Your links for the past week or so...

First, the Ted Kennedy stuff: The play-by-play, Obama's eulogy, Ted, Jr.'s eulogy, the Big Picture, and Eugene Robinson's "A Prince's Fate" (and one more: What Teddy would do).

Then there's health care (the Huckabee plan is already in place!):

Where's the efficiency in this system?!?

And the rest...

Oh, the fakery. The faces of coal are fake. The anti-marriage Mainers are fake. Which is all very sad and pathetic. But this fake Ronald McDonald is pretty much hilarious.

Big Egg.

The Man Who Walked Around the World.

Ta-Da! The gays save marriage!!!

And finally, this is a jam-packed "New Rules" from Bill Maher, including these choice tidbits:

But, what did Obama actually say to make Karl Rove's head explode and the popcorn fly out? Well, cover your children's ears. When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did the same way the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism. Yes, "President John F. Kenya" actually said that people in other countries might like their countries better.

Well, I was so shocked, I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.

Sarah Palin, in her farewell speech kept telling us how she's wired. You know, I'm not a doctor--or an electrician--but, I suspect this is faulty wiring, this world view that, in her words, we should never apologize for our country. Really? Never? Not for slavery? Or Japanese internment camps? Or if we tortured the wrong guy at Guantanamo Bay? The Indians?! Nothin', Sarah? "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," maybe?

I mean, shouldn't John McCain apologize for…you?

Mitt Romney's new book is called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. You can find it at Borders in the "Suck Up" section. It's such a perfect title for today's conservative, combining paranoia with arrogance. "No one has yet asked me to apologize, but if someone ever does, f*ck them."

Quote of the Day

Lehman Brothers. Merrill Lynch. AIG.

The Dow dropped over 500 points today -- the largest one-day drop since the market reopened after the 9/11 attack seven years ago.

And here's what John McCain had to say:

The "fundamentals of our economy are strong."

It brings to mind the words of a US president back on October 29, 1929:

The fundamental business of the country… is on a sound and prosperous basis.

America's robber barons are once again ruining America's economy, and John McCain -- in his $500 shoes, unmindful of how many homes he owns, after 26 years governing from Congress (if he really had any intention of doing anything to help this economy -- or if he "got" the economy -- why didn't he do it in all his years as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee?!?) -- is asking us for four more years. That's if he's got four years left in him. (If not, we'll be ‹‹shudder›› stuck with Sarah Palin.)

I'm thinking our answer should be "no."

Even Greenspan thinks McCain isn't up to the job.

Even McCain's chief economic adviser says McCain will have to raise taxes.

And even turdblossom himself, Karl Rove, thinks that McCain is a liar.

And the McCain campaign apparently still thinks America is a bunch of whiners.

Sunday Links

• A team of paleontologists have discovered a huge Stone Age cemetery in the Sahara desert. Here is a woman and two children who were found holding hands, arms outstretched toward each other, with evidence to suggest they were laid to rest on a bed of flowers (follow the link for more photos and a video about the find from National Geographic).

• American team members to watch now that the Olympic games have moved on from swimming to track & field.

• What if Karl Rove were working for the Obama campaign?

• This is just the kind of thing that long ago made me resolve to never do business with AT&T again. I found myself on more than one occasion trying to get my money back from AT&T after they over-charged me for lame or inept reasons. For them, screwing customers while hoping they're not paying attention is the #1 item in their business practices manual. And in this case, someone turned their frustration into to a bit of silliness.

• Everyone's favorite East Tennessee politician is back once again! This time, she's talking about Jesse Helms, who she says is a great American. (Of course, as much as I loves me some Griffiny Juneness, I gotta wonder what sort of crack heads are running the KNS these days!)

• Sunday roundup of Tennessee liberal bloggers!

• The McCain behind the myths.

Not-so-happy Anniversary

Eight years ago today, George W. Bush made a promise he has since broken many times over.

So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.

(a photoshopped image from the back in the day...)

Thursday Links

If you're getting tired of politics, scroll down. Today I've got some non-politics links after the <hr>!

George W. Bush: he's "confident [the GOP will] hold the White House in 2008" and understands "the mentality of the American people." OTOH, he doesn't even know how much Americans are paying for gas. And has been lying to us about about the cost of his war.

John McCain (just like Bush, and the most anti-child!): keeps digging deeper when it comes to his attempts to game the campaign finance system (efforts which appear to be falling flat). In other news, is he even eligible to run?

Tennessee: One one hand, we're finally beating back the shameless partisans who would cynically use disingenuous attempts to amend our constitution to GOTV. On the other hand, our GOP is really making us look stupid -- just ask the RNC, John McCain, Lamar Alexander and Karl Rove, who are embarrassed by the TN GOP's bigotry. Fortunately, they were spanked quickly and soundly! Sorry, world. Please don't hold this against us. The latest news is here. UPDATE: and here.

Texas: early turnout is huge (why wait for results?).

Alabama: Don't even get me started.

Europe: were you planning a European vacation this summer? Maybe not so much?

Ratings: people are paying attention these days.

---

Autism and vaccinations: the US Government concedes there's a link (here's the doc). Will this news give fuel to the anti-vaccination community? And speaking of autism, the autistic community has been doing some networking online. Perhaps their efforts will help to counter the ignorance of so many people when it comes to autism.

Bees: they're still disappearing (or perhaps they're all headed to one particular attic in Florida).

Pools: when I was a kid, I was kinda scared of the deep ends of pools -- and maybe I still am because the picture on the right here made me feel a little dizzy-ish. It is a cool collection of images, though.

Billboards: AT&T + NSA!

Counting cash: How do you do it (video)?

Help at the pumps: do you ever have trouble remembering which side of the car has the gas tank (this can be especially tough with rental cars!)? Sometimes there's a clue in your dash.

Video: A History of Evil

And finally, if you just want to skip to the results of the 2008 Presidential Eleciton, here's your chance!

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

McClelland: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby and Card All Lied

It's breaking all over the 24-hour news channels at the moment. MSNBC has the opening bombshell, but this is still developing...

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recount the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Of course, by his own admission, McClelland has a credibility problem...

Then, of course, there's the little problem of Bush going on the record with his yet another lie:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

Apparently "taken care of" translates to "pardoned."

Republicans Attack a Little Kid!

The right wing noise machine is now swiftboating a 12-year-old. They've even called his home and harassed his family. And Michelle Malkin (famous plagiarist) even showed up in person! How scary is that?

(UPDATE: if you're wondering why the right wing is going after a kid, here's a theory, and here are some more thoughts about the ugliness.)

Fortunately, some kids are ready for them.

And in the meantime, the Bush administration is doing what they can to help out Al Qaeda:

Unbelievable. Seriously. Leaking national security info to Fox News and destroying a year-long surveillance of Al Qaeda should put someone from the Bush Administration in jail. We are in greater danger because of the continued incompetence of George Bush and his minions.

Again.

Presidential Politics

A few links:

Why the Rove Retirement?
Is Jenna Knocked Up? (via PR)
Yeah, maybe Bush feels like he can't win on this one -- he either errs on the side of saving the white people after he carelessly left the black people to die, or he possibly screws up yet another US city. But maybe he should at least wait to see if the storm is going to hit his beloved Texas before he declares it a disaster? Sheesh. Wouldn't it be easier to just rid ourselves of the blinkered bozo now, instead of suffering all the way until 01.20.09?

... and a couple of videos:

Karl Rove to Step Down

That's right. Turd Blossom is finally giving up his role as Bush's Brain. He will resign at the end of August.

Here's a thought...

Setting aside whether Scooter Libby should spend 0 days in jail for what most people spend from 1 to 3 years in jail, the key here is that it's inappropriate for the president to pardon or commute a sentence in a case in which he (i.e., the president) is a party to the same underlying crime. Because it amounts to obstruction of justice.

It's really not that complicated.

-- Josh Marshall

(Speaking of the Shrub, he has a special birthday thread over on the Pensito Review today.)

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Term

Because the laws of this land are for everyone but the members of the Bush Administration.

Check this out:

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

So, yesterday, before Libby was going to actually have go to prison, Bush didn't think the sentence was excessive. But today he did.

If Bush were being really honest, the quote would have been, "I had to do this because we're feeling guilty about throwing Libby under the wheels of the bus. But what could we do? Let Cheney go to prison?"

Of course, the part of the sentence that Bush let stand, the fine and "probation," won't even make Libby break his stride. One wealthy donor can deal with the fine and it's not like the probation will be a problem for him now that he's no longer working for an employer who regularly calls upon him to break the law.

But there's a bright side.

Also, Libby isn't some schmoe in the Commerce Department. He was Cheney's chief of staff, and with the recent stories about Cheney practically running the White House, Bush's act looks like that of a puppet on a string. Not good PR for The Decider.

(btw, it's up to way more than 1,000)

Once In a Lifetime

Salon.com published an interesting piece today by Gary Kamiya, titled How Bush helped the GOP commit suicide, which is largely based on the results of a long-term study by the Pew Research Center which shows Americans are turning away from the Republican party (and, though, not necessarily turning to the Democratic party instead).

The Iraq War, regressive taxation, Enron, Katrina, and scandal after scandal after scandal -- there are many reasons to blame Bush, Cheney and Rove for recent GOP tribulations, but there are also structural issues at work.

The Republican party as long relied on intolerant right-wing Christians to turn out their vote, without giving that crucial base much in return. It was easy for the GOP to put off this group by blaming the evil liberals for their own lack of action on abortion and "family values" issues back when the Democrats still had some power in DC, but once Bush and Republicans took over all three branches of government, they didn't have that excuse anymore. And what we saw was that the real problem was a lack of support for the Republican base's extreme positions on those issues. No one wants to live in a world of James Dobson's making -- probabaly not even James Dobson, if he was really being honest about it. Or Jerry Falwell, or Ted Haggard, or any of the rest of the flabby, white men who claim moral superiority over the rest of us. These are people who live in the shattered remains of glass houses with their third wives and secret lovers and offshore bank accounts while they preach conservative values to the rest of us.

In the meantime, the rest of us go about life. And the rest of us are, by and large, good people. We're Democrats and Republicans, Christians and non-Christians. And we're starting to figure some of this stuff out. Just because George Bush mumbles something about Jesus once in a while doesn't mean that he's a good Christian man, or that the Republican agenda is a Christian agenda. But we're not there yet, as demostrated by this disturbing tidbit in Kamiya's article:

The survey does not paint a uniformly flattering picture of America. A scary 43 percent of Americans think torture can often or sometimes be justified -- perhaps a tribute to the work of "24" creator and Rush Limbaugh pal Joel Surnow. In a singularly telling finding, 45 percent of those who identified themselves as liberal Democrats said torture was never justified, compared to 18 percent of conservative Republicans. These contrasting responses should be deeply troubling to traditional conservatives; they show how badly their movement has degenerated under Gingrich and Bush. When did being a conservative start meaning signing off on torture? Isn't there a ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Eighth Amendment of some old document drawn up by some geezers in powdered wigs that conservatives are supposed to care passionately about? And what would Jesus think about torture? Apparently being a conservative no longer means believing in a transcendental morality.

Torture, people? Really? Have you seriously thought about this, read about it, prayed about it, discussed it with your mom and your preacher and your philosophy prof and your kids and decided, yeah, torture -- that's what we need? I don't think so. I think y'all have been letting Karl Rove get to you a little bit too much. I suspect if you really think about this, America, you'll realize that torture is not a place a Great Nation goes. We're better than that. We don't have to go there.

We might be stuck with this twisted, immoral administration for another 665 days (at most), but we don't have to sling ourselves down there in the gutter with them. Let's not go there, OK?

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god! ...what have I done?

Uncomfortable Republicans

It must be tough to be a hard-core Republican these days. They've been forced into some very uncomfortable contortions as they try to justify a pardon for Libby when their ferocious attempt to take down a president is still a very recent memory. And, of course, their field for 2008 isn't looking all that hot at the moment, and what they've got waiting in the wings is even worse.

How hard can it be for the GOP to find a legitimate, serious presidential contender who's not an adulturer, let alone one who's a one-woman man (be honest -- is Mitt really a serious candidate?)? Even their supposed savior, Fred Dalton Thompson, has a divorce under his belt, along with the clichéd much, much younger second wife.

Family values, we hardly knew ye!

Cheney walks free, with a thousand cuts?

The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney. It's hurt him inside the administration. It's hurt him with the Congress, and it's hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings of the White House. It peeled the bark right off the way they operate.

-- Scott Reed, Republican strategist

Anyone who thinks true justice prevailed with these convictions needs to take a deep knee-bend and reconsider the facts. Mr. Libby has been convicted for the smallest crimes he committed, while his fellow conspirators walk today in broad daylight, free as birds.

-- William Rivers Pitt, writer, activist, former teacher

From what I'm hearing out on the internets, and on that fancy 24-hour teevee, anyone who has been watching the current administration and paying attention to the Scooter Libby trial thinks that Dick Cheney is guilty of something. Not many people have come out and said what it is, but they sure are spending a lot of time dancing around the fact that Libby played fall guy so that he might protect his boss. And what was he protecting him from?

I. Lewis "Sccoter" Libby

I haven't posted anything about the Scooter Libby trial and result because I've been feeling pretty cynical about the whole thing (it's all pretty predictable -- he's obviously guilty, but he's also obviously lined up for a pardon), but here's a news tidbit that's worth a bit of linkage. I laughed out loud.

Lovers Redeux

LOL! Here's a reference to the fossilized lovers I mentioned the other day, plus the revelation during the Scooter Libby trial that Dick Cheney pretty much considered Tim Russert to be his own eager-to-please little patsy (perhaps the humiliation of that revelation was what made Russert reluctant to cover for Libby).

Mike Luckovich

SOTU

Are you ready? It's about to begin!

The Beltway Press is in agreement:

President Bush tonight will try to change the subject -- and will fail.

UPDATE 1: It's great to see Speaker Nancy Pelosi up there! (along with the unindicted co-conspirator)

UPDATE 2: Here's the text of Bush's speech and the Democratic response.

UPDATE 3: speaking of incredibly unpopular occupants of the White House, E. Howard Hunt, Watergate bungling burgler, died today.

UPDATE 4:

UPDATE 5: WHEW! I can't tell you how grateful I am that everyone survived the SOTU!

Rove NOT Going to Court

Well, scratch this whole thing. Rove's attorney claims he dodged that bullet.

UPDATE: Well, it looks like even if he weasels out of the indictment (flipping on Cheney in the process?), he might still end up in civil court.

"We are a nation of laws...

... and we must enforce our laws."¹

¹Unless the person breaking the law is named Bush, Cheney or Rove.

There's more...

Maybe Fitz isn't going to stop at Rove. Thanks to Jamison for the link. Also, there's more from Newsweek.

In a new court filing, the prosecutor in the CIA leak case revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney made handwritten references to CIA officer Valerie Plame — albeit not by name — before her identity was publicly exposed.

The new court filing is the second in little more than a month by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald mentioning Cheney as being closely focused with his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, on Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, who is married to Plame.

With the two court filings, Fitzgerald has pointed to an important role for the vice president in the weeks leading up to the leaking of Plame's identity.

In the latest court filing late Friday, Fitzgerald said he intends to introduce at Libby's trial in January a copy of Wilson's op-ed article in The New York Times "bearing handwritten notations by the vice president." The article was published on July 6, 2003, eight days before Plame's identity was exposed by conservative columnist Bob Novak.