Once Around - Including Our New Friends

Haven't done a once around of our links for a long time, so lets see what's happening. As usual, we go alphabetically.

At AmericaBlog (the best blog around), the link is to Time magazines profile of James Risen of the NY Times. Risen was one of two NY Times reporter who broke the Bush domestic spying story. Guess what? He already has a book coming out. Maybe that's why it took a year for the NY Times to get the story in print.

"Risen writes that with the White House's anything-goes mandate in place, everything went. While the NSA began monitoring communications of some Americans suspected of links to al-Qaeda--snooping on "millions of telephone calls and e-mail messages on American soil" in the process--the CIA set up a network of secret prisons around the world in which interrogators employed techniques that violated established international norms. Meanwhile, Tenet's desire to earn the favor of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld led him to abandon the agency's traditional role as a nonpartisan arbiter of intelligence. That fostered a climate in which officials were discouraged from sending Bush inconvenient information--such as doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's program for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Tenet is no stranger to opprobrium (his reputation will never recover from his telling Bush that the evidence on WMD was a "slam dunk"), but the verdict of his subordinates in State of War is particularly withering. "George Tenet liked to talk about how he was a tough Greek from Queens," a former Tenet aide tells Risen before going on to use a vulgar word for wimp to describe him instead. ‘He just wanted people to like him.’”

Americans dying daily in Iraq, because George Tenet just "wanted people to like him."

Over at MicroMayheM, my North County colleague hooks up to a San Diego Union Tribune column that has this to say about, Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

"Requiem for a Nitwit: Randall Harold Cunningham's dive to the canvas shocked fans of the sweet-and-sour science. Two days after Copley News Service reporter Marcus Stern's scoop hit the porch, I started a column with a two-word prediction: "Duke's done." A lucky punch line."

The Carpetbagger Report deconstructs the Bush Administrations economic achievements. A series of disasters and setbacks that the mainstream press can't be bothered to cover.

"In other words, after five years of Bush's presidency and a series of budget-busting tax cuts, the stock market has a cumulative gain of negative 15 points.

Under Reagan, the Dow went up 148%. Under Clinton, it grew 187%. After five years, Bush isn't quite breaking even."

At Eschaton, Atrios steps forward with this short, sweet demolition of the Imperial Presidency.

"The issue is simple: Bush has declared that one man has the right to make the law whenever, in his determination, national security warrants it. While even I can understand the necessity of broad executive powers in emergency situations, we aren't anywhere close to being in one of those. If Bush decides that personally shooting dissident bloggers or pesky journalists in the head is in fact necessary for national security, then no one can object. The fact that he has not, as far as we know, done any such thing does not matter in the slightest. By conferring dictatorial authority on himself Bush has declared that this is, in fact, a dictatorship even if he hasn't (yet) bothered using such authorities to the fullest of his claimed ability."

Yes, that's right. Bush can order each and every one of us who disagrees with his policy to be remanded, held without due process or simply taken out and shot. Pay fucking attention, media twits. You're next.

James Wolcott polishes this gem concerning the coming of age of the neo-con movement. Well, coming of age may not be the right term.

"In fact, my policy is to refer to the warbloggers in 2006 as "bedwetters." There need be no shame in being a bedwetter. It's a condition that can be treated. But for the neocon-converted, treatment first requires taking honest self-inventory. Having the courage to look in the mirror admit, ''m a pompous warmongering bedwetting crybaby who loves to hear myself maunder.'"

That most righteous and powerful, Jesus General, gets all worked up about the prospect of "preemptive genocide." The Christian right calls it "Just Democide." Who can argue with that?

"I support your call to destroy Iran, Lebanon, and Syria with nuclear weapons, but will that really guarantee Israel's safety? Given the Palestinian birthrate in Judea, Samaria, and within Israel itself, how long will it take before Israel loses its Jewish identity? Apartheid isn't a long term solution. Eventually, you'll need to come up with a final solution to the Palestinian problem.

Have you considered death camps in the Negev? They could be built very easily using slave labor from the Palestinian ghettos.

I'm sure you'd receive a lot of support from American patriots. After all, our support of domestic spying, disappearances, and torture is proof that we're frightened enough to whole-heartedly embrace anything."

Kid Oakland has taken the bit and is ready to go after a Democratic congess one district at a time. He suggests that Democrats figure out a narrative that puts the Republican congress of corruption in perspective.

"Goode, in addition to proposing a 2000-mile fence on the Mexico border, just returned $88,000 in tainted Duke Cunningham money. Goode led the list of those taking MZM related donations. Yet there's no Democrat runing against him and a google search of his name links to postive Goode-sponsered web site after web site...of course, scan down the list and local blogs start to document how the bugs crawl out from under the carpet.

We may not be able to unseat Goode this time around, but I'd sure like to see him get a credible opponent for when that day comes, and most importantly to see him used, like Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Richard Pombo, as examples of what happens when Americans give one party unchecked power in Washington.

Virgil Goode is a poster boy for everything that is wrong with the GOP. In 2006, that poster needs to be seen in the clear light of day."

The opportunity is there for Democrats, but only if they are willing to actually become the party of clean, influence free government. It's a long shot, but hope springs eternal.

At Nite Swimming, the word goes forth that corrupt Republican Rep. John Doolittle (CA-4) is being challenged.

January 7, 2006
Out of Iraq Town Hall Forum
1 to 3 p.m. SEIU-UHW Hall
1911 F Street in downtown Sacramento

Charles Brown, Lt. Colonel USAF Ret. democratic candidate challenging John Doolittle in California's fourth district, will be a featured speaker at the Out of Iraq Town Hall Forum sponsored by the Sacramento Coalition to End the War, Sacramento for Democracy, Progressive Democrats of America and Peace in the Precincts. The public is invited to participate. For more information contact Cathlyn Daly at dalywood@comcast.net or Karen Bernal at nekochan99@hotmail.com.

Be there.

The Washington Monthly has the best take on a new poll taken of the United States military. Guess what, support for the Iraqi meat grinder and the dickhead who created it is way down among the men and women who have to fight to turn Iraq into Iran-lite.

"This isn't the kind of dynamic Karl Rove & Co. can fix with a few more photo-ops on military bases. The Bush gang may want to back up the signs that say "Supporting the Military" with some actual substance that shows support for the military. Just a thought."

The Monthly also links to this editorial in the Army Times. This was an editorial perspective two years ago. Now, it is becoming a military perspective.

"In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.

Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.

Then there’s military tax relief — or the lack thereof. As Bush and Republican leaders in Congress preach the mantra of tax cuts, they can’t seem to find time to make progress on minor tax provisions that would be a boon to military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training and parents deployed to combat zones, among others.

Incredibly, one of those tax provisions — easing residency rules for service members to qualify for capital-gains exemptions when selling a home — has been a homeless orphan in the corridors of power for more than five years now."

What more is there to say?