crime of Cheney is not just his shooting misdeeds but his whole history of Iraq/Halliburton; energy policy written in meetings with energy corporations; vicious attacks on critics of the Bush administration including Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame and of course the domestic spying, globe torture chambers, the list goes on and on and on and where it will stop buckshot in Texas may determine.....
The Smirking Chimp - John Nichols: 'Media's aim misses real Cheney misdeeds'
|
|
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
|
No End to Questions in Cheney Hunting Accident - New York Times
The questions are flying in Cheney shooting.
No End to Questions in Cheney Hunting Accident - New York Times
Here's Salon summary: "
Dick Cheney and "target fixation"
There's a metaphor in here somewhere:
Rod Slings, a hunting safety officer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, tells Des Moines' KCCI that Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting companion may have been caused by "target fixation," a condition that arises when a hunter becomes so focused on one target that "everything else becomes blurry."
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [09:18 EST, Feb. 14, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Game warden: "Hunter's judgment" at fault in Cheney shooting
So much for the "blame the victim" approach.
According to the Associated Press, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has determined that the shooting of Harry Whittington was caused by a "Hunter's judgment factor." And while the department's Hunting Accident and Incident Report Form is a little ambiguous, it sure seems that the hunter's judgment in question is Dick Cheney's, not his victim's.
The fill-in-the-blank report allows a Texas game warden to check off "contributing factors" in a hunting accident. Cheney avoided the worst of these -- "Horseplay while hunting," "Using firearm as a club" -- but the game warden assigned to Cheney's case marked the box labeled "Hunter's judgment factor," and under it the subcategory "Victim covered by shooter was swinging on game." For the nonhunters among us, one "swings" on "game," apparently, when one turns and fires at, say, a flying bird -- in this case, without happening to notice that a 78-year-old man in blaze orange safety clothing is in the way.
The game warden's finding seems to contradict the spin Cheney spokeswoman Mary Matalin and hunting host Katharine Armstrong put on the shooting: that Cheney had done nothing wrong and that Whittington was to blame for coming up behind Cheney without shouting out his presence as he approached. There's a box to check on the Parks and Wildlife form that would support the "blame the victim" story -- "Victim moved into line of fire" -- but the game warden didn't check it.
The other agency charged with investigating the shooting, the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department, issued a press release Monday in which it said it was satisfied that the incident was "nothing more than a hunting accident." The sheriff's department said that alcohol was not involved in the incident, but it's pretty clear that it was simply taking the word of Cheney's party and the Secret Service on that one. About an hour after the shooting occurred, the AP says, the head of the local Secret Service office notified the Kenedy County sheriff and "made arrangements" for deputies to interview Cheney the next morning. A deputy who tried to speak with Cheney about the incident Saturday night was turned away at the gate of the ranch.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [08:44 EST, Feb. 14, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
With no word from Cheney, "The Daily Show" stands in
Dick Cheney still hasn't appeared in public to discuss his accidental shooting of a 78-year-old man, but there are plenty of people willing to speak on the veep's behalf -- among them, Comedy Central's Rob Corddry. Playing the role of a "vice president firearms mishap analyst," Corddry explained it all Monday night for "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart:
Stewart: Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?
Corddry: Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face.
Stewart: But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?
Corddry: Jon, in a post-9/11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak.
Stewart: That's horrible.
Corddry: Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know "how" we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little "covey" of theirs.
Stewart: I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob.
Corddry: Well, whatever it is they do -- coo -- they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [0]
Post a comment Read comments
Texas officials: Cheney hunt broke the law
Texas wildlife officials say that Vice President Dick Cheney was violating state law when he shot a 78-year-old attorney while hunting Saturday. The response from Cheney's office won't come as a surprise to anyone who has been following this case so far: It was somebody else's fault.
ABC and CNN are both reporting that Cheney was hunting quail without the "upland game bird stamp" required by state law. And indeed, the incident report filed by Texas Park and Wildlife officials -- and posted at the Smoking Gun -- indicates that Cheney violated Parks and Wildlife Code Section 43.652, which requires hunters to purchase the $7 stamp before setting off in search of "turkey, quail, pheasant, chachalaca and lesser prairie chicken."
CNN says that Texas officials are issuing Cheney a warning for hunting without such a stamp, which is apparently routine in such cases. According to the network, Cheney has just sent the state of Texas a check for $7 -- even as Cheney's aides insist that state officials assured them in advance that the vice president had all the permits required by law.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [20:08 EST, Feb. 13, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Dick Cheney and the grassy knoll
It keeps getting weirder.
According to the Associated Press, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said today that the White House situation room informed the president and his senior aides Saturday night that someone in Dick Cheney's hunting party had been shot -- but that the president wasn't told until Sunday morning that the shooter was Dick Cheney himself.
That strikes us a a relevant detail.
How is it that the vice president of the most powerful nation of the world could shoot somebody -- within view of several witnesses, including, presumably, a contingent of Secret Service agents -- and the president doesn't hear about it until a day later? If the people in the White House situation room knew about the shooting, how could they not know about the shooter? Why did the Secret Service prevent local authorities from talking to Cheney about the incident? And why did the Bush-Cheney Pioneer who first reported the shooting initially refuse to reveal that Pamela Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, was hunting alongside Cheney and his victim?
Not to get all "grassy knoll" here, but something doesn't add up. If people in the White House situation room really didn't know the true facts about the shooting incident until Sunday morning, is there any explanation but that Cheney -- or those working with him -- chose not to tell them? Why wouldn't Cheney want the White House to know the truth right away? Did he think it would never come out? Or was somebody keeping the Cheney-did-it story quiet while coming up with a plan for someone else to take the fall?
A question like that one may belong in tinfoil-hat country, but stories that don't make sense invite that kind of speculation. This is one of those stories, and it comes from an administration that has handed out a lot of them.
Update: As Anne Kornblut and Ralph Blumenthal write in Tuesday's New York Times, McClellan "struggled at times" Monday "to explain even the most basic details in the case, including when and how Mr. Bush was informed about it." Ultimately, the White House sent reporters what Elisabeth Bumiller called a "surreal" e-mail message: It was appending to the transcript of McClellan's afternoon press briefing an after-the-fact answer to the question of when Bush knew definitively that Cheney had been the shooter. It was not Sunday morning, as the Associated Press says that McClellan said earlier in the day, but Saturday evening. "Chief of Staff Andy Card called the president around 7:30 p.m. EST to inform him that there was a hunting accident," the White House now says. "He did not know the vice president was involved at that time. Subsequent to the call, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with [ranch owner Katharine] Armstrong. He then called the president shortly before 8 p.m. EST to update him and let him know the vice president had accidentally shot Mr. Whittington."
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [15:02 EST, Feb. 13, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Cheney shoots, but there's other news to blow away
Here's the odd thing about the White House decision not to go public with news that Dick Cheney had shot a man: All things considered, it's a better story for the White House than some of the others that might be getting attention today:
Hurricane Katrina: As the New York Times is reporting, Republicans in the House of Representatives are about to release a "blistering" report on the Bush administration's response to Katrina. In the report, 11 Republicans say that the administration slowed the evacuation of New Orleans by ignoring an early report of a levee break -- a report the White House initially claimed not to have had. "If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not," says a draft of the report. "Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time."
Iraq: In what's being described as a victory for Muqtada al-Sadr and a setback for the Bush administration, Shiites selected Ibrahim Jafari as their nominee to become Iraq's prime minister. Even before the vote, Nebaska Sen. Chuck Hagel -- a Republican -- was raining on the Bush administration's parade of progress. Three years into the war, Hagel said, "things haven't gone the way the administration said and others said it was going to go. In fact, I think we’re in more trouble today than we've ever been in Iraq."
Leaks: Responding to reports that Dick Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information to bolster support for the war, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said this morning that the vice president may have committed a crime. "If Vice President Cheney has, in fact, ordered the leaking of ... intelligence information, that means he has to step aside," Dean told CNN. "We don't know if it's true, but he has been accused of it. If it's true, he has to step aside."
Abramoff: Over the weekend, Time became the first news outlet to publish a photograph showing George W. Bush with disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The photo comes from an event in May 2001 in which the president met with Abramoff client Raul Garza, who was the chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas at the time. As Time explains, the White House initially denied that it had any record of any such meeting. The White House is still refusing to turn over the Bush-Abramoff photos in its collection, but it now concedes that the Time photograph is legitimate. "The president has taken countless, tens of thousands of pictures at home and abroad over the last five years," Scott McClellan tells Time. "As we've said previously a photo like this has no relevance to the Justice Department's investigation." Although Abramoff is little more than a speck in the background in the photo, Time says the lobbyist had closer contact with Bush right after the picture was taken: "Abramoff has told friends, 'I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the president came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked.'" Time says that it has seen a photograph of that exchange, too.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [14:00 EST, Feb. 13, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
McClellan: Too busy to report on Cheney shooting
With everyone from CBS to the National Review Online raising questions about the White House decision to slow-roll news of Dick Cheney's hunting accident, we'd like to chime in with a question for Scott McClellan: Just how many members of the White House press staff were directly involved in the medical care for Cheney's victim?
Under siege from reporters at this morning's press gaggle, McClellan defended the slow release of information on the shooting by saying that the "first priority ... was making sure that Mr. Whittington was getting the medical care that he needed." We can't quibble with that, and we're happy to hear that Cheney's medical team was on hand to provide Whittington with top-notch care before he was taken to one hospital and then another for further treatment.
But once the doors closed on Cheney's ambulance Saturday afternoon, wasn't the White House role in Whittington's medical care pretty much over? And if Andy Card and Karl Rove had time to brief the president, and if -- as McClellan says -- the Office of the Vice President had time to "work with" Bush-Cheney Pioneer Katharine Armstrong to get the story out, how is it that the hardworking staffers in the White House press office didn't have time to inform the public of the incident before they were called on it Sunday afternoon?
"We are concerned when an official of the United States is involved in a shooting and 24 hours passes without official word coming out," Kathleen Carroll, executive editor for the Associated Press, tells Editor and Publisher. "The vice president's office did not choose to announce it, go public with it. We are talking to everyone this morning about what happened, who is responsible, and the issues related to who should say something and why."
The Washington Post's Peter Baker said today that he's "not sure there is a standard protocol when the vice president shoots someone." There is, however, a standard protocol when the Bush administration is faced with bad news, and it seems to have been in full effect this weekend.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [13:05 EST, Feb. 13, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
The Cheney shooting: Blame the victim
As medics raced Henry Whittington to a hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, Saturday, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared before reporters to apologize for shooting the 78-year-old lawyer and to say that the incident underscored the need for firearms safety. "I can't begin to say how sorry I am," a teary-eyed Cheney told the press. "It just goes to show, you can't be too careful around guns."
No, wait. That didn't happen.
The vice president of the United States shot a man in Texas Saturday, and the White House responded by saying nothing at all. Although the Office of the Vice President apparently informed Andy Card and Karl Rove, who together briefed the president on the incident Saturday night, the White House didn't bother to notify the press. Cheney didn't go before the cameras. And when the story finally came out, Cheney's office and the Bush-Cheney "Pioneer" who owns the land on which Cheney was hunting did everything they could to make it clear that Cheney "didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."
Except, as one astute War Room reader observes, "He shot a person instead of a bird."
Now, we can't claim to be experts in gun safety, but we do know something about the way this White House spins the news. And having read the account of the incident in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and compared it with the gun safety rules provided by the National Rifle Association, we can say that something doesn't quite wash here.
The Caller-Times account comes from ranch owner Katharine Armstrong, a lobbyist and political appointee of then Gov. George W. Bush who comes from a family of heavyweight Texas Republicans. In her version of the story, Whittington fires at some quail, hangs back from the group to search for one of the downed birds and is approaching the rest of his hunting party from the rear when Cheney, following a bird that has taken flight in front of him, swings around and fires at Whittington.
Armstrong says that Whittington should have announced himself as he approached the group. "If you drop out of line, you say you are coming up behind [to] indicate to other shooters so you know they are there," she told the Caller-Times.
That's all well and good, although we've got to wonder -- as one blogger did this morning -- how pleased Cheney and his hunting partners would have been if Whittington had shouted out a "Yoo-hoo" from 30 yards away as they prepared to sneak up on a covey of skittish quails.
But more to the point, the NRA's gun safety rules make it clear that whatever Whittington's faults in not announcing his presence, the man who pulls the trigger is the one who's responsible for hitting things -- or people, say -- who happen to be in the line of fire.
The NRA's gun safety rule No. 1: "Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction." As the NRA explains, this means: "Know your target and what is beyond. Be absolutely sure you have identified your target beyond any doubt. Equally important, be aware of the area beyond your target. This means observing your prospective area of fire before you shoot. Never fire in a direction in which there are people or any other potential for mishap. Think first. Shoot second."
Did Cheney think before he shot at Whittington? The only person who can answer that is Cheney, and he isn't answering anything just now. Through a spokesman, the vice president said only that he's "pleased to see" that Whittington is "doing fine and in good spirits."
-- Tim Grieve"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, February 11, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, February 06, 2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Smirking Chimp - Eric Margolis: 'Again, not too bright'
another Condi-esque "we couldn't see it coming," once again she reveals her incompetence and Margolis correctly sees that the current Israel-Palestine mess is a direct result of lack of Bush administration intervention and bad policy
The Smirking Chimp - Eric Margolis: 'Again, not too bright'
|
|
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
|
Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
Political Buzz from Salon on Bush's pathetic state of the disunion reading and the political scandals it covers over and Dems and media failed to address....
"
Did Cheney's office hit the delete key on Plame e-mails?
Well, what an interesting coincidence.
Josh Marshall points us to this nugget at the bottom of a New York Daily News piece on the Valerie Plame case: In a letter to lawyers for Scooter Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that e-mail messages sent from Dick Cheney's office around the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted despite a White House policy that required that they be kept.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [13:56 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Sheehan and the SOTU: What about those purple thumbs?
We've got two questions for the police who arrested Cindy Sheehan for wearing an antiwar T-shirt to George W. Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night:
Although you escorted the wife of a Republican congressman out of the House of Representatives for wearing a "Support the Troops" T-shirt, it seems that you didn't put her in handcuffs or keep her in holding cells for a few hours. Why was that, exactly?
And while you apparently concluded that Sheehan's "2245 Dead -- How many more?" T-shirt amounted to an unlawful protest in the House chamber, we seem to remember that a lot of the president's supporters were sporting purple thumbs at the last State of the Union address. How many of them did you arrest?
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [12:53 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
"Addicted to oil"? You take that back, son!
The president is getting mixed reviews for his State of the Union address. According to a Gallup poll released this morning, 75 percent of the people who watched George W. Bush speak Tuesday night said they came away with a "very positive" or "somewhat positive" reaction. It sounds like a good number, except when you notice that Republican viewers outnumbered Democrats by a margin of 2-to-1, and that -- even so -- the poll results for this State of the Union address were the lowest Bush has ever received.
Democrats in Washington are taking their shots -- John Kerry said Bush described a "fantasyland" rather than the actual union in which most Americans live -- but the harshest reaction yet may be the one from some of the president's allies on the right. It seems that all that talk about an "addiction" to oil didn't play so well with the friends of the petroleum industry; the pro-business, anti-regulation Competitive Enterprise Institute has just released a press release in which it savages Bush for daring to say that America ought to ease up on its use of oil.
"The president's dangerous rhetoric that we are addicted to oil is an indication that the administration is addicted to confused thinking about energy policies," says Myron Ebell, director of energy policy for CEI. "As bad as the policies proposed by President Bush are, the addiction rhetoric is much worse. President Bush might as well have said, 'We're addicted to prosperity, comfort, and mobility, and I've got the policies to do something about it.'"
The CEI says it's time for Bush to get back to dancing with the ones who brung him. "The goals and methods the president announced in his State of the Union address will be hindrances and obstacles to creating a bright energy future for American consumers," Ebell says. "They will interfere with the working of the market that provides incentives for increasing supplies and for technological innovations. In taking these steps in the wrong direction, President Bush also seems to have forgotten the positive energy policies that he has promoted in the past. These include removing the political and legal obstacles to exploiting America's vast conventional energy resources, such as opening portions of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas development."
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [12:15 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Bush on spying, or the "duty to speak with candor" revisited
The president repeatedly uttered words Tuesday night in which he obscured the unpleasant reality of his own policy choices. But amid all of that State of the Union obfuscation, George W. Bush still managed to reserve a heightened level of dishonesty for his discussion of his warrantless spying program. Here's the entirety of the president's defense -- and the facts that undercut it along the way.
"It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late."
Think Progress calls this the "two hijacker myth." As the Washington Post explained the other day, the federal government didn't need more information about the two hijackers before 9/11 as much as it needed to do a better job of using the information that it already had. As the 9/11 Commission explained, the National Security Agency first identified the two would-be hijackers in December 1999 but didn't follow up on them itself. It gave information to the CIA, but the CIA failed to put the two men on a watch list and failed to give information to the FBI. When the FBI finally figured out in August 2001 that one of the men had entered the United States, it treated the case as "routine" and assigned it to a "rookie agent," the Post reported.
"So to prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program ..."
There's no real dispute that Bush's secret spying program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and the Congressional Research Service has concluded that the Bush administration's arguments about other sources of authority are weak. "It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the CRS wrote, adding that the president's legal justifications for his program do "not seem to be ... well grounded."
"... to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America."
After initially insisting that it would have been technologically impossible for the NSA program to have monitored purely domestic calls, administration officials have admitted that they have, at times, done exactly that.
"Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have ..."
If this is a general reference to the fact that previous presidents have used the commander-in-chief authority granted them by the Constitution, it doesn't say much about the specific way in which Bush has purported to use that power. And if this is a reference to the actions of the Clinton administration, well, it's a dog that won't hunt. As we've noted before, the Bush administration's "Clinton did it, too" arguments are based on actions the Clinton administration took before the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1978 was amended in 1995. Bush is bound by the current version of the act, not the weaker version that was in place during some of Clinton's presidency.
"... and federal courts have approved the use of that authority."
Although several lawsuits are now pending, no court, federal or otherwise, has passed judgment yet on Bush's warrantless spying program. In referring to approving "federal courts," Bush seems to have had in mind a 2002 decision in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review said that it assumed that the president has "inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence." But that decision upheld the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the use of such warrants. Moreover, it said little or nothing about the president's authority to authorize searches without warrants when Congress has explicitly required them.
"Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed."
The Bush administration briefed a handful of members of Congress about the warrantless spying program. According to the Congressional Research Service, the National Security Act requires the administration to brief all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, which it did not do.
"The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America."
The White House has claimed repeatedly that the spying program has "helped prevent terrorist attacks," but it hasn't offered any specific details that would allow the claim to be substantiated. And while Bush says the spying program is "essential to the security of America," he has not explained why the procedures authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 -- procedures that allow the government to obtain a warrant as much as 72 hours after it begins surveillance -- don't do the job just as well.
"If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it ..."
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 allows the government to monitor calls "inside our country" so long as it gets a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. If the government has evidence suggesting that someone inside the United States is "talking with al-Qaida," there is no doubt that the court would grant a warrant to monitor such calls if the Bush administration went to the trouble of asking for one.
"... because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
The president did not "sit back and wait to be hit" when he was warned of an al-Qaida attack in August 2001. He went fishing instead.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [11:31 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
"A failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away"
Were we the only ones reaching for a map during the president's State of the Union address?
As he discussed his international war on tyranny Tuesday night, George W. Bush said: "On Sept. 11, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country."
If presidential speeches were game shows, it wouldn't be a bad way to put it. "Excuses for Unpopular Wars for $200, Alex." But if the answer is "a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away whose problems brought murder and destruction to the United States on 9/11," well, what exactly is the question?
Could it be, "What is Saudi Arabia?" Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who attacked the United States on 9/11 were Saudi citizens, and their leader, Osama bin Laden, was born in Saudi Arabia and seethes with resentment directed at the Saudi government. And Riyadh is a close-enough-for-government-work 6,744 miles from Washington, D.C. But the Bush administration has never been too interested in linking 9/11 with Saudi Arabia, and we're betting that Bush didn't mean to do so Tuesday night.
So could it be, "What is Iraq?" The president would be happy to have you think so -- his vague description, followed immediately, as it was, by a discussion of "dictators" who "seek weapons of mass destuction," pretty much invited those who have been conditioned to make a mental link between Iraq and al-Qaida to do so again. But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and Baghdad is only 6,200 miles from Washington.
Well, then, could it be, "What is Afghanistan?" It's a stretch to say that "problems originating" in Afghanistan led to 9/11. While the Taliban provided a safe haven for al-Qaida, the "problems" that gave way to 9/11 weren't born in Afghanistan. The "oppressive" Taliban government didn't create al-Qaida. Bin Laden did that, and he did it almost a decade before he moved his base of operations to Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is the best choice geographically speaking -- Kabul is 6,924 miles from Washington -- and it's probably the country Bush had in his mind, even as he hoped that you'd keep Iraq in yours.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [09:17 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
State of the Union: George W. Bush and the "duty to speak with candor"
"With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor."
Those words came in the middle of George W. Bush's State of the Union speech, and we certainly can't disagree with them. We only wish the president would live up to them.
Again and again Tuesday night, the president said words aimed at obscuring hard truths and hiding the harsh reality that his administration has visited upon the American people. Bush talked about the importance of education for young people, ignoring the fact that his administration proposed the first cut in overall federal education spending in a decade. He talked of fiscal restraint and the need to be a good "steward" of taxpayers' money, ignoring the fact that government spending has exploded on his watch and that he hasn't once exercised his veto to stop it. He talked of the need to wean the nation from its "addiction" to foreign oil, ignoring the fact that that addiction has deepened as his administration resisted strict fuel-economy standards, proposed cuts in alternative energy programs and dismissed conservation as little more than "a sign of personal virtue."
Bush said that all elected officials must "never forget, never dismiss and never betray" their pledge to be "worthy of public responsibility," neglecting to mention that his administration lied to the American public about the Valerie Plame case and is stonewalling both Congress and the press on the Jack Abramoff scandal.
And as the president talked about the need for Congress and the White House to work "in a spirit of good will and respect for one another," he failed to mention the ways in which he's shown neither. He didn't mention the recess appointments he's made in order to circumvent the Senate confirmation process; he didn't mention the signing statements he's used to make it clear that he considers himself free to ignore Acts of Congress; he didn't mention the way that his administration has routinely stiffed members of Congress seeking information on everything from Katrina to Enron to the Downing Street memos. And Bush certainly didn't mention that his administration seems to have broken the law by failing to brief Congress on its warrantless spying program -- or that his attorney general not only failed to inform Congress about the program but may have affirmatively misled the Senate about its existence.
So "a duty to speak with candor," Mr. President? We're all for it, and we hope one day to hear a State of the Union address from someone who knows or cares about what those words mean.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [23:26 EST, Jan. 31, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Enough about SOTU: How about some answers from Alberto Gonzales?
George W. Bush goes before Congress for another State of the Union address tonight. The networks and the internets will be all over it, but we're far more interested in the upcoming congressional appearance of another senior administration official. Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, and he'll be asked there to defend himself against the charge that he lied to the committee last year about Bush's warrantless spying program.
During Gonzales' confirmation hearing last January, Sen. Russ Feingold asked the soon-to-be attorney general whether the president, as commander in chief, has the authority to violate acts of Congress. "Does the president, in your opinion, have the authority, acting as commander in chief, to authorize warrantless searches of Americans' homes and wiretaps of their conversations in violation of the criminal and foreign intelligence surveillance statutes of this country?" Feingold asked.
Gonzales' response: "What we're really discussing here is a hypothetical situation."
Of course, it wasn't a hypothetical situation. Shortly after 9/11, Bush signed an executive order in which he authorized warrantless wiretaps of Americans' conversations in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. In dismissing Feingold's question as "hypothetical," Gonzales implied that the Bush administration wasn't engaged in warrantless searches or wiretaps. And in response to further questioning from Feingold, he seemed to make the implicit explicit. "Senator," Gonzales said, "it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
In a statement posted on his Web site, Feingold says Gonzales "was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee" last year and "has some explaining to do" now. And in a letter to Gonzales, Feingold tells the attorney general that he'll be called to account for his misrepresentation when it comes time for his turn before Congress next week.
-- Tim Grieve
Salon.com Politics War Room Politics
|
|
|
Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
Political Buzz from Salon on Bush's pathetic state of the disunion reading and the political scandals it covers over and Dems and media failed to address....
"
Did Cheney's office hit the delete key on Plame e-mails?
Well, what an interesting coincidence.
Josh Marshall points us to this nugget at the bottom of a New York Daily News piece on the Valerie Plame case: In a letter to lawyers for Scooter Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that e-mail messages sent from Dick Cheney's office around the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted despite a White House policy that required that they be kept.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [13:56 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Sheehan and the SOTU: What about those purple thumbs?
We've got two questions for the police who arrested Cindy Sheehan for wearing an antiwar T-shirt to George W. Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night:
Although you escorted the wife of a Republican congressman out of the House of Representatives for wearing a "Support the Troops" T-shirt, it seems that you didn't put her in handcuffs or keep her in holding cells for a few hours. Why was that, exactly?
And while you apparently concluded that Sheehan's "2245 Dead -- How many more?" T-shirt amounted to an unlawful protest in the House chamber, we seem to remember that a lot of the president's supporters were sporting purple thumbs at the last State of the Union address. How many of them did you arrest?
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [12:53 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
"Addicted to oil"? You take that back, son!
The president is getting mixed reviews for his State of the Union address. According to a Gallup poll released this morning, 75 percent of the people who watched George W. Bush speak Tuesday night said they came away with a "very positive" or "somewhat positive" reaction. It sounds like a good number, except when you notice that Republican viewers outnumbered Democrats by a margin of 2-to-1, and that -- even so -- the poll results for this State of the Union address were the lowest Bush has ever received.
Democrats in Washington are taking their shots -- John Kerry said Bush described a "fantasyland" rather than the actual union in which most Americans live -- but the harshest reaction yet may be the one from some of the president's allies on the right. It seems that all that talk about an "addiction" to oil didn't play so well with the friends of the petroleum industry; the pro-business, anti-regulation Competitive Enterprise Institute has just released a press release in which it savages Bush for daring to say that America ought to ease up on its use of oil.
"The president's dangerous rhetoric that we are addicted to oil is an indication that the administration is addicted to confused thinking about energy policies," says Myron Ebell, director of energy policy for CEI. "As bad as the policies proposed by President Bush are, the addiction rhetoric is much worse. President Bush might as well have said, 'We're addicted to prosperity, comfort, and mobility, and I've got the policies to do something about it.'"
The CEI says it's time for Bush to get back to dancing with the ones who brung him. "The goals and methods the president announced in his State of the Union address will be hindrances and obstacles to creating a bright energy future for American consumers," Ebell says. "They will interfere with the working of the market that provides incentives for increasing supplies and for technological innovations. In taking these steps in the wrong direction, President Bush also seems to have forgotten the positive energy policies that he has promoted in the past. These include removing the political and legal obstacles to exploiting America's vast conventional energy resources, such as opening portions of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas development."
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [12:15 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Bush on spying, or the "duty to speak with candor" revisited
The president repeatedly uttered words Tuesday night in which he obscured the unpleasant reality of his own policy choices. But amid all of that State of the Union obfuscation, George W. Bush still managed to reserve a heightened level of dishonesty for his discussion of his warrantless spying program. Here's the entirety of the president's defense -- and the facts that undercut it along the way.
"It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late."
Think Progress calls this the "two hijacker myth." As the Washington Post explained the other day, the federal government didn't need more information about the two hijackers before 9/11 as much as it needed to do a better job of using the information that it already had. As the 9/11 Commission explained, the National Security Agency first identified the two would-be hijackers in December 1999 but didn't follow up on them itself. It gave information to the CIA, but the CIA failed to put the two men on a watch list and failed to give information to the FBI. When the FBI finally figured out in August 2001 that one of the men had entered the United States, it treated the case as "routine" and assigned it to a "rookie agent," the Post reported.
"So to prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program ..."
There's no real dispute that Bush's secret spying program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and the Congressional Research Service has concluded that the Bush administration's arguments about other sources of authority are weak. "It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the CRS wrote, adding that the president's legal justifications for his program do "not seem to be ... well grounded."
"... to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America."
After initially insisting that it would have been technologically impossible for the NSA program to have monitored purely domestic calls, administration officials have admitted that they have, at times, done exactly that.
"Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have ..."
If this is a general reference to the fact that previous presidents have used the commander-in-chief authority granted them by the Constitution, it doesn't say much about the specific way in which Bush has purported to use that power. And if this is a reference to the actions of the Clinton administration, well, it's a dog that won't hunt. As we've noted before, the Bush administration's "Clinton did it, too" arguments are based on actions the Clinton administration took before the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1978 was amended in 1995. Bush is bound by the current version of the act, not the weaker version that was in place during some of Clinton's presidency.
"... and federal courts have approved the use of that authority."
Although several lawsuits are now pending, no court, federal or otherwise, has passed judgment yet on Bush's warrantless spying program. In referring to approving "federal courts," Bush seems to have had in mind a 2002 decision in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review said that it assumed that the president has "inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence." But that decision upheld the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the use of such warrants. Moreover, it said little or nothing about the president's authority to authorize searches without warrants when Congress has explicitly required them.
"Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed."
The Bush administration briefed a handful of members of Congress about the warrantless spying program. According to the Congressional Research Service, the National Security Act requires the administration to brief all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, which it did not do.
"The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America."
The White House has claimed repeatedly that the spying program has "helped prevent terrorist attacks," but it hasn't offered any specific details that would allow the claim to be substantiated. And while Bush says the spying program is "essential to the security of America," he has not explained why the procedures authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 -- procedures that allow the government to obtain a warrant as much as 72 hours after it begins surveillance -- don't do the job just as well.
"If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it ..."
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 allows the government to monitor calls "inside our country" so long as it gets a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. If the government has evidence suggesting that someone inside the United States is "talking with al-Qaida," there is no doubt that the court would grant a warrant to monitor such calls if the Bush administration went to the trouble of asking for one.
"... because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
The president did not "sit back and wait to be hit" when he was warned of an al-Qaida attack in August 2001. He went fishing instead.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [11:31 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
"A failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away"
Were we the only ones reaching for a map during the president's State of the Union address?
As he discussed his international war on tyranny Tuesday night, George W. Bush said: "On Sept. 11, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country."
If presidential speeches were game shows, it wouldn't be a bad way to put it. "Excuses for Unpopular Wars for $200, Alex." But if the answer is "a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away whose problems brought murder and destruction to the United States on 9/11," well, what exactly is the question?
Could it be, "What is Saudi Arabia?" Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who attacked the United States on 9/11 were Saudi citizens, and their leader, Osama bin Laden, was born in Saudi Arabia and seethes with resentment directed at the Saudi government. And Riyadh is a close-enough-for-government-work 6,744 miles from Washington, D.C. But the Bush administration has never been too interested in linking 9/11 with Saudi Arabia, and we're betting that Bush didn't mean to do so Tuesday night.
So could it be, "What is Iraq?" The president would be happy to have you think so -- his vague description, followed immediately, as it was, by a discussion of "dictators" who "seek weapons of mass destuction," pretty much invited those who have been conditioned to make a mental link between Iraq and al-Qaida to do so again. But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and Baghdad is only 6,200 miles from Washington.
Well, then, could it be, "What is Afghanistan?" It's a stretch to say that "problems originating" in Afghanistan led to 9/11. While the Taliban provided a safe haven for al-Qaida, the "problems" that gave way to 9/11 weren't born in Afghanistan. The "oppressive" Taliban government didn't create al-Qaida. Bin Laden did that, and he did it almost a decade before he moved his base of operations to Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is the best choice geographically speaking -- Kabul is 6,924 miles from Washington -- and it's probably the country Bush had in his mind, even as he hoped that you'd keep Iraq in yours.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [09:17 EST, Feb. 1, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
State of the Union: George W. Bush and the "duty to speak with candor"
"With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor."
Those words came in the middle of George W. Bush's State of the Union speech, and we certainly can't disagree with them. We only wish the president would live up to them.
Again and again Tuesday night, the president said words aimed at obscuring hard truths and hiding the harsh reality that his administration has visited upon the American people. Bush talked about the importance of education for young people, ignoring the fact that his administration proposed the first cut in overall federal education spending in a decade. He talked of fiscal restraint and the need to be a good "steward" of taxpayers' money, ignoring the fact that government spending has exploded on his watch and that he hasn't once exercised his veto to stop it. He talked of the need to wean the nation from its "addiction" to foreign oil, ignoring the fact that that addiction has deepened as his administration resisted strict fuel-economy standards, proposed cuts in alternative energy programs and dismissed conservation as little more than "a sign of personal virtue."
Bush said that all elected officials must "never forget, never dismiss and never betray" their pledge to be "worthy of public responsibility," neglecting to mention that his administration lied to the American public about the Valerie Plame case and is stonewalling both Congress and the press on the Jack Abramoff scandal.
And as the president talked about the need for Congress and the White House to work "in a spirit of good will and respect for one another," he failed to mention the ways in which he's shown neither. He didn't mention the recess appointments he's made in order to circumvent the Senate confirmation process; he didn't mention the signing statements he's used to make it clear that he considers himself free to ignore Acts of Congress; he didn't mention the way that his administration has routinely stiffed members of Congress seeking information on everything from Katrina to Enron to the Downing Street memos. And Bush certainly didn't mention that his administration seems to have broken the law by failing to brief Congress on its warrantless spying program -- or that his attorney general not only failed to inform Congress about the program but may have affirmatively misled the Senate about its existence.
So "a duty to speak with candor," Mr. President? We're all for it, and we hope one day to hear a State of the Union address from someone who knows or cares about what those words mean.
-- Tim Grieve
Print Email
Permalink [23:26 EST, Jan. 31, 2006]
Post a comment Read comments
Enough about SOTU: How about some answers from Alberto Gonzales?
George W. Bush goes before Congress for another State of the Union address tonight. The networks and the internets will be all over it, but we're far more interested in the upcoming congressional appearance of another senior administration official. Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, and he'll be asked there to defend himself against the charge that he lied to the committee last year about Bush's warrantless spying program.
During Gonzales' confirmation hearing last January, Sen. Russ Feingold asked the soon-to-be attorney general whether the president, as commander in chief, has the authority to violate acts of Congress. "Does the president, in your opinion, have the authority, acting as commander in chief, to authorize warrantless searches of Americans' homes and wiretaps of their conversations in violation of the criminal and foreign intelligence surveillance statutes of this country?" Feingold asked.
Gonzales' response: "What we're really discussing here is a hypothetical situation."
Of course, it wasn't a hypothetical situation. Shortly after 9/11, Bush signed an executive order in which he authorized warrantless wiretaps of Americans' conversations in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. In dismissing Feingold's question as "hypothetical," Gonzales implied that the Bush administration wasn't engaged in warrantless searches or wiretaps. And in response to further questioning from Feingold, he seemed to make the implicit explicit. "Senator," Gonzales said, "it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
In a statement posted on his Web site, Feingold says Gonzales "was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee" last year and "has some explaining to do" now. And in a letter to Gonzales, Feingold tells the attorney general that he'll be called to account for his misrepresentation when it comes time for his turn before Congress next week.
-- Tim Grieve
Salon.com Politics War Room Politics
|
|
