Friday, May 05, 2006

Wash Post: Goss was "forced out" for being incompetent


UPDATE: More on Hayden's creepy views on the Constitution.

From the Washington Post.

I'm sorry, but Porter Goss was the guy who once admitted that he wasn't even qualified to be an analyst at the CIA, let alone run the place. But George Bush pulled a Harriet Miers and appointed Goss anyway, even though he wasn't qualified.

Now Goss is being forced out for being incompetent. During wartime, no less.

But don't even forget why this incompetent man was put in charge of the CIA during wartime. The Great Decider put him there. This is what happens when an incompetent joke of a president sits in the Oval Office. He puts our entire nation at risk. Read More......

Bush's new CIA chief will likely be man at center of NSA domestic spying scandal


General Michael Hayden.

You may remember him as the man who gave the following explanation for why the Bush administration illegally spied on American citizens without seeking the necessary court orders.
Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was NSA director when the surveillance began and now serves as Bush's deputy director of national intelligence, said the secret- court process was intended for long-term surveillance of agents of an enemy power, not the current hunt for elusive terrorist cells.

"The whole key here is agility," he said at a White House briefing before Bush's news conference. According to Hayden, most warrantless surveillance conducted under Bush's authorization lasts just days or weeks, and requires only the approval of a shift supervisor. Hayden said getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it "involves marshaling arguments" and "looping paperwork around."
Yes, obeying the US Constitution and the rule of law would involve actually having to prove that the search is justified and "paperwork." So the general chose to ignore the cumbersom paperwork and violate the United States Constitution instead.

Now the law-breaker is going to be CIA chief.

Wonder if the Democrats will use this nomination as a chance to talk about Hayden's less-than-satisfactory answers regarding the NSA scandal, and the fact that we're putting a man who illegally used America's intelligence resources to spy on American citizens in charge of, what? America's intelligence resources. Read More......

Friday Orchid Blogging


Click the photo to see the large panoramic shot.



A visit to Hausermann's greenhouse in suburban Chicago. This is the main entry way to Hausermann's, one of the largest orchid greenhouses in the country. If you like plants at all, you can get a sense of why it's fun to visit these places. This is only the entry way. There are around 10 greenhouses full of plants.

Anyway, I was playing with my panoramic settings on Photoshop - this is probably around ten photos stitched together. Everything from slipper orchids on the left, to oncidiums (the yellow ones), to cattleyas in back, to phalaenopsis on the right. And more.

Enjoy. Read More......

Cliff's Corner


The Week That Was 5/5/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

I’ve been having a hard time figuring out which was funnier, watching Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend or observing the Washington glitterati and RightWingosphere line up to defend our poor aggrieved president ever since.

Serially wrong Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen (Iraq War good, investigating the Plame leak bad) and Richard Perle’s most neoconservative bowel movement, David Frum — our very own Jake and the Fatman investigating true comedy so the rest of us can just take their word for it — have said Colbert “bombed” and was “rude.” For Cohen this was right after he told us in his own column how “funny” he is, because apparently delirium is the new Lenny Bruce. As for Frum, I’m not sure how he was able to even proffer his opinion on Colbert’s comedy without reminding us for the 4,736th time that he coined the phrase axis of evil.

Which is somewhat more celebrated than his other lyrical contribution: Ten Ways Not to Get Laid Until You Can Drive a Rental.

But they weren’t the only ones angry. The Decider sat on the dais with steam coming out of his ears, as he was mocked for some of the greatest war planning by a colonizing power since Dien Bien Phu, poll numbers requiring Levitra-CPR and his personal adaptation of Chuck Norris, Texas Ranger machismo. Yet, while we may know the brush-clearing cowboy act to be performance art, don’t let it ever be said that George W. Bush hasn’t put his life in danger. He was, after all, arrested for being piss drunk behind the wheel of an automobile. If only Colbert had mentioned that one Karen Hughes might have leapt up on the stage and gnawed off chunks of his soft tissue (purely for retribution, not because it was feeding time of course).

Much of the rest of the crowd could only gasp at jokes that were funny to any sentient being located outside the radius of the Reagan family’s favorite Hilton. I wonder why that is? Could it be that much like the once lauded Bob Woodward, most of those “reporters” in the audience see their wealth and status as a formula to be divided by the number of inches that separate their noses from the debased buttocks of Washington power? Or was it possibly because a majority of attendees knew that they just may have to endure a crooked-Cheney-frown while nibbling on broiled scallops and bacon at the next cocktail party at Ted Olson’s place.

In any case it’s a sad spectacle, like a CIA Director suddenly resigning when the words Watergate and prostitute find their way into a sentence together or Barry Bonds’ head becomes so steroidally distended that David Blaine plans to spend a week inside it for his next trick.

Speaking of Mr. Blaine’s bubble, maybe next time Mr. Bush is in a situation where he might actually encounter criticism, he can climb inside… although it’s pretty tough to imagine, ya know, Bush in a bubble, ignoring all reality surrounding him in the physical world. Read More......

Open Thread


So, speculation grows over why Porter Goss quit...what a coincidence a new GOP hooker scandal is brewing just when that other infamous GOP hooker, Jeff Gannon, rears his ugly head again. Read More......

5 more U.S. soldiers die in Iraq


2414 soldiers have been killed in Iraq....Is this the progress that the Bush administration is always touting?:
A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers south of Baghdad on Friday morning, U.S. military authorities said in a statement.

The soldiers were on a mission in Babil province when their vehicle was struck at 11:45 a.m., the military said. The military would not identify the soldiers until their next of kin could be notified.

The bomb struck a U.S. military convoy north of the city of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, destroying one of the vehicles and setting it on fire, Capt. Muthanna Ahmad, of the Babil police force, said in an interview.

Two other U.S. soldiers died Thursday when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, military authorities said.
Read More......

Iraq police allegedly kill 14 year old boy for being gay


And who says Iraq isn't turning into the country the neo-cons envisioned. Read More......

CIA head Porter Goss resigns


Hmmm... this is just odd.

It's certainly intriguing that "real" cabinet secretaries are now getting the boot, and Porter Goss was a buffoon who turned the CIA into a political arm of the Bush administration rather than an objective intelligence gather and assessing agency.

Still, the people who need to resign in this administration are Cheney and Rumsfeld (and Bush). Joe and I think Goss may be tied up in Watergate-Hookergate. Remember he's a former House member. That could be the problem here, because Bush wouldn't fire him for anything he actually did wrong on policy issues - Goss would get a medal for that.

Very interesting. Anyway, we're off to catch the train back to DC. Sigh. Read More......

Why is the media protecting Rumsfeld?


Bush and Rumsfeld have lied to the media over and over. Yet, the media continue to treat with him with an undue amount of veneration. We saw that last weekend following the Colbert routine. And we saw it again yesterday with Rumsfeld.

AP's article about the meeting in Atlanta yesterday referred to the people who challenged Rumsfeld as "unusually hostile."

Think Progress has a post on Paula Zahn's interview last night with Ray McGovern where she defended Rumsfeld.

The American people are way ahead of the media when it comes to the lies and deceit of the Bush Administration. Yet, the press still treats Bush and his team with kid gloves. Read More......

Open thread


Story problem of the day.

If a 36 year old man-whore is worth $200/hour and $1200/weekend, what would he be worth as a 48 year old lying plagiarizing homophobe? Read More......

Bush to sell off federal land


It's always OK to cut funds from the poor and then have sales like this but heaven forbid this administration gets serious about finances or thinks twice about delivering tax cuts that primarily only benefit the wealthiest Americans. We're a big country, so how about thinking about everyone and not just special interests?
The land is on a list of about 300,000 acres of national forest the Bush administration has proposed selling to help fund the operation of rural schools and offset cuts in federal aid.

Forest Service officials said yesterday that they do not expect to sell more than about 175,000 acres in order to reach their goal of raising $800 million. But auctioning any of the land would reverse more than a century of federal policy and law barring such sales of national forests.

Bamford and other critics contend that selling the public lands would not only be a betrayal but could set a dangerous precedent of liquidating federal property to fund other struggling programs, such as Medicare, as the government wrestles with an outsized budget deficit.
Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread


Almost the weekend. Read More......

33 for Bush from AP-Ipsos (yes, another new low in that poll)


A 3-point drop for Bush over the past month in the latest AP-Ipsos poll - he's doing a better than Congresss, but not by much:
• Just 33 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, the lowest of his presidency. That compares with 36 percent approval in early April. Forty-five percent of self-described conservatives now disapprove of the president.

• Just one-fourth of the public approves of the job Congress is doing, a new low in AP-Ipsos polling and down 5 percentage points since last month. A whopping 65 percent of conservatives disapprove of Congress.

• A majority of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress (51 percent to 34 percent). That's the largest gap recorded by AP-Ipsos since Bush took office. Even 31 percent of conservatives want Republicans out of power.
Read More......

Blair's Labour Party loses badly in local elections


Sounds like the Brits have had enough of Blair and even his own party is stepping up demands that he move aside or else drag the party into ruin. The local elections yesterday were not very kind to Labour and the Conservatives bounced out numerous Labour candidates.
Tony Blair is to reshuffle his Cabinet today after Labour suffered a drubbing in local council elections - losing nearly 240 councillors across England as well as control of 18 town halls.

It was Labour's worst electoral bloodbath since the Prime Minister came to power. Meanwhile jubilant Conservatives were claiming that they were set to break through the 40-per-cent level in overall share of the vote and gain well over 200 seats.
Read More......

Haley Barbour denies pardon for black man


I guess with him being so caught up in the illegal phone jamming scandal he just doesn't have enough time to figure out that the man was innocent. Haley is a real credit to the new south, isn't he? What a guy.
Clyde Kennard was convicted of purchasing $25 worth of chicken feed he knew to be stolen in 1960 and sentenced to seven years in prison, but the only witness against him has recanted his testimony. Kennard died in 1963, after being released early because he had intestinal cancer.

Barbour agrees Kennard was wronged but says he won't grant a pardon, despite calls for him to clear the man's name.

Barry Bradford Â? whose students at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., have pored over thousands of documents in the case in hopes of clearing Kennard's name Â? said Barbour may become the first governor in U.S. history to refuse to pardon a man he has publicly proclaimed as innocent.
Read More......

Uh, what happened on Prime Time Live tonight?


They showed me saying something? How? I didn't interview with them. I did do an interview with ABC News World News Tonight about Mary Cheney like two years ago that they never ran. I wonder if that's what the footage was from. How odd. Read More......

Open thread


I'm hoping Joe will note the time of this thread and not wake me up at my hotel before 10am. Let's see if he gets the hint :-) Read More......