The Bush White House really does lie about everything

It's almost a cliche to say that they really do lie about everything in the Bush Administration. It's really quite amazing. White House staffers called the press to a briefing about the dire fiscal situation facing the country. Given their screwed up economic policy, the deficit will be outrageously high. But, they lie and inflate the numbers to make themselves look better:

This is the third straight year in which the White House has summoned reporters well ahead of the official budget release to project a higher-than-anticipated deficit. In the past two years, when final deficit figures have come in at record or near-record levels, White House officials have boasted that they had made progress, since the final numbers were below estimates.

"This administration has a history of overestimating the deficit early in the year, lowering expectations, then taking credit when it comes in below forecast," said Stanley E. Collender, a federal budget expert at Financial Dynamics Business Communications. "It's not just a history. It's almost an obsession."

Indeed, the dire new forecast came the same day that Treasury Department officials were touting a very different picture: The federal government posted the first budget surplus for December in three years, buoyed by a rush of corporate tax payments that more than offset record spending. On Jan. 6, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit for the first three months of the fiscal year was about $119 billion, almost exactly where it stood for the first quarter of fiscal 2005.

You know their lying and obfuscating is out of hand when even the traditional media is on to their game. Read More......

Bush is a heckuva failure

New Orleans is a mess:

But many of New Orleans' neighborhoods still are abandoned wastelands of uninhabitable homes and sidewalks piled with moldy garbage. Barely a quarter of the city's former population of nearly half a million has returned yet and it's not clear how many more will.

But our President still doesn't seem to get it:

Some of the president's language in New Orleans recalled the more pilloried statements from his first stop in the region four days after Katrina struck.

On that visit, he laughingly lauded the increasingly desperate city as great because it was where he used to "enjoy myself - occasionally too much." On Thursday, he said the New Orleans of today "is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit."

Bush also called the city "a heckuva place to bring your family" - a reminder of his endorsement of Michael Brown, then chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job," Bush said then to the man who was seen by many as the face of the clumsy and who eventually gave up his post amid the criticism.

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Funny as hell video

Just funny as hell. Read More......

NBC Nightly News is doing a piece on the cell phone privacy issue next

They just announced it.

That's great, as CNN did a great piece on this at 5 minutes to 6 Eastern tonight, CBS did a piece on the overall cell phone records for sale issue during their nightly broadcast, and with NBC, well, that's a hell of a press hit on this issue. Let's hope it's enough of a hit to get the public's and the politicians' attention. Read More......

Media says Alito is headed to confirmation

The media says Alito is a shoo-in. So, is it the Democrats' fault for not doing a good enough job of presenting the case against Alito, or is there simply not enough info to bring Alito down?

I have to say, I'm not convinced the Dems did a good enough job. I felt from the beginning that they should have made this nomination all about Justice O'Connor. The country is evenly divided, the court is 7-2 Republican to Democrat, and there is no way the country wants the Supreme Court to move further to the right. Alito is no O'Connor, and the Democrats had the burden to prove that. Did they? Evidently not. Read More......

MoveOn launches action on cell phone privacy

MoveOn is asking folks to weigh in regarding the fact that your cell phones records are for sale, online, without your consent.

You can read more about this issue in our post below. Read More......

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham and why Republicans don't get bigotry

Senator Graham is on CNN right now talking about how Judge Alito is being accused of bigotry using "guilt by association" simply because he belonged to an organization that may have said some bad things.

Well, here's a newsflash Senator Graham. When an organization is formed expressly to kick women and minorities out of your university, and you join that organization, pray tell what else are we to conclude? That David Duke joined the Klan because they have great bake sales? Because the chicks are hot? What exactly is your point, Senator?

This is why the GOP doesn't get bigotry. They think bigots hang out in white hoods with burning crosses in their front yards. Some do, but most don't. And to suggest that it's only guilt by association when you choose to join a group whose main purpose is to embrace and promote bigotry, then you render the definition of bigotry meaningless.

And in any case, it's always enjoyable to hear a southern Republican lecture the rest of us on the meaning of bigotry. Read More......

Open Thread

Happy Birthday Christiane Amanpour. (And just be careful what you say if you call Christiane today -- "someone" is probably listening.) Read More......

Romney to donate Abramoff money, sort of, well over time at least

How bold Mitt. Talk about ethics, make a news splash that you are donating to charity the tainted $500,000 money and then drag out payments over a few years so you can stay competitive in the 2006 election cycles. Oh how brave! What an honorable guy the GOP has in its ranks. Let's hope that the traditional media starts making a fuss about the GOP continuing to use political slush fund money to finance their campaigns. Romney needs to be asked about this in a lot more detail, publicly. Read More......

AMERICAblog just bought General Wesley Clark's cell phone records for $89.95

I reported the other day that your cell phone records are on sale online for anyone to buy, without your permission. Well, this morning AMERICAblog bought former presidential candidate, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (SACEUR), General Wesley Clark's cell phone records for one hundred calls made over three days in November 2005, no questions asked. (Clark's cell phone provider is Omnipoint Communications, which seems to be related to T-Mobile.)

All we needed was General Clark's cell phone number and our credit card, and 24 hours later we had one hundred calls the general made on his cell phone in November. The calls included a number of calls to Arkansas, to foreign countries, and at least one call to a prominent reporter at the Washington Post. To ensure that we actually had General Clark's correct cell phone number, we called the number this morning and the voice mail recording that answered said:

"Hi, this is Wes Clark, leave a message [unintelligible]."

We have subsequently called that number and spoken to a real person to confirm its authenticity, and to make sure General Clark was aware of this issue and what we were doing.

This is clearly outrageous. But let me first say, as an aside, that I bought my own Cingular Wireless phone records this past weekend and reported on it on AMERICAblog. I wouldn't do this to any other public person without first doing it to myself. But even after reporting on this gross violation of my (and your) personal privacy, Congress, the Administration, and the phone companies have yet to act effectively. (And they have known about it since at least this past July when the Washington Post reported on it.) So we decided to attempt to buy the records of a celebrity, so to speak. And we unfortunately succeeded.

I also want to say a quick aside about General Clark. I was a big fan of his presidential campaign, and he was the first candidate I supported. This effort was not meant in any way as a slight to the general. We wanted to see if it was possible to buy the phone records of someone high profile in order to prove that this is a problem with serious national security implications, and frankly, we didn't want to pick a Republican since we thought such a choice would be perceived as partisan or mean-spirited, and that is not our intent for exposing this. Our intent is to get this problem fixed so that we all can benefit.

I bought my records via the Web site LocateCell for $110. We bought General Clark's records via the Web site CellTolls for $89.95. It is possible that both sites are run by the same company.

Interestingly, we tried to get the cell phone records of other high-profile Washingtonians like ABC's George Stephanopoulos, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, and the New York Time's Adam Nagourney, but LocateCell was unable to provide me with their records (possibly because those three use Verizon as their cell phone service, or possibly because LocateCell was on to me). We are in the process of trying to obtain additional records.

The following is the list we received from CellTolls detailing 100 consecutive phone calls either placed or received on General Clark's cell phone from November 15 to 18, 2005. The company only gives you 100 calls, then you have to pay more for additional calls. We have blacked out all but the last two digits of every phone number, including General Clark's cell phone number, in order to protect his privacy and the privacy of anyone he has been in contact with. This will permit General Clark, and at least one Washington Post reporter, to confirm that the record is legit.

The only question now remaining is why President Bush, our leaders in Congress, and our wireless phone companies (at the very least T-Mobile and Cingular, whose customers' records are available online to anyone) have known about this problem for at least six months but have yet to fix it.

PS CBS News is going to report on the cell records privacy scandal tonight (1/12/06) on their evening news broadcast.

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Moonie owned Washington Times Wrong...again...

Yesterday, the Reverend Moon's paper -- citing unnamed sources, of course -- ran a story trying to link several Democrats to Abramoff. That paper, as most sane people know, is really just the mouthpiece of the right wingers. Anything they report about politics is suspect.

The GOP knows they own Abramoff and it's hurting them badly. They'll do anything to implicate the Democrats -- and the GOP can always count on the Washington Times. Well, real reporters actually followed up and turns out the Moonie paper was wrong:

The Justice Department is not focusing on Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as part of an investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a source close to the probe said Wednesday in challenging a published report.

The source, who requested anonymity, said the Justice Department is leading the investigation, which includes other agencies.

"But the Justice Department does not have a list of lawmakers who are being investigated," the source said.

The Washington Times reported Wednesday that Reid is on a "first tier" of five lawmakers who are the focus of a Justice Department probe of Abramoff.

Democrats and progressives can never give the Washington Times credibility. That paper was never designed to be a real media enterprise. It's a GOP propoganda entity. And, for crying out loud, it's owned by one of the world's most notorious cult leaders -- who is a convicted criminal in the U.S. to boot. The rest of the traditional media all pretend the Washington Times is one of them. They should know better, but they don't. Read More......

Bush appoints Maryland GOP nutjob with zero experience to State Dept job overseeing emergency management and refugee settlement

Ellie, you're doing a heck of a job. Read More......

Knight-Ridder says they actually report facts

What a concept. And what a sad state of affairs for the media. Knight-Ridder was savagely attacked for reporting on Alito's conservative history. But, this time, they fought back.

Scott at MyDD has the background and an analysis. Here's what K-R had to say:

Fact-based reporting is the lifeblood of a democracy. It gives people shared information on which to make political choices. But as people in new democracies risk their lives to gather such information, in this country fact-based reporting is under more relentless assault than at any time in my more than 40 years in Washington.

Facts and the truth are not part of the GOP agenda...as we've seen repeatedly from Bush. The Alito hearings are a prime example, too.

Would be great if some of the other traditional media understood their role in society...and that it's not to cower before the GOPers and just regurgitate their spin. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Last day to question Alito. Do people in America understand rights are at stake....or do they have to lose them before it matters? Read More......

Wash Post: Alito leaves door open to overturning Roe v. Wade

If you're a man who ever plans on having sex with a woman, or a woman who ever plans on having sex with a man, read this article.

Alito edged closer to suggesting that he might be willing to reconsider Roe if he is confirmed to the high court, refusing, under persistent questioning by Democrats, to say that he regards the 1973 decision as "settled law" that "can't be reexamined." In this way, his answers departed notably from those that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gave when asked similar questions during his confirmation hearings four months ago....

During Roberts's confirmation hearings, he, too, was reluctant to disclose how he would vote if asked to overturn Roe . But during the 2003 hearing on his nomination to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he had said he viewed the ruling as settled law.

And during Roberts's hearings to become the nation's chief justice, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had asked, "Do you mean settled for you, settled only for your capacity as a circuit judge or settled beyond that?" Roberts replied: "Well, beyond that, it's settled as a precedent of the court."

After his exchange with Alito yesterday, Durbin told reporters: "Sam Alito would not use those same words. It really, I'm afraid, leaves open the possibility that we are considering the nomination of a justice who will change 30 years of law in this country, a dramatic change to the American society."

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Israel breaks contact with Robertson

The Israeli Toursim Minister had been negotiating a special lease with American Christian organizations, led by Robertson, for land to be developed near many historical sites in Israel. After Roberston's latest outrageous attack, this time on Sharon, Israel has decided to "stop all contact" with Robertson or anyone who supports Robertson's statements. Good for them. Read More......

Americans overwhelmingly think Iraq will fail

And it's not even close. Bush dragged the country into a mess that he can't live up to, only finding cheap excuses and blaming everyone else for his own failure. C'mon, Bush and his friends sold Iraq as a walk in the park and a quick hit/success and we'd all be bathing in oil. Why do Americans hate America?

Fewer than one in five, or about 19 percent, of the 1,003 adults quizzed Friday through Sunday, said they believe Iraqis can assemble a sound, democratic government in the next 12 months that is able to maintain order without the assistance of U.S. troops. Seventy-five percent said they didn't believe that would happen.

And for those looking for a pie-in-the-sky, never-never-land question:

Removing the deadline seemed to improve respondents' confidence, as 46 percent of those polled said the country would one day be able to produce a stable government. Another 46 percent said Iraq would never be capable of such a feat without U.S. assistance, and 7 percent said they had no opinion.

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So it was actually GOP Senator Lindsey Graham who made Mrs. Alito cry

I'm sure FOX News and Drudge will be coming out with their corrections shortly. Amazing. Read More......

UK general thinks Blair ought to be impeached for war

Retired general Sir Michael Rose did not appreciate the lies that were the basis for war. Imagine that.

General Sir Michael Rose, who led United Nations forces in Bosnia, said the Prime Minister should not be allowed to "walk away" from misleading Parliament.

"And then to go to war on what turns out to be false grounds is something no one should be allowed to walk away from. The politicians should be held to account, and my own view is that Blair should be impeached. That would prevent politicians treating quite so carelessly the subject of taking a country to war."

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