friday surreal humor

only it's real and NOT funny

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence

By Dana Milbank
Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy." ................

in his own words

one of THE biggest travesties of justice out there

an interview with don siegelman

Karl Rove Destroyed My Life
By Paul Alexander, The Daily Beast.
Last week, Al Gore sent an email message urging supporters to give money to Don Siegelman's legal defense fund. Gore is the latest in a string of high profile supporters to suggest Siegelman, the former Governor of Alabama, was the victim of a Republican plot when he was found guilty of bribery, conspiracy and fraud in 2006, and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Now, in the waning days of the Bush administration, Siegelman is trying to win back his freedom -- not to mention his good name -- in a courtroom in Atlanta. Earlier this year, an appeals court granted his release after he had served nine months, saying the Governor's appeal had raised "substantial questions" about the case against him. Siegelman's cause was helped by a bipartisan group of 54 former state attorneys general from across the country who filed a federal appeals brief supporting his bid to overturn the conviction. Republican insiders have also come forward to say Siegelman was unfairly targeted by Rove and his circle.

Making it in prison depends on one's level of tolerance. I'm used to mopping in my wife's kitchen. It was just a bigger floor.

Siegelman's appeal was heard earlier this month and the verdict will determine whether he returns to prison to finish out his sentence, or goes free.

How did a former governor -- and a rising star in the Democratic Party -- end up in a situation like this?.................

this is news?

honestly, the news will be when and if they ever actually GET any of these emails (we all know you can never really delete OR lose an email)

come on now

Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer
Legal Battles, Technical Difficulties Delay Required Transfer to Archives
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.

Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide the Archives copies of their records, a cache estimated at more than 300 million messages and 25,000 boxes of documents depicting some of the most sensitive policymaking of the past eight years.

But archivists are uncertain whether the transfer will include all the electronic messages sent and received by the officials, because the administration began trying only in recent months to recover from White House backup tapes hundreds of thousands of e-mails that were reported missing from readily accessible files in 2005. .........

just when you thought it

could NOT be uglier. you find out more truths and it IS uglier

.........

Former general and former drug czar and present Pentagon propagandist Barry McCaffrey, you’ll recall, was the subject of a recent evisceration by the New York Times.

If you don’t recall, follow the links in the Columbia Journalism Review article by Charles Kaiser from which the excerpt below comes.

It turns out that McCaffrey is the living embodiment of all the worst aspects of entrenched Washington corruption — a man who shares with scores of other retired officers a huge financial interest in having America conduct its wars for as long as possible. ...........................

bad attitudes directs us to "Sy Hersh’s account of how McCaffrey’s role in Bush War I, the Gulf War, was not that of a conquering hero but rather a bloodthirsty, glory-seeking butcher who needlessly massacred hundreds if not thousands of fleeing and helpless Iraqi troops — during a ceasefire."

i hope everybody either already knows

or remembers THERE WAS NO AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ until WE brought them there. yes, WE did. WE illegally, immorally and unjustly invaded a foreign land who did NOTHING to us (iraq did NOT destroy the world trade center. yes, loads of people STILL believe they did). sure saddam was evil and had to go but do did and do a lot of other killers and despots. we don't invade THEIR lands (although we actually SHOULD be helping out with the people of these many lands)

this is SO effing bizarre. the cia director now says that the threat from al-qaeda (in iraq) isn't that big a deal. REMEMBER - IT WAS NO 'DEAL' AT ALL UNTIL WE PROVOKED THEM TO BE THERE. it's ALL on us. ALL of it

and remember 4,196***

CIA Chief: Iraq Not Main Front
But Hayden Says Al-Qaeda Remains Greatest Threat to U.S.

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism.

"Today, the flow of money, weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished and al-Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," Hayden told an audience at the Atlantic Council, a bipartisan group that deals with international affairs. But he warned that al-Qaeda remains "a determined, adaptive enemy" that is resilient and operating "from its safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas."

"If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," he said. While law enforcement and diplomacy have their place, Hayden said, "this war -- and no one should mistake it as anything else -- is far from over.".......

***united states deaths in iraq (as of 11/14/2008)

this is a VERY interesting article

and very sad too. when you're a member (long standing too) of the republican party and you see what the current administration has done (irreparable damage) and what the possible (but NOT likely) current administration (pain =mccain+palin) could be and you just throw in the towel.....well then.......

Tom Davis Gives Up

By PETER BAKER
The Republican cloakroom of the House of Representatives is a strangely narrow room that bends around a corner and hardly seems like much of an antechamber for the barons of American politics. Members negotiate tight spaces between the furniture, stepping around one another to find an open seat to while away the breaks, maybe pick up a newspaper or chat with a colleague.

On a desultory afternoon last month, Representative Tom Davis cruised through the cloakroom on his way to the floor to manage a bill, a mobile telephone pressed to his ear as he waved me to follow. We entered the chamber where war, slavery and impeachment have been debated, and he headed to the lectern while I sat a couple rows back. Davis clicked his phone shut and addressed the mostly empty chamber: “Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on H. R. 5683, the Government Accountability Office Act of 2008.”

After a couple of minutes, Davis was back in the cloakroom, plopping down in a chair, propping his feet up on a coffee table and popping open a Diet Coke. He sighed at the tedium of the exercise and then thought back to the first time he ever managed a bill on the floor. It was 1995, and he was a freshman Republican congressman from Virginia, swept into office by Newt Gingrich’s revolution. “What a thrill,” he said, his eyes lighting up at the memory. “I thought, You know, maybe I belong here. Now it’s kind of like, Oh, I gotta do this?”.....

sooooooooooooooo

where is THEIR money going and why is our money still needed? then again why are our lives still needed (as if they were EVER needed in this capacity anyway)? why why why? did we and are we continuing to let madmen run our country and OUR lives?

our country is falling apart. OUR PEOPLE need help. sure your king turns around and sends all of us between 300 and 600.00. that won't help us out of our shite holes

Iraq Banks Billions in Surpluses, GAO Says

Nation's Oil Revenue Rising Sharply While U.S. Funds Reconstruction Projects

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Iraq's oil income will more than double this year, even as Baghdad continues to spend only a small percentage of its own money on reconstruction and services while it banks billions in surplus funds, according to projections by U.S. government auditors.

Between 2005 and 2007, only 10 percent of Iraq's expenditures went toward reconstruction, with just 1 percent spent on maintaining U.S. and Iraqi-funded investments in roads, water, electricity and weapons, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office. Even when Baghdad has allocated larger sums, the report said, it has spent only a small portion of the budgeted money.

Those trends, which the report said have continued during the first half of this year, are likely to fuel further congressional discontent over ongoing U.S. payments to rebuild Iraq......

on the history channel the other day

i saw a listing for a documentary on torture (i think it was the history channel). i thought i'd give it a whirl. it had already started so i didn't see it from the beginning. i actually didn't see more than about 12 or 13 minutes of it actually. was that because it was such a poorly presented show? hell no. it was BECAUSE IT WAS ABOUT TORTURE. the part i hit upon was wwii and some khmer rouge cambodian stuff. my hair stood on end. what they were presenting wasn't new to me. it just hurts more each time i hear, read about it or see it. TORTURE IS WRONG. torture is against humanity as a whole. i'm not skilled enough at writing to say it any deeper than i just did. torture is wrong. period

ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
Nick Juliano
As long as CIA agents could convince themselves they were not deliberately inflicting severe pain or suffering on detainees, they were free to do virtually anything in their questioning of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding. Furthermore, the agents' belief they weren't in fact torturing their captives didn't even need to be "reasonable."

These are the implications of a controversial August 2002 memo from the Justice Department to the CIA that was released Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained several internal Bush administration documents it says authorizes the CIA to torture detainees.

“These documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody,” Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a news release. “The Justice Department twisted the law, and in some cases ignored it altogether, in order to permit interrogators to use barbaric methods that the U.S. once prosecuted as war crimes.”.........

we know it

we know the entire administration is full of war criminals (and just plain criminals). they care only about themselves. they do NOT care for you or i OR their planet.

i want someone to not just accuse them of crimes BUT TO ACTUALLY HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE

Red Cross finds Bush administration guilty of war crimes
Andrew McLemore
In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.

The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.

Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho said he had been waterboarded, "slammed against the walls" and confined in boxes "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position."

The information comes from a new book written by Jane Meyer, who has frequently published articles concerning counter-terrorism in The New Yorker.............

yeah, so........

this is a minor one in the scheme of things. chalk up ANOTHER lie. another one in a big giant long line of lies. there are 4,113 of our men and women who died so a few rich white men can line their pockets

Bush Officials Condoned Regional Iraqi Oil Deal

Contract Contradicted State Dept.'s Public Stance

By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Bush administration officials told Hunt Oil last summer that they did not object to its efforts to reach an oil deal with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, even while the State Department was publicly expressing concern that such contracts could undermine a national Iraqi petroleum law, according to documents obtained by a House committee.

Last fall, after the deal was announced, the State Department said that it had tried to dissuade Hunt Oil from signing the contract with Kurdish regional authorities but that the company had proceeded "regardless of our advice." Although Hunt Oil's chief executive has been a major fundraiser for President Bush, the president said he knew nothing about the deal..........

so now what are we going to do? answer=same as always, NOTHING

i've done a few postings

about this already. about us saying to pakistan, 'open wide' then we dump in billions of dollars to their coffers. we don't even care where that money goes. we're not making sure our troops are properly protected. we're not making sure our people who have been subject to natural disasters are adequately housed. we're not making sure our people have adequate health coverage. we're not making sure our children learn PROPER birth control. we're not making sure everyone has equal rights here. we're doing and not doing a LOT of things here where we certainly could use BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. but nope, we're shoving it down the loo

U.S. Funding to Pakistan Plagued With Problems, GAO Report Says

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration has paid Pakistan more than $2 billion without adequate proof that the Pakistani government used the funds for their intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, congressional auditors reported yesterday. Their report concluded that more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

The Pentagon paid about $20 million for army road construction and $15 million to build bunkers in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that the roads or bunkers were ever constructed, the Government Accountability Office reported. Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a U.S. condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting U.S. military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs...........

so once again we're told

they're lying pieces of steamin' shite. i don't know the law. i AM guessing they broke it (AGAIN) from here to there. a wrist slap perhaps?

Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON -- Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”..........

he (king george)

and his buds ARE NOT citizens above suspicion. they are war criminals. they should be charged, tried and brought to justice IMMEDIATELY. we cannot and must not let them continue. how we can go on with our heads in the sand is beyond me. i just don't know how and why we allow them to continue
(shout out to at largely)

CRIMINALS ABOVE THE LAW:
Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences
by Chris Floyd
This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration's torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration's highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.

It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system's architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony.

Companion hearings in the House produced stunning confirmation of mass murder in the Bush gulag – a bare minimum of 27 killings, among the 108 known cases of death among Terror War captives. This evidence came from rock-solid Establishment figure Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. (Of course, as many captives have been and are being held in "secret prisons," and an untold number of others have been hidden from the Red Cross, there is no way of knowing at this point how many prisoners have actually died or been murdered – or even how many prisoners there are in the gulag.)............

it's spreading something all right

i'm just not sure it's democracy.

and how the hell much are we paying for this bullshite anyway? well this article says 350 million. i suspect it's WAY more. how much could 350 million have helped those effected by katrina? those effected by the flooding in our heartland right now? how much could it help with SAFE SEX education?

by the way, 60 minutes did a story on this yesterday as well

U.S. Network Falters in Mideast Mission

By Craig Whitlock

Washington Post Foreign Service

CAIRO First of two articles

The Egyptian bureau of al-Hurra, an Arabic-language television network financed by the U.S. government, boasts a spectacular view of the Nile River and the capital's bustling streets. But inside, all is quiet.

The bureau's satellite link was unplugged with little explanation a few weeks ago by a local company, making it impossible to broadcast live. Since then, staffers have had to use a studio controlled by the Egyptian secret police, who have warned guests not to say anything controversial on the air.

Al-Hurra -- "The Free One" in Arabic -- is the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Taxpayers have spent $350 million on the project.......

U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis

60 Minutes/ProPublica Joint Investigation Finds Anti-Israel Rhetoric On U.S.-Funded Al Hurra TV

(CBS) America has been struggling with its image in the Middle East for decades but, after Iraq, Arab opinion plummeted. The Bush administration felt it had to act fast to explain America to the Arab world. So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic. It's called "Al Hurra," meaning "The Free One."

As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Al Hurra's symbol is a herd of unbridled horses, and for American taxpayers it's been a wild ride.

60 Minutes has been looking into Al Hurra in a project with ProPublica, a new, non-profit news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. With so much at stake at Al Hurra, we were surprised to find what it's putting on the air. Some of it has supported terrorism and denied the Holocaust; insiders say Al Hurra has been undermined by loose financial and editorial controls, while its executives try to manage 24-hour news in a language most of them don't understand.
.................

this isn't really news

we know about it. we've known about it awhile. we either ignore it or deny it. we don't care. it's not US it's happening to. yet let someone else do it to our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. we're up in arms.

what WOULD be news is if someone was made accountable for these crimes. they ARE crimes.

Report Questions Pentagon Accounts

Officials Looked Into Interrogation Methods Early On

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence -- some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today -- also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. .........

are they rushing to do the MOST HARM

they can before being booted out of office? it sure appears that way to me

Bush administration files nuclear dump application

After long delay, Bush administration submits application to build nuclear dump in Nevada

H. JOSEF HEBERT

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday he's confident the government's license application to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada will "stand up to any challenge anywhere."

Bodman spoke at a news conference hours after the Bush administration submitted the formal application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build the underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain more than 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada officials, who have fought the waste dump for years, vowed to launch hundreds of specific challenges to the proposed design of the facility, arguing the Energy Department has not proven it will protect public health, safety and the environment from radiation up to a million years.

Responding to the filing, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons reiterated his promise to fight the waste dump which he said "threatens the life and safety of the people of Nevada."..............

duh

and this is just the TIP of the iceberg (so to speak). we all knew and know this kind of shite is going on. yet, we do NOTHING about it except hold a few hearings. i say MAKE THOSE WHO DID THIS (AND WORSE, COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY) GO ON TRIAL, WHERE I AM SURE THEY WILL BE FOUND GUILTY. THEN MAKE THEM DO THEIR TIME

HARD TIME

Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds
Appointees in NASA Press Office Blamed

By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer
An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.
The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.
James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government's lead agencies on climate change issues. ...........

no one and i mean NO ONE is a citizen above suspicion

more of the same

(and i heard on npr yesterday, while i was driving home) king george was offering china $500,000. yes, that's right 500,000. what a fucking insult
think of how much money we've WASTED in iraq (and just toss to pakistan every month. i mean we're just tossin' it to 'em)

US coverup of corruption in Iraq alleged
Ex-State Dept. workers criticize defunct office
By Anne Flaherty
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.
more stories like this
Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats yesterday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.
Brennan also alleged the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anticorruption office, he said.
The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anticorruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee........

this is VERRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYY interesting

no one is smelling this stink? hmmmmmm
Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys
Larisa Alexandrovna, Muriel Kane and Lindsay Beyerstein
The Permanent Republican Majority Part VI
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson
These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.
In Alabama, for instance, the home of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was burglarized twice during the period of his first indictment. Nothing of value was taken, however, and according to the Siegelman family, the only items of interest to the burglars were the files in Siegelman's home office.
Siegelman's attorney experienced the same type of break-in at her office.
In neighboring Mississippi, a case brought against a trial lawyer and three judges raises even more disturbing questions. Of the four individuals in the same case, three of the US Attorney’s targets were the victims of crimes during their indictment or trial. This case, like that of Governor Siegelman, has been widely criticized as a politically motivated prosecution by a Bush US Attorney.
The main target of the indictment, attorney Paul Minor, had his office broken into, while Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, Oliver E. Diaz Jr., had his home burglarized. According to police reports and statements from Diaz and from individuals close to Minor, nothing of value was taken and the burglars only rummaged through documents and in Minor’s case, also took a single computer from an office full of expensive office equipment. ...........

the only reason i can figure out

why in the world they WOULDN'T want to release the visitor logs if if osama his own damn self was listed in them. why else would they lie, conceal, stall and whatever the hell else they're doing? they're just visitor logs for goddess' sake. it's NOT like the conversations were taped or anything (is it??????????) hmmmmmmm
White House challenges court ruling on release of visitor logs
The Bush administration is challenging a court ruling that White House visitor logs are public documents, saying releasing the records would infringe on the separation of powers.
White House documents are normally exempt from public records laws, but a federal judge ruled in December that Secret Service visitor logs must be released. The court sided with a liberal watchdog group that sought records showing visits by prominent religious conservatives to the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence.
The Bush administration appealed and lawyers were scheduled to argue the case Monday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Government lawyers argue the president and vice president must be able to receive visitors and solicit advice privately. They portrayed the request for Secret Service records as an end-around, saying those same logs maintained by the White House would never be considered public documents............