Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism (washingtonpost.com)

OOPS! seems Condosleezza Rice wasn't exactly on top of middle east terrorism in 2001. here you can see her on thoughts about what our real threats were BACK in 2001 and how she thinks we should deal with them. this doesn't make her look too 'on top of her game' as they say.

An FYI from Harpers

It was found that health-care lobbyists spent $237 million lobbying Congress in 2000, more than every other industry combined; drug companies spent $96 million, quite a bit more than other medical sectors.

A Mouse in the House: Part 2

Mr. Mooch and i were FINALLY about to call it a night. just as we were headng down the call Mr. Mooch heard something. it was our cat SOCKS chasing the mouse. now, this is my first time to actually see a cat chase a mouse, and let me tell you....it was PATHETIC! it was an OJ style stroll. i'm thinking, "CRAP! is this cat trying to figure out what to do?" about that time, the mouse turns up the heat. She starts to FLY down the hall, when...oop. she falls down the vent for the floor heater.

DAMN! that mouse HAD to have eaten some of the poison we put out. now its down in some crack, and we'll have to take the damn thing apart just to get it out again. I don't mind pest, but i do have an aversion to corpses of most types. damn! I'm leaving this job for Mr. Mooch!

Paying the Cost to be the Boss...

I had a great weekend.

With the wife out of town on her job, i decided to go visit my family in The Mississippi Delta and then ease on up to one of my favorite places--MEMPHIS. I'd planned to see the Stax Museum, but McLemore Ave. is having some MAJOR construction done, so i couldn't physically get to it. a Disappointment.

Before i left Jackson, i had my FILTHY car washed to a red that looked like wet nail polish it was so pretty. I hit the road beaming, dead set on having a good time. when i got into memphis, i had an experience that bordered on the surreal. I often head up 3rd Street which leads to the Stax Records Museum and studio. not supprisingly, if you leave the "crossroads" around my home town of Clarksdale and travel on HWY 61, it turns into 3rd Street and runs right into the heart of Memphis Soul Music at Stax (both literally, figuratively, and metaphysically). Its not a great part of town, but its not as bad as others. foolish or not i've never really been uncomfortable in the 'bad' parts of town. the first chance i get, i put down the top and drive into memphis.

I love the city. i like the way it looks, even the worst parts. i like the people. i just like it. I'm cruising up 3rd and i'm playing some James Brown:

Paying the Cost to be the Boss
I'm paying the cost, to be the BOSS....

as i pass through intersections, something is happening. Some people are noticing me. I seem to be sticking out. Some of it is obvious. I'm the only one in a bright red car. i'm the only white face. i'm the only one playing JB loud enough to be heard on the sidewalk. I'm the only one who's tag reads "DEMCRAT". For various reasons, i'm drawing attention, and you know what? its all good. people are smiling and waving at me from the sidewalk. people in cars are rolling down their windows to wave at me and say "hi!"

Then there's the capper. I'm at a red light, just before i get to Stax. A mustang pulls up beside me. the driver looks over at me. he nods. i smile and nod back. James Brown is still singing:

Look at me.
Know what you see?
You see a BAD mother!

At this point, the guy's buddy makes him open the door. the guy gets out of the Mustang and comes to me for the sole purpose of reaching over to slap me five.

Jesus. I felt so cool i was getting self-conscious about it. a damn fine day.

Look at me.
Know what you see?
You see a BAD mother!

Demonstrators Swarm Around Rove's Home

"Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.

The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed to a window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible. "

Palacios said that Rove was "very upset" and was "yelling in our faces" and that Rove told them "he hoped we were proud to make his 14-year-old and 10-year-old cry."

A White House spokesman said one of the children was a neighbor.

Palacios, trembling and in tears herself, said, "He is very offended because we dared to come here. We dared to come here because he dared to ignore us. I'm sorry we disturbed his children, but our children are disturbed every day.


I'm sure Karl Rove isn't used to this sort of reaction. its nice to see him getting some heat from the people who suffer under his policies.

HOLY CRAP!!

For all his religious pandering, i find it funny that the Bush Campaign gets upset when Kerry uses scripture in campaigning. Bush Spokesman Steve Schmidt says, "was beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse and a sad exploitation of Scripture for a political attack."

So what's the HORRIBLE line Kerry used? It's James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?"

someone feeling a little guilty?

This campaign talking about the exploitation of Christianity for political gain is utterly laughable.

Condi's Secret

OK, Condoleeza Rice has refused to testify before the 9/11 commission because the questions asked might get into national security issues. So why is she on EVERY network under the sun talking about the VERY things she can't talk about with the 9/11 commission? it was 60 minutes tonite. Sorry Condi, this just isn't passing the smell test.

Delay Indictment

Seems Tom DeLay (R-TX) may be stepping down from his role as House Majority leader if he is infact indicted on campaign finance abuses. According to Roll Call, there are "quiet discussions with a handful of colleagues about the possibility that he will have to step down from his leadership post temporarily if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury investigating alleged campaign finance abuses."

Evidently DeLay's PAC has been spending hundreds of thousands more than they are reporting. oops!

Couldn't happen to a worse guy.

Gotta Leave that 9 to 5 up on the Shelf...

I like Off the Wall by Michael Jackson. it makes me think of eating at Wendy's in the 70s where i could get little cups of ketchup where i could dip my fries. it seemed like they always played the singles from that album...oh, and Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder. man they always played those tunes.

I also like the old wendy's tables. they were coverd with these old print ads from way back when. i was facinated.

ANOHTER DAY AT THE CAPITOL...


I work with Mr. Mooch at the capitol. he likes it there because it's pretty and there's lots of places to climb under the dome. Besides that, it's where he and I earn our money. We try to keep an idea of what's going on with Bills that might help or hurt consumers and then steer them to their proper demise (or salvation). Our Governor wants to cut the healthcare of about 65 million poor people in this state, and they're none to happy about it.

The AARP had a BIG rally there at the capitol today and this came at the same time as the State Community Colleges. both together pretty much had the capitol filled to the dome and made it nearly impossible for me to do my job, this i retire back her to the CPU to dispatch some digital persuasion to the folks that need it. Mr. Mooch can do this stuff better than i can. i operate much better in person.

Fortunately for us, the Speaker of the House is a good man and he makes our job a lot easier. this is not to REMOTELY say he's 'for us' or that he's even 'on our side'. he's not really...at least not as much as he's for doing the RIGHT THING. Luckily we just happen to both be trying to DO the right thing and i benefit from that stroke of luck. i like the speaker, and the speaker...well, i have no idea if he likes me. he stays above the political fray (which its my job to be in) and you know what? that's fine with me.

FUNNY

oh, his is GREAT!! (toon)

It's the Tax Cuts, Stupid!

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published some of its calculations last week. It shows that the budget deficit is, for the most part, a result of Bush's Tax Cuts and Spending Increases.

"But what about the economic turn-down?" you ask.

Well, the CBO estimates that around 6% is from economic weakness.

oh, and while in case you missed it...

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency EPA revealed that the administration will not perform scientific studies to determine the effects of its new mercury emissions policy. Oddly, the policy was written, for the most part, by the industries
responsible for most mercury pollution.

Ah, it must feel good to simply trust.

Taken for a ride by Bush

Seems Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, had this to say about the Bush Whitehouse:

"That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."

Guess he's part of the coalition of the duped.

RECUSAL REFUSAL--Motions, Motorcycles and the Mississippi Supreme Court Create Controversy

An ABA Journal ereport BY STEPHANIE FRANCIS WARD

Justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court are revved up about a motorcycle-riding ex-colleague and his son-in-law's recusal request.

It all started in 2001 with a $71 million verdict against Washington Mutual Finance Group. A jury found that the institution had asked customers to renew loans without disclosing additional charges.

The lawyer for the plaintiff customers, Shane F. Langston of Jackson, is the son-in-law of C.R. "Chuck" McRae, who until January 2004 was a judge on the Mississippi Supreme Court. Which in itself is not remarkable, except that Washington Mutual is appealing the verdict to the state high court.

After McRae left the court, a motion for recusal was filed. Which in itself is not remarkable, except that it wasn't filed by Washington Mutual on the basis of Langston's relation to McRae. Langston filed the motion, claiming in part that the court was biased against him because of bad blood between him, McRae, five other justices on the court and his wife, Rebecca Langston, McRae's daughter.

Here's what happened: Last year, Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman filed a complaint against McRae with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. Joining him in the complaint were four other justices. Rebecca Langston, who practices law with her husband Shane, represented her father before the commission.

The complaint alleges that after losing his bid for re-election to the court, McRae allegedly said to Pittman, "I have 369 days left in my term, and I
intend to have fun on every one of them. I'm going to call you 'Li'l Tadpole' every day that I can." The complaint goes on to allege that McRae threatened to whip Pittman, disrupted the court and refused to step down in matters that involved his family members.

Nevertheless, the court is unbiased and capable of judging the issues, Pittman says. He wrote the Feb. 5 decision denying the recusal motion in Washington Mutual Finance Group v. Blackmon, No. 2001-CA-01911-SCT. The opinion focuses on case law that presumes judges are qualified and unbiased, unless a party can offer evidence that produces reasonable doubt about the validity of that presumption.

"Unless the antagonism is extreme and clearly demonstrated, or unless the animosity so demonstrated is coupled with other prejudicial circumstances, recusal is not mandated," Pittman wrote for the court. "The recusal mechanism must be guarded carefully to check its use as a weapon to be wielded in a campaign to maneuver onto more favorable fields of battle."

The court also rejected Langston's allegations that the five justices are biased in favor of another lawyer, W. Scott Welch III, who submitted an amicus
> brief for the Mississippi Bankers Association on behalf of Washington Mutual. Langston contended the five justices sought Welch's services after McRae served subpoenas on them in the matter before the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance.

Ultimately, Welch's law firm declined to represent the five, but not before he ghostwrote two motions for them, according to Langston. One sought a protective order, and another asked the commission to appoint Welch and his law partner as special counsel for the McRae matter. Welch would not comment on the case.

Meanwhile, the commission is still deciding whether McRae should be sanctioned, says Brant Brantley, executive director of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. The agency found the evidence was insufficient to warrant an interim suspension of McRae, however, in findings of fact issued last Halloween.

The commission said evidence did not support allegations that McRae had refused to recuse himself in matters involving his family. And while the commission did conclude that McRae threatened to whip Pittman, the chief justice did not feel threatened, the opinion said. The commission also concluded that McRae's colleagues were partly to blame for the situation, citing admissions by McRae, Pittman and a third justice that they all had used inappropriate language.

Brantley would not say if the commission is considering sanctions for other supreme court members.

The controversy hasn't broken McRae's stride-or his spirit. He is currently undertaking the "Chuck McRae World Tour," traveling across the globe on a tricked-out motorcycle.

Before leaving the bench and the state, however, McRae donned an American flag-print bandanna and a leather vest and drove his cycle through the marble halls of the courthouse, posting photos of his deed on his personal Web site, chuckmcrae.com. Also posted is a photo of Pittman looking agitated and holding a copy of Forbes magazine, which features McRae on his motorcycle.

Meanwhile, Langston says he plans to petition the court for rehearing, saying he will never get a fair hearing from the five justices who filed a complaint against McRae.

And for the record, Langston says he does not know if McRae actually did call Pittman a "Li'l Tadpole."



©2004 ABA Journal

OPERATION IGNORE!

A handy little graph to guide you through the White House actions in "Operation Ignore"!

Center for American Progress

A Myth vs. Fact sheet from The Center for American Progress:

CLAIM #1: “Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked “urgent” asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says “principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat.” No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11. - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #2: “The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against “nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11.” Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that “It is not surprising that people make that connection” between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said “we don’t know” if there is a connection.

CLAIM #3: "[Clarke] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Dick Clarke continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President's principle counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #4: “In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's ‘Strategic Plan’ from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism ‘the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.’” - Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #5: “The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.” – Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…” - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04

FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #7: "[Bush] wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with [terrorism], and that process was in motion throughout the spring." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: “Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.” - Washington Post, 1/20/02

Charlize Theron is about to play Jinx, based on the comic by Brian Michael Bendis.

So You Want to Be an Author?

Interesting insights from someone in the industry. VERY eye opening if you ever just thought about writing a book.

2004 NCAA Tournament

With my Bulldogs out of it and Kentucky getting bounced too, only a handful of the "Top" teams in the nation are still alive. I guess this is the year of the underdog. ok, here's my picks:

I'm pulling for Vanderbilt and Alabama from the SEC with a sympathetic nod to vandy for losing so much in Football. outside that, you gotta love UAB for being a giant slayer.

That being said, the safe money is on Duke and St. Joe, which i don't care for. Duke IS from the south, but they've won enough of these things! i'm pulling for the underdogs for now.

More from Richard Clarke and 60 Minutes

I figured i'd post some of these sour nuggets:

"Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.

'We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.

'There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.

'I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years.' "


Al Franken goes into GREAT detail regarding all these matters in his most recent book. it's a little suprising just how informed that book is concerning the dates and actions of various members of the Bush Administration. Clarke confirms that some of the most important meetings were put off until it was too late:

Finally, says Clarke, "The cabinet meeting I asked for right after the inauguration took place-- one week prior to 9/11."

This further cements my view that being wrong, being THIS wrong, has made the VP irrational in his willingness to see terrorists behind every tree. the zealousness he shows, comes out of the fear he's going to miss it again and so he overreacts in all the wrong directions. this is why he almost seems in denial about WMD and the Iraq-Al Qaeda connections. he's been scared and he wants to see those connections regardless of what the reality. its like a man in shock, rocking himself, saying some reassuring fact to himself over and over so that he can find some certainty.

i exaggerate, but in a way i do not. speaking of life in denial:

As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Stephen Hadley (Bush's National Security Council) says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said."

Sure you do Stephen, and America thanks you for watching out for us.