Thursday’s Mini-Report

August 9, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Bush may be unconcerned about the real estate market’s effect on the economy, but investors seem to have a different attitude: “The Dow suffered its second worst session of the year Thursday as worries about the global credit market sparked a broad selloff in stocks, following a three-session rally…. According to early tallies, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 383 points, its biggest one-day point loss since Feb. 27, when it plunged 416 points on worries about a global growth slowdown.”

* Sidney Blumenthal: “Hadley and others are taking Powell’s early skepticism toward the surge and willingness to express it as a potential sign that he will swoop down on them just after Petraeus asks for more forbearance for the president’s policy. Powell is the White House’s ticking-time-bomb scenario. He was Petraeus before Petraeus, the good soldier before the good soldier, window-dressing before window-dressing. The White House aides’ fear of Powell reflects their guilt, if not their stricken consciences, over his disposal. Powell was used, ruined and tossed overboard. His warnings were ignored, his loyalty was abused, and when he no longer served Bush’s purposes he was unceremoniously discarded.”

* WaPo: “A decision by the Bush administration to rewrite in secret the nation’s emergency response blueprint has angered state and local emergency officials, who worry that Washington is repeating a series of mistakes that contributed to its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina nearly two years ago. State and local officials in charge of responding to disasters say that their input in shaping the National Response Plan was ignored in recent months by senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials.”

* Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith to TV Guide about his show: “We have to do more news…. We’re not going to do more crap. We’re not going to do more titillating [stories], Hollywood-movie reviews and jokes. We’re going to do less of that. There are other places that do that better than we do.”

* AP: “President Bush was treated for Lyme disease last August, the White House announced Wednesday after failing to disclose the problem for nearly a year. The treatment was revealed only when the White House made public all the results of Bush’s annual physical exam on Wednesday. It showed up in the ‘past medical history’ section and in the summary along with other skin conditions.” A very reasonable case can be made that this should have been disclosed when it happened.

* Cleveland Plain-Dealer: “The former head of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans admitted today that he sexually abused a colleague during a national convention here last summer. Michael Flory, a 32-year-old attorney from Jackson, Mich., pleaded guilty to sexual battery on the day he was to stand trial for rape.” I sure hope someone is making a list of these GOP sex crimes; there sure have been a lot of them.

* Novak: “With congressional Republicans’ morale in a steady decline, the adjournment for the August recess found the GOP in high spirits thanks to winning the anti-terrorist eavesdropping bill. That trumped Democratic passage of an energy bill in the final House session last Saturday night. The importance is that Democrats still flinch when they come face to face with President George W. Bush on terrorism.” If civil liberties abuses improve Republican morale, these guys need a new hobby.

* The WaPo’s Howard Kurtz said in his column yesterday, “I sure didn’t see anyone reporting that Obama wanted to invade Pakistan.” Media Matters found 15 high-profiles examples of the media doing just that, on national television, in major dailies, and in widely-read columns/editorials. Kurtz is the media reporter for the Post, right? He couldn’t do a Nexis search before getting this wrong?

* First, Pat Robertson’s Regent University started having trouble; now, Ave Maria Law School is struggling with internal divisions. (thanks to Rege for the tip)

* Wow: “Over the weekend AT&T gave us a glimpse of their plans for the Web when they censored a Pearl Jam performance that didn’t meet their standard of ‘Internet freedom.’ During the live Lollapalooza Webcast of a concert by the Seattle-based super-group, the telco giant muted lead singer Eddie Vedder just as he launched into a lyric against President George Bush. The lines — ‘George Bush, leave this world alone’ and ‘George Bush find yourself another home’ were somehow lost in the mix. ‘What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band,’ Pearl Jam stated in a release following the incident.’

* Tom Tancredo, still not well.

* Most of the Democratic presidential candidates will meet tonight for a debate focused on GLBT issues. It will be streamed live online at LogoOnline.com and will begin at 9 p.m. ET.

* And Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ken.), whose stability has been open to question for a few years now, told reporters that he may never attend a major Kentucky political event again, because two years ago, during an interview, he “had little green doctors pounding on my back.” The poor guy is apparently slipping further and further away.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

AT&T has finally succeeded in something everyone else has failed at for more than 15 years: making me like Pearl Jam.

  • In regards to Powell swooping down on the ReThuglikanner lemming masses, I have but these few blunt words:

    POWELL-ZILLA’S REVENGE!!! NO MERCY, COLIN—SHOW NO MERCY!!!!!!!!!

  • Powell was used, ruined and tossed overboard.
    Awwwwwww.
    This is the man who lied for two generations of Bush. He got what he deserved.

  • Wow that’s a real set of nutcases. I wondered where Tancredo pulled those numbers on his door from. Then Bunning’s rant seemed to border on alien abduction and their attendant anal probes, when it dawned on me. Tancredo pulled those numbers out of Bunning’s ass.

    Another day, another republican sexual predator. At the end of that page is a story that should have made Steve’s end of day list:

    As part of the homicide probe, Nassau County police raided the dealership, owned by auto czar Michael Oshry, and Oshry’s Hewlett Harbor home and seized business records.

    Cops found banking records were sent to the house, though the state requires such files be kept at businesses, according to court papers filed in a civil forfeiture action by the Nassau district attorney.

    “The dealership knew what was going on,” an investigator said.

    Oshry’s lawyer, William Petrillo, said his client “has not engaged in any criminal activity.”

    His ex-wife, Pamela Geller, former associate publisher of the New York Observer and a conservative blogger, burst into tears when told her ex is under criminal investigation.

    Although listed in business records as a Universal co-owner, she denied it. “I have nothing to do with this,” Geller said.

    That would be Pamela Geller, caped nutcase extraordinaire, of Atlas Shrugs

  • If civil liberties abuses improve Republican morale, these guys need a new hobby.

    Politics as football game. That’s what our political system has become. It isn’t about governing. It’s about winning. So morale on the Rethug side is low, and therefore they take comfort in winning one for Bushco, but destroying more of our civil rights.

    Ain’t democracy great? It is, if only we had some.

  • Only in America… and Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe…

    “Yes, I understand,” I sighed, and signed the form. The instant faxed response was an official, final refusal to enter the US for not having the appropriate visa. I’d have to go back to London to apply for it.

    At this moment, the absurd but almost friendly banter between these men and myself underwent a sudden transformation. Their tone hardened as they said that their “rules” demanded that they now search my luggage. Before I could approach to observe them doing this, the officer who had originally referred me to his supervisor was unzipping my suitcase and rummaging inside. For the first time, I raised my voice: “How dare you touch my private things?”

    “How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect?” he shouted back, indignantly. “

  • * Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith to TV Guide about his show: “We have to do more news…. We’re not going to do more crap. We’re not going to do more titillating [stories], Hollywood-movie reviews and jokes. We’re going to do less of that. There are other places that do that better than we do.”

    Translation: They’re going to do more crap news.

  • I sure hope someone is making a list of these GOP sex crimes; there sure have been a lot of them.

    What do these repressed gay Rep criminals call themselves? The Log Felon Republicans? There must a better joke term in there somewhere.

  • Dan @ 1:

    hah.

    i admire their politics, i just don’t like their music … (i’d say the same thing about billy bragg and joan baez, among others).

    vedder & co. should be angry about the censorship, regardless.

  • Sad News: During their alternative combat service, the Romeny boys’ Winnebago hit an IED in Iowa. The Intestinal Eflluents Dump had been planted on the narrow roadway by a terrorist heifer. To make matters worse, the Five Brothers wet themselves in fear.

  • Bush’s Lyme: A very reasonable case can be made that this should have been disclosed when it happened.

    Why should it have been? I was kinda disgusted when everyone started counting his polyps in public, too. It’s not as if he’d shot someone in the face while “under influence” and tried to cover it up. If they’d discovered advanced Alzheimer’s and sat on the info, I’d be upset — the public has a right to know that it’s being led not just by any idiot but an idiot with a prospect of further, progressive, brain damage. But, Lyme?

    Jim Bunning and “had little green doctors pounding on my back”.

    Don’t know about your area of Vermont, but, in our hospital, the doctors wear green scrubs. Not all of them are little, of course, but…

  • It seems that Lyme disease can cause “episodes of cognitive dysfunction or confused thinking”.

    That explains a lot.

  • http://tinyurl.com/yr2wpf
    Biden’s alternative to impeachment. Must say there are aspects of it I like. Though, like Winnie the Pooh, I’d as soon have both.

    It seems that Lyme disease can cause “episodes of cognitive dysfunction or confused thinking”. –Deborah, @13.

    Thanks. I didn’t know that. But yes, it *would* explain a lot. Including why it should have been public knowledge long ago. I wonder if he’ll claim diminished mental capability if/when he stands trial for all his crimes.

  • The stock market goes to hell and Bush goes on vacation. Are the Europeans trying to tell us something?

  • I sure hope someone is making a list of these GOP sex crimes; there sure have been a lot of them.

    If you don’t count Vitter, in the past month there have been three:

    Allen (Bucks4BJs/Black-guys-scare-megate)
    Murphy allegedly performing oral sex on a sleeping man (Not worthy of a cute name)
    This sick fuck (Ditto).

    I must say re Murphy and this current convict (whom I hope has to register as a sex offender) that it apprears the Young Republicans do more than their share to keep money flowing into the bank accounts of the world’s liqour producers. I thought the Libruls were the party animals.

  • I thought liberals had the healthy lifestyles and the Republicans were the drunks. I guess it depends on which liberals and which Republicans we’re talking about (i.e., George Bush? John Kerry?).

  • Cheney is a madman. From McClatchy,

    Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

    The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn’t clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

    Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.
    […]

    Cheney, who’s long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran’s complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

    The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations.

    […]

    Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that “the vice president is right where the president is” on Iran policy.

    Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough with Iran.

    “One of the main reasons that I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for . . . people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs (improvised explosive devices), that kill Americans in Iraq,” he said.

    He also appeared to call on the Iranian people to change their government.

    “My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government,” he said. “You don’t have to be isolated. You don’t have to be in a position where you can’t realize your full economic potential.”
    […]

    Proposals to use force against Iran over its actions in Iraq mark a new phase in the Bush administration’s long internal war over Iran policy.

    Until now, some hawks within the administration — including Cheney — are said to have favored military strikes to stop Iran from furthering its suspected ambitions for nuclear weapons.

    […]

    Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make the nuclear diplomacy more difficult.

    Before launching such a strike, “We better be prepared to go public with very detailed and very convincing intelligence,” Clawson said.

    So, to recap. Cheney wants to attack Iran. The nuclear argument has brought him any closer to that goal. He is now using the Iran is causing us trouble in Iraq rouse in the hope that that’ll do the trick. Send the man to The Hauge.

  • The nuclear argument has brought him any closer to that goal
    The nuclear argument hasn’t brought him any closer to that goal.
    Funny how two letters and an apostrophe can change the meaning of a sentence.

  • I thought liberals had the healthy lifestyles and the Republicans were the drunks. I guess it depends on which liberals and which Republicans we’re talking about (i.e., George Bush? John Kerry?).

    If we’re talking about at-least-418-days-out-of-his-two-terms-of-office-on-vaction, and no-time-for-church Bush, then the Republican is the example of the party animal, I guess. Or what about Vitter, or Foley, or Kerik, or Giuliani, or Schwarzenegger, or O’Reilly, or whoever the latest guy who sexual abused some man or little kid, or got caught offering some guy a blowjob, or turned 9/11 cleanup or national security facilities into a love-nest, or used government money for a whore-house, or cheated on his wife and got divorced and remarried twice– that guy might be the example, as opposed to a Democrat, of decadence or hedonism or immorality.

  • The Dems really got punked on the FISA cave.

    Four days after President Bush signed controversial legislation legalizing some warrantless surveillance of Americans, the administration is citing the law in a surprise motion today urging a federal judge to dismisss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program.

    The lawsuit was brought by lawyers defending Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The lawyers and others alleged the threat of surveillance is chilling their First Amendment rights of speech, and their clients’ right to legal representation.

    Justice Department lawyers are asking (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to toss the case, citing the new law — which says warrantless surveillance can continue for up to a year so long as one person in the intercepted communications is reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

    The motion is set to be heard in federal court in San Francisco this afternoon

    However, this move by the administration may backfire.

    The Center for Constitutional Rights, the plaintif in the lawsuit, is expected to argue today that the new law violates the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that judges approve warrants for surveillance.

    “Congress has ceded further power to an administration that has done nothing but abuse its power and betray the trust of the American people, center attorney Shayana Kadidal said. “Congress has given the president and attorney general virtually uncheckmed power to spy on international calls of Americans without any oversight or accountability from the courts.”

    Of course, the success of this counter move depends on a Republican controlled judiciary acting in a principled fashion. I won’t get my hopes up.

  • 20. On August 9th, 2007 at 9:53 pm, Swan said:

    […] might be the example […]

    Those are all good examples. could you follow up with examples of healthy Democrats. I mean besides Michael Moore.

  • Note the absence of news stories about Dems cheating on their wives or husbands, groping women against their will or harassing them- or men or teenaged boys for that matter- being (so-called) recovered alcoholics, using 9/11 clean-up or Dept. of Homeland Security facilites for love nests, etc. etc.

    Sometimes it’s about the notes you aren’t playing.

  • If being heavy is the worst thing Michael Moore has going for him, he’s in pretty good shape compared to the Republicans. At least he’s not a pill-popper or a convicted prescription-forger. They’ve got a fat guy (Rush Limbaugh) who is both.

    So I guess for every one of something we’ve got, they’ve got one or two or three that are worse.

    Ex.: Bill Clinton: draft-dodger who dodged a really bad war almost everyone regrets or has had ambivalent feelings about, and he dodeged the draft on account of his (then-)convictions

    Republicans: hordes of examples of (institutional) draft-dodgers with bad excuses

    I could go on and on like this all day.

  • I could go on and on like this all day. — Swan, @24

    I know you could but, please, don’t.

  • Did anyone else not get that the last sentence of #16 was meant to be a sarcastic comment on the constant accusations of liberal/Democratic debauchery from the fRight Wing?

    Just checking.

  • The White House aides’ fear of Powell reflects their guilt, if not their stricken consciences, over his disposal. Powell was used, ruined and tossed overboard. His warnings were ignored, his loyalty was abused, and when he no longer served Bush’s purposes he was unceremoniously discarded.”

    Given that then-Major Powell wrote the first official Army report about the My Lai Massacre, which was the whitewash his superiors wanted, who cares what this piece of dreck does? His entire career has constituted being the “front office guy” who made the slime who employed him seem good for employing him, when all he ever was was Ol’ Massa’s favorite house slave, the one who would be sure to warn Ol’ Massa of any rumblin’ down in the “quarters.” And he finally got thrown over by Ol’ Massa, who no longer needed him. Pretty much every favorite hosue slave of all the Ol’ Massas could tell a similar story.

    Let him die of the mortification he brought on himself.

  • Bush’s tick fever: I have to wonder if anyone else saw that C-Span interview Bush had with Hamid Karzai? Bush look completely drunk, couldn’t speak even as well as Karzai and Karzai is still learning to speak English.

    Want to make a bet that Bush dies of a alcoholism related disease? Because I bet he does.

    Bush is two thin and pale, hair has the frizzled look, the bruises, and Bush is acting the boastful bar-room braggart with swank of a drunk hanging on podium.

    Bush never stop drinking – he has “drunk” written all over him.

  • … Dems cheating on their wives or husbands, groping women/men/boys against their will, being (so-called) recovered alcoholics…

    What WILL they do when Edward Kennedy moves on?

    “You party is festooned with drunks, pervs, and self-loathing, closet gays.”
    “Oh yeah? Kennedy drove his car off a….. ah, crap. Wait a minute. Lemme think.”

  • Swan said:

    Ex.: Bill Clinton: draft-dodger who dodged a really bad war almost everyone regrets or has had ambivalent feelings about, and he dodeged the draft on account of his (then-)convictions

    Just to clear the record a bit on this – Bill, of course, seeing his college deferments running out, wrote to Senator Fulbright asking to be considered for some staff job that would serve to keep him out of the army. This is the extent of Bill’s “draft dodging.”

    Fulbright never responded to his request (after all, Bill was not “connected” like some sons of prominent politicians that we all know). Bill got placed in the lottery and it was his luck that he drew a high number and wasn’t called – bet not only didn’t he successfully dodge the draft (if that was his apparent intention) – he was in the draft lottery with all its attendent combat availability requirements.

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