Satire exposes logic of hierarchy

Damn, this one is too eerie... it could have come from a memo written by Rummy.

I Support The Occupation Of Iraq, But I Don't Support Our Troops:

"I support the occupation, and the occupation alone, because when we start to support the troops, we pave the way for irrelevant concerns about their families back at home. Before you know it, questions about who is and isn't going to be home in time for Christmas will be interfering with the crucial decision-making process of our commander-in-chief.

I'd like to ask those currently trumpeting their support for the troops a question: Have you ever actually met any of these soldiers in person? Well, I have, and believe me, they are no more impressive than any other low-level functionary of a large institution.

In all honesty, my soul swells with pride at the thought of the military-strategy papers and cost-analysis reports in which the troops are represented as numerical figures. But, as for the men and women--well, in almost every respect, they are average. Although they are no less intelligent than any other American, it is certainly fair to say they lack the ability to devise the complex strategies and tactics to manage their own divisions, much less grasp the nuanced reasons for their deployment.

It is ridiculous that my 'heart' is somehow morally or ethically obliged to 'go out' to the troops. In fact, had the troops not been put to productive labor by the sheer might and institutional authority of the U.S. military, a good number of them would be sitting around bars, drinking and gambling. In short, we shouldn't view the troops as objects of sympathy, because their very contribution to our society is their ability to carry out simple commands on a battlefield."

The future is now?

New Generation Of Dynamic, Can-Do Seniors Taking On Second Jobs:
"'The face of the American senior citizen is changing. Instead of a glum widow coming home from her gift-shop job to sit in a rocking chair all night, we're seeing the eager smile of a Walgreens cashier working the 6-10 p.m. shift.'

Supplementary employment, once reserved for the young and middle-aged, is quickly being discovered by the 'middle-aged at heart,' Romansky said.

'Whoever said people should settle into just one job at 65 never witnessed the pride of an 80-year-old grocery bagger,' said Skip Eldrud, CEO of the job-placement company Vital Signs Temporary Labor. 'It's moving to see that the can-do American spirit lives on, well into the years when declining bodily functions make many tasks difficult or even painful to complete.'"

W.'s Stiletto Democracy

W.'s Stiletto Democracy:
"Mr. Bush and Condi Rice strut in their speeches - the secretary of state also strutted in Wiesbaden in her foxy 'Matrix'-dominatrix black leather stiletto boots - but they shy away from taking questions from the public unless they get to vet the questions and audiences in advance.

Administration officials went so far as to cancel a town hall meeting during Mr. Bush's visit to Germany last week after deciding an unscripted setting would be too risky, opting for a round-table talk in Mainz with preselected Germans and Americans.

The president loves democracy - as long as democracy means he's always right. "

homeland security?

Home just ain't the same anymore. And it sure ain't secure. When breast milk is a toxic hazard -- putting babies at risk for thyroid impairment among other things -- you know those that we trust to protect us have fallen down on the job:

Rocket-Fuel Chemical Found in Breast Milk "Scientists on Tuesday reported that perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel, was contaminating virtually all samples of women's breast milk and its levels were found to be, on average, five times greater than in cow's milk.

The contaminant, which originates mostly at defense industry plants, previously had been detected in various food and water supplies around the country. But the study by Texas Tech University's Institute of Environmental and Human Health was the first to investigate breast milk...."

award winning post

The Koufax awards for 'leftie' Internet Weblogs came out and the following one the award for the best post-- and deservedly so: If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?

Bush admits drug use

But double standard in media keeps it under wraps:

Bush Gets Stoned by the World Media "What explains the difference between the elite American media and the rest of the world?

Admission of drug use by a national leader has made front-page news before. When Bill Clinton admitted in the 1992 presidential campaign to smoking marijuana both the Times ('Clinton Admits Experiment With Marijuana in 1960's') and The Post ('Clinton Admits '60s Marijuana Use') ran the story on page one. But that was during the heat of a presidential primary campaign when such revelations can be more consequential. It could be argued that the Wead tapes, coming to light after Bush's reelection, are unlikely to alter the political equation in Washington.

The Bush administration and its supporters have never shied from criticizing news outlets like The Post and the Times for a perceived liberal bias. On tape, Bush complained about a media 'campaign' against him. 'It's unbelievable... they just float sewer out there,' he's quoted as saying.

If the big-name newspapers had played up the drug angle it's reasonable to assume that Republicans and conservatives on talk radio would renew such accusations. They might say liberal editors were dredging up an old story from a disloyal friend to thwart the agenda of a popular conservative president.

Foreign editors (and local TV) have no such worries. They have a simpler view: George Bush using illegal drugs is worth a headline."

Foreign press calls a spade a spade

The mole, the US media and a White House coup: "For two years Jeff Gannon cut an unobtrusive figure at White House press conferences. The shaven-headed, craggily handsome man worked for an obscure news agency called Talon News, known for its conservative sympathies. He was often the subject of jokes by colleagues on weightier news organisations.

No one is laughing now, because Gannon was far from being a harmless distraction. He was writing under a false name and working for a Republican front organisation. Suddenly, his 'softball' questions to White House officials looked less like eccentricities and more like plotting by an administration which has frequently displayed a dark mastery of the arts of press control.

When it emerged that Gannon was also linked to gay prostitution websites and might be a gay prostitute himself, the scandal as to how he was allowed daily access to the White House grew even murkier. The American media is now being forced to confront the possibility that Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, was simply a Republican plant, used by officials, including President George W Bush, to ask easy questions in difficult press conferences. 'The idea of having a mole in the White House press corp is amazing, but that's what it looks like,' said Jack Lule, a journalism professor at Lehigh University...."

fish rots from the head down

Rove-Gannon Connection?: "Tired and timid are two adjectives never applied to Rove. The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 came through the ranks of college Republicans with the late Lee Atwater, and their admitted and alleged dirty tricks are the legends many young political operatives dream of pulling off. So when Jeff Gannon, White House 'reporter' for Talon 'News,' was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career.

But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the 'boy genius.' Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon...."

the GOP's fuzzy-headed idealism

Transatlantic divisions run deep: "Americans want to believe in miracles, their heads are in the clouds.

While Europeans fret about what they regard as real life, about poverty and social justice and about combating AIDS, Americans find it easier to rally round a vision, however otherworldly it might be."

Yankee ingenuity?

'Artful' strippers escape censure: "A US strip club has managed to sidestep laws banning total nudity in public by offering customers the chance to make drawings depicting its dancers.

The club in Boise, Idaho, charges $15 for a sketch pad, pencil and dance performance, in what is billed as an 'Art Club Night', Reuters agency says."

Do as I say, not as I do!

Our Friends, the Torturers: "The United States has long purported to be outraged over Syria's bad behavior, the latest flash point being the possible Syrian involvement in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

From the U.S. perspective, Syria is led by a gangster regime that has, among other things, sponsored terrorism, aided the insurgency in Iraq and engaged in torture. So here's the question. If Syria is such a bad actor - and it is - why would the Bush administration seize a Canadian citizen at Kennedy Airport in New York, put him on an executive jet, fly him in shackles to the Middle East and then hand him over to the Syrians, who promptly tortured him?

The administration is trying to have it both ways in its so-called war on terror. It claims to be fighting for freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and it condemns barbaric behavior whenever it is committed by someone else. At the same time, it is engaged in its own barbaric behavior, while going out of its way to keep that behavior concealed from the American public and the world at large...."

They don't forget you when it comes to a stop-loss order

But when it is earned medical care or pay... well, their priorities shine through.

Hurt Troops Often Denied Pay, Benefits: "Hundreds of Army Reserve and National Guard troops returning home after being wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone months without pay or medical benefits they were entitled to receive, military officials and government auditors said Thursday."

Is our children learning?

Learning that from the C-in-C that you're not guilty if there is no evidence.

Afghan Photos Sparked Inquiry: "According to military documents disclosed Thursday, the soldiers, fearing 'another public outrage,' destroyed many of the photos and video images after photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib were beamed around the world, resulting in widespread shock and criticism....

A specialist who took some of the photos told investigators the 'bad photos' were shot before the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted. He added that he 'only became aware of this after the news broke on television and newspapers of the Iraqi incidents.'

What constituted a 'bad photograph?' investigators asked.

'One where the public would be outraged,' he said."

I think they hit a nerve...

Italy angered by Swedish TV spot: "The Italian foreign ministry summoned Sweden's ambassador to complain about the spot for Sveriges Television (SVT).

In it, SVT describes itself as a 'free' TV channel, in contrast to Italy where Mr Berlusconi 'controls 90% of the national TV channels'.

The state-funded station said the ad highlighted its own independence....

A similar ad claims that Mr Putin is in control of all national TV channels in Russia - including NTV, the last independent channel, acquired by the state in 2003."

More food for thought: in what three countries has Rupert Murdoch concentrated his media empire?

And what three countries contributed major ground forces in the Iraq invasion in March 2003? Now make a Venn diagram and see what you find.

Murdoch's international influence makes the Heast and Pulitzer empires appear paltry in comparison, no?

Krugman nails it yet again

Three-Card Maestro: "...a disturbing thing about Wednesday's hearing was the deference with which Democratic senators treated Mr. Greenspan. They acted as if he were still playing his proper role, acting as a nonpartisan source of economic advice. After the hearing, rather than challenging Mr. Greenspan's testimony, they tried to spin it in their favor.

But Mr. Greenspan is no longer entitled to such deference. By repeatedly shilling for whatever the Bush administration wants, he has betrayed the trust placed in Fed chairmen, and deserves to be treated as just another partisan hack."

Torture, yeah, torture...

'Nobody is talking': "This month, British readers get the chance to study in full the catalogue of leaked memos and government investigations which track the evolution of the White House's torture policy from 9/11 to Afghanistan, Guantánamo and Iraq, with the publication here of Torture and Truth by the US journalist Mark Danner, and The Torture Papers, edited by two US lawyers, Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel.

The story that emerges from the assembled documents is of a group of lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians and soldiers convinced not only of the rightness of their cause but of the unprecedented danger posed by the terrorists.

Had they made the same arguments, Britain's second-world-war spy interrogators would have had a stronger case for using whatever methods they felt necessary to extract information from secret agents.... London and other British cities had barely begun to recover from a Nazi bombing campaign that had killed 42,000 civilians and destroyed 130,000 houses. Britain's merchant fleet was losing 50 ships a month. Most of Europe was under fascist rule and millions of civilians were being slaughtered and enslaved. Britons did not know they would win the war.

Reading through the transcripts and letters relating to... interrogation in the Public Records Office at Kew, the modern reader awaits the moment the MI5 men would talk about hooding [a suspect], stripping him naked, handcuffing him till his hands went numb, beating him up, subjecting him to extremes of cold and heat, menacing him with guard dogs, sodomising him or pretending to drown him with wet towels.

They did none of these things.

Violence towards the prisoner, or humiliation of the kind practised in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, was ruled out. 'Never strike a man,' wrote Robin 'Tin-Eye' Stephens, the monocled commander of Camp 020, in his secret advice to interrogators. 'For one thing it is the act of a coward. For another, it is unintelligent, for the spy will give an answer to please, an answer to escape punishment. And having given a false answer, all else depends upon the false premise'"

Read the article for an account of the horrific acts perpetrated in your name.

Horse of a different color

First media whores, then a media whore who was an actual whore in real life (JimJeffGuckertGannon) and now accusations of film whoredom?

True professionals: "[Harrison] Ford, [George] Clooney and [Robert] De Niro have all come under attack by fellow actor Russell Crowe for their willingness (eagerness, even) to take the corporate shilling. 'I don't do ads for suits in Spain like George Clooney or cigarettes in Japan like Harrison,' Crowe told reporters. 'I mean, Robert De Niro advertising American Express. Gee whiz, it's not the first time he's disappointed me.' (Ever the gentleman, Crowe conspicuously failed to extend his criticism to his good friend Nicole Kidman, who recently pocketed a reported $2m to plug Chanel No. 5 perfume.)"

What will we tell the children?

Read what Signorile has to say about media responsibility (or lack thereof):
"To listen to the arrogant and suddenly pious anchors and reporters of the corporate press corps—who've hardly been guardians of privacy in recent years—it's all just so unseemly. The hand-wringing over liberal bloggers' supposed revelations about the fake White House reporter's "personal life" has been comical; and no matter what they say, it certainly does not reflect any newfound regard for privacy. It looks more like the media got beat, again, on a story that was sitting right under their noses. Playing catch up, they had to create a back-story that also acted as an alibi. Thus all the talk about the brutality of the bloggers who beat them to the punch.

Like bratty kids made to eat their greens, CNN, the Washington Post, New York Times and other news organizations were eventually forced to report on how a fraud using a false name and working for a right-wing web site owned by a Republican Party operative in Texas —Talon News—gained access to daily White House press briefings for two years....

Guckert's escapades came to light only because liberal websites and blogs shined a bright light on him and began investigating his background....

But why, in addition to the general free ride the media has given Bush on a host of issues, was the press corps so reluctant to go after this story? Because they didn't want to upset the apple cart that is the White House press briefing room.

Just like the Pentagon press briefing room, White House reporters are fed little morsels of information. Anybody who causes trouble—by exposing, say, a White House plant in the room—is going to get punished, and thus be denied access and get scooped by the competition. So someone like Gannon operated among them for two years without being exposed, even though they all knew, and were clearly embarrassed by, the truth."

The Borg has come for you

Conform or die! One news outlet at a time:
"On Monday, Mike Corum, who writes the From the Left column for the weekly Pella Chronicle, stopped by that office to welcome the new publisher to the community from Ottumwa, where she's been living. It wasn't until later that day that Corum understood why she seemed disengaged.

The publisher's first official act related to the newsroom was calling up the editor and ordering him to scrap Corum's column.

The editor, Hal Hatfield, refused, and resigned in protest. The publisher, Sandy Selvy, didn't try to change his mind....

For all the hype about the so-called liberal press, one growing reality in an era of media consolidation is that there are fewer outlets for viewpoints critical of the administration. If anything, papers should err on the side of views that differ from the official one. Fully thinking through the issues is fundamental to a functioning democracy. After all, this is the free press we hope to export to fledgling democracies....

It would be impossible to read the publisher's mind on this, and certainly a small community newspaper needs to highlight community news and perspectives. But no newspaper can thrive if the fear of offending people drives decisions on content. And there are red flags in the sudden way this was handled.

Historically there's been a sacred wall separating the news and business ends of the operation. The publisher represents the business side and the editor the news and editorial side, and advertising or circulation considerations aren't supposed to interfere with the integrity of news and editorial judgments. Opinion pages are supposed to be a forum for lively discussion of opposing viewpoints.

That's how it's been until now, [former editor] Hatfield says...."

Dems need to wake up and...

Fire the Consultants
by Amy Sullivan:
"...Since their devastating loss last fall, Democrats have cast about for reasons why their party has come up short three election cycles in a row and have debated what to do.... But one of the most obvious and least discussed reasons Democrats continue to lose is their consultants.... Yet when it comes to political consultants, Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step.

A major reason for that reluctance is that Democrats simply won't talk openly about the problem.... Few insiders dare complain about the hammerlock loser consultants have on the process -- certainly neither the professional campaign operatives whom the consultants hire nor the journalists to whom the consultants feed juicy inside-the-room detail. 'Everybody in town talks [privately] about Hansen and how he's held candidates hostage through the DSCC,' says Chuck Todd, editor of National Journal's Political Hotline. Todd, however, is one of the few brave insiders. I interviewed two dozen Democratic Party leaders, operatives, and others for this story. Virtually no one had a good thing to say about Hansen or the rest of the oligarchy. Yet few would talk on the record. The exceptions were those who have gotten out of the business of working for political candidates such as Dan Gerstein, a former advisor to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). 'If a company like General Motors had the same image problem that the Democratic Party does, they would fire the guys responsible,' Gerstein told me. But not Democrats. 'We don't just hire those guys,' Gerstein said, 'we give them bonuses....'"

What's good for the goose...

'Liberal' Media Silent About Guckert Saga: "What Mr. Guckert seems to have been is not a journalist but a Republican dirty trickster. He was schooled at the Leadership Institute -- an outfit run by veteran right-wing operative and Republican National Committee member Morton Blackwell. (It was Mr. Blackwell who distributed those cute 'purple heart' Band-aids mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds at the Republican convention last summer.) His former employers at Talon News include leading Republican fund-raisers and former officials of the Texas Republican Party who have been active in partisan affairs for the past two decades.

How did this character obtain a coveted place in the White House? What did the White House press staff know about him? How does his story fit within the larger scandal of payola punditry, with federal funds subsidizing Republican propagandists in the press corps? Did someone in the Bush administration give him a classified document?

Such questions are evidently of little concern to our liberal media outlets, whose leading lights prefer to deliver prim lectures about the unwarranted invasion of Mr. Guckert's private affairs and his victimization for his conservative views. In fact, everything known about him comes from material he posted on public Web sites, but that's beside the point.

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart -- or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this 'journalist' had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps—and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now."

Howard Dean -- New DNC Chief

"The Republicans know the America they want, and they are not afraid to use any means to get there.

But there is something that this Administration and the Republican Party are very afraid of. It is that we may actually begin fighting for what we believe..."

Guilty until proven innocent

Hunt for Fugitives Expands to Retirees: "A law enforcement measure that has had mixed results in hunting down fugitives among the nation's sick and disabled is expanding this year to target the much larger ranks of retired Americans.

Thousands of unsuspecting retirees could lose their Social Security checks in the months ahead, some over false or unproven allegations, minor infractions or long-dormant arrest warrants. The risk is a consequence of the Fugitive Felon Project, a little-known law-and-order measure created by Congress in 1996 to help apprehend suspects and to prevent fleeing criminals from using government benefits to elude arrest.

Project computers already match names on various welfare lists with names on felony warrants issued around the country. That screening process has led to thousands of arrests among recipients of disability checks alone, including 88 wanted on homicide charges.

But records and interviews also show that the computer dragnet frequently cut off federal benefits to the sick, poor and disabled who were neither fugitives nor felons. Many lacked financial and legal resources to get their benefits restored...."

Bush secret propaganda undermines free press

So first we have it revealed that a reliable partisan hack had been furtively put on the government payroll... and urged to recruit others while 'undercover.' Then a second and a third media-crony are found secretly drawing retainers from your taxdollars and mine in order to to spew their partisan filth.

And now news that a 'news organization' (Talon news), which is in reality a partisan PR operation had placed an undercover asset (false name and everything) into daily press briefings and even a white house press conference to lob false and misleading questions -- 'lifelines' -- to further the partisan agenda of dehumanizing Democrats or anyone who questions Der Fuehrer.

Finally the MSM (mainstream media) has found it fit enough to report on the latest degradation of reporters and reporting:

Democrats Want Investigation of Reporter Using Fake Name: "Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative."

But this brief item does not even begin to plumb the depths at the roots of this instance of media machinations. After all, someone had to credential this bogus 'reporter.' And background check would have revealed his true identity. Hence the White House had to be complicit with the deliberately covert planting of a media shill posing as a reporter in the press corps, and one who was called upon frequently.

As usual, one finds better coverage overseas:

Fake reporter unmasked at White House: The White House faced fresh accusations of a clandestine propaganda campaign yesterday after it emerged it granted regular access to a rightwing blogger with a habit of asking President Bush easy questions.

Jeff Gannon, who represented a rightwing site owned by a Texas-based Republican activist, had been a regular at White House briefings since 2003 but aroused reporters' suspicions after posing ideologically loaded questions.... [But note that it wasn't reporters that uncovered his chicanery.... it was MediaMatters and independent bloggers.]

But questions remained yesterday about why the White House suspended the normally rigorous vetting process to issue daily passes to an organisation rejected by the [Republican controlled] Senate last year for not being a legitimate media outlet.

Gannon's unmasking comes only weeks after the Bush administration admitted paying handsome sums to three conservative commentators to promote its social programmes in print, radio and TV, and has led to calls from Democrats for an explanation.

"It appears that Mr Gannon's presence in the White House press corps was merely a tool of propaganda for your administration," the Democratic congresswoman Louise Slaughter wrote in a letter to Mr Bush.

In its investigations, Media Matters for America discovered that Talon News was owned by a Texas-based Republican activist called Roger Eberle, and that its so-called correspondent was in the habit of lifting verbatim large chunks of White House and Republican party press releases without attribution.

It also discovered a disturbing pattern at White House press conferences during the year or so when Gannon was a regular fixture.

"You could see there was a pattern in which the White House press secretary, Scott McLellan, would be getting a more aggressive and less friendly question, and then would seem to call on Jeff Gannon to change the subject. And when he did he got a softball question in return," Mr Brock said.

The fake reporter's downfall came last week when he attracted suspicion with a particularly loaded question to the president on how he would enlist Democratic support for his social security reforms.

After falsely attributing quotes to Democratic leaders, Gannon asked: "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

Of course, these wingnut whackos have no shame when it comes to propaganda, subversion of an open society or intimidation of public discourse. But when it comes to their hypocrisy on sexual issues.... well, that's a different story. Cue the Shadenfreude music:

Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link: A conservative ringer who was given a press pass to the White House and lobbed softball questions at President Bush quit yesterday after left-leaning Internet bloggers discovered possible ties to gay prostitution.

"The voice goes silent," Jeff Gannon wrote on his Web site. "In consideration of the welfare of me and my family [mother, brother and sister-in-law], I have decided to return to private life."

Gannon began covering the White House two years ago for an obscure Republican Web site (Talon-News.com). He was known for his friendly questions, including asking Bush at last month's news conference how he could work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."

Gannon was also given a classified CIA memo that named agent Valerie Plame, leading to his grilling by the grand jury investigating her outing.

He came under lefty scrutiny after revelations that the administration was paying conservative pundits to talk up Bush's proposals. By examining Internet records, online sleuths at DailyKos.com figured out that his real name was Jim Guckert and he owned various Web sites, including HotMilitaryStud.com, MilitaryEscorts.com and MilitaryEscortsM4M.com.

"The issue here is whether someone with connections to male prostitution was given unfettered access to the White House and copies of internal CIA documents. For a family values administration, that's pretty creepy," said John Aravosis, one of the bloggers chasing the story.

The White House didn't return a call asking how someone using an alias was given daily clearance to enter the White House.

On his TalonNews Web site, Gannon had written that liberals were out to get him because he's a white conservative man who owns a gun, drives a sport-utility vehicle and is a born-again Christian.

Yesterday, however, he abruptly quit, and all of the stories he wrote were erased from the Web site. [Holy George Orwell, Batman!] A great many were on gay issues, including one detailing John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" that was headlined mockingly, "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."

If you click on the above story link, you'll also see an online photo of Jeff Gannon/JD Guckert -- if you can stomach it.

Now of course the bushies are trying to turn this into a story of gay-bashing (poor poor JD Guckert), to hide the real story of this being a baltant example of their illegal and ongoing efforts to undermine the integrity and transparency of public discourse through secret government funding or sponsoring of propaganda aimed at the people -- secret government payoffs, leaks from the secret police, staged 'town meetings' paid for by your tax dollars but limited to GOP faithful, and media plants -- both of stories and 'reporters.' (Government sponsorship direct from the White House is the only way Guckert could have got credentialed despite what his background check turned up.) What else I wonder?

FoxNews and Limbaugh are only the most open example of the GOP's politically correct police attempt to pervert the public sphere. Now that some of the rocks have been inadvertantly turned over, we are getting to see some of the covert aspects of the GOP's war on an open society. Bush and the GOP are determined to make the U.S. more like Russia, where freedoms exist in name only. Rather than Marx they have the gospel according to Falwell and Robertson: a twisted, hateful creed of envy and vengence. And they want to eliminate people who 'don't know their place' and want to think for themselves, like you.

PS: Here is a congressional call for investigations that delineates the key points clearly, particularly the issue of White House involvment.

PPS: a Guckert/Gannon primer

No doubting Dr Dean's convictions

Unlike a certain waffler who urged us to 'begin the healing' ughhhh

Of course the MSM, in seeking to curry favor with the bushies and reinforce the 'CW,' pronounced Dean's election as party chair as a sign of doom for the Dems. And hence they buried these nuggets in the last two paragraphs of the story:

Ailing Democrats Put Their Faith in Dr. Dean "Dean has said the party chairman is not the chief messenger for the Democrats, but he comes in with a determination to make good on his pledge of two years ago to 'change this party.' In a recent interview, he described it this way: 'I think we have to be the party of reform, reforming our dreadful fiscal situation, reforming our budgetary process, reforming our electoral politics, reforming health care, reforming education, reforming our foreign policy.'

But he said he sees no need for the party to change its message. 'The real message of my campaign was stand up for what you believe in and pursue the politics of conviction,' Dean said. 'That's frankly why George Bush was successful, because he gave the appearance that he had some deep-seated convictions. If you want to excite people in politics . . . you've got to be a party of convictions.'"

Hallelujah!

Good question for the Christians in our audience

Torture, American Style: "The title of Ms. Mayer's article is 'Outsourcing Torture.' It's a detailed account of the frightening and extremely secretive U.S. program known as 'extraordinary rendition.'
This is one of the great euphemisms of our time. Extraordinary rendition is the name that's been given to the policy of seizing individuals without even the semblance of due process and sending them off to be interrogated by regimes known to practice torture. In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.

Our henchmen in places like Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Jordan are torturing terror suspects at the behest of a nation - the United States - that just went through a national election in which the issue of moral values was supposed to have been decisive. How in the world did we become a country in which gays' getting married is considered an abomination, but torture is O.K.?"

Must read on Social Security

This paragraph links to the best short explanation of the issues at stake in Social Security 'reform' that I've read yet:

"Getting rid of Social Security and preserving it are not two versions of the same endeavor, even if the distinction is intentionally obscured by the rhetoric of 'reform.' They are opposite objectives. Since President Bush is now trying to do the former nothing is more obvious or logical than that the Democrats are opposing him root and branch since they want to do the latter."

GOP Borrow-and-Spending leads to...

 

Does this count as domestic terrorism?

I mean, if a few folks spraypainting SUVs and Hummers can be called environmental terrorists, then what should we call this? After all, they held over 35 million people hostage...

Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown:

"In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.

The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's larger experiment with deregulation.

The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and 2001."

And I still haven't got a refund check... have you?

Marine General Is Told To Speak 'More Carefully'

"'Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. . . . It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling,' he said at the forum in San Diego.

'You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,' he added. 'You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.'"

And another thing...

Consider these links worthy updates of the post below:

You do not own their courage

Election a mixed bag

"U.S encouraged by... vote"