"Well, since I'm here at Gleneagles in Scotland

It would be a shame for me not to get in 18-holes."


Another fall on the bike demonstrates the first payback for giving the world "the finger"


Definitive Proof that the Queen gets to pick the seating order for photos, "Phillip go sit by someone you are intellectually compatible with."


"Wanna see my Super Bowl ring?"


Even out of focus one thing is clear...BOB GELDOF take a fuckin' nap already!


"What do you mean Toby Keith was not the star of 'Family Affair'?"


"Und den ze stumme Scheiße fell off zis bike...again!"


"Careful mom, he's got an umbrella."

For more perspective on the Faux Martyr

Read this Diary from the Daily Kos by Jpol:

This provides further information for what I think is involved in this matter, that Judy Miller was more than just a "mere" reporter here, but involved in something broader. If nothing else it exposes her bias as a reporter in outright lying in stories. In particular with regard to UK WMD Analyst David Kelly who committed suicide in 2003, coincidentally about the same time that the Plame mess was first blowing up:

Judith Miller filed a story about Kelly on July 21, 2003:
Scientist Was the 'Bane of Proliferators'. The article painted a sympathetic portrait of Kelly and hinted that he believed Saddam did indeed maintain a WMD program despite the fact that no evidence of it had yet been found. Nothing in the article suggested that Miller had had contact with Kelly, nor that she had ever known him. Her story concluded with this passage:

Dr. Kelly's wife, Jan, said he had been under enormous pressure, but in e-mails sent hours before his death, he gave no hint of that, telling an associate, for instance, that he looked forward to returning to Iraq.

Thanks to news articles written by others we know more about Kelly's e-mails than Judith Miller revealed to readers of The New York Times... and more importantly, we know that Kelly wrote at least one e-mail that Miller failed to write about.

Jamie Macaskill, for example, filed a story in The London Sunday Mail on July 20, 2003 entitled: Dark Actors Playing Games:

SUICIDE scientist Dr David Kelly warned a friend that "dark actors" were working against him just hours before his death.

Dr Kelly revealed his fears shortly before killing himself after being dragged into the row over the Government's justification for war in Iraq.
In an email to American author Judy Miller, sent just before he left his home for the last time, he referred to "many dark actors playing games".
But, according to Miller, Dr Kelly gave no indication he was depressed or planning to take his own life.

He told her he would wait "until the end of the week" before deciding his next move following his traumatic appearance before a House of Commons select committee...

In fact, Judith Miller apparently knew David Kelly rather well. She had quoted him in several of her earlier articles going back to 1998, and according to the Globe article referenced above, Kelly had helped her write her book about Weapons of Mass Destruction published several years before.

One would have thought that Miller would have regarded her relationship with Kelly as well as her contact with him just before his death as "scoop" material. Instead she failed to let her readers even know that she had enjoyed a long and close association with him. Even more odd, she left out the provocative e-mail he had written her just prior to his death while writing about a more innocuous one sent to an "associate."

There is much more, go read it.

Industry Floor Show

Every industry wants to get away with as much as possible.

Patients and Physicians and other health professionals have confidential communications. But suffer a work injury or claim emotional harm, or merely sign a waiver and good bye privacy.

The clergy has confidential previlege, but that too has its limits.

Lawyers and their clients have an expectation of private communications, but there are all manner of restrictions on these matters.

Nevertheless, doctors, the clergy, and lawyers constantly argue about the sanctity of these confidences and want them as broad as possible.

Why should reporters be any different?

And so, to a great extent in the papers to which leaking is a special part of their cache, the Washington Post and the NY Times and a few other papers there is gnashing of teeth and wrenting of garments over poor Judy Miller.

It's a veritable "floor display" for the industry; the way Pfizer would tote that new Viagra that also grows hair on your head.


And it is, for the most part bullshit.

In the midst of the media's love-fest for Judith Miller, 1st Amendment Martyr, it's easy to forget that Miller's questionable journalistic ethics left her in the doghouse only a year ago. Indeed, when it came to leaks, the only people busier than White House staffers last year were the denizens of the New York Times' newsroom, who fell all over themselves to excoriate Miller to competing publications.

According to a June 2004 story in New York magazine, for instance, one anonymous co-worker said: "When I see her coming, my instinct is to go the other way." By many accounts, Miller is rude, competitive and heartless, willing to pursue a hot story at any price. In at least one instance, she reportedly used the name of a source who had provided information only on condition that her name not appear.

It was Miller, more than any other reporter, who helped the White House sell its WMD-in-Iraq hokum to the American public. Relying on the repeatedly discredited Ahmad Chalabi and her carefully cultivated administration contacts, Miller wrote story after story on the supposedly imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Only problem: Her scoops relied on information provided by the very folks who were also cooking the books. But because Miller hid behind confidential sources most of the time, there was little her readers could use to evaluate their credibility. You know: "a high-level official with access to classified data." Ultimately, even the Times' "public editor" conceded the paper's coverage of Iraq had often consisted of "breathless stories built on unsubstantiated 'revelations' that, in many instances, were the anonymity-cloaked assertions of people with vested interests."

That's what makes the Judy Miller Media Hug-Fest so astonishing. Miller's refusal to testify to the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name has catapulted her back into favor. Ironically, as it becomes ever more likely that she'll be jailed for contempt of court, the very affection for anonymous sources that landed Miller in hot water last year has become her route to journalistic rehabilitation. The Houston Chronicle rhapsodizes that "reporters such as Miller … are the front line in the struggle to maintain a free and independent press." Back at the New York Times, Miller's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., assures us that everyone is busy "supporting her in this difficult time."

I'm as big of fan of the 1st Amendment as anybody, but I don't buy the new Miller-as-heroine story. When Judge David Tatel concurred in the D.C. Circuit's refusal to find any absolute journalist privilege shielding Miller from testifying, he noted, sensibly, that "just as attorney-client communications 'made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime' serve no public interest and receive no privilege … neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate."

Judy Miller is no heroine. She represents the worst, the absolute bottom of the barrel worst of modern corporate journalism. She is a shill for her sources, propogating government propoganda with the cover of "authority". Only out and out plagiarism would be a greater journalistic crime, and when the subject of being the tool that leads to illegal and immoral war I'm not so sure she still isn't lower.

She wasn't exposing criminal activity or wrongdoing, she was enabling it.

The Judge Tatel opinion is significant in this case, as it is one of the few things we have that clue us in as to what Fitzgerald (aka "the Sphinx" of Prosecutors) has...and it is not pretty for those saying "no crime".

As Lawrence O'Donnell notes:

Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”

Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”

Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”

Tatel’s colleagues are at least as impressed with the prosecutor’s secret filings as he is. One simply said “Special Counsel’s showing decides the case.”

All the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.

Something serious is afoot, and Judith Miller is covering it up.

And she's covering it up for the sake of the book deal and the Lifetime movie down the road.

If somebody says something often enough, Lie becomes Truth

And no where is this more appropriate than conservatives bemoaning "Judicial Activists". Bush pushes this theme all the time, and other than us sad, lonely, social misfit bloggers digital magazine publishers nobody ever points out the irony of this coming from a man who owes his throne to Judicial Activism.

But, like so many of the constantly squawked winger points, this is an utter lie. There is no more key marker for "judicial activism" than overturning the legislative branch and, as this op-ed in the NY Times denotes, it is telling as to who does the most "overturning":

How often has each justice voted to strike down a law passed by Congress?

Declaring an act of Congress unconstitutional is the boldest thing a judge can do. That's because Congress, as an elected legislative body representing the entire nation, makes decisions that can be presumed to possess a high degree of democratic legitimacy. In an 1867 decision, the Supreme Court itself described striking down Congressional legislation as an act "of great delicacy, and only to be performed where the repugnancy is clear." Until 1991, the court struck down an average of about one Congressional statute every two years. Between 1791 and 1858, only two such invalidations occurred...

Since the Supreme Court assumed its current composition in 1994, by our count it has upheld or struck down 64 Congressional provisions. That legislation has concerned Social Security, church and state, and campaign finance, among many other issues. We examined the court's decisions in these cases and looked at how each justice voted, regardless of whether he or she concurred with the majority or dissented.

We found that justices vary widely in their inclination to strike down Congressional laws. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, was the most inclined, voting to invalidate 65.63 percent of those laws; Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was the least, voting to invalidate 28.13 percent. The tally for all the justices appears below.

Thomas 65.63 %
Kennedy 64.06 %
Scalia 56.25 %
Rehnquist 46.88 %
O’Connor 46.77 %
Souter 42.19 %
Stevens 39.34 %
Ginsburg 39.06 %
Breyer 28.13 %

One conclusion our data suggests is that those justices often considered more "liberal" - Justices Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens - vote least frequently to overturn Congressional statutes, while those often labeled "conservative" vote more frequently to do so. At least by this measure (others are possible, of course), the latter group is the most activist.

Scalia and Thomas are most often held up by Dear Leader as the kind of judges he wants to put on the court.

Another "lie" exposed. But the rhetoric is so deeply ingrained as a "talking point" it will change nothing, absolutely nothing.

The Unvarnished Truth

Again from a British Paper. How we helped suck Iraq dry before we invaded, and then had some officials fatten their cut post invasion.

[A]uditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8bn that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it has gone. A further $3.4bn appropriated by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance "security"...

This has barely been touched in the American media, where the UN-Oil-for-Food program has been turned on the UN with barely any notice on how the United States, particularly some American corporations benefitted, and now stand to benefit even more in Chimptopia.

Both Saddam and the US profited handsomely during his reign. He controlled Iraq's wealth while most of Iraq's oil went to Californian refineries to provide cheap petrol for American voters. US corporations, like those who enjoyed Saddam's favour, grew rich. Today, the system is much the same: the oil goes to California, and the new Iraqi government spends the national wealth with impunity.

· Bremer maintained one slush fund of nearly $600m in cash for which there is no paperwork: $200m of it was kept in a room in one of Saddam's former palaces

· 19 billion new Iraqi dinars, worth about £6.5m, was found on a plane in Lebanon that had been sent there by the new Iraqi interior minister

· One ministry claimed to be paying 8,206 guards, but only 602 could be found

· One American agent was given $23m to spend on restructuring; only $6m is accounted for

The allegedly freed Iraqis suffer the most.

I can never get over the fact that those alleged "bleeding hearts" for Iraqi freedom like Wolfowitz so clearly actually could not give a shit about these people. They are just abstractions.

And in other news, the Sun will come up in the east tomorrow

Yet ANOTHER spill of the bike for Dear Leader!

Unfortunately, he did not sink into a bog.

Can we just get the jagoff a trike?

Meanwhile,

In Judy Miller land:
(From Adena.com)

Don't worry Judy,

My Heart will go on.

Well, it wasn't a Last Minute Call from the Gropinator?

Lordy, Lordy:

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper agreed Wednesday to testify about his sources in a government leak of a CIA agent's identity, an about-face that came as he faced jail time in a fierce First Amendment fight...

Cooper took the podium in the court and told the judge, "Last night I hugged my son good-bye and told him it might be a long time before I see him again."...

And then the soundtrack music swelled and then...

"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.

What was the signal?


?

Or



Or, could it be?

Pffffffffffffffffffft!!!!

That's the sound of economic recovery nowadays.

Employers announced 110,996 job cuts in June, compared to 82,283 in May, according to a monthly report issued by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

June job cuts rose 73 percent from the year-ago period. So far this year, 538,274 job cuts have been announced this year, 14 percent more than the six-month total of 472,735 last year.

Despite reports that show economic growth and job gains, major layoff announcements in the auto and retail sectors contributed to the surprise June number.

"The fact that job cuts are rising in the summer is not even the most surprising trend. The surprise is that we are seeing a growing number of mass job cuts," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Hey, at least now we can all get discounts like layed-off GM employees.

"That's no Hemorrhoid Pillow!"

President "Genius" Ladies and Gentlemen. (Reuters)


"C'mon no whammies, no whammies!" (Reuters)


Help, I don't know how to speak, Denmarkian!

Little Ricky Goin' Down

I encourage Santorum to continue to publish these statements:

In the book, Santorum makes the case that abortion puts the liberty rights of the mother before those of her child, just as the rights of slave owners were put before those of slaves.

"This was tried once before in America," Santorum writes. "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."

Oh that's comforting.

I'm sure that African Americans can be comforted knowing that "slavery" is less of a crime "in most states" than the right to choose.

Keep it up little Ricky, and I'd like to point out you are a powerful and influential Republican -- let's make sure everyone in Pennsylvania and the rest of the nation knows this.

Blinky

James Wolcott noticed it as did Crooks & Liars, who provides the video. Here is the full transcript. In the video section though look at the blinking of Dear Leader. It is as if he is sending out a message in Morse-Code.


"H-e-l-p M-e, D-i-c-k!"

Something for Chalabi

For when Judy goes to the Big House.

Man this is really getting interesting

To speculate about.

One thing that makes Peter Fitzgerald (or is it Gerald Fitzpatrick?) so much different than Ken Starr is that (1) the guy is a career prosecutor; and (2) he and his office keep their mouths shut. Starr's office was a goddamn sieve of leaks, while I don't think one leak has ever come from Fitzgerald's office.

That is how it should be done of course, but it also means that the only way we know what the hell is happening are from actual pleadings in his investigation of the Plame outing. Everyone of us, me included are speculating out of our asses, usually from our own political viewpoint. However, it is starting to appear that our Karl Rove arrest dreams are coming true, but it may be more than that, we may have a conspiracy on our hands.

A conspiracy that includes Judy, Queen of all Iraq, Miller.

In unusually blunt language, Fitzgerald told Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan that Cooper and Miller pretend that journalists have a broader right to protect confidential sources than lawyers, presidents and law enforcement officers.

"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality -- no one in America is," he wrote.

Fitzgerald's arguments set the stage for a historic showdown in federal court between the government and the news media this afternoon, when Hogan could order the two reporters confined for defying his October order to cooperate in the grand jury investigation...

...In his filings yesterday, Fitzgerald used strong language to complain about the reporters' professed goal of protecting their sources. It would be "pointless" for Cooper to go to jail, he said, because Time effectively identified the source whom Fitzgerald is interested in when it turned over Cooper's notes and e-mails. Cooper's source has also waived Cooper's promise of confidentiality.

Likewise, Fitzgerald has repeatedly said he already knows the identity of Miller's source and that person has relieved Miller of her duty to protect the source's anonymity. Yesterday, he suggested Miller will likely spend time in jail thinking about "whether the interests of journalism at large, and even more broadly, the proper conduct of government, are truly served" by her continued refusal to discuss her sources.

"Miller's views may change over time," he said, if her "irresponsible martyrdom" is later viewed by her industry colleagues as hurting, rather than helping, reporters' efforts to protect their sources, he wrote.

This last section is, well, delicious. Could Judy Miller be the actual tool of the White House in exposing the real occupation of Valerie Plame -- is she now hiding behind the First Amendment to protect her own criminal activity? Who has committed perjury. Rove? Scooter? Will Miller herself be charged?

Oh, and one thing that I think we can all agree on, Cooper will not do well in jail.

Pod steps on a rake...again.

From the intersection of Cracker Crumbs Street & Dirty Sheets Avenue:

TONY BLAIR--"PREDICTABLY DISGUSTING"??? [John Podhoretz]
Andrew, George Galloway is predictably disgusting. Michael Moore is predictably disgusting. Al Sharpton is predictably disgusting. It does violence to the English language and an injustice to a man who has shown some real courage and principle to call him such a thing.
Posted at 01:29 PM

John Podhoretz is predictably projecting.

No sir, nothing disgusting about being the profligate recessive gene of Storm Trooper Norm.

MTV Coverage in History

November 19, 1863:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full ...

MTV Bobblehead No. 1: Wow, there you have it the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln speaking up on the platform now. It's really been some day hasn't it Shareese?

MTV Bobblehead No. 2: It sure has, it's AWESOME listening to the President of the Country, the crowd is really silent in reflection, what an experience. I cannot wait for the telegraphed transcript and memorial daguerreotype. We'll be right back after these commercial morse codings.

...perish from the earth."

"I'm warning you kids

Don't drink too much before meeting Ann Coulter

No need to wake up to this!"





Thanks to Watertiger for the pic (from the SF Gate actually)

Oh, Mr. Waters and Mr. Gilmour

If you are still getting along, we have a new version of "the Wall", bought and paid for by the United States Tax Payer.

I dub it "The Greenzone Wall of Chimpy"

Iraqis call it Assur, the Fence. In English everyone calls it the Wall, and in the past two years it has grown and grown until it has become an almost continuous rampart, at least 10 miles in circumference, around the seat of American power in Baghdad.

Bush's IPOD

I've read some speculation on the "internets" about what is on Bush's IPOD. I don't see what the mystery should be, it is not particularly interesting and there are only four to six songs:

Track 1: Achy Breaky Heart
Track 2: Battle of New Orleans
Track 3: Achy Breaky Heart (Dance Mix)
Track 4: These Colors Don't Run
Track 5: Achy Breaky Heart (Extended Mix)
Track 6: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I too can be Armstrong Williams

The good Roger Ailes caught this and Atrios singled him out Williams as a wanker. All well deserved, although I think Armstrong long ago ascended to the scientology wanker rank of OT:Infinity or something (whatever it is I'm sure it was given to him in exchange for services rendered).

But I must say that inspired by Armstrong Williams here are some other statements that Lincoln once said:

"Never use a Bush to do a Tree's job."

"It depends on what your meaning of "score" is"

"Verily, I hate this pla..."

"I sure wish you had not exposed that Yankee Operative Mr. Hay. How am I going to spin this one?"

"Hey, Vanlandingham, Habeaus Corpus this bitch!"

I have to say though that Armstrong's mastery of math is the best part of all:

"As Abraham Lincoln observed 130 years ago..."

If Abe Lincoln said anything 130 years ago, it was deep down in his Springfield casket desperately trying to claw his way out, no doubt screaming on that day six score and ten years ago, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah".

Amen

Billmon writes something beautifully (as usual) that sums up Attaturk's feelings of patriotism, the patriotism of America the Ideal, not 'murica the asskicker', all within a thick slice of reflective americana:

...hatred and revenge are patriotism's curse, not its justification. When Lincoln spoke of "mystic cords of memory" and urged his countrymen to put their common heritage ahead of their political divisions, he wasn't appealing to their tribal loyalties, but their loyalty to an ideal: democratic government under the law. If American patriotism has any claim to be an exception to the general run of blind national chauvinism, it has to be found in that idea. If America is to be an exceptional nation, one worth glorifying above all others, it has to be because of the quality of her justice and the strength of her democracy -- not because of the language she speaks, or the God she worships or the color of her skin. And not because of her material wealth or military power or imperial ambitions. Least of all those.

Pat Buchanan and I agree on very few things, but he wrote something many years ago that I can endorse wholeheartedly: "America was a great country before she was a rich country." In many ways a greater country, I would probably add -- not because she was poor (if you've seen real poverty, Third World poverty, you know there's nothing to admire about it) but because she stood a little less apart from the rest of humanity, and had to rely a little more heavily on the promises inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, rather than power of her aircraft carriers, to impress the world.

That is the America I love, reflected in two paragraphs. It is not the America that is shoved down my throat by this Administration and a throng of demagogues (though they are hardly the first to try this trick).

You know what they say...

The Bigger the Hoopskirt

...the more stuffed the flightsuit.

Dammit, somebody else caught this before I did. Tom tells me that so does Digby...jeebus, take a mini-vacation and the next thing you know I'm nearly the last to photocaption.

Pathetic, but it contains a major point

The NY Times runs a rather sad "People Magazine" style piece on Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband Joe Wilson. It one again misses the point of this whole matter, but it does point out one thing.

"Before this whole affair, no one would ever have thought of her as an undercover agent," said David Tillotson, a next-door neighbor for seven years who got to know the Wilsons well over back-fence chats, shared dinners and play dates for their grandchildren with the Wilsons' children, Trevor and Samantha.

"She wasn't mysterious," Mr. Tillotson said. "She was sort of a working soccer mom."

He recalled his incredulity on July 14, 2003, when his wife, Victoria, spotted in The Washington Post, in a syndicated column by Robert Novak, a line identifying their neighbor by her maiden name and calling her an "agency operative." Ms. Tillotson kept calling out: "This can't be! This can't be!"

The Wilsons' neighbor on the other side, Christopher Wolf, was similarly aghast. As he sat on his deck staring at the Novak column, Mr. Wilson came out his back door.

"I said: 'This is amazing! I had no idea,' " Mr. Wolf recalled. "He sort of motioned to me to keep my voice down."

Contrast this with perenially pathetic, but perpetually employed NRO shill Cliff(ord) May:

On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.

That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

Suddenly, Cliff May's partisan hackery leads him into this corner, from which we should demand an answer:

Cliff either you are a lying sack of shit, or Karl Rove committed a crime ("knowingly" remember).

Which is it now dummy?

"Knowingly"

Apparently, for once, a more left leaning pundit is on a Republican like my dog is on "floor-pie".

In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute ( U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

So, Rove's defense now hangs on one word—he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Does that mean Rove simply didn't know Valerie Plame was a covert agent? Or does it just mean that Rove did not know that the CIA was "taking affirmative measures" to hide her identity?

In Luskin's next damage control session with the press, let's see if any reporter can get him to drop the word 'knowingly' from the never-disclosed-classified-information bit.

This really "is", Karl Rove's "what your definition of "is" is" moment. And we will have such moments as a while. Although the NY Times continues to be fucking pathetic on this story, which is not about Joe Wilson; it is about Bush's Brain (such as it is), at best, not giving a shit, what the repercussions were of bringing out the brass knuckles on a political opponent. The repercussions being either outing an operative or weakening national security.

For that alone, even if a technical crime wasn't committed, the worst kind of scumbag politics was played against American interests notice Bush's prior statement on this nearly a year and a half ago:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

Parsing in bold. So, how long has George Bush known it was Karl Rove that did the leaking, especially since he was doing this hypertechnical stuff?

If you look really closely

You can see the outline of the Virgin Mary.

Thinking about Live8 Part One

I got one solid laugh during MTV's so-called coverage of Live8... and it came from Jimmy Fallon (a so-called celebrity these days is looked at with authority) who I have enjoyed since he got very excited at the Guns and Roses performance at a past MTV Video Music Awards a few years back.

John Norris, that worthless VJ, was interviewing him and it was clear that Fallon was absolutely giddy at the prospect of seeing Pink Floyd perform. Norris said, "So, did you ever imagine you'd see David Gilmour and Roger Waters share a stage together again...?" Grinning from ear to ear, Fallon said, "Dude, if Syd Barrett rode a bike onto the stage, that's the only way this day could get any better!" Cool, he knows who Barrett was.

I also got a cheap laugh from ABC's coverage, which allowed Roger Daltrey to ask the immortal question, "Who the fuck are you?" but edited some bit of random crowd noise over top of David Gilmour railing against "that goody-good bullshit."

As far as my overall impressions of the day, I thought some of the performances were spectacular, but they were almost entirely from what I caught online. Was Brian Wilson EVER featured on a television broadcast...? I never even saw *clips* of him! In fact, the only artist from Berlin I saw featured anywhere was Green Day...and if I see their version of "We Are The Champions" one more time, I'm liable to put my fist through my television.

Come to think of it, I think the only bits I saw from Canada were a performance by Jet and a brief clip of Bryan Adams. MTV and VH1 should be strung up for their incredibly shoddy coverage of the various concerts... starting first and foremost with the fact that the same feed was showing on both networks. No-one cares what the brain-dead teenagers in the crowd thought of the acts! I mean, am I looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, or wasn't the network's coverage of Live Aid back in the day far more about the music...?

What they are showing on ABC right now is a hell of a lot more like what I remember from 1985... celebrities introducing performers, and imagine this... full-length performances by the artists. Why no-one put together a pay-per-view package where you could spend a certain amount of money to watch all the performances from a particular city is beyond me...because I'd've paid 50 bucks for access to all of the London performances alone.

And, yet, oddly, the most offensive thing I saw all day wasn't anything to do with Live8. It was when an R&B radio station ran a TV ad that was put together at least two years ago which contained a voiceover from a pre-stroke Luther Vandross, hyping the merits of the station. To drag that ad out and run it now that Luther's passed on is just in incredibly poor taste.

Thinking 'bout Live8 part two

I don't reply to many things that I see on television or listen to on XM or Sirius... God forgive the radio programmers for they know not what they do... But this LIVE8 thing overall FUCKING SUCKS!!! And I have to admit that I was a big fan of Live Aid (love, love, LOVE the new DVD for that).

And that response is after acknowledging that at least there is an effort to try to do justice to the so-called developing third world. At least Bono, Geldof and all the others are trying in their pitiful rock star ways to do something. Can we at least acknowledge that; even if it is limited.

But in terms of Live8, I did not go on the net to watch it. And from what I have been reading, thank God I didn't. I woke up at 8am the other morning hoping that MTV would have recapped what happened twenty years ago... and NOTHING!!! They were playing another pathetic episode of the Ashton Kutcher self-referential BS called PUNK'D. What the fuck is that all about? Some idiot pulling practical jokes on someone. (No wonder I haven't watched MTV for years!!!) Boy do I have a lot of explanation points going here or what?!?!?!

Does every musical event require that MTV covers requires that cretinous vapid John Norris? Man I hated him when he covered on 120 minutes back in the day when it meant something. Where's the sarcastic yet musical knowledgable Dave Kendall. Damn, I miss him. Yet Norris... what the fuck is he still doing on MTV? Really, I want to know... who has he... you know... to kepp his job. He is God Damn Dorian Gray of the once Music Television, but who takes anything about this channel seriously?

And what's with cutting away from Green Day when they were just absolutely rocking the crowd? Hell, even Richard Ashcroft sitting in with Coldplay gets no respect. Fuck MTV Indeed...at least AOL broadcast the rocking London show (which is putting the others to shame, although Noel Gallagher says Live8 is pointless. He either couldn't get the closing slot over Sir Paul of Hairdye or he's right...or both.)

I wanted to see the highlights of the original LIVE AID. Watch Freddie Mercury probably putting on one of the best rock and roll performances ever staged. See a great duo between Bowie and Lennix, The Who were cool that day and perhaps other than the reunited Pink Floyd gave a great performance.

The reunited Floyd have not lost a fuckin beat. Yep, they looked like the real rock stars they are and remain. If Roger and Dave can patch up things, maybe we all can. Aw fudge, two more fuckin' MTV idiots over 'Comfortably Numb'... does nobody at MTV understand the musical significance of this? It gets worse though, they cut off the end of the song. I guess they do not understand the power of music at all.

U2 was a hip kind of new band twenty some yarns ago, Robert Plant asking the audience if there were any requests... during the reunited Led Zeppelin. We all know what that one request was, oh come on... you KNOW what that song was. If not, sad for you.

Although my friends The Who were great... really, they were, although did someone get the name of the God awful television director who cut to the DRUMMER (who was that?) each time Pete went to do a windmill. And come on, we DO want to see that damn it!

There was NOTHING on MTV like that. NOTHING!!! All there was were moronic announcers, tons of commercials, and thirty-second highlights of each band from hours before. What happens to MTV when they become a cartoon version of what little they were able to reach before. I guess you soldier on with your irrelevance right? Poor Jack Lack and Bob Pitman must be crying.

But I promised you some ideas about Live 8 and here they are:

I thoguth Joss Stone was amazing. I know the music press keeps pushing her but honestly, she is one of the most naturally expressive singers I've heard all the live long day.

When Madonna hit that long, high note late in "Ray Of Light" I literally had my fingers in my ears, it was so awful. Worse than when my daughter plays those adnoidal bands she favors of late. Poor M forgot she has no vocal range when she wrote that song... assuming that she wrote that song... As for her having had work done (you all know what that means), I don't really care at all, everyone's had work done. Doesn't mean much in terms of whether you can still sing and perform. Bottomline. She can't.

'Nuff said as Stan Lee would say.

Happy Independence Day, Soldier

Shut your yap.

Apparently, its "cheerleading" only for American soldiers, as Steven D. at Kos informs us.

Sorry for the slow Holiday Posting

Attaturk has to get his lines down for when he plays John Dickinson in "1776".

Genetic Testing and Corporations

Genetic testing remains a very difficult subject since on one hand the trade-off between knowledge and getting medical help in a timely matter is literally a matter of life and death. However, on the other hand, people (including me) worry that genetic knowledge could be used against them to deny access to health care coverage or employment. And God forbid what corporations might do with this information in the future.

Among groups which have a high rate of not marrying partners from the general population, the prevelence of specific diseases associated with recessive genes and the impact of this issue could be even more problematic. And yes, I know there is differing research and data on these issues. It seems to me privacy concerns should be an essential right when it comes to genetic testing and medical research. I simply do not trust corporations to look out for my best interests.

This probably isn't new to to many readers of the Rising Hegemon. This article is a good update on this issue and provides much food for thought. It illustrates the point, ". . . considerable uncertainty remains about the public's willingness to accept genetic testing or how they will react." Indeed.

Genocide and Nukes built this Country

Paul Harvey that harmless ol' radio commentator is far from harmless, my friends. Turns out that Harvey is nostalgic for "smallpox infected blankets" and weapons "in silos."

Here is a link to the audio (You will need to forward to around the 12 minute mark).

In a discussion of Iraq, Harvey stated: "We're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we've declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies--more moral, more civilized." He then drew a contrast with what he defined as the praiseworthy, he-man act of nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Harvey lamented that "we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq and kept our best weapons in their silos," a clear suggestion that America should have used its nuclear weapons in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And yes, he is serious!

Harvey concluded his radio show with the following call for death, destruction, and infected blankets:

"We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

"And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy."


"Wha? You think I am a racist warmonger? Then you are made of sugar candy!"

Thus, we think that the only proper response is to rework the Starship's song We Built This City...

We Built This Country
by Paul Harvey
with apologies to Starship

We built this country, we built this country on nukes and smallpox
Built this country, we built this country on nukes and illness

Say you don't know me or recognize my farce
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your flight
Too many runaways eating up this country's might

Bush plays the media, listen to the 'Net, don't you remember
We built this country, we built this country on nukes and illness

Chorus:
We built this country, we built this country on nukes and smallpox
Built this country, we built this country on nukes and illness

Someone always playing military games
Who cares they're always changing other country's names
We just want to smash Saddam but someone stole the WMDs
They call us irresponsible write us off the page

Bush plays the media, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this country, we built this country on nukes and smallpox

We built this country, we built this country on mock and droll
Built this city, we built this country on nukes and smallpox

It's just another sunday, in a tired old democrats
Liberals have got the choke hold, oh then we just lost the beat

Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball in tanks and hummers
Don't tell us you need us, 'cos we're the ship of Neocons
Looking for america, coming through your schools

Don't you remember ('member)('member)

Bush plays the media, listen to the TV, don't you remember
We built this country, we built this country, we built this country on nukes and smallpox

We built this country, we built this country on nukes and smallpox
Built this country, we built this country on lies and death
Built this country, we built this country on mock and droll
Built this country, we built this country on whatever we say...

Stupidity

You know I'm a smart ass, I admit it. But I've been blogging for about 17 months now, and put up about 3,500 posts or so, probably comprising about 700,000 words, probably half of which are my own, as opposed to cut and paste jobs from other articles.

In all that time, by and large, I've managed not to refer to the vast monolith of "conservatives" as a group. Sure, I've commented on the margins of them often, "evangelicals"; "christian conservatives"; "neo-cons"; and, of course, "freepers". But I don't think I've often said, "conservatives believe" or "conservatives are". Certainly, I have not made it a habit. I'm sure I've done it a time or two, but put up that many words, you'll over-generalize a bit.

But vast oversimplification doesn't stop "Non-com, Neo-Con, Jonah Goldberg" who continues to make an ass out of himself on so many issues. Over-generalization, meet the Doughy Pantload, you two have undoubtedly consumated your relationship quite often.

PREDICTION [Jonah Goldberg]
Rove didn't do it. But, as Glenn Reynolds notes, the possibility will cause many liberals to have a second case of whiplash (the first being their sudden disapproval of the investigation they essentially started when it became clear that the Times and Newsweek would get ensnared). Now that it seems possible Rove did it, many will suddenly re-fall in love with Patrick Fitzgerald. And if the person I *think* did it, did in fact do it, we will see even more plastic-collared liberals in the weeks to come.
Posted at 08:29 AM

This particular liberal has not commented terribly often on the "First Amendment" implications of this matter, but I will now.

The First Amendment is not to be used for encouraging criminal activity. The outing of a CIA Operative is a crime, by definition a criminal act. If I tell Judith Miller I intend to murder somebody, or steal your car, I should not expect nor should she to use the First Amendment to protect either of us.

This isn't Watergate, when a then anonymous official -- who turned out to be a high-level FBI official, revealed that criminal activity was afoot by others; it is a high-level Administration Official themselves using the Press to commit a crime. It is not a particularly difficult distinction to make. The same logic applies if the "anonymous source" abuses privilege to commit perjury.

The alleged use of private sources by journalist in Washington have been turned by Administration after administration in the post-Watergate era to spread malicious gossip and float trial balloons for years and frankly, I see little evidence it has done anything positive for the nation other than create a "cocktail circuit" of Washington insiders among both politicians and the media. It's not about "freedom", or constitutional rights, it is about the use and preservation of power. The "cool kids" club does little to make the rest of us more free, or more informed -- it just makes us, like them, more cynical.

The First Amendment protects the press, but that doesn't mean it should be used as a shield of privilege, to the detriment of the rest of us mere proles outside the corridors of power.

Last Throes

Egyptian Envoy "Kidnapped" in Iraq:

Egypt's foreign ministry says it is checking reports that the country's new ambassador to Iraq has been kidnapped.
Egyptian diplomatic sources said Ihab al-Sherif was kidnapped in Baghdad on Saturday. Witnesses said gunmen seized him as he was buying a newspaper.

Mr Sherif arrived in Baghdad on 1 June as Egypt's top diplomat, and was subsequently upgraded to ambassador.

Last week, Iraq's foreign minister praised Egypt for becoming the first Arab country to upgrade ties with Iraq.

So when it Cheney next going to appear on a chat show that doesn't have Hannity or Rush on it? I'm better about a month, by then the SCLM will have forgotten (conveniently) what a lying sack of shit he his. Then he can spread some new fertilizer.

Podless

Apparently John Podhoretz doesn't seem to think that Defense Attorney's tend to avoid publicly convicting their clients.

"Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove 'never knowingly disclosed classified information' and that 'he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.' Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details...

Seems to me that unless Luskin is lying, Rove is in the clear.
Posted at 08:57 PM

Um, knowingly disclosing the identity of a CIA Operative IS a crime, and not one most defense attorneys are going to say their clients did.

John Podhoretz, deep thinker.

I'm sure that kind of blase naivete is extended to Democrats from him too right?

Get Prepared to be called a Traitor

For calling a traitor a traitor:

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

Oh man, almost too delicious to hope for.

This Day in History and its Relevance to Today!

July 2, 1937:

Amelia Earhart disappears, along with Fred Noonan, ironically the last person with that name to utter a goddamn thing that wasn't flighty claptrap.

Thanks to Big Daddy Mars for the reminder.

Separated at Birth?

Commenter Matt makes a good point:

vs.

Get ready to fight

One would think with an awful approval rating, that is sinking, Bush would attempt to nominate a traditional conservative to the bench. But if Rehnquist as well as O'Connor go, get ready for the war.

This is the wetdream fantasy the right-wing has been fatasizing about for years. Despite his sinking popularity, there is NO WAY, absolutely NO WAY that Bush will not (if Rehnquist retires) be able to resist appointing two, count 'em two wingnuts on the Bench. And if Rehnquist goes too, say hello to Chief Justice Nominee Nino Scalia.

Get ready to rumble, it's going to be a bumpy Summer in every sense of the word.

They touch themselves

What do they think about at night, our war heros profiteers? With apologies to "The Divinyls" I think it is something like this.


"I love myself"

"I want you to love me"

"When I'm feelin' down"

I want you above me

I search myself

I want you to find me

I forget myself

I want you to remind me

Chorus:
I don't want anybody else

When I think about you

I touch myself


I don't want anybody else

Oh no, oh no, oh no


You're the one who makes me happy honey

You're the sun who makes me shine

When you're around I'm always laughing

I want to make you mine

I close my eyes

And see you before me

Think I would die

If you were to ignore me

A fool could see

Just how much I adore you
I get down on my knees

I'd do anything for you


I want you

I don't want anybody else

And when I think about you

I touch myself

Ooh, oooh, oooooh, aaaaaah

Friday Miscellaneous Lifeform Blogging

Today, I am calling out another blogger.

I am calling out you ATHENAE. Today's lifeform challenges your ferrets to a blog battle to be KING AND/OR QUEEN of the "Family Mustelid" I give you, the badger!

Attention Mssrs Inhofe and Roberts

You may have to "spin-harder" to blame this one on the left and the media.

From that famous commie-symp, liberal, soldier-hatin' rag Stars & Stripes:

Just six months into the government’s fiscal year, the Army was carrying almost the same number of deserters on its books as the service registered for all of 2004.

War and stop-loss policies, which prevent voluntary separations from the military, are the likely culprits for the increase, according to Army researchers.

Tom Friedman's WAR on WORKERS

He'd make a great Pinkerton union-busting thug; both inconspicuous with that walrus-stache and I'm sure he's real good when it comes to bustin' heads.

What a douchebag.

Administering a Tiny Smackdown

People never email me and say, "Hey, Attaturk, we need more coverage of celebrities!"

And I could not mind in the least.

But still, the recent behavior of tiny pretty boy Tom Cruise cannot be ignored. Now, apparently small-boy is a frequent donor to the Democratic Party, but that's too bad, crazy is still crazy -- and it is universal (though more common on the "right", plus look an Inhofe, being a crazy right-wing prick can actually get you elected!). So, I think a smack-down or two is appropriate.

I am surprised to be saying this, but I agree with Brooke Shields.

In addition, I've seen Brooke Shields (who for all I know could even be a Republican) and I've seen Tom Cruise. I think Shields would kick his tiny little scientologist ass.

What a surprise that they'd take the low road

Once Iraq inevitably is recognized as a solid failure all around you know these jokers already have their speeches prepared to blame us liberals for losing the war we advised them not to fight in the first place.

But until then, this is a tune up.

Several Senate Republicans denounced other lawmakers and the news media on Thursday for unfavorable depictions of the Iraq war and the Pentagon urged members of Congress to talk up military service to help ease a recruiting shortfall.

Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting "because of all the negative media that's out there," Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), an Oklahoma Republican, said at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Inhofe also said that other senators' criticism of the war contributed to the propaganda of U.S. enemies. He did not name the senators [...]

"With the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up," said Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican.

I see that KOS and John Cole also wrote about this. Most particularly KOS provided us with these portraits of the Roberts family and the tragically fruitful Inhofe family, none of whom apparently have answered the call:


The Roberts Family


The Inhofe Family

I think both of these finger pointers should be asked about whether they want their kids to enlist to join this "noble" fight or whether its up to other families to spill their blood, while they collect the treasure?

Couldn't they at least go over there to paint the schools?

If I were looking for an uptick in Blog-Activity today

I'd look to those bloggers who work for the State of Minnesota.