Because it's not the Epstein files?

 

What do you see?

 

Our very own home-grown Goebbels

Stephen Miller who hangs out with alt-right Nazi wanna-bees.

Anyone know a good exorcist?

United We Serve

United We Serve Kick-Off
Posted by Cammie Croft

Last week, when President Obama announced United We Serve -- he called on all Americans to volunteer this summer and do our part to rebuild our communities.

When he said "all," he meant it.

Today to kick off United We Serve, First Lady Michelle Obama, Cabinet Secretaries, and Senior Administration officials have fanned out across the country to participate in service projects.

The First Lady is rolling up her sleeves alongside the First Lady of California Maria Shriver and Corporation of National and Community Service acting CEO Nicky Goren to help build a public playground at Bret Harte Public Elementary School in San Francisco. Defense Secretary Gates is spending time with our veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Commerce Secretary Locke is reading to children at La Mesita Homeless Shelter in Mesa, Arizona. Just to name a few.

It's going to take all of us working together to build a new foundation for America and it will happen one community at a time. Watch this special message from the First Lady to learn how you can do your part:

White House's YouTube

Just livestreamed the 100 day press conference.

The first 100 days

In pictures.

God, it's wonderful to have the Obamas in the White House!

Terrorists at the White House!

Anyone check the terrorists for bombs or bugs?:

President Obama mocked the Washington area's Defcon 1 response to a few snowflakes last week. Let's see how the flinty Chicagoan does with the latest living-in-Washington challenge: critters.

With permission from the Secret Service, the National Park Service has been in hot pursuit of a pack of raccoons spotted roaming the manicured grounds near the White House, a spokesman said.

(h/t to Mahakal of Cannablog)

But the worst terrorist is one hatched on our own soil and newly jobless, Dick Cheney.



Keith Olbermann:

"I think there's a high probability of such an attempt. Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States."

"The Bush System," as John Yoo so aptly re-christened it the other day. Start the wrong war, detain the wrong people, employ the wrong methods, pursue the wrong leads, utilize the wrong emotions. Beat up first, ask questions later. You know, just like Al-Qaeda does, or Iran. Save this nation from terrorists by doing the terrorists' work for them, Mr. Cheney. To your credit, sir, you have added a new monster under a new bed, to try to continue to foment a national policy of panic. It's the Terrorists-on-our-streets ploy.

It's when not if for another terrorist attack, Mr. Cheney. But it won't be President Obama's fault when it does happen. In your eight horrible long years in office you've made more people become terrorists than Bin Laden could ever have wished for. But your love of secret shadow governments and rendition and torture is all your own and very un-American. Besides, it's not very subtle but you're almost begging al-Qaeda to attack on Obama's watch just to prove a point, that your style of 'governing' is better than his.

So kindly slink back into the shadows. Even the New York Times editorial board wishes you would go away:

In an interview published today by the website Politico, the (thankfully) former vice president let loose a stream of disinformation and attacks on Mr. Obama that were breathtaking even by the standards of a man who set new lows for meanness and dissembling.

For example:

– Mr. Obama is making it more likely terrorists will launch a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack on the United States — because he doesn’t want to torture prisoners, violate the Geneva Conventions, and ignore the Constitution and federal law.

Mr. Cheney’s evidence? None whatsoever. It was just yet another way for him to justify the repugnant policies he helped put in place for the treatment of detainees after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

– Mr. Obama is “more concerned about reading the rights to an al Qaeda terrorist” than “with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans.”

Once again, this is nonsense — just the sort of bald propaganda Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush used to frighten Congress into voting for appalling pieces of legislation like the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping.

Cheney's list goes on, but the article finishes with this fervent wish:

After reading the interview, we found ourselves wishing Mr. Cheney would simply retire and stay out of the public eye — to a great extent.

Maybe you could hang out with the raccoons in their secure undisclosed location.

Obvious why Georgie called it The Google

And talked about The Internets:

Washington, DC (AHN) - The technologically savvy Obama campaign was taken by surprise upon their move into the White House. For a staff in charge of the launching perhaps the most technologically-advanced presidential campaign in history, the lack of technology in the White House caught them by quite a surprise.

Used to the comfort of 21st century technologies like iPhones, email and broadband internet, the staff was less than pleased to find the White House stuck in the technological dark ages with old computer software, disconnected phone lines, and security regulations prohibiting email, IM, and even Facebook.

[snip]

Many Obama team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, were instead given computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing.

Senior advisers were less than pleased with the new arrangements, which severely limit mobility, partly for security reasons and to ensure that all official work is preserved under the Presidential Records Act.

Wonder if Bush took his Pong game with him, too....

The Georgia war had Cheney's fingerprints on it?

What was a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney doing in Georgia shortly before Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's troops engaged in what became a disastrous fight with South Ossetian rebels -- and then Russian troops?

[snip]

And yes, Joseph R. Wood, Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs, was in Georgia shortly before the war began.

But, the vice president's office says, he was there as part of a team setting up the vice president's just-announced visit to Georgia. (It is common for the White House to send security, policy, communications and press aides to each site the president and vice president will visit ahead of the trip, to begin making arrangements and planning the agenda.)

The White House disclosed on Monday that Cheney would hurry over to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy next week, almost immediately after addressing the Republican National Convention on Labor Day.

And so it was that a team from the vice president's office, U.S. security officials and others were in Georgia several days before the war began.

It had nothing to do, the vice president's office said, with a military operation that some have said suggests a renewal of the Cold War.

Uh huh. Right. And we should believe you exactly why? After all this time where nothing out of the Vice President's office has been the truth?

I don't think so.

Just imagine if a Clinton or Obama administration did this

And imagine the outcry, the baying of hounds, the frothing of mouths as the Right Wing Smear Machine ground into full throttle:

WASHINGTON -- The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office, according to an internal White House draft document obtained by The Associated Press.

The nine-page outline of the White House's e-mail problems invites companies to bid on a project to recover the missing electronic messages.

The work would be carried out through April 19, 2009, according to the Office of Administration request for contractors' proposals, which was dated June 20.

Last week, the White House declined to comment on the document.

[snip]

"We will continue to work with members of Congress and the National Archives and will communicate the results of our accounting effort at an appropriate time," White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has said the White House's failure to properly archive e-mails violated the Presidential Records Act. The top lawyer for the National Archives has expressed disappointment the White House did not have a formal records management system in place.

On Wednesday, House Democratic Caucus chairman Rahm Emmanuel of Illinois criticized how the problem has been handled, saying, "The White House that wants to keep track of all your e-mail and phone records can't even keep track of their own."

Right. Everyone stands back while Cheney hires a TRUCK SHREDDING SERVICE to come to his office, has two man-sized safes to keep his paperwork in, silences everyone who's ever worked for, near, in the vicinity of him while he clearly took notes on how not to get caught from the Watergate scandal. There's even a question on exactly how many people staff his office. And Cheney has even cast doubt which branch of government the vice-president works for and answers to?

It's called covering your tracks, wiping your fingerprints, giving yourself plausible deniability. And yet people cannot call the White House on this blatant of all lies?

I told you guys he'd have a dungeon in his compound in Paraguay!

Not only does the White House have its own interrogation room:

Usman is trundled from the SUV, escorted through the West Gate, and onto the manicured grounds. No one speaks as the agents walk him behind the gate’s security station, down a stairwell, along an underground passage, and into a room — cement-walled box with a table, two chairs, a hanging light with a bare bulb, and a mounted video camera. Even after all the astonishing turns of the past hour, Usman can’t quite believe there’s actually an interrogation room beneath the White House, dark and dank and horrific.

But because Georgie has been such an obedient boy for eight years, they'll let him pull the lever one more time:

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday approved the execution of an Army soldier who terrorized Fayetteville, N.C., for months in the late 1980s and was eventually convicted of raping and killing four women, and raping and attempting to kill another.

Bush signed off on the death penalty for Ronald A. Gray, who grew up in the Liberty City area of Miami and was stationed at Fort Bragg at the time of the crimes. Eventually, he was convicted in connection with eight rapes and four murders that took place in in the area. Gray, who was 22 and held the rank of specialist at the time of his court martial, has been on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since 1988.

Bush's action was the first time in more than half a century that a president has approved the execution of a member of the Armed Services.

Oh yes, we know that the command for torture came from the very top.

Will the election in Pennsylvania actually reflect the votes?

House GOP Leaders and White House Deliver Blow to Verifiable Election

After a year of consideration, the House today unexpectedly failed to pass in a streamlined process a bill that would have authorized funding for states to replace paperless electronic voting machines in time for the presidential election in November.

"Our voting systems are in shambles, and seven months before we choose our next president, the White House and House Republican leaders today delivered a blow to secure elections and the ability to conduct meaningful recounts," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. "The United States is spending billions of dollars to build democracy overseas, yet our own Congress turned its back on the workings of our own democracy."

At stake is Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008. The bill had been placed on the House "suspension" calendar, meaning it needed two-thirds support to pass. Democrats and Republicans last week had reached agreement and passage was expected today.

Then the White House at the eleventh hour issued a statement urging the House to vote against the bill. And, in an unexpected move, Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the minority whip, also came out against the bill.

Gee... could it be that if all the votes actually are counted, Republicans lose? Is that why they resort to all those illegal activities like ... oh, preventing people from actually voting as in caging, phone blocking, mocking women voters, losing voters' ballots, failures in programming and protection of the electronic voter machines, preventing recounts, declaring there was Democratic voter fraud when there was none (it's called projection)?

Remember what Paul Krugman said about Republicans:

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

Do you really think the Republicans are going to let the Democrats get their way this time?

Will they make sure it will be Hillary that runs against McCain because she might lose?

Remember what Greg Palast said:

BuzzFlash: You’re having incredible success with the new expanded paperback edition of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Of course, the electronic voting machines and how they function is a very significant issue, but your specialty has really been how the Bush/Rove GOP political machine keeps persons who are likely to vote Democratic or Independent from voting.

Greg Palast: Yes. People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it.

Just a heads up. Just because they've gutted the Treasury, ruined the economy, sunk us neck-deep into the quagmire of two un-winnable wars, destroyed the Constitution.. even with all that, these Republicans who hate government still think they should govern.

And they will continue to steal elections to prove it.

Update at Bradblog:

This Tuesday's crucial contest will be primarily run on 100% faith-based, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen or push-button) e-voting machines across the state. There will be no way to determine after the election whether the computers have accurately recorded, or not, the intent of those voters who voted on them. As VerifiedVoting.org summarizes the crucial contest, it "will be essentially unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable."

crossposted at SteveAudio

Oh, grow up!

Still obsessing over the blue dress? After HOW many years?

Via Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla, ABC's Brian Ross drools in delight over Hillary Clinton's presence on the day of the 'blue dress incident'.

Is this where Brian Ross wishes to dwell? Is this where he is most comfortable? Back in the glory days of the Clinton smear campaign, baying at the head of the hounds? Was that his finest hour that he must return to the pitiful bones and gnaw at them once again?

There is a lot to say over those who obsess over other people's sex lives, but pawing over the Clinton's exposes a great deal more about the writer than about the long ago sex act. It offers nothing new.

So... who cares?

Green light, red light

Lights are on but nobody's home. Helen Thomas tries to get Dana Perino to answer a question:

Q Would the President seek an explicit green light from Congress if he intended to bomb or attack Iran, or does he think he has that right?

MS. PERINO: Well, Helen, there is no intention of bombing Iran. We are on a diplomatic track. We are working with our partners, the U.N. Security Council. We have provided them, the Iranians, a road map to get to a civil nuclear program. They have walked away from that. We are hoping that they'll come back. We are both working with our U.N. Security Council partners as well as pursuing sanctions on our own, and there is not an intention to bomb Iran, as you said.

Q Does the President think he has the right to do it without going through Congress?

MS. PERINO: That is -- it's a hypothetical situation, Helen. I'm not going to answer it.

Q It's not hypothetical. It's concrete.

MS. PERINO: Go ahead. Sarah.

Why does the White House even have a press room?

Is the Petraeus-Bush rumpus another fake-out?

Laura Rozen writes for Mother Jones:

Add me to the list of the puzzled. Many signs are from those advising Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus that he and his advisors think they have a strategy that they say is somewhat succeeding and don't want Congress to pull the plug. In other words, Petraeus and the White House are ostensibly pretty close in advocating a continued large scale US presence in Iraq for as long as possible.

So it's bizarre that the White House is apparently indicating that it wants to preempt his findings and hijack the Petraeus report from Petraeus, and confine Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker to testifying before Congress in closed session.

So puzzling that one is suspicious: is the White House ultimately going to "give in" to Congressional pressure and "let" Petraeus testify, only to have it revealed, that, what do you know, it turns out that the good general too thinks the surge has done wonders and, with time, might reduce violence to a degree that greater political reconciliation takes hold. He even forecasts that over the next year, he might be able to move troops out of the areas where violence has gone down, hinting at a lower US troop presence by next year, without offering too many specifics.

Of any reported White House effort to silence or sideline Petraeus, one of the general's close associates emails me, "I do not believe it."

I'm getting a little dizzy... maybe it'd be easier if we forgot all this and bombed Iran.

Don't sign anything, Mr. Brown!

And don't do anything incriminating that can be used as blackmail while you are at Camp David!

PHILADELPHIA - The White House has confirmed that U.S. President George W. Bush will be meeting Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Camp David next week.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush and Brown "will focus on continuing to move forward on issues of shared interests and concerns." The meeting follows the installation of Brown as the new British Prime Minster last month.

He took over from Tony Blair who had pursued a close relationship with the US and had co-operated in every aspect of foreign policy issues. However Brown has indicated that he would not be an 'yes" man to the US and his main aim is to win back voters to the Labour fold.

With all that NSA spying, God knows what Bush and Cheney had on Blair....

Like the undead zombies

Here's proof that if you don't stake them through the heart, they keep on coming back to life:

A few months ago, Seymour Hersh reported that a White House official and Iran Contra alum, Elliot Abrams, had recently led a "lessons learned" discussion about Iran Contra:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

Today the Washington Post reports that the White House may have taken that lesson to heart. It has determined, the Post reports, that in legal disputes between the Congress and the White House over executive privilege, game over, because the White House has decided no US attorney can uphold a contempt of Congress decree:

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Fred Thompson was a mole for Nixon

The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

[snip]

John Dean , Nixon's former White House counsel, who was a central witness at the hearings, said he believed that Baker and Thompson were anything but impartial players. "I knew that Thompson would be Baker's man, trying to protect Nixon," Dean said in an interview.

Down With Tyranny and Crooks and Liars has more on the wonderfulness of Fred Thompson.

But remember, he's all manly and stuff!

Nyah!

Via NTodd of Dohiyimir, Georgie stamps his feet:

President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.

The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.

Nyah nyah nyah, says Georgie: