Phone-gate

Atrios is following the phone records story as it breaks -- will it be called "Phone-gate"?
When I heard about Bush speaking today, it reminded me of You Know Who -- remember "I am not a crook!"?

Bitch

Mary Cheney proves that just because a woman is gay doesn't mean she cannot be pathetic.
And talk about projection -- she won't call her father out for his suppoft of a State of the Union address where Bush promoted his anti-gay marriage amendment. Instead, she calls John Kerry and John Edwards names because they had the temerity to defend her against Republican anti-gay hate.

Home, chickens, roosting, etc.

Well,well...so Vellacott resigns from the aboriginal affairs committee -- and he says its all the Liberal's fault. I guess they're still running everything behind the scenes, don't ya know...

Nuremberg reborn

Steve Gilliard talks about the new Nuremberg:

. . .after 9/11, Bush asked for nothing. Not to save gas, not to enlist, nothing. So the burden fell on the willing and they are tired. Tired of war, tired of begging for food, tired of seeing their friends horrifically wounded . . . Bush has demanded nothing, and he gets nothing.
The US after WWII understood not only the burdens but the rewards of shared sacrifice . . . This administration does not. It's as if Herbert Hoover was asked to fight the Nazis without rallying the public. . . And how do we do it? By tossing away every lesson we've learned from Nuremberg. We build gulags, we sent people into a modern version of night and fog, where people are beaten to death, we coerse our allies into accepting kidnapping flights and dump the passengers in places where they will be tortured . . .
The excuse for violating what we once rejected was more than hubris. Every society has sadists. Most keep them under check, few allow them real power. Rumsfeld unleashed them, their worst instincts justified and it went from CENTCOM down to their field . . . Rumsfeld unleashed these people because he thought they had an easy solution to a difficult problem. But instead, they allow children to be raped and the innocent murdered for no gain. None.
We had embraced what we had fought so hard to end, not because we were inherently evil, but because it was one more easy thing to do for a man who always chosen the easy, wrong path.
I would like to think we will redeem ourselves one day, that the sadists and their bosses will face justice, real justice, in a large court for the world to see, to redeem the promise of what was begun at Nuremberg. . .

Read the whole post.

Great line of the day

Roy at alicublog asks why conservative commenters at The Corner and the Weekly Standard are always complaining:

Can't these people just enjoy the many economic, social, and governmental advantages whiteness unfairly confers? I know I do!

This is ridiculous

Now, I haven't researched this because I don't want to ruin my amateur standing, but can anyone tell me what is the matter with the British Columbia justice system these days?
They just finished the unsuccessful Air India mess, and now the Globe is reporting about how the Pickton trial is expected to last two years.
This is apparently being seen just as a problem for picking a jury -- because what sane person wants to put their life on hold for two years and spend their Christmas and birthdays and anniversaries for 2007 and 2008 in a courtroom.
But is anyone asking why the BC justice system is even contemplating such a monster trial at all?
Get a grip on it, folks -- even the Nuremberg trial lasted only 11 months.
Life without parole is life without parole, whether he is found guilty of six or 26 murders.

Great line of the day

From Eric Alterman, via The Sideshow:

Note that the same Beltway crowd that last year was telling us the Downing Street Memo was not news, is the same crowd insisting Colbert was not funny.

Any day now...

Well, that's a relief -- Bush is saying now that he "would like to close [Gitmo] and put the prisoners on trial." Yeah, any day now, I'm sure. So I guess everyone in the United States can vote Republican again because they're going to do the right thing. Any day now...
Reminds me that just before the presidential election in 2004, Bob Novak reported that Bush was going to bring all the soldiers home from Iraq just as soon as he was reelected. And Pat Buchannan said Bush was going to fire all the neo-cons and get rid of Rumsfeld just as soon as he was reelected.
Any day now...

Great line of the day

Al Gore criticizes the Conservatives for withdrawing from Kyoto:

. . . they were elected because of issues that had nothing to do with global warming and the climate crisis, and now they're pretending to have a mandate to abandon Canada's historic commitment to playing a leadership role in cleaning up the world's environment.

It's a gusher!

Oh, this is just so much fun.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
- Peggy Noonan, April 24, 2000

At Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher says:

Color me confused. Everyone on TV seems to be buying the line that the Goss resignation has been planned for weeks. No natural curiosity about the fact that it takes effect immediately, or that there is no replacement, or that he had a meeting scheduled this afternoon he didn’t show up for. Not to mention the fact that as Professor Foland pointed out in the comments, the White House would’ve probably sacrificed its collective left nut to avoid stepping on a drunk Kennedy story.
But has the entire press corps turned into such a pile of humorless prudes that they can’t connect the dots in the Brent Wilkes hooker scandal?

The Editors speculates:

. . . taxpayer-subsidized gay orgy . . . hot middle-aged Congressman-on-lobbyist XXX action . . . fifteen-year-long homosexual coke-n-hookers-n-dogs-n-box turtles Republican party scene which would make a lost weekend on Fire Island look like an early-afternoon meeting of your grandmother’s penny-ante bridge club . . . before anybody jumps to some unseemly and grossly immature conclusion based on William Kristol’s public speculation that Goss’s warp-speed resignation was due to “something that popped this week“, consider this: what if Porter Goss was just doing top-secret research into how to protect Americans if terrorists try attack the homeland with weaponized amyl nitrate? Bet you’d feel pretty stupid then. Let’s wait until all the facts are in before we start in with the Gannon jokes.

Sadly No speculates:

Just because rumors have long swirled about Austin gay bar habitué Scott McClellan, and also the dapper Andrew Card, both recently resigned from White House employ, and just because Randy "Duke" Cunningham has admitted to homosexual liaisons, and despite the fact that former White House sleepover guest Jeff Gannon has suddenly begun appearing in public and in fact only this week admitted to his homosexuality, it does not necessarily mean that the hookers in question were male. ...Nor does the fact that Ken Mehlman is in a bit of hot soup at the moment, nor the fact that Condi Rice is a lesbian.
It is irresponsible to speculate too boldly in this regard. On the plus side, however, there are supposed to be photographs.

Atrios concludes:

I bet Tony Snow's really looking forward to Monday.

Great line of the day

At Hullabaloo, Tristero writes a post comparing how Bush went to war in Iraq with how he intends to go to war with Iran:

. . . Remember: he's The Decider. He decides what's best. And it is what's best because he decided it was. The rest of us are, like it or not, along for the ride. That's the problem with living in an authoritarian state . . . You really cannot affect its politics or influence its behavior very much. And if it frightens you to think that the fate of your country, if not the world, rests on the outcome of a desperate power struggle between a goddammed malicious idiot, the Joint Chiefs, the calculations of corrupt Republican politicians and no one else in the world, then... Welcome to the 21st Century, my friends. This ain't your father's Missile Crisis.

Emphasis mine.

Undefended border

Dave over at The Galloping Beaver flags wingnut suggestions about solving America's gas prices by taking over Saudi Arabia.
When will it occur to them that Alberta is right next door?

Truthiness about Beloved Leader

Glenn Greenwald reflects on the Bush-worship of the right-wing bloggers:

. . . It is a frenzied effort to defend the administration that is composed every standard weapon in the Bush apologist arsenal -- attacks on the motives of those who disclose the information, threats of criminal prosecution against those responsible, an insistence that the Leader's Goodness precludes the truth of the accusations, and when all else fails, a simple fact-free refusal to believe that it's true . . . this self-justifying, fantasyland mindset is constant and applicable to every issue. Insurgency in Iraq? Can't be; it just doesn't exist. Reports of civil war? Not true - the media is just biased and dishonest. Poll after poll showing the President is reaching historic levels of unpopularity? The polls are just biased and corrupt because the President is really beloved. Secret torture gulags in Eastern Europe? They don't exist either - that was all just a masterful set-up to find the CIA leakers (a fantasy in which Strata indulges for the Plame disclosure, too: "I think this was a canary trap"). The CIA agent outed by the administration was working on Iran's nuclear program? False - the reporter is an idiot, her husband is a liar, it's just one CIA agent, and the President is too good and smart to do that, no matter what facts emerge . . .

They should be ashamed

Harold Albrecht (Conservative: Kitchener—Conestoga)
Inky Mark (Conservative: Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette )
Rod Bruinooge (Conservative: Winnipeg South)
Colin Mayes (Conservative: Okanagan—Shuswap)
Marc Lemay (BQ: Abitibi—Témiscamingue)
Yvon Levesque (BQ: Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou)
If you happen to live in any of these ridings, drop your boy a line and ask why he insulted every Aboriginal person in Canada by voting for Maurice Vellacott as chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.
Harper should also be ashamed of himself, putting forward such a racist to chair the committee.
And these Good Ole Boys dutifully voted in favour -- party unity is just so much more important than insulting thousands of their constituents, don't ya know!
The Globe story sums it up:

Liberal MP Anita Neville said her party attempted to block Mr. Vellacott because of his controversial comments relating to the freezing deaths several years ago of aboriginal men outside of Saskatoon. . . Mr. Vellacott has drawn fire for defending two Saskatoon policemen who were convicted of driving an aboriginal man out of town and leaving him to walk home in the dead of winter.
More recently, he has been criticized for suggesting that some of the aboriginal men may have gone outside of town on their own to drink or take drugs. "Mr. Vellacott does not give a good message to aboriginal Canadians," Ms. Neville said. "[His comments] reinforced stereotypical views of aboriginal peoples." . . . [Vellacott] defended his comments about the Saskatoon police, saying he has a full understanding of the situation. . .

whatever that means.
Well, adding this to today's budget, which killed the Kelowna Accords, I think Aboriginal people now have a "full understanding" of Harper's message, too -- I think it can be summarized as "Aboriginals, Please F*ck Off!"

If you are Anglican, you need to read this

If you are Anglican, and you wondering why your church leaders are ripping your church apart over gay issues instead of helping people work together toward a more inclusive doctrine, you need to read this expose from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington:

When the General Convention of the Episcopal [AKA Anglican] Church meets next month in Columbus, Ohio, a small network of theologically conservative organizations will be on hand to warn deputies that they must repent of their liberal attitudes on homosexuality or face serious consequences. The groups represent a small minority of church members, but relationships with wealthy American donors and powerful African bishops have made them key players in the fight for the future of the Anglican Communion.

Two articles titled "Following the Money" provide the details -- Part 1 and Part 2:

Millions of dollars contributed by a handful of donors have allowed a small network of theologically conservative individuals and organizations to mount a global campaign that has destabilized the Episcopal Church and may break up the Anglican Communion.

A few years ago, the American Episcopal church ordained Bishop Robinson, who is gay, and several Canadian Anglican bishops have supported gay marriage. Now, church rules are supposed to prevent one bishop from taking over another bishop's churches, but the articles describe how a few American conservatives arranged for bishops in Africa and Asia to take over not only the congregations but also the church property of break-away American and Canadian churches whose congregations did not support gay-friendly policies.
The articles also show how this same small group also manipulated the result of last year's Anglican conference -- I wrote about that here and here -- to make sure the conference would freeze out the Canadian and American bishops who supported gay-friendly policies. I had no idea there could be such an organized campaign to break up the Anglican Church -- which apparently, and merely as a happy byproduct of course, would also allow the break-away leaders to take over the weekly offerings and the property of those break-away congregations.
Thanks to pastordan for the link. Pastordan writes:

The goal of this movement is not theological realignment, but political, to weaken the organization of the ECUSA in order to make it more pliable before a radical Religious Right agenda. Robinson's consecration is the wedge to an eventual takeover of the denomination, much like ultra-conservatives wrested control of the Southern Baptist Conference from moderates and transformed it into a platform for Republican moralism. . . . Say what you will about "left-leaning" churches like the UCC: we at least chose our path in open discourse, and the national church takes its lumps for doing so . . . I don't believe there's any sugar-daddies secretly funding our stands.

UPDATE: The Green Knight is on this too.