"SLOTS" AND THE SUPREME COURT

On his radio show this A.M., Bill "Slots" Bennett said that if the NSA spying case goes to the Supreme Court and the Court rules against Bush, Bush should ignore the Court and continue spying. (I didn't get a timestamp so all I can tell you for sure is that the statement occurred in the first 80 minutes of the show. I did send this information to Media Matters and maybe they will get a clip or a transcript)


So much for the integrity of the "Rule of Law" party.

MY "PERSONAL BEST"

Every day I post the latest war news from Today in Iraq on two AOL message boards. One is infested with BushBots and my post usually gets a very low rating but I think this one breaks my record:


TODAY IN IRAQ - 2/5/06
Mark Thread Read
#1 - 2/06/06 05:33 PM (Msg Id: 528628:1580810)

GOTLOEBFREGE
View Profile
Send IM
Send Mail
Rating: 0 % of 24 people liked this post
Do you find it useful? Yes or No

ABU-AL GONZALEZ MAKES A FUNNY

You can get all of his Senate testimony here but Atrios links to a good one:

BIDEN: Thank you very much. General, how has this revelation damaged the program? I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls. I mean, I'm a little confused. How did it damage this?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer. And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true -- you would assume
that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance. But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

LIVE BLOGGING OF THE SENATE HEARING

Atrios links to 3 bloggers and I particularly liked this entry by Glenn Greenwald:

"Of course Gonzales begins his Opening Statement by quoting Osama bin Laden and Zawahri. We used to quote Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln to decide what the principles of our Government are going to be. Now we quote Al Qaeda. The Administration wants Al Qaeda and its speeches to dictate the type of Government we have. It is the centerpiece of everything they do and say."

A LITTLE NSA PUSHBACK

My local paper included an "analysis" piece about the NSA from Newhouse News Service and this is the letter I sent to an editor at Newhouse:

Dear Mr. Membrino,

A story from your news service appeared in my local paper:

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/attack/114595.php

Written by Mr. George Latanzio, it contains what I believe to be a mistake:

All that changed in 1995, when Attorney General Janet Reno issued a memo that established a "wall" between law enforcement and counterintelligence officers.

The "wall" began some time in the 1980s, according to a decision by the FISA Appeals Court and other sources:

But the joint House and Senate intelligence committees' report of pre-September 11 intelligence failures assessed that the "wall" was "constructed over 60 years," and a 2002 ruling of the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review found that the "wall" originated "at some point during the 1980s." Even the Ashcroft-led Justice Department recognized as much in a July 2004 report on the impact of the USA Patriot Act: "During the 1980s, the Department operated under a set of largely unwritten rules that limited to some degree information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement officials."

LINK: http://mediamatters.org/items/200508150002

Would you please issue a correction?

Thank you,

Steven Jandreau
Tucson, AZ

ABU-AL AND ONE OF MY RESPONSES

Our beloved Attorney General was given an opportunity by the Wall Street Journal to defend the indefensible: warrantless spying on Americans. The online version is here and one of my 3 objections was also published:

Not on American Citizens
Steven Jandreau - Tucson, Ariz.

"With the recent leak of the NSA's terrorist surveillance program, some have questioned whether this congressional authorization can be read to encompass signals intelligence."

The AUMF does not authorize the use of signals intelligence on American citizens.

SADDAM/SYRIA/WMD/DAM

I've come across a new wingnut meme about the absent WMD: Saddam moved them all to Syria in 2002 under the guise of giving aid to victims of a dam break. Searching the WJS, WAPO, NYT, LAT and Christian Science Monitor in 2002 for "Syria" and "dam," I found three references to the dam break:


THE WORLD; Syrian Dam Collapses; Villages Flood; [HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jun 5, 2002. pg. A.11

A dam collapsed in northern Syria and flooded several villages Tuesday, killing at least two people, residents and officials said.
After the Zeyzoun Dam burst, villagers said some areas were submerged under 13 feet of water. But the flood receded quickly, and a few hours later the water level was down to about 4 inches.
The dam, built in 1996, burst near Idlib, about 160 miles north of Damascus, the Syrian capital. It is on the Orontes River.
In the nearby village of Ziara, residents described a sudden deluge of water flooding homes and farmland shortly after 2 p.m.
Yasser Ibrahim, 33, a farmer, said two women were killed by the flooding. "The water took them," he said.
The Irrigation Ministry was coordinating rescue efforts and investigating the collapse.
Credit: Associated Press

THE WORLD; IN BRIEF; Death Toll From Dam Burst Grows to 10; [HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jun 6, 2002. pg. A.4
The death toll from a dam burst in northern Syria reached at least 10, the state-run news agency said, as villagers began returning to a scene of devastation.
About 100 homes were destroyed when the Zeyzoun Dam burst Tuesday, dumping nearly all of its water over 23 square miles of farmland and swamping several villages. President Bashar Assad ordered immediate assistance of $1,000 to the families of each of those killed.
Near the village of Zeyzoun, where most of the houses were destroyed, the corpses of sheep and goats floated around a huge, gaping rent in the dam. Residents said they had warned authorities of cracks in the dam days ago.

WORLD; In Brief; [FINAL Edition]
The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Jun 7, 2002. pg. A.23
Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria -- The death toll from flooding caused by a dam collapse in the north of Syria has jumped to 20 and could climb higher, the official media said.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed when the Zeyzoun dam north of Hamah developed cracks and ruptured Tuesday, submerging Zeyzoun under water and mud and flooding other nearby villages.
"It is impossible to know the number of lives lost in the collapse at this time," the state-run SANA news agency quoted the Hama provincial governor, Mohammad Said Aqil, as saying. He added that subsiding waters could reveal more deaths.



According to these reports, the death toll was probably over 20 but there was no mention of any foreign aid, let alone aid from Iraq.

CHRIS WALLACE IS SHRILL!!!!

Transcript: Gen. Michael Hayden on 'FNS'
Sunday, February 05, 2006

WALLACE: General, given the worldwide intelligence failure about Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, what makes you think that your intelligence now about Iran is any better than it was about Iraq a few years ago?

HAYDEN: [blah blah blah]

WALLACE: So no more saying to the president, "Slam Dunk."*

HAYDEN: I won't go there, Chris.

*NOTE: The FOX transcript has "sunk" instead of "dunk" although it is clear that Wallace was referring to George Tenet's remark at the WMD briefing for Fredo, as recounted in Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, page 249, hardcover edition.

PAT BUCHANAN ON FREDO'S WAR

Bush Is Running Out of Alibis
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted Feb 03, 2006

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right. But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism.

But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.

SHAMMITY GETS IT BACK

The little creep had Ted Rall on to talk about the infamous Ted Toles cartoon and the Newshounds have a partial transcript. Here's one gem:

...Hannity asked Rall if he had ever visited any wounded troops. “I have,” Hannity said, dripping with self-superiority (though he has yet to travel overseas, as Al Franken has, to visit the troops he claims to love so much). “This is exactly the injuries they have,” Hannity announced.
Rall adeptly answered that he hadn’t visited the troops but turned it around by asking, “And have you asked them about this cartoon?”
“I have not.” Hannity sputtered a bit as he realized Rall may have scored a point on him. When he recovered, Hannity did a 360 and commanded, “Forget about THEM.”

Crooks & Liars has the video clip and here's a rough partial transcript of another gem:

RALL: Your word is worth nothing.
SHAM: You're lying through your teeth.
RALL: Oh yeah, I'm lying. The American people who watch this show don't know me but they know you!

ANOTHER CRITIC OF FREDO'S WOT

(Via TalkingPointsMemo) The New Yorker has a short article about why Fredo's claim that creating democracies in the Middle East will make us safer is FALSE:

"The Islamists are less corrupt. They are the ones with integrity and compassion. They are of the people and they speak for the people. Today in the Arab world, the choice is clear between democratically elected Islamists and Western-leaning dictators.”

This from Shalom Harari, a former Israeli Army Intelligence officer. The entire article is well worth reading.

FREDO ATTACKS ON SCIENCE

At the EPA and at NASA. Did I mention that for a few hours, the director of the Women's Health Division at the FDA was a male veterinarian?

"STRAIGHT TALK" MCCAIN

There is an anti-gay marriage movement in Arizona called Protect Marriage Arizona. You can read the proposed amendment here. This is being sponsored by The Center for Arizona Policy, a local outpost of the Dobson empire. Here's what they say about themselves:

CAP battles organizations like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and gay rights groups that seek to destroy traditional families and traditional moral values.

[snip]

CAP has been selected and endorsed by Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family to be the Family Policy Council for Arizona. CAP is deeply grateful for Focus on the Family’s support through the provision of research, promotion, materials, prayers and guidance.

I don't know how their petition drive is going but I was surprised to find that McCain has endorsed them:

"I believe that the institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman," said Sen. McCain. "The Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment would allow the people of Arizona to decide on the definition of marriage in our state. I wholeheartedly support the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment and I hope that the voters in Arizona choose to support it as well."

It seems that "straight talk" Johnny wants to keep a very low profile on this because this endorsement is not on his Senate website. I've looked at his press releases, interviews, speeches, articles and Arizona issues and there's no mention of his support for the amendment.

I FOUND ANOTHER "WOLFIE"

In early March of 2003, Rumsfeld met with Feith, Wolfowitz, Gen. Myers, Gen. Pace, "Saul" - the CIA agent running ROCKSTARS, the clandestine spying program in Iraq, Larry DiRita and Gen. Craddock.

"Rumsfeld pushed them all for an estimate of how long the Iraq war would last.

Wolfowitz said seven days."

SOURCE: Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, hardcover edition, page 326.

FREDO'S WOT

U.S. Officials Warn of Greater Terror Threat
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 2, 2006


WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Top American intelligence and military officials said today that the threat of terror attacks against American interests might be greater than ever, despite progress against Al Qaeda and the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because terror groups have become more diffuse and are aggressively seeking more lethal weapons.

John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that despite "notable successes against the global jihadist threat" — many of them at the hands of the United States' allies — there had been an "exponential increase" in the numbers of targets being tracked by American intelligence agencies, from terrorist groups to drug traffickers.

Fragmentation of terror groups, both through pressure on longer-standing groups like Al Qaeda and the copycat generation of new groups, had led to "the emergence of a decentralized and diffused movement with minimal centralized guidance or control," like those that had attacked in Casablanca, Madrid and London, Mr. Negroponte said. "They are harder to spot."

Both Al Qaeda and dozens of what he dubbed its "self-generating progeny" remained interested in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, he said, adding that it was now more likely that a terror group might use weapons of mass destruction than that a state might do so.

A 7 YEAR OLD

How can the US ever win,
when Iraqi children die like this?
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
Published: 13 August 2005

In this part of Baghdad, you avoid both the insurgents and the Americans - if you are lucky.

Yassin al-Sammerai was not. On 14 July, the second grade schoolboy had gone to spend the night with two college friends and - this being a city without electricity in the hottest month of the year - they decided to spend the night sleeping in the front garden. Let his broken 65 year-old father Selim take up the story, for he's the one who still cannot believe his son is dead - or what the Americans told him afterwards.

"It was three-thirty in the morning and they were all asleep, Yassin and his friends Fahed and Walid Khaled. There was an American patrol outside and then suddenly, a Bradley armoured vehicle burst through the gate and wall and drove over Yassin. You know how heavy these things are. He died instantly. But the Americans didn't know what they'd done. He was lying crushed under the vehicle for 17 minutes. Um Khaled, his friends' mother, kept shouting in Arabic: "There is a boy under this vehicle."

"The Americans came back with an officer two days later," Selim al-Sammerai continues. "They offered us compensation. I refused. I lost my son, I told the officer. 'I don't want the money - I don't think the money will bring back my son.' That's what I told the American." There is a long silence in the room. But Selim, who is still crying, insists on speaking again.

"I told the American officer: 'You have killed the innocent and such things will lead the people to destroy you and the people will make a revolution against you. You said you had come to liberate us from the previous regime. But you are destroying our walls and doors.'"

I suddenly realise that Selim al-Sammerai has straightened up on his seat and his voice is rising in strength. "Do you know what the American said to me? He said, 'This is fate.' I looked at him and I said, 'I am very faithful in the fate of God - but not in the fate of which you speak.'"

MICHAEL WEINER, AKA "SAVAGE"

This nut has a strange background:

Nutritional ethnomedicine in Fiji / Michael A Weiner 1978 English Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript iii, 185 leaves : map ; 28 cm. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-185)./ Dissertation: Thesis (Ph. D. in Nutritional Ethnomedicine)--University of California, Berkeley, June 1978.

THE SILENCE OF THE PERFUMED PRINCES

devtob at DKos diaried Fats' attack on Paul Hackett last September:

RUSH: Navy. What is a civilian affairs job? You tell me.
CALLER: Civilian affairs is just basically a public affairs job where they interact with the civilian authorities from a military perspective. It's a military liaison, if you will.
RUSH: Oh, it's a military liaison. Is it a combat position or not?
CALLER: Negative. It is not a combat position.
[snip]
RUSH: Okay, call him a staff puke if that's what you want, but civilian affairs, staff puke. Bottom line is he's running a fraudulent, deceptive campaign, and the Democrats are saying this is a bellwether election. We've got two instances of huge fraud being perpetrated here, and I'm bound and determined they're not going to get away with this, whether the guy wins or not, they're not going to get away with misportraying the results of this when the whole campaign has been one of total fraud and lying and deceit, fooling people.

Here's what happened to some others in civilian affairs:

Petty Officer 1st Class Regina R. Clark, 43, of Centralia, Wash., died June 23 in a convoy that was attacked by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in Fallujah. She was a culinary specialist deployed with Naval Construction Regiment Detachment 30, Port Hueneme, Calif., and was temporarily assigned to II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

Cpl. Ramona M. Valdez, 20, of Bronx, N.Y., died June 23 while traveling in a convoy that was attacked by a suicide, vehicle-borne, improvised explosive device in Fallujah, Iraq. She was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Lance Cpl. Veashna Muy, 20, of Los Angeles, Calif. AND Cpl. Chad W. Powell, 22, of West Monroe, La. Both Marines died June 23 while traveling in a convoy that was attacked by a suicide, vehicle-borne, improvised explosive device in Fallujah, Iraq. Both Marines were assigned to 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.


Lance Cpl. Holly A. Charette, 21, from Cranston, R.I., died June 23 from wounds sustained when a suicide, vehicle-borne, improvised explosive device struck her vehicle in Fallujah, Iraq. She was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.


There was not one peep about Fats' smear of civilian affairs soldiers from the JCS. Not one.

A LITTLE MORE CRUMBLING

Rove's coalition for Fredo is getting smaller by the month. DKos has this nice catch:

VRWC stalwarth Richard Viguerie trashes Bush's SOTU address and releases poll of conservatives:

Results of a January 30, 2006 ConservativeHQ.com poll of more than 1,000 conservative activists found that 65% think the President is not governing as a conservative; 64% grade him as either D or F on government spending; and 70% give him a D or F on immigration.

"And historically, when conservatives are unhappy, Republicans pay a big price on election day and today, many conservatives feel angry and betrayed.

"Conservatives hope and pray that a born-again Conservative George W. Bush has emerged tonight. However, based on his record during the last five years, we need more than rhetoric."

6 PERFUMED PRINCES ARE UPSET

(Via Atrios) 6 of the top brass were upset enough about a Tom Toles editorial cartoon to write a joint complaint to the WaPo. The complaint is preposterous but you can get all the facts at AmericaBlog.

Here, I would like to contrast these 6 Bush whores with someone of REAL character and integrity.


Impeach Blair over Iraq: UK general
From correspondents in London
January 08, 2006
The Australian

A LEADING British Army officer believes Prime Minister Tony Blair should be impeached for his role in the war in Iraq, the Mail on Sunday reported. General Sir Michael Rose, a former UN commander in Bosnia, was quoted by the right-of-centre Mail on Sunday as saying: "I think the politicians should be held to account ... my view is that Blair should be impeached.
"That would prevent the politicians treating quite so carelessly the subject of taking a country into war."

A high-profile resignation of a senior armed forces officer before the start of the March 2003 conflict may also have made the British Government think twice before sending troops to the Gulf, he added.

"I would not have gone to war on such flimsy grounds," he said.

FREDO'S SOTU LIES

He told a bunch of them and ThinkProgress caught quite a few (PDF) but here's one that stood out for me:

FREDO:
Second, we're continuing reconstruction efforts, and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom.

REALITY:

U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding
Documents Show Much of the Funding Diverted
to Security, Justice System and Hussein Inquiry
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 2, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say.

CINDY ARRESTED AT SOTU

FROM MBARE


The Brad Blog has the story but this is the heart of it:

Cindy was arrested for wearing a t-shirt that had the slogan "2,245 - how many more?" on it.