Yummy! Crispy!

Remember the savory bites you'd get at communion? Now you can grab a bag at the store! Communion wafers newest Quebec snack craze

"Nothing."

WaPost:

At a private White House meeting in November 2004, President Bush thanked his Press Secretary Scott McClellan for his help in Bush's re-election:

"Is Scotty here? Where's Scotty?" Bush asked, half-grinning, according to two people who were in the meeting but asked not to be quoted by name because they were discussing a private event. Bush scanned the room for Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary.

"I want to especially thank Scotty," the president said, looking at his aide. "I want to thank Scotty for saying" -- and he paused for effect. . . .

" Nothing ."

At which point everyone laughed and the president left the room.

They Couldn't Dream One Up

WaPost:

"Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

'For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap,' said the official. 'They couldn't dream one up.'"

In other words, the administration regularly spies on Americans in a complete fishing expedition.

This is the worst of all possible worlds.

Bob's Wish List 2006

What do I wish for in the coming year?

• Abramoff turns state's evidence by Jan 15 2006
  
• DeLay convicted by Feb 1 2006
  
• Indictment of Karl Rove by Feb 15 2006
  
• Impeachment hearings begin in the House by May 1 2006
  
• Indictment of Dick Cheney by June 1 2006
  
• Bush Convicted in the Senate by July 1 2006
  
• Nov 2006: Democrats re-take the House, Senate.
  

In short. A return to law and order.

First Comments from the Man Charged with Congressional Oversight: Sen Pat Roberts (R-KS)

Bush has said that he had congressional oversight, and the Senate Committee charged with this is the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), who has been silent until now.

Here he is, mocking Senator Rockefeller's handwritten protestation to Dick Cheney that the strictures Cheney placed on the few Senators briefed on the warrantless spying program (under threats of violating national security laws) made it impossible for him to give oversight:
AP:

"Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., pushed back Tuesday, saying that if Rockefeller had concerns about the program, he could have used the tools he has to wield influence, such as requesting committee or legislative action. 'Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools,' Roberts said."

This is very disappointing. My question for Roberts: is he prepeared to assert that his committee gave oversight to this program -- oversight which resulted in direct violation of congressional laws (FISA)? Because oversight which permits violation of congressional laws is not oversight at all, it's incompetence.

Cheney notified Roberts in July 2003 that the Bush administration was regularly violating the FISA act. Why did he not report this to the Senate?

George Bush on Court Ordered Wiretaps

President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

-- President George Bush, April 20th 2004, by which time Bush had authorized wiretaps circumventing court orders for more than five 45-day periods, in violation of the FISA act.

Big. Fat. Anti-constitutional. Liar.

Impeachment Watch Day 3: Two Conservative Scholars Chime In

Think Progress: Two conservative constitutional scholars argue that Bush has committed impeachable crimes.

Bush: Spying on the Media?

Over at Americablog, John has an interesting speculation. Bush stated in his press conference today that he was spying on people who were talking to people who had known ties to Al-Qaeda.

That describes at least two kinds of people: Al Qaeda members, and members of our fourth estate.

Bush as Messiah

Bob points below to Bush's tautological explanation of why it was legal for him to order illegal wiretaps and email intercepts on US citizens: that because he ordered it, and because he "shares some concerns" about our civil liberties and has sworn to uphold the law, therefore it is legal. This amounts to a declaration that anything Bush does is, by definition, within the law. No matter what the law says.

This circular argument is so absurdly logic-defying that it seems more like the plot device in a Mel Brooks movie than the governing philosophy of our nation's leadership. And yet this is exactly the argument advanced in the two infamous legal memoranda of UC Berkeley (Boalt) Law Professor John Yoo: the first "torture memo", which argued that only the most extreme torments qualify as torture under US law; and the second, which argued that the President had ultimate authority to conduct whatever activity he considered necessary in prosecuting the "war on terror", thanks to the "inherent executive power" granted his office by the Constitution. (Boy! For a crowd that claims to favor strict construction of that document...)

Anyway, we are not used to encountering this argument of "Because I do it, it must be right" in our day to day lives. And there is a good reason for that. In fact, to my knowledge there is only one entity prior to George W. Bush who satisfied this claim: namely, the Lord made flesh, i.e. Jesus. Or more broadly: Jesus, plus those occasional dictator kings who also claimed the godhead.

So for those of you that had your suspicions about this, I argue, here is your proof: Dubyah considers himself our Risen Savior.

Merry Bushmas!

Gonzoles: The Authorization for Force was the Authorization to Spy on Americans

NYTimes: "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales also spoke out today as the Bush administration mounted an all-out offensive to rebut the criticisms of Democrats. 'Our position is that the authorization to use military force, which was passed by the Congress after Sept. 11, constitutes that authority,' he said."

So the position of the President was that the statute which authorizes activity which would be (they say) illegal under FISA was the authorization by Congress for Bush to use military force in Iraq.

My Illegal Tactics are Required by the War on Terror: The Law is My Word-- Bush

During Bush's press conference today, he made the following statement:

I can fully understand why members of Congress are expressing concerns about civil liberties, I know that. I share the same concerns. I want to make sure the American people understand, however, that we have an obligation to protect yo, and we're doing that and at the same time protecting your civil liberties. Secondly, an open debate about law would say to the enemy, "Here's what we're going to do." And this is an enemy which adjusts. We monitor this program carefully. We have consulted with members of the Congress over a dozen times. We are constantly reviewing the program. Those of us who review the program have a duty to uphold the laws of the United States. And we take that duty very seriously.

What Bush is saying here is that, because he has a duty to uphold the laws of the United States, he has the authority to order a warrantless spying program which is in violation of the FISA act. In other words any program he approves is not in violation of any law. He's effectively saying, "my duty to uphold the law means that whatever I do is approved by law, because I approved it. The law is my word."

More significantly, he reveals some of what his reasoning was in ordering an illegal wiretapping operation by the NSA -- "an open debate about law would say to the enemy, 'Here's what we're going to do.'" -- i.e., even though this stuff is illegal, he couldn't try to change the law because that would tip terrorists off as to our methods.

This is very disturbing reasoning. Bush seems to believe both that he is empowered and that it is right for him to conduct illegal actiivities as President, because that way terrorists would never know what it is he's willing to do to catch them. Under that reasoning, he could use any completely illegal activity he wanted to prosecute the war on terror. Indeed, that's what he's done here -- he's ordered violation of the FISA act.

This is a serious threat to the American people. Our rights cannot be shunted aside by a President who finds them inconvenient. Our rights were here before he arrived in office, and they were supposed to be left intact after he leaves office. He swore he would uphold them, and now he's violating them.

Bush Declares War

NYTimes.
Bush is asserting that his illegal spying on Americans is, in fact, legal, and has asked the Justice department to investigate leaks.

Perhaps some intrepid reporter will ask the President if he expects all White House personnell to cooperate with the investigation; whether or not he would fire anyone who was involved in leaking secret information; and if it his policy to fully disclose all information he has about people leaking to the press when the Justice Department asks for it, and to the American people.

In other words, all the quesetions they asked with regards to the Plame investigation, but which the White House equivocates on.

More importantly, demanding the Justice department to go into this indicates that he is through the looking glass; he is staking the territory that spying on Americans in the US without a court warrant is legal, and defensible.

The problem, of course, is that Bush knows that, on balance, what you can get away with is abusing power in a way which seems socially responsible. Example: Nixon's ordering people to lie to the Justice Department in investigating the Watergate break-in, bad; but if everyone thinks it's okay to follow hot phone trails, that's okay, even if he's breaking the law while doing it.

Another example: courts have, de facto, had a standard that leaks of secret information will go unpunished if the leak serves a substantial social benefit. Example: the Pentagon Papers, unpunished, because it gave the public important information about the duplicitousness of the executive branch in prosecuting the Vietnam War, telling us it was going swell, when in fact all was chaos, and getting worse -- result: no prosecution. Counter-example: the Plame leak, where a CIA agent was outed for political punishment -- result: prosecution.

Here, I think, the courts will find against Bush, because in performing his activity, he has ignored the legal authority of Congress in setting the law in the first place, and in the reviewing role of the FISA court to make sure the administration does not abuse the ability to spy on Americans.

Homeland Security Agents Really Do Use Library Loans to Try to Discover Terrorists. Welcome to the Soviet Union

I never understood why Bush wanted the power to demand library loan lists. Even aside from the more important civil liberty, the right to be let alone, not having your reading scrutinzed by the U.S. government, would agents really think they could efficiently generate a list of terrorists by watching who checks out what books?

Turns out,
the answer is yes. Agents tracked down, met and interviewed a UMass Dartmouth history student because he checked out a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book". The book is on a "watch list", the agents told the student, and, combined with the fact the student had spent a lot of time abroad, they thought they would drop by, make sure he wasn't planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches, or something like that.

This sort of exercise is not a dismissable joke. The Bush administration has asserted the power that they could take into custody people like the student above -- not "arrest" them, because they take them without charge -- and hold them without a lawyer, without judicial review forever.

We have become the Soviet Union. There is no nice way to put it. You combine the above to powers, and we have arbitrary and capricious arrest powers in the hands of our government. This does not make us safer -- in fact, it puts us in danger, but not at the hands of terrorists: at the hands of our own government.

Impeachement Watch: Feinstein

Chronicle.

Feinstein leaves little wiggle room that she views the activities as illegal, even as former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) who was chairmon of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time that Bush started eavesdropping, reports that he only learned about it after he was off the committee. Feinstein embelished, saying that, the way things sound now, Bush failed to meet the basic oversight requirements given by law.

The total listing so far:
For: 3 (Feingold,Spector,Feinstein)
Against: 0
Uncertain: 97

Impeachment Watch Day 1: Tallying Senators: Russ Feingold, Arlen Spector

Vote counting -- the guesswork and confirmation ability that made Johnson a great Senate leader -- is an exercise in reading tea leaves and public statements to determine who will vote which way on a given bill.

So, I'm declaring the beginning of an Impeachment Watch, starting December 18 2005, to tally up the Senators who indicate publicly if they believe Bush has broken the law -- which, implicitly, means they would vote to convict him on a bill of Impeachment.

Today: we have Russ Feinfold (Democrat) and Arlen Spector (Republican):

Bush Administration Mounts Broad Defense of Iraq War - New York Times: "'The issue here is whether the president of the United States is putting himself above the law,' Mr. Feingold, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said on CNN, 'and I believe he has done so here.'"

The Republican chairman of that committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who on Friday had called the surveillance "a violation of our law beyond any question," moderated his tone today, but still said that he would hold hearings to investigate the matter.

The total listing so far:
For: 2 (Feingold,Spector)
Against: 0
Uncertain: 98

Convict Us, we Dare You -- White House

The White House is daring the country to convict Bush on domestic spying charges, declaring thta he is the only voice which will be heard on the issue. NYTimes: "'There was an interest in saying more about it, but everyone recognized its highly classified nature,' one senior administration official said, speaking on background because, he said, the White House wanted the president himself to be the only voice on the issue. 'This is directly taking on the critics. The Democrats are now in the position of supporting our efforts to protect Americans, or defend positions that could weaken our nation's security.'"

Spooks on the line

Actually, my first take-away from the NYT story Bob talks about below was: "Omigod, the NSA has been listening to our talks with Bob!"

Disturbing, yes - but at least it explains those annoying "click" sounds we've been hearing.

NSA Spies Domestically -- and the New York Times waits a year to tell us because the White House Asked them to

In Today's article Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts , the NYTimes included this little paragraph: "The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."

So get this: The NYTimes, a reporting agency, delays reporting news based on policy considerations. If they agreee with the policy considerations of the Administration and the need for secrecy to further those considerations, the NYTimes will not report.

So how is that not the organ of the White House? Would they have waited a year if they had not agreed with the need for the policy, if the thought the policy was bad for the country?

Is there any news organization left in America which defends the people's right to know, without fear or favor?

Abercrombie & Fitch subject of SEC inquiry

It seems they're being accused of having a monopoly on hotness.

Tortured Confessions

Nice to see that our European allies have been able to focus attention on the illegal acts of torture being carried out in our name by the current Administration, a task that our own "independent media" had not quite gotten around to at this point, four years after 9/11. Today Condi Rice announced, as a new policy of the US Government, that inhumane interrogation tactics would no longer be permitted at US military installations overseas (Herald-Tribune story).

Given the fact that:

• Memos from the White House and Justice Department demonstrated several years ago that the Administration was approving new techniques of cruel & inhumane interrogation for use by the CIA and military;
• Chief among these was a memo by current Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, written in his capacity as White House Counsel (i.e., legal counsel to the President);
• Also among these was a signed certification by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approving these techniques;
• Vice President Dick Cheney is known to have sponsored this strategy;
• Since the introduction of John McCain's bill reiterating the legislative ban on such tactics, and since it gained approval 96-0 on the Senate Floor, Dick Cheney has been secretly working to either kill the bill in the House, in conference, or to preserve an exception for CIA interrogations overseas;
• Such tactics are outlawed by the UN Convention on Torture, to which the US is a signatory;
• These tactics are also outlawed by the enabling US legislation, passed by Congress in 1994;
• If any of this torture had yielded the slightest bit of useful intelligence, you can be sure we would have heard about it by now; and
• Secretary Rice's latest revision of policy is de facto a confession to all of the above;

I really only have one question left:

What is it going to take to try this lot as war criminals?

Three "Left Behind" Movies - and counting

Over at Slate, Grady Hendrix has watched all three - yes, three - of the "Left Behind" movies, and so that we don't have to, he's written about the experience.

Worth a read, especially for the bit about how viewers might be confused about the residents of present-day Israel, and how the Antichrist-slash-UN Secretary General goes about consolidating his power (think "Godfather").

I recall these movies being discussed in our blog's pages a year or more ago, but can't track down the relevant post(s) (the "search this blog" feature above promises way more than it delivers - trust me on this). As I recall, Patrick briefly had an open bet on whether a movie would be made from these books or not, before Robin pointed out that the first had already been made.

F-Student has CIA Arrest (and Torture?) his professor

The CIA -- since it's not being watched over by anyone else -- has to police its own mistakes. Of thousands of people they've arrested and interrogated, they expect some mistakes. According to a an article on those mistakes in the WaPost: The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said."

Miami Police Terrorize City

Of course, the way they see it, you have nothing to be afraid of if you have nothing to hide. So, they'll be sending in squads to randomly surround banks, cordon off areas, and take ID from everybody. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened."

Pardon the Turkey

Over at Slate, "has been" Bruce Reed makes a good point about the traditional turkey pardon that President Bush engaged in last Tuesday - namely, that this is expected to be the first of many for the second-term President.

Actually, with his approval ratings sinking to Carterian (if not Nixonian) depths, the President's plight itself is reminiscent of a certain hobbled variety of water fowl...

Record new HIV cases in '05

HIV is spreading. Which to be more fearful of? HIV? Bird flu? who can tell?

Or, perhaps we should take to heart Sarah Silverman's words on the subject: "When God gives you AIDS, make lemon-AIDS!"

Bush's Asia Trip Meets Low Expectations

Okay, that's not my headline -- that's the headline on the relevant WaPost article.

GM Closing 6 plants in US, cutting 30,000 jobs.

Front page news flash at NYTimes, now.

Bush immediately introduced a new tax cut proposal, where the affected 30,000 workers will see their income taxes cut in proportion to their decrease in income. Bush says no new laws need be passed for the propsal to take effect. I'd sure like to see how he's going to accomplish THAT crazy calculus.

Bob Graham: What I Knew Before the Invasion

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) describes why he voted against the Iraq invasion, and how he knew the Administration was lying. [WaPost]

Amusing Ourselves to Death

NYTimes. The article points out that most households making more than $77K/year spend more on entertainment than food, clothing, or gasoline.

That's completely crazy. Someone should start the American Hobby movement.

The Article goes on to describe ways to bring that way down.

Why Did Woodward's Source Come Forth?

It's been speculated that Woodward's source must have been cooperating with the prosecuter, because it was the source who told Fitzgerald about their conversation.

Nope. According to the WaPost, Woodward's source had testified earlier. And then, Woodward -- apparently beginning effort to come clean which we hear about now -- approached the source and reminded them about the June 2003 conversation. It was then that the source went to Fitzgerald to tell him about the conversation.

Thus, Woodward's source is presently exposed to obstruction of justice charges, for not having previously mentioned having told Woodward about Plame to the grand jury. And he was looking forward to getting away with it, because Woodward had apparently decided to keep mum.

Woodward was Told About Plame by Dick Cheney before the Novak Article

Further in that Rueters article, we learn from Rove's lawyer that Karl Rove "absolutely, positively is not the source" for Woodward.

Okay. And Scooter Libby's been handing open permission (to Judith Miller, for Example), so it can't be him who's denying permission to Bob Woodward.

Do the math. The only person left here is Dick Cheney. He has never said he gives permission to reporters to talk about his involvment.

Dick Cheney told Bob Woodward that Plame was a CIA agent prior to Novak's article.

Woodward is Gonna Go To Prison

So Woodward has now admitted publicly that he got Plame's name from a White House official, but that official won't 'release him from his pledge'.

We know what happens in these cases: Fitzgerald asks the Grand Jury to hold him in contempt, and he goes to prison.

[Reuters]

The press needs to outline ethical standards that distinguish between providing access to a free press, and their being a tool of government opression.

Bush Administration Member Still Not Cooperating with the Plame Investigation

Bob Woodward reported today that he has a source in the White House who he talked to about Plame prior to the Novak article, but that source expressly told him not to reveal his identity -- as recently as this week!

This means that someone in the White House is disobeying Bush's direct instruction to completely cooperate with the investigation.

Here's text: "The Post disclosed this morning that Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case. Woodward said today he had gotten permission from one of his sources, White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., to disclose that he had testified that their June 20, 2003 conversation did not involve Plame, the wife of administration critic Joseph C. Wilson IV. He said he had 'pushed' his other administration source, without success, to allow him to discuss that person's identity, but that the source has insisted that the waiver applies only to Woodward's testimony.

"

The Trees are Coming to Dunsinane

In editorials like these, you can hear the chords of the new national consensus: Bush lied us into war.

Bush Becoming Reclusive: Talks only to Laura, Condi, his Mom and Karen Hughes

WaTimes via AMERICAblog.

This should really freak y'all out.

I mean, us all out.

French Employment Minister: Riots not due to racism, but to polygamists

You see, says the minister, the problem could be that the large, polygamous families these people come from leads to a lack of a father figure and, thus, anti-social behavior and riots. How does he know? Well, it seems he once knew personally of a youth who was arrested -- arrested, see --- and it later turned out that he came from a polygamous family. So you see, no racism here, he says, it's because of these teeming masses of polygamous families. An aide -- who refused to be named -- later said polygamy was not the overwhelming cause of the riots.

Holy bejeezus fuck. This guy is their employment minister .

Disco Inferno

Last week, the Pentagon was all like "We SOOO did not use white phosphorous in Falluja. Today they're all like "OK, so what if we did? So what? We didn't sign the international treaty restricting its use, so it's not illegal.

Burn baby, burn.

Alito says he was 'totally kiddding' about backing abortion curbs in '85

Seriously. That's a direct paraphrase.

White House Policy: We Torture

Earlier this week, George Bush made the statement: "We do not torture." That sounds pretty unequivocal.

But National Security Advisor and future indicted administration member Stephen Hadley issued this important clarification. That is to say, we torture.

Of course, future indictee Hadley says we use "enhanced interrogation techniques" to get information that "may help" provide information to avoid future attacks.

Oh my god. You've got to be kidding, Hadley. "May help"? As in, "I think this punk has information we need to get -- call in the guys with the scalpels." That's completely unacceptable.

Revolution of the Center

Anybody watch The Daily Show this week? On was John McCain, who didn't talk about his 2008 plans. However, he mentioned, incidentally, the opinions on specific subjects held by one Colin Powell -- you've probably heard of him. To be precise, McCain twice talked about Colin Powell, apropos of nothing.

So: McCain/Powell. With any luck, they'll announce early, and give Cheney that gripper we've all be hoping for.

Hasta la Vista

In case those of you no longer in California haven't been paying attention, Governor Arnold Schwarznegger put 4 propositions on the ballot yesterday. Those propositions, as well as all 4 other propositions on the ballot failed. This would seem to be the end of Arnold's "reform" agenda and the end of his political career.

Why NBC, CBS and DirecTV are a Pack of Idiots

CBS, NBC to Offer TV Shows for 99 Cents - Yahoo! News. Here's how they think they're going to compete with Apple:

• DirectTV is shipping new DVRs
  
• DirectTVs DVRs have 160 hours of prorgramming -- they'll let the consumer use 100 hours, and they will download 60 hours of content which the consumer can then purchase, at 99 cents a show.
  

In other words, people who can already record the shows will be the only ones who can purchase the shows. Also, they are downloading EVERY single show for sale onto EVERYBODY's DVR, and then asking them if they want to buy it. So the bandwidth costs are alread spent by the time the consumer decides to buy -- and if they don't, DirecTV is out of luck. Mostly, people won't. If only 5% of all people buy a particular show, that means they have to charge at least 20x what it cost to deliver that show to recoup, which they either aren't doing. Apple, meanwhile, charges only to make a single copy of a show, $1.99. All that goes back to the Studio, with no additional bandwidth costs to Apple, the studio, anybody.

A pack of screaming idiots at NBC and CBS, not to mention DirecTV. This sort of thing could bankrupt them.

Who Knew?

The New York Times reports that the Bush Administration had an intelligence report from Feb 2002, which said a top Al Qaeda member was a big ol' liar, and shouldn't be trusted when he said that Iraq was supporting Al Qeada's work with illicit weapons.

Oh my goodness. This means the Bush Administration probably knew all along that the Iraqi WMD/terrorism claims were lies. Who knew?

Alito, Dark Prince

If you're not scared yet about the Alito nomination, you haven't read this piece by Slate's William Saletan.

Note that Saletan is not a liberal on abortion.

Rove Indictment to Come Within Weeks

[WaPost]: "Fitzgerald is considering charging Rove with making false statements in the course of the 22-month probe, and sources close to Rove -- who holds the titles of senior adviser and White House deputy chief of staff -- said they expect to know within weeks whether the most powerful aide in the White House will be accused of a crime."

The article also says that his WH colleagues are saying that if he wants to stay, he has to issue an apology to the public and colleagues for misleading them. That's like saying "He's been obstructing justice." And if WHouse colleagues are saying, boldly, that Rove's been obstructing justice, the guy is as good as toast.

America Has Secret Prisons

WaPost

This stuff is supposedly okay, because it's not done on US soil.

Good Night and Good Luck

Participant Productions (which I wrote about below) had what may be their second large social drama released this weekend, 'Good Night and Good Luck'. I saw last night, and it's interesting, and worth a watch -- a sort of 'fear but fear itself' movie.

And now, they are working on a movie based on 'Fast Food Nation'.

Participant is, without a doubt, the most interesting production company to arise in decades. When was the last time that somebody worked so hard on filims with a real angle? And who are they? The company was founded by Jeff Skoll, a co-founder of eBay, who put together entertainment talent to make films with social value.

Fitzgerald: A Miss Piggy Enthusiast

I'm sure some were disappointed with Fitzgerald's News Conference. After all, the major charges were for perjury in the process of the investigation.

Read closer: what Fitzgerald is doing is following a dictum succinctly annunciated by Miss Piggy: "Never eat more in one sitting than you can lift."

We don't know what Fitzgerald has on Rove, on Cheney. He didn't even get Libby on the main point of his investigation -- knowingly revealing classiified secrets. But if you read the indictment, what becomes clear is that, if he's able to prosecute Libby under these charges, he will have prima facie convicted him on the knowingly revealing classified secrets as well.

So then you might ask -- why doesn't he just go after the whole group. And here is where a combination of wishful thinking (mine) and wry poker-manship will come in: Fitzgerald is a single little man in the employ of the DOJ, and They are the White House. If he came out with indictments for 4/5 of the White House, they'd have him on the end of a hot pitchfork, dangling him above the howling coulters.

So what has he done -- something which looks almost silly: he's indicted someone who appears to be key, but small enough fish to appear politically important -- a sacraficial lamb, if you will, that Rove can wave bye-bye to as a casualty of political war -- who can be fully prosecuted. And, in the process, everything we the public might want to know, will be revealed by the prosecuters of that case, in the public courtroom.

Which is a much heavier eater than Mr. Fitzgerald. And that's where Rove and Cheney can find themselves on someone else's pitchfork.

AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Why would SBC do this when I BLOODY HATE AT&T!!!

Ugh, the way they made my wireless life miserable.....

Rumor: 1-5 Indictments tommorrow, press conference Thursday

The Washington Note .

I'm scheduling a party for the night of the indictments being made public.

Report: Vice-President's Office "ordered" the leak of Plame's Name to the Media.

In RawStory -- which has been reliable in pre-reporting issues 3-7 days in advance of the regular press for the Plame Affair. It's reporting that a mid-level White House Staffer -- David Wurmser -- first brought the information regarding Plame to the White House, telling Scooter, Stephen Hadley and Condi Rice (Scooter told Karl Rove). He was then "ordered" to leak this information to the press by "executives in the Vice-President's office". He has past ties to the CIA, where he got the information.

That's conspiracy. This is big news. This guy's not in regular touch with reporters, so being "ordered" to tell this to specific reports constitutes a dedicated effort to use this information to discredit Joseph Wilson.

Is it Scandal When It Helps Your Poll Numbers? Campaigning in Quebec

[NYTimes]
In a party leadership contest, the frontrunner was hit by revelations that, while a government minister, he spent wild drunk weekends in Quebec City, often very high on cocaine, the "kind where you can't remember where you parked your rented car afterwards". Result: his poll numbers went up, from 53 to 64 percent.

Scooter Libby a Big Fat Liar

The NYTimes is reporting that Fitzgerald has notes which demonstrate that Scooter Libby learned on June 12 2004 that Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, was Joe Wilson's wife from none other than --- guess who? -- no, not Judith Miller as he had been claiming (that happened on June 23rd) but from

Dick Cheney

Hmm.... now why was Dick Cheney talking about this to Scooter Libby? Could it be that they were talking about ways to discredit Joe Wilson, who had been already by then talking about the President's misstatments in the State of the Union Address around the government?

But then, wouldn't that make him part of the group effort to publicly discredit Wilson? by spreading that it was his wife who sent him on a junket? Conspiracy to treason, sounds like.

No Limits to Pettiness: Abramoff

Unbelievable. Jack Abramoff -- the DeLay enabler and lobbyist -- worked with Ralph Reed to, now get this, block the appointment of one Angela Williams to be the head of the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs (which oversees the US government's dealings with Abramoff's client, the Northern Mariana Islands).

Why? Apparently, because she is the wife of a guy who was a vietnam POW with Senator John McCain.

Journalist, with Fangs

Deborah Solomon, who usually asks benign if interesting questions in her weekly "Questions For" column in the NYTimes Magazine, this week suddenly grows fangs while interviewing Connie Mack, who headed the President's advisory committee on tax reform -- soon to recommend the popular mortgage interest tax deduction, and who advocates repealing the estate tax.

Here's to a vigalant press.

The New Social Films: Participant Productions

Participant Productions is a new production company, which is now coming out with a series of films which should attract interest. I mentioned North Country (below), and you've probably already heard of GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK -- the movie about Edward R. Murrow and newscasting during the McCarthy/Red Scare years. MURDERBALL was a documentary, showing the hard-ball game played by wheelchair buond men. And soon, we have SYRIANA -- starring Matt Damon and George Clooney in a mid-east centered action film.

However, what brings these films together is that they are meant to be message movies. The production company's motto: "Changing the world one story at a time." NORTH COUNTRY did not deliver on this promise, with the exception that, at least, it highlights real social problems which exist, today, even if it did so hamhandedly. SYRIANA looks far more interesting -- highlighting the relations between the businesses and Middle Eastern politics.

In any case, have eyes wide open here.

A couple of movies not to see

Don't bother seeing Elizabethtown or North Country .

North Country, in particuilar, is unworthy. "Based on a true story", it ends up being an amalgam of SILKWOOD and THE ACCUSED, with the family unification theme thrown in ("I just want to be able to feed my kids"). Now, certainly, life is real drama -- but the "based on" tells us that the moviemakers found some drama a little too dramatic. Spoiler alert . But, the movie starts being about the mineworker simply wanting to work her job, unmolested -- hello NORMA RAE -- and ends up in a courtroom, where the entire drama hinges upon whether or not one of her attackers, who, coincidentally, she knew in high school, will confirm that she was indeed raped by one of her teachers. The script is a dog.

Go see A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE instead.

Fitgerald Blows the Timing, Cosmic Concordance

Too bad -- Fitgerald blew his chance at a cosmic concordance by lagging on those indictments, to drag Rove, Libby or Cheney into court to plead "not guilty" on the same day as Saddam Hussein.

That would've been a neat trick.

An Arrest Warrant for Tom Delay

A warrant has been issued for Tom Delay's arrest. Bail's been set at $10,000.

NY Daily News Confirms: Bush Knew About Rove & Plame

Daily News story with confirmation from White House sources: Bush knew about Rove's role in the Plame Affair two years ago.

Josh Marshall's item on the story over at the redesigned and markedly-more-debonair TPM (check out that stubble!).

My previous deductions here at 13D go back three months: July 17, July 23, October 14. Bob also contributed some commentary.

Plame Game - Final Days

One of the strategies taken by conservative commentators throughout L'Affaire Plame has been to insist that "there is no there there" - that is, that Valerie Plame was not "really" a covert operative, that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act represents an unconvictable statute, that "all is fair" in love, war and domestic politics, and so forth. Usually, these arguments walk hand-in-hand with an enumeration of the lies which Amb. Wilson is alleged to have told in his NYT Op-Ed and following public appearances (plus - did you hear he worked for the Kerry campaign?).

For example, I am informed (via Salon) that John Tierney engages in this rhetorical strategy today within the gated community of the NYTSelect.

Apart from the facts that (1) By attempting to smear Wilson at the same time that they allege no harm done, these commentators undermine their own case - since if there is no crime, there is no victim, and no need to smear same; and (2) The CIA made the initiating criminal referral to the Justice Department, would not have done so if no crime were committed, and presumably know better than anyone else whether Valerie Plame was "truly" covert or not; we now have (3) Another iron-clad argument that proves - proves - that somewhere in the machinations against Wilson/Plame lies a true crime.

Namely, we now have the cover-up. I am not talking about the various public statements, now revealed to be lies, that were made by Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Scott McClellan, and the President. Lying to the American people is their stock in trade (apparently). No - I am talking about lying to Federal investigators, which is a Federal crime. According to news reports, both Rove and Libby have been caught in lies made to investigators or the Plame grand jury.

If there was indeed "no crime" then this was the dumbest thing they could have done - they told a lie, which was a crime, to protect themselves from... nothing. These men are not dumb, and they know the ins and outs of the law. Whether or not the IIPA is provably unconvictable, it is a very tough statute to get a conviction from. So long as they told the truth - or took the fifth! - in response to every question, they had nothing to fear... as long as there was no original crime.

The fact of the cover-up therefore proves the existence of that original crime.

Old Time Miers Friends Judge Kinkeade and Justice Hecht Say: Heck Yeah, Miers will Overturn Roe v. Wade

Online, from notes in a conference call of the Arlington 60. The White House told Dobson to talk to these guys, they know Harriet Miers.

Update on Rich's WHIG artlce!

It's Free Online! NYTimes may have made an error, in that I found an obscurely placed link to an unprotected version. Everywhere else, it's marked "TS".

Frank Rich gets the WHIGs

Over at the OpEds, Frank Rich is writing about the White House Iraq Group.

I'm *dying* to read this. I'm *this* close to caving.

Conspiracy in the White House

I just wanted to make a note, for the record. As Patrick Fitzgerald prepares to indict senior Administration officials, it is reported that he may choose to indict them under criminal conspiracy charges. Namely, a felony was committed - the leaking of the name and covert operative status of Valerie Plame Wilson - and several members of the Administration, including Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, and Ari Fleischer, were involved. So this is prima facie a conspiracy if he gets indictments on two or more of these. (The smearing of Joe Wilson was basically a self-anointed task of the WHIG group.)

As I have argued in these pages, the President himself has been aware for more than two years of Karl Rove's involvement in this conspiracy. To my knowledge, he has not during this time cooperated with the Fitzgerald investigation, or reported his knowledge of Rove's involvement to proper authorities.

In other words, if there is a criminal conspiracy, our President himself is an accessory after the fact - if not a co-conspirator.

Facing revolt, White House touts Miers "experience" - Reuters

Reuters article. The content isn't that interesting -- but what is interesting is that Reuters decided, when talking about Miers experience, to put it inside quotation marks.

Don't Worry! Yachts And Caviar Are Still Cheap!

Inflation Surges to Highest Monthly Rate in 25 Years - New York Times: "The much-watched consumer price index, which has been on a far more steady rise through much of the year, surged at a pace not seen since March 1980. But in a sign that the price of most goods remain restrained through much of the economy, the Labor Department reported that the excluding the energy and food sectors, the index only rose 0.1 percent."

So, other than food, heat and gasoline, nothing's increased in price!

*Big* sigh of relief in the White House.

"

Wow! What an Endorsement

No less a person than the former special assisatant to the President and Deputy Director of Speechwriting (2001-2004) comes out for Harriet Miers in this NYTimes OpEd, declaring "what America got is a nominee of enormous legal ability and ferocious integrity, and in the bargain a gracious Christian woman only more qualified for her new role because she would never have sought it for herself." Where do they dig these guys up?

In case you haven't noticed: The reason "Christian" is appearing everywhere now is, in case her nomination fails, so the Wingnuts can scream "Anti-Christian Bigotry!"

The White House Iraq Group (WHIGS) -- An Historic Group

You had better read this story. It will probably determine what happens politically in the US for the next 2 years. Skip past the Cheney parts -- that's not so interesting. [Raw Story]

Ever hear of the White House Iraq Group, or Whigs? Me neither. But, we will be hearing a lot about them from now on. Better bone up:

The Whigs were formed in August 2002 by Cheif of Staff Andrew Card for the express purpose of developing, coordinating and deploying political strategy to sell the Iraq war --- which began with invasion in March 2003 -- to the American People. Let's repeat that -- the war which Bush was claiming could lhave been avoided the night before it occurred was being pushed politicallly by this group beginning eight months before.

It's membership included: Special Assistant to the President Karl Rove (Chairman), Chief of Staff to the Vice president Scooter Libby, National Seciruty Advisor Condoleezza Rice (now Secretary of State), external advisor Karen Hughes (now Deputy Secretary of State), Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (now National Security Advisor), Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio.

There were meetings, conferences, group emails. They set about writing reports to put together all the "information" we received through the press about Iraq's WMD. They coordinated the propoganda effort within the whitehouse -- which includes, everything.

They fed Judith Miller her first story on the aluminum tubes they alleged were for centerfuges (they weren't technically capable of being centerfuge parts); Miller took her information from them, anonymously sourcing them -- and then quoting them explicitly too, as if they were independent sources (these were the stories which the NYTimes has now disavowed as being wrongly sourced).

Bush, the Dick

[Can you believe this guy?]: "Mr. Bush joked late last year with Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, about why Mr. Cooper was not yet in jail for fighting a subpoena demanding that he testify about a conversation with a source who later turned out to be Mr. Rove."

He openly mocked the journalist who was protecting the ass of his senior advisor.

Margaret Thatcher: Against the Iraq War

You get your quotes where you can find them. Thatcher (famous for stiffening George Senior's spine with "don't go all wobbly on me, George" prior to the Gulf war) is quoted (second hand) about the wisdom of the Iraq war in this WaPost OpEd by Tina Brown: "The former chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Lord Palumbo, who lunched with Mrs. T six months ago, told me recently what she said when he asked her if, given the intelligence at the time, she would have made the decision to invade Iraq. 'I was a scientist before I was a politician, Peter,' she told him carefully. 'And as a scientist I know you need facts, evidence and proof -- and then you check, recheck and check again. The fact was that there were no facts, there was no evidence, and there was no proof. As a politician the most serious decision you can take is to commit your armed services to war from which they may not return.'"

I'm Calling 'Bullshit' on NYTimes Select

According to the Times 'Most Emailed Articles' list, Maureen Dowd's Oct 12 Column 'To Sir, With Love' is the Times' most emailed article in the last 24 hours.

Bullshit. The upshot of duck-girl's article: 'Scooter and Karl leak Harriet Miers's missives to President Bush.' In other words, one of her idiotic "channeling" articles, in which (here) she pretends she's a fawning Harriet Miers writing George Bush. Dowd's columns of this type -- a form perfected by William Safire, who didn't do it to mock someone, but instead to say what he thought Nixon or Sharon might say if they had the opportunity -- have always been simpering awful. No one is emailing this around. No chance.

Certainly not more than the OpEd article suggesting we let infants run around in split-pants, such as the Chinese do.

The Times is padding it's "popularity" list in order to sell NYTimes Select. ('Gosh! what are we missing?').

Bet with Steve and Bob

Resolved: If Dick Cheney is indicted while serving as Vice President, he will step down within 2 weeks.

Pro: Bob
Con: Steve

Terms: one Luxury Caffienated Beverage

Bob also points out: who would be top contender for VP? What about John McCain?

Blogs: Way Too Public

[WaPost]It seems that some bloggers are finding out that their blogs are being read.

Gosh, wouldn't that be a nice problem to have.

If I Were Conservative, I'd be Really Angry Too.

We know how angry all the conservatives are with Bush. After all, instead of picking a heavy-weight conservative academic for the Supreme Court, he picked the Church Lady.

Maybe that's not very nice to point out, but consider the ramifications for the right:

• She has no tried-and-true bedrock judicial principles -- never having been a judge -- which probably couldn't be spun out of her in a 10 minute whirl-wind conversation with liberal academic juggernaut Ginsberg. She wouldn't even know what hit her. Ginsberg can quote precedent and history till the cows come home. Miers would totally Souter in that position.
  
• Even if Miers doesn't Souter, and keeps to her religious principles of being anti-abortion, religious principles are not going to hold up on a 40 year timescale. So, if Miers gets on the court, and starts saying, "Yeah, and God says, no abortion neither", Chief Justice Roberts is going to say, "um, right. Okay. So, I guess you are going to want to write your own opinion then?" and so she does. Which then gets ignored a generation down the line, and which -- even if Roe v. Wade were revisited with a 5-4 against outcome, would completely undermine the precedent.
  

Tooo bad for all those conservatives. They made the devils' bargain with the Wingnuts to get Bush into office, and lo and behold, it's the Wingnuts who get their Supreme Court position, not them.

Where We're Going With This: Bush Off The Cliff

Judith Miller testified for the second time in front of the Grand Jury today. Libby and Rove are going to have additional shots.

Where is this all going? Well, it seems inevitable that, at the present rate, we will be (perhaps not soon) having Rove on a witness stand in court answering charges. And, you can bet, the question will be put to him: "Why did you, acting as Special Advisor to the President, feel the need to specifically discredit critics of the President's policy to go to war in Iraq?"

With the country polling at >50%, saying that Bush should be impeached if it should become public that he lied to send us to war in Iraq, this could be a very, very interesting trial.

Kinda Interesting

This blog (elsewhere) makes an interesting description of what may be the tribal warfare between the Office of the President (Rove and Bush) and office of the Vice President (Libby and Cheney), making the case that that Cheney has been MIA for months, and isn't responding to the President's calls.

NYTSelect subscribers: Possibly more than zero, definitely less than 100,000

Over at Slate, Mickey Kaus points out the first sign of chest-thumping by NYT Editor-in-Chief Bill Keller regarding NYTSelect (as reported by BusinessWeek):

Keller hailed early returns on TimesSelect, which grants online access to the paper's columnists only to Times subscribers and those who pay $49.95 a year, saying a "couple hundred thousand people" have signed on for the service. However, a Times spokeswoman later clarified this figure, explaining that it includes current Times subscribers, who get TimesSelect for free, saying that the paper was not disclosing how many people were paying for TimesSelect.

A couple of points. First, as chest-thumping goes, this is pretty mild stuff. Where is he comparing the revenue to projections, or to the haul provided by WSJ subscribers (his self-termed arch-rivals)? Next, his unqualified reference to a "couple hundred thousand" subscribers provokes the natural question: How many print subscribers to the NYT are there, exactly? Answer: 1.25 million. Thus, Herr Keller's claim amounts to a statement that 1 of 6 print subscribers have signed up for NYTSelect. In the absence of other evidence, I'm assuming that the number of those who are actually paying for the service, rather than leaping the hurdles to (free) online access via their print subscription, are negligible. Thus my inference that since Keller claims ~200,000 subscribers, less than half (and in fact, probably less than 20%) are actually anteing up for the service.

N.B. 100,000 is a key number because Martin Nisenholtz at NYTDigital has stated in advance that they were looking for this kind of buy-in from the public to justify the service - see this pre-launch story at Editor & Publisher.

A Very Long Game

The Houston Astros just beat the Atlanta Braves in an 18 inning, 5 hour, 50 minute game to win the first round of the playoffs. The 10th through 17th innings were completely scoreless. I'm so glad I wasn't watching that game.

Judith Miller To Blow Wide, Wide Open. Fitzgerald Is Going to Indict Her.

Check it.

Patrick Fitzgerald has just staged a prosecutorial coup. He apparently got Judith miller to lie on the stand last Friday, in front of the grand jury. He then called her lawyer, said "Why is your client lying?" -- and now, Judith Miller suddenly admits to having had the June conversations --- earlier conversations with Scooter Libby than she's ever admitted before. It also means she could be tried as a co-conspirator.

Seems that while Miller languished in prison, Fitzgeraled found out somehow that Miller talked to Scooter back in June, earlier than July as she had previously admitted. So, he promised to restrict his questions to her about Scooter Libby only, she got sprung from prison, and testified. Then, he got her to answer questions under oath which indicated she had not spoken to Libby before July. After her testimony, Fitzgerald called her lawyer and asked: "Why did your client lie about the June Meetings?", to which the lawyer and Miller repsonded by suddenly discovering and turning over her notes about that meeting to Fitzgerald. In only a few hours. Now that's fast-faxing.

Now, it's all well and good when the questions put to you in front of a grand jury allow you to keep limited answers. But it's a no-no to commit perjury in front of a grand jury. It makes you look like a co-conspirator.

So, what do you think Fitzgerald will do in this case? I'll tell you: he'll indict her. And she could chose to continue her "I'm a journalist, and will say nothing" pose, or she could turn state's evidence and talk -- not only about Scooter, but about anybody and everybody she spoke to about Joseph Wilson's wife.

Oh, and if Scooter Libby talked to Miller in June about Wilson and Plame? It would demonstrate a long-running attempt to discredit Wilson, rather than the "four days in July, knee-jerk reaction, no-conspiracy-here" claim Scooter and Rove have been claiming.

Freaky Scary: Bush Jaw Spasms

AMERICAblog points out that Bush has suddenly started having jaw spasms at the end of every sentence. ( Video here ). They state that this is a symptom of someone addicted to cocaine or alchohol.

Whatever it is, it's a bloody frequent and scary tic.

HUGE: Senator Brownback is not on Board with Miers for Supreme Court (yet)

[NYTimes]
This is huge, because Sen Brownback is of Kansas, and is discussed at length in "What's the Matter with Kansas", where he is described as a Republican "Con" -- a conservative elected as the Kansas' moderates were swept out of office by religious conservatives who took over the Kansas GOPs (he's also a member of the Judiciary Committee, which must approve her nomination for it to be voted on by the full Senate). It explains that he was converted to the anti-abortion cause late in life (ahem) and is likely a political opportunist taking advantage of religious conservatives zeal, and making the most of the "promising the undeliverable" bargain that Republicans have with religious conservatives (i.e., GOP politicians promise to repeal abortion, and are foiled at every turn, which fuels their outrage, which fires up their base, which re-elects them, etc. etc.)

So what does it mean when he says "Ms. Miers had not persuaded him to vote to confirm her"? He left his meeting, he says, not convinced she would overturn Roe v. Wade. As one who speaks for the religious right, his lack of backing is shocking -- it's the academic conservatives (think tanks, etc) who have been against her. Brownback will run for President in 2008, and likely wants Roe v. Wade un-repealed so that his base is still fired up. If he votes to kill her in committee, he could see other GOPers follow his lead.

Wow.

DeLay Still In Power in the House

In the day of Lyndon Johnson, Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House was the leader of the Majority Party in the House, setting the agenda, and determining the legislative direction. Not any more.

Even though DeLay has been indicted and forced to relinquish his title as Majority Leader, he's still in charge. How do we know?

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert nominated "Rep. David Dreier of California, chairman of the Rules Committee and an affable leader who would step aside should DeLay be cleared and seek to return to his post."([see Baltimore Sun article]). And how many votes did he receive in the GOP House Caucus? ZERO. None. Nada. The House Speaker's hand-picked candidate got no support from the membership.

ALL votes when to Roy Blunt of Missouri -- who is now the Majority Speaker. And who is Roy Blunt? Well, we now know that Roy Blunt is a congressman who took $150K from DeLay -- who had ostensibly raised the money from corporate donors not for political purposes, but to pay for "entertainment at the 2004 Republican National Convention." National Election Law takes a dim view of raising money not for political purposes (which the Federal Election Commission does not control) and then using it for political purposes (which it does).

So, it was DeLay's co-conspirator in dirty money-laundering scandal who is now the Majority Leader.

And the guy is toast.

Our Own Derek Fox in the New York Times

In case you missed the article, here it is.

Senator Reid: Bush is Still Hallucinating

[Article]: In response to Bush's speech calling for more American sacrifice to support the Iraq war (as if the $300B price tag weren't enough) Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said Bush failed to outline a strategy for achieving military, political and economic success in Iraq.

'Instead, the president continued to falsely assert there is a link between the war in Iraq and the tragedy of September 11th, a link that did not and does not exist,' he said.

So, in addition to hallucinating, Bush wants us to pay more. Oh, and he threatened Syria and Iran, too, so now we have to support his hallucinations that Syria and Iran are related to Sept 11.

More GOP Corruption: DeLay and Blunt

[News Article]
After Tom DeLay had to step down as House Majority Leader because of his indictment in Texas, Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (R -- what else?) took his place.

The AP reports that, examining public fundraising records finds the following:

• After raising "too much money" for entertainment expenses for the June 2000 Republican National Convention, DeLay transferred $50,000 of that on March 31st 2000 (way before the convention) to Roy Blunt's "Rely on Your Beliefs Fund" (this, while both funds were run by the same guy -- Jim Ellis -- who was indicted with DeLay in Texas). Eight days later, Blunt's fund gave $10K to DeLay's personal chairty for children, and started payments which totaled $40K to a political consulting firm run by DeLay's former chief of staff, and which employs DeLay's wife (note to Rove: see how I'm not naming names?). If you're keeping score at home: $10K+$40K=$50K -- the amount of DeLay's transfer. Blunt says he had no idea DeLay's wife worked for that consulting firm, and that it was just a coincidence.
  
  
• Later, on May 24 2000 (still way before the convention), DeLay's convention fundraising group transferred $100k to Blunt's group. Then, over the next three weeks, Blunt's group donated this $100K to the Missouri Republican Party. The next month, Missouri GOP began spending lots of $$ to aid Blunt's son's candidacy for Missouri Secretary of State. Blunt says Missouri's GOP's support of his son after his donation is a coincidence.
  

Natch, this scenario raises bells to anyone who remembers back when the House ethics committee found that DeLay offered (allegedly) $100K to help former Congressman Nick Smith's son Brad, who was running for Congress at the time, in exchange for Smith's vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill. The House Ethics Committee gave DeLay a public admonishment. Smith originally claimed that DeLay mentioned $100,000 in contributions, but later stated that no specific figure was mentioned. (Roll Call, 11/22/04)

This raises the question: now that Blunt -- who is just as dirty as DeLay with filthy corrupt fundraising scandal -- is the House Majority Leader, are the Republicans capable of finding anyone in the House who isn't mired in scandal and corruption?

White House in Full Flight

The White House is drowning. Here's a rundown:

• Conservatives are pissed about the Miers nomination. They see themselves as part of a 30-year long intellectual effort, and what Bush has done is appoint The Church Lady, ready to do her Superiority Dance on the bench. [WaPost] "Is she the most qualified person? Clearly, the answer to that is 'no,' " Trent Lott said on MSNBC's "Hardball," contradicting Bush's assertion. Their point is simple: they expected an conservative intellectual heavyweight equal to balancing the liberal muscle of Bader Ginsburg, and Miers is decidedly not. She is therefore highly vulnerable, if confirmed, to the well-grounded argumentation of Ginsburg, and so could be turned. Natch.
  
• The Senate is defying the White House to veto its defense bill, as Bush said he would, by passing on a 90-9 vote rules setting limits on interrogating detainees. Thanks for the spine, folks. [WaPost] McCain mourns "what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget . . . that which is our greatest strength: that we are different and better than our enemies."
  
• Now that Judith Miller has testified, Fitzpatrick has said that this wraps up his investigation into the Plame affair, and his charge to investigate expires at the end of the month. He will signal today or tommorrow if he will obtain indictments, by naming targets of the Grandy Jury's investigation, expected to be Scooter Libby and/or Karl Rove. [reuters]
  
• Bush's body-man in the Senate, Bill Frist, is presently under SEC investigation for insider trading, and so is weakened in political standing. This, simultaneous with the loss of long-time Bush ally Tom DeLay in the House, leads to a congress whose reigns in the White House have been practically cut.
  
  Looking like a hard October for the Hizzuzis.

Miers is long-time anti-abortion

The Seattle Times: One evening in the 1980s, several years after Miers dedicated her life to Jesus, she attended a lecture at her church with Nathan Hecht, her companion, then a colleague at her law firm. The speaker was Paul Brand, a surgeon and the author of "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," a best-selling exploration of God and the human body.

Afterward, Hecht said, Miers said words he never had heard from her before. "I'm convinced that life begins at conception," Hecht recalled her saying. According to Hecht, Miers has believed ever since that abortion is "taking a life."

"I know she is pro-life," said Hecht, one of the most conservative judges in Texas. "She thinks that after conception, it's not a balancing act — or if it is, it's a balancing of two equal lives."

....

Miers' campaign manager in her race for the Dallas City Council in 1989, Lorlee Bartos, recalled she was surprised to learn that her candidate was opposed to abortion rights.

"I wanted her to meet with a group of pro-choice women, and she said she wasn't pro-choice," Bartos said. "She said she had been pro-choice but had changed her view."

Said her friend Ed Kinkeade, a federal district judge: "People in Dallas know she's a conservative. She's not Elmer Gantry, but she lives what she believes. ... I'm like, y'all, has George Bush appointed anyone to an appellate court that is a betrayal to conservatives?"

Bush: "I have No Litmus Test"

Bush's first news conference since May is going on right now. A reporter just put it to him directly (paraphrased):

Q: Since you've known Miers for over ten years, it seems reasonable that you would have talked about her views on abortion, or gleaned from your conversations with her her views on abortion. Have you discussed abortion with the nominee?

Bush: I have no litmus test....

Q: But have you gleaned her opinion on abortion?

Bush: Not to my recollection, I've never sat down with her...

People Magazine for Scientists

Beginning this issue, Nature magazine is running short columns which give personal details on the lives and
research of authors of their journal articles. Called Authors, this week's issue tells of a scientist
and his study of the formation of sand dunes.

Miller's Martyrdom Complex

Seeing that Miller had public and private assurances from Libby that she did not have to honor any implied confidence of his, why did she go to jail for 85 days? Dan Froomkin gives the likely answer: so that she could convert herself from a journalistic pariah for her influential pre-war reporting about Iraq's WMD using a source who turned out to be a relative of the unreliable Chalabi into a martyr.

How nice.

US dollar falls to 14-year low vs Canadian

I'm thinking I might take a weekend trip south of the border to pick up some silver trinkets and inexpensive electronic goods.

Arnie Finds his Pen

Lattes all around! Arnie's vetoed the gay marriage bill in California.


So, that's lattes for Steve, Robin, Derek, Erica, Patrick.

No surprises here for anyone.

It's unofficial: Arnie can't find his pen

This guy is gonna cost me a couple of lattes. The word is that he can't find his official Governor's Pen™, and that is what is delaying him from signing that bill.

I've also heard that after the mid-term elections, the national speed limit is going to be reduced to 55MPH (again). Any takers on the con?

30 Days: the Countdown Begins

According to the California Assembly website, AB 849 (which would permit gay couples equal status in marriage) was enrolld on Thursday, Sept 22 and put on the governor's desk at 3pm. This is about 2 weeks since the bill was actually voted on, but the principle author enacted a delaying tactic, for the purpose of giving additional time to lobby Arnie to sign it. In the mean time, Arnie's declared he will veto it. He now has 30 days to do so.

TimesSelect: Good for You, Good for the Country

Now that the NY Times is charging $50/yr to read all their OpEd columnists, there are a couple of obvious reasons I love it.

1) We all suddenly have an extra free hour in the morning. I've taken up more studious grooming habits, which benefits my social relationships. Long term dental care is expected to improve nationwide.
2) Mental health providers have reported a 20% decline in repoted situational depression since TimesSelect started. No longer are there masses of rational, intelligent people reading Krugman and realizing just how screwed we all really are.
3) Couples in the 24-38 year age-bracket are reporting more satisfying lovemaking, as their minds no longer wander during sex toward the possibility that it is they who David Brooks is refering to as "BoBos".
4) Without Nicholas Kristof single-handedly calling attention otherwise ignorable mass human crimes, like the genocide in Darfur or the horrendous treatment of women in Pakistan, we can look forward to cocktail parties discussing real estate prices and our parent's health. Oh, and the weather. Let's not forget the weather.
5) Frank Rich's well-reasoned and comprehensive arguments on all subjects have made us a nation of lazy thinkers. Now, we will be forced to sit down and spend 3-4 days each week writing our own biting critiques of the latest social and political ills, which will dramatically improve our expository skills.


Yes, friends, we can all look forward to the day when the question might once again be asked in earnest, "Who the hell is Maureen Dowd?"

NYTSelect = Failure

Mickey Kaus blogged about this this morning. Mainly, he points out that if TimesSelect were a big hit we would know already, as the NYT would be publicizing the heck out of it.

The thing that really impresses me though, is this page: Most Emailed Articles. Note how there are only two NYTS-protected Op-Ed columns in the list - at places 6 and 20. The Op-Ed columns used to take up most slots in the top 5, which merit special mention on the NYT home page. This is all the more incredible when you consider that NYTS readers know that most or all of their friends do not have access to NYTS - which should encourage them to email more, not less.

In other words, it is looking as if eight of the NYT's most-prized properties have suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth.

Two more things that I am noticing.

• The little orange NYTS logos all over the NYT home page are annoying to me, a non-subscriber. When I visit a website, I want to feel like I have full unfettered access, to click on any link - in a sense this is the primary sensation that the Web is all about. NYTS frustrates this aspect of the experience, and makes browsing the NYT less enjoyable all around. Contrast that feeling to the feeling you get when browsing Yahoo News, or Google News, instead.
• I don't really miss the columnists. Now forced not to read them - or dig through John Tabin's list for the privilege - I realize they spend most of their time parroting the party line on one side or the other, and there are many places to get that. As a whole the blogosphere has far more wit and cleverness than any individual anyway, so my time is better spent foraging.

I predict that the NYT, in the pattern of incompetent Administrations throughout history, will declare victory and beat a tactical retreat, within six months. In particular, they will free the Op-Ed columnists for us to read, email, and blog about once more. NYTSelect will be reserved for Archive users.

Suggestions to an HDTV convert

B. HDTV kicks ass over DVDs. Here are the issues in a nutshell: (1) DVDs provide output at regular television resolution;

Not true. DVDs can either output in 4:3 format, Widescreen "letterbox" (2.35:1) which preserves original theatrical presentation, or the "full" Widescreen (no black bars on top and bottom) format of 1.85:1, they can also output at higher than television resolution.

(2) You can only ever recover some of this back with "progressive scan" or "HD upconversion" DVD players;

DVDs can be encoded several different ways. High/Low compression, High/Low bitrate, High/Low resolution etc. etc. depending on whether or not the studio wants the DVD to fit in a single layer, double layer, or have the movie span several discs (I.E. Das Boot. I've got the 6 hour version). HD upconversion and progressive scan DVD players help out with DVDs that are encoded poorly (I.E. Blade Runner. This title was a royal bummer for me until I got a Denon player with HD upconversion). Other DVDs which are encoded from a pure digital format such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Toy Story do not benefit from HD upconversion. Also, DVDs which are encoded correctly will not need the added benefit of an HD upconversion.

(3) DVDs are digitized at a TV rate of 60 frames/sec, while cinema is filmed at 24 frames/sec; expanding the latter to fit the former results in additional degradation of your signal;

The NTSC standard television displays 59.94 fields/sec, and a single frame is made up of 2 fields (one field for even lines, one field for odd lines) yielding a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec. It is also a little known fact that NTSC stands for "Not The Same Color"
DVDs which are encoded correctly (see above) will have a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec, and will not suffer any loss in quality.

(4) The aspect of DVDs is all wrong; you have to fiddle around with the TV to get a "letterbox" DVD to display properly on your screen, and that's lame. Either that or you have a "pan and scan" which can never use all of your widescreen real estate, which is doubly-lame

It isn't the DVD's fault that the TV doesn't automatically switch to the proper format. If you are connecting using an S-Video cable or a composite (RCA) cable, there is no data which is transmitted to the TV which tells it to switch to the correct format. If you have a composite, DVI, or HDMI connection between your TV and DVD player, the TV will automatically switch to the correct format. Also, if you have a DVD which was encoded in "pan and scan", you purchased the wrong one. Many DVDs come in 2 formats. Sometimes the widescreen and 4:3 "pan and scan" are included on the same disc (like many of the James Bond titles) but some titles sell them completely separate. Watch out for this during your purchase, and always purchase the "Widescreen format" titles.

HDTV on the other hand can be compressed at the source, and decompressed at your box using a lossy format. At worst, these 2 formats are equal.

Some HDTV Clarity

So I have a confession to make: I recently purchased a 46-inch HDTV. Even more recently, I had it connected to a digital cable box + DVR (TiVO clone).

This appliance has brought some new-found clarity to my life. Here is what I have found:

A. HDTV kicks ass over TV. Tech columnists have been saying this for a while, but flipping from regular television to HDTV from the comfort of your own couch really puts this statement in a new light.

B. HDTV kicks ass over DVDs. Here are the issues in a nutshell: (1) DVDs provide output at regular television resolution; (2) You can only ever recover some of this back with "progressive scan" or "HD upconversion" DVD players; (3) DVDs are digitized at a TV rate of 60 frames/sec, while cinema is filmed at 24 frames/sec; expanding the latter to fit the former results in additional degradation of your signal; (4) The aspect of DVDs is all wrong; you have to fiddle around with the TV to get a "letterbox" DVD to display properly on your screen, and that's lame. Either that or you have a "pan and scan" which can never use all of your widescreen real estate, which is doubly-lame.

C. HDTV Movies are as good in your own living room as they are in any theater. This holds when you route the sound over your (decent) stereo system. I can say this because my cable provider includes the channel HDNet Movies which broadcasts only movies in HD. Meditate for a moment, if you will, on how brilliant that is. Last night Erica and I were enraptured by Winged Migration on this channel - freaking awesome, or as Erica said, better than the first time. And since I have the cable company DVR, I can record any of these that I want (Winged Migration is on there now). The quality comparison to DVDs is no contest, and I don't have to do any fiddling to use all of the real estate on the screen.

These primary revelations have in turn yielded two secondary revelations.

D. No wonder box office is down. People talk about the movies this summer being crap, but Hollywood always puts out mostly crap. I say more and more people are realizing that the local movie theater is a lower-quality or, at best, on-par experience to what they can get at home. And they would rather watch something stale at home, in comfort, in HD or via DVD, than go to the theater for something "fresh".

E. No wonder DVD sales have taken a hit. There's no way I'm buying another "letterbox", regular-TV, "premium edition" DVD of ANYTHING. I'm telling you - you might as well start reconstructing your 80's era collection of cassingles. I'll watch the movies I get on HDNet Movies. I'll rent from Netflix or my local video store. But I'm not in the market to buy, not any more - not until the DVDs also provide HD performance.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Martha Stewart kick some nubile unimprisoned ass on The Apprentice (in HD, recorded earlier tonight).

Arnie on His Deeply Held Beliefs regarding Gay Marriage

Two things happen today: Arnie meets with gay leaders in his office, after he requested they come. Also, the gay marriage bill finally hits his desk, after being held up by a delaying tactic from the legislature, to give them opportunity to lobby Arnie.

Yesterday, the San Jose Mercury News interviewed Arnie on this and other topics. Here's the [original article] and a partial transcript. Of particular interest is the fact that
he can't remember if he's ever attended a gay wedding or committment ceremony. I suppose that's because he just doesn't pay attention to such things as gender -- he's a gender blind guy.


"Q: Let me change gears here for a moment, if you don't mind. I'm curious if you, Governor Schwarzenegger or private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger, if you've have ever attended a gay marriage or a gay commitment ceremony -- a gay or lesbian marriage or commitment ceremony?

A: I can't remember.

Q: You've talked a lot about, you know, being deferential to the courts and to the people, but I'm curious what your personal views are on gay marriage. Are you personally troubled by it, as a father, as a Catholic? Does it bother you, or are you deferring to the wishes of the people, do you think?

A: You know, to me, I have never really felt that strong one way or another because to me, I don't, you know, I'm not personally hung up on the whole thing....But I try not to, as much as possible, not to get my own personal opinion in there. Because, I think that if you represent the people of California and the people of California voted on that issue, and overwhelmingly voted on that issue, and Proposition 22 won, I don't want to be the one that says, `Look, I decide right now your vote doesn't mean anything. And the money that you spent on that campaign was a waste of money and it's gone.' And I think it just shows you also, at the same time, how much out of touch the Legislature is with the people.

Q: But it (Proposition 22) was five years ago, right?

A: It doesn't matter. The only way can redo it -- Look, Proposition 13 was in 1978, does it mean that now we should go, the legislators should go, and re-do Proposition 13? What would you say if --

Q: Well polls show that opinions have changed on gay marriage --

A: You're absolutely correct. I believe that too. But then they have to go back to the people, like I do. The reason why I have to go with our budget reform back to the people is because it involves Prop 98. I cannot say, `That was in 1988 and people misunderstood it and now they think totally different.' No, I have to go back to the people to get my budget approved because it does have an effect on education. You know, it will stabilize education funding so it doesn't go up and down the way it is right now, but it will effect it. And so therefore, I think that it you want to change that, I have no objection to people going out and trying to change it, but they have to go back to the people. That's just the way it works. Thats the way the law is....

I have the utmost respect for gay people, for gay couples....In this particular case, I'm the governor and I've got to protect the people of California and I've got to protect the people of California's right that if they vote there should be no other power that should change it other than the courts....

Q: So then would you take some sort of pledge vowing not to use the gay marriage veto in --

A: No, I'm out of the pledge business....

Q: But you said you're not hung up on the issue, would you agree not to use the gay marriage issue for political advantage?

A: I will never use it. Did you see me saying one word at the Republican convention?

Q: No, but you know things could always change down the line...

A: No, no, no, no. There is no change. I don't want to set up one group of people against another group of people. No....That's not my style....

"

TimesSelect: Not aimed at the readers, but aimed at the writers

you can see that, they did this simultaneously with a site-redesign. The result of this redesign is that all the OpEd columnists appear on the far right, below the scrolll -- you have to move down the page, rather than having them appear at the top.

Anyone doing site design *knows* that's horrible real estate. People look center, left, right, scroll down and repeat. The new position for columnists insures that they get far less attention that the now top of the page center Editorials -- which nobody is interested.

So what's going on? It seems to me that the NYTimes figured out that their columnists had become celebrities -- no holes barred -- in the blogosphere, only because they are columnists at the NYTimes, and the NYTimes was getting no ownership of that action.

What to do? You demote them all, move them aside to a lower place of feature and you make it harder for readers to read them, because you can't renegotiate their contracts once they exist. And now you've got a new ceiling, something to bargain with. If your columnists become famous and want more cash, you can offer them better placement. Or, make their columns free of charge. Which will increase their celebrity, and presumably their book marketability and lectureship fees.

In other words -- TimesSelect wasn't invented to get money from readers; TimesSelect was invented to claw back money from their writers.

NYTSelect & Syndication

Turns out, as long as we are willing to wait a day or two, we need suffer no anxiety over not having primo access to our favorite NYT columnists via TimesSelect. All of our gnashing of teeth was for naught!

John Tabin has pointed out that every NYT columnist is also published at other papers via the wonders of national syndication. And some of these papers have free-access websites. So as long as we are willing to hoof it around the web somewhat, we need suffer no deprivation. He's even going to make it easy for us, collecting links on this page right here.

Ahh, the joys of free OpEd access. Plus, just look at all the suffering we are missing!

Tip via Kausfiles.

WaPost Features NYTimes Taunts

Guest Blogger Andrew Sullivan is featured on the OpEd page at the WaPost, where today he says: "I would have linked to John Tierney's excellent NYT op-ed today on how Wal-Mart is better able to deal with natural disasters than FEMA. But only Times Select readers can read the link. So I won't. Nyah nyah."

A Site to Bookmark

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive (or go directly to today's column).

Don't know if NYTS is savvy to them yet, but at least we can all get our fix for today.

TimesSelect, Day 1

There they go: Today's Krugman, Herbert are now behind the locked gates. Will the digirati crack? Or will they walk right past the gates to stroll in the open bloggish gardens surrounding them on all sides?

Uh oh. Calif. Gay Marriage Bill was Stalled to Lobby Arnie

Seems that the explanation for why Arnie hasn't signed the bill yet is that its author used a tactic to stall the bill for 12 days from getting to Arnold's desk, so that he could be lobbied longer.

Bob, getting the phonecalls again

Zellweger has split after a five month stint with her husband.

Her reason for splitting? Bob's sexiness, and, I quote: "I was a fool for leaving him."

George Bush Needs a Bathroom Break

At least, according to this note he wrote to Condi during a Security Council Meeting today.

And There It Goes

Starting next Monday, the NYTimes OpEds will be access restricted. The yearly fee is $50 (which includes other services as well).

So the question is -- how long until I can't stand not reading Paul Krugman again?

Wha? This Doesn't Make Any Sense

Less than 2 weeks after President Bush praized Mike Brown, head of FEMA, with "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job", regarding his response to the Katrina disaster -- Brown first was relieved of all duties regarding Katrina, and now he's resigned.

So what are we to conclude from this? That Bush is a big ol' liar? That he can't tell the difference between a horrible job over which one should (and did) resign, and a "heck of a job?"

Is it really a good idea to have a President who makes statements which everyone knows is a complete lie, including himself?

The Post is a Stooge

Dear Washington Post Ombudsman,

In Howard Kurtz's column today, we see Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz scrambling to apologize for printing, unchallenged, a claim by an anonymous Administration official that a state of emergency was not declared in Louisiana until after September 3. Since Gov. Blanco declared just such a state on Friday, August 26 - more than a week before the Post story - this was a shockingly false claim to appear in the Posts' pages.

The story's co-writer, Spencer Hsu, attempts to explain away this deception by saying:

We don't blow sources, period, especially if we don't have reason to believe the source in this case actually lied deliberately.

Two questions about this quote:

1. Is it true that Mr. Hsu would protect his dissembling source, even if he did believe that his source had "lied deliberately" to make a stooge of the Post? Is this official Washington Post policy?
2. If Mr. Hsu does not believe that his source "lied deliberately", then exactly how does he think the source came to state this falsehood? Since the claim itself is so egregiously wrong, there was obviously a very deliberate lie planted by someone somewhere along the line - either by the source itself or by a trusted informant of the source. In other words, someone upstream from the Washington Post lied deliberately either about: (a) The date when a state of emergency was declared in Louisiana; or (b) The source's state of knowledge regarding when, exactly, a state of emergency had been declared in Louisiana. Does Mr. Hsu mean to claim that the second case is more forgivable than the first? Is this, also, official Washington Post policy?

Thank you very much for your time.

Derek Fox

Robin in the Room

I'd like to point out that Bob is now the Robin in the room on 13D.

Press Release on Schwarzenegger's Veto

[Here]
Press Secretary Margita Thompson says: the matter is before the courts, deciding on voter's ballot initiative -- exactly where it should be. Out of respsect for California's voters, he will veto the bill.

Any Other 2-for-1er's?

Steve feels confident enough that Arnold will veto the Gay Marriage bill, that he unilaterally altered the terms of his bet (see comment under Derek's Post, "Why Bob Should Buy Some Lattes in Bulk") to 2:1 -- he buys me two if I win, while I buy him one if he wins, pointing out that in nearly all previous bets I've lost to him in the past 2 years (and it's been nearly all the bets) taking the cynical side has been a big win for him.

So, how about it, Derek, Robin, Patrick, Erica? Anybody else feeling confident enough to join Steve in the 2-for-1 odds level? I'll mention again that I conceded in the comment below that I had not known that the California Legislature went out of session Sept 9th (pointed out by Derek), after which they would have had to call an emergency session to revive the bill, but could have brought it back up to try to override his veto if he had vetoed it before then, a seemingly very strong argument to explain Arnie's several days delay (now, 5 days, and 2 days past Sept 9th)
in vetoing the Bill after announcing his intention to do so.

Like I said, any other 2-for-1 takers?

Rumsfeld Channeling Washington?

From McCullough's 1776 (p 256):

Once, during the Siege of Boston, when almost nothing was going right and General Schuyler had written from Albany to bemoan his troubles, Washington had replied that he understood but that "we must bear up against them, and make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish."

In other words: you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might like to have.