This is an excerpt from a longer post at Pruning Shears

The Friday news dump by the White House was a doozy (via):  Read more 

… “Give em BACK!!!” —George W. Bush

Boy— just IMAGINE the hot and tasty US DoD goodies that the Russians are finding as ground score behind the Georgian Army… “Slightly used, dropped once.”

via AFP

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — The White House on Tuesday demanded that Moscow return any US equipment its forces seized in Georgia, amid reports Russian troops grabbed some US military vehicles.

“If the Russians have it, it needs to be returned immediately,” spokesman Gordon Johndroe said as US President George W. Bush followed the Georgia crisis from his ranch near this tiny Texas town.

“But there’s conflicting reports on it right now. We’d certainly expect that the Russians would return any equipment that is US equipment and return it quickly, if, in fact, they do have it,” Johndroe told reporters.

“There’s some, also, indications that they’ve made that assurance. If they’ve made that assurance, they need to honor that commitment, as well,” he said, describing the reports as “too sketchy” as to the material’s location.

Russian forces in Georgia seized five Humvees (High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) that either belong or had belonged to the US military from the port of Poti, witnesses said.

Give ’em BACK!

HAW!!!

No. George is honestly NOT worried one damned bit about some HumVees. We just gave over a shitload of super serious toys, and DARPA
Happy Fun Balls (Google Video Link) to the Russians, and you can imagine, to the entire NotWest.

Give ’em BACK!!!

Oh, hell that is one of George’s bestest yet.

Oh, gods almighty we are so FUCT.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

I know Robert Fisk is controversial. But he lives and breathes the Middle East and has intimate knowledge of it. In his latest column for the Independent, he reports on the restraint that Al Jazeera has shown considering the amount of atrocities on tape it receives:

""We’ve trained ourselves not to go to the maximum in our feelings when we see terrible things like this," Ayman Gaballah, Al Jazeera’s deputy chief editor, says bleakly. And I can see why. There are other tapes, other outrages too terrible to show. George Bush wanted to bomb the station’s headquarters in Doha but staff have shown great sensitivity with what they show the world from Iraq. There is no proof that any of Al Jazeera’s reporters was ever tipped off about anti-American attacks before they happened – in Iraq, I investigated these claims in 2003 and 2004 – but plenty of proof that some things are too awful to see.  Read more 

This is the actual bag that will be given to attendees at this year’s DNC.

Somebody call for the Bucket Brigade?

UPDATE And Kudos to TalkLeft for the Fourth Amendment tote. — Lambert

More here. This is apparently the independent teevee station in the area and doing a good job of covering events there.

If you have money, or time, think about donating some to the Red Cross or similar organizations. It seems Bush’s cronies at FEMA can’t do more than give speeches.

Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House introducing 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.

In re: Valery Plame, the charge is ’misprision of a felony.’
Go Dennis Go!!!

Four hours — he’s laying out the evidence as he goes.

More typical behavior from the Bush Administration.

In retaliation for Scott McClellan’s new saucy tell all book, which he is now pimping*.

I like this part.

Fox News contributor and former White House adviser Karl Rove said on that network Tuesday that the excerpts from the book he’s read sound more like they were written by a “left-wing logger” than his former colleague.

— Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief. (emphasis added)  Read more 

Cross-posted from the Global Sociology Blog

Standard Operating Procedure is a book co-authored by Philip Gourevitch (also author of the great We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow, We Will Be killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and writer for the New Yorker) and Errol Morris (director of the great documentary The Fog of War, among others) who also directed the documentary of the same title (incredible website that is well worth checking out with tons of great information that supplement the book very well and makes you impatient for the film to be shown in your area… not yet for me, unfortunately).

The book and documentary are about the Abu Ghraib scandal, of course. We might think that we had read, seen and heard (see also the excellent HBO documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib) everything we could probably stomach about this sorry mess but we were wrong. Besides, as a country, we deserve to have this thing shoved in our face on a regular basis because, as the book states, this stain is our own.

And let’s remember that the story of Guantanamo Bay has not been told yet. Who knows what horrors will come out of there? (Although this post by DDay over at Digby’s place, relating how the US offered its Gitmo facilities to the Chinese for torturing purposes and the fact that we’re stuck there because we have a whole bunch of people we can neither trial - because they’ve been tortured - nor release, because, huh, who cares about their excuses anymore… seems to me there will be no end to the evils to be dug up there). And there’s more coming out every day lately: see McClatchy (one of the only decent remaining reporting outfits), the BBC, and Jeralyn at Talk Left.  Read more 

Verizon Business, a unit of No. 2 U.S. telephone service provider Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), said on Wednesday it has won a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security worth around $678.5 million over 10 years.
… AT&T Government Solutions, a business unit of AT&T Inc (T.N), won a $292 million contract to serve as the secondary network service provider in the Eastern and Western region.

And nothing for Quest.  Read more 

To know her is to love her:

Cheney’s memory is a great fallacy that haunts us today, just as the misbegotten Iraq war will haunt us 30 years from now. It was a huge mistake to pardon Richard Nixon and I say that as someone who thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I was very young and had a soft heart and thought that it was gratuitous to punish him more after his terrible humiliation and that it would be good for the country to “move on.”

Allowing Nixon to get away with his crimes while his fellow Republicans angrily stewed over the injustice of his downfall is what led to the ongoing usurpation of the constitution under Republican rule. They believe the president is above the law and the constitution. Why wouldn’t they? They do these things and there’s no accountability so they do it again the first chance they get, always upping the ante. When they finally lose an election and take a breather from illegal wars and pillaging and shredding the constitution, the Democrats are so busy beating back political attacks and trying to clean up the mess that they decide accountability isn’t worth it. They “bind up the wounds” allowing the infection to fester until the next time it happens.  Read more 

Won’t happen anytime soon. Why? Because there are more high ranking, trannie/gay/metrosexual/perv Republicans who worry about such a law than any large gathering of liberals and progressives could ever produce.

We’re not ashamed of what we do, who we are, who we love. They are. There have been many times in history when pr0n has safeguarded freedom; this is one of them. The domestic use of the FISA laws is your guide; they spy because they expect to find us doing what they are, and they can’t imagine life without hatred, fear and perversion. And they despise us not only because we can, but because we are/do.

Just because it’s so much more fun to talk about, never mind the DCOW link:

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a certified public accountant, had pushed for months for an internal audit of the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to GOP members, but the committee’s treasurer at the time was reluctant.

Finally, at a recent meeting, the now former NRCC treasurer, Christopher J. Ward, relented, giving Conaway what was supposed to be an official internal audit from 2006. That document was a fake, the GOP members said. Even the letterhead on which it was sent was a forgery.  Read more 

“If the House had nothing better to do, this futile partisan act would be a waste of time,” said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman. “The ’people’s House’ should reflect the priorities of the American people, not the fantasies of left-wing bloggers.”“

Thanks for caring, honey.

Oh, Congress held some administration officials in contempt. Good on them, I hope it’s backed up with some jail time.

Via Digby:

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

[Mike Mukasey, Attorney General of the United States, before the House Judiciary Committee today]: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

…

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability. [Well, is anyone culpable? -scar]

…

Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.  Read more 

Nothing fails like prayer.

The team appointed to oversee Ted Haggard’s “spiritual restoration” after scandal forced him to end his ministry at New Life Church has agreed to his request to end their oversite of his recovery program.

New Life Church issued a statement Tuesday saying it believes the termination of the relationship is premature, but would not say why. Earlier in the process, church leaders had said they assumed that Haggard’s recovery could take several years.

The Colorado Springs evangelical congregation that Haggard founded also said it remains convinced that he should not return to any church ministry.  Read more 

My point: this is going on all over, from the Federal gov’t to the MIC complex to diplomatic agencies. I’m posting these two pieces because it gives us a glimpse into a culture of corruption the SCLM rarely covers, but is everywhere. A str8 Republican! No, really!

ouston, Texas) The district attorney who defended the Texas law criminalizing homosexuality before the US Supreme Court is desperately trying to keep his job following the discovery of e-mails containing sexually explicit videos, racist jokes and what is described as torrid love notes to his executive secretary.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal (R) is facing a state investigation into the emails which were discovered on his office computer.

…

Rosenthal who argued before the US Supreme Court that the Texas law against sodomy was upholding the moral values of the state and was in place to protect families. The case was Lawrence v Texas.  Read more 

Many have pointed out the acts of President George W. Bush and his cabal as being “criminal.” Take, for example, the words of Keith Olbermann:

It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.

…

Now if that’s what this is all about, you tortured not because you’re so stupid you think torture produces confession but you tortured because you’re smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction - well, then, you’re going to need all the lawyers you can find … because that crime wouldn’t just mean impeachment, would it?

That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.

I so admire the glibness of Mr. Olbermann, the sharpness of his language and most of all, his passion.

However, under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, President George W. Bush, and all those he chooses to include in pardons, will never be prosecuted for crimes committed against the United States absent impeachment.  Read more 

Before the Mitchell Report came out yesterday, we were a nation in crisis over the continuing steroid hullabaloo in Major League Baseball. Identifying this problem and naming names has finally addressed the most pressing issue of our time, aside from teh gay and teh brown people.

Anywho, if you have a little unused outrage bandwith, might I suggest you take a gander at this pretty Troubletown Cartoon (via the indispensible uggabugga) cataloguing all the scandals that have occurred during the current Administration.

I thought I would perform a public service and transcribe this little nugget. It’s an awfully handy menu to refer to and I’m sure FeralLiberalcould recommend an amusing bottle of wine or homemade moonshine to accompany it. Enjoy!  Read more 

Today we will get that credit crunch “Plan” the occupied white house has been trumpeting about, that will give relief to only those home buyers who can meet and have been meeting scheduled payments on their sub-prime loans, and has been bought into by mortgage financers.

The administration is finally forced to act because it is threatened with actual solutions to the overall problems being offered in Congress. This patch on a bursting industry is being pressured out of an industry that knows it has taken the whole country into highly dangerous territory by its greed and mammoth malfunctions. The small number of loans affected will help to boost that new Gold Standard, ’consumer confidence’. That may save the country from disaster, but as I reported in my post earlier this week, most industry insiders are dubious.  Read more 

So, let me run this silly post by you, due to a phone conversation I just had with an econ-minded friend.

If a stranger, with a gun, walked up to you and your family, and pointed it at you, and said, “give me 30 grand, and another 60 for your wife and kid, Right Now, or I’ll kill you!” would you do it?  Read more 

I took the opportunity yesterday of watching seven hours of the Office of Thrift supervision forum on home funding, with four panels and several speakers. The occupied White House couldn’t have the news there get out, so it defrauded the public of real reporters by sending them on a wild goose chase.

Secretary of the Treasury Paulson scooped all the real news by announcing his vague plans to get the mortgage servicing industry to commit to freeze rates and bail out the industry.  Read more 

Get a load of this:

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove’s White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch’s agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.

Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.

So, to recap: Karl Rove is accused of retaliating against employees and then illegally deleting the evidence. The man in charge of investigating him is accused of retaliating against employees and then deleting evidence.

Fuck. This. Shit.

Wait, though, it gets better!  Read more