Patrick J. Fitzgerald will be updating his website today at noon Eastern time. A quick look at the page properties show that they are getting ready as the website was modified at 10:03AM today. It was last updated on Wednesday.
It was set to expire at 11:38:50AM and the page is getting hit pretty hard now.
Also, did anyone else see Bush get heckled in his "terror" speech today to Veterans in Virginia today? Even they can't stand his BS.
POTUS Bush yesterday gave an introduction to something his wife has been "working hard" at for the youth of the United States. Everything was going smoothly until Bush went off this cue cards and teleprompter and introduced his own wife, Laura Bush, as "Barbara." Barbara is the name of Bush's mother...
And so she called this summit to serve as a catalyst to continue to rally decent, honorable people who are working hard to make sure young Americans have a chance to realize the promise of this country. She is a great leader of this cause, a wonderful wife, and a wonderful First Lady for our country.
Laura Bush. (Applause.)
MRS. BUSH: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Please be seated.
Watch the video for yourself. Hat tip to Crooks & Liars.
Wow, what a week and I missed almost all of it. East Central West Virginia was hit by a surprise snowstorm Monday evening and throughout Tuesday. Locally in the Morgantown, WV area we had about 8 inches in the higher elevations. In the mountains East of hear they have close to two feet. Now 8in of snow is now big deal; however, the snow was very heavy and wet, and when you take into consideration that most of the trees STILL have their leaves, the two do not mix well. The snow waited down the trees because it laid on the leaves breaking branches all over the place. This brought down power lines and caused massive power outages and over half of this county alone did not have power. My power was restored today about 3:30PM. So a couple of cold nights with no heat (our apartment is electric) and nothing much to do but we made it though.
If anything, this would be a real excuse to burn some couches in the streets.
A number of people throughout western Pennsylvania and West Virginia are still waiting for their lights to come back on.
The Morgantown area was one of the hardest hit locations.
Traffic lights are off in some locations and 20,000 people are still without power. There’s a chance that some people will be without power until Friday.
“The thing that’s complicated things is that the leaves are still on the trees,” said Allen Staggers, of Allegheny Power. “It’s that much more surface area for the snow to accumulate. It’s bending those trees down, breaking limbs, breaking branches.”
“We expect it may be until Friday before everyone is back in service.”
West Virginia University has set up a temporary shelter with cots for students without power.
Students are yet to take advantage of the warmth. Instead, they are staying busy playing cards by candlelight and keeping warm around fires.
“It was all lit up about 12 hours ago,” said Johnny Sciarappa, a West Virginia student. “The darker it gets … we had to scratch up these candles.”
While less than two inches remain, Morgantown initially got five inches of the heavy snow. Monongalia Residents Still In The Dark Most of the snow in Monongalia County is melted, but it hasn’t restored power to residents.
There are still 16,000 people in Monongalia County without power, with 5,000 customers that had power restored today.
“It was freezing cold in there,” said a WVU employee. “I was thinking hypothermia or something.”
He wasn’t alone.
West Virginia students handled the outage in different ways. It will take some creativity to stay warm until Friday – which is when Allegheny Power said power should be restored.
“I took a bunch of my friends, we drove an hour back to my house in Pittsburgh,” a WVU student said. “We all stayed over there and came back this morning.”
While most people tried to remain upbeat during the power outage, it was easier said than done for some.
“It’s one of the worst experiences I’ve had since I’ve been at college,” said another WVU student.
Could it be that he's getting ready to release some new legal documents? Like, maybe, some indictments? It's certainly not the action of an office about to fold up its tents and go home.
Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn minimized the significance of the Web launch in an interview this morning.
"I would strongly caution, Dan, against reading anything into it substantive, one way or the other," he said. "It's really a long overdue effort to get something on the Internet to answer a lot of questions that we get . . . and to put up some of the documents that we have had ongoing and continued interest in having the public be able to access."
OK, OK. But will the Web site be used for future documents as well?
"The possibility exists," Samborn said.
Right, now not to speculate, but what would a new website with documents be up a week before the grand jury ends... Interesting...
We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to our wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, and critical thinker, our very own dedicated grammar and spell checker, Jacquie. I hear that 35 is the new 25. ;D
Thanks to Nancy Pelosi for the actual arrest warrant document of the former Majority House Leader, Republican "Hot Tub" Tom DeLay. "The Hammer" is to be booked, fingerprinted, and have mugshot taken this Friday.
A state court issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Rep. Tom DeLay, requiring him to appear in Texas for booking on state conspiracy and money laundering charges.
The court set an initial $10,000 bail as a routine step before the Texas Republican's first court appearance Friday.
DeLay, R-Texas, could be fingerprinted and photographed, although his lawyers had hoped to avoid this step. DeLay probably will surrender in his home county of Fort Bend, near Houston, but he could go to any law enforcement office in Texas. His court appearance will be in Austin.
The NYT tells us that Old Saint Patrick J. Fitzgerald will not going to be writing a final report... which looks more likely there will be indictments. Though we will probably have to wait until next week...
The special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case has told associates he has no plans to issue a final report about the results of the investigation, heightening the expectation that he intends to bring indictments, lawyers in the case and law enforcement officials said yesterday.
The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is not expected to take any action in the case this week, government officials said. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.
Put down the caffeine: For the next 48 hours, cleanse your body of java, aspartame, splenda, and whatever other shit you've been putting in your system. Your body will be producing more adrenaline during Fitzmas than it did when you were a hormone-crazed teenager, so don't fuel the fire.
"Refresh" is the AntiChrist: Resist the urge to press "refresh" every TWO SECONDS. Checking into Drudge every minute won't make any indictments come any faster..it'll just give him hits and make Drudge's head swell even more. Eww. I put "Drudge" and "swell" and "head" in the same sentence. I just grossed myself out.
Gossip Folks: Don't believe anything in the next 24-48 hours. Guess what!! I can report on my blog that Condi will be VP when Dick resigns...and because it's on a blog, it must be true! And my scoop will fly through the internets at twice the speed of sound and I'll be so convincing, Condi herself will hear my scoop and think "Shit. I need new shoes!" and next thing you know New York Daily News will be reporting that Condi was in NY shopping for Jimmy Choo shoes that look "Vice-Presidential" and Teresa Heinz passed her by and called her a "bitch." Get my point?
Turn off the TV: Why submit yourself to the torture of watching The Situation Room and listening to Wolf's "I'm-reading-a-script-but-I'm-trying-to-make-it-sound-live" voice in the hopes that some pundit will throw out something like "Rove will be indicted"? You all KNOW that the talking heads don't know shit, and that their dirty little secret is that they really get their info from the, gasp!, blogs, so why waste your time? So, Kristol says Rove and Libby will be indicted. Um...99% of the pajamajadeen have said the same thing for the last couple months. Give your blood pressure a break and turn off the TV.
Don't listen to Tip #7: Well, do turn off the TV, but turn it on for Scotty's press conferences. Nothing eases the nerves and apprehension of indictments than watching Puffy McMoonface squirm as he fends off a resuccitated press corps. With Scotty spinning so fast, you KNOW there's some serious shit going down.
Don't take off of work tomorrow: Yes, there are some of you who would actually skip work or school to stay home and catch the indictments breaking live. I've confessed to being a Plamegate junkie, but please. Those of you who view CSPAN as political porn need to put things into perspective. The indictments may not break tomorrow...and then what? You spent a whole day, one hand repeatedly refreshing dkos and drudge, the other hand holding a remote and flipping channels between CNN and MSNBC and, gulp, FOX, flipping and flipping and flipping and it'll all be for naught. So treat tomorrow just like any other day, use school and work as a distraction...and, um, did you hear blogging more than once a day can make you go blind?
Visit Freeperville: Watch the tension melt away as you read about how Wilson was the leaker, how Fitzgerald is really a closet Dem fucking Hillary at the Watergate hotel, and how Plame orchestrated all this just to get name recognition for 2008. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even throw up in your mouth a little bit. But it'll be a great distraction from the anticipation of Fitzmas.
Lower Your Expectations: Hey, it worked for Laura Bush. Don't expect too much from this. We don't know what was said in that grand jury room; about all we know definitively is that Karl Rove has a "typical" garage. Fantasies of Cheney being indicted and Bush as unindicted coconspirator are just that at this point--fantasies. Trust the Fitz to do what's right based on the evidence, and trust that the result will be as far as he was legally able to go.
Stockpile the Booze: Ok, you've lowered your expectations, but sheesh, don't be downer. No matter what comes down, these next couple of days will be explosive. So chill the Cristal (or the Guinness) and get ready. Also, compile a list of all the emails of your most die-hard GOP friends. Plan on sending them emails after the indictments, perferably after you've depleted your liquor reserves.
Enjoy the moment: Take a DEEP breath, and savor the fact that you're witnessing history being made. The outing of Plame was a vicious act, but nothing will be as sweet as watching justice being served.
Oh what will we tell the children? It has been rumored that Darth Vader himself my step aside because of his involvement in treason. As Raw Story reports with his cooperation in the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valeria Plame:
SOURCES IDENTIFY AIDE COOPERATING IN INVESTIGATION... DEVELOPING HARD...
Cheney's name has come up amid indications Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge - with help from a secret snitch. "They have got a senior cooperating witness - someone who is giving them all of that," a source who has been questioned in the leak probe told the Daily News yesterday.
Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Great way to win back that white base. Replace Dick with a black woman who is "mildly pro-choice."
Here is the latest revelation of the "ongoing investigation" going into Tuesday from the Washington Post:
As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that shows Cheney's long-running feud with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.
In grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of his wife's position at the CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the role of Cheney's top aides, including Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lawyers involved in the case said.
One former CIA official told prosecutors early in the probe about efforts by Cheney's office and his allies at the National Security Council to obtain information about Wilson's trip as long as two months before Plame was unmasked in July 2003, according to a person familiar with the account.
Could we be this lucky? Or actually it's unlucky really when you think about it. High ranking government official(s) committing acts of treason in a time of war in which they tout about every day. Yet the Republican slime machine had already started to "normalize treason" as John at AmericaBlog just nails it. From Think Progress:
Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, commenting on Fox News Sunday about the leak scandal:
KRISTOL: But talking to people pretty close to both Libby and Rove outside of government, who therefore can talk about it, I think they expect the worse now. I think they –
WALLACE: That both Libby and Rove will be indicted.
KRISTOL: I believe, if I had to predict – and I don’t know more this than anybody else reading the papers – that both Libby and Rove will be indicted, not for what the original referral was about but for some combination of disclosing classified information or perhaps failing to be fully candid with federal investigators or with the grand jury.
To review: Kristol talks to people close to Libby and Rove, then claims he knows nothing more than anybody else. He goes on to predict the two of them will be indicted “not for what the original referral was.” But Kristol then says Rove and Libby will be indicted for, among other crimes, “disclosing classified information” – which is exactly what the CIA referral was about.
The right-wing is already spinning themselves into knots as they struggle to defend the conduct of the White House.
But we can comfortably be assured as Time reports that Rove and or Libby will resign if they are indicted...
Thanks to MMFA. Only seen on Fox "News," a former U.S. Marine, Josh Rushingwas, labeled as a "TRATOR?" Fox "News" thought it was appropriet as he is taking a job post his Iraq war service with the Aljazeera International news organiation. Rushingwas, was also featured in the 2004 documentary, Control Room.
POTUS Bush supports the troops, he really does, and today he held a teleconference with about a dozen troops in Iraq. Bush let it be known to the few he still support him by turning the event into yet another photo-op.
Bush admits he is scared to go to Iraq himself, and is not even certain he ever will:
"I wish I could be there to see you face to face and thank you personally. Probably a little early for me to go to Tikrit. Perhaps one of these days the situation will be such that I'll be able to get back to Iraq."
There was also some Iraqi puppet who said something like:
"Thanks you Mr. Bush... I like you Mr. Bush"
Update: Ha, even MSNBC asked if it was scripted...
CNNN did a segment on asking Americans on the street who they think we should bomb next. Some funny, some sad, but poor Australia looks like the "real" target.
The First Lady Laura Bush came out today on NBC's Today Show with an overwhelming public support of the nomination of Harriet Meirs who she stated, "I know Harriet well." Laura Bush defended her husbands pick of Meirs who POTUS Bush claimed he did not discuss her views on abortion with. Laura Bush today called her a, "role model for young women around the country."
"No, I don't think it should be overturned," Mrs. Bush told NBC's "Today Show" when asked about the high court's decision, Roe vs. Wade.
Laura Bush went on today in the defense of her husbands pick and her public support of Meirs.
"I know Harriet well," the first lady said. "I know how accomplished she is. I know how many times she's broken the glass ceiling. . . . She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, certainly the Supreme Court."
Even Bush's own mother, Barbara Bush is pro-choice.
"I hate abortions, but just could not make that choice for someone else."
So we can now see why the right wing wackos are so upset with Bush's decision on Meirs. One can see why this women who is known to keep all of her political and philosophical opinions private within a right wing Republican administration. Not to mention that the right hates this woman for being just that, a woman. Today's continuing attack from the right on Meirs will surly continue. Not much is really known about her self kept private views; however, what is known is that she contributed to Al Gore in 88', her law firm in which she is a partner of (and Bush boasts about so much) contributed to Hillary Clinton in 2000. Also, Meirs with publicly for equal civil rights for gays when she ran and elected for Dallas, TX city council in 1989, her only publicly held office. These people are apposed to Meirs as all of the public evidence points to that she is a pro-choice "evangelical" female moderate, and not an anti-choice "fundamentalist" male.
Without a peep of the "I" word in the MSM, a recent poll of 1,001 Americans, half already want POTS Bush impeached. As David Swanson over at Dialy Kos reports.
The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."
44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.
Among those who felt strongly either way, 39% strongly agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed.
Other polls show a majority of U.S. adults believe that Bush did in fact lie about the reasons for war. A June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll found 52% of Americans believe the Bush administration "deliberately misled the public before the war," and 57% say the Bush administration "intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."
In August and September of 1998, 16 major polls asked about impeaching President Clinton (http://democrats.com/clinton-impeachment-polls). Only 36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and only 26% supported actual impeachment and removal. Even so, the impeachment debate dominated the news for months, and the Republican Congress impeached Clinton despite overwhelming public opposition.
"Christian" fundamentalist Republican Pat Robertson, claimed in an interview that although he has apologized for suggesting that the United States assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, that Chavez will someday detonate a nuclear weapon within the U.S.
"I've written him. I apologized and I said I will be praying for him, but one day we will be staring at nuclear weapons and it won't be [Hurricane] Katrina facing New Orleans, it's going to be a Venezuelan nuke"
Robertson also went on to say that we are possibly in "end times" in which "Christian" fundamentalist believe that Jesus requires many people to die so that he can decent down from heaven on the pile of bodies to return to the earth, and only those who claim to be "born again Christians" or "saved" will go to heaven with Jesus.
If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don't have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that.
What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium, and before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child.
Talk radio host, Randi Rhodes, of Air America Radio was on C-SPAN Saturday afternoon. She was on to debate Janet Parshall who has a radio show, Janet Parshall's America. Her show sounds like it must be lovely, where everyone is white, loves their Jesus, and lives in a gaited community. Anyways, Crooks & Liars posted the closing comments of the hour long debate with call-ins. This was Randi's first appearance on "the SPAN" and as they said, probably not her last. I know she has been preparing for TV appearances, hopefully she will do more. Everybody loves "the goddess" of talk radio.
B-list talk radio host, Republican "Christian" and self proclaimed "Mormon" Glenn Beck thanks a guest on his show for the torture he committed on behalf of the United States government. Beck was fascinated with the conversation and gleefully asked about torture briefcases, accidentally killing, and sleeping at night. Here is the conversation with Beck and a man talking under the alias "Mitch."
BECK: And what would you -- like, what kind of tools would you use? What was your method and what worked the best?
"MITCH": Well, I had three or four that worked the best. I mean -- you've had your eyes dilated before?
BECK: Yeah.
"MITCH": Well, with simple masking tape or duct tape, you dilate the eyes, and they you use halogen lamps, and a person is placed in a rigid position where they cannot move. Their eyes are opened and the halogen lamps, you know, they're producing 40,000 watts. It's intense. And that breaks them down. High-pressure water -- I mean, you've heard the term "drinking from a fire hose." I wouldn't do that. That generally wouldn't extract what you want, and usually would drown somebody quickly. But you can use high-water pressure into one ear, and when that first ear drum is broken with, you know, 14 or 15 hundred pounds of water pressure going in, the don't -- they will talk before that second ear drum is broken.
[...]
BECK: Mitch, I've got to tell you I appreciate your service. I don't know your circumstances at all. I, you know, I have to assume that, because we wear the white hats that we're not doing this at the drop of a hat.
[...]
BECK: So in other words -- let me ask you this. So, you know, you always see, like, they'll come in with this, like, briefcase, and they'll open it up and there will be all these tools in there.
"MITCH": No.
BECK: That doesn't happen either?
"MITCH": No. No. I did know a contractor that did drilling on live teeth. You know, well teeth. And you've seen that before in different movies.
[...]
BECK: Did you ever accidentally kill somebody?
"MITCH": No. I made them wish they were dead. You know, when you have -- like I was saying the, the best -- my most successful use of any technique was high-pressure air. You just think of a small [high] velocity hose with 1,200 PSI [pounds per square inch] of air coming through it. I don't know if you've ever heard a hose with that much pressure go off, but once -- your ears immediately bleed. One ear blown completely out, and you don't have to do the other one.
BECK: Wow. Mitch?
"MITCH": It's like your head exploding inside is what we always thought --
BECK: Do you ever have a hard time sleeping at night?
"MITCH": No.
BECK: Good for you. Good for -- I mean, good for you. Is it because you did it for the country?
"MITCH": Yeah. I knew what we -- how important it was.
[...]
BECK: I've got to tell you, Mitch, it's -- you know, you tell one of these stories, you -- I don't know. If you're comfortable telling this kind of -- it's not something that when you first meet -- say, "Hey, by the way, for 30 years I tortured people." I mean, it's kind of an awkward, weird, kind of thing. But I have to tell you, when all is said and done, I'm glad people like you are on our side.
"MITCH": Well, I'm glad I was on my side, too. I -- but, you know...
BECK: [laughter]
"MITCH": But this is something my family doesn't know -- has no idea what I did. My closest friends didn't know.
BECK: They do know now?
"MITCH": No. Not unless they can tell who this is speaking.
BECK: So Mitch is not your real name?
"MITCH": No.
BECK: You've never told your family this stuff?
"MITCH": No.
BECK: What do they think you did all these years?
"MITCH": Worked with intelligence.
[...]
"MITCH": I mean, they ask. I was an intelligence officer. "What did you do?" You know, I extracted intelligence.
The "Christian" values of POTUS Bush just keep on shining through. If it's not enough that Bush claims he was told by God to invade Iraq, now Bush threatens to veto a Senate anti-torture law, authored by Republican John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, and says the move was backed by American soldiers. Bush would not understand though, he claimed McCain was "crazy" because of being tortured in the 2000 Republican primary. The bill past 90-9 with the 9 "nays" all being Republican. Being what is needed to overturn a Presidential veto, I don't see how this is a smart move for Bush. No matter how much his rapture watching "Christian" right needs a pile of bodies so high that Jesus himself can walk back down from heaven on it. We will see, as it will be Bush's first veto, not on spending, not on taxes, but on anti-torture, remember that "moral" people. My guess is that Bush will just sit on it for 10 days (or whatever it is) and let it become law. Not to mention the law is tied in with a $440 billion defense speding budget for 2006. Will POTUS Bush veto the war after he started it?
The latest polling on Bush's numbers have plummeted after a week of Miers, a fake press conference, another Iraq speech, and now a good old fashion terror alert. Bush now stand with a 37% approval rating... I still would like to know who are these 37% of idiots out there? Also, and for the FIRST TIME EVER, a majority of Americans, 52% now say we should leave Iraq as soon as possible. Which has Bush now in the minority of Americans 42% who say we must stay, Bush said today:
"Our commitment is clear — we will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken and their leaders held to account for their acts of murder."
I also thought this quote from today was interesting. Wo do you think said this?
"We are facing a radical ideology with immeasurable objectives to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world."
A: Osama bin Ladin B: Howard Dean C: George W. Bush D: Bill Clinton
That's what the AP says. But of course, given their twisted faith of supply side economics, they are actually giving to the poor.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
"Right now the difference between life and death for many Americans is the food stamp program. We should not, we cannot, cut the very nutritional programs that are literally saving lives."
I thought this was funny, on Hardball with Chris Mathews, DNC Chair Howard Dean commented on how he hopes that we can actually get some answers on the views of Bush's SCOTUS pick Miers.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe that the president can claim executive privilege?
DEAN: Well, certainly the president can claim executive privilege. But in the this case, I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called. He's got to go out there and say something about this woman who's going to a 20 or 30-year appointment, a 20 or 30-year appointment to influence America. We deserve to know something about her.
Reuters: The federal prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative is expected to signal within days whether he intends to bring indictments in the case, legal sources close to the investigation said on Wednesday.
As a first step, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was expected to notify officials by letter if they have become targets, said the lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter."
...
Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to say whether his client had been contacted by Fitzgerald. In the past, Luskin has said that Rove was assured that he was not a target.
Libby's lawyer was not immediately available to comment.
"It's an ongoing investigation and we're fully cooperating," said Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride.
I just talked to a source who told me that Karl Rove has been missing from a number of recent White House presidential events - events that he has ALWAYS attended in the past. For example, Rove was absent from yesterday's presidential press conference to promote Harriet Miers. These are the kind of events Rove ALWAYS attends, I'm told, yet of late he's been MIA each and every time.
My source tells me that the scuttlebutt around town is that the White House knows something bad is coming, in terms of Karl getting indicted, and they're already trying to distance him from the president.
Oh, God, you've been so good to us lately. Please give us this one more. 22 indictments imminent?
The D.C. Rumor mill is thrumming with whispers that 22 indictments are about to be handed down on the outed-CIA agent Valerie Plame case. The last time the wires buzzed this loud — that Tom DeLay would be indicted and would step down from his leadership post in the House — the scuttlebutters got it right.
Can it be a coincidence that the White House appears to be distancing President Bush from embattled aide Karl Rove? “He’s been missing in action at more than one major presidential event,” a member of the White House press corps tells us.
If the word on the street is right a second time, we have a bit of advice for Rove: Go with vertical stripes, they’re way more slimming.
Geez, this is turning into the Bill O'Reilly lyingest' of all lies week. The "Factor" on the Tuesday, October 4th edition of The O'Reilly Factor, was that Bill lied about booking guest for the segment saying he, "couldn't get people to come on." Think Progress has the truth, which involved O'Reilly turning down the "conservative" blogger assrocket.
O’Reilly Said He Had Trouble Booking Blog Segment, Actually Turned Guests Away
Yesterday morning, right-wing Powerline blogger John Hinderaker (”Hindrocket”) told readers that his partner Paul Mirengoff would be appearing on last night’s O’Reilly segment about bloggers:
Paul will be interviewed on the O’Reilly Factor tonight. It should be a fun conversation, and I’d encourage our readers to tune in.
But later in the day, Paul posted an update, saying that O’Reilly had chosen to go with someone else:
I won’t be appearing on the Factor after all. They’ve decided to take the segment in a different direction.
Which begs the question: If O’Reilly was actually turning guests away, why did he try to smear Media Matters by claiming he had trouble booking anyone for the segment?
These people [bloggers] are so vicious and they — the media is so corrupt in taking their uncorroborated…defamation that most people won’t run for office, sir. They won’t do television and radio commentary. We had to book this segment — I couldn’t get people to come on and say what you guys are saying, because they were afraid that Media Matters would go after them. They — I couldn’t — I had people turn down this segment — a bunch of them. [They said,] ‘What are you, crazy? I’m going to criticize these assassins? They’ll come after me.’ That’s a chilling effect.
OK, more an this about the "I just tell it like it is" Bill O'Reilly from below. Here is just the audio clip of O'Reilly falsely accusing the 82nd Airborne of a "massacre" in Malmédy, Belgium during WWII. It was actually the Nazis who committed the massacre. How could Bill confuse the two?
As I watched the O'Reilly vs Gen Westley Clark video from last night, I remember specifically when O'Reilly said that the 82nd Airborne committed a "massacre" during WWII. I recalled the Germans killing a bunch of surrendered US forces during WWII but not anything specific. Well, it turns out that O'Reilly turned the story a total 180 degrees by claiming that it was the 82nd Airborne "who did" the "massacre." Fox "News" even tried to cover up this falafel by lying on the transcripts.
Fox News Transcript:
O'REILLY: General, you need to look at the Malmady (ph) massacre in World War II and the 82nd Airborne.
Clark: And let me explain something. You go all the way up the chain of command -- O'Reilly: General! You need to look at the Malmedy massacre in World War Two, and the 82nd Airborne who did it!
On December 17, 1944, near the hamlet of Baugnez on the height half-way between the town of Malmédy and Ligneuville in Belgium, elements of Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper encountered the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. After a brief battle, the Americans surrendered. About 150 of the prisoners of war were disarmed and sent to stand in a field near the crossroads. Peiper and his leading armoured units then continued their advance.
A tank pulled up, and a truck shortly thereafter. A single SS officer pulled out a pistol and shot a medical officer standing in the front row, and then shot the man standing next to the medical officer. Other soldiers joined in with machine guns. It is not known why this happened; there is no record of an order by an SS officer. While the shooting of POWs was common on the Eastern front, such incidents were rare on the Western front.
Many prisoners escaped into the nearby woods. Some 72-84 of the prisoners were killed, their bodies left on the field where they fell. An American patrol discovered the massacre that night. News of it spread quickly among Allied troops. Afterwards, the order went out: SS and Fallschirmjäger were to be shot on sight.
American forces recaptured the site where the killings took place on January 13, 1945. The bodies were recovered on January 14 - January 15, 1945. The memorial at Baugnez bears the names of the murdered soldiers.
As we all have probably seen, loyal sources are tying to help Bush out by attempting to ensure "the base" that Bush's SCOTUS pick Miers hates gays and is anti-choice. However, the time line just does not seem to add up that way. Way back in 1979, they are floating that Miers,
"accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again"
What the hell that means (born again) till this day I still do not know... Is it synonymous with the word "Evangelical?"
As I posted a quote from Republican David Frum earlier today and his disapproval of Bush's SCOTUS pick, Harriet Miers. However, it was originally a lot worse on criticizing Bush's nod, though Dave must have gotten an angry phone call from somebody so he deleted, and then reposted a toned down rant. David Frum of course fallowed rule #3 in being a good Republican, do what you are told and be follower, free thinking is not allowed. Thanks to the Al Franken Show for the original Frum post:
She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.
The "good Republican" updated version:
Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.
Nor is it safe for the president's conservative supporters to defer to the president's judgment and say, "Well, he must know best." The record shows I fear that the president's judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters.
Bill O'Reilly tried his best to argue about actual government censorship of torture paid for by the American taxpayer in Iraq. Gen. Westley Clark cleaned him up of course by letting it know that this does not go unpunished in "his army" which does not torture anyone... Bill I though that was why we went to Iraq, remember, the rape rooms, torture chambers? Here is the video, original source thanks to Crooks & Liars.
How do you like that crop job of removing that crawl?
Man that is a lame title; anyways, as I am sure and hope you are already aware, Tom "The Hammer" Delay has been indicted for the second time is as many weeks. This time it is for money-laundering in 2002 in a Texas election. Delay was forced to release another statement:
"[Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle] is trying to pull the legal equivalent of a 'do-over' since he knows very well that the charges he brought against me last week are totally manufactured and illegitimate. This is an abomination of justice."
The money-laundering felony charge is a serious one, punishment can be up to life in federal prison. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi released her statement which has been echoed since mid week:
"Yet another example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption and cronyism at the expense of the American people."
Bill O'Reilly's self proclaimed, "No Spin Zone" was full of spinning, twirling, and falafeling on the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Radio Factor. O'Reilly lied and claimed that there was "Independent" box to check and that he has "no clue" how he was registered as a Republican.
But I traced it back. And then I learned about a month later that at the time I registered there was no independent registry in Nassau County, that there was no box to fill in. But I still can't tell you, honestly, what happened there. I don't know. I don't remember.
Of course we all know this already from Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Evidently, Billy O'Reilly either thinks that there is a national "Independent" party that actually runs candidates that he wanted to enroll in. Or does not understand the the meaning of independent and that it would fit in with checking the, "I do not wish to enroll in a party" option on his voters registration card application.
Download and listen to the audio of "Republican" Bill O'Reilly here:
As Kos says, sit back and enjoy the show. Maybe Bush will hit the low 30s...
The "Pig Man" Rush Limbaugh:
A pick made from weakness.
William Kristol:
I'M DISAPPOINTED, depressed and demoralized
David Frum:
The Miers nomination, though, is an unforced error.
Public Advocate:
When there are so many proven judges in the mix, it is unacceptable this President has appointed a political crony with no conservative credentials.
Eugene Delgaudio:
The President's nomination of Miers is a betrayal of the conservative, pro-family voters whose support put Bush in the White House in both the 2000 and 2004 elections and who were promised Supreme Court appointments in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Instead we were given 'stealth nominees,' who have never ruled on controversial issues, more in the mold of the disastrous choice of David Souter by this President's father.
When there are so many proven judges in the mix, it is unacceptable this President has appointed a political crony with no conservative credentials. This attempt at 'Bush Packing' the Supreme Court must not be allowed to pass the Senate and we will forcefully oppose this nomination.
Friday, October 28, 2005
