Bush and company are a gang of Mass Murderers

It's long, but it makes the point George W. Bush is, by definition and in reality, a Mass Murder.
Stephen D at Booman Tribune:

Let's be honest with ourselves. The invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. Many of those deaths were caused directly by America's armed forces during both the initial invasion and in subsequent military operations as the war morphed into an occupation, operations which continue as we speak. American tax dollars were also used to train and supply Shi'ite death squads which has led to the further slaughter of Sunnis in Iraq. And, as is the case with all wars, many people have died due to disease, the lack of proper medical care, shelter and/or food caused by the violence. Add in the use of napalm and white phosphorus munitions, and the cut off of all supplies of medicine and water to Fallujah prior to the American assault on that city which Bush ordered, and we have a sufficient number of of dead people to satisfy the "mass" side of the equation.

Therefore, the only real issue regarding the usage of the phrase mass murderer is whether that multitude of deaths can be rightly deemed "murders" for which Mr. Bush and his enablers should be held responsible.

Read On...

How would you feel?

If you were a member of a group universally acknowleged to be the best, smartest and most ethical lawyers in the world, and with the change of an administration, the organization of which you were proud, began to be destroyed from within, by fourth-rate duplicious hacks of which there seems to be no end.

What would you do?
Scott Horton at No Comment, on an interview with such a person.

The Department of Justice had, for decades, a reputation for attracting the brightest and most dedicated career public servants from law schools and law firms. Some of the most capable and most ethically demanding lawyers I have ever known went to the Justice Department or worked there. How must those people feel today? Isn't the answer obvious?

If you're having any doubts on that front, the current issue of Findlaw has a fascinating interview with the just-retired director of the Office of Information and Privacy at the Department of Justice, Daniel J. Metcalfe. He began serving the Department 35 years ago in the Nixon Administration. How does he assess the current situation?

Under Gonzales, though, almost immediately from the time of his arrival in February 2005, this changed quite noticeably. First, there was extraordinary turnover in the political ranks, including the majority of even Justice's highest-level appointees. It was reminiscent of the turnover from the second Reagan administration to the first Bush administration in 1989, only more so. Second, the atmosphere was palpably different, in ways both large and small. One need not have had to be terribly sophisticated to notice that when Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey left the department in August 2005 his departure was quite abrupt, and that his large farewell party was attended by neither Gonzales nor (as best as could be seen) anyone else on the AG's personal staff.

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There now appears to be a trail through Gonzales, through Rove and directly to Dubya...

Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo has a bunch of things to consider.
First there is the McClatchy report linking Bush directly to these politically inept maneuvers.

...Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal reported that Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told Gonzales in the spring of 2006 that he wanted New Mexico U.S. attorney David Iglesias dismissed, and that Gonzales refused. The newspaper said that Domenici later made the same case to White House adviser Karl Rove and spoke to President Bush about it after the November election, but before the attorney firings were announced on Dec. 7. Iglesias was among those fired.

David Kurtz at TPM goes back over quotes from Bush and his mouthpieces

A TPM reader asks this question.

...Implicit in all the coverage is the assumption—by Democrats and Republicans alike—that the Attorney General is going up to Capitol Hill to lie. As far as I can tell, this is a universal assumption. The Republicans are rooting for Mr. Gonzales to be successful in his perjury, to tell a coherent story that his enemies cannot break down. The Democrats are rooting the other way, off course. They’re hoping that their ace interrogators will be able to shoot enough holes in Mr. Gonzales’ story that they can destroy his credibility. But nobody seems to find it shocking or tragic that the Attorney General of the United States is going to lie to congress. . . .

(Emphasis mine)

Also read this post and this one too.

Thinking about Bush and the true meanings of words.

Jerome Doolittle at Bad Attitudes does a little study in semantics.

Words matter. When we say a man “earned” $100 million last years, the implication is that he performed some immensely valuable service for the stockholders by whom he is theoretically employed. Say that the CEO “made” all that money, and the subtext is that he created it. Say that he “took” it or “got his hands on it” and we move closer to the truth.

Bush uses “war” in the same deceptive way. His Iraq war, in the sense that most of us understand the word, ended in a few weeks. Our “enemy” didn’t fight, it is true, but our victory was beyond question.

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Why would anyone distrust the White House?

SusanUnPC at No Quarter investigates who is drinking the kool-aid. (Hint, everyone with a press pass)

From Moron O'Donnell's irate interview (video) of Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, unearthed by a dumbfounded Glenn Greenwald:

"Well Senator -- Tony Snow said today that you guys want the truth, and in this interview, you guys are going to get the truth from Karl Rove. What's wrong with that?"

She then observes incredulously and angrily: "You don't trust the White House. The bottom line is: you don't trust the White House."

No we don't. Trust the White House, Moron. And this scandal goes BEYOND Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove, clear up to the President. Today's Albuquerque Journal reveals that, in his nasty, threatening fight to get rid of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) "asked Rove to take his request directly to the president."

And this is reason to trust the WH?

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All roads lead through Carlos, and on up.

An analysis of the cesspool at DOJ and on up by Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake. Do yourself a favor and take a chill pill before you follow the links.

What do you get when you fill the government with people whose primary interest is in getting ahead — and not in fulfilling their job obligations for the long-term benefit of the American public? You get a self-dealing mess:

Actually, I began earlier, in the first Nixon administration, as a college intern in 1971. But I was there again in the Watergate era, when I worked in part of the Attorney General's Office during my first year of law school in 1973-1974, and then continuously as a trial attorney and office director for nearly 30 years. That adds up to more than a dozen attorneys general, including Ed Meese as well as John Mitchell, and I used to think that they had politicized the department more than anyone could or should. But nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.

Read it all.

Amid the propping-up of the Bush fiasco, can't we expect a little regard for the wellfare of the country?

Guess not.

Or is even the slightest bit of integrity and independence too much to ask from Republican members of Congress these days? Have we just all decided that expecting more from them — expecting some sense of fiduciary duty to the public's interest or commitment to something higher than their own power grab — is just an exercise in futility? Here's to a whole lot more sunshine…on the entire festering mess.

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The Music Establishment: "Victims of self-inflicted wounds"

The Record Industry should also make buggy whips!
Ice Weasel at The News Blog

The NYT's Spinning Into Oblivion is yet another crack at the
music industry (an industry which deserves more than a few "cracks").
However, written by two independent retailers, it's only part of the story
and, it's not all that much of expose, more of a mea culpa.

I'll add some bits from that piece here as way of an introduction
into a larger point.

"when we opened an independent CD shop on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan in 1993. At the time, we figured that as far as business
ventures went, ours was relatively safe. People would always go to
stores to buy music."

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The surge's 'Daddy' won't even claim it

Robert Parry at Consortium News

The widespread doubts within U.S. military and intelligence circles that George W. Bush’s Iraq War “surge” can succeed were underscored when one of the plan’s architects, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, was one of three generals to rebuff a White House offer of a new job dubbed “war czar.”

In December, Keane and neoconservative scholar Frederick Kagan promoted the idea of a U.S. military escalation in Iraq as an alternative to the growing consensus in favor of a phased withdrawal of Amercan combat forces.

[...]Keane’s refusal to serve as a “war czar” who would coordinate administration policy in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is another sign of the doom and gloom that surrounds Bush’s latest plan.

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Poll says: If Bush vetos the bill with timetables, DON'T send him a 'clean' one.

From the Talking Point Cafe':

...if President Bush vetoes the Dems' bill attaching a withdrawal date to troop funding, more Americans by a very slim margin want Congress to refuse to send the President another bill without withdrawal timetables than want Congress to give him the no-strings-attached bill that he's insisting on.

Here's the question:

Q: If George W. Bush vetoes the legislation, do you think Congress should pass another version of the bill that provides funding for the war without any conditions for troop withdrawal, or should Congress refuse to pass any funding bill until Bush agrees to accept conditions for withdrawal?

Fund the war without conditions: 43%
Withhold funding until Bush signs: 45%
Don't know: 12%

This is striking, and here's why. Until now, virtually every poll asking whether people support or oppose defunding the war has asked the question in complete isolation, and public opinion has generally tilted against defunding. But this is to my knowledge the first poll that has asked the question in the political context of the President's current veto threat and the resultant standoff with Congress. In other words, this question is basically asking whether Americans favor Congress caving to Bush after his veto or whether they want Congress to stand up to him. As you can see, a slightly larger group wants the latter.

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Iraq wants to be liberated from its "liberators".

From Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword

Now here's a sign of real progress in Iraq: on Monday, tens of thousands of Shiites staged a peaceful demonstration in the city of Najaf to protest the American occupation. From the New York Times:

The peaceful demonstration was being held at the urging of militant Shiite cleric He exhorted Iraqi security forces on Sunday to unite with his militiamen against the American military in Diwaniya, an embattled southern city in Iraq where fighting has raged for four days…

…A senior official in Mr. Sadr’s organization in Najaf, Salah al-Obaydi, called the rally a “call for liberation.”

A peaceful call for support in a violent effort to liberate Iraq from its liberators. Ain't that a kick in the head?

Here's another kick. Iraqi soldiers in uniform joined the demonstration. Who's on whose side in this circular firefight? It doesn't appear that anyone is on our side, that's for sure.

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Rove's emails lost! Well, isn't that special?

The White(wash) House has 'lost' lots, 'n lots of those inconvenient emails they have been sending on private accounts, in contempt of laws concerning official documents.
Hmmm.
Contempt, that has a ring to it!

From The Washinton Post

The White House acknowledged yesterday that e-mails dealing with official government business may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended to be used for political activities. Democrats have been seeking such missives as part of an investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Administration officials said they could offer no estimate of how many e-mails were lost but indicated that some may involve messages from White House senior adviser Karl Rove, whose role in the firings has been under scrutiny by congressional Democrats.

Read On...

Everywhere you look, Sleeper Cells, Republican Pod people.

Kango X at Daily Kos:

How deep are we in it over the politicization of the Justice Department (and probably others) under the Bush "administration?"

Way deep.

This is a planned disaster. A burning of all bridges and a scorching of all escape routes. In other words, the routine Republican m.o.: destroy all paths back to the status quo, so that even if our theories don't pan out, nobody can pull them out by the roots -- they can only tinker with the ruins.

[...]

I wrote earlier about this unfolding scandal that Bush, Rove and Gonzales have now done for the prosecution of public corruption what they've done for impeachment. That is, just as they've made it conventional wisdom to immediately reject the idea of impeachment out of hand as "partisan revenge for Clinton," or "political tit for tat," now so too will the investigation of public corruption cases be subject to such summary dismissal.

The long term effects of this scandal are incalculable. At a time when Republicans are accused of engaging in rampant and systematic public corruption, Rove, Bush and Gonzales have succeeded in making corruption investigations into the same sort of partisan joke that Republicans made impeachment. And as their crimes come to light in the closing days of their "administration" and into the next, they may well have made it impossible for a Democratic successor to actually pursue justice on behalf of the American people, since any such effort will undoubtedly -- and with a lack of shame that shocks the conscience -- be labeled as "partisan revenge."

More and Here Also see

Bush keeps talking about how the 'Terrists' are gonna get us.

Then why the hell are we creating more of them?
Scott Horton at Harpers:

Today's Times (of London) looks at the situation at Camp Cropper and paints a very grim portrait:

America's high-security prisons in Iraq have become “terrorist academies” for the most dangerous militant groups, according to former inmates and Iraqi government officials.

Inmates are left largely to run their blocks, which are segregated on sectarian lines. The policy has created a closed world run by Iraq's worst terrorists and militias, into which detainees with no links to insurgent groups are often thrown.

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The Shiite have a 'Surge' of their own.

From the AP:

The powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his militiamen on Sunday to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq’s army and police should join him in defeating “your archenemy.” The U.S. military announced the weekend deaths of 10 American soldiers, including six killed on Sunday.

[...]

Security remained so tenuous in the capital on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. capture of Baghdad that Iraq’s military declared a 24-hour ban on all vehicles in the capital from 5 a.m. Monday. The government quickly reinstated Monday as a holiday, just a day after it had decreed that April 9 no longer would be a day off.

Al-Sadr commands an enormous following among Iraq’s majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government. The statement Sunday carried his seal and was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where the cleric called for an enormous demonstration to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad’s fall.

“You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don’t walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy,” the al-Sadr statement said.

He urged his followers not to attack fellow Iraqis but to turn all their efforts on American forces.

More Here and Here

Frank Rich shares his thoughts on McCain and his 'Stroll in the market'.

Not only was a 'Dukakis in the tank' moment for McCain, it also marks a point where the other Republican presidential hopefuls will have to pull back on the 'Stay the course' insanity...

It can’t be lost on those dwindling die-hards, particularly those on the 2008 ballot, that if defending the indefensible can reduce even a politician of Mr. McCain’s heroic stature to that of Dukakis-in-the-tank, they have nowhere to go but down. They’ll cut and run soon enough. For starters, just watch as Mr. McCain’s G.O.P. presidential rivals add more caveats to their support for the administration’s Iraq policy. Already, in a Tuesday interview on “Good Morning America,” Mitt Romney inched toward concrete “timetables and milestones” for Iraq, with the nonsensical proviso they shouldn’t be published “for the enemy.”

As if to confirm we’re in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn’t even emerge for the Washington Nationals’ ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.

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All you ever wanted to know ( ewww!) about Rumsfeld.

scarecrow at Firedoglake reviews Andrew Cockburn, acclaimed writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, new book, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy.

If you are up to it you can find out just how much of a slimeball has been running the US military into the ground.

Why do all the pundits want war with Iran?

StevenD at Booman Tribune ponders the vile spewings of those who are pissed off that the Brit sailors returned unscathed. They were hoping for any excuse for us to further break our army. Why do the pundits hate America?

Perhaps the best, and most concise of these pleas for direct negotiations with Iran I have seen published online was not the work of any distinguished columnist, former ambassador or politician, but this simple, eloquent letter to the editor written by a Mennonite Minister and published in the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Re “Iran, the Vicious Victim,” by Max Hastings (Op-Ed, March 30):

The Mennonite Central Committee has a 17-year history of working in Iran. In February, it helped lead a delegation of American religious leaders to Iran, where the group met with ordinary Iranians and with religious and political leaders, including the current and former presidents. Several things stood out:

¶The Iranian government is not monolithic. Many Iranian officials and citizens would welcome mutually respectful dialogue with the United States. American threats and pressure undermine their efforts.

¶The United States and Iran share strategic interests. Both want a stable Iraq. Both want to limit the influence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Both are concerned about the illicit drug flow from Afghanistan.

¶Iran’s declared policy is that it is seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only. While analysts can speculate about Iran’s true intent, this much is clear: talking directly with Iran would place the United States in a much better position to address Iran’s nuclear program and a range of other concerns.

(Rev.) Ron Flaming
Akron, Pa., March 30, 2007

The writer is the international program director for the Mennonite Central Committee.

A clear, straightforward recitation of why it is in America's interest to enter into negotiations with Iran over Iran's nuclear program, the situation in Iraq and even the issue of terrorism. It makes a great deal of sense, does it not?

That was reasoned... To see the spewings of the 'learned' read the rest.

The reason the music establishment hates Dick Dale.

It's a video post. Go, listen th the words of the man who has beaten the recording industry and RIAA.