Liars & Firers & MIA Miers, Oh My!

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McCain is a thief; OIA (Oath Induced Amnesia) infects the Bush administration; "executive privilege" won't fly (and neither will Fred Thompson, whose angel wings can be found in Dobson's hell-bound outbox); Bush's two Iraqi bloggers love the surge (yeah, rah!); and Amish tech support will probably be blamed for every Bush administration bungle ever uncovered. Of course, liberal bloggers and deft DUers do it best this week! Enjoy!

"Straight-Talking" McCain Does It With Stolen Code, Bandwidth

The corporate media, of course, rang the alarm bells: McCain website hacked! Sev serves up the facts (McCainiacs stole code and bandwidth) along with the code writer's minor text change:


By not firing the staffers who stole the code and sucked up the bandwidth, McCain is a bona fide thief. While we're on the subject of McCain's character, we can add liar to his ponderous chain of McCainery. Think Progress notes McCain's "Baghdad is safe/I never said Baghdad was safe" two-step:

Faced With Facts, McCain Denies His Own Straight Talk

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN that that President Bush's escalation in Iraq is going so well, "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee." On Monday, he told radio host Bill Bennett that there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."

This morning, during an interview with McCain, CNN's John Roberts rebutted McCain's assertions, stating, "I checked with General Petraeus's people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored humvee." He added that a new report by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey "said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection."

Faced with overwhelming evidence that he was wrong, McCain denied he'd ever said it: "Well, I'm not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn't say that."

Oh, yeah. There's also a video of McCain's dueling statements. Watch it. Speaking of overwhelming evidence...

Vyan at Daily Kos details how much trouble the internet not-so-savvy can get into (hey, I'm talkin' to you, Rove & Co.) when they start using unsecured electronic communication servers. Click for the post, but stay for the comments, like this one:

BTW, texting is completely insecure (plaintext!)

I'm not sure if CDMA networks (read Verizon and Sprint) send text messages over-the-air in plaintext (not encrypted), but I'm positive that GSM phones (AT&T/Cingular and T-Mobile) do. That means that the Russians or anyone else can almost certainly intercept these assholes' text messages to each other. Text messages can also be trivially forged to appear to come from anyone, eg. Karl Rove.

So the question is what value intercepted texts would have to foreign eavesdroppers. At the very least, I imagine these Repub conspirators would be exposing themselves to potential blackmail big-time, depending on the nature of what they're discussing and how illegal it happens to be. OTOH, it seems like all these guys ever talk about is politics and screwing over non-Republicans, so it's not like Russia or China would learn anything they didn't already know about the Bushies. Of course for countries like Israel and Turkey and some of our other "allies" like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, they might want to be reassured that their bribes to corrupt congresspersons have led to the desired results.

Highly recommended reading.

A Tale Of Two (Bogus?) Bloggers

As with all things media-related, Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell was on this story like stink on a stick. And who wouldn't be? When the president claims that his surge is working because two dentist brothers who happen to be Iraqi bloggers use BushCo vernacular to describe how well the surge is working, wouldn't you pucker up and whistle?

Blogging with Bush

In trying to win support for his escalation in Iraq, President Bush was reduced to quoting two bloggers in Baghdad -- who turned out to be brothers he had met here -- and their postings were more than three weeks old. Has it come to this?

By Greg Mitchell

(March 28, 2007) -- This is how far he, and his argument for continuing the slaughter in Iraq, have fallen: President Bush today was reduced to quoting two anonymous bloggers from Baghdad.

He cited them as evidence that his surge/escalation is working. One problem: their posts were written weeks ago, and re-published in the Wall Street Journal on March 7.

What's obvious: Repub staffers read The Wall Street Journal, but they think no one else reads it.

Asshats.

Now We Know Why Popcorn Was Invented

Actually, The Carpetbagger Report's exact line, regarding the feeding frenzy going on inside the Justice Dept, reads: "Someone practically invented popcorn for a situation like this." Here's the money paragraph:

Obviously, with so much finger-pointing, chances are these officials are going to contradict one another, making the whole bunch look worse. But just as importantly, it's also more likely that at least one of these guys, motivated purely by self-interest, will cut some kind of deal and rat his or her colleagues out to save his or her skin.

In other BushCo scandal news...

The GSA Hearing Clip You Didn't See

Leave it to Jesus' General to post such a politically explosive clip, along with his astute analysis of GSA Lurita Doaniac's repeated "I don't recall that particular Power Point presentation, Senator" lies.

Here are the money screenshots:



Cue Homer Simpson: "Doan!"

No Emails Or Just Too Darned Many Quaaludes?

Electric Monkey Pants doesn't believe for a nano-second that BushCo officials don't email each other... or Blackberry their little fingers off.

I just have a hard time believing these people don't use email in the course of business. I mean, GW promised to bring a corporate culture to the presidency (I saw that as a threat, but some people apparently thought that was a good idea), and his regime was terribly effective for several years. They did all of this with several key folks swearing off email?! If I told my boss I didn't want to use email he'd tell me to stop using Quaaludes. That's like saying, "Oh sorry. I don't ride in cars; I only use horse and buggies. Don't worry, I'll catch up. Of course, I don't use phones either, so I'll have to send up a smoke signal to catch a ride." Maybe I missed something, but I don't remember there being very many Amish captains of industry. Too many Quaaludes perhaps?

Amish tech support will probably end up being BushCo's scapegoat, Electric Monkey Pants. That is, if they run out of women and/or racial minority scapegoats.

Auditioning for Supreme Justice Dept. Scapegoat will be Monica Goodling, the darling of the religious tightie righties, who promises to invoke her fifth amendment right not to incriminate all over herself during her Silence Of The Testimony performance. Speaking of the fifth, Bartcop (March 28-29 edition) posted this...


... which proves that wherever you find GW Bush, you'll find a fifth. Thanks! I'll be here all week. If Monica is a Goodling Two-Shoes, what does that make Fred Dalton Thompson? Let's ask überChristian, James Dobson.

Fred Thompson Is A Godless, Satan Worshiper!

Well, that's the logical conclusion when you read what Dobson actually says about him. Josh Marshall quotes James Dobson's opinion of Law & Order minor-role actor, Fred Thompson: "I don't think he's a Christian."

Cue that woman who screamed "Darksided!" And tell Fred to watch out for Dobson's God warriors. Warriors? What about the real ones who are haunted by Bush's Iraq folly?

G.I. Jesús

Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere speaks highly of G.I. Jesús, which is now playing in Los Angeles and opening on April 6th in New York.

The film is basically about ghosts from that conflict (Iraq) hovering around Jesus, and a growing feeling of betrayal and apartness between himself and his "Dominican princess" wife Claudia (Patricia Mota), whose materialistic ambitions seem, from his perspective, to be creating a gulf between them.

Here's Wells' link to the film's website. Those lucky enough to see it before it disappears down the rabbit hole are apparently in for an intellectual and emotional treat. Here's a snippet:

"The exploitation of immigrant soldiers in the U.S. military and the personal and psychological costs of the Iraq war are only a few of the targets under attack in G.I. Jesús, an ambitious, topical satire that takes a harrowing and humorous look at a Mexican national's brief furlough from the frontlines...a bold...always intriguing piece of work...

Colpaert also takes appropriate...aim at the military's recruitment of children and glorification of war, and even manages to knock President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld without uttering a word against them.

...effective incorporation of actual combat footage from Iraq...lends a hyper-real quality, suggesting a perilously thin line between the truth and one's worst nightmares."

- Justin Chang, Variety

Thank A DUer!

Thanks to Brooklynite for coming up with the perfect theme song for this week's hearings and for providing this pic:


Even one Repub (suffix removed until such time as Repubs master their parts of speech) telling the truth would be a miracle, wouldn't it?

Thanks to Stephanie for asking the question of the week: "Are the GWB43 Secret Emails Any Different Than the Nixon Secret Tapes?"

And thanks to Jackpine Radical for this clever post:

OIA Epidemic sweeps Washington.

Many new cases of OIA (Oath-Induced Amnesia) are turning up every day in the nation's capital. Fortunately, initial clinical studies are indicating that waterboarding is an effective treatment.

Make that "Gonzales-approved waterbaording," JR.

Finally, a big ol' Thanks to riverdeep for these words of wisdom, posted after The Washington Post exposed the Repub "Voter Fraud" as a big ol' Repub scam:

As a simple, effective rule-of-thumb,

look at the title of whatever legislation this admintration shoves through, and recognize that the opposite is what the actual goal, or at least effect, is. Patriot Act-thieves in the night steal the Constitution, No Child Left Behind-your kids are fucked, Homeland Security-we're just as vulnerable (more actually, having pissed off and created many more terrorists) as we were on 9/11.

So the Help America Vote Act, predictably, did absolutely nothing to actually help anyone vote, but made it worse. Good God, this was being talked about in 2000, again in 2002, 2004, and actually reached some level of mainstream awareness in 2006. Dems didn't win this time because there was no election fraud, we won in spite of it. Will another article come out in 2009 tut-tuting the situation again?

A Few Good Words

Actor Alec Baldwin was born to blog. This week, he posted a few choice words at The Huffington Post:

Another Thing to be Proud of As a Democrat

Watching Kerry barbecue Sam Fox...how do you think Rumsfeld or Cheney would have handled that kind of moment?

Or anyone named Bush?

One can't imagine how John Kerry must feel. To have worked so hard and lost so much. And to have lost it to an imbecile and his band of thieving, whoring liars.

Watching Kerry on TV today with that boob Fox.

Another thing to be proud of as a Democrat.

And another reason to be proud of Alec Baldwin, the blogger.

Wait! I have to read that juicy description of Bush & pals one more time:

... an imbecile and his band of thieving, whoring liars

That was fun. But here's a little ditty that we won't hear Matt Lauer's producer ask: Where in the world is Harriet Miers? Is she in charge of the BushCo Bunker Building project? Her subpoena is ready, but the corporate media is strangely silent on her whereabouts. Hm. Maybe she'll surface next week. Or maybe Kyle Sampson can explain why she's MIA and how it's no big political deal. By the way, if you missed the March 30th Sampson Senate Show, Firedoglake blogged it live. http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-i/#more-8130">Start here. Until next week, keep fighting the tightie righties, y'all!

-- Delilah Boyd

[Contrary1]

1. This deserves a K&R for the title alone. n/t

[Old and In the Way]

2. Nice compilation!

Hope you do this as a weekly post!

[Lugnut]

3. K&R n/t

:kick:

[Vidar]

4. K&R.