2K

"We scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie"
--"Death Fugue"by Paul Celan

Powell: Bush & Cheney Briefed on Plame

AfterDowningStreet serves up red meat:

...in the past several days, former secretary of state colin powell had a meeting with senator john mccain (R-AZ), primarily about the mccain-sponsored amendment on inserting a rider prohibiting torture onto the us defense budget (a bill which powell has himself been lobbying heavily for, against objections of president bush).

during the meeting, powell recounted to the senator that he had traveled on air force one with bush and cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included ambassador joe wilson's involvement and identified his wife, valerie plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. powell told mccain that he showed that memo only to two people--president and vice president. according to powell, cheney fixated on the wilson/plame connection, and plame's status.

powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame's undercover status.

Thanks to Bartcop for the link.

UPDATE: It was Jan Frel at AlterNet serving up the red meat. Apologies all around, but thanks to everyone for the delicious meal.

Out on a Ledge

Bush's Brain is in big trouble, mister. No word on Bush's Conscience.

Rory Carroll UPDATE: Whew!

This must be a great relief for, not only Carroll's loved ones, but to the other journalists working in Iraq. According to Reporters Without Borders 73 journalists have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.

Grannyinsanity reminds us that this isn't just a tragedy, it's policy, baby!
From March 20th, 2003.

Should war in the Gulf commence, the Pentagon proposes to take radical new steps in media relations - 'unauthorised' journalists will be shot at. Speaking on The Sunday Show on Ireland's RTE1 last Sunday veteran war reporter Kate Adie said she had been warned by a senior Pentagon official that uplinks, i.e. TV broadcasts or satellite phones, that are detected by US aircraft are likely to be fired on.

Oh, and granny pointed me to Project for the Old American Century. While I'm generally wary of any one who hankers for the "good ole days," this site has lots of neat lists and charts and links to documents released by the Freedom of Information Act, not to mention timely reporting. Thanks granny!

SouthSIDE

I knew it was serious when grown men began crying on the radio

Despite our lead blogger's anti-sports proclivities, I just want to remind you all that this is a Chicago blog, and a historic moment (hopefully ending in a party on Oct 30th) in Chicago sports history. Go Sox!

Missing Irish Journalist Criticized "Out of Control" U.S. Military

The Guardian is confirming that journalist Rory Carroll is missing in Iraq.
Just a month ago Carroll wrote a scathing article linking the increased number of deaths and injuries of journalists covering the invasion of Iraq to "out of control" U.S. troops.

It was a routine assignment that, like too many in Iraq, went wrong. Tipped off that police had clashed with gunmen in western Baghdad, the Reuters news agency dispatched Haider Kadhem, a cameraman, and Waleed Khaled, a soundman, to the scene. As their car headed down Ghaziliya bridge American troops opened fire, hitting Khaled in the face and the chest, killing him instantly and spattering blood over the US military and Reuters press cards clipped to his shirt.

By the time relatives and colleagues arrived American armoured vehicles had sealed off the street and Kadhem, slightly wounded from fragments, was under arrest. Having found nothing suspicious the troops allowed the car to be towed away and handed relatives a body bag. One soldier told them not to look too closely at the corpse. "Don't bother. It's not worth it." Other soldiers standing a few feet away joked among themselves.

For Reuters and many other foreign media organisations in Baghdad the August 28 shooting was further evidence that American troops are out of control. Since the 2003 invasion US forces have killed at least 18 media workers in incidents for which no one has been charged or punished. "Whitewashes. There have been no satisfactory investigations that we know of," said Rodney Pinder, director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI), a Brussels-based advocacy group.

Read the whole article. It's quite an indictment of the military mindset when it comes to media coverage:

In addition to shooting them, US forces have a habit of detaining journalists without charge. Weeks can pass before a bureau is able to confirm that an employee has been arrested, possibly injured, and held incommunicado in Abu Ghraib or another prison. A driver for the Guardian, accredited with the US authorities, was held without explanation for five days.

It kind of makes you wonder...

Liar of the Free World

The New York Daily News drops the other shoe

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.
...
A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

No pun intended.

Okay, did anyone else know this?

Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed President Bush (at least, he was interviewed by his team; I don't remember whether it was Fitzgerald specifically who conducted it, though I would assume it was). The president's lawyers succeeded in getting Fitzgerald to agree that the interview not be under oath. Still, though, an interview took place and at the top of the list of questions must have been just what happened and what the president knew.

I know they pulled that bullshit with the 9/11 Commission, but I guess I must have missed the massive media coverage and general outrage when they pulled the same old shit with Fitzgerald.

Truthiness = Goodiness

The Colbert Report

Laughed my ass off. The couple of times I saw Steve Colbert host TDS when Jon couldn't be there he was really good. He never tried to BE Jon and he doesn't try on the new show. We'll see how it holds up. It's greatest strength may be that it channels the same creative strength as the TDS.

Meanwhile O'Reilly is on with Jon tonight. Yikes!

Oh It's On

Please?


Pretty please?

How About a Human Being for President

Screenwriter, Shermen Yellen asks Can a Man Become President? I found myself reading this and mentally replacing "human being" for real man because it made more sense that way.

Wikipedia defines a human being as having "a highly developed brain and consequent capacity for abstract reasoning, speech, language, and introspection."

Ok, this would disqualify George "Bootsie" Bush from being a human being much less President of the United States--or as he pronounces it U-ny-ed States.

Raping the Corpse

Hey, I calls 'em likes I sees 'em.

Conservatives have already used the storm for causes of their own, like suspending requirements that federal contractors have affirmative action plans and pay locally prevailing wages. And with federal costs for rebuilding the Gulf Coast estimated at up to $200 billion, Congressional Republican leaders are pushing for spending cuts, with programs like Medicaid and food stamps especially vulnerable.

"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

Mr. Greenstein's comments were echoed by Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut: "Poor people are going to get the short end of the stick, despite all the public sympathy. That's a great irony."

But many conservatives see logic, not irony, at work. If the storm exposed great poverty, they say, it also exposed the problems of the very policies that liberals have supported.

"This is not the time to expand the programs that were failing anyway," said Stuart M. Butler, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and advocacy group influential on Capitol Hill.

While the right has proposed alternatives including tax-free zones for businesses and school vouchers for students, Mr. Butler said, "the left has just talked up the old paradigm: 'let's expand what's failed before.' "

Doubt about the effectiveness of some programs is only one factor shaping the current antipoverty debate. Another is political muscle: poor people do not make campaign contributions. Many do not even vote.

A third factor is the federal deficit, which leaves little money for new initiatives. And a fourth is the continuing support for tax cuts, including those aimed at the wealthiest Americans, which further limits spending on social programs.
Indeed, even as he was calling for deep spending cuts last week, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who leads the conservative caucus, called tax reductions for the prosperous a key to fighting poverty.

"Raising taxes in the wake of a national catastrophe would imperil the very economic growth we need to bring the Gulf Coast back," Mr. Pence said. "I'm mindful of what a pipe fitter once said to President Reagan: 'I've never been hired by a poor man.' A growing economy is in the interest of every working American, regardless of their income."

Ah yes. The Reagan years, a period of great economic prosperity. No, sorry, those were the Clinton years. These were the Reagan years.

The Grunts Know

Read ksuwildkat's diary at Daily Kos.

...As a soldier I have been involved in this war in one way or another since 1990. I was in Baghdad early on when we actually thought we could rebuild the country. It was a tough decision then to cut down the trees on the airport road then but when you are getting shot at, you have to do something. Now we are blowing up bridges. For the first time I believe we have lost. For the first time as a military professional I think we have no way of winning this. We are willing to destroy the basic structures of the country to deny the enemy their use. This means we have no other way to deny them the use of these assets. We can't stop them, the Iraqi Army can't stop them, the Iraqi police can't stop them and we can't collect enough intelligence to make the enemy pay for using what should be choke points.

There is no way to sugar coat this. This is a MAJOR development. That we have made it public is also a big deal because every other military professional in the world knows we are done. This war may go on for a long time but the conclusion is decided as far as I can see. I never imagined I would see this day.

If the boots on the ground think we're done...wow.

Pretty Much

A big chunk of the national media establishment do live and work in New York. As such, they understand that the subway is massive, it's how people get to and from their jobs, that most people are going to pay little attention to these warnings (or even be aware of them). The hysterical reporting is ridiculous.

How my roommate and I found out about the subway threat: We called our moms. They live in Chicago and Dallas. When we did get on the subway I saw all of two cops which is pretty standard and NOBODY was conducting searches. In fact it was the fastest commute we've had all summer. How seriously can we take things if there is no real attempt to protect us?

"Plenty Bright" II

Molly Ivins recalls the "moderate" Harriet Miers' 1989 campaign for city council in Dallas.

When pressed, she said she did believe one should be able to legally discriminate against gays, and it is the recollection of two of the organization's officers that the response involved her religious beliefs.

Miers' church states on its website that it believes in biblical inerrancy, full immersion baptism, original sin and salvation dependent entirely upon accepting Jesus Christ. Everyone else is going to hell.

I'm still baffled that President Bootsie's nomination of his personal lawyer for the Supreme Court is something that we have to take seriously. This man has no shame.

And, by the way, has any WH Staff secretary ever had this kind of career path?

"Plenty Bright"

She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.

Not fit to judge a hogcalling contest, AND insulting to female impersonators everywhere.

Bootsie, Bushie, and Brownie

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." To paraphrase Santayana, if you put an idiot in charge you're doomed.

My favorite history professor, Richard Berthold of "Anyone who can bomb the Pentagon gets my vote" fame, taught my favorite history class on Rome at the University of New Mexico several years ago. Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the grandson of Augustus and as a small boy he was dressed in a tiny soldier's outfit and paraded in front of the Roman troops. They nicknamed him Caligula, because of the miniature version of soldier's sandal-boots he wore. Roughly translated, Caligula means Bootsie.

I've been reminded of Caligula several times over the last five years. There are lots of parallels between Bootsie and our own Little Lord Candy-ass. Both were born into powerful families; both played dress-up and paraded in front of real military troops; both came to power through questionable means. But my personal favorite: Caligula appointed a horse to the Roman senate, Bush appointed a horse's ass to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and so...

When Missing Class = Missing the Boat

Or when the lipstick of race is put on the class pig... Oh just go read the October 3, 2005 issue of The Nation. Adolph Reed Jr. cuts through the bullshit of Bush/FEMA/Katrina vs. NOLA like only Mr. Reed can.

What happened in New Orleans is the culmination of twenty-five years of disparagement of any idea of public responsibility; of a concerted effort--led by the right but as part of a bipartisan consensus--to reduce government's functions to enhancing plunder by corporations and the wealthy and punishing everyone else, undermining any notion of social solidarity.
...

The abstract, moralizing patter about how and whether "race matters" or "the role of race" is appealing partly because it doesn't confront the roots of the bipartisan neoliberal policy regime. It's certainly true that George W. Bush and his minions are indifferent to, or contemptuous of, black Americans in general. They're contemptuous of anyone who is not part of the ruling class. Although Bush and his pals are no doubt small-minded bigots in many ways, the racial dimension stands out so strikingly in part because race is now the most familiar--and apparently for many progressives the most powerful--language of social justice. For roughly a generation it seemed reasonable to expect that defining inequalities in racial terms would provoke some remedial response from the federal government. But for quite some time race's force in national politics has been as a vehicle for reassuring whites that "public" equals some combination of "black," "poor" and "loser"; that cutting public spending is aimed at weaning a lazy black underclass off the dole or--in the supposedly benign, liberal Democratic version--teaching blacks "personal responsibility."
...
Class will almost certainly turn out to be a better predictor than race of who was able to evacuate, who drowned, who was left to fester in the Superdome or on overpasses, who is stuck in shelters in Houston or Baton Rouge, or who is randomly dispersed to the four winds. I'm certain that class is also a better predictor than race of whose emotional attachments to place will be factored into plans for reconstructing the city.
...

Race is too blunt an analytical tool even when inequality is expressed in glaring racial disparities. Its meanings are too vague. We can see already that the charges of racial insensitivity and neglect threaten to divert the focus of the Katrina outrage to a secondary debate about how Bush feels about blacks and whether the sources of the travesty visited upon poor New Orleanians were "color blind" or racist. Beyond that, a racial critique can lead nowhere except to demands for black participation in decision-making around reconstruction. But which black people? What plans? Reconstruction on what terms? I've seen too many black- and Latino-led municipal governments and housing authorities fuel real estate speculation with tax giveaways and zoning variances, rationalizing massive displacement of poor and other working-class people with sleight-of-hand about mixed-income occupancy and appeals to the sanctity of market forces.

The only hope we have for turning back the tide of this thuggish Administration's commitment to destroy every bit of social protection that's been won in the past century lies in finding ways to build a broad movement of the vast majority of us who are not part of the investor class. We have to be clear that what happened in New Orleans is an extreme and criminally tragic coming home to roost of the con that cutting public spending makes for a better society. It is a shocking foretaste of a future that many more of us will experience less dramatically, often quietly as individuals, as we lose pensions, union protection, access to healthcare and public education, Social Security, bankruptcy and tort protection, and as we are called upon to feed an endless war machine.

Leaving Houston

UPDATE: Ceds made it to Austin at 5am CST. It took 12 hours to travel approximately 150 miles. That's 12.5 miles per hour. For the poor souls who are just now getting on the road, because now evacuation is mandatory, traffic is literally not moving.

Houston

Sister Ceds is being evacuated to Austin. Houston most likely won't be hit hard but they're worried about power outtages. At any rate she's fine.

Maintenance Stuff

We are now whoring for Barnes & Noble. Please click on the link and buy something. Also I've broken down and started a second blog about life in the Big Apple, the bits and pieces of it that I don't spend hunched over my laptop. It's called Turtle Tales and it's still growing legs. So go read and shake your head over how cool I'm not. Who knows? I may be inspired to go out and get cool.