Thursday, August 23, 2007

Why Cheney Really Is That Bad

Why Cheney Really Is That Bad

By Scott Ritter
08/23/07 "Truthdig" --- - Karl Rove, interchangeably known as “Boy Genius” or “Turd Blossom,” has left the White House. The press conference announcing his decision to resign has been given front-page treatment by most major media outlets, but the fact of the matter is the buzz surrounding Rove’s departure is much ado about nothing, especially in terms of coming to grips with the remaining 16 months of the worst presidency in the history of the United States.

Rove is a domestic political marauder, the personification of a conservative movement which lacks a moral compass and has a complete disregard for facts. The master of exploiting mainstream America’s predilection for news-as-entertainment, under which the likes of Rupert Murdoch can manufacture headlines out of thin air, Rove helped turn “fair and balanced” into a national joke which everyone laughs at but few actually comprehend. Rove served as the maestro of a political-smear orchestra composed of such intellectually challenged muckrakers as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, manipulating the NASCAR/professional wrestling crowd’s addiction to seedy gossip in an effort to maintain the all-important 51 percent majority needed to win elections.

Perhaps if the Democratic Party had possessed a semblance of organization and cohesion (not to mention a post-Clinton message that could be sold to a majority of America), then Rove would be but a footnote in history, known simply as the man who helped the worst governor in the history of Texas get elected. Even the self-destructive campaign run by Al Gore in 2000, in which he distanced himself from a sitting president who, despite all of his faults, would have defeated Bush in a landslide if the Constitution permitted a third term, was enough to deny Rove his beloved 51 percent—it was Gore, not Bush, who won the majority of votes in that contest. It took a Republican governor of Florida, backed by a compliant Supreme Court, to put George W. Bush into the White House, not any genius on the part of Rove.

“Bush’s Brain” may claim that it was his careful manipulation of fiction over fact that carried the 2004 election, in which the term became synonymous with political character assassination, but it was the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq which sank the Democratic Party and its candidate for president, John Kerry. It is very difficult to unseat a president in a time of war, especially when so many Democrats voted in favor of the concept, first by buying into every post-9/11 policy put forward by the Bush administration (find me one Democrat who actually read the Patriot Act in its entirety before it was voted into law) and second by rubber-stamping the lies that led to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Remember, it was Kerry’s inarticulate defense of his decision to vote in favor of granting war powers to the president that sank his election hopes, not his Vietnam War record.

more...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18239.htm

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Why did Rove resign? Why now?

His claim that it was to spend more time with his family is as believable as when Attorney General John Mitchell used the same phony excuse in 1972 prior to his Watergate indictment. So what's the real reason? Time will tell, but kpete from democraticunderground.com brought this to my attention:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1576883

Abramhoff Has Told Friends & Family-ROVE GOING DOWN-Because He's Implicated In Bribery Investigation
Jack Abramhoff has been telling friends and family in the last few months that Karl Rove was going down because he is implicated in the bribery investigations. This much I know–Abramhoff has been talking freely and fully to the FBI about Rove and what he knew and when he knew it. Whether that translates into an indictment remains to be seen.

Then there is the Rove role in outing Valerie Plame. He was not indicted but that was only because he finally found a way to tell something approximating the truth after several appearances before the grand jury. Joe and Val released this statement today:

Karl Rove’s resignation signals the final chapter in the Bush administration’s betrayal of the identity of a covert CIA officer. When this breach of national security occurred, the President promised the American people that anybody in his administration responsible for the leak would be removed. Rove, identified by the prosecutors as one of the leakers, not only was not summarily dismissed, but has been allowed to leave on his own terms, to praise from the President. This sordid tale of compromising national security to cover-up and distract from the false rationale for the invasion of Iraq will forever remain in history a black mark on the Bush presidency.

more at:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/08/13/ro-ro-rove/

This link currently isn't working, I'll update this when it does. Very interesting turn of events!

UPDATE: Over at progressiveindependent.com, seemslikeadream is also on top of some interesting possibilities:

Why KKKarl left - Chris Floyd - emptywheel

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2165/1

The announcment that Karl Rove is going to resign -- precipitiously, in a matter of days, obviously in a great hurry to get the hell out of Dodge -- must mean there is one hell of an indictment coming down the pike (or else one hell of a backroom deal has been cut to avoid an indictment. If that's the case, it probably involves the politicization of the Justice Department: an egregious thing to be sure, but more in the nature of a "technicality" when compared to Rove's roles in conspiring to launch a war of aggression, subvert the electoral process and install an unconstitutional authoritarian regime. Of course, prosecuting Rove for the Justice scandal (or even the Plamegate scandal, which is another possibility) would be akin to nailing Al Capone on tax evasion charges: not really the fullest measure of justice -- but at least he'd be behind bars for awhile.

Naturally, anything we say at this point would be pure speculation. But certainly there is much more to this sudden, panicky departure than Rove's desire to "spend more time with his family." (Uh, Karl -- when your son has already gone away to college, it's too late to spend more time with him, unless you're going to hang around his dorm or something, which would be pretty creepy. If "spending time with your family" was such a priority, perhaps you shouldn't have spent 24/7 servicing George W. Bush throughout the entirety of your son's childhood, eh?)

This hankering for the family hearth is of course a transparent lie, like most of the drivel that issues from Rove's mouth for public consumption. And he will surely continue to service George's needs 24/7, despite this "retirement." But again, such a headlong departure can only betoken a feverish desire by the White House to avoid some kind of major legal heat.

Or has Larry Flynt come up with the goods on some unseemly proclivities of the porcine counselor? Would it be irresponsible to speculate on such lurid matters? It would be irresponsible not to.


http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/08/three-guesses-w.html#more


The Sheriff Is Coming


.........................

Rove is leaving just three steps ahead of one of the many sheriffs that have him in their sites. These include:

The Abramoff Investigation

We know Rove is tied in with everyone tied in with the Abramoff inevstigattion. We know that Susan Ralston, Rove's Assistant was closely involved--and it appears that she has been refused immunity, even though some of her testimony about Abramoff appears to be quite interesting. Novak, at least, thinks Ralston would get to Rove. So it's possible that Rove is one of the ultimate targets of the Abramoff investigation.

The OSC Investigation

This is easy. We know Rove is a target of the OSC investigation into the politicization of anything and everything in the entire government. We know he did, in fact, politicize anything and everything. The ultimate outcome of an OSC investigation would consist of Scott Bloch explaining that Rove did politicize anything and everything and recommending that Bush should fire him, but then to have Bush sit on that recommendation as he has with Lurita Doan. But perhaps Rove is leaving anyway, in an attempt to prevent us all from learning how closely our government resembles that of a one-party state, like maybe the old Soviet Union.

The Iglesias Investigation

But I'm most interested in the possibility that Rove is rushing out just two steps ahead of the Iglesias investigation. HJC is collecting a great deal of evidence that DOJ employees covered up the real reasons for the Iglesias firing ... and that the real reason for the firing had everything to do with politicizing the judiciary. It not only has evidence that Will Moschella, Paul McNulty, and Alberto Gonzales lied about the reasons for Iglesias' firing, it appears that Moschella, at least, is getting downright cooperative (and note, McNulty is going to be out of DOJ at almost the same time as Rove will be out of the WH).

If this is the reason Rove is quitting, it's not just that BushCo wants him out before he's officially indicted. After all, it's not just Rove--but Bush, too--who was involved in firing Iglesias. So Rove may be leaving as part of a firewall approach in an attempt to save Bush. If it comes to it, Rove may admit to having Iglesias fired in an attempt to politicize the entire judiciary to hide the fact that--in this specific case, at least--but was involved in that process, too.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Channeling Nostradamus: My predictions for 2007-2012.

What will life be like when the Bush/Cheney nightmare is over? Here is my outlook for the next five years for how we will deal with the aftermath originally written for progressiveindependent.com a couple days ago:


Channeling Nostradamus: My predictions for 2007-2012.

The future became very clear watching the AFL-CIO debate and the subsequent analysis on MSMBC last night. The shape of things to come was pretty clear before the debate, but became solidified afterward. For anyone who missed watching the debate, Hillary had her ass handed to her. She sucked colossally. She was evasive whenever a tough question was directed at her and the crowd voiced their disapproval accordingly. Instead she resorted to transparent rah-rah cheerleading soundbites barked at maximum volume in the hopes of covering up her evasiveness. That I could stomach. But what boiled my blood was when in response to Obama's recent speech regarding a hypothetical strike against al-Qaeda in Pakistan she said, "you should not always say everything you think when you are running for president". She received the biggest boos of the night for that remark, and deservedly so. After seven years of having an executive branch of government so mired in secrecy that in order to sustain it, one Dick in that branch claims to not be part of it, how does it feel to have the leading contender of the party that claims to stand in opposition to these fascists voice the exact same sentiments? It was a glaring moment of truth for me.

Then came the MSMBC parade of DC bubbleheads. Of course Hillary won the debate, they said. From Pat Buchanan to Willie Brown, everyone was falling over themselves to place Hillary on a pedestal and all but crown her Queen. Only one person, Jonathan Alter from Newsweek dared to suggest that perhaps it wasn't just the crowd at Soldier Field who despised her praise of secrecy. But after that momentary lapse of reason, MSM returned to their celebration, their coronation, their manufactured consent. Maybe I'm being too cynical and the sheeple Dems who flow with whoever MSM declares the winner will actually watch the debate and question not just the performance of the poll-approved front-runner, but the mentality and ideas behind that performer. Maybe I'll flap my arms and fly to the moon. The reality is MSM operates the same way the BFEE operates: they create their own reality. Hillary already won.

Hillary won every debate. She won the primary. She won the election. It has been decreed. My prediction, and it's not much of a stretch, is that Giuliani will run against her. Thompson might make an impact if he decides to run, but he'll only steal conservative votes from people too afraid to vote for a Mormon. That leaves Giuliani, but in the aftermath of the primaries, I think we'll see many anti-gay, anti-choice people who will stay home rather than choose between Giuliani and Clinton. Giuliani's only chance is to do what Dubya did: steal the election. That's certainly a possibility, but my prediction is that the entire country in 2008 will be like Ohio in 2006. The attempt to falsify the election results will be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of voters disgusted by the Rethuglican fascist war machine voting for change, any kind of change, even if it's just one form of corporate slavery for another. Clinton wins. As for the fear that the election will be cancelled, I predict that it will not. The historical precedent for terror attacks in this country is during the first year of an incoming president; 1993 and 2001. So prepare yourselves for a major terror attack on American soil in 2009.

There will be events taking place regarding Peak Oil that will have a major effect on our domestic and foreign policy prior to this terror attack. Anyone who has read any of my posts here knows that I have been paying close attention to Mexico. It's possible we may not feel the effects of Global Peak Oil until 2010 at the latest, but we will definitely feel the effects of Mexican Peak Oil in the US by 2008. Halliburton is counting on it; they don't want to have to write off the detention centers they purchased as a loss. Hillary may claim she's stood up to the right-wing hit machine, but not where Big Business is concerned. So she will have the economic repercussions as well as the refugee incarcerations from the Mexican Peak Oil Crisis that she will inherit. She will inherit and has spoken of her desire to sustain the Iraq quagmire. But there is also Iran; I predict that sometime between November of 2008 and January of 2009, Iran will be bombed in airstrikes by US/Israel. Hillary will have to deal with Ahmedinejad's response.

I believe she will deal with Ahmedinejad by blaming him for the 2009 terror attacks and carrying out regime change in Iran. The terror attacks will probably be radioactive in nature, either via dirty bomb or nuclear bomb. It will probably be NY or DC again, though there has been enough reich-wing chatter about San Francisco not to count that horrible possibility out. In the aftermath of this annihilation, the official story MSM will circulate is that these radioactive devices from Iran were somehow smuggled across the Mexican border as terrorists took advantage of the political chaos there to sneak across and attack us. So Hillary's approach will be two-pronged: a ground invasion of Iran to take out Ahmedinejad and a "peacekeeping" force to Mexico to restore order and protect our borders. Obviously this will necessitate a draft. It will initially be 18-25 year olds and she will make sure it applies to males and females. She will also enact the Special Skills draft for ages 18-35, with the option of extending it to full military service in the event of the destabilization of Pakistan and especially Saudi Arabia.

The result of this reaction: total revulsion. Hillary will probably be able to garner more international support and good will than Dumbya, but countries that had huge economic interests vested in Iran like China and Russia will be forced to stick together to protect themselves. That includes South American countries like Brazil and especially Venezuela. I don't think the tension in those countries toward us will come to a head until after 2012. But Hillary won't be around to do anything about it. She will be president-non-grata in America. Not only will she be hated for the draft, but the economy will slide from recession in 2009 to depression in 2012. Even the conservative estimates by the IEA in their recently released report verify that whether you want to call it a peak or a plateau, oil supply simply will not be able to meet demand in the next decade. Because MSM continues to either confuse the issue or ignore it, the sheeple will be confused when in spite of the fact we have invaded countries we know are filled with oil, we end up having a repeat of the gas lines of the 1970's, as well as more frequent and sustained power failures, runaway inflation and perhaps even food shortages. Unemployment will hit double digits and the buck will stop exactly where Harry Truman wanted it to.

All this leads up to the election of 2012. I'm predicting a last name rematch of 2000. Al Gore can afford to play the Global Warming Goodwill Ambassador now because he knows some of the shit coming down the pipeline in the next five years. But by 2010 or 2011, he will turn on Hillary as RFK turned on LBJ and step out as an alternative choice. And just as Vietnam buried LBJ and left him a one-term lameduck, so will this confluence of disaster bury Hillary. She may fight or she may have the good grace to follow LBJ's example and bow out early. But Gore will have enough power, influence and popularity to take the primaries with ease. That's the good news. The bad news will be the Revenge of the Rethuglicans asking sarcastically, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" The truth will be not by much, but with the help of MSM, the prevailing sentiment echoed throughout the political culture will be a demand for a return to normalcy, however warped the normalcy of 2007 really is. The demand will be met by the Smart One. The man who, if we compare the Bush Family to the Corleone Family, can easily be called the Michael Corleone of Poppy's sons. Jeb Bush will have his political career resurrected for the Bush/Gore 2.0 rematch.

The winner? Sorry, the spirit of Nostradamus just left me. But if you have any questions, I'll see if I can channel him again.

http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=72471