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November 04, 2005
GOP's Bullshit Sympathy for the Poor Ends
This is the most pathetic news of the week (via Kos). And that's saying a lot.
The Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation last night that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program. [...]The focus now shifts to the House, where the Budget Committee voted 21 to 16 yesterday to approve a more extensive bill saving nearly $54 billion through 2010 with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, agriculture subsidies and child support enforcement. The House measure would allow states to impose premiums and co-payments on poor Medicaid recipients for the first time.
Nothing like making the poorest victims of Katrina pay for the damage. Is it November 2006 yet? The Republicans of this era are shameless, corrupt motherfuckers -- the worst of the worst this country has ever known.
09:47 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Torture Orders Came from Big Dick Cheney
Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department, Lawrence Wilkerson says that the "audit trail" for the authorization of torture and ignoring the Geneva Convention came from the vice president.
"I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war."
More at the Washington Post.
09:42 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Using the wackos
Speaking of Crooked Jack Abramoff, you may have seen this little quote which, if the media really cared about scoops, would be headline material (this is from a memo by Abramoff aide Michael Scanlon):
"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it.
They hate them for their wacko-dom.
02:21 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
The Bugman is gonna get whacked
Just yesterday, Tom DeLay was blaming his staff for being crime-buddies with Jack Abramoff.
But what a difference a day makes! The NYT reports that there is e-mail evidence that the Bugman himself had was a criminal accomplice to Abramoff.
Representative Tom DeLay asked the lobbyist Jack Abramoff to raise money for him through a private charity controlled by Mr. Abramoff, an unusual request that led the lobbyist to try to gather at least $150,000 from his Indian tribe clients and their gambling operations, according to newly disclosed e-mail from the lobbyist's files. The electronic messages from 2002, which refer to "Tom" and "Tom's requests," appear to be the clearest evidence to date of an effort by Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, to pressure Mr. Abramoff and his lobbying partners to raise money for him. The e-mail messages do not specify why Mr. DeLay wanted the money, how it was to be used or why he would want money raised through the auspices of a private charity.
I can't IMAGINE what DeLay would want $150,000 for!? Um, off the top of my head, I'd say to funnel it illegally to local Texas campaigns. Abramoff then talks about the "private charity" they'll use to launder the money:
"Did you get the message from the guys that Tom wants us to raise some bucks from Capital Athletic Foundation?" Mr. Abramoff asked a colleague in a message on June 6, 2002, referring to the charity. "I have six clients in for $25K. I recommend we hit everyone who cares about Tom's requests. I have another few to hit still."The e-mail was addressed to Tony Rudy, who had been Mr. DeLay's chief of staff in the House before joining Mr. Abramoff's lobbying firm. Mr. Abramoff said it would be good "if we can do $200K" for Mr. DeLay.
What is Capital Athletic Foundation? You'd think they'd be a capital-based group devoted in some way to athletics, right? Um...wrong:
Mr. Abramoff's private charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation, has come under scrutiny by Senate investigators since the foundation was used to underwrite overseas travel by members of Congress and senior government officials, as well as a Jewish day school that Mr. Abramoff had established and paramilitary training for kibbutz residents in Israel. Mr. Abramoff's e-mail messages describe the training program as a "sniper school."
The e-mails read like script pages out of The Sopranos, with references to "our friends" and code names like "Leadership." If so many people weren't being screwed and de facto killed as a result of Smilin' Tom's "leadership," it'd almost be funny. Well, it still is kind of funny. You just have to read it:
In a chain of often cryptic e-mail messages that began on June 6, 2002, Mr. Abramoff communicated with members of his lobbying firm and his clients about Mr. DeLay's request that large amounts of money be raised through the foundation."Hi Tony," Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Rudy, asking that he help in the fund-raising effort and describing the Capital Athletic Foundation as "a tax deductible foundation" that does "NO lobbying at all."
Good thinking, Jack! Cover your ass!
Later that day, Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Rudy again, asking him to pass on the request for a donation to one of the firm's major Indian tribe clients, the Saginaw Chippewas of Michigan. He wrote that the request would "look better coming from you as a former DeLay COS - we're gonna make a bundle here."
Hey, Jack -- your ass is starting to show. And so is Tom's. And his is pretty pasty.
On June 20, Mr. Rudy wrote to Todd Boulanger, a different colleague at the lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig, asking about the status of a $25,000 contribution to the Capital Athletic Foundation."Jack wants this," Mr. Rudy wrote, referring to Mr. Abramoff. "It is something our friends are raising money for." The e-mail did not identify the friends.
Right, this email didn't identify the friends. But the one before used the name DeLay.
Mr. Boulanger replied the same day: "I'm sensing shadiness. I'll stop asking. I'll break it up over the various request to a total of $25K."Mr. Rudy replied: "Your senses are good. If you have to say Leadership is asking, please do. I already have." Mr. Rudy did not return phone calls Thursday, so it was not possible to determine if "Leadership" referred to Mr. DeLay.
Leadership is either DeLay, Bill Frist, or a new Marvel Comics hero.
In e-mail on July 8, 2002, to the lobbyist for a Texas Indian tribe, Mr. Abramoff asked about the status of the tribe's contribution to the foundation for Mr. DeLay: "I am getting daily calls on this. When they return tomorrow, I have no doubt, Tom himself is going to call." Mr. Abramoff appeared to be referring to Mr. DeLay's return to Washington after the Fourth of July holiday.
There it is! DeLay's ass in full moon, right alongside Abramoff's.
01:45 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
November 03, 2005
Yo Bushie! More bad poll news
Disapproval Numbers
Overall: 60%
Economy: 61%
Iraq: 64%
Health Care: 61%
Understands problems of people like you? No: 66%
Bush is honest and trustworthy... No: 58%. Remember his 2000 campaign?
Bush intentionally misled America to the war in Iraq... Yes: 55%.
10:12 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
The new Dem poster child for crime
Remember Wille Horton? He helped George H. W. Bush get elected. Not voluntarily of course.
Horton was a Massachusetts-based convicted murderer who, while on a prison furlough for the weekend, killed someone . The governor of Massachusetts, who tacitly approved of furloughs, was Michael Dukakis. And so Lee Atwater, Bush's campaign manager and the political godfather of Big Head Karl Rove, seized upon Horton as a way to defeat Dukakis.
Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, bragged that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name." Horton had never gone by the name Willie, but rather William.
See, William is a man's name but Willie, well, that's the name of a boy. And in case you can't connect the dots, yes, Horton is black.
Scooter is the name of a boy, too, but a WASP boy from the 1950s. And Scooter's fast becoming a household name.
If I were a Dem running for a seat in 2006, I couldn't say Scooter's name fast enough. I couldn't play six-degree-of-separation from my GOP opponent to Dickie's boy often enough.
Scooter Libby: the Willie Horton for Democrats in 2006.
03:28 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Yo Bushie! 35 percent!
CBS News poll puts Das Bush at 35% approval. Several more points to drop before he's at the Nixon resignation number.
01:02 AM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca
November 02, 2005
Secret CIA torture chambers known to Bush
The Washington Post nailed the CIA on the U.S. run Eastern European torture chambers. And -- what ho! -- the president knows about them and authorized them.
First, the story:
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
And now... Your torturer-in-chief...
The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.
They hate us for our freedom... and because we torture the shit out of them; we ignore basic human values; and we secretly violate decades-old international and domestic laws.
02:09 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Rummy getting rich off panic. Literally.
Another entry in the disgusting saga of Republicans turning fear into profit, as Fortune Magazine reports that undiagnosed mental patient Donald Rumsfeld is making a lot of money off this pesky bird flu.
See, the bird flu has killed OVER A HUNDRED PEOPLE! HOLEE CRAP!! QUICK, WE GOTTA PANIC! And step one: spend tax dollars to order up a bunch of drugs. Rummy, you got anyone we can call?
The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.Rumsfeld served as Gilead Research's chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.
Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.
Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.
"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected," says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.
World Health Organization officials have been saying for months that the most valuable action to take is corralling domestic and farm birds and keeping them away from wild bird populations. But, see, Rummy and his Republican pals don't own shares in a multi-national bird corralling company. No. They make drugs. Not drugs like pot, which are non-addictive and less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes. Other drugs. Drugs they call pharmaceuticals.
Okay, look, it's really simple: they are evil.
01:26 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
November 01, 2005
Karl, the cowboys are starting to look like Indians
Trent Lott, ousted Senate Leader, had something interesting to say today on Hardball about Big Head Karl:
Look, [Rove] has been very successful, very effective in the political arena. The question is should he be the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy under the current circumstances? I don't know all that's going on, so I can't make that final conclusion. But, you know, how many times has the top political person become also the top policy advisor? Maybe you can make that transition, but it's a real challenge, and I think they have to – I do think they need to look at bringing in some more people, you know, old gray beards that have been around this town for a while, help them out a little bit at the White House.
Lott's a cagey guy. Is he sharpening his scalpel in preparation to surgically remove Dr. Moneybags Frist from the Leader spot? Or will Trent just wait for the Dr. to implode on his own? Either way, to have a Republican of national prominence like Lott suggesting that maybe Little George should reconsider Big Head Karl's employment contract is, well, the kind of thing I expected to happen. Remember: it was the Republicans who took down Nixon.
08:30 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Alito who?
Today, Harry Reid spanked Little George and his 19th-century judge, Strip Search Alito, back below the fold.
We all know Little George is doing all he can -- from his early Monday morning announcement of the judge to yet more bird flu mania today -- to pretend that his administration is not riddled with corruption, and to keep names like Libby and Rove and Cheney out of the news.
And Reid just made the top story the top story again. I mean, please, is there any bigger story than a conspiracy within the highest level of the executive branch to obstruct an investigation into the leaking of a covert operative over charges that a war rationale was lacking. Traitorgate is the only story.
Bill Frist is none too bright to get in front of the mics and call the Dems adhering to Senate rules "a stunt." He's just feeding the story. Like all the other Republicans under investigation, he's making foolish mistakes.
Reid isn't going to be cowed by "Insider Trading" Frist and his grandstanding. Reid knows that every poll out there makes it plain that Americans want to know more about Traitorgate. The only way to get to the bottom of this is to go right at it. The only way to win back the House and the Senate is to go right at the lying, thieving Republicans and shine the bright light of reason and fact on them.
Give 'em hell, Mr. Reid.
08:13 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Democrats Grow Spine, Shut Down Senate!
This is unbelievable! Finally the Democrats are standing up!
Folks weigh in... Quotes via Americablog:
AMERICABLOG: Holy shit. CNN just said that by invoking Rule 21, Reid just shut down the Senate, all 100 Senators are called to the Senate floor, they have to turn over their cell phones, blackberries, etc.And Frist is PISSED. I have never been slapped in the face to this degree. Boo hoo hoo. Frist wants to talk about stunts? His entire leadership is a stunt. There has been no congressional oversight of the Bush administration for five years while the Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress.
And the real big news. This just knocked Judge Alito off his game. The story is now the Democrats showing balls on national security. Reid just changed the subject from Judge Alito to the White House's scandals on Iraq and the RoveGate CIA leaks. Absolutely brilliant.
CNN:
CNN's Bill Schneider: "This is a revolt, Wolf." Now a paraphrase: "t's a signal to the Republican majority, if the Republicans even think of trying to take away the filibuster, the Democrats are saying 'look what we can do.'"CNN's Jack Cafferty: "The Democrats got that bird flu new conference out of the news in about four hours. They smelled blood... first White House staffer indicted in 135 years... was there a nuclear weapons program? Were there chemical and biological weapons?... the 9/11 commission made a whole list of recommendations, many of which have been ignored by the administration, the senate intelligence committee has promised an investigation, which is hasn't done."
For the love of all that's left of our nation... Support your democratic senators on this! Send mail here.
04:47 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Contact Bob
E-mail and advertising requests to: robertcesca-AT-hotmail-DOT-com
Bob at the Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca
Bob Cesca is the author of the forthcoming book One Nation Under Fear -- a collection of blog-style essays which examine the politics of fear during the "dark ride" of the Bush years.
He's been a featured blogger for the Huffington Post since August, 2005. His blog posts appear on the front page above-the-fold every Wednesday (sometimes Thursday). Bob's Huffington Post entries are among the most popular on the site, averaging between 50,000-100,000 views each.
When he's not writing about politics, Bob is also a screenwriter, director and producer, and the founder of Camp Chaos, a new media production studio based near Philadelphia.
Bob grew up in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia. He graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in Political Science with a concentration on the media and the American Presidency. Prior to Camp Chaos, Bob was a talk radio host, radio news reporter and freelance journalist.
Bob has written and produced hundreds of animated shorts as well as music videos for Iron Maiden, Meat Loaf, Everclear, Yes and Motley Crue. He's also the creator of the politically charged animated sketch show ILL-ustrated which aired for two seasons on VH1 and MTV2. His most recent animated project is Kung Fu Jimmy Chow.
In his spare time, Bob is a Civil War historian and a road cycling fan (he also rides 50-100 miles a week, but not very well).
Shortly after 9/11, Bob directed the award-winning independent feature film, The War Effort, a satirical documentary about the nation's post-9/11 knee-jerk patriotism.
01:40 PM | Posted By Bob Cesca
October 31, 2005
The smell of Alito in the morning
Here's an Alito Judicial Fun Fact:
In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]
Okay, that decision alone is enough to want to put this guy in a time machine and ship him back to apartheid South Africa or Third Reich Germany.
STRIP SEARCHING A TEN-YEAR OLD GIRL DOES NOT (!??!) VIOLATE HER RIGHTS?!?!?!
07:13 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Can you hear this, Mr. President?
Remember the hammily staged moment -- I mean touching and patriotic moment -- at Ground Zero, when Bush and that audience plant -- I mean patriotic citizen -- had that back and forth about whether or not Bush could be heard, and Bush read his scripted lines -- I mean ad libbed:
"I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
Gee, he was so good at hearing people back then, wasn't he? What happened today?
Bush ignored a shouted question about whether he should fire Rove during an Oval Office appearance on Monday.
Not so good at hearing anymore, huh? Doctors say that too much cocaine use can affect your hearing, but you know, who believes what doctors say? They're just "special interests" who like "science."
It doesn't matter, really. Because it appears that the Dems and the press aren't going to stop asking about firing Karl Rove and/or Dick Cheney.
06:27 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Cheney's Blogcast: "I get all nervous...."
(Written and recorded by Marc Evan Jackson)
06:21 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Vice President Dick Cheney
Scooter won't go away
As much as BushCo would like to distract us from their car wreck of an administration (albeit by their quickee nomination of a judge who believes wives should be legally bound to talk to their husbands before having an abortion), it's just not going to happen.
There's no way that the "first sitting White House official indicited in 130 years" story is going to disappear like a DUI charge in Texas.
In fact, this Thursday, there's an event scheduled!
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's former long-time chief of staff, Lewis Libby, will make his first court appearance on Thursday. At Libby's arraignment on Thursday, scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m., the federal judge handling the case, Reggie Walton, could set a schedule for the filing of motions and possibly a trial date.
So set your TIVO for one of the lousy news networks at Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EST. Fitzmas continues.
06:21 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer
Dobson calls for Halloween flag desecration
James Dobson's website today features a series of tips for parents who want to make Halloween (a reenactment of pagan rituals) a little more Christian. Included in his suggestions:
• Dress your children in costumes that focus on history, pretend or fantasy, rather than on the macabre or occult –– Bible heroes, Abraham Lincoln, the American flag, sailors, cowboys, Indians, ballerinas, princesses, doctors, firefighters.
That's weird. I thought wearing the American flag violated the flag code.
Section 8d: The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.
So Dobson supports the desecration of the American flag.
12:06 PM | Comments (17) | Posted By Bob Cesca
October 30, 2005
Drudge: Jail time for Libby, courtroom for Dick
Drudge is reporting that Fitzgerald has "scotched" plea discussions from Libby's attorney and that... BOOM!... Dick will have to testify in court.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.
"If Mr. Fitzgerald is going to demand a public recounting of conversations between the vice president, or even the president, and his staff, on matters he, himself, has acknowledged are 'classified,' executive privilege will obviously be invoked."
Fitzgerald has made it clear to lawyers involved in the case that he prefers Cheney appear as a witness in open court.
"Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said.
Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week, TIME magazine reports in new editions. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.
07:22 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
Testify, Mr. President!
"You can't say, 'Please don't be mean to me. Please let me win sometimes.' Give me a break here," Clinton said. "If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people then find something else to do."
Get 'em, Bill!
AP.
02:05 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca
