The GOP: Party of Change (from themselves?)

Dispatch from the Angry Middle:

Realize that I refuse to watch hours of partying delegates... and so I must rely on second-hand convention coverage for blog-fodder. I avoid firsthand contact with conventions to preserve my own sanity.

My favorite source of convention coverage is Jon Stewart; he digs right to the heart of the hypocrisy, er, issues while at the same time making me laugh. That is a rare talent.

I was astounded last night to see (while watching 'Indecision 2008,') that the GOP is actually packaging themselves as the 'Party of Change,' no doubt as a lame answer to Obama's platform of change.

One Daily Show clip even showed Laura Bush advocating change. What - change from her husband's own policies?

I learned long ago that logic has no place in GOP politics, or even political discussions with Fox-brainwashed Republicans. As soon as you pull out the logic card, they immediately start shouting, attempting to intimidate... or they simply 'cut your mic.' Republican politics and logic simply cannot co-exist.

The GOP is now offering us the most illogical party platform in recent memory: We are 'the Party of Change... from ourselves.'

The party that has ruled over the 'great decline' of the United States is now trying to convince everyone that our 'job shedding' national economy, the wildly expensive and deadly invasion of Iraq based on lies, the Bush Administration's botched response to Katrina, the outsourcing of corporate oversight to corporations, out of control partisan hiring, and the ruling GOP party's willful attacks on our Constitution are problems that only they are qualified to fix.

GOP: The Party of Change. Change from 8 years of GOP policy.

Huh?

Even the Washington Post is today beating the 'GOP Change' drum.

Washington Post:

'Change Is Coming,' McCain Says
Accepting GOP Nomination, Veteran Senator Calls For Putting Country's Interests Before Party Loyalty

Heh, right. Since when?

Now that we are facing an election year and nearly everyone in the country is angry, McCain says he wants to fix damage that he himself caused (he voted with Bush over 90% of the time during 8 years of blatantly partisan rule.)

Is anyone really falling for this?

Could it be that Mr. McCain (who I once greatly admired but now fail to recognize) will say literally anything to get elected? Not that I wouldn't be desperate too, if I was trying to win an election while the country unravels at the seams.

If Rove pulls this off, even the great propaganda master Joseph Goebbels would be impressed.

The Daily Show: Gender Card Double-talk

Hypocrisy on Parade

What would we do without Jon Stewart and his extensive video clip library?

(If you have any trouble with this video - sound or otherwise - please click here.)

Daily Show: "Turd Blossom?"

Actually, this is the video clip (from the Daily Show) that I originally meant to post... but love that Colbert snip!)

Dude: Where's my Karl?

Stephen Colbert hires Karl Rove

Welcome to the Banana Republic

“There’s something awfully fishy about this whole prosecution. It just doesn’t smell right. It smells like politics.”

Just when I think it can't get any worse... it does! Or it did.

I just read about the latest (for me anyway) scandal in Birmingham. Not sure how I missed this one, but then -- who can keep track these days?

Karl, Karl... is there no end to your devious destructiveness? And now it appears you will be investigated by your fellow banana, Alberto Gonzales. I can see justice will be served once again under this administration.

Has there ever been a collection of sociopaths quite like these?

Here is the story:

The Rovie and his GOP hit squad wanted to take back the governorship of Alabama. Unfortunately there was a Democratic governor in the way.

No problem! Rovie and his pack did what they usually do -- they perverted the law, and accused Governor Don Siegelman of corruption; then set a Bushie prosecutor on the task of putting him away for 30 years!

Siegelman's alleged crime? Steering donors to pay down the debts of an organization that lobbied for a state lottery. You know - the kind of stuff Rovie does every day, with Jack (Abramoff.)

The case quickly got ugly, and the stink is now wafting North - perhaps as far North as Washington.

Maybe... just maybe this is the real reason Karl left the Presidential Palace willingly and without handcuffs. That, or the fact that Abramoff is preparing to sing.

Perhaps Rovie will be wearing those metal cuffs sooner than we had hoped.

As per Harpers:

At the center is an affidavit which exposes a Republican political cabal aimed at using the machinery of prosecution to bring down the Democratic governor as the first step in an effort to retake the Statehouse in Montgomery for the GOP.

Now they have an affidavit from a lawyer who says she heard a top Republican operative in Alabama boast in 2002 that the United States attorneys in Alabama would “take care” of Mr. Siegelman. The operative, William Canary, is married to the United States attorney in Montgomery, Leura G. Canary. Mr. Canary, who heads the Business Council of Alabama, was an informal adviser to Bob Riley, a Republican, who defeated Mr. Siegelman in 2002. Earlier, Mr. Canary worked in the White House under President Bush’s father and has close ties to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political strategist.

In the affidavit, the lawyer, Jill Simpson, said Mr. Canary’s remark was made in a conference call with her and Rob Riley, Governor Riley’s son and campaign manager. Ms. Simpson said Mr. Canary assured the younger Mr. Riley that “his girls would take care of” Mr. Siegelman before he had a chance to run for the governor’s seat in 2006 and identified “his girls” as Leura Canary and Alice Martin, the United States attorney in Birmingham.

Neither Ms. Martin nor her office have offered much by way of retort to these explosive accusations, and, of course, they stack up perfectly against a pattern which has now been demonstrated all across the country – the prosecution by Steven Biskupic in Milwaukee of a key Wisconsin civil servant, which also had the subtext of attempting to bring down a Democratic governor, for instance. That case also produced a conviction, but was unanimously reversed by the Seventh Circuit, with its prominent Reaganite chief judge calling the whole case “preposterous.” And as the facts of the case were spelled out, any reader wonders not just how a jury could convict, but how and why a prosecutor would bring such a charge.

Ms. Martin’s handling of the case was a cakewalk no doubt, because in these days just about anyone is prepared to accept the suggestion that a politician is corrupt. Indeed, it’s the conventional wisdom. The presumption of innocence is a quaint notion which has never, practically speaking, had much effect in our courts. To the contrary, it is quite overwhelmed by confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the federal prosecutor. Or at least it was.

Ah, life in the Banana Republic: never a dull moment. Although occasionally even a Bushie will slip on a peel.

Bye bye Karl...

The mainstream media has announced the Karl Rove is resigning. From what exactly?

Oh... he's leaving the White House:

The White House said his departure was unrelated to the investigations. In an interview published this morning, Rove told Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot that he had been interested in leaving last year but did not want to go immediately after the Democrats took over Congress, nor did he want to abandon Bush as he fought for his troop buildup in Iraq and an immigration overhaul.

"I just think it's time," Rove told Gigot in comments confirmed by the White House. The Journal said White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten told Rove and other senior aides that if they stay past Labor Day, they would be expected to remain through the end of the second term, Jan. 20, 2009.

"There's always something that can keep you here," Rove said, "and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."

Rove said he was finished with political consulting and plans to spend much of his time at his house in Ingram, Tex., with his wife, Darby, and near their son, who attends college in San Antonio. He said he plans to write a book about Bush's years in office, a project encouraged by the president, and would like to teach at some point, but has no job lined up for now. He does not plan to work on a presidential campaign nor would he endorse a candidate.

See ya Karl... wherever you pop up next. Because I don't believe for one minute that you are 'retiring to your house in Ingram Texas.'

So -- who's campaign will you be orchestrating this time? Rudi's...? Fred's? Or maybe Jeb's? (Warning: Bush name may not be so viable right now.)

Karl, Karl... we so hate to see you go. Not that we ever 'saw' you anyway, other than that weird little dancing escapade. (Don't give up your day job.)

No - you like working in the background, in the shadows, where you can generate your propaganda spin and pull the strings. Anyone who things you're 'stepping out of the game' is a sucker. But of course -- a sucker is born every minute... right Karl? And guys like you were born to spin them like little sucker-tops.

From the Washington Post:

Rove's influence extended far beyond the politics of electioneering, deep into policymaking. He helped craft the first-term Bush agenda of tax cuts, which succeeded, and the second-term agenda of Social Security private accounts, which did not. More broadly, he provided the intellectual and historic framework for the Bush presidency and hoped to use it to open a new era of Republican political dominance, a project that today looks potentially crippled by the unpopularity of both the president and the Iraq war.

-- snip --

Rove told Gigot that he remains confident Bush will recover politically despite his low approval ratings. "He will move back up in the polls," Rove said. And he said Republicans could still retain the White House next year. The Democrats are likely to nominate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate," he said, but Republicans have "a very good chance" of beating her.

Rove laughed off his own reputation as the svengali of the Bush presidency. "I'm a myth," he said. "There's the Mark of Rove. I read about some of the things I'm supposed to have done and I have to try not to laugh."

We're all giggling with ya, Karl.

A little GOP giggly entertainment for the road...



"Stormy weather... when we and our Karl... ain't together..."

It appears Senator Leahy isn't quite done with Karl, either in or out of the White House. I guess Senator Leahy is still a little miffed about that small, untidy business with Karl's flouted subpoena.

Senator Leahy - don't be a crab! Karl just wants to retire quietly to his little house in Texas. Don't be partisan, Senator Leahy. (Heh heh.)

From the Good Vermont Senator's website:

Comment Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The Resignation Of White House Deputy Chief Of Staff Karl Rove
August 13, 2007

“Earlier this month, Karl Rove failed to comply with the Judiciary Committee's subpoena to testify about the mass firings of United States Attorneys. Despite evidence that he played a central role in these firings, just as he did in the Libby case involving the outing of an undercover CIA agent and improper political briefings at over 20 government agencies, Mr. Rove acted as if he was above the law. That is wrong. Now that he is leaving the White House while under subpoena, I continue to ask what Mr. Rove and others at the White House are so desperate to hide. Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue.

“The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list. There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelops Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.”

A gathering storm (Shiver.) Are you going to drag his butt into the Senate, Mr. Leahy? Are you guys ready to back this tough talk with some tough action?

Because yes: we see the cloud. It's obscuring the entire horizon now. It just ate our 4th amendment.

Dare we might hope this 'storm' will ever spawn an impeachment tornado? Or are you waiting until the anger out here grows into a Cat 5 hurricane?

Remember the days of real TV reporting?

Baby Rove cuts his teeth!

Breaking: Valerie Plame's Civil Suit Dismissed

Valarie Plame's civil suit has been dismissed by a Bush appointed judge. I have to add that note, because of course in this time where partisan reigns supreme, this point is very relevant.

From wilsonsupport.com:

Washington, DC -- Earlier today, District of Columbia District Court Judge John D. Bates dismissed Joe and Valerie Wilson's civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, presidential aide Karl Rove, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Richard Armitage. While Judge Bates recognized that the Wilsons' claims "pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials," he dismissed their suit on a threshold legal issue: that there is no constitutional remedy available to them.

While the Wilsons' lawyers are reviewing the decision, they anticipate filing an appeal. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW"), one of the Wilsons' lawyers, said today, "While we are obviously very disappointed by today’s decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court." Sloan continued, "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends."

Here is a little background on the judge who chose to dismiss this case:

On December 9, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Congress' watchdog, the General Accounting Office (GAO), led by Comptroller General David M. Walker, lacked standing to sue Vice President Dick Cheney for access to the records of the energy task force. In his ruling, Judge Bates stated that "[t]here is no doubt here that the issues framed by the parties invoke core separation of powers questions at the heart of the relationship among the three branches of our government."

Judge Bates added that, in his assessment of whether the Comptroller General has asserted a sufficient injury to establish standing, "the Court must therefore be mindful that the standing inquiry should be 'especially rigorous' because reaching the merits of this dispute could require deciding whether an action taken by one of the other branches of government was unconstitutional."

Named to the bench by President Bush, the Judge is being attacked for his decision, with some arguing that he took the easy way out by deciding the case on the jurisdictional grounds of standing, rather than on the merits. Others are critical for what they see as a crushing loss for the public's right to know, coming at a time when Americans are demanding more accountability from their government and corporate leaders.

Arguments for dismissal were the following:

Defendants in this action argue that two statutes, whether considered independently or in combination, counsel hesitation [to recognize a private right of action) under the special-factors analysis.

The first and most important of these statutes is the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (2000), which "regulate[s] the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information" about individuals by federal agencies. Privacy Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-579, § 2(a)(5), 88 Stat. 1896, 1896. The second statute, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, 50 U.S.C. §§ 421-426 (2000), criminalizes the intentional public disclosure of information identifying a covert agent. Defendants contend that by enacting these statutes, Congress considered the proper recourse for individuals whose personal information has been improperly disclosed by government officials -- the alleged activity giving rise to plaintiffs' claims. Furthermore, the absence in these statutory schemes of a civil damages action against the offending officials was not inadvertent, and Congress has not plainly expressed an intention that the courts preserve Bivens remedies. Therefore, defendants argue, this Court should not imply additional damages remedies under the Constitution.

Oh please don't remind us of our now gutted, bleeding Constitution.

From the Washington Post:

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and White House aides cannot be held liable for the disclosure of information about Plame in the summer of 2003 while they were trying to rebut criticism of the administration's war efforts levied by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were certainly part of the officials' scope of normal duties.

"The alleged tortious conduct, namely the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's status as a covert operative, was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform," Bates wrote in an opinion released this afternoon.

Bates also ruled that the court lacked the power to award damages for public disclosure of private information about Plame. The judge said that was because Plame and Wilson had failed to exhaust other remedies in seeking compensation from appropriate federal agencies for the alleged privacy violations.

Turns out that it's OK to commit the felony of outing a covert CIA agent if you are part of the Unitary Executive. Or if you are a King. Seems we have one or the other. At any rate, the judge certainly isn't going to question the power of a King.

Perfect storm today. Lawless. We are now a lawless nation. Look out world! Lawless nation with lots of big guns, coming through! (Duck and cover - we've been told that and duct tape work wonders.)

Finding that Democratic Eisenhower

It appears that before we manufacture our Reagan, we need to find a 'Democratic Eisenhower.'

In a sign of how much the politics of Iraq have deteriorated for the GOP, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) - a member of House Republican leadership - compared Bush's political problems to then President Truman's in 1952. President Eisenhower subsequently won the presidency and Republicans captured the House.

"We're probably slightly behind where Truman was" with his Democratic Party in 1951 and 1952, McCotter said. "History has vindicated Truman ... fortunately I don't see a Democratic Eisenhower out there."

Hmm. A Democratic...

Well this is embarrassing. Are there any generals around who have actually won a war? Seriously. We've been really lousy at picking our wars lately.

I can think of only one, and he was sabotaged by the Cheney Administration, in what may have been a very clever, Machiavellian move to keep his popularity in check. Make Powell carry the lie out to the people. Of course history has nearly exonerated Powell. We now know that Cheney himself made up the lie, and sticks to it today; and that Powell didn't know it was a lie when he publicly defended it.

His credibility may not be what it was once, but perhaps Powell is finally fed up with neocon trickery and would consider switching parties. He is our only winning general since, well, 1945.

By the way, the GOP is finally looking after their hides.

I wondered how long it would take for the Republican moderates to act out. They finally marched right over to the White House. Well, sort of. There were 11 of them (comfort in numbers) and they waited until Cheney was overseas!

We all heard that it was a contentious meeting (meaning that Tony Snow has referred to it as 'interesting'. )

It appears that Rove and one other White House aide fired back after the story of the meeting leaked to the media (after all, everything is supposed to be top secret if it involves the GOP, and usually for good reason: GOP neocon activities are usually illegal, highly partisan, generally immoral, and not for public 'voter' consumption.)

But get this - there was even a yelling match between the aide and GOP Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill) at the White House Thursday morning!

How fun! Nice to see someone else angry for a change - as in a GOP lawmaker - someone other than the thousands of American families who donated beloved children to the bloody conflict, and the vast multitudes of American citizens forced to pony up tax dollars for occupation, lies, war profiteering and torture.

The problem with the email scandal

Something is really bothering me. Its the whole 'Karl's emails were deleted' issue.

First of all, in this day and age, emails can't just 'be deleted'; they can be restored from just about any failed hard drive, and exist in many forms and in many places throughout the internet and on recipients' computers.

So... if every one of Karl's emails are truly gone, there must have been a concerted effort to destroy those emails - a very comprehensive operation which would undoubtedly have involved the NSA, because they apparently keep everything. The sheer volume of missing emails implies that they have done just that.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today," Leahy said in an angry speech on the Senate floor. "They've gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there -- they just don't want to produce them. It's like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes."

Jawohl. So many crimes to hide... no doubt.

But that isn't even the part of the story that is eating at me right now.

Its the 'secret room' at AT&T; the fact that the rest of us great unwashed have to put up with the government nosing into every single detail of our personal lives - illegally - and storing every email (seemingly forever) on some government, or worse, subcontractors' database.

We took no public oath of disclosure, but everything we write is being read and saved somewhere by people we have never even met. Our crime? We are Americans, and apparently there are those within our government who are afraid of us. The mastermind? Well that's exactly the point I now speculate. Who could possibly slip this net, if not the very guy holding the net? Unless of course he is simply lying -- a very real possibility, because like most people in the George W. Bush White House, he wouldn't know the truth if it bit him. Truth is something to be invented for partisan gain.

Think about it. According to the White House, Karl Rove can actually still lose email. The rest of us can't. Who is he - Joseph Goebbels? Is he the mastermind behind this 'spy on all Americans' scheme? Does the NSA work for him? Else... wouldn't the NSA simply supply Karl's emails from their massive electronic archive?

And what of AT&T? Don't Karl's emails go through that same 'secret room' that siphons off the rest of our emails? Did Karl get a pass from AT&T as well? Or was this entire (illegal) plan his idea in the first place?

And what does that really indicate about our Executive Branch and their partisan plan for outright dictatorship? What is in Karl's emails that would warrant this much concerted effort to destroy them?

If they can't find Karl's emails when they undoubtedly have all of mine - and believe me, I'm an absolute nobody in Indiana - we have a real Constitutional crisis on our hands. But then again, we already knew that.

Subpoena them all, then hold Karl Goebbels in contempt for obstruction of justice if he can't produce. If he can produce them when faced with jail time - he's lying to us again. Business as usual.

The answer to this question - whether he can or can't produce them - will tell us more than the contents of the emails themselves. If he can't produce emails in this day and age, a very real and pervasive cover-up is in effect... obstruction of justice.

Surely that at least is impeachable. Surely you can throw a 'public servant' in jail for that.

Doesn't that Monica Lewinsky thing look more and more ludicrous by the day?