not denying is the same as confirming, ain't it?

The White House on Friday chose not to challenge a prosecutor's disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized top official Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose intelligence on Iraq in 2003, as Libby alleges.

--source

brokeback mountain

i can see why this film won 3 academy awards. including best director. God what a fantastic movie. i'm still reeeling from the effects of it the day after. i can't get it out of my mind and my heart aches at remembering some of my past affairs this film reminded me of.

if you haven't seen it, GO SEE IT. you will not be disappointed.

hoiw many times have you heard

"we do not negotiate with terrorists"? well, this just proves terrorists aren't behind the insurgency in iraq:

The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said US officials have held talks with some groups linked to the Sunni-led Iraqi insurgency.

--story

the next time you get called a judas for betraying someone

point to the latest episode in the life of Christ:

Everybody fronts the surfacing of the only known copy of what's called the Gospel of Judas; the 1,700-year-old text asserts that Jesus told Judas to sell him out. "You can see how early Christians could say, if Jesus's death was all part of God's plan, then Judas's betrayal was part of God's plan," said one academic. "So what does that make Judas? Is he the betrayer, or the facilitator of salvation, the guy who makes the crucifixion possible?"

they're calling it republican fatigue

i'm calling it fed up with the culture of corruption.

Columbus- Weary from a string of scandals and bad economic news, a majority of likely voters want Democrats to retake control of Ohio government, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

Republican fatigue is particularly evident among the Democrats surveyed. But 62 percent of the important swing voters said they'd like to end the GOP dominance that began 15 years ago, according to a telephone poll of likely primary voters conducted by the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

--story

it's been no secret to us voxxers

that information has gone thru the NSA (up yours you filthy commie nazi). mediacom, which is my provider, pumps all my traffic through ATT's routers. but now there's more evidence supporting our claims.

"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now."

--source

keeping the polulace in the dark

is what dark leaders (and dictators) do.

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.

--source

to all the creationists out there

eat this: (from today's papers)

The New York Times leads with and others front scientists discovering a 375-million-year-old all-terrain creature that appears to be a missing link between fish and land-based animals. The Tiktaalik roseae—Inuktitut for "large shallow water fish"—had arm-joints, proto-wrists, and could drag itself across land. It's exactly the kind of transitional creature that creationists have long crowed there had never been evidence of.

Letter Of The Day

comes to us from the young reader board at des moines register:

The problem with Democrats today is they seem to aspire only to be Republican-lite. Corporate interests, the costs of campaigns and the focus on "base issue" polling have given us a landscape of demo-clones who all say mostly the same thing with slightly differing degrees of believability.

Why would Democratic voters feel energized when they feel as if they are voting for what seems like progressive or moderate Republicans rather than real Democrats? We need the Democratic Party to shake down its entrenched leadership and organize its message.

Scream about the environment and the tax cuts, propose radical shifts from fossil fuels to renewable energies and force a real debate on health care rather than the same tired platitudes every time elections roll around.

I'll vote for the first person who stands up and shakes his or her finger at us in believable anger for allowing our current president to wiretap illegally, strand us in Iraq under false pretenses and destroy our budget surplus with staggering debt.
— Chris Gorder, Iowa Falls

attribution

iranian democrats to bush: you cant buy our democracy

"We have to prepare the ground for it so that it can grow and bear fruit - especially because independent and national forces, and also self-reliant forces, in Iran will never accept a foreign country telling them what to do and which way to take."
--Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, co-founder of the Center for Human Rights Defenders

attribution

wanna hear what family values really means to republicans?

PHOENIX (AP) - Two young men charged with sodomizing 18 boys at a youth camp last year have been offered a plea agreement that may net them little jail time and no record of sexual assault.

Clifton Bennett, 18, the son of Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett (R-Prescott), and his co-defendant, Kyle Wheeler, 19, were charged in January with 18 counts of aggravated assault and 18 counts of kidnapping for the incidents, which happened at a youth camp last June.

--story

and since their punishment is likely to be a slap on the hand, makes it all the more tragic.

wonder why this has changed just in the last 2 years

A new online poll conducted by Scholastic magazine says more than 80% of kids don't want to be the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth.

Amazingly, that's a nearly total flip from 2004, when 75% of the elementary and middle school children did want to rule the roost from the White House.
--source

another repuke idea that'll backfire

A piece inside the Post wonders whether giving Zacarias Moussaoui the death penalty would be bad for national security. "There's absolutely no doubt that executing him would turn him into a martyr," said one analyst. "Moussaoui could achieve a fame and notoriety in death that eluded him in life."

FARPOINT.FACTOID

and while i'm at it: a few facts:

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, notes new Treasury numbers concluding that the richest 1 percent of Americans "held 33.4 percent of the nation's net worth in 2004, up from 32.7 percent in 2001, but still lower than a peak of 34.6 percent in 1995."

--source

BUSTED!

the GOPher boy line that the tax cuts mainly help the rich? HAHA, the joke's on you buster for believing it.

But of course super-wealthy Americans get super-savings from the investment tax cut: They're the ones who invest the most. The piece also offers hard numbers again and again—for example, those who make more than $10 million in a year saw an average tax savings of $500,000. What the story rarely does is give readers a more balanced picture, namely what proportion of income the super-rich are paying in taxes and how that compares with the not-so-rich. In fairness, the story does achieve one of its goals: deflating the rhetoric from the GOP that the dividend tax cut helps most average Joes; it doesn't.
--source

Quote of the Day

"The commitment to what the president of the United States will say every single day of the week is his number one priority in Iraq, when it's translated into action, looks very tiny."
--Les Campbell, who runs programs in the Middle East for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, known as NDI.

attribution

first the oil companies, and now the insurance industry

making record profits. how obscene.

Letter of the WeeQ

It was no surprise that George W. Bush has stated that our troops will remain in Iraq through 2008. After all, Bush has spent his life having people in power (his family, wealthy friends, the Supreme Court) give him an enterprise (an oil company, a baseball team, the United States) that he promptly proceeds to run into the ground.

Then he moves on, leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. The quagmire in Iraq, ballooning national debt, etc. have become problems for future presidents and our descendants.

True to form, Bush happily goes about his usual pattern - sowing chaos while others reap the results. But, how could anyone expect anything else from him? It's all he knows.
— Michael Santangelo, Iowa City.

attribution

Letter Of The Day

Terry Mattingly’s column in Saturday’s Globe-Gazette about writer Eric Metaxas’ humorous takes on God and the Bible brings to mind an edition of Wiley Miller’s comic strip, “Non Sequitur,” that features as its main caption, “God Does the Talk Show Circuit.”

The strip shows God, in the stereotypical depiction of an old man with a beard, talking to Jay Leno. God says, “I think my best creation was the sense of humor. The irony, of course, is that the people who claim to believe in me the most are the ones least likely to have one.”
--KEVIN YOUNG, Sheffield

attribution

watching cbs' "the unit"

and one has to wonder.... how close to reality it imitates. i'll bet thiiiiiis close.

those who have no confidence in American justice

to work when all else fails, has not my confidence to lead.

an army of criminals - the rumsfeld way

A young Iraqi girl has given a shocking first hand account of what witnesses claim amounts to mass murder by US troops in the war-torn country...

Fifteen people in all were killed, including her parents and grandparents. Her account has been corroborated by other eyewitnesses who say it was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed a marine...
--source

winning hearts and minds has got to be harder with these kinds of maniacs in our armed forces.

HYPOCRISY ALERT

In a sleazy hotel room, "Brittany," then aged 16 and drugged into oblivion, waited for the men to arrive. Her pimps sent as many as 17 clients an evening through the door.

A "john" could even pre-book the pretty young blonde for $1,000 a night, sometimes flying in and then flying out from a nearby airport.

None of this happened in Bangkok or Costa Rica, places that have become synonymous with sex tourism and underage sex.

It took place in Atlanta, the buckle of the U.S. Bible Belt, where the world's busiest passenger airport provides a cheaper, more convenient and safer underage sex destination for men seeking girls as young as 10.

--SOURCE

arrest warrant out for rep. mckinney

U.S. Capitol Police on Monday asked a federal prosecutor to approve an arrest warrant for Rep. Cynthia McKinney after she tangled with a uniformed officer last week.
--source

our VP can shoot a man in the face and joke about it, but this woman defended herself and gets arrested. one has said it's apples and oranges .... why?

1. She is a woman.
2. She is black.
3. She is a LIBERAL Democrat who sees through the lies of the neocons.

Different standards must apply if we are to maintain NATIONAL SECURITY. Which in this case means making a scapegoat of this popular Dem to distract from the real stories that are spilling out of the Bushocracy even as we speak. Implying that McKinney is a lunatic criminal will help deflect the true stories about the real lunatic criminals. You know - the ones with the guns.

DELAY WATCH

Everybody leads with Rep. Tom DeLay announcing—via interviews in Time and a
local paper published late last night—that he's not going to run for reelection and will quit Congress, he offered, "probably by the end of May. " DeLay is set to make a formal announcement today.

Last week a second DeLay aide pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges and has sung to the feds about, as the Washington Post puts it, "a criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices." Not that that had anything to do with the congressman's decision, of course. DeLay explained that he was stepping down only because he was in a tough reelection campaign and was just taking one for the team. "This is a very strong Republican district," he said. "It's obvious to me that anybody but me running here will overwhelmingly win the seat."

Detailing how the feds are creeping ever closer to DeLay, a piece inside the Post points out that not only have two once top aides pleaded guilty, but DeLay's former chief of staff was also named in the latest government docs as a collaborator. In another plus for DeLay pulling out now, he can take all the cash from his campaign war-chest and drop it into his defense fund, which as the Post notes has so far been "financed largely by corporations with business before Congress."

Asked if he'd done anything illegal in office, DeLay told Time, "No." Anything immoral? "We're all sinners," said the Hammer.

THANKS TO TODAY'S PAPERS

and for all things delay head on over to the TPM Cafe Muckraker.

Letter Of The Day

Because a Muslim converted to Christianity he faced the death penalty in Afghanistan, and most Muslims there seem to support it. So, why did we get rid of the Taliban? Is this the democracy you envisioned, Mr. President?
— Philip Luksetich, Knoxville.

attribution

blogger atom just got back online

*whew* thought i was goin to DIE :)

the order of the last few things is probably backward. oh well. sue me

Letter Of The Day

Regarding Rekha Basu’s March 22 column: Another scenario that will arise from South Dakota’s anti-abortion law will be the forcing of rape victims to give birth to their rapists’ offspring.

By not allowing abortion even in the case of rape or incest, girls raped by their fathers would be forced to give birth to their own father’s children. I can’t comprehend how people who deem themselves “pro-life” and “pro-family” could force something this cruel onto a young girl.
— Randy Steele, Washington.

attribution

Headline Of The Day

Courted as Spies, Held as Combatants
British Residents Enlisted by MI5 After Sept. 11 Languish at Guantanamo

--story

i have another idea on why

nobody wants to work for the thievin lying sons of bitches.

The Bush administration can't seem to find anyone who is willing to take the job of FEMA director, reports the NYT on Page One. All the top emergency response experts around the country who have been asked have rejected the job, largely because they don't believe the administration is serious about fixing the agency. This problem goes beyond the job of director, as people who were appointed on an "acting basis" are filling 11 of the 30 top jobs at FEMA.

they LIED about iraq making us safer

Knight Ridder talked to some U.S. intelligence officials who say that insurgents in Iraq are providing training to Taliban and al-Qaida members from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of these militants went to Iraq to fight but after training they were urged to go back to their countries and use what they had been taught.

bush is BUSTED!

Knight Ridder talked to some U.S. intelligence officials who say that insurgents in Iraq are providing
No comments:

bush is BUSTED!

Knight Ridder talked to some U.S. intelligence officials who say that insurgents in Iraq are providing
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14235672.htm training to Taliban and al-Qaida members from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of these militants went to Iraq to fight but after training they were urged to go back to their countries and use what they had been taught.

so iraq IS creating more terrorists!

FARPOINT.FACTOID

After the bombing of the shrine in February, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have left their homes.
--source

SHAME ON YOU MISSING DEMOCRATS!

At the hearing, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat, embraced Feingold's call to censure Bush. "I … have no hesitation in condemning the president for secretly and systematically violating the laws of the United States of America," he said.

But the hearing also dramatized, in the form of a long row of empty chairs, the hesitance other Democrats have about the resolution. Besides Leahy and Feingold, the only other committee Democrat who attended was Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. And he left without delivering an opening statement or questioning any of the witnesses.

Democrats skipping the session included Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Five of the panel's GOP members also were absent.

Feingold's resolution has been championed by an array of left-leaning blogs and the online liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. But it has attracted only two co-sponsors — Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

--http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-censure1apr01,1,7596813.story?coll=la-news-politics-national

(i'm using safari, which won't produce the WYSIWYG editor for blogger, and i stll can't post using atom)

Quote Of The Day

"They are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function. We could lose control this fall."
--Newt Gingrich

attribution

STILL CANT POST

we'll see if this bounces

4/1 15:52 dammit, yes. cant post!
Connection failed!

Could not parse response. Please check the console
log for more information.

is this ecto saying this or what?

Quote Of The Day

"They are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function. We could lose control this fall."

--Newt Gingrich

attribution

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

(there's a lot more)
--story

why not just admit it: HE LIED AND THEY DIED

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

(there's a lot more)
--story

testing posting from ecto

i've been unable to post all afternoon. wtf!

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that no-one should doubt America's commitment to justice and the rule of law . . . .

Her comments came during a visit to the UK city of Blackburn. The tour has sparked anti-war protests.

"President Bush has stated unequivocally, as have I, that the United States is a nation of laws and we do not tolerate any American at home or abroad engaging in acts of torture," Ms Rice said.

"We also have no desire to be the world's jailer. We want the terrorists we capture to stand trial for their crimes," she said.

--source

nowhere in the piece is there anything about renditions. 'just goes to show you just how much the media is so lapdog with bush - frankly, it's nauseating.

oh, i wanted to post something that went with this story:

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to go to a foreign country to proclaim the United States a nation of laws while at home she represents a putative leader whose power rests on a stolen election and who claims some mythic constitutional authority to violate any law that doesn't suit him.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to say that we will not tolerate torture when the White House memos told this same tyrant that he has the authority to authorize torture and he proceeded to do so.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to go abroad and talk of freedom while the Patriot Act erodes civil liberties in America.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to claim that America does not want to be the worlds when, in addition to torturing detainees, it puts them before kangaroo courts with no right to see the evidence against them.

It is a sad sign of how far America has fallen that Dr. Rice, who was one of many high-ranking officials in the Bush regime to willfully lie to the American people about Saddam's military capabilities in order to garner popular and congressional support for an unnecessary colonial war, should be so smug talking about somebody else's commission of war crimes.

--JackRabbit

rice is whining about how America isn't the world's jailer

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that no-one should doubt America's commitment to justice and the rule of law . . . .

Her comments came during a visit to the UK city of Blackburn. The tour has sparked anti-war protests.

"President Bush has stated unequivocally, as have I, that the United States is a nation of laws and we do not tolerate any American at home or abroad engaging in acts of torture," Ms Rice said.

"We also have no desire to be the world's jailer. We want the terrorists we capture to stand trial for their crimes," she said.

--source

nowhere in the piece is there anything about renditions. 'just goes to show you just how much the media is so lapdog with bush - frankly, it's nauseating.

oh, i wanted to post something that went with this story:

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to go to a foreign country to proclaim the United States a nation of laws while at home she represents a putative leader whose power rests on a stolen election and who claims some mythic constitutional authority to violate any law that doesn't suit him.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to say that we will not tolerate torture when the White House memos told this same tyrant that he has the authority to authorize torture and he proceeded to do so.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to go abroad and talk of freedom while the Patriot Act erodes civil liberties in America.

It is utter hypocrisy for Dr. Rice to claim that America does not want to be the worlds when, in addition to torturing detainees, it puts them before kangaroo courts with no right to see the evidence against them.

It is a sad sign of how far America has fallen that Dr. Rice, who was one of many high-ranking officials in the Bush regime to willfully lie to the American people about Saddam's military capabilities in order to garner popular and congressional support for an unnecessary colonial war, should be so smug talking about somebody else's commission of war crimes.
--JackRabbit

they call it CORRUPTION

Like the pleas of Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, Rudy's plea very explicitly targets Ney, saying that in exchange for a whole host of favors, he "agreed to take favorable official action and render other assistance on behalf of the clients of Abramoff and defendant Rudy." Specifically, Rudy's deal mentions Ney's agreement to try and slip a line into "election reform legislation" that would have benefited one of Abramoff's tribal clients. This was also mentioned in Abramoff's deal, among other Ney favors.

--source

dontcha jus LUV repukes eating their own?

my disclaimer

As a general direction, it is the intention of FIELDS OF POOPY to reflect (or at least pursue) the set of weblog ethics expounded by Rebecca Blood.

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
6. Note questionable and biased sources.

THANKS TO MY FRIEND B!X FOR THE LANGUAGE. he's always got a way with words.

making us *un"safer - the bush legacy

and i'm not talking about terrorism here.

The Pentagon stalled efforts to clean water supplies contaminated by a carcinogenic chemical despite evidence that it posed a significant health risk to millions of people, it was reported yesterday. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigated the solvent, trichloroethylene, which is extensively used on military bases, after significant quantities were found in water supplies. In its report, published in 2001, the EPA found it to be 40 times more likely to cause cancer than had been previously thought, and recommended tough safety standards to limit public exposure. There was also evidence the chemical played a role in birth defects.>>>>snip

"The evidence is that there was some monkey business going on between the EPA and the Pentagon," said Gina Solomon, an expert on environmental medicine at the University of California, who was on the scientific board that reviewed the EPA report.>>>>snip

--story

the first of a two-parter in the LAT is HERE.

Joke of the Day

"A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fuckin' cross? It's kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on."

in response to this:

The image of the crucifixion, one of the most powerful emblems of Christianity, may be quite erroneous, according to a study which says there is no evidence to prove Jesus was crucified in this manner

--source

BUSTED!

Amid a growing national controversy about the gesture U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture.

It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot.
Despite Scalia’s insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper “got the story right.”

Smith said the jurist “immediately knew he’d made a mistake, and said, ‘You’re not going to print that, are you?’ ”

Scalia’s office yesterday referred questions regarding the flap to Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, who said a letter Scalia sent Tuesday to the Herald defending his gesture at the cathedral “speaks for itself.”

“He has no further comment,” Arberg said.

--source

vaffenculo.... what a strange way to say FUCK YOU. it almost sounds like want my culo.

think anything's changed with the lobbying 'reform' bill?

read THIS and see for youself. it's business as usual, and about the only change is instead of using pens they have to use pencils. it's like putting lipstick on a pig.

more war crimes being commited

Iraqi and US special forces who raided a compound in Baghdad over the weekend did not know it contained a minaret and prayer room until they were inside, the US military chief said on Tuesday. The raid on Sunday, which freed an Iraqi hostage and left 16 Shiites dead, drew angry denunciations from Shiite political leaders who charged that unarmed worshippers were massacred in a prayer room of a mosque.
--source

one really has to wonder how they missed a minaret
oh wait, it's a war crime for hitting a religious institution

Religious buildings are protected under the 1899 Hague Conventions and Article 52 of the first Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.

oh wait, the geneva conventions don't apply to rumsfeld and his gestapo