Now - on to the show:

Cancel that series, Chief!

The indictment reads only "18 U.S.C. 1503, 1001(a)(2), 1623". One obstruction, two false statements, two perjuries...hold the mayo.

From the press conference:

And as Flea likes to wink and say: Just you read down a number of lines and find out what I think is important...Well, make that nine short paragraphs....

Last edited: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 at 8:38:11 AM

As my next to last post states:

Yup - my fault for getting my posts out of order.

Actually, the five-year limit is in the IIPA in your last post.

@ 426 4.A.ii

Noc, noc, who's dare?

Last edited: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 at 7:05:57 PM

Well....at least the Senate's doing it's part in saving the planet by cutting the lights down for the closed session.

Maybe they'll carpool on the way home too.

Ongoing rejections of her undercover status miss the point and makes one think yee aren't paying attention. Need I relink?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/30.html#a5624
I like Harry Reid. He takes the gloves off for fly-to state.

Reid should re-read --

The Iraq Liberation Act

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.

Let me be clear on what the U.S. Objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.

In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council's efforts to keep the current regime's behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.

On October 21, 1998, I signed into law the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, which made $8 million available for assistance to the Iraqi democratic opposition. This assistance is intended to help the democratic opposition unify, work together more effectively, and articulate the aspirations of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic, participa--tory political system that will include all of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups. As required by the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY 1998 (Public Law 105-174), the Department of State submitted a report to the Congress on plans to establish a program to support the democratic opposition. My Administration, as required by that statute, has also begun to implement a program to compile information regarding allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Iraq's current leaders as a step towards bringing to justice those directly responsible for such acts.

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 provides additional, discretionary authorities under which my Administration can act to further the objectives I outlined above. There are, of course, other important elements of U.S. Policy. These include the maintenance of U.N. Security Council support efforts to eliminate Iraq's weapons and missile programs and economic sanctions that continue to deny the regime the means to reconstitute those threats to international peace and security. United States support for the Iraqi opposition will be carried out consistent with those policy objectives as well. Similarly, U.S. Support must be attuned to what the opposition can effectively make use of as it develops over time. With those observations, I sign H.R. 4655 into law.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON

Last edited: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 at 5:36:59 AM

I'm glad to see the neocons taking the high road with Scooter. It absolutely warms the heart. I'm sure he has sparked something big with his defiance of the established rules. Perhaps, years from now, he too will lie in state at our nations Capitol and be put to rest beside Rosa Parks .

Hey rush, you left out clinton's clause that says we reserve the right to fabricate and cherry pick evidence in order to build popular support for going to war, as well as the right to attack the wives of administration critics for speaking out against our use of manufactured or cherry picked evidence.

And chief: whoa! Attacking unions and making a case for big oil! Wow! Don't look now buddy, but your status as a small business owner is largely linked to the middle class. Comtemplate that...you think there's going to be any use for you if the entire middle class is outsourced and absorbed into the (fries with that?) service sector? Think again. You'll be joining them with a silly hat.

And one more thing: rush, it is absolutely disgusting to see how you fundy dogmatists devolve into moral relativism when it serves your purpose! Disgusting: you've been deriding the left for its relativism for years, yet your hair splitting, issue striding, hermenuetics with regard to this plamegate/libby thing is absolutely shameful...coming from an absolutist like you. I thought that right and wrong were absolutes? Hypocrite.

I said it a million times: get some goddam integrity. You've descended into complete self-parody.

...thus proving that national security is less important than political domination.
We've read this book already.

That was a photo of Muggsy Bogues standing beside Manute Bol, BTW. Not Spud Webb.

Heh, I always liked Spud Webb too though. Bogues was at Wake, Spud at NCState.

Were you the cute, short red-headed kid, by chance?

Your fangs weren't showing.

We can agree on Rosa Parks.

Black steel.

Let me revise: a complete self-parody with a finer appreciation of nba midgets; a reverence for accepted civil rights heroines, but a disdain for civil rights; a partisan hack that lacks the integrity to know when he is being a hypocrite; a moral relativist.

A thing's truth value depends upon its relationship to GOP talking points. I am utterly unable to get a sense of you that is separate from those talking points. I conclude that there is no JJ outside of those talking points. Nothing of any relevance at all.

And "black steel"? Add to the assessment: corn-ball.

Last edited: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 at 4:03:33 PM

What is black steel?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/02.html#a5671
Have a good listen, apologists.

And you guys still sure that your wack-ass vision of america is now shared by the majority of your fellow americans?

Reason to doubt that:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/02/opinion/polls/main1005327.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories
note the comparison of bush to nixon.

And: http://poll.gallup.com/content/?ci=19567
If it becomes clear Alito would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade, Americans would not want the Senate to confirm him, by 53% to 37%

Last edited: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 at 6:24:00 PM

Hey Stink, I heard a couple of interesting comments the other day on a rightie radio station.

First this ol'dude calls in questioning if it was right that big oil was sucking in some serious record profits due the "wind"fall storms. Rightie radio host then proceeds to dismember him; after all this is a free market, didn't they have a right to make a profit?

After all oil was at $20 a barrell and gas was only $1.50, but now oil has gone up 3 fold and the price only doubled. We should feel relieved it's not higher. He just kept hammering on the guy, "don't they have a right to make a profit?" It was kind of pitiful, the guy caved right away, he wasn't expecting to be eviscerated on the air.

(Personally he was a dumb ass if he didn't expect it, the righties NEVER argue on topic, they always make it a personal attack. Kind of wondered why ol'dude didn't ask the host why we were getting screwed so bad then when oil was only $20. Anyway...)

Then rightie host lambasts a local teachers union for asking for a raise and threatening a strike if they had to. OMG, they are evil incarnate. They were going to bring down the whole US economy. A feeling he freely shares about any public employee.

So right away I'm asking myself; why doesn't the same rule apply to that teacher union that applies to big oil? After all, they had to earn a college degree and pass applicable testing. They usually have to have much post graduate training as well. Don't they have the same right to earn as much profit as the market will bear?

All of a sudden the same rules he used to cream the ol dude don't apply. Talk about a selfish flip-flopping rightie ingrate. Righties like to tell you how much you're worth as long as they are applying the rules. They got profits to make!

But form a trade union and then you're a bunch of socialist thugs. How dare you challenge the status quo and demand what the market will bear? Flip-flopping ingrates.

:)

When it comes to personal attacks, it's fairly easy to litmus test a remark by doing a vocabulary check for its, ah, gravitas.

Hey, I skim comments on several blogs. Whoa. You guys are actually fairly balanced.

Some real leftie barking moonbats out there.

As for Rosa Parks, make fun of the way I appreciate her if you want. Listen to her talk. She had a calm steady voice in the face of enormous pressure. A seamtress, her appearance was as in the pic. Sharp as a tack. Sharp in character. She was steel.

@ Tally

I skimmed the 60 Minutes segment. There was discussion of possible damage from the outing but no talk of minor or major upheavals. One-sided.

From the Washington Times, July 15, 2005, there is Fred Rustmann, also an ex-spy, saying:

Contrast that with 60 Minutes and Marcinkowski:

Not much real news, no new news.

Ironic that the left is defending the CIA here? That billion-dollar agency that is labeled as mostly out of control these days.

And please don't tell me the secret cabal is running the CIA too.

Did you catch that sweet piece in the NYT about our spy people and Vietnam?

Oooooooooo. To "cover up earlier errors."

@ Wilson and Plame:

As far as Libby outing Wilson's wife (no, not Keith O's interview tonight...), I suppose you could see that as an attempt to wreck Wilson.

I see it more as a war between the CIA and the White House. I don't see Wilson or his wife as major players.

And, no!

That does not let Libby off the hook for lying to the grand jury. But read the indictment before you tell me that he outed Plame. No one at this point really knows the context of any of the remarks.

Fitzgerald probably knows more than anyone. Also, the CIA does. I haven't heard anyone challenge the CIA to explain its motives and contradictory statements.

What if the CIA did the same thing with Niger that it did with Vietnam?

The left always stays on topic and never attacks anyone personally, you know, and I expect we will get very erudite opining, to follow.

Last edited: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 at 9:59:06 PM

Good observations fleabag. Fierce defenders of the free market, the righties. They like it so much as an economic concept that they've decided that it should be applied to all social arenas as well.

Perhaps the righties would like open up teaching to the free market? Maybe policing, fire patrol and all that as well. Instead of principals, we'd have ceos running schools, outsourcing teaching jobs to the lowest bidder...but hey, if it works in business, it must therefore also work in education.

I'll never understand how righties can be so goddam stupid as to rally for the rights of ceos to make vaster and vaster profits while simultaneously hawking the "git guvment off our backs" bit. Dumbshits never connect the dots. We seen it all before: deregulation brings us enron style anti-consumer gouging. And look at our current economic situation: here you have an administration that has created policies which benefit corporations at the expense of the many. Results indicate that never has so much wealth been accumulated in so few hands in our nations history. Results indicate that the middle class is shrinking at the same time that more and more slip into working class serfdom. Results indicate that it is the rare worker that can retire in the security of knowing his former employer will honor his retirement plan. Results indicate that a handful of media conglomerates now control over 80% of all radio, print and tv outlets. Monopolization is never good for the herd.

How do these jackasses reconcile these anti-consumer aspects of capitalism? By believing in the myth of upward mobility. Check it out retards: look and see how much tuition costs at state universities have shot through the roof. Do some googling. Google how real wages have not kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. Witness families struggling to survive their "service sector" jobs. More people than ever are living under the poverty line. Unfettered capitalism is destructive to societies. We are less and less an upwardly mobile society. Less and less every year pro-corporate administrations call the shots. Upward mobility is a thing of the past.

For me, the primary role of federal government is to keep corporations from raping and pilaging every thing in sight. Republicans seem to think raping and pilaging is just good business.

Sharp as steel...black steel.
didn't really bother to read any of that though...why bother? I occasionally listen to talking points on tv. Why converse with a talking point?

Anyway: on the myth of upward mobility and the middle class...you guys might wanna rethink your affilitation with greed.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_henwood.html

Just had to interject something.

While coming to work I heard on the radio that the budget cutter types were going to cut back in FOOD STAMPS funding.

I just had to laugh. Right! That's the ticket! Can't have all those people getting free food. The horror! Especially when there's some many other pork projects...er...economic programs that need the money. Ah, they don't need it. They're just going to use the money for beer and cigarettes, right stink?

_{I tell ya, I didn't sign up for this agenda.}

I'm hearing that more and more. After the 9/11 attacks for awhile I felt W was the right man to be there. I started having doubts during the run up for the war and especially after watching Colin Powell present his testimony. I could see on his face that he didn't believe what he was telling the American people. I still felt we should keep our mouths checked for the protection and moral of our troops. Now it's such a mess... Over 2000 GI's killed, heaven knows how many Iraqis in the wrong place at the wrong time... I feel like such an idiot... And ashamed... And embarrassed.

Lyndon Johnson and George Bush

George Bush may not personally be a racist but his policies are. IMO Bush is pushing back equal rights 40 plus years in this country with his biased policies. One of the first programs he cut strangely enough was midnight basktetball. Detail or other examples such as his tax policies are not needed for this exercise when we quickly compare him to LBJ.

LBJ was a known racist and even supported a racist party I believe that was in Mississippi. Here's what baffles me. LBJ being arguably an overt racist surprsisingly made amazing advances in equality for such things as Civil Rights and Voting in this country.

So here's the comparison: GWB may not be a racist but his policies are racist. LBJ was a racist but his policies were not racist.

The big catch: LBJ, even though a racist, believed in upholding the Constitution and creating social equality. GWB, not a racist, believes in uprooting the Constitution and creating social biases.

Strange, no?

Last edited: Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 8:26:22 AM

Racist because he doesn't give them stuff over everyone else?

I got this via e-mail from a listserv called "The Pen". I'll forward it to anyone who wants it.

They overstate their position somewhat, and show obvious bias in language, but that's some nasty stuff. I do not want us to go that way. Is this what people thought they were getting in the last election?

@ Rogue- your post appeared while I was posting ^.

I think the difference may be in the level of concern LBJ and GW have for the will of the people. LBJ was working in a time when it was very obvious that people wanted those changes. The climate required him to act toward implementing civil rights more fully for all. I also thing that the special interests were not as deeply entrenched as they currently are. I may be wrong on that, but that's my impression.

I see Bush as a mouthpiece for the rich and powerful. The perception of racism is, in my opinion, due to the correlation between race and socioeconomic status. When social programs get slammed, the hit is hard in areas where poor and minorities are more present. You can argue that it is racism with validity. I also think it's an attempt to control poor and lower middle class people of any race.

Those gaps in income between poor and rich keep widening. The middle class is shrinking. I've got a bad feeling about this.

Rabban: robbing from the poor...its dumbfounding, isn't it? But the poor must pay. There's no money in the coffers.

Bin spent on an endless war in iraq.

Bin given back to the uber rich in the form of trillion dollar tax cuts.

History will judge us all very harshly. The fate of the middle class is the fate of america.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/03.html#a5684
I'll have to start watching this show.
The sister is hot :).

I'm not a political or debate guru, so these questions may seem absurd. Guess I'm just looking for intelligent analysis, which seems probable given those who regularly post here. Outside of our vote, contacting Congress-people/Senators, is there anything we can do to "right the ship?"

It seems W/others is/are hell-bent on only promoting coporate agenda at the expense of most Americans. Is it even possible to fix this? Assuming W is gone, and a moderate or left-wing President takes his place, can our current course be changed? If not, at what point do we "fold" and learn another language to move to Canada, Europe, etc.? For the most part, I love America, but if they are going to limit my friends and family's prospects, why should I stay? Why would anyone stay?

I am hoping for reasoned, non-attacking response, not a "Prof you're an idiot" response, which is why I typically stay out of these threads. I would seriously like to hear opinions/views on this.

@ Prof- I think there still is hope. (I tend to be more optimistic than many, though.)

It will take a mandate from the grass roots level to do this. I'd do the things you mention, but also get yourself informed about progressive issues. In Seattle, there is a group called the "Economic Opportunity Institute". http://econop.org/Default.htm I have gotten some very good information from them. They are one group that I know that works around issues of wages, economics, and the effects of public policy on the middle class.

The difficult part is waking people up. The public may not yet see these problems as important issues, so my advice is to seek out and support parties, groups and candidates that will promote the middle class.

It's going to be tough, but it can be done. We need to get people to stop munching grass and wake up, though. (MOOOOOO)

Goddamit professor! Your an idiot!

Er, sorry...couldn't resist. I think that is an outstanding question and one worth pondering. At the heart of the question it seems to me is this

I think we have to begin with that statement before we can begin to commence to proceed with your question.

Because this assertion (which has to do with our increasing awareness that america is no longer the upwardly mobile place we like to think of it as) is challenged by the hard-core proponents of capitalism uber alles. Status quo apologists, when they aren't engaged with shifting moral stances on other issues, dispute this. They can even give examples. They can even provide studies by pro-corporate think tanks that indicate otherwise.

And yet....we all live in a world that demostrates every day that "our" lot has changed...contemplating our rising bills and our stagnate pay checks...contemplating our deteriorating schools....our nations addiction to cheap drugs...our rising college tuitions...our uncles loss of pension...our father's outsourcing...our wife's underemployment...and we learn that ceos are making record profits, and that the top 10% richist americans have become even that much richer over the past decades...so to us, we live the proof of this statement: "but they are going to limit my friends and family's prospects" every single day.

However, there are powerful forces fueled by corporate sources that cannot allow this sentiment to build in this country. The fates of the hate-spewing conservative media and corporate owned status quo media is ineluctibly bound with their corporate masters. They prefer it if we all buy into the old myth of upward mobility.

Where do you begin? How about by battering apologists of the rich and richer in these forums? Makes me feel better.

Last edited: Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 11:36:40 AM