Isn't it amazing how well some things just work out for the 1600 Crew? Just as the heat gets turned up on their lack of competance about virtually everything a "stunning" announcement comes out about their role in preventing, oh I don't know fascist penguins from organizing an escape from the icehouse at the National Zoo (do they have one of those?). Or something equally as silly, like shoe bombers gone wild.

According to Townsend, the White House declassified the details of the 2002 plot because most of the leads in the investigation had been exhausted. A senior Administraion official brushed aside the notion that the speech was timed to this week's grilling of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the NSA program, noting that today's speech has been in the works since last year. "It takes forever to sign off on declassification," the official said.

Well, you know it's not perjury if you're not under oath, after all.

The Liar-in-Chief is furiosly trying justify his illegal NSA scheme to collect domestic political intelligence (yes, I believe that's what it is) by ratcheting up the Fear-O-Meter with fairy tales of boogeymen.

He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed's key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said.

Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said.

The president said the plot was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaida operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.
...
Bush's speech in October cited two other attacks inside the United States that were foiled, including one to use hijacked planes to attack the East Coast in mid-2003.

The third was the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam and allegedly plotted with top al-Qaida commanders to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. Padilla, whose plot never materialized, now is being held without bail in civilian custody on charges that he was part of a secret network that supported Muslim terrorists.

The "Global War on Terror" is primarily a law-enforcement excercise, and we have to tools for conducting it in our codes and courts. There has never been a need for things like the "PATRIOT act" or other extra-judicial means to fight it. It certainly is not a military war, and it's fast becoming the kind of a white elephant the the "War on Drugs" has become...bureaucratic, mishandled and shortsighted. Sort of a testament to the day-to-day incompetance of the administration running it.

I expect that one day Congress will figure out that the money spent on the "GWoT" has pretty much been wasted in the name of "expediency" but by then it'll be too late to stop the inertia of the machinery that the 1600 Crew has put in place. Reevaluating it will be attributed to being "soft" on subject and someone who wants to make a meaningful evaluation of it will be considered "wrong on security", because by the Hairy Thunderer we can't be having Contractors losing contracts over incompetance, inefficiency or anything like that now, can we?

Preznit Bloviating Buggery has a way with words, or at least his speechwriters do on his behalf. From the Preznitial Lie-fest in NawLins after Katrina:

Our second commitment is to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast to overcome this disaster, put their lives back together, and rebuild their communities. Along this coast, for mile after mile, the wind and water swept the land clean. In Mississippi, many thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed. In New Orleans and surrounding parishes, more than a quarter-million houses are no longer safe to live in. Hundreds of thousands of people from across this region will need to find longer-term housing.

And everyone is waiting for the FEMA maps like they were oracles at Delphi. The maps will tell residents and businesses where and how they can rebuild. "Those maps will tell people whether or not they can get flood insurance," Nelson said. And if they can't get flood insurance, they may want to sell. But there may not be a market for the house. Or the government may swoop in, raze the house and build a park.

Both US Senators and all the representatives from Louisana be they republican or Democrats should be raising holy hell about this every day on the floors of their respective chambers. Well, not if they don't want to get cut off at the (a) knees or (b) money-supply by Unka Karl. Depends on your party, I guess.

Wusses.

Yeah, who'd a thunk it?

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese-as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state-he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit.

The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson-a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that's not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay-Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

Seriously, if this is true, and there's no reason for this man to have made these assertions if he could not back them up, it brings the Vaticans whole denial of the issue of Gay Priest back into the public forum. I don't understand their problem with Gay Priests, as Gillard says, Gay men are interested in other Gay men. Pedophiles are interested in Children. The only place there seems to be a nexus there is in the minds of the fundie christo-fascists who want control of everything sexual from womb-to-tomb, no matter how insignificant or arcane. And the Vatican has bought into that mindset, lock, stock and cassock after years of moving towards a more enlightened stance on some aspects of human sexuality.

But it does give a whole new meaning to the words "Lay Leadership", eh?

My buddy, Jeff Huber over at Pen and Sword makes the point that Tom Delay just got Duke Cunningham's old seat in the House Appropriations Committee. Gee, no opportunities there to build up the old legal defense fund, are there?

Oh, and if you've been following the saga of Beadwindow, there's a new chapter up today, thank goodness.

The fastet growing segment of the population today is Latinos and they are under-represented in the Armed Forces. During my brief stint as a recruiter (hated it), we were told to recruit Latinos heavily. We were also told it was difficult. The Army is finding that out now too and making a special push to get Latinos inducted.

As Sgt. First Class Gavino Barron, dressed in a crisp Army uniform, trawls the Wal-Mart here for recruits, past stacks of pillows and towers of detergent, he is zeroing-in on one of the Army's "special missions": to increase the number of Hispanic enlisted soldiers.

He approaches a couple of sheepish looking teenage boys in the automotive aisle and seamlessly slides into Spanish, letting loose his pitch: "Have you ever thought about joining the Army?" "Did you know you can get up to $40,000 in bonuses?" "I'm from Mexico, too. Michoacán.

Critics say recruiters, who are under pressure to meet quotas, often use their charm and an arsenal of tactics, including repeated calls to a recruit, lunch at a favorite restaurant and trips to the gym. The Army also parades rigged-out, juiced-up Hummers wherever youths gather as promotional tools.

"We see a lot of confusion among immigrant parents, and recruiters are preying on that confusion," said Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran who is director of the Chicano/Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego, and is active in the counterrecruitment movement.
...
Michael I. Marsh, a lawyer who represents migrant workers in Oxnard, Calif., said he wrote a letter to a local recruitment battalion last year after a 17-year-old's parents signed off on his Army Reserve enlistment at 18. The parents told him they were under the impression that they were signing to authorize a physical exam and blood work. When the youth later tried to nullify the contract, he was told it was too late and that if he tried to pull out, he would be ineligible for school money and federal employment.

After Mr. Marsh sent the letter, the teenager was allowed to withdraw his enlistment, Mr. Marsh said. Military contracts are not binding until a person takes a second oath of enlistment.

"The recruiter does not lie, but he does not tell the whole truth," Mr. Suarez said. "If you don't know the question to ask, you don't get the information. With language and cultural differences, it's complicated."

I wish I had a dollar for every recruit I met (especially Air Force) who told me that their recruiters told them that they could be officers too by just enlisting. It's true, because if they were selected for an officer-accession program from the enlisted ranks they could, but that's not quite as automatic as they had been led to believe when they came in talking about being fighter pilots. I used to meet these kids when I would take an officer candidate down to get their physical, while I waited. They would see my wings and come up and ask me if I was a pilot (yes), what did I fly (things with wings), oh, well my recruiter says I can fly F-15's once I get out of Basic Training...(did he now?) gosh, how wonderful (what an asshole).

So yeah, it's good that the Latino community has activists who are providing a reality check. There is certainly nothing wrong with military service, and I completely understand the first-generation immigrant's desire to "pay back" for being afforded citizenship. But an ill-informed decision based on a tricked-out Hummer is not really a decision at all...it's a tribute to Madison Avenue and unrealistic expectations.

After all, if the Army is good for Latinos shopping at W*M, it's certainly good enough for Jenna and Not-Jenna, isn't it?

As more and more becomes known in the Bunnypants Spying Morass or "What the NSA can do for an ignorant Dictator-wannabe", this little gem popped up in the article in the post on how the heads of the FISA court view the little excercise in Constitution-shredding being engaged in at 1600 PA AVE.

Lamberth and Kollar-Kotelly derived significant comfort from the trust they had in Baker, the government's liaison to the FISA court. He was a stickler-for-rules career lawyer steeped in foreign intelligence law, and had served as deputy director of the office before becoming the chief in 2001.

Baker also had privately expressed hesitation to his bosses about whether the domestic spying program conflicted with the FISA law, a government official said. Justice higher-ups viewed him as suspect, but they also recognized that he had the judges' confidence and kept him in the pivotal position of obtaining warrants to spy on possible terrorists. my em

When John D'Iulio nicknamed these fucking losers the Mayberry Machiavellis he was so right. They don't give a rats ass about anything by politics. If this ever gets enough oversight by a congress with some cojones to look into what's been going on, my money is on a Hooveresque intelligence collection program on the 1600 Crew's domestic "enemies", meaning anyone who does not buy into the partyline, lock stock and party-card.

Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer, Ein Goobernauts.

Just released, the new Alphabet (Alfabit) according to Preznit Incredibly Ignorant.

A is for Absolute Fiscal Insanity
B is for Business's I ran into the ground
C is for Cheney the self-selected evil dwarf
D is for Destroying the Social Contract
E is for Egregiously ignoring congress
F is for Felonies I have committed
G is for Grand Juries that will ensure I'm acquitted
H is for Hack Political Cronies
I is for Ignorant Political Cronies
J is for Justice Denied
K is for K is for Karl, or K-street with loot
L is for Larceny, our strongest suit
M is for McClellan who lies without conscience
N is for the Noise Machine, he's always playing
O is for Obstruction of Justice
P is for Politics over Policy
Q is for Queers. Outlaw them! Marginalize them!!
R is for Religious Right, so vital yet so stupid (see Q above)
S is for Science. Hate it.
T is for Tax Cuts. Love them.
U is for Unemployment. Who Cares, got mine.
V is for Veterans. A good place to cut benefits.
W is for Me!!!!
X is for Xenophobia, let's stir that up this year!!!
Y is for Yet another Breathtaking Lie (and they bought it!)
Z is for getting to the end of this list, without fal..a..zzzzzzzz

Feel free to make corrections. Laura is so proud, he finally got to 'Z' before he fell asleep.

Interesting story about the Marines in the ancient Iraqi town of Hit. They've had success in working with the locals to get the town up and running, and keep insurgent violence to a minimum during their tour there, until the other day.

The troops of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit had every reason to feel a sense of accomplishment. Violence in this ancient town along the western Euphrates River had dropped sharply since their arrival. They were only a few days from heading home. And they had not lost a single Marine during two months in Iraq's most dangerous province.

Until Monday. Word spread around the 22nd's main camp, among those who had stayed awake late to watch the Super Bowl: Five Marines were hit about 1:30 a.m. while driving in an armored Humvee. It was a roadside bomb. They were unconscious.

In the morning, the Marines learned that three of their comrades were dead.

... On Sunday afternoon, the troops were accompanied by the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit's commander, Col. Frank McKenzie. He said he likes to walk the streets two or three times a week to get his own sense of how his strategy is working.

McKenzie, of Birmingham, sported long, dark hair before he joined the Marine Corps. He has vowed he won't shave again when he retires. Given to reading both the ancient historians and the New Yorker, McKenzie, 48, takes an old-fashioned approach to war, dismissing the more arcane theories debated by military strategists as "elegant irrelevance."

"I think that sometimes the American military was seduced -- we were intellectually seduced -- by guys who promised a solution to everything," he said, as he walked the trash-strewn streets of Hit, where rusted-out cars and dilapidated stone buildings mix strangely with well-kept riverfront mansions with brilliant green courtyards and dusty Mesopotamian palms. (my emphasis)

The preznit has now officially rolled Barry Goldwater over in his grave. Personally. I guess that the insanity of eternal debt is going to be a reality soon, because the spineless congress is about to give lip-service to reforming the budget proposed by Preznit Fiscally Fucked and then pass it anyway, probably with enough "earmarks" to lard it up more than gramma's biscuits.

George W. Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative," arguing that Americans did not have to choose between huge tax cuts and a government that would do its part to address social needs like education and health care.

Now into his sixth year in the White House, Mr. Bush offered a budget on Monday that showed more clearly than ever the inexorable limits of that political promise.

Mr. Bush is asking Congress, first and foremost, to make his tax cuts permanent and to increase spending on national security, while looking for savings in popular domestic programs like Medicare and vocational education. The tradeoffs, to his critics, are achingly clear, and unfair.

Try explaining that to the pharmacist as you beg for meds, or some goverment bureaucrat who will take your home just to toss you into a sub-standard, government-funded "assisted living facility". It will be ugly, but there will be no going back, because with government, once the invisible hand has writ, it's a stone bitch to erase it.

Oh, and to all my republican friends out there: You've been fucking played bitches, unless you make more than 300 large. Ha Ha. We told you so.

Been skimming over the liveblogging and transcripts of Abu Goes to Congress, when this jumped out at me.

GONZ: We were attacked...

LEAHY: Yeah, I know we were attacked, I was here when we were attacked. Now answer my question... did you come to the conclusion that you had the authority to spy on Americans without FISA approval pre-9/11.
...

KENNEDY: We faced a nuclear threat during the cold war ...

So, whipping the bedwetters, who for the most part send other peoples sons and daughter off to die, into a state of perpetual fear has proven to be a much better strategery for the Leaker Rove.

America: Land of the Partially Free and Bedwetting Bravely, courtesy of the ABB (American Bedwetting Brigades, "All Fear, All the Time")

1. Convenient Timing, Inc.
   
2. I'll believe this when pigs fly
   
3. When he lies...
   
4. Gay Catholic Leaders?
   
5. Crooks for Crooks
   
6. Recruiting Latinos
   
7. Policy? What's that?
   
8. The Preznit's Alfabit
   
9. Great Quote
   
10. America the Destitute