Open thread

Any new scandals I missed while out ? Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Bush has to do Miers alone

It is reading articles like this -- similar paragraphs have appeared in papers all over the country this past week -- that makes life a little more fun:

The conservative uproar over Ms. Miers underscores how difficult it has been for Mr. Bush to pull his own party together as he faces a variety of problems on other fronts: his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina; a leak investigation involving his chief political adviser, Karl Rove; the indictment of Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, who was the House majority leader; and, most recently, the decision by a top Justice Department nominee to withdraw amid questions over his ties to a Republican lobbyist accused of fraud.

Only a week ago, Republicans were saying they looked forward to a new Supreme Court nominee because it would give them something to rally around, providing a welcome distraction from the Bush administration's problems. But the nomination of Ms. Miers only served to roil a party that is already divided over domestic matters like Social Security and how to pay to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Now, having alienated his conservative backers, Mr. Bush must go forward on the Miers nomination alone, without the help of many of the advocates who led the charge for the last nominee, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

And, I love the Bush solution - launch a p.r. offensive:

Behind the scenes, Republican allies of the White House said they were trying to put together a public relations strategy to combat the mounting criticism over the Miers nomination.

Every time, team Bush tries a public relations campaign, they get further behind. Think Iraq and Social Security.

Harriet, your guy really set you up. Read the rest of this post...

Leave-no-oilman-behind bill passed by GOP

Hooray! More corporate welfare for Big Oil! If we're all lucky, the middle class taxpayers will start seeing results in 5-10 years. That string of record breaking profits across the oil industry just weren't enough so now middle class taxpayers are going to fork over even more to the richest of the rich. Yippee! It's a good thing that the GOP is so independent and has such firm control of spending, unlike those pesky special interest freaks from the Democratic party who just spend, spend, spend and are out of touch with the American heartland. What a victory for freedom and democracy. What a great day for America. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Threading our way through the weekend here on AMERICAblog.... Read the rest of this post...

Uh, CNN - the Supreme Court already IS to the right

If I see one more TV station or newspaper refer to President Bush promising to "move the court to the right," I will explode. 7 of the 9 justices on the US Supreme Court are Republican appointees. That means 7 Republicans to 2 Democrats. Hello? That means greater than a 3 to 1 majority of Republicans. How in God's name in that a liberal or even moderate court.

CNN and other media shouldn't be saying that Bush promised to move the court to the right. They should be saying that Bush promised to move the court further to the right, or even better, move the Republican-dominated court further to the right. It's a nuance, but it matters. The way the media is describing the court makes it sound like it's the FEC or something, where conservatives and liberals have equal representation.

In fact, the conservatives are whining because controlling 78% of the Supreme Court isn't enough for them. And what's more, they're ticked that a Ronald Reagan judge isn't conservative enough. Hello again? In the minds of these "conservatives," Ronald Reagan is a liberal. And the nation is expected to just go along with their view that the last election was about Ronald Reagan not being conservative enough?

Bush won the election (I guess). He gets to nominate the judges, and he'll pick Republicans. I get that. But it's high time the media started explaining - and the Democrats started pushing - the fact that this court is a Republican-dominated court and any attempt to "move" it to the right is like trying to move Ronald Reagan to the right. It's not something that even most Republicans would be comfortable with. Read the rest of this post...

War-dead-for-porn Web site raided - but not for the war-dead photos, just for the porn

The guy running the porn site that let soldiers post their gruesome war dead photos has just been arrested. Why? Oh, no arrests or charges for the soldiers posting gruesome war dead trophy photos. No, that's okay. The guy running the site got arrested for the regular porn photos that are also on the site.

Ah, America. Where violations of international human rights laws (dare we say, war crimes?) get little more than a shrug from the Pentagon, but pictures of adults having consensual sex, that's a crime against humanity.

God help us all.

Polk County officials arrested a Lakeland man on obscenity charges Friday after investigating his graphic Web site, which has gained international attention for allowing U.S. soldiers to post pictures of war dead on the Internet.

The charges against Christopher Michael Wilson, a former police officer, are likely to reignite the debate about obscene material in the Internet age. It also raises questions about whether the federal government played a part in motivating the prosecution.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said late Friday that the 300 obscenity-related charges against Wilson all involve sexual content on his Web site -- and not graphic war-scene images posted by soldiers.

PS Don't worry, I still have a few bombshells left on the war-dead-for-porn story. I'm sitting tight until all the scandals blow over a bit, there's no point in putting it out there now, the media won't touch it. Wait for things to slow down, then I'll pounce. Read the rest of this post...

Bork Borks Harriet

Oh, those right wingers. They moaned and complained for years about the treatment Robert Bork got when he was nominated to the Supreme Court. The term "bork" was created as a result.

Well, well, well. Look who's doing the borking now:

Robert Bork - whose nomination to the high court was rejected by the Senate in 1987 - called the choice of Miers "a disaster on every level."

"It's a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you're on the court already," Bork said Friday on MSNBC's "The Situation with Tucker Carlson." "It's kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who've been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years."

Those wingers are really starting to eat their own. This is what happens when the enforcer, Karl Rove, is too distracted to keep everyone in line. Read the rest of this post...

House GOP Supports Torture

Those nine Senators who voted for torture have allies in the House GOP. The leadership in the House wants to remove the anti-torture provision from the Defense Appropriation Bill:

Leading House Republicans signaled Friday that they will try to weaken a Senate effort to limit interrogation techniques that U.S. service members can use on terrorism suspects.

Their remarks made clear that the language in the Senate-passed military spending bill faces uncertain prospects in bargaining between the Senate and House.

Hey, if they support torture, start with "high level" government officials who commit treason by leaking the name of undercover CIA operatives. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Wow, if Salon is right, maybe Gannon/Guckert and Rove can share a jail cell. They really deserve each other.

So much happening so fast.... Read the rest of this post...

Salon: PlameGate and JeffyJim GannonGuckert

Oh my. This really is getting fun.

Another intriguing possibility in the leaks case brings back the baroque personality of right-wing pressroom denizen Jeff Gannon, born James Guckert.

The New York Times reported Friday that in addition to possible charges directly involving the revelation of Valerie Wilson's identity and related perjury or conspiracy charges, Fitzgerald is exploring other possible crimes. Specifically, according to the Times, the special counsel is seeking to determine whether anyone transmitted classified material or information to persons who were not cleared to receive it -- which could be a felony under the 1917 Espionage Act.

One such classified item might be the still-classified State Department document, written by an official of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, concerning the CIA's decision to send former ambassador Joseph Wilson to look into allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Someone leaked that INR document -- which inaccurately indicated that Wilson's assignment was the result of lobbying within CIA by his wife, Valerie -- to right-wing media outlets, notably including Gannon's former employers at Talon News. On Oct. 28, 2003, Gannon posted an interview with Joseph Wilson on the Talon Web site, in which he posed the following question: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

Gannon later hinted, rather coyly, that he had learned about the INR memo from an article in the Wall Street Journal. He also told reporters last February that FBI agents working for Fitzgerald had questioned him about where he got the memo. At the very least, that can be interpreted as confirming today's Times report about the direction of the case.

Read the rest of this post...

Major earthquake hits Pakistan

7.6 and dozens of dead reported already. It looks really bad and strong tremors are following. Read the rest of this post...

Avian flu now in Europe?

Bad news if the tests for the avian flu come back positive.

I can't figure out why the avian flu is just now getting attention by the administration because this is something that has been well discussed for a few years. For a team that ran on "only we will protect America" they're falling short of protecting much of anyone. Most other industrialized countries have been building up their supplies to face this flu for years and the US has stockpiled only a fraction of what other nations have and what would be ncessary as the bare minimum to address something as serious as this. Starting now will surely give Big Pharma a nice chunk of cash for rushed service (at the expense of the middle class, again) but it's still going to fall short if this flu hits anytime soon. Does Big Pharma really need more corporate welfare from the US? Why does the Bush team hate Americans? Read the rest of this post...

NOLA reconstruction sounds like Iraq reconstruction

And why not considering it's the same no-bid contract companies. Remember how there was so much talk about helping Iraqi citizens rebuild their country, yet the bulk of the contracts went to Bush-friendly US companies such as Halliburton? To rub a bit of salt into the wound, the big contractors then hired workers from even poorer countries and paid them even less money than were the going rates in Iraq. Who would have guessed that the local Iraqis were not thrilled about that situation? This also raises the question of whether Halliburton or the US government should be making decisions like this that will have an impact on the local economic situation (and political) either in Iraq or NOLA.

Well just as many have suggested, the rebuilding of New Orleans and more than likely the entire Katrina region, is now facing a similar situation. How in the hell are working families of the devastated region supposed to bounce back when the Bush team hands over no-bid contracts to outside companies, allows those companies to pay whatever wages they like by striking down the minimum wage which only encourages cheap labor from outside of the US. I'm hardly anti-immigration and accept that a lot of Americans will not take low end jobs but this situation is beyond insane. How in the hell do you rebuild and rejuvenate a city and region with a plan like this?

Same team. Same plan. Same result: big corporates make a killing and locals get screwed. Read the rest of this post...