It seems to me that just about the time I begin to lose hope something stunning happens. This Newsweek article via MSNBC online blew me away this morning. It is well worth a full read. This is what “real investigative journalism” is all about.
The insiders have had it and are starting to come out of the woodwork. The reporters even call Dick Cheney “Prime-Minister Cheney”. Here’s a short excerpt.
“Feb. 6, 2006 issue – James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey’s farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked “people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right–and to doing the right thing–whatever the price. These people,” said Comey, “know who they are. Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.”
more on the flip
“Addington, 49, has worked as an adviser to Dick Cheney off and on since Cheney was a member and Addington a staffer on the House Intelligence Committee in the mid-’80s. When Cheney became secretary of Defense in the Bush 41 administration, Addington served at the Pentagon as general counsel. When Cheney became vice president to Bush 43, he brought Addington into the White House as his lawyer. Counsel to the vice president is, in most administrations, worth less than the proverbial bucket of warm spit, but under Prime Minister Cheney, it became a vital power center, especially after 9/11.”
“Like his boss, Addington has long believed that the executive branch was pitifully weakened by the backlash from Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Fearful of investigative reporters and congressional subpoenas, soldiers and spies had become timid–“risk averse” in bureaucratic jargon. To Addington and Cheney, the 9/11 attacks–and the threat of more and worse to come–were perfect justification for unleashing the CIA and other long-blunted weapons in the national-security arsenal. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who disdains lawyers, was ready to go. So, too, was CIA Director George Tenet–but only if his spooks had legal cover, so they wouldn’t be left holding the bag if things went wrong.”
People, there is so much more to this scathing report of just how the Cabal of Fascists in the White House went about the destruction of the Constitution. Maybe, just maybe the Media and the Whistleblowers can help to bring this Regime down.
I apologize for not putting this in blocks but I had difficulty with the tags. Maybe one of the frontpagers can edit for me.
At least three journalists have not sold out to Rove!
in the autism world – there’s a thing called “Positive Reinforcement”. It’s generally used to discourage negative behavior and reward “positive” behavior.
Let’s stroke the journalists, like Amy Goodman, with positive reinforcement… I doubt they’d go for the M&Ms and poptarts my son used to like as rewards… but I thin k nuturing and rewarding those journalists and brave souls who don’t sell out is worthwhile…
While we kick the others lazy bums asses. 🙂
Great diary Leezy
Thank you DJ and you make a great point. First chance today I will try and find emails for these journalists and give them a cup of Kudos!
OR kill two birds with one stone(?)
Dear CNN, you guys suck ass. Unlike Democracy Now who do research, search for facts and bring us the real news. blah blah blah
CC Amy Goodman
That’s what I basically did with Snappy (Rush juice) and Tazo Tea. 🙂 I wrote tell Snapple I would never ever buy their Crapple Juice again and that I was switching to tazo and why. I got a reply from Tazo that they were happy to get me as a new customer.
I seem to have missed out on this “snappy” issue. Rush juice?
Tazo also doesn’t use high fructose corn syrup, which I’m finding to be nasty stuff. HFCS tastes kind of “gummy”. I’ve been getting addicted to vitaminwater lately, also made without HFCS.
Snapple iced tea, I meant.
Snapple are/well they were, big sponsors of the Rush Limbaugh radio show. I LOVED peach snapple iced tea but I switched. I told them about it.
sorry for the mass typos I was multi-tasking ACK 🙂
I’ve long thought that when this administration is gone and people who were in it start to write their books, the shit is going to hit the fan.
One small point keeps nagging at me – from the article:
Who the hell are we at war with? Iraq? Al Queda? I don’t remember Congress issuing a declaration of war against either one.
The government is at war with the citizens it governs. The GWoT is a vehicle to achieve the goal of controlling the public under the illusion of an everpresent, unspecified, unidentifiable threat.
It just proves their arrogance Ed!
For the edit and adding the blocks for me. Sometimes I feel so inept!
It has been brought to my attention that Booman wrote this excellent diary last night. Somehow, it is the one I missed. I apologize for duplicating what he said. Booman’s diary is excellent and has much more to it. I highly recommend you all read it if you missed it as I did yesterday.
I read that article already and if y ou look closely, you will see that John Yoo wrote the ways down to be followed and Addington put it into action. This is why I do not like J. Yoo. He is a most dangerous man. Then the others are the followers and they are just as dangerous. We have never seen the likes of these kinds of men ever. They are truly evil ppl!
This article just reconfirmed my notion that the administration was stve-piping the legal analysis they wanted to hear, & disregarding the rest, just as they did with pre-war Iraq intelligence.
“It seems to me that just about the time I begin to lose hope something stunning happens.”
Sigh.
Don’t you get it yet, alohaleezy?
They WANT you to keep your hopes up.
They WANT people to think that they are getting something done.
This is the same Newsweak that has kowtowed and bowed and scraped to BushCo…
What?
Eighty times in the last several years alone?
The same magazine that was right there in the front of the pack with all of the other scavengers when this administration threw them the “Let’s invade Iraq” meat. The same one that backed off at the faintest growl from inside the White House cave about Falujah.
Had they REALLY meant to make a point, the editors of Newsweak might well have titled this piece of fluff “Losers in the White House Wars” or “Failed and Ineffectual Palace Revolt”, because that would have been much more accurate.
But they want you to keep your hopes up.
That’s how they sell advertising.
That’s how they pay for their million dollar homes in the suburbs.
You.
Buying their mag and the products that are advertised therein.
Rove and Cheney and the rest DESPISE you, alohaleezy, as they despise the people who oppose them and the Pekininese of the Press that they use to lead you around like minature seeing eye dogs. They create “new realities” the way a good cook creates Christmas cookies. Bip, bap, into the oven, out of the oven. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, another group of potentially serious opponents once more reduced to the role of saying “Let’s sit around and wait just a TEENSY bit more, Harry. Look. It says RIGHT HERE IN NEWSWEAK that there were people opposing this administration RIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. Why…there MUST be MORE!!!”
While these ineffectual “opposition” people slide safely off into and through the revolving doors of the military/media/academic/financial/industrial complex.
Harvard my ASS!!!
Rumpled intellectual.
Shy of photographs.
Give me a BREAK!!!
He’s a loser.
Except for his tenure and his $200K/year, of course…
And worse yet…you FALL for it.
Once again.
200 times the magicians slip their THIRD hand through the fly in their pants and give you the stiff salami salute while you once again watch benumbed and entranced as their prosthetic device…the mass media…gives yet ANOTHER bravura performance of “America the Hopeful” on their digerido.
Their digeri-don’t.
Wake the fuck up.
NEWSTRIKE!!!
NOT Newsweak.
NEWSTRIKE!!!
They have once again lulled you to sleep.
The American sleeple.
And they are LAUGHING at you.
When George W. Butch stands up and gives his so-called “State of the Union” speech…
When he stumbles over words, when those strange elisions and mumbling speech patterns come out…YOU know, the ones we all laugh about?
Do you know why that happens?
So consistently?
BECAUSE HE IS TRYING SO HARD NOT TO LAUGH RIGHT IN YOUR FACE THAT HE CAN BARELY KEEP HIS FRONT UP.
The nasty spirited frat boy preznit motherfucker that he is.
Like any crooked used car salesman, HE knows what’s up. And it affects his speech.
“”There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Remember? We laughed so hard? (I didn’t, actually…)
You know why he couldn’t get it straight?
Because somewhere inside that fucked up limbic system he calls a brain, he was thinking “Shit. We done fooled ’em THOUSANDS ‘a times already!!! Assholes!!!” and he could barely keep a straight face.
Think about this. Remember it when you are watching that farce, that speechifying State of the Con Game dumbshow. (Which I definitely will NOT be watching. There are so many better things to do in life. Like sleep or play solitaire with a marked deck. If I were to see one more group of front runner assholes stand up and applaud that cur, I am not sure that I could keep myself off the street with the first blunt weapon that came to hand.)
He DESPISES you. Just like ANY crooked salesman.
You are nothing but a mark.
Time for some demarcation points here, people.
Turn this shit the fuck OFF and let’s try to get down to some REAL business.
Alito?
More dumbshow.
I will publicly march down Broadway at midday on a sunny afternoon with a sign around my neck saying “I was wrong. This country DOES work” if this piece of prevaricating, lawyerly, racist shit is not eventually OVERWEHELMINGLY approved by the frontrunners in the Congress of the Untied States of Nomerica.
Filibuster?
We’d be bettrer off with a BUNKER buster if we REALLY wanted to get something done.
Please…wise up here.
It’s all a dumbshow unless overwhelming, undeniable, smoking gun PROOF OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITY BY THESE PEOPLE IS PUBLICLY PRESENTED IN THE MAJOR MEDIA OF THIS COUNTRY.
Until then…and don’t hold you breath for THAT happening anytime soon unless you are simply trying to keep the virus-ridden jism out of your mouth…it’s just one long, continuing circle jerk.
With the American public right there in the center of the circle, waiting to once again receive their rightful load.
Disgusting.
Wake the fuck up.
Before it’s too goddamned late.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Nice rant Arthur but man it sure would be nice if you directed your anger at the real criminals here and not at me. Call me a hopeless dreamer. Maybe you are right and they are all just yucking it up at our expense. After today’s show of lack of intelligent life in DC I am getting closer to agreeing with you than I ever imagined. I just don’t know anymore. See you onBroadway?
Some may say.. ay ay you’re a dreamer…
But you’re not the only one
🙂
Now THAT made me cry damnit……janet….Hugs girl. God I am so depressed after today.
Me too.
Alito
(I’ve been on the phone to a few Senators and some new candidates, even – WITH my son home and he’s in a fuhreak out mood)
The Female Soldiers being raped and Sanchez who covered up the prison abuse – is covering that up too.
and then I remember where I’m at… the frog pond. Surrounded my others who are just as pissed, just as angry, just as frustrated, and just as much a part of my family than blood.
We can’t afford to cry. We MUST remain focused and continue to fight more than ever now.
Mark Wilson who is fighting against Maria Cantwell (WA) in 2006 is linked with CodePink… there… there is some good news 🙂
That was a really obnoxious comment, Arthur. It’s really rude and unfair to alohaleezy. I kept thinking: if you’re so smart, why aren’t you the president? A little humility goes a long way.
Well,sir…I believe that the words “smart” and “President” have been way too often proven to be mutually exclusive.
That’s ONE reason…
Adlai Stevenson said something to the effect that by the time one has made the compromises necessary to be able to be nominated to run for President of the United States, one no lonmger deserves the job.
That’s TWO reasons.
And number three…the few Presidents who COULD play an instrument just weren’t very good. Bill Clinton might have gotten it together…he has good time and he certainly would have fit in well on the jazz “social” scene (Wink wink, nudge nudge…) but other than that…
It appears that one of the major job descriptions is that you must be a square.
Which I am not and never have been.
So I guess THAT’S why I am not President.
Overqualified.
Why aren’t you?
AG
Dear Arthur- don’t be a prick.
The Powers-that-Be are grappling with the idea of taking Bush/Cheney out and replacing them with people more competent.
Restoring the Constitution is not on their agenda. It’s just a lever to help effect the replacement.
I will be among those cheering ecstatically when Bush is brought down.
Just remember to brace for what comes after.
There is nothing, nothing more important than the War for Oil (aka the War on Terra). This will be the hinge of US policy through the remainder of its existence. The US is losing. The PTB want it run more effectively.
This dog-fight gives progressives a window in which to work, yes.
Just remember what that work is. Enabling America’s oil habit is no part of it.
Gaianne, you are on the case with every word you write.
Hip name, too…
AG
I was “stunned” because it is usually a cold day in hell that we ever, ever here anything close to resembling the truth these days. I have to grab onto any little piece of information that resembles to truth these days so I have the will to keep fighting. Maybe I am naive but I need those threads of hope.
I had that same reaction to the article. Thanks for the diary and sharing it. Of course we have to consider the source of anything we read but this article feels like it has more truth in it than we’re used to.