Couric Devotes Precious News Time to a Cat, But Less than 200 words About Gonzales

[Hat tip to Media Matters)

Ever the pusher of "good news TV," Katie Couric once again shows her priorities. She gives us a whole segment about Oscar the Cat, but only an abridged version of news about the seriousness of the case against Alberto Gonzales. Read more about her inane digression here.


http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328

Conservative Republican Bruce Fein on the Case for Impeachment

Here's the scoop, and the link:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/29/fein-argues-for-bush-and-cheney-impeachment/

Dave Albo Stars in New Version of Cat in the Hat




(This parody was posted (in fun) by me elsewhere nearly two years ago.
It's that time again! Hat tip, so to speak, to Waldo for running the caption contest which included this photo.)

No lie, I’ve been reading the Cat in the Hat.
So I have a few things to say off the bat.
Dave’s a jolly good sod –if you care about dirt.
But not the environment, which he’d really hurt.
He votes to cut funds for a rainy day.
But gave churches our money – all of $25 K
Day after day, he’s inserted himself…
In our lives ‘cause his has been on the shelf.
(Until now, that is.) Now he’d cut back so much..
While he goes after schools and tenure and such.
To scapegoat one group means he’s really a jerk.
And it’s all the more reason, this guy cannot work
On behalf Virginians far and wide and be fair.
Instead of imposing a state-imposed prayer.
So, without further delay Virginians will be
Going to vote and striking a plea.
We’ll tell his constituents, all who will hear.
That much is at stake in November this year.
Dave needs a break to obsess about sex, prostitution.
While normal Virginians save our Constitution.
_______

More Hypocrisy from the Radical "Right"



This is from the Charlotte Observer (hat tip to http://www.Americablog.com):

KANNAPOLIS --
Coy Privette, a retired Baptist pastor, conservative lawmaker and outspoken advocate for Christian groups, was charged Thursday with paying a prostitute for sex acts. The 74-year-old Cabarrus County commissioner was arrested at his home in Kannapolis early Thursday. He appeared before a Rowan County magistrate on six misdemeanor charges and was released on a promise to appear in court Aug. 22. He did not return e-mails or calls to his cell and home phones, and no one answered the door at his Kannapolis home.

Contractor Armies: An Unconstitutional and Dangerous Trend

The proliferation of shadow armies of mercenaries, numbering more than the number of actual US government troops, is a dangerous trend. A must read is Jeremy Scahill's book entitled Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. It's available at amazon.com.

Here's an article on the same subject from Commondreams.org:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/18/2618/

Double Entendre: No Intelligence in National "Intelligence" Estimate.

Calling the new National Intelligence Report (NIE) pure pablum, experts suggest we are being snookered again. ABC's Brian Ross reports, left out is the fact that Al Qa'ida is back, according to Richard Clarke. The truth is that the US presence in Iraq indirectly recruits more new Al Qai'da fanatics than anything else.Still, Bushies persist in asserting that the US has "seriously damaged the Qaeda network. Would that it were so. But this administration keeps on mucking things up. It's got the reverse Midas Touch: Everything it touches turns to ----(expletive).

Read more at ABC.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/experts-unclass.html

Bush Administration Has Contempt for US Workers

America has a choice: Listen to and support the anti-worker, anti-American administration and offshore its jobs one by one, or listen to and support Democratic populists who know a better way. Today, Bush administration off-shoring hack, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said this:

“American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene,” says Chao. “They need anger-management and conflict-resolution skills, and they have to be able to accept direction. Too many young people bristle when a supervisor asks them to do something.”

That's right Americans, she says, need a bath! Do you believe the gall? Elaine Chao should be outsourced post-haste. Read the entire article in Parade here.

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_07-01-2007/Intelligence_Report

More Webb Superlatives: Sen. James Webb Gets It Right (Again)

Senator James Webb (D-VA) is on a roll. And it sure looks good from here. Here's another article from Raising Kaine.

What a refreshing breath of fresh air to have a senator who tells it like it is. GOP obstructionism is standing in the way of Congress's accomplishing anything whatsoever. But that's the way the Repugs work. Recall it was they who halted government in the legendary Gingrich-induced budget impasse. (And assuming we all have short memories, the guy has the nerve to run for president in 2008!) Our "junior" Senator from Virginia (I use quotes because he towers in stature, heroism-wise, over the so-called Senior senator from our state(knows and does better.

While John Warner and Lindsay Graham are busy obfuscating and working umpteen different spins on no-change, Jim Webb knows why we sent him to Congress--to do the work of citizenship, not the bidding of the president. For all his pretense at statesmanship, John Warner could take some lessons from James Webb. Unlike Warner, Webb doesn't pretend to be differing with the president when he really isn't.

Senator Webb knows when courage, rousing oratory, strong advocacy and pleas for diplomacy are needed. He also knows not to take BS from the wormier members, such as the sniveling Lindsay Graham, who pretends to speak for the troops, but cares zip about them or the rest of America. I have seldom seen a more pathetic exhibition of cowardice than when Senator Graham hid behind the troops in his pathetic Meet the Press confrontation with Jim Webb this past Sunday.

Meanwhile, Webb serves Americans and our country better and better each day. I haven't been all that proud of our side of the aisle of late. But Webb is changing that.

Sen. Webb Does it Again: Three Days and Counting...

Yesterday, I reported that Jim Webb's star shone brightly the past two days. Make it three. Now Webb has criticized what he calls the Robert Rubin (i.e., NAFTA-oriented) wing of the Democratic party. Jim Webb's populism is a breathe of fresh air and just what this country needs. By Webb's count six members of the freshman Senate caucus are populists. Let the numbers increase dramatically by 2008! Go Jim!

Here's the story courtesy of Raising Kaine.

http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9447

Sen. Webb Meets the Press

Twice in two days, Senator James Webb (D-VA) gets kudos. First, he stood up to the pathetic antics of Lindsay Graham on Tim Russert's Sunday news discussion. He defused Graham's phony attempt to put words in the troops mouths. Webb called the continued presence in Iraq what it really is, an occupation. And he confronted Graham on the phony insertion of language into a resolution (tasking Gen. Petreaus with reporting back on "progress") which said we are in a "proxy war" with Iran. This was a back door attempt by Republicans to pretend an incursion into Iran is already "authorized."

Here's the video

Second, today Webb and other freshmen legislators sponsored legislation to deal with corruption by government contracts in Iraq. It's inspired by the Truman Commission, which investigated contractor wartime fraud and abuse. Read about it here:

http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9437

Help Save an Innocent Man (By Tomorrow)

[Important Update: According to the Associated Press

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday granted a 90-day stay of execution to a man convicted of killing a Savannah police officer in 1989.

Troy Davis, 38, had faced a Tuesday execution date prior to the decision by the board after less than an hour of deliberation.

The stay means the execution will be on hold while the board weighs the evidence presented as part of Davis' request for clemency.

It is still important to wrote to assure that Davis is freed 90 days from now.]

I had thought that, after we move a few years hence, I would work on innocence projects.  I cannot wait.  I don't think you'll want to wait either. Indeed, this is urgent. 

Troy Anthony Davis will be executed tomorrow night (Tuesday, July 17 at 7 PM).  There is no physical evidence that he ever possessed a gun, no gunpowder on his hands, no DNA on the weapon from the 1991 shooting of a police officer, Mark Allen McPhail in Savannah, Georgia.  7/9 witnesses have recanted their ID of him, many saying they were coerced into lying by Savanna (GA) police.  Two jurors said that had they known what they know now, they would not have convicted Troy Davis. They are now working to free him. None of this evidence has ever been heard in court because the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, pushed through by President Clinton, and passed by the Republican led Congress in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombings,  restricts subsequent appellate review of new evidence in death penalty cases.  How has it come to the point that actual innocence doesn't matter? The wrong here is so egregious that Congressman John Lewis and Senator Jeff Sessions (R- AL--A death penalty proponent)were witnesses at today's parole board hearing. Nobel-prize winner Rev. Desmond Tutu is also involved in trying to earn Davis's commutation.

This is the last chance to halt the execution at 7 PM tomorrow.  For more information, please go to the website of AmnestyUSA


The parole board will decide by 3 PM (Eastern), tomorrow, July 17th.  Please send a FAX to the parole board at the preceding AmnestyUSA ink. Ask it to commute the sentence of Troy Anthony Davis.

The railroading of Todd Anthony Davis and his upcoming execution are crimes. Yet his unjust execution has been unwittingly facilitated by a provision in that anti-terrorism legislation.  I don't believe President Clinton intended an outcome such as this.  In any case, he should involve himself in this case and try to stop this injustice.  No matter whether one opposes or supports the death penalty, no one is served by  executing an innocent man.  Meanwhile, a life is at stake.  Please help....

Bush Conflates Iraq and 9-11 (Again)



It takes gall, but GWB has plenty of it. Again and again this past week, he conflated Iraq with 9-11. Read my lips, Mr. President: Iraq didn't cause 9-11.

Here's the story:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707130007?f=h_top

Can You Say--Obstruction of Justice?

The website, Crooks and Liars, has an excellent summary of and links for Bill Moyer's Journal last night. Moyers aired a bipartisan discussion on the case for impeachment. And it's more compelling than during the Watergate era. Here's the story.

While it's true that a president may pardon or commute any sentences, he may not obstruct justice. That's exactly what our president did when he pardoned Scooter Libby last week. Constitutional framers did not envision the massive over-reaches of this administration, the signing statements geared at eliminating Congress from meaningful legislation, the turning of the government against its own citizenry. That is, they did not so envision executive overreach, except to provide an impeachment provision.

Unfortunately, our fearless leaders in the Senate and House have taken impeachment off the table. That failure emboldens already-over-emboldened, run-away power grabbers and opportunists running this government. If Congress doesn't stand up to Bush, then it is letting him do what he does. And it is, therefore, complicit.

It isn't sufficient to say we have an election (2008) to run, so let's focus on that. If we buy that line of thinking, then all future presidents will have enhanced power. And they will know for certain that Congress no longer performs its Constitutional required oversight. Whether there are the votes to impeach at this time, or not, the hearings should proceed. Congress owes it to the American people to at least air the evidence.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/14/bill-moyers-roundtable-on-impeachment-of-bush-cheney/