Is It Ten Minutes Past Fascism Yet?

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More questions than answers this week in the blogosphere. Is Groveling Gonzo finally a goner? Who decides if you get to survive childbirth? (Hint: it ain't your doctor.) Repub lies about IT procedures: corrupt or incompetent? Repub lies about firing US Attorneys: fired for things nobody ever told them to fix? What have we learned from the dumping of Imus? From the most recent school shooting spree? All this and more, including the burning question: is Limbaugh finally losing it?

Corruption vs. Incompetence

Which outweighs the other among Bushites? Is their incompetence only surpassed by their corruption, or is it the other way around? MoJo Blog has the federal law citation on preserving administration emails and the story on RoveCo's "lost" emails. Be sure to stay for the comments. They're keepers, as are the comments at TPM Muckraker regarding White House Snowjob stand-in Dana Perino's back up... er, non-compliance and conversion from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook... um, lies. Here's a good one:

I work in IT, and at one point was involved in a Lotus to MS Outlook conversion. For a company of 100 people, it took us a year of planning, testing, training, and making backups up the yazoo until we were ready to roll. I don't believe for a moment that the IT staff at the EOP somehow, oopsie, lost millions of e-mails. And that this catastrophe is only now coming to light. The IT people at the White House are consummate pros -- I know several of them. They would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered if something like this occurred. This White House, not content to drag the reputations of US attorneys through the mud, is now trying to defame some top-notch IT people. Posted by: Voulez Vous

Hmm. Think about it: five million juicy RoveCo emails. Just imagining Rove's own emails regarding Plame and Wilson, and his purported non-involvement in the US Attorney firings... wait. Rewind. Sminthius at Daily Kos cites an explosive NPR report, claiming that Karl Rove is the US Attorney firings' daddy. Interesting. Didn't Rove claim that "he'd heard somewhere" that Harriet Miers was the Attorneygate ringleader? Here's that NPR money quote:

NPR now has new information about that plan. According to someone who's had conversations with White House officials, the plan to fire all 93 U.S. attorneys originated with political adviser Karl Rove. It was seen as a way to get political cover for firing the small number of U.S. attorneys the White House actually wanted to get rid of. Documents show the plan was eventually dismissed as impractical.

How many Rove crimes and cover-ups can one nation endure? Remains to be seen, I guess. Update: looks like BushCo has had to admit that those emails might not be lost after all. BWAAAHAHA! Of course, BushCo-ites are claiming executive privilege for Republican Party server emails. Ballsy move. Sleazy... but definitely ballsy. Speaking of sleazy and ballsy, who defines sleaze and in-your-face ballsiness better than the recently canned Don Imus? Have we learned anything yet, America?

Five Lessons Of Imus

Dave Pell (Davenetics) lists five lessons learned from the Imus debacle:

5 Lessons from the Imus Debacle

1. Schadenfreude is by far America's favorite sport. No contest.

2. Sharpton is probably a bad enemy to have.

3. If just about everyone in your place of business sort of hates you, don't ever let them see blood in the water.

4. Americans are desperate to talk about anything other than Iraq (especially if it's simple) whether that means Imus or that means Sanjaya.

5. Chewing gum with your mouth open will ultimately come around to haunt you.

Number five is my favorite.

Pretext vs. Reason

Kudos to TPM's Josh Marshall for simplifying the entire US Attorney scandal in a single blog post. Here's a snippet:

Kyle Sampson went up to the Senate again over the weekend. And according to Sen. Schumer (D-NY), Sampson said that "on June 6, senior Justice officials including Sampson; the department's No. 3 official, William Mercer; Gonzales's former counselor Jeffrey Taylor, now the now U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and others discussed the potential ouster of Lam." But DOJ spokesman Brian Roehrkasse says the meeting wasn't about Lam's ouster at all. It was about "congressional complaints about inadequate immigration enforcement in Lam's district."

The fact that the immigration issue was never raised with Lam by the Department of Justice points strongly to the conclusion that it was not the reason for her firing but the pretext for it.

Hmm. Gonzo's cover story stinks. And his minions' stories stink, too. Hey, if they didn't stink, would Gonzales have to spend a month practicing for his testimony? John Nichols at The Nation Blog lists 10 questions he hopes someone (anyone... Bueller? Bueller?) would ask Gonzo to answer under oath. Here's the short and sweet of some of the questions:

1. Is it true that you have spent most of the past month preparing to give this testimony? 2. Do you you consider yourself to serve the president or the republic? 3. Would you see it (prosecuting Dems for political gain) as your duty to tell him that such initiatives represent inappropriate and potentially illegal abuses of prosecutorial powers? 6. Were you ever involved in conversations, verbal or digital, in which White House political czar Karl Rove outlined a desire to politicize prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys around the country?

If you missed Gonzales smiling and aw, shucks-ing his way to the witness table, the play-by-play was captured by Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith. Refresh the comments page for complete reactions to Gonzo's groveling games and check the FDL homepage for subsequent posts on the... er, testimony. By the way, here's what Christy thinks of Gonzales' chances:


When even Jeff Sessions (R-Senate Hearing Softball Lobber) questions Gonzales' ability to lead, it's like plugging in the toaster. And Arlen Specter's gotcha offensive game was definitely worth the C-SPAN3 cable package price of admission. Wow! I hope Christy's got it nailed.

Rush To Judgment: The Sorry-Assed Saga Of Limbaugh Losing It On The Air

Leave it to Rush to call Media Matters "Stalinist" and then claim: "I do not demean people on this program in any way." Stop laughing for a minute. Truth2Power remembers Rush's, er, demeaning treatment of everyone left of Lieberman...

Doesn't demean anyone - what about his little Michael J. Fox Dance? What about when he said that seperating Survivor contestants into tribes based on race was unfair because "blacks can't swim"? Or when he said some women would "love to be hired as eye candy"?

Read the rest. You'll love the part where Rush blames Senator Hillary Clinton for the firing of Don Imus, you'll sigh when he claims that Media Matters is funded by George Soros and designed to be "an arm of the Democrat Party," and you'll split your pants when the pill-popping patriarch of hate radio laments: "They (Media Matters) don't get to use the power of government to silence conservatives, which is their real purpose."

America Weeps

Another in a long line of school shootings has been cause for tears, as well as hope for the future. Likewise, bloggers have weighed in on gun laws, mental health issues, as well as the human faces of the victims at Virginia Tech. At AOL's News Bloggers, Ian MacFarlane has posted links to the plays written by alleged killer and classmate, Cho Seung-Huis. In his introductory note, MacFarlane writes:

While I "knew" Cho, I always wished there was something I could do for him, but I couldn't think of anything. As far as notifying authorities, there isn't (to my knowledge) any system set up that lets people say "Hey! This guy has some issues! Maybe you should look into this guy!" If there were, I definitely would have tried to get the kid some help. I think that could have had a good chance of averting yesterday's tragedy more than anything.

As the comments following MacFarlane's blog post suggest, most of us have had trouble voicing our reactions to this dreadful incident without offending others.

The Five Men Rule: Women Surviving Problematic Childbirth Now A Crapshoot

With emotional reactions on razor-thin wire this week, the Supreme W. Court ruled aganst the mother's life-saving medical procedure known as late-term abortion. Think Progress has the particulars, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg's scathing dissent:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking out in the courtroom for the dissenters, called the ruling "an alarming decision" that refuses "to take seriously" the Court's 1992 decisions reaffirming most of Roe v. Wade and its 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart striking down a state partial-birth abortion law.

Ginsburg, in a lengthy statement, said "the Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health."

Time to dust off that old copy of "The Cardinal," ladies and gentlemen. Remember how happy everyone was at the end after Carol Lynley's Catholic priest brother decided that she should die in childbirth, instead of aborting the baby? Fun times ahead for us all? I don't think so. "Back alley" butchers won't even come back into fashion this time. This is a death sentence for women suffering distress in the delivery room. All nice and legal. And the Have-Not Repubs who support this ruling still have no idea that the Haves in their own party will continue to take advantage of every life-saving procedure medical science has to offer them. Stupid is as stupid supports, Repub Have-Nots.

Thank A DUer!

Thanks to Tyler Durden for this post on the passing of Kurt Vonnegut:

In response to seeing the question "What is the purpose of life?" spray painted on a bathroom wall:

"To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool!" - Kilgore Trout in "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut

Brilliant writer and a brilliant post.

Thanks to Mabius for sharpening the focus on the real Imus story:

The thing about the Imus thing that has been shoved to the background

was the reaction of the Beltway media and other reporters. Many of them acted like they had been punched in the gut. I heard Ana Marie Cox (the former "Wonkette") say that Imus was the godfather of the Washington media. I think Imus has helped exposed how incestous the relationships in the Washington press/media really are. Right now the media is pushing the question toward "rap is the evil" and steered it away from their own participation in his show and their excuses for him.

Which brings up the "it was only entertainment" excuse that Rush, Coulter and the rest hide behind whenever they're called on the carpet. :grr: At one moment, they are giving commentary and pass off talking points thinly disguised as news, the next minute they are making some abhorent comment that they later brush off as "a joke" or "I'm a entertainer". It's bullshit. They know it and we know it.

And finally, thanks to BlueManDude for explaining why rappers and Imus are like oil and water:

Imus was in many respects a victim of his own success

The fact is different radio guys are held to different standards. Michael Savage says things on a nightly basis (mostly about gays and lesbians and Muslims) that are far beyond anything Imus has ever said - but Savage is not a regular stop for the most powerful and influential people in this country. He is a true "Shock Jock" whereas Imus was a talk show host. He can't have it both ways. Imus became a DC media elite and he couldn't be an influential Beltway player and a crude shock jock at the same time.

So many have failed to grasp this. It's not hypocrisy - it's differing standards. The whole "rapper" argument that we've been subjected to misses the mark completely. 50 cent does not have Senator Dodd coming to him when the senator wants to announce his run for the presidency.

Well said, BlueManDude.

What time is it? Is it time to restore our privacy rights, our health care options, our tradition of judicial impartiality, and our national reputation yet? All signs point this week to the hands of the fascism clock ticking away our rights and national goals, and each question to BushCo's minions inspires more and more questions that must be answered in order for us to heal and go forth as that e pluribus unum bunch we've always claimed to be. Those of us who believe in promoting the public good for all can't afford to sit back and watch the fascist clock of the powerful few run backwards toward a future of dystopic disdain for us, the people. Keep fighting the tightie righties, y'all. Time hasn't run out yet!

-- Delilah Boyd

[mamab]

1. NGU. n/t