Fact-esque

Where Have We Seen This Before?

I must admit that I'm having difficulty with this Dominique Whosis thing. On one hand, it does the heart good to see the head of the often-criminal IMF perp-walked in handcuffs and denied bail. 'Bout time somebody in the predatory globalized financial community was. On the other hand, the whole thing smells of the Julian Assange take-down. A socialist who imposed severe restrictions on Greece's out-of-control aristocracy as part of the price for bailing the country out after decades of right-wing authoritarian thievery and brutality toward its own citizens, economically and otherwise, Strauss-Kahn's appointment to head up the International Monetary Fund made a lot of rich and powerful people very angry.

And what do r-and-pp do these days when they're angry? They have their opponents arrested on some trumped-up sex charge. The French think it was a setup, and S-K's lawyers say they can prove he was somewhere else at the time of the alleged incident having lunch with his daughter.

Even if he was, it doesn't matter. He may be innocent but the damage has already been done, and that's what's important. This wasn't mere revenge. The r-and-pp are under attack in France for the resource rape and outright thievery we've become so familiar with in this country, where they routinely steal the State treasury blind, ignore inconvenient laws, and demonize anybody who notes, however mildly, that we're all getting screwed. S-K was probably going to be the next president and he isn't awed by the majesty of money, having so much of his own. In fact, he's been downright snippy to the r-and-p.

Now S-K's potential populist run against right-wing authoritarian French President Nicholas Sarkozy is history. Even in open-minded France, he's done. Thus the candidate most favored to win against the "deeply unpopular" Sarkozy has simply been removed from the board. That doesn't make the election a slam dunk for Nicky but it probably makes it a fight instead of a walkover.

How convenient for you-know-who.

Makes you wonder.

Red Sonia: If She Ain't Wonder Woman, She's No Damn Good

You know, the right-wing obsession with comic books and Robert Heinlein novels has gone so far that next week I expect to see Peggy Noonan wandering around on the tarmac at the DC airport with his arms outstretched trying to find Wonder Woman's invisible plane. I get this from the list of right-wing grievances against the next Supreme Court Justice wherein if she can't fly a jet while reciting the Book of Genesis verbatim and dancing Swan Lake in a suit of armour, she shoudn't be on the court.

The latest bitch is that she sometimes interrupts lawyers, especially when they try to defend torture. Go figure.

Did the SCOTUS just Turn the Constitution Into a Popularity Contest?

At OS' More Liberal Than Liberal, Justin Schmidt picks up on a SCOTUS decision that is, to say the least, disturbing. To begin with, though a complicated Constitutional question, the decision was unanimous.

Palin News on the Palin Noose

There's nothing funny about a noose. Sorry, there just isn't. Not in westerns, not in suicides, and certainly not in political humor. Which is maybe why hanging Sarah Palin in effigy as part of a Halloween display (click link for video) is so typical of West Hollywood. Tasteless and unfunny.

But a hate crime? That's serious hysterical over-reacting by the same people who thought the nooses in Louisiana were nothing but a practical joke.

A West Hollywood Halloween display showing a likeness of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin hanging by a noose has caused a furor among some residents who reported it as a hate crime, authorities said Monday.

But Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said the mannequin sporting a beehive hairdo, glasses and a red coat does not rise to the level of a hate crime because it was part of a Halloween display.

"I'm not defending this; I'm not criticizing it. It doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who said he went out to the house himself to look at the display this morning.

"Now, if there was a crime against bad taste . . . "

Sgt. Kristin Aloma of the Sheriff's Department's West Hollywood station said that since Sunday she had received five to 10 calls from residents offended by the display. Officials are monitoring the house to make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand, she said.

To begin with, "hate crimes" are those perpetrated against someone because they're members of a despised group - blacks, Jews, gays, that sort of thing. Being a despised celebrity VP impersonator doesn't count. Neither does being a scorned Alaskan beauty queen with all the brains and knowledge onen woyulod expect from that member of a largely blonde group.

Or are the offended ones actually suggesting that a group as privileged - and as elite - as Stupid Beauty Queens Masquerading as Political Heavyweights is a despised minority?

Get the impression that wingnuts never really did understand the whole concept of a "hate crime"? If somebody they hate is beaten up or murdered, it isn't a hate crime. In fact it's probably a practical joke and the jokers should be patted on the back and sent on their way to do more good deeds.

If, otoh, somebody they agree with has a pie thrown in his/her face, that is a HATE CRIME and should be punished with the full weight of the law up to and including death in a faulty electric chair while they sit in the audience and cheer.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the American right wing has never really gotten the concept of fairness for all? That maybe they'd be happier in Burma or Soviet Russia?

Bush Keeps Gitmo Open...Because It Might Embarrass Him to Close It

I kid you not.

A story by Steven Lee Myers in today's NYT signals a turnaround (we hope) in the NYT's 8-year "Cheerleaders for Bush" Phase because he doesn't even begin to pull punches, spin the truth so it sounds better for Bush, or ignore the implications. The fire is in the very first graf.

Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Is that a departure from the usual semi-quasi-propaganda the NYT has been dishing out under Nagourney and the like, or what? Myers avoids actually calling Bush a liar by simply connecting the dots made by facts (something the blogs have had to do since the day the would-be Emperor was selected because the press was too afraid to): he said he was going to close Gitmo and then didn't. What is that if it wasn't a lie? Confirmation: he didn't even bother to look at the plans the Pentagon drew up for the demobbing.

This is the sort of stuff that, until recently, you had to go to the foreign press to get. All of a sudden the NYT, which granted was never the war and Bush booster the WaPo has been, allowed somebody to lay out the facts without manipulating them or whitewashing Bush and His Gas House White House Gang. I was beginning to think I wouldn't live to see one of our last remaining major papers turn back to genuine journalism. It was a very pleasant surprise to be wrong - assuming, of course, that this isn't a one-off that slipped by the publisher's blue pencil.

I'd like to see a lot more 'cause it gets better.

Bush Announces Formation of 9/11 Cult, Congratulates Himself for Being Wrong

The war he began isn't over but that didn't stop Bush from dedicating a monument to himself the victims of the 9/11 attack and milking it for all it was worth in one of the more cynical displays of sentimental self-congratulation you're ever likely to see from a president in this lifetime (unless McCain wins).

President Bush today dedicated the Pentagon Memorial as "an everlasting tribute to the 184 souls who perished" when a hijacked jetliner exploded into the western side of the nation's military headquarters, part of the largest terror attack on U.S. soil.

"Seven years ago today, a doomed jet fell from the sky, split the rock and steel of this building and changed our world forever," Bush said. "Here we remember those who died. . . . We dedicate a memorial that will enshrine their memory for all time. . . . We will never forget their sacrifice."

After the obligatory exploitation of first responders, families of victims, and singing children, the Emperor couldn't help slapping himself on the back for a job well done (a telling moment the Post couldn't be bothered with).

Halliburton Exec Pleads Guilty to Bribery

Well, the unthinkable has finally happened. VP Cheney's ex(hah!)-company is on the block. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Jack Stanley has pleaded guilty to charges of bribery after a 5-year investigation. (No link because it's the  WSJ and subscription only; the quotes come from an actual newspaper.)

In a wide-ranging foreign corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co executive Albert J "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquified-natural-gas plant in Nigeria.

***

Mr Stanley's agreement to cooperate with Federal investigators could breathe new life into the five-year probe, and additional charges of executives are possible. Various current and former executives of the business unit KBR, once owned by alliburton but now independent, have been subpoenaed as have other companies involved in the construction.

And one of them, b's & g's, could be Li'l Dick hisself. The bribery happened in '95 when Dickie-Bird was CEO. He will claim ignorance of the deal, of course, but we're talking about a micro-manager of epic proportions. The chance that something that momentous happened on his watch without his not just knowing about it but approving it is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Whether anybody involved will have the guts to admit it was his call is a totally different matter. Especially since Dickie seems to have been Stanley's mentor. Three years later, Cheney made Stanley the head of KBR.

Nancy Pelosi has made it impossible to imagine Bush or Cheney being hauled away to jail for their crimes against this country (like lying in order to start a war over oil from which Cheney's old company and Bush's oil buddies made $$$Billions$$$), but it may be that at least Cheney will see the inside of a jail cell for his crimes against other businesses.

Alright, it's not likely. But we can always dream, can't we?

The CIA Investigates and Finds Itself Innocent

After the firestorm that erupted when Ron Suskind published The Way of the World, the CIA pulled an all-nighter or two and put together an investigation into the question, "Did the CIA help the Bushies forge a letter claiming Saddam had WMD's they knew he didn't have?"

Apparently <breathing sigh of relief>, they didn't. </relief>

The CIA and White House denied Suskind's account when the book was first released. But yesterday, the CIA issued a more extensive rebuttal based on what the agency called an internal investigation involving a records search and interviews with junior and senior officers who were directly involved in the agency's Iraq operations at the time. As for the claim that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter, the agency said: "It did not happen."

"CIA has made its own inquiries overseas and no one -- no individual and no intelligence service -- has substantiated Suskind's account of Habbush or the bogus letter," the agency said in a prepared statement. "At this point, the origins of the forgery, like the whereabouts of Habbush himself, remain unclear. But this much is certain: Suskind is off the mark."

Phew! Except....

Bush Hypocrisy Spreads to Russia

First we had The Torturer and HeadMaster of the Gitmo Dungeons going to China to berate them for their humans rights violations. Now we've got both the Emperor and his Grand Vizier, architect of the Emperor's illegal pre-emptive invasion of another country in order to steal its resources, lecturing Russia about its war with Georgia.

President Bush warn[ed] Monday that Russia's "disproportionate response" is unacceptable and Vice President Cheney add[ed] that the crisis threatens long-term relations between Moscow and Washington.

Good grief. "Disproportionate response"? You mean like the disproportionate response of invading militarily a country that hadn't attacked them?

What can you say about an intellectual disconnect so massive that neither of these two morons can see the irony and hypocrisy of their finger-wagging?

Miers, Bolton "Want More Time"

Now that a judge has officially ruled that Bush's "executive privilege" argument is hogwash, the Congress has, quite rightly, ordered them to testify next month on what they know about the firing of the 8 US Attorneys 2 years ago. Their response? To drag their feet and demand "more time" to prepare their responses. As if two years hasn't been enough.

White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers yesterday asked a federal judge to delay an order to cooperate with Congress while they appeal the ruling.

The court filings indicate that Bolten and Miers will continue to resist subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee as the Bush administration heads into its final months.

Can't imagine why, can you? 'Course, there's the election in November to consider. Wouldn't want the Bush Administration looking bad right when Old John McC is pimping his hopes on looking just like the Emperor. But though the delay would most likely get them past November, the Bush Admin's lawyers aren't making very strong arguments.