For Dems only.

[Balta1701]

So if you're a terror suspect, you can have your phone calls and emails seized without a warrant...you can be thrown in jail for years without charges, you can be shipped overseas to any number of countries for torture, hell you can probably be beaten senseless by the U.S., you can essentially vanish off the face of the earth.

 

But you better still be able to buy a gun!!!

[BigSqwert]

Gotta love the NRA.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Gotta love the NRA.

 

I was floored when I read that. There's debate as to whether the VT massacre guy should have been able to purchase a gun because of past mental history, but if you are a suspected terrorist, the NRA's got your back.

 

It boggles the mind.

Edited May 5, 2007 by FlaSoxxJim

[Balta1701]

Rep Ted Poe, R-Texas (2nd district).

POE: Mr. Speaker, does anybody realize there’s a war going out there in the desert sands of Iraq and the rough mountains of Afghanistan? Apparently not or Congress would be taking care of our troops. Mr. Speaker, the troops will be out of funds to carry the fight to the enemy by the end of June. So where’s the money? Spending money is what Congress does. Why hasn’t this body provided the funds for our troops and equipment and more personnel?

 

This is an emergency. Delay will put our troops at risk. We should authorize the funds now. Send equipment now. And if needed send more troops. The American people expect our military to do their duty. Well the American people expect us to do ours as well. Congress needs to quit talking about supporting the troops and put money where our mouths seem to be. Nathan Bedford Forrest, successful Confederate general, said it best about winning and victory and the means to do so. He said, “Git thar fustest with the mostest.”

[Rex Kickass]

Tough time keeping track of administration/GOP scandals?

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2165783/nav/tap1/

 

Slate is there to help!

[Balta1701]

So, for anyone who missed it, there was a remarkable bit of testimony up on capitol hill yesterday. One of the former folks in the Justice Dept. who the AG is trying to blame for the US attorneys scandal told a story about how the Administration tried to sneak an approval for their warrantless spying program.

 

Basically, James Comey, the guy in question, wouldn't give his approval, and he was in charge while Mr. Ashcroft was drugged up for surgery. So basically, the administration decides to try to bypass him, and see if they can't convince a drugged up Ashcroft to sign off on the program despite his refusal to do so previously. So basically you have a situation where there are armed FBI guards and Comey in Ashcroft's hospital room trying to keep the Administration from sneaking a signature from a drugged up man to approve an illegal program.

[Damen]

So, for anyone who missed it, there was a remarkable bit of testimony up on capitol hill yesterday. One of the former folks in the Justice Dept. who the AG is trying to blame for the US attorneys scandal told a story about how the Administration tried to sneak an approval for their warrantless spying program.

 

Basically, James Comey, the guy in question, wouldn't give his approval, and he was in charge while Mr. Ashcroft was drugged up for surgery. So basically, the administration decides to try to bypass him, and see if they can't convince a drugged up Ashcroft to sign off on the program despite his refusal to do so previously. So basically you have a situation where there are armed FBI guards and Comey in Ashcroft's hospital room trying to keep the Administration from sneaking a signature from a drugged up man to approve an illegal program.

 

There's something bigger in that story, regarding the legality of the NSA program to begin with.

[Balta1701]

There's something bigger in that story, regarding the legality of the NSA program to begin with.

Yeah, but we went through that here in detail a year ago, and I'm too lazy to go find the bloody threads. Armed Guards are more exciting anyway.

[Damen]

Yeah, but we went through that here in detail a year ago, and I'm too lazy to go find the bloody threads. Armed Guards are more exciting anyway.

 

Yeah, that testimony does add further confirmation of the law breaking, for those that care about that sort of thing.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Yeah, that testimony does add further confirmation of the law breaking, for those that care about that sort of thing.

Nothing to see here. Move along citizens.

 

Look at the Monkey! LOOK at the FUNNY MONKEY!!

 

[/distraction]

[BigSqwert]

Seems like this administration is just grasping for straws. Anything to try and convince the public that they were justified in invading Iraq.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/23/bush.iraq/index.html

 

NEW LONDON, Connecticut (CNN) -- President Bush is expected to use declassified intelligence about Osama bin Laden to defend his Iraq war policy during a commencement address Wednesday.

 

Bush also will outline "three aviation plots" that have been disrupted as part of national security operations, said Frances Townsend, the homeland security adviser. Townsend, who spoke with reporters on Air Force One, offered no other details.

 

The president also is expected to mention in the speech declassified intelligence that says bin Laden planned in 2005 to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in the United States, according to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

 

Johndroe said the intelligence was declassified so Bush could discuss it during graduation ceremonies set for 11:15 a.m. at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.

 

The speech will be aimed at defending a key part of the president's war strategy -- the contention that the United States cannot withdraw from Iraq because al Qaeda would fill the vacuum in the Middle East.

 

"This shows why we believe al Qaeda wants to use Iraq as a safe haven," said Johndroe. He added the president will talk about al Qaeda's "strong interest in using Iraq as a safe haven to plot and plan attacks on the United States and other countries."

 

The decision also coincides with an ongoing push by the Democratic majority in Congress to force an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq. (Full story)

 

Bin Laden and a top lieutenant -- Abu Faraj al-Libbi -- planned to form a terror cell in Iraq in order to launch those attacks, Johndroe said.

 

Al-Libbi was a "senior al Qaeda manager" who in 2005 suggested to bin Laden that bin Laden send Egyptian-born Hamza Rabia to Iraq to help plan attacks on American soil, Johndroe said.

 

Johndroe noted that bin Laden later suggested to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, that America should be his top priority. That was followed in the spring of 2005 with bin Laden's ordering Rabia to brief al-Zarqawi on plans to attack the United States, Johndroe said.

 

Johndroe added the intelligence indicates al-Libbi later suggested Rabia should be sent to Iraq to carry out those operations.

 

But al-Libbi was captured in Pakistan and taken into CIA custody in May 2005. After al-Libbi's capture, the CIA's former acting director, John McLaughlin, described him as bin Laden's chief operating officer, the No. 3 man in al Qaeda.

 

"Catching terrorists is sometimes like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without seeing the picture on the box," McLaughlin said at the time. "This is a guy who knows the picture on the box. He knows what the big picture is."

 

Al-Libbi is a Libyan who joined al Qaeda in the 1990s and fled to Pakistan after the United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. U.S. officials say al-Libbi was in contact with and directing alleged al Qaeda members in the United Kingdom who were planning attacks there and in the United States. He was also believed to be behind two 2005 attempts to assassinate Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

 

Rabia took over al-Libbi's position in the organization but was killed in in the North Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan near the Afghan border in December 2005.

 

Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June 2006.

[Balta1701]

Paul Wolfowitz... now searching for both a job and a new woman.

[Damen]

http://studiodave.blogspot.com/2007/05/executive-office.html

[Balta1701]

I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

Dick Cheney, May 30th, 2005, on Larry King's show.

 

Ah, memories....

 

And while we're on the subject of people making fools of themselves by saying things that are proven fundamentally wrong...

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Balta1701

[Balta1701]

MSNBC , last November.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Thursday that his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 — which could allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops.

 

"I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007," Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush on Thursday in Jordan.

Sweet!

[Balta1701]

So let's see, Lou Dobbs completely invents a stat about leprosy trying to make some sort of point about how immigrants are evil, and the NYT calls him on it.

 

Lou Dobbs's response...They're Commie-Nazis!!!!

LOU DOBBS: And “The New York Times” criticizing me, accusing me of mistakes of fact of two years ago and four years ago. Tonight we’ll set the record straight. We’ll tell you who’s really telling the truth and who the commies are and who the fascists are, who have the temerity to attack me. All that of that, all the days news, much more, straight ahead here tonight.

(Video @ link). Truly Rainier Wolfcastle-worthy.

 

[StrangeSox]

I think Lou Dobbs has officially gone insane.

[Balta1701]

Snicker.

Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire this week for his anti-gay politics (first documented by Bible Belt Blogger Frank Lockwood). By day Holsinger teaches health sciences at the University of Kentucky where he was chancellor of the Chandler Medical Center. By night, however, the good doctor is a bible-thumping Reverend with a degree in biblical studies from Asbury Theological Seminary and a seeming fascination of antipathy towards homosexuals.

...

And today, the Human Rights Campaign released a document Holsinger authored in 1991 as a member of the United Methodist Church's Committee to Study Homosexuality. Titled Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality, Holsinger's religious tract-cum-scientific paper is a fascinating window into the perverse imagination of homophobia. In essence, Holsinger argues that male-female "reproductive systems are fully complementary" because "anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis." The remainder of his paper is a graphic account of the "delicate" rectum which is "incapable" of "protection" if "objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted" into it. From there Holsinger continues to discuss what he imagines are the pains (and pleasures?) of anal sex, from "fist fornication" and "sphincter injuries" to "lacerations," "perforations" and "deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism."

 

Sharp objects! Deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism! Gadzooks! Now, I've been around the block one or ten times, and I don't know any gay men who have put scissors up their ass, much less died from it.

More from ABC News, including the whole document.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I guess it's only a frivolous lawsuit if it's someone else.

 

Tort reformer Robert Bork sues Yale Club.

 

Claiming the Yale Club of New York City “wantonly, willfully, and recklessly” failed to provide easy to climb staging, conservative uber-activist Judge Robert Bork is suing the club for $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages from a fall Bork sustained while mounting the dais at the club for a scheduled speech. Bork, an infamous tort reform advocate, hasn’t always been such a fan of suing for punitive damages, at least when other people do it.

[Balta1701]

Link

 

(Is probably a low-alcohol beer, but still...)

Edited June 9, 2007 by Balta1701

[FlaSoxxJim]

Link

 

(Is probably a low-alcohol beer, but still...)

 

It is low alcohol, they showed the bottle. Avrovosis and other bloggers are making a big deal out of it and I'm just not. Yes, he's a recovering alcoholic, and yes he shouldn't have ANY alcohol, I get that. But if he decided to have a German beer in Germany with other dignitaries, and he had a 0.5% beer, I'm not going to call for his head. Lots of other reasons to call for his head, but I don't think this can be construed by a long stretch as falling off the wagon.

 

Yeah, he did have some stomach sickness right afterward, and maybe itr's related. Maybe he went back to his room and chugged another 12-pack, I dunno. But a picture of him having a 0.5% beer in a country where beer is part of the cultural fabric isn't sending me into a rage.

 

jmo, of course.

[Balta1701]

PRESIDENT BUSH: What? Say that again?

 

Q Deadline for the Kosovo independence?

 

PRESIDENT BUSH: A decline?

 

Q Deadline, deadline.

 

PRESIDENT BUSH: Deadline. Beg your pardon. My English isn't very good. (Laughter.)

Link.

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

 

SO HELP ME IVY. The Post reports that President Bush is beefing up his besieged White House legal team with some crack lawyers to defend the administration against a variety of congressional inquiries. As the Post's Peter Baker notes, all eight [of the newly-hired attorneys] received degrees from Ivy League schools or from West Point.

 

So, when it comes to policy-making over at the so-called Justice Department, a Regent University law degree, like the one held by Monica "I may have crossed the line" Goodling and a battalion of other fundies, suffices. But when it comes to protecting the president's backside, apparently a divine legal degree is no substitute for an East Coast elite Ivy School pedigree.

 

--Tom Schaller

[Balta1701]

A question I'd like to discuss:

 

Why is it that it's forbidden to both be wealthy and to promote policies that would benefit those less wealthy than you?

[Rex Kickass]

Because when you don't have a policy worth promoting, you have to attack an inconsistency on your opponent's behalf.