Politics: From The Department of

You Can't Make This Shit Up: KKKarl Rove, aka Turdblossom, aka Brainfather of the Thousand-Year Republican Reich is attempting to give our new President advice on the politicization of the Justice Department.


Yes, that would be the same KKKarl Rove who, under Bush's tenure, politicized the Justice Department — by firing out of hand, and for no good reason anyone has yet determined, many excellent career attorneys (like David Iglesias, to offer just one example) for not being, what's a good phrase? Partisan hacks? Tools? Extreme Christian-Reichwing conservatives willing to bend over and take it in the keister for KKKarl? And by hiring hacks like Monica Goodling to oversee the hiring practices of the Department. Monica Goodling*, whose sole qualification for the position consisted of an unvarying allegiance to the Republican party.

* Note: Link to a PDF of DOJ investigation of Goodling.

Jason Linkins has the dirt over at HuffPo, with a big ha-ha of bitterly ironical laughter. Truly, it sucketh the chrome right off a high-rise building to have that motherfucker KKKarl offering his counterfeit two cents on the issue of politicizing the very office that is supposed to ensure justice for all. On the plus side, our new President is ignoring the little maggot.

We've blogged about this before, repeatedly. Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for Pennsylvania; David Iglesias, New Mexico; Monica Goodling; Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor; and the ongoing corruptionfest known as the Abu G show.

The cherry on KKKarl's shitpile-dessert has to be his disingenuously-posed question about the (obviously greatly-hoped for, at least by KKKarl) firing of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. KKKarl had targeted Fitzgerald for investigation, for the unthinkable crime of actually investigating the KKKarl Cabal. Hopes ran high all over blogtopia (y,Sctp!) for well over a year. Hopes that Fitzgerald, keen, methodical, impartial, painstakingly devoted to Justice, would find a way to topple the Evil Empire built by Cheney, Rove, Bush, and their rage of hunchmen.

Hopes that died a sad death when it became clear that Fitzgerald was stymied by factors outside his control. But we dare say that the thought of revenge burned brightly in our breast anyway. Many of us prayed and hoped and worked for the day when this vile and wretched ambulatory bag of putrescence would finally be brought to justice for the vast and thorough corruption he had worked on the nation. The political discourse that he had flung into the gutter. The bitter partisanship that he cultivated like some malodorous fungoid. The fear, paranoia, hate, bitterness that divided us from each other in this nation even as his puppetmaster's other favourite puppet was flapping his gums about being a "uniter, not a divider."

No one has singlehandedly contributed as much to the destruction of everything this nation stands for as this nasty little man. Is it too much to hope that karma bites him in the tush? What would be a suitable fate for him? We'd like to wish him a thousand incarnations as a cockroach, but most cockroaches probably have a more beneficial relationship with humanity than this scum. Multiple lifetimes as a scum-sucking bottom-feeding eel? A diatom? A bacterium that survives on fecal matter?

Perhaps we'd settle for seeing him alongside Dick and Al in an orange jumpsuit. Don't forget the wrist and leg shackles.

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Politics: Satan Indicted, Part Two

As we noted yesterday, Dick "Satan" Cheney and Alberto Gonezales were indicted, which news brought dances of joy throughout the nation.

Blogging buddy and commenter ConnecticutMan1 points out that there's more to the story, and thank'ee kindly, fella.

The Brownsville Herald has the details. For those who can't be bothered to click the link, the gist of the story is that one Juan Angel Guerra, District Attorney for Willacy County, Texas, apparently has bigger balls than most of our other officials, elected or appointed, who have watched Satan and his puppet Dumbya McDrunkerson destroy this country for the past eight years.

Five other officials were also indicted, all high-level officeholders in Texas. According to the Herald, Cheney has about $85 million invested in Vanguard alone. Yaknow, there was a time when Dick Cheney drove his family around in a second-hand VW Beetle. And we can't find any record of him making brilliant financial decisions while he was head of Halliburton. Although there's plenty of evidence that Halliburton lost money while he was at the helm.

Nowadays, by some mysterious process not entirely clear to us, Satan's favoured child apparently has huge amounts of money to invest in various companies. Because you just know that ol' Dick, like most investors, heeds the good advice of financial mavens and does not keep all his eggs in the single basket of Vanguard.

The article goes on to state that our esteemed Vice president "is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees." Interesting. A conflict, in fact, of interesting. After all, if you're the Veep and you weigh in on an issue like this, is there anyone who will actively oppose you? Or blow a whistle? Especially when they know that your father is the Devil himself?

Interestingly, one of the other entities indicted by the Willacy County Grand Jury is a corporation known as GEO. GEO is one of the private companies that run prisons for a profit. Apparently, prisoners have died in prisons run by the GEO Corporation. No surprise there, since a private corporation is, naturally, more interested in low costs and high profits than in keeping the people under its control safe, healthy, or even alive.

Over at HuffPo, writer David Latt asks if Cheney will escape prosecution via a Presidential pardon (now, don't get upset just yet) and then resurrects our hopes by pointing out that the Spawn of Shaitan has not yet been convicted, merely indicted. Even a president as ignorant and uncaring as Dim Son cannot pardon someone who has not been convicted.

Now, as we all learned in law school, a good prosecutor with a grand jury as his tool can indict a ham sandwich. Satan's Porker Dick is a little more than a ham sandwich, however, and will no doubt seek to slither out of that long-hoped for confinement in Guantanamo with matching orange jumpsuit and shackles. Either that or he'll rip off his human disguise and be revealed as some reptilian lifeform, like V or something. Oh, yes, and the judge has yet to sign the indictment before the prosecutor can serve it upon Satan's Own Child.


Image from The Onion

The prosecutor in this case is about to leave office soon. Let's hope a judge signs and the order is served upon Shaitan II on 21 January or very shortly thereafter. Perhaps someone else would consider taking up this issue? Congress? Anybody?

Note: Will Bunch, over at Attytood, says this indictment ain't gonna put Satan's Favourite Son in jail anytime soon. (Google it. He's never heard of our tiny little blog with its three readers.) Will, you really know how to shatter a person's dreams, don'tcha?

But Will does have an excellent article up on the prison in Texas that's behind this indictment. Read it if you have even a trace of human feeling or sympathy for the undocumented workers who might have cleaned your home or church, or kept your garden healthy and beautiful, or served your food, or picked your fruit and vegetables. Guantanamo is terrible, Abu Ghraib is a burning sore on our collective conscience, but most people don't even know what our paid officials are doing to people right under our noses.

Image from codshit

So, even if Iblis Himself doesn't end up in a nice fall-coloured piece of clothing paid for by teh taxpayer, a person can (and should) always hope and plan and work to have the miserable son of a turtle indicted for at least a few of the many, many crimes he has committed.

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Politics: Satan Indicted

Well, well, well. Strike me down with a feather. Or paint me pink and call me a Cadillac. Or something.



The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Richard "Satan" Bruce Cheney, the current Vice-President of this fine nation, has been indicted by a South Texas grand jury

" ... on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers."

The story goes on to explain on exactly what grounds Satan was indicted. See, apparently Dickie Boy owns a stake in the Vanguard Group

" ... which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and 'at least misdemeanor assaults' on detainees by working through the prison companies."

Remember when we blogged about the prison-industrial complex in this country? This country which has imprisoned approximately one per cent of its total population? How that job of imprisoning the working poor had then been outsourced to private industry which was charging taxpayers a hefty fee for "taking care" of our unfortunate fellow-citizens even as it exploited their labour and used it to drive down the wages of the working poor further?

Well, it looks as if some prosecutor has finally discovered a pair of cojones lying around and clapped them on. Oh, yeah, and we forgot to mention that Alberto Gonezales was also indicted, on the grounds that he had stopped an investigation into the abuses going on in these detention centers.

Hallelujah. Will wonders never cease?

La Casa de Los Gatos recommends a glass or two of the spirits of your choice in celebration. Will Al and Satan's Dick actually make it into a prison? With orange jumpsuits and leg shackles? Will they be making our license plates?


Oh, frabjous day, callooh callay, he chortled in his joy. (Thanks, Lewis Carroll!)

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Justice Department Scandal

Yowza! Jon Stewart interviews David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney who was fired for refusing to prosecute dubious cases of "voter fraud" based on weak evidence. Raw Story has the details.

Obviously, we need to watch all those Star Wars episodes we skipped, because here is Mr. Iglesias' operative quote:

Stewart ended by asking Igleaias, “Is the greatest disappointment for you that you were a guy who believed in what they were doing? … Do you feel betrayed in that sense?”

“I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights and I was working for the Sith Lords,” Iglesias acknowledged, as the audience broke into applause.

Iglesias has written a book that has just hit the stands, titled In Justice, which details the politicization of the Justice Department.

When your own nation's highest legal authorities engage in selective prosecution and use the law to penalize those who speak out against one party, one administration, or one group of politically powerful and wealthy people, how can you ever again criticize fascist or communist dictatorships? Ask Hope Steffey, Angie Garbarino, and the countless other victims of creeping fascism in America about their experiences. These are just the ones who got attention from the media. We have no idea how many more people have stories to tell.

People, we can never relax our vigilance. Think about it. How many people do you know who put their country first, their community first, their neighbours first? We are all inclined to be selfish, and if we know there are no consequences, most of us reach for whatever we can get and ignore everyone else. So if you don't want your rights stolen, if you don't want to live in a dictatorship, then it's your job, our job, every one of us, to scrutinize our leaders carefully, to make sure they don't steal our rights as well as our jobs, health, lives, and money.

We already know our government has no shame about performing medical experiments on us and lying about it.

If there's one good thing to come out of the Justice Department Scandal, it's that we now know, with evidence, that our government can be politicized and used against us. We know that the ensuing investigation might include liability for those higher up the food chain. We know that Alberto Gonezales will have to pay for his crimes. He's already paying: after Shrubya dumped the ineffectual little liar, he shopped his resume around in search of a job. Result? Zilch, nothing, nada, zero, zip, says the NYT (login required, registration free).

Maybe this will inspire the little worm to feel some sympathy for the large numbers of unemployed who lost their jobs thanks to his buddies.

In other truly heartening news, ambulatory wastebucket Bradley Schlozman will probably face prosecution for his role in the Justice Department scandal, the trumped up charges that led to the firings of so many dedicated U.S. Attorneys and the illegal filing of voter fraud charges on slim evidence and timed to influence the elections. The Wah!Poo reports that Schlozman's testimony is under examination by a grand jury.


May we just take this opportunity to add that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of schmucks.

Bonus question: Why do these guys all look like they just cheated your 90-year-old Aunt Agnes out of her life savings, or seduced your underage daughter?

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Politics: Are They ALL

growing balls? Ovaries? Reproductive bits indicative of strength, fortitude and large-scale deweaselment?


Raw Story is telling us, this morning, that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has asked the (in)Justice Department to open a grand jury investigation into whether President Bush's chief of staff and former counsel should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.

The idea of Harriet Myers and Josh Bolten in the hoosegow has us faint and trembling with delight.

A clarification: We don't necessarily want to inflict misery on other people per se. Seriously. We don't want people tortured or murdered or beaten up or jailed. We would prefer that people live peaceful happy lives as far as that is possible. What we do want is fairness and justice. If the law is going to drag some poor crack-smoker to the hoosegow, then it must also drag the rich coke-sniffer to the hoosegow.

Thus, if some of the people investigated during the baseless Whitewater scandal got to sit in the pokey, some of the people involved in the lies that led us to war in Iraq, the disappearance of billions from our treasury, the gifting of taxpayer dollars to companies like Halliburton and Blackwater, and the myriad crimes of this Misadministration must also be investigated, convicted as justified, and either spend their time in the pokey or start singing like canaries so we, the people, can find out exactly how, when, where, how often, and by whom we've been screwed. Because make no mistake about it, we have been screwed.

We want the rule of law. If it sweeps some of our idols and role models into its dragnet, well, we'll be unhappy but we'll live with it.

When Harriet Myers and Josh Bolten dared to tell the people that they would not be held accountable for their acts, that sent a very troubling message to the nation and the world. No one is, or should be, above the law. No one. Not kings, priests, presidents, businessmen, politicians, and certainly not the toadying shallow minions of a petty, egocentric sociopath who has treated the country like his personal poop-box for seven years. Because if any one person is above the law, then what incentive is there for any other person to obey it?

The article states, in part:

Pelosi, D-Calif., demanded that the department pursue misdemeanor charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers for refusing to testify to Congress about the firings of federal prosecutors in 2006 and against chief of staff Josh Bolten for failing to turn over White House documents related to the dismissals.

She gave Attorney General Michael Mukasey one week to respond and said refusal to take the matter to a grand jury will result in the House's filing a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration.

So this is about the federal prosecutors that the Bush Maladministration fired in their effort to turn the Justice Department into their pathetic spineless tool. Finally.

Nancy Pelosi, if you can push this through, our admiration for you automatically rises ten notches, and we will back off on beating you about the head and shoulders verbally.

If you haven't been following the Justice Department scandal, you can find great detail about it here. Just search for justice department.

If you don't necessarily want that level of detail, we've blogged the issue here, here, here, here, and here.

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Politics: Maggot Denies Any Knowledge of Flies

Pasty gusano and Satan's hunchman (big thanks to Frank Zappa!) KKKarl Rove is now claiming to be an evil familiar of very little influence! Say what? Is this the same slimy spawn of a thousand demons who assured the American People right before the 2006 elections that, despite the polls showing Republicans polling lower than a worm's arsehole, they would win because he had "the math?" As opposed to, you know, "our," i.e., the rest of the universe's, math?

Now that longtime Republican activist Dana Jill Simpson has gone public with her allegations that Rove actively worked to arrest and convict Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman for doing exactly what John McCain is doing, all of a sudden KKKarl's balls, which he used to need a wheelbarrow to trundle around, have shrunk to the size of lentils?

Things are, apparently, so bad out in the RoveMathWorld that MSNBC host Dan Abrams (huh?) is calling on our Attorney-General Mucousy to appoint a special investigator to dig to the bottom of the fecal pile surrounding the Turdblossom. Hey, ho, just another day in Bushiana now that the Rethuglicans no longer control both houses of the Legislature and the scheming, lying, scum-sucking moral reprobate Al-Butto GoneZales is no longer in a position to prevent the law from being carried out.

While KKKarl is loudly protesting his innocence and powerlessness in the same breath, Ms. Simpson, who apparently knows him well, has only one statement for him:

"I want him to swear in front of the United States Congress, and swear what he is saying is true," Dana Jill Simpson told MSNBC's Dan Abrams. Simpson has previously told news outlets, including RAW STORY, Harpers and 60 Minutes that Rove asked her to gather dirt on Siegelman.

We're not holding our breath, though we, just like the rest of the civilized world, long to see KKKarl in chains at the Hague, or workin' on a chain gang breaking big rocks into little rocks.


Dan Abrams sez:

"This is about politicizing our justice system and it just cannot go unchecked," he said.

Raw Story has the details.

Oh, pleez, pleez, pleez, pleez, pleez, Great Ctulhu, pleeeeez!

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Politics: What the HAIL

are they puttin' in the water today? Anyone know?

Because I'm looking at the top headlines here, and this is what I see:

• Cafferty File viewers: Let's start another revolution
  
  
• White House: Fake FEMA news conference won't happen again
• Democrats have votes to hold two White House officials in contempt by full House vote: report
• Rumsfeld hit with torture lawsuit while visiting Paris
• Plame: Disclosure of classified status amounted to 'treason'

Wha' hoppen? Did the country wake up overnight? Did the Feds forget to put valium in the water this week?

Let's see, did the MSM publish any of these stories?

Well, the NYT did carry the story about Rumsfeld, under the much more innocuous title of "Torture Complaint Filed Against Rumsfeld" in its World news section. I don't see any coverage of the fake FEMA press conference, Cafferty's viewers' reaction to the Chimperor, the contempt vote, or Plame's labeling of her outing as "treason."

The WaPoo covered the FEMA fake press conference on its front page. Nothing about the other stories. The local fishwrap has its usual amazing dearth of stories of any import, although there's always the sob-sister front pagers about dead people and the naughty bits about nekkid people running amuck in the public bogs. Nothing in the Boston Globe. The L.A. birdcage liner, understandably, is dominated by news of the fires.

Okay, maybe it's all a dream and I'll wake up in a bit. But for now, some tasty snippets:

Cafferty: apparently made this remark yesterday, and why the press isn't chasing their tails like mad dogs, I just don't know. Buncha worthless dolts we have in the Fourth Estate:

"The president of the United States didn't have the power to spy on Americans ... operate secret prisons ... suspend due process ... torture ... hide the conduct of the government from the public," Cafferty stated. "It's not like anybody gave President Bush any of these powers -- he took them, as a brain-dead Congress just stood there and watched."

His viewers were even more enthusiastic, opining:

"Remember the 60's?" wrote one Baby Boomer. "Well, they're back. Only this time it's not a decade. It's the age on our driver's licenses. Let's start another revolution. ... It's time to overthrow the government."

"King Bush. Queen Hillary. America is now a democratic dictatorship, nobody is going to change that. Power is everything; get used to it."

An[other] suggested. "George Bush is the next president. He and Darth Cheney will be surrendering none of their bounty. Forty years of planning to hand it all to Hillary Clinton? Not a chance. If you think there'll be a November 8 election, give my regards to the Easter Bunny."

I call that news. Sounds to me like The People are Mighty Pissed Off. And it's not as if Cafferty gets Far Left viewers or dirty fucking hippies (as they're known in the blogosphere) tuning in. View the video clip here.

Fake FEMA press conference: The WaPoo reported today that FEMA held a "press conference" in which members of its own staff pretended to be representatives of the press. They got busted, thank goodness, and the White House quickly distanced itself from the ensuing fallout.

Perino said FEMA alone was responsible for the decision to go ahead with the event.

"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California," she said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they, I'm sure, will not do it again."

Upon reading the FEMA equivalent of an apology, it seems to me that the White House might want to mandate courses in apologyology for FEMA staff. They suck ass at it, although I guess it's par for the course.
White House officials face contempt charges: John Conyers says he and Nancy Pelosi are surveying the House Democratic caucus on the issue of bringing criminal contempt charges against Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten. The vote could happen within the next two weeks, although the Justice Department had earlier stated that they would not pursue criminal charges. But now that the criminally corrupt former attorney general is busy alienating his family in Texas, perhaps that's changed too. Anyway. Keep an eye out.
Dummy - oops, Rummy's torture complaint: A coalition of international human rights groups slapped Mr. HappySlappy with a suit that alleges that during his tenure, the former defense secretary "ordered and authorized" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One of the groups responsible for bringing the charges is the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

"There are Guantananamo detainees who were tortured that are living in France," said [its spokesman]. "It gives French courts another reason to prosecute."

Ratner says Europe is "getting very hot for Rumsfeld," and suggests a French court could at least issue its version of a subpoena.

"We hope that this case will move forward," he said, "especially as the US says it can continue to torture people."

Other groups involved in the complaint include the International Federation of Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

Would that be the "Old Europe" you derided back in those heady days of power when you sat at the right hand of that guy you're too busy to miss, Li'l Boots is his name?

For a PDF file with details of the allegations against Rummy, go here.
And finally, Valerie Plame told Chris Matthews on Hardball where to stick it.

Matthews asked Plame how, if she believed the Bush administration had covered up a "false case for war," that she didn't also anticipate that the White House would strike back at her personally.

"Call me naive," she said, "but that wasn't on our list of options...we didn't actually consider they would betray our country's national security to get at me."

That's exactly what they did by blowing her cover. Her job was to keep an eye on acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, especially in the middle-east. She was trained to manage a group of intelligence analysts who cultivated sources of information, analysed the derived data, and prepared reports for our government. Keeping her status secret required the setting up of cover organizations complete with identities and cover stories, personnel, offices, locations, covert and noncovert staff.

In one fell swoop, the petty Darth Cheney destroyed all that because he was pissed off with Joe Wilson. You might not like Mr. Wilson or Ms. Plame, but the fact is that blowing the cover of an intelligence operative is not something to be undertaken lightly. Intelligence networks take time and effort - sometimes decades - to build. Destroying them has far-reaching implications.

Every single person who ever had any contact with Valerie Plame over the course of her entire service and her trips around the world has been placed under scrutiny by multiple intelligence operatives of other governments as a result of that contact. Whether it was a friend's friend, a casual acquaintance, a friendly reporter, or a hotel clerk, they are all going to be followed, sussed out, maybe even questioned, to determine the exact nature of their relationship with her. If any of them were operatives that she turned, or sources of information, their usefulness has been destroyed.

The entire network will have to be recreated, slowly and painfully. Meanwhile, every American living or working abroad will be subjected to additional scrutiny, especially anyone in the diplomatic corps. All because one nasty old man wanted revenge. Yes, it's treason. I'm disgusted that no other fishwrap reported it as such.

See the video clip here.

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Politics: Republican Calls Justice Department

on its bullshit.
Richard Thornburgh, head of the Department of Justice under President Reagan and President Bush (the Not_So_Stupid one), yesterday accused none other than our good friend, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, of pursuing a politically motivated indictment of a prominent regional Democrat. From Raw Story comes the following report:

Thornburgh also charged that Buchanan avoided prosecuting Republicans within her jurisdiction.

"The fact that no investigation was undertaken stands out when Democrats in the western district of Pennsylvania have been investigated in such a highly visible manner," Thornburgh said.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Panel, however, took issue with Thornburgh's accusations.

"Your testimony . . . is the most pathetic example of innuendo and hearsay that I have seen," said Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL), during the hearing.

Oh, my. Eating our own, Rep Keller?

Thornburgh added:

"The citizens of the United States must have confidence that the department is conducting itself...without actual political influence or the appearance of political influence," Thornburgh said. "Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case."

Mr. Thornburgh obviously specializes in the fine art of understatement. I'd say, given the shenanigans conducted by the brazen weasel and liar Alberto GoneZales at the DOJ for the past X years, including late-night bedside visits to pressure seriously ill officials, firing those refusing to toe the ideological line, appointing obviously unqualified political hacks, and the like, I very much doubt there is a citizen anywhere in the confines of this vast land who has a scrap of confidence left in the DoJ.

Legislators also discussed the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. For the transcript of Thornburgh's testimony, see Raw Story. For a video, see TPM Muckraker.

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Politics - Good News!

According to former U.S. attorney John McKay (fired as part of the Justice Dept. scandal), the Justice Department's Inspector General might recommend that clueless moraltard and ethically impaired creep Asshole Gonezales be criminally prosecuted.

McKay began calling last spring for Gonzales to step down for his role in "a conspiracy to politicize the Justice Department," which McKay suggested might have been masterminded by Karl Rove.

It Can Bees Tiem For Turdblossom Cleanup Too?

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Politics - Snark, It's A Beautiful Thing

From Joshua Micah Marshall's blog, Talking Points Memo, comes a survey of reactions to the Goneness of Abu G:

And my favorite, from Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL): "Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things."

The house of cards is falling apart. Who's gone so far? Anyone keeping count? I'll make a list tonight.

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Politics - Celebrate! Down Goes The Weasel!

The Stinkeye. Let Me Give You Eet. (Image from Raw Story)

Professional lying weasel and practising amnesiac Alberto GONEzales hath resigned! Break out the party hats and chocolate cake. The despicable little wart on the bum of collective humanity will slither off to the bosom of his family, assuming their bosom does not collectively horripilate its way to the horizon.

I never thought he'd go, frankly. But I suppose getting the stinkeye from your boss AND every other person with whom you work in a professional capacity must be daunting even for someone possessed of so little by way of a conscience, a brain, a soul - in short, humanity.

Highlights of the story:

In an apparent answer to critics who say Gonzales's tenure at Justice has encouraged law enforcemet agencies to overstep their constitutional boundaries, Gonzales said Monday that he worked to ensure the "rights and civil liberties of our citizens are protected."

"It's a good day for justice in the United States," David Iglesias, one of the fired US Attorneys, said on MSNBC Monday.

[...]

Former Sen. John Edwards was the first Democratic presidential candidate to weigh in on the news of Gonzales' resignation, which broke early Monday morning.

"Better late than never," Edwards said in a prepared statement released by his campaign.

Critics said Gonzales' resignation should not end Congressional -- and possible criminal -- inquiries into his alleged misconduct overseeing the Justice Department.

Edwards is quite good with the terse comments, isn't he? Also quick on response. I like that. I also like that they're going to keep after the little creep with inquiries. I can't think of a more deserving person. Well, Karl Rove, but it would be a bit of a stretch to label that fat, pasty maggot a person.

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Politics - Skeletor In, Meatpuppet Out

Well, well, well. It looks as if LSOS Alberto Gonezales (thanks Maru for the monicker) is planning to step down as attorney-general "to spend more time lying to his family," in the words of the one and only Crankpot of Snark.

Raw Story provides the link. His replacement? Skeletor, aka professional incompetent and nincompoop-in-chief Michael Chertoff. When is someone going to ask him what the fuck he was doing as New Orleans drowned? He did a great job of deflecting responsibility for that scandal onto the hapless horses' ass, Michael Brown, but he was ultimately responsible. Oh, yes, he was teleloafing that day, wasn't he? Not-working from home?

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Politics or Entertainment?

I had an amazing dream. It was so good that when I woke up in the middle of it, I had to go right back to sleep and continue the dream. (Doesn't often happen - I'm a light sleeper, and once awake it's hard for me to fall asleep again.)

I dreamed lifeforms from another planet, who looked just exactly like humans, arrived on Earth unannounced and proceeded to seize the entire misadministration and try them for their crimes. The whole lot. Libby, Rice, Card, Snotty McLellan, Snarly McCrashcart, Commander Codpiece, Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz, Snow - the whole bleeding lot. They built an enormous platform in the ocean near Mexico, and invited people to watch. Those who could not physically attend could automagically witness the entire proceedings by some technofuturo sleight of hand. They locked the whole gang up in a large cage. Nearly a million people made it to the actual trials, including Iraqis and Afghanis. No one was allowed to manhandle the prisoners, but they were forced to remain in the cage in the sunlight and in public view, and were not given any privacy or food, although water was provided. (In this the aliens were kind - they did not starve the wretched creatures, they merely let them go hungry for a while - so, they said, "you can experience for yourselves what your policies have forced many millions of your fellow humans to suffer.")

The trial started with reading a list of the crimes committed by the ruling junta. Every crime against humans, animals, nature, whether emotional, or physical, was listed. It took a long time. The aliens periodically interrupted the reading of the list to feed the people present, in a loaves-and-fishes manner. People (the prisoners included) were permitted to retire to the restroom as needed, but a recess was always called for bathroom breaks. The prisoners were not permitted to stay in the restroom beyond the length of time required for them to satisfy their bodily needs. Rice locked herself in at one point and refused to come out, but the aliens simply teleported her out, to her lasting fury and embarrassment.

There were weird funky bits in the dream, like the aliens going to a shopping mall with several elderly blind people (??), and one of them teleporting onto the balcony of someone's apartment to enjoy a prepackaged lunch (??) and then swiftly teleporting out when the apartment tenant returned unexpectedly.

The prisoners were not permitted a defense, nor were they permitted to answer to the charges made against them. When Abu G. started shouting that these were illegal acts, the aliens laughed so hard, I thought they were going to choke. People kept threatening to throw things at the prisoners, but the only things they had been allowed to bring with them was their clothing. Some tried to throw their food, but the aliens simply disappeared the food, returning it upon promises of future good conduct. Snarly McCrashcart nearly had an aneurysm. Commander Bunnypants alternated between sitting with his head in his hands, looking depressed, and shouting curses and threats (at one point, the aliens simply turned off his sound, so your could see he was shouting but couldn't hear a word).

I realize it's just fantasy, but it was such a great dream. Let's face it, this bunch of perverse criminals will never be held accountable. So a person has to dream if they want any satisfaction.

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Politics - The Abu G Show

Gonzo won a prize for his tapdancing in April. Given his recent show of fancy footwork in further hearings, one wonders, what's he now? A dead duck?

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Politics - Impeach Gonezales, Too!

Arlen Specter has, for the first time I can remember, raised the issue of impeaching Abu G.

"Now we have a very remarkable turn of events: we now have the announcement that the administration will preclude the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from bringing a contempt citation," he said. "The president in that manner can stymie Congressional oversight...if that is to happen, the president can run the government as he chooses."

Specter then suggested the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor because he said the President had a conflict of interest. He went on to also offer the alternative that the Senate could try a contempt charge of its own, or consider the model of the impeachment of Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge who now serves as a Democratic Congressman from Florida.

Now, several "moderate" republicans - and even the "not-so-moderate" lot - are in the habit of publicly stating their support for some perfectly reasonable proposition or other that has been raised by their Democratic counterparts and has significant public support -- only to vote against any such legislation later.

Don't let the bastards get away with it. Write Specter, call his office, write letters to your editor. Gonezales is responsible for the horrible situation at the Justice Department. Gonezales is responsible for the Justice Department's failure to lay down the law to this lawless misadministration. With Gonezales gone and, perhaps, Patrick Fitzgerald in charge, an Augean-stables cleaning can occur and the country can begin to regain the trust that those who serve the people and the law will once again administer said law even-handedly and fairly.

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Politics - Bite Me, Pajama Pete!

Nice try, you befuddled senile lout! The Associated Press reports that Senator Pete (R-Alzheimer's) has "turned against" the war in Iraq. I might believe he gave a fuck about dead Iraqis and Americans if he weren't up to his eyeballs in the AttorneyGate scandal. Let's not forget David Iglesias, a fine man who has served his country both in the military and in the courts. Let's not forget that Domenici pressured Karl of the pasty fingers to take that good public servant out. Now he turns against the war? Now that we've spent (and lost) uncounted billions of taxpayer dollars, thrown our loved ones into the meatgrinder repeatedly, killed nearly a million innocent civilians, bombed young children and the elderly, ruined the nation's reputation along with its infrastructure, failed to save poor people in Louisiana and Kansas because the National Guard were being turned to mincemeat in an illegal, immoral war of occupation?

Pete, take your medication, you're blathering. Shut the fuck up and resign early and slink off into well-deserved obloquy, why don't you. Jesus Christ, these people make me so fucking mad. It's a good thing I have naturally low blood pressure, or I'd be blowing a gasket/popping a fucking artery.

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Politics - AttorneyGate: The Story Writes Itself

Unbelievable. The Washington Post reports that The Abu G Show, known to the hoi polloi by the familiar, catchy nick of "The Justice Department," is having trouble filling positions. What, Monica Goodling's alma mater, Regent U., is not sending them candidates? Apparently, no one's lining up to fill these plum positions. I don't suppose Abu G's recent pronouncements are helping any.

I'd introduce this quote with a "to wit," but wit appears to be in short supply in The Failed Administration of Commander von Bunnypants.

The developments add to growing personnel problems at the Justice Department in the wake of last year's firings of nine U.S. attorneys, which led to a political confrontation with Congress, lowered morale and contributed to an exodus of officials from the upper ranks of the department.

A quarter of all federal prosecutors are now on the job on an interim or acting basis -- reflecting a vacancy rate that is much higher than normal, according to department statistics. Five senior Justice Department officials have also resigned since March, including one who announced his departure Friday.

"There are certainly a lot of vacancies, even for the end of an administration," said Dennis Boyd, executive director of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. "For some turnover to be occurring is not that big of a surprise, but the department has handled . . . [the prosecutor firings] so poorly that you're left with an unusual situation."

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Politics - AttorneyGate: Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Now, why d'you suppose Georgy-Porgy, the ever-willing foot-in-mouth Blabberer-in-Chief, is holding his - hmph! - peace in the matter of the Democratic Congress' newly issued subpoenas of Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor? Could it be nerves, as the NYT suggests?

Bush had said, "I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials," and added that he was "absolutely" willing to fight over subpoenas in court.

"But when the subpoenas actually arrived on Wednesday, for Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, Bush said nothing," Stolberg observes. "The current White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding -- who recently beefed up his staff by hiring additional lawyers to handle the growing demands for documents and testimony -- has yet to offer a response."

Stolberg continues, "Those sounds of silence suggest that the White House is grappling with a dilemma. If Bush reaches an accommodation with lawmakers on testimony from Miers and Taylor, Democrats will inevitably demand similar terms for Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser. The last thing Bush wants is Rove going up to Capitol Hill to submit to questions from Democrats."

Fear that Karlie will sing like a canary to save his own skin? Or is he losing it as everything around him turns to shit, like everything within him, and the fetid stench of his own inner darkness reduces his world to a meaningless hell?

What am I thinking? Commander Codpiece would never admit to being wrong. “I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” he famously said recently. Of course he is. He's a psychopath. He doesn't give a fuck about the wounded, maimed, and killed, civilian or military, American or Iraqi. Punk.

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Politics - AttorneyGate

Jeebus, Gonezales is even more of a retard than Chimpy McStupie. And don't nobody give me shit about my use of the term. I wouldn't use it to describe a person with a genuine mental limitation, but it's perfectly OK to use it on an inane, underachieving draft-dodger with an allergic reaction to reality. This guy works HARD at cultivating stupid. Anyway, here's Abu G on his plans to add further dignificitude to the Attorney-General's office. Feckin' eejit:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales plans annual evaluations of US attorneys including a way to discuss grievances from politicians.

"If that should happen," writes Andrew Zajac in an editorial for the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, "expect the fair-mindedness and independence Americans still count on from their Justice Department to slip."

"At least once a year every United States attorney is going to sit down with either myself or the deputy attorney general, and we're going to have a very candid conversation about issues and problems in their districts," Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee last month. "If I've heard of complaints from a member of Congress, it gives me an opportunity or the deputy attorney general an opportunity to tell the U.S. attorney what we're hearing."

What this boils down to is, any halfway decent and/or competent lawyer will get the fuck out of there post-haste, leaving the toadying bottom-feeders and Professional Xian Rethuglicans to swill about in the devolving scum that Abu G and Stupie McPoopy have turned the Justice Department into.

Christ! It beggars belief.

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Politics - Vote Suppression, Voter Fraud

I've heard people of my acquaintance say, "Well, what exactly was illegal about the firing of the U.S. attorneys?" I usually refer them to Firedoglake, which has done a bang-up job of covering the AttorneyGate scandal (as I like to call it) and the Libby trial. EmptyWheel of The Next Hurrah produced coverage detailed enough that the press looked to her for their information. That said (and linked), it looks as if the straw and pigshit walls of the Bushies' castle is about to come tumbling down around their ears. For, lo and behold, investigative journalist Greg Palast has posted the email with the attached caging list that Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's aide, created to destroy the right to vote of Americans who are homeless or serving in the Army??? What the fuck?

Okay, just think of me as an iggerant furrner, but isn't the right to vote the very basis of a democracy? And, I can understand scrutinizing the homeless voters, who might not have a fixed address and might be more likely to be targets of identity fraud, or illegal voting practices, or other shenanigans. But manufacturing a bogus war, shipping off poor and minority people to fight in it, and, while they're away, busily implementing a scheme to ensure that their vote is not counted when they're not even around to contest it - that takes slimy Machiavellian tactics to an entirely new low. Are you angry yet, people? While George Bush lied the country into a war which he sent YOUR FUCKING KIDS to fight, he was busy stealing their votes!!! No wonder the goddamned war drags on! How many in the military might have voted for a strong progressive, or even a Democrat, instead of the Rethuglicans who took power?

There is no hell bad enough for the architects of this outrage.

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