At long last! but hopefully not THE last

O joy! o (modified) rapture! Let the indictments begin!

And let's hope this is only the first of many. "Scooter" Libby is pretty dang close to the top of the nasty heap of White House warmongers, and a sly, sneaky, mean piece of work is he (despite his gosh-I'm-just-the-boy-next-door-nickname). No wonder he and his boss worked so well together.

And work together they did. Closely. It defies credibility to imagine that lil' ol' Scoot didn't discuss with VP Cheyney every malicious detail of the White House plot to discredit and smear Wilson, the man who revealed that their rational for invading Iraq was bogus, to the point of letting the press know that Wilson's wife was a covert CIA operative.

Sure, it was illegal, but heck -- law, shmaw. "Law 'n' order" is just a Republican slogan to lure sucker voters. Breaking the law is only a bad thing if a Democrat does it. Nothing as trivial as breaking the law interfered with the White House's holy crusade to get back at Saddam Hussein...and then to cover-up the lies they had trumpeted to the guillable American public -- and press -- and Congress.

And cover-up is the heart of the matter. The illegal leaking of the identity of an undercover op is (for reasons I'm not clear on) not what the indictments are charging. The special prosecutor is simultaneously tightening the noose and broadening the investigation, to unmask a conspiracy of lies that led to war.

It's not what they did wrong, it's what they did to cover up what they did wrong that may finally get these guys in trouble.

Why Cheyney isn't being indicted I don't know -- did Scooter fall on his sword, or just trip over his tongue? or was he wallowing in the arrogant presumption that "they" couldn't lay a finger on anyone in the Bush administration?

Arrogant, but not-illogical -- the Bushistas wrap themselves in an aura of invincibility created by a halo cast by the one-true-God shining down on the Bush White House.

Delusional? sure. But it's no delusion that they were aided mightily by the cowering, toothless press 'watchdogs'; a kiss-ass flagwaving Congress; and the short-attention span of the American public (many of whom to this day firmly believe the original lie -- that Saddam Hussein blew up the World Trade Center -- even though the Bush administration later withdrew the false report of nuclear materials which they'd said was the compelling reason to go to war).

Well, thanks to Patrick Fitzgerald and the unknown grand jury, the Shield of Invincibility is wavering. The Teflon on this President is scratched. The press is finally shining a spotlight on the whole mess.

But for how long? It's possible that spinmeister Karl Rove is a trifle off his game these days, waiting for his indictment. On the other hand, desperation might make him even more adept at distracting the press from the real issues.

The White House does, desperately wants to get off this story and sweep Scooter under the carpet. And Bush has another Supreme Court nominee to trot out, not to mention a bunch of tax cuts, not to mention a lot of photo ops with Regular Americans rebuilding after the latest hurricane devastation (has Xena struck yet? Zoe? how the heck many hurricanes are there going to be this year?)

If only the media would have the tenacity of the fighting Irish prosecutor, the public might finally get enough information to convince them that Bush and his administration are dangerous and not to be trusted. (Heck, at least half of us knew that 8 years ago, but some people take longer to convince....;-) )

All together now.....What did Bush know? and when did he know it?

Dubya Stamp

Anti-Bush joke-of-the-day:

The U.S. Postal service issued a new stamp to honor the presidential achievements of George W. Bush.
In daily use it was shown that the stamp is not sticking to envelopes.
This "malfunction" of the stamp enraged the president and he demanded a full
investigation.

After a month of testing, a special presidential commission made the following findings:

1) The stamp is in perfect order.

2) There is nothing wrong with the applied adhesive.

3) People are spitting on the wrong side.

And now for something completely different...

....write a novel in 30 days.

November is National Novel Writing Month. Participants in NaNoWriMo register now, and start writing at midnight (local time) on November 1st; the goal is to write a 50,000 word (175 page) novel by midnight, November 30th.

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

There are no fees to enter. Winners include everyone who submits 50,000 words by November 30th (word count verified by contest-runners). All winners get an official "Winner" web icon and certificate -- along with immense satisfaction, plus life-time bragging rights for writing a novel in 30 days.

The first NaNoWriMo launched in 1999 with 21 participants and 6 winners.
Last year 42,000 writers participated, and nearly 6,000 made it to the finish line.

So, sign up now! and start procrastinating :-)

Bush Bungling Increases Terrorism

Bush appointee Larry Diamond, who served as senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004 and is a fellow at the conservative Stanford Hoover Institution, says this about Bush's much-touted "major" speech on the Iraq situation:

"What the speech ignores is the degree to which our intervention in Iraq has stimulated this threat [Al Queda terrorist attacks]. [Bush] fails to acknowledge his own strategic blunders and failures..that have enabled Iraq to become a cesspool of terrorit activity."

Mind you, this is from someone who supported Bush's invasion of Iraq.
See Diamond's book, "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."

Meet the Fuckers, Get Thrown Off Flight

A woman flying from Portland was kicked off a Southwest airlines flight because her anti-Bush [expletive included] t-shirt was considered offensive.

"CNN reports that the shirt depicted images of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with an expletive-ridden variation of the movie title Meet the Fockers.

In other words (in case you can't decipher CNN's demure code), "Meet the Fuckers."

Sure, it's vulgar (and not as funny as a lot of other anti-Bush t-shirts I've seen), but if other passengers didn't like it they could have stopped staring at the woman's chest.

Southwest claimed it was a "safety" issue, presumably because some passengers were upset. The airline should have kicked those pasengers off the flight for causing such an uproar, instead of the woman wearing the t-shirt.

Well, hey, fuck the first amendment! Let's issue chadors to everyone (male and female) at the boarding gate so no one's sensibilities will be offended by t-shirt sloganeering.

Full story below. And some t-shirts.

Keep your political opinions off your clothing if you plan to fly Southwest Airlines. A woman flying to Portland, Ore., from Los Angeles with a layover at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport was kicked off a Southwest flight after fellow passengers complained about the T-shirt she was wearing. CNN reports that the shirt depicted images of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with an expletive-ridden variation of the movie title "Meet the Fockers."

Lorrie Heasley, 32, of Woodland, Wash., plans to press a civil rights complaint against Southwest, reports The Associated Press. "I have cousins in Iraq and other relatives going to war," Heasley told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Here we are trying to free another country, and I have to get off an airplane...over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."

Southwest took the unusual action after several passengers complained about the shirt. After the plane landed in Reno, which was a layover for Heasley and her husband, Ron, who were on their way to Portland from Los Angeles, the couple moved to the front of the cabin. Passengers complained about the shirt. Heasley agreed to cover it with a sweatshirt, but while she tried to sleep, the sweatshirt slipped off, exposing the T-shirt. She was then ordered to wear the T-shirt inside-out or leave. Heasley and her husband left and drove a rental car to Los Angeles.

Southwest rules allow the airline to deny boarding to any passenger whose clothing is "lewd, obscene or patently offensive," notes AP. There are no federal rules about such matters. Heasley claims no one said anything about the shirt while she waited at the gate in Los Angeles or while she boarded the aircraft. It wasn't until she got to Reno that the shirt became an issue.

The American Civil Liberties Union told AP that it "might be problematic" that the airline "changed rules in the middle of a flight." Heasley is requesting that Southwest reimburse her and her husband for the second half of the trip and pay the rental car fees, gasoline costs and hotel bills for the road trip to Portland.

Proclaim your political views with the fine assortment of shirts from The Wonkery. (No guarantees that you'll get kicked off a Southwest flight. Your mileage may vary. )

Prepared for Flu Pandemic?

The flu pandemic of 1918 (aka The Spanish Flu) wiped out upwards of 50 million people worldwide. Alfred W. Crosby, author of "American's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918," said that it "killed more humans than any other disease in a similar duration in the history of the world."

Now, the NYT reports, after a decade of painstaking research analyzing tissue samples from flu victims preserved in the Alaskan tundra and an army pathology warehouse, scientists have discovered that the 1918 killer flu virus was a type of avian flu, which jumps from infected birds to humans.

The recent bird flu outbreak which has been raising concerns, particularly throughout Asia, has, so far, been restricted primarily to bird-to-human transmission. The fear is that the flu will transform (as flu viruses tend to do) and become highly infectious between people, like the 1918 flu which decimated millions.

Are we ready? not yet, but the administration is getting around to it.

"Bush administration officials have been talking about pandemic flu preparedness for years, and they say they will soon release a pandemic flu plan, in the works for more than a year. Senate Democrats say that the administration is not doing enough, and they are writing their own bills that call for more spending and coordination."

Get it together, guys. Less talk, more action, more vaccines, and a smart, efficient, distribution plan. Please don't hire cronies for this job, OK?

Call your congressional rep to let him/her know you are very aware and deeply concerned about this disaster waiting to happen. Squeaky wheels, do your thing!

Beware Miers -- Anti-Choice, Bush Suck-up

To those moderates and progressives who might be thinking "Harriet Miers, well, she could be OK because maybe she'll swing our way..." -- WAKE UP!

Fine, maybe she's not as obviously appalling as other possible choices (such as the uber-conservative, vehemently anti-choice Pricilla Owens and Edith Jones). And she is probably a clever lawyer. But her main qualification for this job in the cunning mind of George W. Bush is, apparently, that she is a suck-up...on record as describing George W. Bush as "brilliant."

Well, being a devout Bushista, while of questionable taste, isn't necessarily a disqualification. But her background is a big red flag to anyone with concerns for the future of Roe v. Wade, as Miers has deep, long-standing ties to a conservative Christian church that is resolutely anti-abortion.

Read Molly Ivins characteristically astute analysis of Bush's choice for the Supremes.

Miers would serve on a Supreme Court that may well have to decide the legitimacy and scope of the exercise of powers of her buddy, Dubya. Is torture legal, did Rove commit treason by revealing the name of a covert CIA operative...? Miers was THERE, at the White House, while these decisions were made. Should she be allowed to sit on a Court that may have to rule on their legality?

When will the Democrats fight back, for crying out loud?! We've already given the slippery Roberts a free pass, why roll out the red carpet for another conservative?

These people get to be on the Supreme Court for LIFE, folks.

Sex for Violence -- Obscene

The military would like us to think that the grotesque behavior of US troops at the Abu Gharib prison was an aberration. The human rights abuses, the violation of the Geneva Convention, the military code of conduct, and hey, just plain decency.....these things happen, and those were just a few rotten apples to tarnish the image of our brave fighting men-and-women.

But the attitude and conduct is more pervasive than they would have us believe. For the past year, our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been submitting graphic photographs of mangled corpses to a porno website, in exchange for free access to the more typical pornography -- t 'n' a, split beavers, all that stuff.

"For a year now, American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have
been posting photographs of corpses -- insurgent corpses, civilian corpses,unidentifiable piles of guts in various stages of mutilation
-- on the site in return for free access to its porn cache. And these
pictures have in turn drawn thousands of civilian gawkers who find the
sight of laughing soldiers posing with dead bodies at least as titillating
as candid shots of women in flagrante delicto.
Explicit sex, graphic violence. For some guys, they're twin stimuli."(link)

To encourage visitors to the website, the soldier-photographers helpfully label their submissions with such vicious and illiterate captions as "Iraqi Driver Tryed[sic]to Run a Check Point" and "Name This Body Part" and "Destruction of the Afgans [sic] at the Hands of the Marines!"

Ooh-Rah.

[Aside: you'd think a soldier who could figure out how to work a digital camera might be capable of learning how to spell the name of the country where he's killing insurgents, but whatever.]

I won't list the site url here. If you want to find it, read Neva Chonin's full column (SF Chronicle, Oct 2). These are shots of the reality of war, so be advised -- best not to view before breakfast. Or any meal. Or bedtime. There's nothing glorious or noble about it. It's nothing like "a movie," much less the news.

In this country the media, stifled by the Bush administration, is reluctant even to show a respectful, flag-draped coffin. These photos show what's left of human beings after their brains and body parts have been blown apart. Photos taken by U.S. soldiers who represent our country. Taunting, sneering, and traded for photos of lurid sex.

Now, that's obscene.

Harriet Who? Crony for Life

Feeling the heat with low poll numbers (not to mention pressure from the missus) Dubya has nominated another woman to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Conner's seat on the Supreme Court:

Harriet Miers.

Who? Well, Miers is a White House lawyer, with no judicial experience, but considered capable and hard-working. Her most important credentials however, have to be (1) no paper trail; and (2) her devotion to the Word of Bush.

With no judicial background, there isn't much record to evaluate. An experienced trial lawyer, Miers will dodge and weave past the inevitable questions on her stance on abortion and other hot topics, and the debate will go nowhere because there won't be any Miers-made case law to use as evidence of her opinions (or opinion-making). Miers is undoubtedly a staunch conservative (otherwise she wouldn't be working in the Bush White House) but how much of a judicial activist she is will remain to be seen -- if she is confirmed, she may hew to the center, steer the Court even further to the right, or act as a swing vote the way O'Connor has.

Miers is also known as a devout Bush loyalist, which is probably the most fundamental reason she was selected. No surprise there, considering the Shrub's penchant for surrounding himself by cronies of varying levels of competence. But consider this description from conservative David Frum:

In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.

Great. That's just who we need on the Supreme Court, making decisions and shaping law that will affect our lives for decades -- someone who is dazzled by the, ahem, brilliance of George w. Bush.

NEWS FLASH: Buying Fake News is Illegal

When the Bush administration doesn't like the news, and can't spin the news, it just rolls up its collective sleeves and goes out and pays (with our tax dollars) to make up the news.

Fake the news. Seems practical. Why wait for actual reporters to spread the Word of Bush when they are so easily distracted by reporting, well, actual news?

But hey, wouldn't that be WRONG? aka "covert propaganda?"

Well, yeah. It is illegal to "convey a message to the public on behalf of the government, without disclosing to the public that the messengers were acting on the government's behalf and in return for the payment of public funds." (GAO)

The rigorously non-partisan Government Accountability Office has delivered a scathing report, condemning the Bush administration's use of tax dollars to disseminate propaganda to the American public, in violation of federal law.

Seems the message about how Bush would "leave no child behind" wasn't being sufficiently touted by the media (what with all the other news to report about cuts in education spending and tax breaks for the wealthy and the hunt for those non-existent WMDs in Iraq).

So the Bush administration, using public funds (over $300,000) paid for favorable coverage, making pay-offs to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and hiring a P.R. firm to concoct fake "news" stories praising Bush's commitment to education.

(The casting call for "reporters" must have been fun, watching all those auditioning actors try to make that statement without laughing...)

The Bush administration's Justice department lawyers and inspector general of the Education department claimed that it was perfectly OK to produce bogus "news" reports, as long as the facts were true. In other words, there was nothing wrong with hiring someone to pretend to be a reporter hyping Bush's education policies, and airing that "report" to the public as if it were actual news.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Also, illegal. The GAO spelled it out for the administration:

"The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news
story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the audience to believe that
the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged
news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news
segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not
know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the
government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this
sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing."

Read all about it in today's NYT.