Just a look at traffic over the last year

I remember when getting 8,000 visitors a day was cool. We're now averaging 85,000 visitors a day, though today we had over 100,000. And to think we owe it all to JimmyJeff... :-) Read the rest of this post...

PlameGate has taken a toll on the White House

I really hate when bad people suffer. From Friday's Wash Post:

Several Republicans close to Bush said they believe the CIA leak investigation has taken a particular toll, reducing Rove's role in key decisions and prompting Bush to rely on other, less sure-footed advisers. One well-connected outside adviser cited the Miers pick as an example. He said even if Rove considered the selection a risk or mistake, he knew he was in no position to press Bush on it.

"My sense is Karl knows he has spent a lot of political capital with the president on this CIA leak case," the adviser said. "No matter how close Karl is to the president, there is a limit of how much capital you can spend even with a close, close friend."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan denied that Rove had little input in the Miers nomination. "I don't think that's an accurate reflection at all," he said. Asked if Rove's involvement in White House issues had shifted, McClellan said: "No. He continues to perform his duties."

Two Republicans close to the White House said officials are nervous that Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the two most powerful staffers in the federal government, could be indicted by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald within two weeks. While the idea struck many on the Bush team as unfathomable a few months ago, now the common assumption is that both men could be in trouble.

Read the rest of this post...

Is Harriet Miers' nomination unconstitutional?

I know several of the other blogs have already noted that Bush's statements about why picked Miers seem to violate Article VI of the US Constitution. But what I didn't think of until right now is this: Is it possible to challenge in court the president's nomination of Miers as being unconstitutional for violating Article VI?

Here's what got me thinking of this. A truly hilarious/biting commentary about the nomination (read it):

Article VI of the Constitution states that “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” As the New York Sun pointed out recently, it is the single most absolutist and emphatic sentence in the entire Constitution. For those who would say that just because President Bush considered Miers’ religion in nominating her, that doesn’t necessarily mean he was imposing any kind of “religious test,” I would implore you to think of it this way: if part of the reason the President nominated Miers was her religion, then that necessitates the fact that part of the reason other prospects were not nominated was because they did not have the same “quality” of religion that Harriet Miers did. Thus, they were subjected to a religious test by the President in considering them for an appointment to the Supreme Court. This is grossly unconstitutional, and if it is allowed to stand, it will be a tacit admission that the “Religious Test” clause has become outdated and inoperable, and we will be one major step closer to theocracy.

He's right. This really is troubling. The Republicans, who claim to be such lovers of the constitution, are actually the folks most trying to trash that document and our entire democracy. But isn't that just like the new breed of Republicans running the party, do as they say not as they do. Read the rest of this post...

Thanks guys

I had posted earlier today about being contacted by the father of a Georgetown Law student murdered in 1987. The father was planning a memorial for his son at Princeton (they're dedicating a Lautrec piece to the school in his name) and he was trying to find a young woman who was friends with his son, so he could invite her to the memorial. Thanks to one of you, we found her - I just spoke with her on the phone, and she was very touched. She told me that they weren't just friends, they were dating for about a year when he was killed. All the more reason I'm glad we were able to put her in touch with the father. You guys came through, thank you. JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Anarchy and on the verge of civil war or workin' hard towards democracy?

It's a trust issue and who are you going to believe? A respected journalist who has covered Iraq and the Middle East for years or an administration that finds it necessary to script every last detail no matter what we see with our own eyes?

Most of Iraq is in a state of anarchy, with insurgents controlling parts of Baghdad just half a mile from the so-called Green Zone, an Independent debate was told last night.

"The Americans must leave Iraq and they will leave Iraq, but they can't leave Iraq and that is the equation that turns sand to blood. At some point, they will have to talk to the insurgents.

"But I don't know how, because those people who might be negotiators the United Nations, the Red Cross their headquarters have been blown up. The reality now in Iraq is the project is finished. Most of Iraq, except Kurdistan, is in a state of anarchy."

"Every time I go to Baghdad it's worse, every time I ask myself how we can keep going. Because the real question is: is the story worth the risk?"

He attacked television reporters for flinching from depicting the everyday bloodshed on the streets of Iraq. "You can go and see Saving Private Ryan or Kingdom of Heaven, people have their heads cut off. When it come to real heads being cut off, you can't. I think television connives with governments at war."

Read the rest of this post...

Did Bush administration forge "Al Qaeda letter"?

I meant to write about this, but only mentioned it in the comments to a post on this blog. I had a funny feeling from the beginning that this supposed letter from Al Qaeda, saying that they hoped the US would "cut and run" from Iraq, was a CIA fake.

Now I love the CIA. Seriously. But this smacks of something they - or more aptly, the Bush DOD folks - would create out of thin air, a forgery. And now, surprise surprise, questions are being raised.

More here. Read the rest of this post...

Another open thread, and another request

Anybody know how Target internal emails are set up - is the format name.name@target.com or namename@target.com or what?

Yes, they're being evil. More to come. Read the rest of this post...

Religious right calls on US government to regulate the ACLU

The religious right wants Congress to pass laws curtailing the activities of specific civil rights groups like the ACLU.

Time to state the obvious: The religious right is filled with Nazis. You don't like the term "Nazi?" Well too bad. One good thing I got out of the Holocaust Museum this past weekend was an amazing lesson in how quickly Hitler consolidated power his first six months in office by banning the opposition and slowly (or quickly) whittling away at the rights of Germany's citizens in an effort to create a murderous totalitarian regime.

Book burning is Nazi. Demonizing minorities is Nazi. Using the organs of the state to attack civil rights organizations is Nazi. Having the state regulate the intimate relations of its citizens is Nazi. You don't like the comparison? Too bad. Some of us have learned the lessons of history and don't plan on repeating them again. Others are so blinded by history that they refuse to dedicate themsleves to truly ensuring it never happens again.

You can't stop history from repeating itself if you think what happened in Germany is so unique and so diabolical that nothing in the future could ever merit comparison. That would mean the Nazis were an aberattion, a fluke, a one-time thing, and that no one would even need to learn the lessons of history since "obviously" those tragedies will never be repeated. It's a dangerous lesson to teach.

It's sad that many of the very groups dedicated to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive don't even understand the damage they're doing to its legacy by insisting that it could never happen again while asking us to ensure that it never does. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Q&A; with US soldiers this morning was fake

CNN just showed video of the "rehearsal" where the soldiers asked Bush the questions in advance so Bush could practice his responses. The White House initially said this was an unscripted event. And now they got caught lying, again, to the media and the public regarding the war.

Mission Accomplished. Read the rest of this post...

Ronnie Earle subpoenas Delay's home phone records!

Advantage Earle.

"CNN has confirmed that the Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, who has already indicted Tom Delay twice, has issued a subpoena for the home records, incoming and outgoing calls, to the home of the former majority leader Tom Delay."

Read the rest of this post...

Bush job approval at 2% in black community

Jesus Christ.

In what may turn out to be one of the biggest free-falls in the history of presidential polling, President Bush's job-approval rating among African Americans has dropped to 2 percent, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

The drop among blacks drove Bush's overall job approval ratings to an all-time low of 39 percent in this poll. By comparison, 45 percent of whites and 36 percent of Hispanics approve of the job Bush is doing.

A few months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found Bush's approval rating among blacks at 51 percent. As recently as six months ago, it was at 19 percent.

Read the rest of this post...

How do you tell if Scott McClellan is lying?

The cameras are rolling. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney reportedly opposed Harriet

They're melting, melting - what a world, what a world...

Veteran conservative columnist and pundit John Fund asserts in the Wall Street Journal today that the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to block the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, RAW STORY has learned.

"A last minute effort was made to block the choice of Ms. Miers, including the offices of Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales," Fund claims. "It fell on deaf ears."

"Indeed, even internal advice was shunned," Fund adds. White House Chief of Staff Andrew "Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."

Read the rest of this post...

The boy who cried wolf - terror alerts and political coincidence

Looking at this list of "high alert, we're all going to die" from the past few years it's pretty clear that the Bush administration has consistently manipulated the American public and played the fear card for their own political purposes. After such extensive history of abusing the public trust, who's going to believe them when there actually is a serious problem? (Thanks Tracy for the link.) Read the rest of this post...

Best obit ever

From the Chicago Trib, a few days ago:



And a vet, no less. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread, and a personal request

UPDATE: One of you found her and emailed me. I just spoke with her by phone and she is in fact the same person, and was very glad to know Mr. Stransky was trying to get in touch with her. Thanks all, that was very nice.
---------------

I just got a really touching email from the father of a Georgetown Law student, Jan Stransky, who was murdered in 1987 (I went to Gtown law with him - I knew him, but not well).

The family is holding a ceremony at the Princeton University Museum to honor Jan and to formally receive a Toulouse Lautrec lithograph which was left to the Princeton Museum by Jan's maternal grandmother, Jane Koven when she died earlier this year.

They're trying to locate Linda Reily (her maiden name, no idea if she's married now), a good friend and classmate of Jan's, to invite her to the event. I just figured I'd use the blog to get the word out if by chance anyone knows any Lindas who went to Gtown law in the late 1980s. If you do, see if this is the same Linda, and if it is, have her email me.

Thanks guys, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Group close to Jerry Falwell is OPPOSING Harriet Miers' nomination

As Tinky Winky would say...

From NewsAdvance.com

Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal advocacy group with close ties to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, announced Tuesday that it is opposing Harriet Miers’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court....

"...selecting a nominee who has held her views in silence for 60 years sends a wrong message to conservatives - if you want to be appointed to the federal bench, you should keep your views to yourself. That’s a terrible message to send to our future leaders.”

Yes, but it's the message Bush is sending, and frankly most of the religious right is sending. They know Americans (including most Republicans) can't stand them, that America doesn't support their extremist views (like butting themselves into the Terri Schiavo debate), and as a result the religious right and its political cronies in the GOP are simply terrified to publicly say what they really want - a Supreme Court justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade. They won't say it. And Bush won't say it. Why? Because they don't even have the courage of their own convictions. And that's because they know they don't represent real Americans.

Deny me three times... Read the rest of this post...

RIP, Richard Cohen

No he's not dead, just his credibility.

I used to love this guy. He was one of the best op ed writers in the country. Now, I don't know what he is. His op ed in Thursday's Washington Post about how Patrick Fitzgerald should just quit and go home... What, did karl Rove kidnap Cohen's cat?

To wit:

This is rarely considered a crime. In the Plame case, it might technically be one, but it was not the intent of anyone to out a CIA agent and have her assassinated (which happened once) but to assassinate the character of her husband. This is an entirely different thing. She got hit by a ricochet.

Ok, that's just stupid. No one would write such a thing unless they truly had no idea what it means to work with classified information or the intelligence community or in the entire field of foreign affairs. ANYONE who has dealt with highly classified information and CIA agents, and I have from my time on the Hill and during a summer job at State, is acutely aware that outing the identity of an undercover CIA agent - let alone one who works on weapons of mass destruction issues in the Middle East - is an extremely dangerous venture. I mean, it's hard to even explain what an obvious self-explanatory point this is.

To suggest that their intent wasn't to kill her is like suggesting that when your husbands shoots a gun at your head his intent was only to scare you because he was pissed off. Well, maybe it was. But he was also quite aware that the end result was going to be your death.

Then there's this little paragraph:

More is at stake here than bringing down Karl Rove or some other White House apparatchik, or even settling some score with Miller, who is sometimes accused of taking this nation to war in Iraq all by herself. The greater issue is control of information. If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up. This -- this creepy silence -- will be the consequence of dusting off rarely used statutes to still the tongues of leakers and intimidate the press in its pursuit of truth, fame and choice restaurant tables. Apres Miller comes moi.

Actually, what we learnged as a result of this war is that our media isn't worth a hill of beans. The Washington Post, YOUR NEWSPAPER MR. COHEN, suggested in an editorial that only partisan critics would allege that the Bush administration intentionally lied about the WMD in Iraq. Now that we know this to be true, and are on the verge of having proof of a criminal conspiracy to do the same, you suddenly aren't interested because we're supposed to trust YOU to get the job done for us. Uh huh. We trusted you for five years. Look where it got us.

Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again. Read the rest of this post...

Rove and Libby NEVER thought they'd get caught

From Murray Waas, appearing on Democracry Now:

...Apparently Lewis Libby and Karl Rove, during the course of the special prosecutor's investigation, they almost certainly never thought that either Judith Miller or Matthew Cooper or the journals would cooperate. It's been very rare that a prosecutor – a federal prosecutor has been [inaudible] to pressure journalists into testifying against their will. It's very rare that journalists have testified, and it's almost a historical thing now for Judith Miller to spend 85 days in jail. So, I think it was -- Libby was apparently in the hope that Miller wouldn’t testify, as Karl Rove was, that Matthew Cooper wouldn’t.

This is so true. Those lying traitors thought the press would protect them. And, they almost got away with it.

The MSM was complicit. They knew that the White House was lying. Every time Scottie denied anyone at the White House was involved, most of the White House press corps knew it wasn't true. They knew that Rove and Libby had talked about Plame. They knew that despite the White House denials. They knew that all through the 2004 campaign.

No wonder Rove and Libby thought they were getting away with it. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Tell us something good. Read the rest of this post...

Snow to talk to Chinese about currency reform and "market forces"

Oh, I'll bet the Chinese are all just shaking in their boots. Is Snow even allowed to order paper clips let along make any policy decisions without a hall pass from Dear Leader? Should China reform its currency policy? Sure, but who listens to Snow and who cares what Alan "the high oil prices won't impact the economy" Greenspan has to say? For Snow to also suggest he's going to talk about "market forces" is fraudulent. Since when does this administration give a damn about market forces? No-bid contracts, corporate welfare for the biggest of the Big Oil/Pharma/Tobacco and cutting minimum wages in a depressed area doesn't sound like a team that even knows what "market forces" means. If only we could hear just how hard the Chinese are laughing at the thought of these meetings. Read the rest of this post...

More FEMA problems, more FEMA excuses

Thousands of mobile homes sitting around while people live in tents and FEMA is naturally churning out excuses. At this point it wouldn't surprise me to hear DeLay tell us how the families actually find the camping experience cool and fun.

I'd still like to know what happened to the money spent at FEMA and Homeland Security. What the hell kind of planning have they actually done in the past few years? Perhaps Chertoff could fill us all in a bit. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

AMERICAblog, where open threads are still made the old-fashioned way, by hand. Night night. Read the rest of this post...

Frist subpoenaed

Atrios is going to need a case of champagne by the time this is over. From Thursday's Wash Post. Read the rest of this post...