Big Thanks to War Journalists

2 CBS News crew members die in Iraq

Thanks so much to all the journalists who have put their lives on the line--or given them up completely--to get the story out on Iraq. Without them, we might not know the horrors of war that our brave soldiers and the civilians they're protecting put up with. War is an ugly, ugly business. I hope Bush and his band of merry men understand the sacrifice they have forced upon so many people, but I doubt they do.

Gracias for Telling Us...

What's Really Important! To George Will, being an American voter means understanding political discourse, especially that of the pallorous, be-spectacled white men living in the swamp-land of Washington DC. Yes, he and others writing for the Washington Post are the ones who will set the agenda of important issues for all people. Just this week, David Broder told us that Hillary's sex life was more important politically than her energy policy. And who are we to argue?

The white, English-only population was knocked for a loop in the past month when our Spanish-speaking future citizenry rose up and took to the streets to tell us they love America just as much as the longer-established immigrants. It was a political movement that really got going on Spanish-speaking radio stations, and it was one of the most impressive set of political demonstrations this country has seen in years.

The main stream media had to play catch up, being totally ignorant of what happens on Spanish radio. It just wasn't on their radar, and it probably would have remained a complete surprise if the demonstrations weren't going to mess up traffic.

In other words, real politics were happening, with real consequences for real people, and we were almost completely ignorant of it. How dare those people try to tell us what's important to this country! That's what George Will is saying. He'll tell us what matters, thank you very much. And, to George, if it doesn't happen in English on MSM outlets, it must not matter.

That he has no idea that his arguments are blatantly racist is appalling.

Over My Indicted Body!

The Congress will allow this President to walk all over the Constitution...as long as he doesn't leave footprints on their rugs: Return of Jefferson Files Is Sought

Gore Campaign Up to the Media

Here we have Fineman on Gore, a nice piece about a guy who would have done a great job for our country. Unfortunately for Gore and the country, he won in 2000--but a variety of evil forces conspired to turn that victory into utter disaster for the world.

Terrorism, global warming, economic strife, massive corruption--those are just a few of the things that come to mind.

Gore danced around the truth in 2000, knowning that Carter, who did force us to look at the truth, made for a disastrous President. Gore knew that was a way to lose. Reagan showed that Americans didn't want the truth. They wanted to feel good about themselves.

But Gore was also wary of talking up his own accomplishments, largely because the media wouldn't give him any room to be right about things. The internet is something that, in many ways, he did "invent", at least through shepherding the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the internet boom. For that, he was roasted to a crisp. So, not wanting to talk about the depressing realities of global warming, trying to distance himself from Clinton, and being "discouraged" from talking about his own accomplishments, he was reduced to listening to his advisors on earth tones and other minutiae.

Now, we all adore Gore because of the crappy alternative we ended up with. We all want Gore to run in 2008. But when it comes down to it, would his run be any different than it was in 2000? Wouldn't Chris Matthews continue to roast him instead of admitting he was wrong about the whole thing? Wouldn't the media remember how much it disliked him?

Gore is about to reach the status that Carter has established since his presidency ended. Of course, Gore can be remembered even more fondly than Carter, because he doesn't have gas lines or Iranian hostages to haunt him. What's not to like about that?

When it comes right down to it, he's not dumb and he won't want to live through the hell that was his 2000 campaign again. Only people like Fineman can tell us if it's going to be different this time around. It's up to the media to make him run again, as only they can decide how they'll treat him. Perhaps we'll get a glimpse of this in the coming weeks.

Great Analysis Irrelevant, Again

This David Ignatius op-ed makes some great points about things that don't really matter in the Bush Administration. No matter how great the analysis or the analysts, if the guys at the top don't listen or try to re-shape it, we'll get bunked up results.

Tenet famously said to Bush the Iraqi WMD issue was a "slam dunk". Those two words are about the only mitigating evidence that Bush cared one way or the other about whether Iraq posed any threat. His due diligence, in this case, took about one second, and that's if we assume Rove didn't make up the whole conversation in exchange for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In the case of Iran, we're a lot more sure that there are nuclear ambitions, because the IAEA has actually seen the evidence. But whether it exists or not is hardly the issue. The issue is whether this administration will really make war a "last resort". Everything we have seen is that it won't. Direct negotiation is off the table, warships are moving into position, and the rhetoric is stepping up. None of this has to do with the CIA getting it right. Instead of taking up precious newspaper print with analyzing the analyzers, we should instead be analyzing (or maybe psychoanalyzing) the Decider in Chief.

bin Laden Addicted to Court TV

I guess bin Laden is posting a message that Massaoui wasn't part of the 9/11 attacks. He must not be that deep underground that he can't get the latest news. I can just see him on the edge of his lounge chair's ottoman in a cave, yelling at his big-screen HDTV. Like we were before the OJ Simpson verdict.

What Might Have Been

Every time I hear about the Taliban rising again in Afghanistan, I think back to the run up to the war in Iraq. We shifted resources away from finding bin Laden, and we largely left Afghanistan to its own on forming a stable democracy free of the the Taliban.

What if we had completed the mission there and allowed the UN inspectors until about now in order to figure out if Saddam was really a threat? My predictions:

1. bin Laden would have been caught by now.
2. Afghanistan would be increasingly stable.
3. Iran's elections wouldn't have put the nutcases back in power--nor would Palestinian elections have done the same, by the way.
4. The Middle East wouldn't hate us.
5. Neither would our European friends.
6. We wouldn't be spending $10 billion a month on Iraq.
7. And, lest we forget, we wouldn't have 2,500 US military and 10s of thousands of Iraqis dead.

Hmmm.

Don't Just Build a Wall

One of my favorite sequences in SlingBlade has Billy Bob Thornton's mentally impaired character diagnosing the problem with a lawnmower. Everyone else who's looked at it can't figure out what's wrong. After about a minute, though, he looks and says, "It's outta gas." His boss says something to the effect of "he always thinks of the simiplest solutions first." Of course, it turns out that the simplest solution he comes to in a lot of cases is to hack up a perpetrator. This Washington Post article about the border reminds me of that sequence.

The border is a complex eco-system, not a line in the sand. People live and work there, crossing back and forth to make a living. Our culture and economy is helped by this.

But when conservatives look at the problem, they don't see the complexities. They just want to build a wall so they can get back to watching the 700 Club.

When a lawnmower is out of gas, fill it. When a border is "broken", don't build a wall. The toll on human life doesn't warrant it, even if it's the best way to make the stupid among us feel better. We need some nuance here. We need some compassion, and we need local solutions to this problem. And we need it before people start getting hacked up over the issue.

Right Wingnuts Emboldened

Through re-districting, we are seeing the emboldenment of the hard core right-wingers. This article about Bush's personal problems with criminalizing illegals is a case in point. Check it out here.

Usually, when the party is losing credibility, the politicians make a mad dash for the center. That's not happening with the immigration debate, at least in the House. There, members are mostly protected through Tom Delay's gerrymandering fixes.

It's actually making for some interesting politics right now. The real whack-jobs are doing their Hitler routine in order to make sure their 30% base of similarly inclined constituents are motivated enough to beat the small minority of centrists in their districts.

This will split the Republican party even more, as some of the Northeastern Republicans will have a hard time watching their party's media dominated by hatred. It will be interesting to see how McCain reacts to all this, as he tries to figure out his strategy for winning the WH.

Stay tuned...

Bush Redefines Poll Numbers

You thought you knew what you were feeling about Bush. As he says, though, your disapproval is merely a case of being unsettled--like having an upset stomach.

Bush also said that his current approval ratings of 29% are an indication of his work effort, not the total number of "settlers--the ones who are settled." Bush continued, "If you add my 29% now to the 90% I got after 9/11, the American public thinks I'm putting in 119% effort. That' a lot of hard work. When some people see me working so hard on the war, they get unsettled. But the other side of disapproval is effort."

Gregory didn't include that part of the interview, saying Bush's logic was over the head of most Americans and didn't make for a good soundbite. He also cut out the Bush equation about Hurricane Katrina, which he is widely believed to have mishandled. Bush said, "Mishandled? That means the people are constipated. These are nervous times."

Will Starts Making Sense, then Abandons It

Who Isn't A 'Values Voter'?

George Will doesn't want to be known as a conservative without values. He values the pragmatic, the common sense, instead of the Old Testament moral hatred that social conservatives value. (Most economists would think that people with common sense values should vote for Democrats. I guess George Will values his pragmatic stupidity, then.) He hates that the media labels only social conservatives as "values voters".

That part makes sense. Then, he gives examples of how different groups vote their values. For liberals, he says,

"Today's liberal agenda includes preservation, even expansion, of the welfare state in its current configuration in order to strengthen an egalitarian ethic of common provision. Liberals favor taxes and other measures to produce a more equal distribution of income. They may value equality indiscriminately, but they vote their values."

Uhh, no. Not quite, George. (But I do like how you tried to slip the common media label "welfare state" into the piece that's against media labels. Clever, man. Clever!)

We don't value equality indiscriminately. We do believe in the "all men are created equal." We'll separate ourselves from the social conservatives by putting women in there, too. We do believe that all should have an equal chance--through education, medical care, and decent housing, for instance. We do believe that that all should share a responsibility to keeping the republic functioning through taxes. If you're in a position to pay more, you should pay more. (That fourth yacht may have to wait.) That's not valuing equality indiscriminately. That's valuing common sense.

WH to Lie to Congress...Again

Briefings Scheduled for Lawmakers

OK, so now the WH will brief members of the intelligence committees on the NSA wiretapping program. I would imagine this a mostly a PR ploy. I believe Congress has been briefed on this stuff before, but then they read the newspapers about a month later, and they find out that Gonzales or Hayden only told them the tiniest little bit about it--you know, the things they already knew from reading the NY Times or USA Today.

If they want to find out what's really happening, they need to go beyond the administration officials that have proven their capacity to lie directly to them. Why don't they subpoena 20 random NSA employees, give them whistleblower protection and anonymity, put them under oath, and actually get the truth about the program? Oh, I forgot, to do that they would actually have to want to know what's happening, and the Chairman of those committees really don't want to know.

The WH considers Congress subordinate. It's not going to reveal anything it doesn't want to. And judging from the Rubber Stamp coalition on the Hill, they are right about their assumptions.

Breaking: Wal-Mart, Mexico Joint Venture

Bush Rules Out Large-Scale Deportation of Immigrants. Check below for initial details of the Wal-Mexico Sovereign Country Joint Venture.

Wal-Mart, Mexico Exploring Sovereign Country Joint Venture

Deal May Grant Wal-Mexico "Ambassadors" Diplomatic Immunity

With President Bush’s announcement that he will send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Mexico, Wal-Mart was forced into “desperation creativity”, according to top executives. Fearing the supply of low-wage workers would dry up, Wal-Mart entered into high-level talks with Mexican President Vicente Fox about establishing a joint venture country on the Texas/Mexico border.

Under leaked terms of the deal, Wal-Mart would buy a 50,000 acre plot of desert from Mexico for an undisclosed sum. The new country, dubbed Wal-Mexico, would consist primarily of airport runways, which would shuttle its citizens to Wal-Mexico embassies—large tent cities baring the Wal-Mexican State Emblem—adjacent to Wal-Mart Supercenters once a month.

“This proposal is a win/win/win situation that could avert a huge disaster for us,” said a Wal-Mart spokesman. “We get the labor we need without the burdensome worker regulations, Mexico will get a small cash payment for useless land its citizens would be welcomed to Wal-Mexico, and Americans no longer have to worry about immigration issues.”

“The 11 million undocumented U.S. workers will be able to apply for instant citizenship at a nearby Supercenter, and they’ll be welcomed into the Wal-Mexico Embassy immediately,” the spokesman continued.

Wal-Mart executives say the benefits to its investors and customers won’t stop there. Wal-Mexico will reportedly tax its citizens a 40% income tax on the $10 per 16-hour day wage it expects to pay its ambassadors. The wage, considered low in the U.S. but comparatively high in the future Wal-Mexico, will result in significant cost savings for Wal-Mart customers. “We’re talking handmade sweaters for $2.49, frozen breakfast burritos at 10 for a dollar” said the Wal-Mart spokesman.

President Bush said the plan had merit. “The guest worker program I proposed isn’t going over so well, so I’m open to alternatives that will satisfy all parties. I’ll be meeting with Vicente at the proposed site near Laredo next week. I’ll be looking into his heart to see if he’s serious about it.”

A sticking point will be whether Wal-Mexicans will be granted diplomatic immunity. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), is against the plan. “The Mexicans got here by breaking the laws of the United States. Now, we’re going to give them diplomatic amnesty, too? If they don’t have to follow our traffic laws, for instance, you’ll see 10 ambassadors driving down the road in a beat-up Celica all the time. It sounds like a disaster.”

Wal-Mart executives were cautiously optimistic. "We haven't drawn up a Constitution yet, but we do have an order from China for some very large tents," said one Wal-Mart source who refused to be identified.

Rove Makes Border Policy, Also Approves of It

The Washington Post covered a story today saying that Rove approved of the WH border control policy to be announced tonight. The fact that he made up the policy had nothing to do with this approval, Rove said.

Rove is expected to issue the details of his plea agreement in the CIA leak scandal at approximately the same time as the President's speech tonight, but he said that this would be purely coincidental timing.

Rove also said that he would resign his post when he was indicted tonight but that his hand would stay inside the President Bush dummy in order to animate its every move until the end of its term.

Update...Washington Post Changes Headline, Ruins Joke. The headline had said "Rove Approves of" the policy. They changed it to "Rove Defends" the policy. They're quick, those guys...real quick.

Who Are "People"?

People like this President I guess likability will be key. Maybe he'll crack a few one-liners during his primetime tonight. I'm sure that would make us like him even more.

Our Fearless Despot

Tonight Bush will announce his plan to send the National Guard to the border to protect us from hard-working folks who long for nothing more than to be locked in a Wal-Mart overnight to work for less than minimum wage. And the entire reason for it? To shore up political support from the whack-jobs who represent the very tip of the right wing.

Here's what gets me. Dubya likely went AWOL during his service in the easiest of the National Guard units, but he seems to have absolutely no shame in sending the overburdened military into action again and again for purely political reasons. Every time I see a local human interest story about a family that is barely making it due to the breadwinner's deployment, I think, "Wow, what a sacrifice for such stupid idea."

You've got to give it to Bush. He's perfectly comfortable as an emporor with arbitrary power. He feels no shame about making others do what he never would. He feels different than the average American serf--more deserving, more special, and even divinely elevated. He feels we're here to serve his every whim, and he doesn't have any problem demanding that we do so. In other words, he's a completely shameless ruler.

Nazis Weren't Timid Either

According to Richard A. Falkenrath (The Right Call on Phone Records), the best qualifier for Hayden to head the CIA is that he's not too timid and bureaucratic to fight the war on terror. That argument in support of the NSA data mining project kind of reminds me of how the Nazis were bold enough to require the Jews to register in order to better understand the internal movements of the "enemy".

Falkengrath goes through a six degrees of separation game with Mohamed Atta to make his point. Say he calls one guy who knows another guy who knows another. That other guy calls another and another, and one of them is a terrorist. I bet that's happened to millions of Americans just by talking with a telemarketer. In fact, any scientist would tell you that finding a terrorist this way is absurd--no matter how bold and independent.

Boldness and independence are not good qualifiers for running important agencies unless that Will to Act is coupled with an intelligence to know what works and what doesn't. Understanding of right and wrong, along with the vetting ideas with, say, the Constitution might be another variable to throw in the mix.

NSA Expresses Concern Over Pattern of Calls to Domino's Pizza

Poll: Most Americans Support NSA's Efforts

Check below for first big NSA data mining success!

NSA Expresses Concerns Over Pattern of Calls to Domino's Pizza

As part of the warrantless surveillance program, the NSA has been mining data on the number of calls to Domino’s by some demographic populations. The calls are concentrated in mostly liberal cities that are known as college towns.

Conservative commentators, putting the pieces together, are calling for investigations. They believe that such a high concentration of calls could indicate that the liberal 18-22 year old demographic is supporting terrorist causes.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, chimed in on the issue on his show yesterday. “Have you ever called a Domino’s? You know,” he said, “I’ve been calling them for years, sometimes twice in one day, and I’ve yet to speak with one American.”

Limbaugh continued, “The NSA says a lot of these calls are going out just before midnight straight from college campuses. Let’s see if we can make a connection here. Liberals calling foreigners at astonishingly high rates at odd hours? You do the math, folks.”

The NSA said its data mining project has turned up high-value information in the fight against terror, but it was very concerned about the data missing from the area dominated by Qwest, which refused to hand over the phone records.

An NSA spokesman said, “Qwest, headquartered in Denver, CO, is the carrier for the University of Colorado at Boulder. CU Boulder is known for its party atmosphere and occasional rioting after football games. We can only assume the pattern of late night calls to Domino’s is present there, but we don’t know who is doing it. To be without this data about calling patterns there is cause for grave national security concern.”

“We know they hire males of Middle East descent,” the spokesman continued, “and we’re concerned that the transactions they do, which are usually all in cash and sometimes involve tips of up to two dollars, may be going to fund terrorists. This money is untraceable”

Another NSA official, speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, said, “We called a Domino’s in Boulder, trying to get the information any way we could. There was a guy named Muhammad answering the phone. We asked for call recordings, but he insisted on getting our delivery phone number first, and we had to abort the operation.”

President Bush, speaking in the Rose Garden, said, “Just this one patternistic finding justifies the whole program, and I think the American people realize that we’re doing everything in our power to protect them from the evil-doers—no matter where they’re hiding.”

Outrage Today, Under Oath Tomorrow?

This article (NSA Call-Tracking Program Sparks Alarm) about the newly discovered NSA database building program sparked a question in me: will Arlen Specter finally put someone under oath?

ure, he thinks it's illegal. He thought the same thing about the warrantless spying, too. When it came time for the hearings, though, he didn't think it was necessary to put anyone under oath during the proceedings. Not much truth came out of that, and it's mostly been brushed under the rug since then--except in late night comedy jokes.

Will the same thing happen again? Probably. I don't know if he'd put anyone under oath if he found an NSA branded spy camera on his toilet seat. Dubya would assure him he's only looking at terrorists asses, and Specter would be satisfied.

Straw Man Made of Brass

Well, it seems that the true issues surrounding General Hayden have been replaced successfully by ones that no one, in the end, will care about. Note this Washington Post piece, which goes over the strategy of having a military man versus a civilian at the helm of the CIA: Experts See a Strategy Behind CIA Shuffle.

That’s hardly what Americans should care about. I doubt that 1% of the public cares whether he wears an Air Force uniform or a grey suit. The serious policy wonks can dig in and get mighty indignant about it, but that “liberal elite” won’t sway many. And that’s why the issue made for a perfect straw man. By focusing on something that will be rebutted easily, we fail to see how getting Hayden will be like baring our teeth to the force of a brass knuckle punch.

Hayden was the architect of the warrantless surveillance program that Bush should probably be impeached for. When he was asked about the fourth amendment issues about undue search, he delivered a lecture to the reporter about constitutional law that was, well, completely wrong.

What Americans have to ask themselves is whether they should let this unpopular President have his way with our civil liberties one last time. Will this fix anything? Or will it simply get someone at the CIA who Bush can “strategerize” with while fishing around for the giant perch story that will make his presidency immortal—if only in his own eyes?

Rush Got What Everyone Deserves

"Don't mention oxycontin. Don't mention coke or freebase either, unless you got some." I guess I have to agree with the deal Limbotomy got to end his addiction scandal. All along, I really wanted to see him locked up, to get the same harsh jail-time treatment that he himself says should be harsher. If there's anyone who should be required to walk the talk, he's the one. We all knew that would never happen.

Instead, Limbotomy got the treatment that most drug addicts should get--drug treatment without jail time.

Of course, Rush thinks that he's different from the common drug addict. He is. Some drug addicts are killers--sometimes it's four or five people they've knocked off trying to get their drugs. Rush, on the other hand, is at least partially responsible for at least 50,000 killings throughout the world through his incessant sponsorship of any war Republicans can think up and the army of idiot voters who make sure they get the chance.