Category: dKo journal

LBJ liked to leak escalations, then deny them–two or three times over. When they actually occurred, it was already Old News. Such sequences can easily have a six-month or two-year time-line, if you wish to align them with elections. Is there an Iran strike in the pipeline? There is no good reason. It will be…

“The Smoking Quote”? In this item from ABC news, the wording of the quote they cite from President Bush decouples what he refers to as the “leak of classified information”– within this specific context –from the particular leak of Plame’s CIA identity: “He also spoke out after allegations surfaced that administration officials had leaked the…

I don’t think Bush is really qualified for that position, but the move does show some humility, and at least he wouldn’t be President anymore.

The Bush team has no difficulty infusing fresh blood; they generate it in vast quantities and on a global scale. But the political problem remains: they flame out when exposed to daylight, and they can’t see their own reflection in a mirror. Dead giveaway.

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up Associated Press “Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood…” DKo: Well, there’s always corporate Middle Management. They haven’t bled them completely dry just yet.

Washington Post “The Bush administration is asking Congress for $75 million…to promote democracy in Iran….The plan…includes fostering independent media inside Iran. “The final $15 million would go toward nongovernmental organizations and civic education on the lines of what the federally chartered National Endowment for Democracy carries out in a wide variety of countries.” DKo: This…

A growing number of people, having been duly convicted of heinously violent crimes, are now being released and put back on the street, based on newly fashionable legal technicalities such as DNA mismatches. We hear the predictable chorus of soft-on-crime lobbies, running on ad nauseum about the precious civil rights of misidentified convicts–even when the…

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement that Cunningham’s sentence “should send a strong message that no one is above breaking our nation’s laws, including the Members of Congress who make them.”

Farewell to… –Like a broken record –Carbon copy –Trick photography Kind of sad. So far, we have replacements for two: Clone. Special effects (though with Special morphing to oblivion). We’ll have to get to work on Broken record.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/fastforward_fortune/index.htm Gore’s speech enumerates well-documented scientific evidence that the global climate is changing significantly — and fast. Here are a few data points: Global CO2 levels are way outside what have been historical norms over several hundred thousand years. All ten of the hottest years on record, globally, have occurred in the last 15 years.…

The Click That Broke a Government’s Grip, Washington Post The government has sought to control what people read and write on the Web, employing a bureaucracy of censors and one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated systems of filters. DKo: Only when the government has determined there is a danger to national security. If you…

In 2004, “radical Shiite Muslim cleric” Muqtada Sadr took control of the holy places in Kerbala and led a bloody, extended anti-US uprising there. In the end, the US military was compelled by Shiite leaders to allow Sadr’s Mahdi Army to leave the city under the protection of a cease fire. However, the US still…

Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran, Washington Post “…including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders….'[W]e are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,’ Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…”…

“In civilized Europe [i.e., the USA of his day], with its highly developed machine industry, its rich, multiform culture and its constitutions, a point of history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund, and medieval …” (V. I.…

Disaster Response Changes Promised Administration Admits Katrina Flaws, Moves to Retool Homeland Security [A] government-wide review due later this month…[will] make more than 100 recommendations…” Washington Post DKo: I think this calls for at least 200 recommendations.

Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens NYT “…a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into…a New York Times article…that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program…” ————————— DKo: I have no legal expertise, but this is my instinctive lay-person’s reaction: If the NSA eavesdropping was unlawful, or even if it’s lawfulness was so seriously questionable…

Bush acknowledges problems in drug plan’s rollout Reuters [Bush] said officials were trying to make sure more information is shared by Medicare, the health plans and the states, and that it is up-to-date. “We’re making good progress,” Bush said. DKo: Sharing information. Keeping it up-to-date. What a good idea! And now is the perfect time…

Would any news organization fall for Bush’s ludicrous attempt to associate the LA plane-threat story with the totally unrelated surveillance he is currently defending in Washington? Well, there’s at least one born every minute. The AP came through for the Dunce award: Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack AP http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_35

Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds NYT 2/8/06 The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect. DKo: Remember to avoid health advice drawn from traditional Chinese medicine, Hindu Ayurvedic medicine, herbalism, etc. It…

It occurs to me that under the humbling burden imposed on the Commander-in-Chief in wartime, especially in a harrowing war without borders that could last virtually forever, the President–strictly as required to protect equally extraordinary implicit wartime powers–might be compelled to authorize an Attorney General to give false testimony to a Senate committee. They should…

“Lawmakers cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred. But they can express outrage (in a resolution or on the floor) that the president saw fit to usurp Congress’s power to set the ground rules for secret surveillance.” –From legal commentary by NYU law professor Noah Feldman in the NYT Magazine 2/5/06 DKo: Similarly, when a…