More Bush Crack From Frances Frago Townsend

One of Homeland Security's favourite little propagandists, Frances Frago Townsend, pops up to spew out the right wing crack she has been inhaling during the bush smokescreen years:

President Bush, trying to defend his war strategy, declassified intelligence Tuesday asserting that Osama bin Laden ordered a top lieutenant in early 2005 to form a terrorist cell that would conduct attacks outside Iraq _ and that the United States should be the top target.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said the intelligence bolsters the Bush administration’s contention that al-Qaida wants to use Iraq as a staging area to launch terrorist attacks around the world, including the United States.

OK... Stop right there and think about this for a moment. His war strategy has been to stop terrorists that want to attack the United States by attacking Iraq, a country that didn't have any Al Qaeda links at all until long after the US invaded Iraq.

And bush continues to waste our time in Iraq because Al Qaeda is planning to attack the USA everywhere BUT in Iraq.

Just want to make sure I am keeping this straight.

She said that in the spring of 2005, bin Laden instructed Hamza Rabia, a senior operative, to brief al-Zarqawi on al-Qaida planning to attack sites outside Iraq, including the United States. She did not disclose where in the United States those attacks were being plotted

Townsend disclosed the information to The Associated Press and other news agencies in advance of Bush’s commencement speech Wednesday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Bush is expected to emphasize the continuing threat of terrorism and recount steps taken by his administration to prevent attacks.

Now the incompetent little neocon child is thinking he can use this line of pure crack to continue to escalate this failure? And don't forget what kind of bush junk is trying to get you hooked on this bush crack...

Osama Bin Laden's capture was “a success that hasn’t occurred yet,” according to White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Frago Townsend.

As she explained to CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

Well... Time travel is just another success that hasn't occurred yet. BUT as soon as it does let me be the first to travel back in time and slap Townsend silly for making an absurd a statement on what is clearly a bush FAILURE.

Townsend is just an example of another Brownie "Heckuva job" comment waiting to come from bush after the next big disaster in the USA. Makes me wonder if we should have a color coded alert system for incompetent and idiot statements put up on the TV screen beside each of our own government employees.

You can watch Townsend throw out GOP talking point after talking point on Charlie Rose (Sept. 2006) about the successes in Afghanistan (even though the Taliban is on the rise again), on Bin Laden getting away at Torah Bora being a mistake only looking at it in retrospect (even though bush handed the military operation there to local friendlies of the Taliban, that was not a mistake in retrospect, that was failure on the spot), and how Iran is so tied into the GWOT now (setting the table for the future episodes of "Empire on the Rise"), and how Saudies are our friends (even though they ARE funding the insurgency)...

Just think of the usefulness of a warning like that up there flashing on the screen beside their faces each time they start spewing their right-wing-crack and how many of these past failures might have been avoided with a simple Right-Wing-Crack Warning System.

The fact that Townsend is a former Clintonian and helps set the table for MORE WAR now, while spewing GOP talking points so easily, just reinforces the need, IMHO, to obliterate all right-wing DLC leftovers from the Clinton era out of office along with the far-right-wing GOP.Just in case you wonder where this right-wing-freak's loyalties really lie now:

Townsend is a former prosecutor who toiled for both Rudy Guiliani and Janet Reno. The Post points out that her husband, referred to in the piece only as "John," was "a classmate of Bush's at Andover and Yale." It adds that her position was occupied previously by "four-star generals who brought decades of experience to the fight," but that her greatest asset is "the president's ear" -- not to mention a contribution of the maximum $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in March 2004, an unusual move from a National Security Council staffer, and generally regarded, as U.S. News and World Report put it, as "a pledge of loyalty."

"A pledge of loyalty"??? How fucking republican of her.

The Bush Pledge:
"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

A little info on John Townsend for shits and giggles, 'cause you are curious, right?

Mr. Townsend, 47, is a partner in the Washington law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed. He received undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University. He is the son of Vera N. Townsend of Austin, Tex., and the late Col. John D. Townsend. The bridegroom's father was retired from the United States Army.

Just so's you know he is a Lawyer that does a lot of lawyering for the drug industry (IE: Pfizer, Merck), winning cases that keep drug prices artificially high for us.

Mr. and his Mrs. Townsend are both major players in a bush criminal world. Don't believe anything that either of them say.

The Bus Strike is Over

Yesterday, the drivers went back to work but I didn't write anything on it as there were no details available on what bargaining results ended the New Milford bus strike. Today, the NewsTimes had this report up:

On Saturday, the school bus drivers voted 48-11 to accept a five-year contract with All-Star Transportation, which the drivers said is a compromise between what they wanted and what the company is willing to pay.

The offer increased the starting pay from $11.40 to $12.33 and top pay for those with at least 10 years of experience from $14.75 to $15.95.

The contract provides drivers a first-year increase of 4 percent and as much as 5.25 percent in the final year.

At the school district office, Thomas Corbett, director of operations, was relieved to report the resumption of bus service at all six schools Monday went smoothly.

Judging by the previous numbers discussed, the drivers and All Star Transportation met pretty much in the middle on this. Thankfully we will not have to worry about this for the next 5 years.

The traffic on the roads was pretty crazy during drop-off and pick-up times and made a mighty strong case for the usefulness of Mass Transit for those of us that had to drive through it everyday.

Bush Impeachment Poll

MSNBC has an Bush Impeachment Poll up right now:

Live Vote

	Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? * 460598 responses
	Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 88%
	No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors." 4.3%
	No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 5.8%
	I don't know. 1.9%
Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

Via Crooks & Liars:

Go over to MSNBC and vote. 429,860 votes so far with 88% saying yes.

Of course this is unscientific, but the numbers are astounding nonetheless. For a little context, check out what the polls said for Clinton and what they're now saying for Bush. Wow.

They are up to 460,598 votes so far... But the 88% in favour of impeaching the idiot child at the White House says a lot.

Love Makes a Family Flamingo Style

Proving that it is only natural:

A pair of gay flamingos have adopted an abandoned chick, becoming parents after being together for six years, a British conservation organisation said Monday.

snip

"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."

Gay flamingos are not uncommon, she added.

"If there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males," she said.

A truly remarkable convergence of nature and nurture that can and should be replicated in humanity.

We are awaiting the FIC Blogs demand to protest pink flamingo lawn ornaments because of their obvious un-Christian-like behaviour (by their wing-nut standards, at least) and in order to remain as relevant to the debate as they usually are.

Revoltin' Joltin' Joe and Threatening His Own Irrelevancy Again

Revoltin' joltin' Joe neocon Lieberman threatening his irrelevancy again:

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says his disagreement with the Democrats over the Iraq war won't prevent him from working with his former party. For now.

``I hope the moment doesn't come that I feel so separated from the caucus'' that he decides to shift allegiance to the Republicans, he said in an interview. Asked what Democratic actions might cause such a break, he invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 definition of pornography: ``I'll know it when I see it.''

The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats' 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won't rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control.

Lieberman has ``gone from being dispensable to essential for the Democrats,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

First things first. The leadership of the senate is already cast in stone until 2008, barring the defection of about 10 Democratic Senators.

There has been some confusion and uncertainty as to whether Joe Lieberman has the power to flip control of the Senate to the Republicans. I come bearing good news!! As of this past Friday (January 12), it appears that Lieberman is powerless to effect party control of the 110th Congress.

This is due to the fact that the Senate passed a resolution on January 12 (S.Res. 27) that designates various Democrats by name as committee chairs and specifies the Democratic members of each committee. The Senate also passed a similar resolution (S. Res. 28) the same day that names various Republicans as the ranking minority members of each committee and specifies the Republican members of each committee. Based on these two resolutions, the membership of each standing committee in the Senate appears to be fixed for the duration of this Congress. Further, it includes one more Democratic member than it does Republican members in each case, thereby providing Democrats with control of the committee system and the flow of legislation in the Senate.

What is significant about these resolutions is that neither contains any provisions for implementation of a change in the party affiliation of committee chairs or the party make up of each committee even if there is a change in the identity of the party with the numerical majority in the Senate. Taken together, these resolutions appear to lock in Democratic control of the Senate for the entire 110th Congress (2007 and 2008). The reason that they lock in control is that they cannot be changed without further action by the Senate, which would require a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators who were willing to support a change in party control of the Senate. It is possible that such a filibuster-proof majority could emerge in the event of a shift of a seat from Democratic to Republican hands and a 50-50 deadlock in the Senate (with Cheney the tie-breaker) but it is not likely that the 10 Democratic senators required to produce that 60-vote majority would agree to vote with the Republicans on organizational matters.

Bloomberg News should research the Senate rules before they print cheap copy like that. It is also obvious that Joe Neocon Lieberman doesn't understand how empty his threats really are. Lieberman doesn't get how irrelevant his cheap threats are any more than Fred Lucas at the NewsTimes ever did. So go ahead Joe, take the red walk of shame into obscurity:

Fred Lucas just doesn't get it:

Lieberman said on Meet the Press Sunday he would not rule out caucusing with Republicans under certain circumstances. True, the statement came from some high pressure questioning from Tim Russert, but Lieberman nonetheless left the potential open.

The Economist magazine called him the nation’s most influential senator. Most political analyst say the slim 51-49 Democratic majority, makes Lieberman ultra powerful.

If the Dems irk him and he caucuses with the Republicans, it creates a 50-50 Senate. That would put Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of casting tie breaking votes.

Joe knows how powerful he is, and he’s letting Democrats know he knows how powerful he is.

The only reason The Economist calls him influential is because they know his vote can be bought. Lieberman can bloviate all he wants about crossing the aisle.

LET HIM! I dare him to. I double-dare him to! lol

He can go ahead and do that but a look at the Senate elections in 2008 shows that it would slip Lieberman into obscurity as fast as fast can be.

Does anyone think the "Lieberman For Lieberman" party is going to let its only candidate slip into the abyss of 4 years of irrelavence in the Senate that is in store for any GOP members left after 2008?

And ALSO consider the cold hard reality that Lieberman has been salivating over becoming relevant in a committee for ages. He has that job on the Dem side of the aisle. Do you think the GOP would bump its senior members to make room for Liberman? They are already battling a completely fractured base and don't need Joe to become another HUGE wedge in their already feuding base.

Show a little common sense Fred. Joe can talk until his face turns red BUT he will stay on the blue side of the aisle unless the Democratic party kicks his lobbyist bought'n'paid-for-ass to the curb AGAIN!

And don't be too surprised if the Democratic party does kick him to the curb if wahbaby Joe tries to hold the voter approved Democratic agenda hostage...

Losing the Senate for 2 years ain't no big deal considering it will just make Joe and Republicans the bad guys for maneuvering against the American voters' wishes to take Congress away from the Republican children that broke it.

No matter how you look at it... If Joe goes to the red side he kills his gravytrain and any Republican chances of fixing the right-wing-nuttyness that has broken their party...

Yep... In fact, I triple-dog-dare you Joe... Be a man and walk the fuckin' walk of RED SHAME into obscurity.

If Joe Lieberman walks now, the Senate remains in the control of the Democratic party , and Joe's prospects for his final 4 years in the Senate are dismal by his own "It's all about me!" standards. He talks the talk, but Joe isn't man enough to walk the walk...

Gulp for GONEzales

It's popcorn time, as John Stewart of The Daily Show catches GONEzo in another lie and points out the impeachability factor based on James Comey's testimony with a GULP:



Side note: Cheney's never looked so good as he does on the Daily Show...

Wolfowitz Extra Crispy

Yesterday I posted on Wolfowitz:

Well... One more neocon PNAC chickenhawk is negotiating his own plucking end:

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks.

His departure would include an acknowledgment from the bank that he doesn't bear sole responsibility for the controversy surrounding a generous pay package for his girlfriend, the official said.

The official said Wolfowitz wanted the bank to accept some responsibility for conflicts of interest cited against him by a special bank panel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate state of the negotiations.

It was not clear whether the bank's 24-member board would accept Wolfowitz's terms.

Don't take it on his terms. Just go ahead and fry his sorry ass.

Today it is a well done deal:

Wolfowitz's departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

"He assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution and we accept that," the board said in its announcement of his resignation.

His departure was all but forced, however, by the finding of a special bank panel that he violated conflict-of-interest rules in his handling of the 2005 pay package of bank employee Shaha Riza.

As per usual, the neocon doesn't take full responsibility for his own failures. But at least this one is gone for now.

Judge Tells All Star to Get the Buses Rolling

The NewsTimes is reporting that the Judge John Pickard has told All Star to get the buses back on the road:

The Board of Education won the first round of its legal battle to end the bus drivers' strike Wednesday, when a judge told All-Star Transportation to immediately restore full service to the town's six schools.

Litchfield Superior Court Judge John Pickard's ruling is a hollow victory, however, because there are not enough licensed and certified drivers available to cover all the routes.

If you go to the story the comments section is pretty funny. I don't know if those of you wanting to sue the union realize how silly that idea is. They didn't sign a contract with the city, All Star did. And since there are no real health or safety issues involved there is very little the judge can say to the union to force them back to work. This isn't like an ambulance, police, or nurse strike where basic services are deemed a necessity for the public good. This is an inconvenience, not a hazard, to the community. I may not be a lawyer, but this seems like common sense to me.

I am starting to think that All Star, judging by their behaviour, is purposely trying to get this contract canned by the city.

Did they stupidly negotiate a bad contract with a ridiculously low cost of fuel figured in or something? (There is a war AND an occupation going on right now... Figure the odds that fuel prices would go up? D'oh!)

If the contract gets tossed who is there left for the town to renegotiate a new and more lucrative contract with? (All Star is the only game in town at the moment... And they know it.)

Or maybe the company will close up and sell off to another company OR resurface incorporated under another name in order to avoid dealing with the union at all... (Classic union busting techniques, yes?)

With the way politics works these days I would not be surprised to see the BOE fire them, only to sign a new contract with the same company (under a new name or not) that is more profitable to the company. There has to be more to this than just the 50 cent difference between what the company is offering and the drivers want. It should be interesting when the judge orders arbitration, which is the only likely legal recourse available at this point in time.

The Real Galvanization of the Radical Christian Movement

Via Matt at My Left Nutmeg:

Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly pointed me towards this Guardian piece on Falwell and the conservative movement:

The religious right's creation myth holds that Roe v Wade so outraged the faithful that they could no longer sit passively on their pews. As the Columbia University historian Randall Balmer has shown, this is nonsense. The Southern Baptist Convention, Falwell's denomination, was officially pro-choice throughout the 1970s; anti-abortion activism was seen as the province of Catholics, a group then widely despised by fundamentalist Protestants.

No, what really galvanized the religious right were Supreme Court rulings stripping whites-only Christian academies, like the one Falwell founded in 1966, of their tax-exempt status. Fervent opposition to abortion, which eventually cemented the alliance between conservative Protestant and Catholics, came later.

I wonder if there was a "we'll-talk-about-abortion-if-you-drop-the-death-penalty" agreement between movement conservative protestants and conservative Catholics.

The fact that the Catholic Church has been silenced over the last couple decades on the death penalty (which disproportionally impacts blacks to an alarming degree) - while the evangelical world has become radicalized on abortion (when there's significant doubt about when a "life" is formed, even in the text of the Bible) - will be seen as a low point in the history of otherwise honorable religious communities.

The tragedy is that Falwell's movement wound up as nothing more than an engine for converting the charity and goodwill of those following the Prince of Peace into an army waging all-out war against the world's poor, oppressed, outcast, and downtrodden, for nothing more principled than a buck.

Pretty sad that anyone would even consider putting wackos like this on TV as if they had some sort of credibility in their positions.

Political blog survey

Politics in the Zeros had this up about a Political blog survey:

" In the Inbox, from Tom Johnston

My colleague Barbara Kaye (University of Tennessee) and I (Texas Tech) need your help. We are asking you if you would please publicize our survey about blogging and the Iraq War. Results from an earlier version of the survey has been published in academic journals and books as well as presented at international conferences.

We are trying to reach blog users from a wide range of political perspectives and from a wide variety of types of blogs, so participation of your readers is important. Would you be so kind to announce our survey on your blogs?

Take the survey..."

I doubt it would hurt too much.

Neocon Wolfowitz Resigning

Well... One more neocon PNAC chickenhawk is negotiating his own plucking end:

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks.

His departure would include an acknowledgment from the bank that he doesn't bear sole responsibility for the controversy surrounding a generous pay package for his girlfriend, the official said.

The official said Wolfowitz wanted the bank to accept some responsibility for conflicts of interest cited against him by a special bank panel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate state of the negotiations.

It was not clear whether the bank's 24-member board would accept Wolfowitz's terms.

Don't take it on his terms. Just go ahead and fry his sorry ass.

Rahm Emanuel Needs a Kick in the Ass

David Sirota has been running a series of posts on the secret trade deal agreements being pushed by those that would likely fall into the MONEY PARTY category.

This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.

Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request. A top Democratic senator says K Street is receiving a "wink and nod" from the White House that the final legislative language - which has not been made public - will allow the Bush administration to avoid enforcing any of the much-touted standards in the deal. GOP leaders, meanwhile, are signaling that the deal will not be incorporated into the core text of trade agreements at all. And, of course, almost every news outlet has refused to report that top K Street lobbyists have said they have received "assurances" that the deal's provisions on labor and the environment will be unenforceable. Here's today's full news report.

Continue reading SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 6: Senator Says K Street Getting "Wink & Nod" From Bush»

He has put up Emanuel's answer to the calls for transparency in this important debate:

Earlier this week the Politico reported that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) responded to a reporter's inquiry about whether he supports lobbying reform by pulling his best Dick Cheney impression and telling the reporter to "Go f___ yourself." Coincidentally (or not) I received something of the same treatment from Emanuel in response to my ongoing coverage of the secret trade deal that Emanuel yesterday blocked a formal Democratic debate on. I received an email from Emanuel's spokesperson telling me that I "may disagree with Rahm's position on many issues and we don't necessarily care that that is the case."

What's funny/pathetic is that Emanuel (or at least his staff) seems to see the trade issue which affects the entire globe, which the American public is deeply concerned about and which was a central piece of the 2006 election as some sort of personal rivalry between lawmakers like him and writers like me. How hilarious/sad it is when Washington insiders get such a bad case of Potomac Fever that they lose all touch with reality. Again, it's reminiscent of Cheney, who in response to questions about the war said that the American public's opinion doesn't matter. Apparently, America's opposition to lobbyist written trade policy is something that leaders like Emanuel "don't necessarily care" about.

Last Monday Sirota was on Lou Dobbs Tonight to talk about this issue: