Open thread

Mu-ggy in DC. Read More......

General Tommy Franks lies on Hardball to protect Rumsfeld

Tommy Franks, in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack, page 281, commenting on Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy:

"I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day."

Tommy Franks tonight on MSNBC's "Hardball" TV show:

"I would put Doug Feith in a category as a brilliant man."

Then again, in all fairness to Franks, maybe he didn't lie tonight on Hardball. Maybe he lied to Woodward. Either way, so much for that man's character. Read More......

Cliff''s Corner

The Week That Was 4/14/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Well if it’s an election cycle, it’s time to play bombardier for the little prince. Certainly if we’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that when faced with an election where the powers-that-aren’t will have to present a record of domestic achievement rivaling Andrew Johnson and a foreign policy that looks like it spent a night with Robert Blake — it’s time to talk about imminent attack again!

Did you know that Iran just had some inner tubes imported and we’re not sure they’re using all of them for bicycle tires? How about the fact that perhaps the only one of the 207 #3s in the Al Qaeda chain of command we have yet to capture/kill once spent a night in the Iranian city of Bam. Try pronouncing that and telling me there isn’t a full blown Al Qaeda/Iran coordinated plan to destroy us immediately? And equal to these in reality, they might have a nuke in 16 days.

I know that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, as did bin Laden, whose family had intimate connections with the House of Saud, and they are Wahabbists who supported the Taliban, and there is credible information they are trying to go nuclear too. But their leaders like to hold hands with President Bush while making the family oil money and French kissing his jowls. So they’re obviously okey-dokey.

Except when that jealous Ken Mehlman is watching (and not taking phone calls from felons to coordinate phone jamming… I mean discuss the balmy weather in Manchester, New Hampshire).

I know what you’re thinking. It may be that the best intelligence estimates of US INTELLIGENCE say Iran won’t become a nuclear power for TEN YEARS. And it seems suspicious that we are talking about this during an election year again, when there must have been the same threat last year. But what if the Iranians decide in the meantime to open a new front in the War on Easter? Can we really take that chance?

Seriously, this would be pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous. Karl Rove, who is most likely orchestrating much of this, is in President George Herbert Walker Bush’s words “the most insidious of traitors.” He likes to out CIA agents and damage U.S. intelligence for kicks, when not busy washing dollar signs off his giant sebum-stained forehead. Dick Cheney, whose approval ratings and personality resemble that of a rabid gutter rat, is in on the con too. Because hey, even though Iran is just another country he happily did business with while at Haliburton, now they’re just unconscionable. And how else will he prove his manhood to Sean Hannity so that he might land more interviews where salt-of-the-Earth-Sean can continue to lick-shine his taint?

And then there’s boy wonder, who you really want to see running another war after the bang up job he did providing freedom and opportunity—to the poppy plant—in Afghanistan, turning Iraq into the Neocon Bahamas and pretty much fucking up everything else he has touched. He is like the anti-Midas, Leonid Brezhnev and that chick in The Ring movies all rolled into one.

I like how Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks put it in a blog. “Bush is the amalgamation of all the hideous and sad parts of the Republican Party. He is a Republican Frankenstein. He has the temperament of Barry Goldwater, the integrity of Richard Nixon, and the brains of Dan Quayle.” I would add the faux bravado of Arnold Schwarzenegger, compassion of Tom Tancredo and phallus of Lynn Cheney, but his list makes the point.

Which is that a threat that’s a decade off, like Iran, need not be handled by a man who thought Harriet Myers should sit on the Supreme Court. An efficient right-wing machine run by a corporate-owned Neocon elite and a catastrophe on our soil, has given us a man in the White House for two terms who should never have been allowed to sell bobble-head dolls in Lafayette Park.

Yes, Iran must be dealt with. In the future, by a competent, honest and learned president, who will know better than to take his marching orders from a group of self-appointed war czars who have only seen the battlefield on closed circuit TV and during late night Dungeons & Dragons sessions at sleepover camp. Let’s all stand up to the lies this time. The price will be infinitely higher if we don’t. Read More......

Cynthia McKinney's father alleged to have offered gays quid pro quo - McKinney will support pro-gay legislation if gay leaders endorse her re-election

I don't know the ethics rules very well, but I do know that there is a massive firewall between the legislative work of a congressional office and the election campaign. It just strikes me as odd, to say the least, that a member of Congress would (could) openly horse trade support for legislation in exchange for support in their re-election.

One could argue that you're buying votes, and selling legislation.

Either way, it just sounds creepy. Read More......

Cheney is getting a $2 million tax refund this year

It's good to be king. Read More......

Rumsfeld is in charge of figuring out the war plan for Iran - think about that for a moment

1. The Bush administration admitted this week, after it was revealed by the New Yorker, that they are preparing war plans to invade Iran.

2. Six high-ranking former US generals have come out and called on Rumsfeld to resign. Why? Because Rumsfeld didn't listen to the uniformed military leadership when it came to planning and executing the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld insisted on fighting the war HIS way. And we all know where that got us.

3. Rumsfeld is still the Secretary of Defense. That means Rumsfeld, and not the uniformed military, is the one calling the shots on the war plan for Iran.

4. So that means the same guy who designed the disastrous war plan in Iraq is in charge of designing the entire plan for Bush's next war, Iran.

Does anyone really believe the outcome in Iran is going to be any different than the total debacle in Iraq?

Different circus, same clowns.

And by the way, anyone else feel a draft? Read More......

Chicago Tribune declares Iraq a "civil war"

And this is the rather conservative Chicago Tribune.

It's over.

Next quagmire, Iran. Read More......

Cheney ok'd leak of more classified intel. to get Wilson

Via the excellent investigative reporting of Murray Waas (yes, I am a true MW junkie), we learn of yet another leak of a "then-highly classified CIA report" to the media authorized by the Veep. Cheney was clearly obsessed with Wilson:

But the disclosure that Cheney instructed Libby to leak portions of a classified CIA report on Joseph Wilson adds to a growing body of information showing that at the time Plame was outed as a covert CIA officer the vice president was deeply involved in the White House effort to undermine her husband.

Cheney was undermining national security to attack Joe Wilson for purely political reasons. All the Bush team's talk about national security is just talk. Their actions repeatedly made us less safe. (HT Think Progress) Read More......

The failed President supports the failed Secretary of Defense

Bush thinks Rumsfeld is doing a great job. To make sure everyone knows that, the Prez had to issue a statement today from his vacation at Camp David. Now, very few people in America share that view -- including military leaders. Of course, when it comes right down to it, Rummy's failures are really Bush's failures:

President Bush, brushing aside an intensifying clamor among retired military commanders for Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation, said Friday his defense secretary enjoys his full support and that Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon was "exactly what is needed at this critical period."

Bush apparently issued his statement to put to rest increasing calls for the secretary to go because of criticism that he has mishandled the Iraq war and made other mistakes.

If Rummy is "exactly what is needed" we're in bigger trouble than we all realize. What's really scary is that these are the people who want to lead us to another war. Read More......

Open thread

It seemed time to remind folks... Read More......

Check out just WHO the generals are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation - they're HUGE

(Source: NYT)

Among the six generals calling for Rumsfeld to resign:

• a former Secretary of the Army under Bush;
• former head of CENTCOM;
• the general who led our ground troops in Iraq; and
• general offered the #2 military job in Iraq.

These guys are HUGE. I really didn't realize exactly who they were until I re-read the articles.

In any other government, once a leader loses the confidence of so many high-powered fellow leaders, he'd be forced to step down - hell, his own sense of duty would tell him to step down. But not in the Bush administration. Arrogance and rewarding incompetence are virtues in George Bush's world. Never admit a mistake and keep watching the troops die because of your incompetence.

Tell me again how the Republicans are so pro-military?

1. General offered the #2 military job in Iraq.

Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division forces in Iraq, said he declined an opportunity to get a promotion to the rank of lieutenant general and return to the wartorn country as the No. 2 U.S. military officer because he could not accept Rumsfeld's tough management style.

2. General who led the troops on the ground in Iraq

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who led troops on the ground in Iraq as recently as 2004 as the commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division

3. General who headed CENTCOM

Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who headed the United States Central Command in the late 1990's

4. Former Secretary of the Army under Bush

"Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of the views of senior military officers since the day he walked in as secretary of defense. It's about time they got sick and tired," Thomas E. White, the former Army secretary, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. Mr. White was forced out of his job by Mr. Rumsfeld in April of 2003.

Read More......

That whole speech campaign about Iraq by Bush got him no where

Basically, Americans know the Prez is a liar. He can give speech after speech after speech, but nobody trusts him:

Like a man on a treadmill, President Bush has gotten almost nowhere making speeches over the past seven months to boost public support for the war in Iraq.

Since Bush began a round of Iraq speeches last fall, approval for his handling of Iraq has remained stuck, with about a third of the nation approving what he's doing.

Shortly before the speeches began in late September, 32% of Americans approved of Bush's handling of Iraq, according to a Sept. 16-18 USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.

The rating inched up as high as 39% in the ensuing months, but the latest poll, taken April 7-9, showed that approval had dropped back to 32%.

The war is a failure. Instead of trying to fix Iraq, Bush launched a public relations campaign. No surprise, that failed, too.

Yet, this is the President who is gearing up to start another war. George Bush is the wrong man to deal with Iran. He's too dangerous and incompetent. Dangerously incompetent even. Read More......

Make Kenny come clean

The Chairman of the GOP -- who also ran Bush's re-election campaign -- is in the middle of a major scandal. If we know one thing about the Bush team, we know they don't tell the truth. So make Ken testify under oath:

Ken Mehlman, former director of the White House political office and current chairman of the Republican National Committee is fighting Democratic efforts to force him to testify under oath in a civil suit about the New Hampshire scandal. Mehlman said the calls from James Tobin -- a consultant who in 2002 led the RNC's New England effort -- were for the White House to get the latest information about a close race, which would be unexceptional on election night. He said none of the calls to him or his staff involved the phone-jamming operation.

While under no legal obligation to do so, the RNC has paid more than $2.5 million in legal fees incurred by Tobin, who in 2004 was the New England director for the Bush-Cheney campaign.

So Mehlman was on the phone that day with a guy who was breaking the law. How coincidental. If Mehlman has nothing to hide, he would just testify under oath, wouldn't he? Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Here we go again. Crank it up. Read More......

"Cash for honours" arrest linked to 10 Downing Street

Can you believe that financial donations would possibly be connected to cushy jobs in the House of Lords? Shocking. Absolutely shocking. I'm crushed that good ol' Tony is being dragged through the mud with this latest scandal.

The furore surrounds allegations that Labour and the main opposition Conservative Party promised wealthy individuals nominations to the unelected House of Lords in return for loans.

The police inquiry was opened last month in response to a complaint by Scottish nationalist MPs that Labour had broken the law, which forbids the sale of honours such as peerages and knighthoods.

Labour has acknowledged taking a total of 13.95 million pounds (20.1 million euros, 24.4 million dollars) in loans last year from a dozen wealthy supporters, four of whom were subsequently put forward as potential members of the Lords.

The main opposition Conservatives have named 13 supporters who lent the party nearly 16 million pounds.

Read More......

UK windsurfer off course by 140 miles

The guy is lucky he is still alive. Between the cold waters and the shipping channels, this guy was really at risk.

After consulting a couple on the beach Mr Cowles, 24, realised that he had taken a wrong turn and having set out in Swansea Bay was now in Devon - 140 miles away from home.

His unplanned journey began when he sailed too far out into the Bristol Channel. When he spotted cargo shipping he realised he was seriously off course but decided to head on over to Devon. Locals at Woody Bay, near Lynton, north Devon, was bemused when he walked out of the sea and asked "where am I?".

Read More......

Cat trapped in walls of building in NYC

Such a heart-tugging story, but then I really had to laugh at this:

On Thursday, a self-described "cat therapist," Carole Wilbourne, knelt on the sidewalk next to the building's outer wall and tried to coax Molly out with what she hoped were soothing words.

"I hear you, sweetheart," she cooed. "Come on, Molly, you can do it...everybody wants you to come out... nobody's going to hurt you."

After a few minutes, one of Pastore's aides, wearing a surgical mask, emerged from the dusty cellar and asked Wilbourne to stop. "I think you're stressing her out," she said.

Wilbourne complied, saying that she had been trying to "give inspiration" to the wayward cat. "I care," she told reporters. "I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't."

Read More......