Olbermann Tells It Like It Is

"There Are Enough Villains to Go Around"

Transcript HERE

I don't think much commentary is necessary to embellish KO's commentary except on this one point:

"And Sen. Reid, put the public option back in, or the Medicare Buy-In, or both. Or single-payer. Let Lieberman and Ben Nelson and Baucus and the Republicans vote their lack-of-conscience and preclude 60 "ayes." Let them commit political suicide instead of you."

I don't think Leader Reid or any of the other 'centrist' Democrats or fucktard Republicans who wage legislative war against their own constitutents give a flying rat's ass about 'political consequences' anymore. They know the system, and they know that over 90% of them have their seats because they spent more on campaign advertising than their opponent. Voters don't matter, they haven't for a long time. Only contributors matter, which means only large corporations.

And what if they do get turfed out of office by some principled upstart, the next Al Franken or Alan Grayson? They'll be richly rewarded by the same corporations - a seven figure sinecure at some think tank, perhaps. Or maybe they'll turn around and join one of the lobbying firms - corrupting in turn their successors as they have been corrupted.

If this is the way that sausage is made these days in Washington, it's time to get a new butcher.

TAGS: Keith Olbermann, Special Commentary, Health Care Reform, Broken Government

(The Face of a Thug) versus The Face of a Small Hero

Last week I wrote about Michele Malkin despicable tirade and the call-to-arms of her winged monkeys of spite in smearing 12 year-old Graeme Frost, quite aptly named I thought, 'The Face of a Thug.'

Monday, October 15th, Graeme's parents appeared on Keith Olbermann's program on MSNBC, 'Countdown.'

First - look at that face to the left.

As his mother points out in the video below, Graeme couldn't eat, couldn't talk, couldn't walk, couldn't sit up, could not hold his head up, could not swallow, and without CHIP he, most likely, would not be where he is today. And in relation to his sister, the prognosis was even more grim.

As the New York Times pointed out last week, Mitch McConnell's office was "poised to take on" this undeserving family.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But what he also didn't divulge was this, " Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children's health insurance program.

But Don Stewart, the Kentucky Republican's communications director, said he also wrote a follow-up e-mail later the same day that said a blogger he respected had determined that there was no story and that "the family is legit."

Why Mitch McConnell's interest? Because ole' Mitch has an alternative bill, and has labeled this particular bipartisan health care for kids as the first step towards providing universal health care in this country as it expands the income limits to include those caught being poverty-stricken and those who can afford private health care. Those who too poor to buy insurance, but too well off to qualify for Medicaid.

However as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman (Matthew Miller) put it: "spreading false rumors about a 12-year-old boy is despicable for any reason." And Mr. Miller is right on here as well, "No matter how McConnell's office spins it now, the e-mail makes clear that they were part of the campaign to smear a child who had the nerve to stand up and say children's health insurance shouldn't be cut."

Last night, Keith Olbermann had Graeme's parents on to discuss their coverage under S-CHIP in Maryland; they live in Baltimore. They also discuss the fallout from their decision to allow Graeme to be the face of what this legislation is about when he gave the Democratic response to Bush's Saturday radio address on September 29th. Graeme's father points out that "one of nails in the coffin" in his business folding was the exorbitant cost of the family's health insurance costs.



Then....today, there's this

The Louisville Courier-Journal has a story this morning on Mitch McConnell's statements to WHAS in Louisville. And just look at that headline - whoo-boy!

McConnell knew of e-mails about boy. Below is his flat out denial.

Now one of the most telling things I noticed was this below from McConnell's communications director, Don Stewart, who sent a 'follow-up e-mail last night (apparently, Oct 16th - Tuesday) to the Courier-Journal, in which he reiterated that McConnell's answer to WHAS that "there was 'no involvement whatsoever' " was accurate."

"The blogs started this story on Oct. 6 -- two days before I pointed it out and spiked it. This story started and ended in the blogs," Stewart wrote. "I told reporters there was 'no story.' I told Sen. McConnell that I spiked the story. That is 100 percent accurate."

Sooo, it's the fault of those damned blogs. But wait, Donnie - didn't you leak the info to 'a blog?' (Red State come to mind?) I'm sure there are some 'out there' and specifically in the U.S. Congress who undoubtedly think blogs and more specifically, liberal blogs, are a blight on the dissemination of their lies and tactics. Blogs play as important a role as pamphlets did in the time of the American Revolution. Blogs are dangerous.

Now - in the event you think your lying ears and eyes might be deceiving you when you see Mitch's lips moving, there's a transcript from the C-Journal's page - down just a bit, to the right.

THE INTERVIEW

 

Here is a transcript of WHAS reporter Mark Hebert's interview Friday with Sen. Mitch McConnell:

Hebert: Was there an indication that your office was trying to push reporters to go dig into this 12-year-old's background?

McConnell: No.

Hebert: Then what was the deal with the e-mail?

McConnell: What?

Hebert: What was the deal with the e-mail from your staffer?

McConnell: There was no involvement whatsoever.

Hebert: From your staff?

McConnell: None.

Over at The Gavel, there's a number of others who reveal how they were helped by the version of the CHIP program in their varied states. Being poor is not an easy task.

Oh and a bit of a reminder, Mitch is married to Elaine Chao, the Department of Labor secretary responsible for this.

Pardon Everyone

If I had the kind of health care that our politicians have, I'm sure my doctor would tell me not to watch cable news anymore. It wouldn't stop me, because I have this delusional fantasy that one day, things will, all of a sudden, change.

One day I'll turn on CBS Evening News and all of a sudden it's 1987, and Dan Rather's there reporting on the impeachment of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush for their involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal and everything that's happened since has been a bad dream.

Our current reality is not reality. It can't be. Jon Stewart, only a decent comedian before Indecision 2000, looks like a founding father now for merely describing things accurately. The biggest audience goes to the biggest liar. That would be Bill O'Reilly. There's only two camps regarding O'Reilly, those who watch his show loyally and adhere to his every word as if it were the Gospel, and those who want to throw up at the site of his face and the sound of his voice. Talking about this guy is a waste of time. He's become a hollow signifier for the Cooperate Owned Media as a whole. Like Coulter before him, O'Reilly bashing has no remaining currency, even in the liberal blogosphere. He sucks, we get it. It's been illustrated every way possible.

Yet he persists. He lives. He's still there cashing checks and farting through his mouth into the microphone. We know he's a liar. He had as much to do with this bogus neocon adventure as the people who did it, because without some media cover, they never could have managed to start this illegal war.

Earlier this week O' Reilly put the cherry on his legacy when he claimed that his show doesn't cover Iraq very much because correspondents in Iraq can't get the real story and by the way, no one cares. "Do you care," he asked, "if another bomb if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No, it doesn't mean anything."

You would think after seeing that steaming slab of ignominy plastered on my TV that I would not soon feed at the troth of cable news. But like Al Gore says, television's seductive. How could I not tune in last night and see what the talking heads had to say about the judge's ruling that Scooter had to go to prison pending his appeal? This case is so straight forward that a Republican prosecutor appointed by John Ashcroft, a Bush-appointed judge and a jury all agreed that Scooter obstructed justice and perjured himself. No pro-Libby spinning can possibly happen without tossing out our legal system and reality itself.

I decided not to go to O'Reilly on this one. After the Iraq display, I'm done monitoring that noise. Media Matters has a stronger stomach than I do. No, this was a job for MSNBC.

If the media suddenly decided to be based on, I don't know--JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS--the most likely candidate to start that trend would probably be MSNBC. These people allow a lot of truth to come out of Keith Olbermann's mouth. Chris Matthews has his moments of clarity and he's never been a cheerleader for the war.

At 7pm, I turned on Hardball. Matthews, however, wasn't there. In his place--no one. Oh, there was a body there, but it was a cold, dead man with no personality or presence at all. Someone named Mike Barnicle. Probably a good guy, but why he's on TV I have no idea.

Who does Barnicle bring on to discuss the possible pardon of Scooter Libby? Pat Buchanan and some random, high powered neocon lobbyist named Ron Christie. He used to work for Libby. Want some idea of the nonsense Christie was slinging? Take a look at this blogpost he wrote praising Joe Lieberman's courage.

Some diligent YouTuber posted much of what ensued on Hardball. The Christie-Buchanan debate begins about three minutes into this clip.

You'll notice that the one making sense in this clip is Pat Buchanan. The lifelong conservative supervillian is now representing the "left" side of this crucial political debate.

After seeing that, I give up. Let's do it Ron Christy's way. Pardon Libby. Go for it. While you're at it, go ahead an pick out anyone you'd like and stick them in prison--Plame, Wilson, Fitzgerald, that Al Gore has been a real nuisance. You guys are already going after Michael Moore. End the pretense of rule of law and democracy and lets just do this the neocon way.

Pardon Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rice, bin Laden, the whole family. Pardon Tim Griffin, Karl Rove, Sara Taylor and Kyle Samson. We can dissolve Congress and you can just appoint whoever you want to any position you like. Then there's no need for these elaborate election stealing schemes.

And you don't need to wait for the next natural or unnatural disaster to activate your slimy little sleeper provision to take power. Do it now.

What sleeper provision?

From WorldNetDaily:

President Bush President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.

The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive" was signed May 9, notes Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column.

It was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.

The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.

"Catastrophic emergency" is loosely defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

(more)

Here's the catastrophic emergency: Bush is President. It's the worst national catastrophe yet. Thousands of Americans are dead because of that fact and Bush's next victim is Democracy itself. So, spare us the sneak attack and just do it.

Pardon us. Pardon us so we don't have to live through the agonizing lies of the COM. Most importantly, pardon us from our responsibility to stop you. The founders of this country lived up to that responsibility, but things are different now.

Joel Hirshhorn of OpEdNews wrote a piece called, "Americans Unready to Revolt, Despite Revolting Conditions":

For a nation that was built on a revolt against oppressive governance by the British, something has been lost from our political DNA. We apparently no longer have the gene for political rebellion. It has been bred out of most of us. And those of us that urge a Second American Revolution are seen as fringe, nutty subversives.

(more)

So, go ahead, W. Call off the media. Cancel the news. Fire the actors posing as anchors because we don't need them anymore and just put on jugglers, sword swallowers, belly dancers, dancing bears, clowns stuffed into Volkswagens and magicians sawing hot chicks in half.

Oh, and get Paris Hilton out of jail, we need something to pay attention to while Bush, Cheney and Grover Norquist are drowning the constitution in the bathtub.

TAGS: Media, Scooter Libby, American Revolution, Bill O'Reilly

Prosecution of Alabama Governor Work of Rove?

When the U.S. Attorney purge story began to clarify a couple months ago, one of the most chilling observations was that the real problem with the firings of nine fair-minded attorneys so they could be replaced by cronies, was the implication that among the other 84 USAs not fired, a lot of dirty deeds were being done at the behest of the White House.

Well, Alabama's former governor is in jail and a Republican whistle blower has fingered Karl Rove.

From Time Magazine:

At the moment, [Alabama's] former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys.

The allegation was made by Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama. She made the charges in a May 21 affidavit, obtained by TIME, in which she describes a conference call on November 18, 2002, which involved a group of senior aides to Bob Riley, who had just narrowly defeated Siegelman in a bitterly contested election for governor. Though Republican Riley, a former Congressman, initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor. After the abrupt vote turnaround, Siegelman sought a recount. The Simpson affidavit says the conference call focused on how the Riley campaign could get Siegelman to withdraw his challenge.

According to Simpson's statement, William Canary, a senior G.O.P. political operative and Riley adviser who was on the conference call, said "not to worry about Don Siegelman" because "'his girls' would take care of" the governor. Canary then made clear that "his girls" was a reference to his wife, Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

(more)

There's so much corruption going on here, that it's difficult to boil it down to a simple narrative for mass consumption. If Rove had an affair with an intern, we'd be golden.

Rove has troubles on another front today--or, like so many of these scandals, maybe it's connected. His former executive assistant Susan Ralston asked for immunity before giving testimony to Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee on contacts between The White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Waxman said he's in no rush and he'd get back to her.

By the way something, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett resigned today, effective July 4. Adios, Dan. Effective July 4 though? What's that about? Shouldn't that be effective July 3? Is he going in on the 4th? Are they having a cookout? Is Bush grilling up some brats?

Furthermore, Bartlett's not the only Republican on the way out.

VIDEO: A couple weeks ago, Keith Olbermann covered Karl Rove's role in Gonzogate.


(Part 2)

Crossposted at IST.

TAGS: Karl Rove, Dana Jill Simpson, Don Siegelman, Jack Abramoff

Connecting the Dots

Background on Gonzo Testimony

In less than 48 hours Alberto 'Abu' Gonzales will be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee again. Reports that he has been practicing testimony aside, I can't see him doing any better than he has in the past. Under the stern glare of Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy he will squirm, blink, sweat, cough, and fidget like a truant in front of the high school vice principal. The man has a positive talent for exuding guilt, and Leahy knows exactly how to bring that talent out to the full. Frankly I'll be impressed if he doesn't piss himself - he has a lot of tough questions to answer.
HE IS SO SCREWED!!
This from ABC News:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has an uphill battle in convincing senators he's capable of running the Justice Department after the botched firing of federal prosecutors, two influential Republican senators said Sunday.

Two days before Gonzales is to make a showdown appearance before Congress, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said none of Gonzales' public statements so far has convinced him that the department's ouster of eight U.S. attorneys was justified.

Here's some background to ensure that you fully appreciate the flavor of the upcoming testimony, and some heads-up on recent developments. If nothing else, if you don't like my take on this story you'll have lots of links to pursue. It should also remind you of some elements of the story you may have forgotten. This is a long post, because there is a lot of ground to cover, but I'll try to stay on point.

This story goes back to Dec. 7, 2006 when eight US Attorneys were asked to resign so that they could be replaced with Bu$hCo™ loyalists. The story didn't really get picked up by the media until mid-January, as evidenced by this Olbermann video featuring the ever-incisive Jonathan Turley. Neither Olbermann nor Turley had picked up on what this was really about yet, but my own post on the subject got it even wronger. I thought it was judges, not US Attorneys who had been let go. One crucial element of the story that was evident from the start - the replacements would be picked by a new authority given the President under the USA PATRIOT Act. The provision making this possible was literally snuck into the act by Arlen Specter's top aide in the middle of the night - just after the Nov. 7 elections, and in the waning days of the Republican congressional majority. That stinks, and nobody with a nose failed to notice.

By late February, early March details were beginning to emerge about who had been fired, how it was done, and who the replacements were. Significantly a House Judiciary subcommittee subpoenaed some of the fired attorneys to find out more about the circumstances. Here in point form is some of what we now know, in part due to testimony given under those subpoenas:

• At least some of the dismissed attorneys (all, BTW Republicans and Bush appointees) were FURIOUS that their dismissals were being bandied about as being performance related.
• Carol Lam, the California US Attorney who had convicted GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham was on the point of issuing more subpoenas in that case, directed at, among others, a high ranking CIA official. Also in possible jeopardy if the Cunningham case was pursued were Republican California representatives Duncan Hunter and John Doolittle, both of whom had overt ties to the Brent Wilkes 'earmark clique', as Josh Marshall calls it. Hunter had the nerve to defend Lam's dismissal on the grounds she was too soft on drug cases.
• David Iglesias' story is perhaps the best known. He was the US Attorney in New Mexico who testified that he had been phoned at home by first Republican Representative Heather Wilson, then Republican Senator Pete Domenici. Both inquired whether Iglesias would be pursuing corruption charges against Democratic state officials - and could he please get them filed prior to the Nov. 7 election? When Iglesias answered in the negative, both callers abruptly hung up on him. It was this testimony that gave the story legs, and prompted further investigations into the matter.
• Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummins was replaced by senior Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin. Griffin's role working for Rove was in finding 'dirt' that could be used against Democratic candidates.
• Daniel Bogden wasn't comfortable about the stated reasons for his own dismissal, and asked an official at the agency's headquarters if the firing was related to his performance or to that of his office. 'That didn't enter into the equation,' he said he was told.
• John McKay was the US Attorney in Seattle who among other things helped to convict the Millenium bomber. "So when the attorney general said McKay was fired for performance reasons, he was livid. 'I knew that was false and I felt obligated to speak up,' ... McKay believes it was what he didn't do that got him fired... A Democratic candidate won Washington state's 2004 gubernatorial race by just a couple of hundred votes. McKay didn't call a grand jury to investigate questions of voter fraud, and he heard about it when he sought a promotion."

With Lam being dismissed on the verge of pursuing charges against Republican officials, and with Iglesias and McKay both testifying that they felt they had been fired for not pursuing charges against Democrats, a clear pattern was emerging that anyone not watching FOX "news" could readily discern. A couple of observers tore themselves away from the Libby conviction to make comments compelling in their logic, and devastating in their implication for Bu$hCo™. We'll give Paul Krugman the first scathe;

"The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance."

Jonathan Turley's observation is equally acute;

"In my opinion, the most important (and alarming) part of the story is where the authority to do this derives from: The USA Patriot Act. How exactly does giving Bush the power to replace inconvenient prosecutors protect us from terror? Oh, wait, it doesn't. It just protects him and his cronies from prosecution. Talk about politicizing terror."

By mid March the pressure was mounting on the Attorney General, and for that matter the entire Department of Justice. Gonzales' chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson announced his resignation on Mar. 12., an obvious target of the next round of subpoenas. It was also around this time that the parallel scandal broke about the FBI's abuse of National Security Letters. In Japan, Gonzales would by this point have been required to spill his guts on the floor - literally. Senator Charles Schumer (D - New York) called for Gonzales' immediate resignation. The New York Times has the money quote (Watch Senator Schumer's statement on Youtube);

Senate Democrats vowed today to get explanations, with or without subpoenas, from high Bush administration officials as revelations about the dismissal of federal prosecutors put renewed pressure on the White House.

“Just when we thought our faith could not be shaken any further, it has been,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The latest revelations prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there has been unprecedented breach of trust, abuse of power and misuse of the Justice Department.”

On March 13, Gonzales gave this Press Conference (video opens in new window) on the scandal that had become known as the Prosecutor Purge. Herein was introduced the odious phrase, 'at the pleasure of the President.' We would hear those weasel words over and over for the next few weeks. Herein also was introduced the idea that, while he accepted responsibility for everything that went on in the Department of Justice, he wasn't really responsible because he didn't really know what was going on in the DoJ. The old Bu$hCo™ excuse of ignorance. Specifically though, he claimed to be 'out of the loop' on the whole affair. From TPM Muckraker: "He said that his chief of staff Kyle Sampson, now resigned, headed up the process for replacing the U.S. attorneys, and that Gonzales himself was 'not involved in seeing any memos' or 'any discussion of what was going on.' "

Gonzales must hate Fridays the way the rest of the world hates Mondays. Friday is Document Dump Day for the Bush administration, the day when they release information they know to be damaging in order to reduce as far as possible the media attention it will get over the weekend. Friday, March 23 was just such a day, and the docs dumped put the lie to Gonzales' press conference claims from only 11 days earlier.

"The e-mails, delivered to Congress Friday night, show that Gonzales attended an hourlong meeting on the firings on Nov. 27, 2006 - 10 days before seven U.S. attorneys were told to resign. The attorney general's participation in the session calls into question his assertion that he was essentially in the dark about the firings."

Joshua Marshall's comment pretty much says it all, "It is not too much to say that everything that has come out of Alberto Gonzales' mouth on this issue has been a lie. Sure, that sounds like hyperbole. But it's just a factual summary of what the public record now shows." I quoted another part of the same piece in a previous post from that same weekend. "

This isn't a case where Alberto Gonzales has fallen short of the president's standards or bungled some process. This is the standard. The Attorney General has done and is doing precisely what is expected of him... the president is fine with all of this. Fine with the fact that the Attorney General has not only repeatedly lied to the public but has also been exposed as repeatedly lying to the public. He's fine with at least two US Attorneys being fired for not giving in to pressure to file bogus charges to help Republican candidates.

Of course he's fine with it. Because it comes from him. None of this is about Alberto Gonzales. This is about the president and the White House, which is where this entire plan was hatched. Gonzales was just following orders, executing the president's plans. This is about this president and this White House, which ... let's be honest, everyone on both sides of the aisle already knows."

It was about this time that Monica Goodling's name became more prominently attached to the scandal. By the time anybody knew who she was, she had already been subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee, and announced through her lawyers her intention to avoid self-incrimination by resorting to the Fifth Amendment. Suddenly the administration starts recognizing the existence of the Bill of Rights, a document that they had studiously ignored for their first six years in power.

Well, I'm getting exhausted, so will continue with this tomorrow. We will continue with the story of the missing emails, including several details that have come out in the last few days. I have plenty more links to go through. This past Friday, the 13th. was another Document Dump, which brought out some interesting facts. In the meantime, I leave you with some of my conclusions, which I wrote before starting this timeline.

---

In all of this we must hold onto one thought, the ultimate response to the reight wing theme of 'there was nothing improper. US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President.' That is utter bullshit, and I'll tell you why. It has to do with the Constitutional principle of separation of powers.

The Constitution describes a government that has three independent branches. Once appointed by the President, all US attorneys become part of the Judiciary Branch, and take an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. They are no longer working for the administration, or the President, and they are certainly not working for the Republican party or KKKarl Rove.

Any effort to interfere with judiciary independence through his power of nominating appointees is a usurpation of power by the president. Remember, until this odious aforementioned provision was secretly added to the USA PATRIOT act, these appointments had to be confirmed by the Senate. So right off you have one branch of government (the administration) treading on the turf of the legislative branch. All of this heaped on top of the indignity of Bush's signing statements, and tacitly approved thus far by a complacent complicit Republican majority in both houses. And Bush has used his lack of opposition in the legislative branch to stake out territory in the Judiciary.

It's not just about these eight US Attorneys, nor even about the 85 who were compliant enough to retain their positions. It goes much higher up. To the degree that someone like Alberto Gonzales himself, or one of the Supreme Court Justices appointed by either Bush or his father perceives his loyalty as to the President personally, or to the Republican party rather than to the Constitution, the doctrine of separation of powers goes out the window. Once gone, it will be nigh unto impossible to retrieve this vital principle. It was put there for a reason.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of a tyranny."
-- James Madison --

UPDATE: I've finished the second and last part of my timeline - A Picture Emerges
(The result of connecting those dots)

TAGS: Prosecutor Purge, Alberto Gonzales, Separation of Powers, Constitutional Law

CBS Profiles Olbermann

CBS Sunday Morning did a profile on Keith Olbermann. Pretty glowing. Look out CBS, you're going to validate Hannity's claims about you.



TAGS: Keith Olbermann, CBS, Cable News, Media Bias

Deja Vu All Over Again

There's nothing much I can add to this. Keith Olbermann lays it all out perfectly, and anyone can draw the correct conclusion seeing Bush's arguments for war with Iraq in 2003, and his parallel rhetoric now regarding Iran.

Keith Olbermann Video

TAGS: Iran, Iraq, War-mongering, Insanity, President Shrub

Bush's Credibility..

..File with: Tooth Fairy, Unicorn

Just prior to the Stoat of the Onion address, Keith Olbermann aired this review of Bush's past SOTU speeches, and the veracity of the statements made therein. Of course most prominent were the lies bringing the country into the war in Iraq, but there were also the repeated broken promises. We will catch Osama bin Laden, whatever it takes. We will provide the army with the troops and equipment they need. We will listen to the generals. This administration has been nothing more than an endless string of lies, broken promises, and failures.

Review of Past SOTU statements

As KO concludes, the only goal truly accomplished by BushCo™ is the Orwellian goal of perpetual war against an implacable and undefeatable enemy. Heckuva job, King Codpiece.

There are broken promises Olbermann omits: No child will be left behind, but no funding will be provided. We will strive towards energy independence, but no funding will be provided for that either. I'm sure I missed some too. But the biggest broken promise of all came in January, 2001; the promise Bush made on assuming office. When he swore to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States of America.
TAGS: Bush, SOTU, Keith Olbermann, Tooth Fairy

Assault on Justice

Knowing full well that they face defeat in court cases covering issues ranging from public corruption to the NSA wiretapping program and the denial of habeas corpus in hundreds of cases, the Bush administration has turned to a new and disturbing tactic. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is dismissing federal judges and replacing them with judges who he expects will make decisions based on political affiliation rather than legal merit.

From the Washington Post,

"[Gonzales] denied any political motives and vowed to quickly submit new nominees for the jobs to the Senate for confirmation.

'What we're trying to do is ensure that for the people in each of these respective districts, we have the very best possible representative for the Department of Justice,' Gonzales testified, adding later: 'I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it.'

Gonzales's remarks in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee came in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other lawmakers about the forced removals of at least six U.S. attorneys, including several who have overseen some of the government's highest-profile corruption prosecutions."

Consider one of the judges who is on the way out; "Carol C. Lam in San Diego, who led the corruption prosecution of former congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham (R-Calif.)" On the way in is Tim Griffin, who was recently working for the RNC trying to dig up dirt on Democratic candidates. Despite Gonzo's protests otherwise, that looks political to me.
Senator Feinstein seems to agree.

Diane Feinstein Adresses the Senate

Here's Olbermann with Jonathan Turley's reaction:

Assault on Justice

Turley gets right to the point when he remarks that Gonzo is 'more General than Attorney...he seems just inherently hostile towards the rule of law.' Which when you think of it is just what you want if you're trying to set up a police state. This seems to be something they've been planning for some time, too. Under a little known provision added into the USA PATRIOT Act when it was renewed*, the judges no longer require congressional confirmation.

Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy, titles his post on this subject simply, with an infamous Bush quote, "This would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship…just as long as I’m the dictator!" - This move seems designed to put Bush one step closer to that goal.

UPDATE: (3 am, Jan. 21) While researching for this post, I bookmarked this article concerning Arlen Specter's role in the last-minute change to the legislation that negated the Senate's participation in confirming judges. Sorry I neglected to include the link in the original post.

UPDATE: (Apr. 15) While researching for another post, I reread this one to find my egregious error of identifying the dismissed US Attorneys as Federal Judges. My sincere apologies. It looks like I put this one together when it was late, and I was tired.

TAGS: Justice, Alberto Gonzales, Police State, Putsch

Bush Defends His Plan..

..NOT!!

pResident Bush's 20 minute speech just ended. My immediate impressions.

The body of this speech was unremarkable to the point of being totally irrelevant. After being given many chances to pull his reputation out of the shitcan of history, he has learned nothing, and there is nothing new here. Given yet another last chance to vindicate himself, he fails miserably. How many last chances does this guy think he has? After a lifetime of having his ass pulled out of every situation, he apparently believes that number to be unlimited. But he has never exhibited any facility with numbers.

When is he going to learn? - Every time he talks at length about the dire consequences of leaving Iraq to the USA, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and 'our other friends in the Middle East', it only reminds people that those dire consequences would not pertain had he never invaded Iraq to begin with.

When is he going to learn? - Pulling Joe Lieberman (Independent - NOT!!) off the bottom of the deck does not constitute an ace in the hole any more (although it sounds something like Ace and Hole.) So a phrase like 'key members of the Congress and Senate' that includes LIEberman's name no longer invokes images of bipartisan co-operation in the American mind. The Republicans' withdrawal of support for their own official candidate, and their endorsement of Joe in the last election are still fresh in everyone's mind. Joe's entire career was well and truly exposed then as a false flag operation - now he has progressed from DINO to IINO (Independent in name only.) Any so-called Democrats that continue to support the pResident's agenda in any way only serve to expose themselves as wolves in sheep's clothing. Come the next election - see ya', wouldn't want to be ya'. In fact, Bush should not be bandying the word 'bipartisan' around at all any more. Increasingly it is coming to mean the defection of more and more Republicans to join the opposition to him.

When is he going to learn? - anything.

Update 2.0: (Jan 11, 4:30 pm, EST) As promised, here's the video from Keith Olbermann discussing Bush's credibility, or lack thereof.

Countdown: 01/10/07

(You can also download WMV and QT versions, courtesy of Crooks and Liars)

When is he going to learn? - That nobody believes a word he says any more.

TAGS: George Bush, Imbecile In Chief, Iraq Speech, Learning Impaired

Sacrifice?

Olbermann Special Comment on Sacrifice (1/2/07)

"Sacrifice"

More code to appeal to the christofascist base.

(Download WMV or QT from Crooks and Liars)

Keith Olbermann speaking the Truth. It just doesn't get much better than this. Such a rich transcript, so little blog space...

America is not a company; you don't own it:

"Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq — and now about 'sacrifice' — is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion. Your most respected generals see no value in a 'surge' — they could not possibly see it in this madness of 'sacrifice.'

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying 'best two out of three… best three out of five… Hundredth
one counts.'

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and more over, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!"

Though you have lots of experience breaking and bankrupting companies you have owned:

"And the war's second accomplishment — your second accomplishment, sir - is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can't sell them any more, until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn't, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a 125-million dollar courtroom complex at Gitmo complete with restaurants.

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir."

Our guts; your glory:

"First, we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.
Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego."

Make it stop.

Olbermann on Erosion of Privacy

Perhaps some of you are familiar with Jonathan Turley, Law Professor at George Washington University, and a frequent commenter on Keith Olbermann's show. I really like the guy because he has a clear idea of what Constitutional protections of freedom and privacy are supposed to be about. In this piece he demonstrates that he also has a pretty good sense of humor.

Virtual Strip Search

Get a load of this exchange between Keith and Jonathan.

KO: "Having now seen that photo (right), we can't not begin with the X-Ray machine. It would seem Jonathan to be not just intrusive but actually indecent, so much so .. What is the difference between requiring passengers to subject themselves to that and simply asking them to strip off all their clothes before boarding?"


JT: "Well maybe this is a recruiting tool to get TSA applicants, which should now be called T 'n' A or something, I don't know. But most of us are more afraid we'll be sent to something like Jenny Craig than Gitmo after this, because it is a very revealing picture."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's two zingers in as many sentences, and both worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit, though admittedly neither would be the funniest line on even a mediocre night. And I don't think it's the best comedic technique to laugh at your own joke, especially before you even tell it as he does here. Nonetheless I give Jonathan two thumbs up for his effort, especially the reference to Jenny Craig. Not ROTFLMAO, but at least LOL. And for the record I don't think Turley's venture into comedy undermines his credibility when he speaks seriously to substantive issues.

TAGS: Airport Security, Invasion of Privacy, Keith Olbermann, Humor

More Media Hypocrisy

"Damned Liberal Media Bias!"

Today I thought I would do a roundup of items about media coverage since the Democrats big midterm election victory. There is no lack of evidence of bias, but it is by no means of a liberal nature. After a week of pushing the ridiculous idea that the Democrats won because they fielded conservative candidates, or that the Republicans lost because they weren't really conservative enough, the theme has shifted to sniping at the new House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Glenn Greenwald blogs on that theme,

or you can watch KO discuss it here:

Olbermann points out the obvious difference between the friendly media coverage of Republican leadership selection and the same process in the Democratic party, portayed as 'infighting.' For more on the sniping at Nancy Pelosi that has been incessantly in the news, see this piece by Taylor Marsh at Huffington Post. If you decide to visit HuffPo, you should check out Nancy's declaration that 'Bringing the War to an End is My Highest Priority as Speaker.' That's good news.

There is also THIS PIECE at YouTube where Olbermann discusses the recently disclosed FOX "news" memo that constitutes the 'smoking gun' of journalistic bias. (Sorry, the embedding function was disabled on this video. The link will open in a new window.) Best quote, from Robert Greenwald, "If they were journalists, they would be ashamed, but they're not."

Shameless. Not Journalists. - FOX "news" new slogan?

TAGS:
Media Bias, Fox "news";
Keith Olbermann, Video, Journalistic Integrity;
Nancy Pelosi

Fake Anthrax Mailer Nailed

Fool Sent Powder to Olbermann, Stewart, Letterman, Pelosi and Shumer...

Wait, Shumer? Really?

Anyway, they caught the alleged perp and it's a Freeper. Jeepers Creepers.

KO reports:



Tags: Keith Olbermann, Domestic Terrorism, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Video Blog.

Olbermann Speaks the Truth

Last Licks Before The Election
Nobody says it better.

TAGS: Election, Olbermann, Special Comment, Video

Bush's Incredibly Bad Idea

pResident Bush continues to terrorize the American public while simultaneously holding his administration out as the only protection against terrorists. In one of the most politically cynical and incredibly, insanely idiotic decisions made to date, they have posted archive documents from Iraq on the internet that describe in detail how to build a thermonuclear device.
??WHAT??!! That's right, "diagrams, dimensions, diameters, fusing mechanisms, descriptions of explosive tests..." A road map to the design and construction of an atomic weapon.
This was done to revive the long debunked notion that the war in Iraq was about finding and destroying Weapons of Mass Destruction.

"The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to 'leverage the Internet' to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein."

Against the strident objections of the intelligence community, ignoring all sane advice (as usual), this is nothing short of outright insanity. The material was posted last March, and only taken down after the fact of its existence was revealed in this New York Times article.

Report From Keith Olbermann

TAGS: Atomic Weapons, WMDs, Bush Administration, Insanity

Kerry Botched a Joke...

...Bush Botched a War. And we have been paying for his mistakes with the blood of America's children, which has been running in the streets alongside the blood of Iraqi civilians--about 650,000 of them.

But let's do step back and put this in perspective, shall we? Compare Kerry's bungle (presented and disected by Keith Olbermann) to the words of the Commander in Chief and his chosen staff, which in contrast to the words of Senator Kerry, actually have caused irreparable and tangible harm to our troops:

• "Bring 'em on." -President George Bush [CNN]
• "...weeks rather than months." -Vice President Dick Cheney [Washington Post]
• "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." -Vice President Dick Cheney [Washington Post]
• "They want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that." -Vice President Dick Cheney Washington Post]
• "The campaign will be unlike any we have ever seen in the history of warfare, with breathtaking precision, almost eye-watering speed, persistence, agility and lethality." -Vice Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. naval forces in the Gulf [Washington Post]
• "It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [Washington Post]
• "Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder." -Former Pentagon Chairman Richard Perle [Washington Post]
• "I don't know anyone who thought this would be a war without resistance." - Former Pentagon Chairman Richard Perle (after the war began) [Washington Post]
• "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." -President George Bush [Whitehouse.gov]
• "I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done." -President George Bush (being careful to use the troops as shields in this praise of Rumsfeld and Franks) [Whitehouse.gov]
• "It's very important for us to stay the course, and we will stay the course." -President George Bush [US Department of Defense]
• "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [Washington Post]
• And let's not overlook this Bush laugh riot [WH Correspondents' Dinner, 2004].
  

Oh, just for fun, shall we now take a look at the GOP take on Clinton's humanitarian, UN-approved involvement in Bosnia:

• "You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
• "Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
• "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox News,
• "[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
• "If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." --Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush
• "I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." --Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)
• "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." --Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

Oh, you can just smell the GOP outrage against the injustice of deploying troops to bring humanitarian aid to Bosnia, with international support no less, and the righteous indignation over the poor strategic planning in Bosnia, where not one U.S. soldier died. The odor you smell, by the way, is that of virulent hypocricy and false patriotism mingled together in a morality vacuum chamber.

Bush recently revealed that controlling the oil fields was his reason for attacking and occupying Iraq. Recall that Cheney's Energy Taskforce, convened before we attacked Iraq, involved Iraq oil field maps. Any day now, the deal will be cut on control of Iraq's oil fields, involving the usual suspects (Bush's oil cabal). It's wrong to make money on other people's blood.

I ask but one question: Who needs to apologize to the troops?

I know how history will answer.

Related Posts:
Republicans Cut Deal and Run?
Oil History Lesson
Kerry Swiftboat Redux

Olbermann Demands Bush Apology

Following cynical exploitation of Kerry gaff

"Get someone to make fun of the cripple."

TAGS: Olbermann, Special Comment, Bush, Kerry, Controversy

Tortured Logic

The Dubious 'Logic' of Torture

No-brainer #1: The Vice President has no brains.
No-brainer #2: The Vice President is evil.
No-brainer #3: Calling it 'dunking' doesn't change the nature of the act.
No-brainer #4: "Torturing someone is evil. It's not just a war crime. It's the definition of evil." - Jonathan Turley

Olbermann:

"The Military Commissions Act, which as we have discussed here not only killed habeas corpus but essentially gave the President the authority to decide what constitutes torture...but did the Vice President manage to illustrate something even bigger than this, this attitude behind that legislation; as in, 'We're going to do whatever we want, and we're going to call it whatever we need to call it.' "

Turley:

"That's right, and you know the terms keep on getting more innocent, as if you know waterboarding was something you could take the children to...There is a continual effort of this administration to change verbiage to avoid directly dealing with the fact that we have embraced torture as a practice in one of the most despicable changes in this country's history in values."

In the most grotesque instance of irony possible, it is the 'values voters' who on November the seventh will most likely embrace torture as a practice, and vote to re-elect the party that has condoned this despicable change in the nature of the United States of America.

TAGS: War Crimes, Torture, Human Rights, Olbermann, Special Comment
(Also Posted At Ice Station Tango)

Olbermann's Latest Special Comment

On The Death of Habeas Corpus

"We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived… as people in fear.

And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing..

..And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?"

-Full transcript at Crooks and Liars

TAGS: Olbermann, Special Commentary, Habeas Corpus, Military Commissions Act, Treason