Monday, February 28, 2005

Kicking Rather again


US free media retaliated to Putin accusation: "shocking Putin statement that he'll watch Oscars rather than news makes page one!

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Newsweek washing up Putin's remarks

It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush's National Guard service. Yet it's all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media—just like his own. Bush's aides have long feared that former KGB officers in Putin's inner circle are painting a twisted picture of U.S. policy. So Bush explained how he had no power to fire American journalists. It made little difference. When the two presidents emerged for their joint press conference, one Russian reporter repeated Putin's language about journalists getting fired. Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. "They obviously planted the question," said one of Bush's senior aides.
more…
Of course, Dick Cheney's calls to CNN as spilled by Wes Clark"
That's the reason I was attacked all through the war by guys like Dick Cheney for being an armchair general, because they knew I was against what they were doing. And they were right. And now we see why everybody should have been against it.
LINK

Putin to W: "What about 60 Minutes?"

Contrary to the cloying WaPo versionLINK , Putin didn't exactly take W's lecturing sitting down. Maureen Dowd said today on MTP that Putin refered to the electoral colleges and his daddy's friends. Also, according to Newsweek

NEWSWEEK: Putin to Bush: 'We Didn't Criticize You When You Fired Those Reporters at CBS'
Sunday February 27, 12:34 pm ET
NEW YORK, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- When George W. Bush confronted Vladimir Putin last week about the freedom of the press in Russia, Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe reports, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS." Details of the meeting, which included just the two presidents and their translators inside the historic castle that overlooks the Slovak capital of Bratislava, are reported in the March 7 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 28).
(Photo: > http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050227/NYSU002

I linked the delicious Bartcop thread about it

WaPo editorial cartoon

GOP opposing war - back then

Supporting the troops - depends...

Nashville Brook on DU - Leadership institute and the threat of socialism:

Nashville Brook on DU - Leadership institute and the threat of socialism:

But there it is. These people really believe there is a Socialist Threat and if you read the material you find out that what these people hate most is public education and workers' rights. These are the Angry White Men, who, despite having great jobs and stay-at-home wives and home-schooled chunks of children, they truly believe the world is out to get them. The feminists want their masculinity. The schools want their religion. The government wants their money. They are middle class and operating out of fear they might lose their footing. they are one lay-off or serious illness from bankruptcy (for as long as that exists).

Friday, February 25, 2005

Ridiculous options

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table"

Democracy 101 by....W?

An unsmiling, visibly irritated Mr Putin squirmed as he listened to Mr Bush tell a press conference he had been told that Washington had "concerns about Russia's commitment in fulfilling" the "universal principles" of democracy. "Democracies always reflect a country's customs and culture, and I know that," Mr Bush said. "Yet democracies have certain things in common; they have a rule of law, and protection of minorities, a free press, and a viable political opposition."

MWO where are thou?

Monday, February 21, 2005

On Gay Sex, White House and who we are


nashville_brook  Sat Feb-19-05 03:19 PM

Question of GAY SEX surrounding White House reveal who we have become
Who here has ever attended an elite prep school? Anyone been to jail? Well, I'm sure everyone has been to the zoo.

The kind of behavior associated with Gannon's flavor of "services," and Bush's affair with Vicktor Ashe, have nothing to do with what most people consider sex. I know this is difficult to understand because we *are* talking about the act of eventually bumping uglies. Make no mistake, that happens in the end (pun intended), but it's not "romantic." All the well-groomed bachelors of a certain age in surrounding the GOP and the While House, they aren't all looking for love. They are "establishing order."
Homo-erotic social ordering is at the center the Lord of the Flies world inhabited by the orphans of privilege who attend elite private schools. It's also common in public schools, and in neighborhoods. You most certainly see it in prison. Who is whose bitch. It's certainly not a behavior exclusive to the wealthy. I grew up in central Florida and the cracker kids in my neighborhood did it. I've witnessed it in the corporate world where you have the bullying in a hereto-erotic manner. Hell, my 14-pound female Italian Greyhound asserts her authority over her roomie, an 18-pound male Iggy. I love it when we have guests over in the summer for BBQ's and Astra is humping away at Trouble. "Well you see, they are establishing dominant order. It has nothing to do with sex-drive. If she were in heat, believe me, she would be acting much different."
Skull and Bones is supposed to be the final stopping place for the adolescent ready to leave that ordering process behind. Or is it? Does the behavior serve a purpose beyond the developmental ordering of youth? I would say it most certainly does. Who wouldn't want to be privy to your opponent's vulnerability? If you were the bully, I imagine you could use your reputation for mad ruthlessness against your peers forever -- given you maintain the rep through continued ruthlessness.
This is base nature, folks. It's what we form social institutions to guard against. The Enlightenment, humanity in general, the arts, music. Our entire culture until now has been centered on progress and The Social Contract. Now, it is Hobbe's State of Nature re-created by men in power in order to fill a need -- most likely a garden variety narcissist need with Daddy-issues thrown in. Always needing to show oneself to be "the boss," or "the big Man," is not normal behavior. It's aberrant. Transgressive.
Everyone who has an angle on the Gannon story wants to assert their reason "why the sex is relevant," or why it's not. I'm no exception. I believe the issue of sex is important because it tells us something about this administration's sense of social ordering. It's claw to jaw. It's pre-modern. It's Old Testament.
When Clinton was fooling around with his little muffin, it wasn't about him being a big man. He's not proving to the world and to his Father that he is better. Clinton had to become his own father. He had to grow up fast and nurture his mother. I have some experience with that. When you come from those roots, you don't have anything to prove, anymore. But you do get lonely. When you are everyone's parent, there is nothing left for you.
In the Clinton dalliance there was yearning for connection. In Bush's case the yearning is to stand over the vanquished -- this is called "annihilation."
We must get better at articulating what this is about because it seems to me that whether or not you believe any of the Left Behind crap, Bush The Annihilator, does. Those are the rules he is playing by. He is a sick man and he is going to take all of us with him on his Odyssey to prove to Poppy once and for all, who's The Man.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

W is not gay, so stop saying that!

"President Bush falls in love - on TV"
http://www.expressen.se/index.jsp?a=244308
It's in Swedish, but here's a translation;
President Bush is talking about an eventual attack on Iran - but his thoughts are somewhere else. Finally he can't keep it in and tells the female reporter, "You have wonderful eyes"

Irony is dead:

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Mesg #353582 "Ha ha ... DC Freeper rallly in support of Gannon!"
Author samela    
Author Info Member since Apr 25th 2002
12571 posts
Date Fri Feb-18-05 11:52 AM
Message
  

        


They'd better guard their porta potties ... you don't know who's gonna pee in them.
Cadged from a DU post ... I wouldn't have gone to FR myself.
--snip--
DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF JEFF GANNON
&
THE FIRST AMENDMENT
WHEN: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2005, 6 P.M. TO 8 P.M.
WHERE: THE SIDEWALK BY MONICA’S GATE,
AKA THE NORTHWEST VISITORS ENTRANCE
THE WHITE HOUSE, 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE., NW, WASHINGTON, D.C.
(Washington) The D.C. Chapter of Free Republic, an independent grassroots organization, will be holding a demonstration at the White House this evening in support of former Talon News White House Correspondent Jeff Gannon and the rights of other reporters to do their jobs without fear of being destroyed by the political establishment.
The group will also be bringing attention to several First Amendment-related issues pertaining to the current imbroglio. Among them are the unconstitutional efforts of Democratic congressmen to determine who is a reporter and efforts by the establishment media to shut out Internet-based news sites from having access to government press conferences.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1345967/posts

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

IOKIYAR - media

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Mesg #352867 "It makes sense to me"
Author samela    

Date Tue Feb-15-05 12:57 AM



I remember so well listening to Leslie Stahl in some radio interview describing how she had a meeting with Reagan in the Oval Office, and she realized he didn't even know who he was, much less she. And she says, "I said to myself ... is this something I should report? And I decided no." Apparently, the entire media knew the president was nigh onto non compis mentis, and didn't report it. Well, maybe this was just some sort of national security thing. Maybe we didn't want all our "enemies" to know the American president was drooling in his shoes and not steering the ship of state.
But I rather think they would have reported it of Clinton or Carter. In other words: Republican stories don't get printed. Compare Jennifer Fitzgerald to Monica Lewinsky. Compare Bush-daddy's pardon of Cuban terrorists and Pakistani heroin runners to Clinton's "scandallous" pardons.
IOKIYAR.
Plus, the media is scared. Plus, the people in this administration think they can get away with anything: lying, withholding information, telling long-time allies to screw off, having male prostitutes flitting around the White House. They don't give a shit, and that is how they get away with it.

Gannon screw-up

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"They screwed up?"
Author samela    
  

        
In response to Reply #14


Sure they screwed up. But it has consequences.
They screwed things up royally in Iraq, too. They've screwed up the long-term economic picture of the country. Look, these people operate on two principles:
(1) hubris
(2) incompetence
And they get away with both things time after time.
Let's remember how Bush was hell-bent on getting his tax cuts passed. Here's this guy with no mandate, having eked out his power from a controversial Supreme Court decision (the whole election scam/fight thing in Florida itself being an extreme form of hubris ... I mean, who would think they could get away with having a candidate's brother strong-arm an election in his own state using such lumpenly obvious scams as the Karl-Rove butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County and phony lists of felons), and he puts forth this zany idea, and even a lot of old-time Republicans warn it's a bad idea, and it's plain as day what the consequences will be. But he gets away with it anyway, and to make matters worse does it again after 9/11. And everyone says, no one in their right mind would cut taxes when the nation is at war and the deficits are mounting, and you'd think he'd have to be nuts to propose cutting again, cause unemployment is going up and the gubmint revenues are declining ... but he does it again. And we now have historic deficits--he blew nine trillion dollars, taking us from a $5 trillion surplus to $4 trillion deficits. And a lot of people would say, yeah ... but you know, some stuff came along and, well, they didn't realize and they just screwed up. He's gotten away with it.
Let's not even talk 9/11. Can you imagine a president of the United States going on a month-long vacation after serving only 5 months in office, getting a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" (not to mention the 52 other memos specifically mentioning domestic suicide bombings using planes that we now know about) and then not doing one fucking thing about it? I mean, sitting on his ranch clearing brush or whatever and not having his National Security Advisor even call a single meeting? And then, after doing absolutely nothing with regard to this information, spending his time at an elementary school and ... even after being informed that America had been attacked ... sitting there on a little teeny chair reading a story about a pet goat? I mean, who could imagine anyone screwing up that badly? But he gets away with it, and they call him "manly" and "a leader" to boot.

So this happens, and that very night Rumsfeld is running around the Pentagon saying find an excuse to attack Iraq. And Richard Clarke tells him, and other people tell him, WHA? Iraq had nothing to do with this. But he says fuck that, this is a great opportunity. So they do all this shit for the next however many months that is really quite unbelievable--so unbelievable you can't imagine them actually having the hubris to do it on purpose cause who could get away with such things? -- kicking out the CIA analysts from meetings so Doug Feith can stovepipe his own raw intelligence up the ladder, getting the National Security Advisor and the Vice-President to go on TV and lie about nuclear capability and scaring people with phony stories of mushroom clouds. And they have the unprecedented gall to baldfacedly have the President lie during his State of the Union speech, including known fabrications like the Niger Yellow-Cake story, full well knowing the CIA has told them it is not true. But they do it anyway. I mean, that is so far-fetched that a Presient of these United States would get up and tell a boner like that after having been warned a dozen times it was not to be used (even having had it removed previously from a speech in Cincinnati). But they do it anyway, and they don't even care when they get caught with it. They just break a law by smearing the people telling the truth, outing a CIA agent -- and they get away with it.
And then they attack Iraq and even though all the generals have told Rumsfeld you need way more troops and you need a plan for after the military portion, he completely ignores them and goes ahead with his own hare-brained amateur battle plans. And talk about screwing up. Oh man, we don't even have to go over this. Not guarding the ammunition caches, letting all the country be looted of records, firing all the Ba'athists, creating a maelstrom of insurgency that has enmeshed us in an unwinnable war in which some 1,500 troops have died and 8,000 maimed and untold thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis dead. And it was all based on this bold, audacious set of lies. And they get away with it.
And now you ask if they would intentionally have the nerve to pass through a known male hooker with no journalistic experience into the White House for two years? I mean, what rational administration would do something that nutty thinking they could get away with it?
Well, you know what? They are that nutty and that "fuck-you-we-can-do-anything-we-want." And they will get away with it.
This is the screw-up administration. And I am both shamed and scared to be an American right now. And if it takes a two-bit hooker who is blackmailing Scotty McClellan--or whatever the story on this turns out to be-- to discredit them, so be it.

The Gannon affair

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Mesg #352876 "RE: So let's understand clearly what we are witness to"
Author felix19    


(not that there won't be plenty more to this story in the by and bye)
* Guckert/Gannon has been a "working boy" in DC at least since 2000, and prolly since well before that.
* Apparently a pretty successful working boy according to his testimonials and back taxes owed.
* People who ply his trade in DC have a tendency to run into plenty of powerful people. Especially if they are "total tops" like Gannon/Guckert is said to be.
* But dude is aging. Even though his escort service sites say he's 31, he's actually 47 and gravity is having its effect. No matter how well he maintains his equipment, surely his days as a prominent working boy in DC are numbered. What to do?
* How about presstitude?! He's always liked writing and given his experience, he's got plenty to say. What if he went to journalism school and wrote for some website?
* Next thing you know he's got a Leadership Institute Journalism Certificate and he's working at the White House for GOPUSA and Talon News. Woo-hoo! And how convenient! The personnel director for the White House is married to a board member of GOPUSA/Talon. And Howie Kurtz and his wife Sherry Anis are praising Leadership Institute to the skies.
* It's safe to say that "Jeff" was inserted into the White House press pool, he didn't just casually walk up to the gate and show his ID. Now the question is, who inserted him, and why him?
* Any good whore is going to have a client list. Who is on "Jeff's" list? Or is that too "personal?"
* Why did he resign from Talon? He hasn't done anything (much) wrong, at least as far as Howie Kurtz is concerned. And why is he going around blabbing and gabbing like he is if everything is so personal and private?
* Who has threatened and harrassed him and his family?
* What will it take for him to honestly tell what he knows?
* What about the Plame connection? When will we find out about that?
* Why is Big Media practically panicking over this whole thing, and why has Howie Kurtz been delgated to Make It Go Away?
* Shouldn't Gannon/Guckert be in protective custody NOW?
* What will we tell the CHILDREN??
* Doesn't anybody care about National Security?

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Dancing Bear posts on DU

link
DancingBear  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-03-05 08:33 PM

The conversion of a moderate (long)Edited on Thu Feb-03-05 08:35 PM by DancingBear
It happened over time. I believed once, as do many here that all things good and just come from the process. Yes, the amorphous “process”, defined within a world 10 miles in diameter where no one is allowed a glimpse into real life, lest the process be tainted. Within the 10-mile world backs are patted, deals are struck, and the political yin/yang that is our side vs. their side continues forth. With equilibrium maintained, the country marches forward.
For the longest time, I too felt that when one side gives, in time the other side receives, and that moderation was the key to staying in power. “The woods are full of moderates”, I would say, and I watched my representatives play what I always thought was a fair game. Ya win some, ya lose some – just have to try harder next time, I guess. I cleaned off the cobwebs, opened the windows, and stepped outside.
What I saw surprised me, for I so wanted to believe that the process worked. I saw Republicans standing united with one goal and one goal only – to take complete and unquestioned control over every branch of government that exists, and to do it by any means necessary. I saw them attack a man who left his limbs in Southeast Asia. I saw them call a man with three Purple Hearts a coward, while their cocaine-addled puppet ran away from every challenge, tiny as they were. I saw them drive a newsman to retirement because he had the audacity to try and speak the truth, while the Vice President spoke from the gutter and was praised. I saw them equate oral sex with prison, while watching their brethren engage in adulterous affairs by the boatloads. In short, I watched them lie, steal and cheat their way to elected offices throughout this country, and to stay there with the help of a media cowering so badly in the corner that the slightest hint of honest reporting makes them cringe.
They will not stop. They will not stop until our views and beliefs literally vanish from the face of the earth. Falwell boasts that he wouldn’t give a dying liberal a thimbleful of water, and the zealots believe. Limbaugh and Hannity have hot lines to the Congress, and the hatred pours forth from the radios day after day. Gay Americans live in fear, for Our Leader has in so many words condemned them all to hell. In the halls of Congress, these thoughts get amplified time and again as Goosestep Nation tells the tepid opposition to keep quiet, lest they want more of the same. We reply with a kiss on the cheek.
I watch it get worse. A woman jointly responsible for the deaths of 3000 people on a clear September day is now our voice abroad. As she brazenly lied before Congress and the world, all but 13 of the people I thought shared my beliefs decided the process trumps truthfulness and said “aye.” A man who finds torture to be open to suggestion is now the chief arbiter of the law of our land, and 9 of the people who I thought shared my beliefs decided the process trumps evil, and voted “aye.” As the beast builds, shooting the citizenry in cold blood, those who hold the process dear fold their arms and promise to defend the sheriff because, after all, that is the most important battle. No one seems to notice that the streets are empty, and the graveyards full.
Where, I ask, is the outrage, the moral sense of purpose that I, and millions of my fellow citizens carry with us? Why must our blood literally boil with rage every time another part of the fabric of this country gets chipped away, a victim of the process? How has the simple of act of saying “no” to evil become not a stand for decency, but an object of ridicule?
As we get beaten time after time after time, and as our leaders prove unfit for the task at hand, I realize that the process kills. It kills the spirit that makes us who we are, and it breeds those for whom a comfortable place in the 10-mile room is safe haven from the beast that is destroying their constituents. We extend the outstretched hand, only to get pulled into the mud, never realizing the other side is always starched and washday white.
I realize now that the Lieberman’s of the world have dealt us a blow from which, unless they are removed forever, we cannot recover from. I think of 1964, and the resounding defeat of Barry Goldwater, and the right saying “never again.” They started building in 1965, and have not stopped since. In all that time, they have never wavered from their ultimate goal. The wayward sons have or will be put to pasture, and when the time comes to speak as one, or to demonize, the flock delivers. The plan is there for all to see, but we turn a blind eye to what works and instead take body blows for 12 rounds, happy to get to Round 13 without getting hit with a left hook. Some strategy.
I can no longer believe. I am moving to a new state soon, and I have talked with my wife and length about what to do. As of today, I am seriously considering running for elected office in that new state. If I do so, I hope there will be a (D) next to my name, but I can’t promise. It is up to you, and I, and millions more, to write, call, march, and scream, and to bring us primary candidates to challenge the DINO’s, and general candidates to clean out the filth. It is our only salvation.
For those that disagree, and who still believe, watch closely over these next months. Watch as Bush and the rest laugh at your beliefs that democracy actually still exists. As you talk endlessly one about “keeping our powder dry” and “when we get back in power” and “we need to pick our battles carefully” watch the other side nod its head with a confident swagger. Then, as you watch yet another Democrat buckle to the will of the right (disguised of course under the guise of being prudent), watch as they take this naïve plan, tape it to a razor blade, and shove it down your throat. As you head for the ER, they pray for you.
But not too much.

Totally Committed posts on CCN

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ating)

by TOTALLY COMMITTED on 02/05/2005 12:24:57 PM EST



The very obstruction of which you speak is the main reason I am feeling so unwilling to try and "fix" the Democratic Party. I gave my all to this Party for almost my whole life. There is no way to convey to you my disgust, disappointment, and anger over what it has become.
When I changed my registration to Independent about an hour after Kerry conceded, I actually cried. I stood in my Town Hall, holding my new voting papers which said I was an "Independent" and I cried. I thought of my grandpa, and how sad he would have been, and then rememberred he wouldn't have been sad with me, but with the Party, too. I am sure of it.
The Democratic Party can just smooch my petoot. They disenfranchised me; they bull-dozed their own candidate into the nomination; they ran a sickeningly weak campaign; they copmpletely direspected and disregarded my candidate, and then their candidate conceded and walked away.... no thanks...
I'm not sure this is a Party I want to see survive. They don't seem to care if they win, or know how to win, or be willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to win. And they are almost as corrupt right now as the other side.
Today, I choose to fight my own guerilla war against thee RW Rregressives. The Democratic Party left me long before I left it.
TC

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