corruption

...do you think the nutroots would stop plugging their ears and shouting "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah"?

Oh, probably not. It's that godless science that's the problem, right?

Book says Souter mulled resignation after Bush v. Gore.

In “The Nine,” which goes on sale Sept. 18, Toobin writes that while the other justices tried to put the case behind them, vid Souter alone was shattered,” at times weeping when he thought of the case. “For many months, it was not at all clear whether he would remain as a justice,” Toobin continues. “That the Court met in a city he loathed made the decision even harder. At the urging of a handful of close friends, he decided to stay on, but his attitude toward the Court was never the same.”

What happened in those deliberations?

...you get this:

The owner of the mine, a fat not very pretty older man, had become a media star, and had said something in the last news cycle that the press had latched onto, and now talking heads were saying nasty shit about him, the kind of stuff they never say about politicians or TV anchors, the stuff they reserve for the powerless, death row inmates, Don Imus.

What he did wasn't so clear. They said (in an amazed tone) "and now he's denying he ever said it." They showed tape of him denying it, but the tape didn't include what he was denying having said. In other words, here's a fat, ugly, old man, being defensive. He's a bad person. I found myself thinking, nahh, he's probably just an average person, caught in the gears on a slow news day....

The thing is, why we need to be paying attention to this in the blogosphere....

Ummm ... yeah, paying attention is important.

Via Shakesville, we learn that Hearst Newspapers did a little reading between the Pentagon lines:

The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.

The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there.

The actions could boost the number of combat soldiers from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.

Separately, when additional support troops are included in this second troop increase, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 -- a record-high number -- by the end of the year.

I'm speechless.

"It doesn't surprise me that they're not talking about it," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, a former U.S. commander of NATO troops in Bosnia, referring to the Bush administration. "I think they would be very happy not to have any more attention paid to this."

I really really hope this analysis is wrong. What is definitely not reassuring is that we now have a military surge industry that is making very very big bucks on the war, and stand to lose out on mega cash flows when we withdraw. Dina Rasor writes in The Huffington Post:

And he's threatening a "constitutional showdown" if Democrats insist on the truth.

"We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants," he said. "It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available."

Interesting spin:

• Testimony under oath = "show trials"
• Spin bullshit as usual = "reasonable proposal"

Oh, and let's not forget "War is Peace" and "Ignorance is Bliss."

The Senate, meanwhile, voted to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

Now there's a surprise. Are the Democrats starting to feel their oats?

Now that the GOP hogfest at the pork trough is over, the profligate President Bush has decided to play at being a fiscal conservative:

President Bush on Wednesday challenged Democrats taking over Congress to join him in balancing the budget within five years and urged them to cut thousands of pet projects from future spending bills.

Whose "pet projects" is he talking about? After all, the Republicans have been running Congress. Does he really want to cut all the Republican "pet projects"? Will the profligate Republicans still in office go along with axing their earmarks?

Of course, since they were too busy -- or just plain lazy -- to be bothered with passing any spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year, the Democratic-run Congress will have to mop up the mess from last year's Republican-run Congress as well.

Dr. S sums it up well:

He talks about balancing the federal budget without mentioning that he was handed a balanced budget when he took office, mentions No Child Left Behind without mentioning what a failure that is, and mentions the USA PATRIOT Act (let’s not forget it’s a clever acronym) without mentioning what an affront it is to the principles upon which this great nation was founded.

The Bush cheerleaders have suddenly gotten the balanced budget religion, too. They love their hero.

As we knows, Democrats are only committed to increasing their power, not working with Republicans for the greater good.

And Cheney, Ney, DeLay, Abramoff, Libby, Bush, et al. are all selfless public servants. Uh huh.

TexasFreds has a more honest response:

Bush must be drinking again… A balanced budget?? In 5 years?? And he has 2 years left?? And he expects a Dem controlled Congress to spend LESS money than his Republican controlled Congress spent?? Maybe he’s NOT drinking, looks more like he has just lost his mind…

As Capitol Hill Blue reports, Bush also wants to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent. The corporate executives need a break, ya know?

In the Chicago Tribune Swamp, Mark Silva writes:

Bush took aim at "dead-of-the-night'' budget deals that funnel billions of dollars to special projects without any oversight, and he vowed that the government will produce a balanced budget by 2012 -- four years after he leaves office.

Bush is good at that -- starting things he can't finish. One might say it's his specialty.

Frankly, I'm surprised Bush even brought the subject up. After all, we had not only a balanced budget, but a budget surplus, when Bush took office. And now he wants the Democrats to clean up after his mess.

Just like the Democratic leadership of Bill Clinton led to the cleaning up of the similar budgetary mess left by Ronald Reagan and George the Elder, even while the GOP-run House was obsessing over The Blow Job.

The Republicans have a reputation for being disciplined and that reputation extends to the Republicans members of the House and Senate. The GOP Congressional members move largely in formation. Today that formation resembles a bunch of lemmings moving to perdition.

After a huge layoff, if I still had my job, but many of my colleagues did not, irrespective of the industry, when I got to my desk the next day, I would have to take a long and hard look at my own survivability. I would close the door and sit down and rethink what career issues were at stake for me. If I was a GOP member of Congress (or a Dem, too) I would take a long, hard, and frank look at myself and wonder if I should walk in lock step with anyone, except for those who determine whether or not I keep my job. I would look at those who no longer around and take a lesson.

Did the voters who put me in office put me there to be a GOP rubber stamp? I might have been swept in by a GOP tide and my State or District may have gone for George W. Bush, but did they want we to be one of the lemmings? When does discipline begin to become corrosive?

The Democrats are very far right of where they were a generation ago. It isn't that the country has suddenly shifted to "liberal" values. No. Then I look at Lincoln Chaffee, and he's out. It's not about the politics. It's about the party. It's about the way that Congress isn't doing its job. It is no longer behaving like one of the branches of government.

If this were a corporation, it would be equivalent to terminating an employee who is content to just sit around and sign off on everything without adding value. We've seen it in industry where the Board of Directors or the top management team kowtows to the boss. The word in my parent's generations for this was "being a yes man."

I would realize on the morning after that there is a way to disagree while still being loyal. I would recognize that the electorate (beyond the base) had come out to register their displeasure with those who did not demonstrate that they had a bit of a spine. I would understand that George W. Bush is a lame duck. I would know that "staying the course" has been repudiated at the polls, although I would know there are those who will continue to advocate it until the bitter end in November, 2008.

The vote on November 7, 2006, was in part a message to Congress that ideology was not as important as getting to work. If I were a Senator or Representative, I would know that a wakeup call had been sent out for us to get off our collective duffs and do the job we were getting perks and pay to perform.

I would know that George W. Bush and his inner circle are marching into history, but that my own career might span a number of terms well beyond that.

At one point coat tails can turn into anchors and loyalty can backfire if it appears I am not thinking for myself and not listening to the electorate.

I would know that in two, four, or six years I would be measured by what I had done and not purely on loyalty to the White House. The clock would be ticking and it would be the first day of the rest of my career.

You know the mainstream media doesn't tell you everything it knows. That's obvious. Some of the reasons why are obvious, too: limited space in newspapers, limited time on news programs, limited resources of news departments, limited number of reporters.... Some things are bound to slip through the cracks.

Like the things back then.

But you have to wonder if those reasons are sufficient for the utter lack of substantive coverage of these following stories.

Top 25 Censored news stories of 2007

1. Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
2. Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
3. Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
4. Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
5. High-Tech Genocide in Congo
6. Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
7. US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
8. Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
9. The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
10. Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
11. Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
12. Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
13. New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
14. Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
15. Chemical Industry is EPA's Primary Research Partner
16. Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
17. Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
18. Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
19. Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
20. Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
21. Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
22. $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
23. US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
24. Cheney's Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
25. US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

What this amounts to is a list of 25 stories that alternative media will have to pick up. Come on, bloggers, pick one and write about it. Because the New York Times won't write about it. And Fox News won't talk about it.

...we share this recent classic.

Note: I browsed through all the YouTube offerings of this clip, and the sound quality ranges from the marginal here to the downright awful on some others. Still, please, click on Play and watch. These are six minutes and 41 seconds you won't regret.

The Bush Administration has announced that New Orleans is open for the new season of hurricane business.

Federal emergency officials claim the New Orleans levee system is ready for another major hurricane, despite the less-optimistic views of other political leaders and engineers.

"I think we're in good shape," Don Powell, the Bush administration's coordinator of Gulf Coast rebuilding, said Sunday. "There's no question in my mind, we're ready."

Yeah, they're as ready as they were last year, which is not all that comforting.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the levee repairs alone aren't enough. "They're back up to Category 3," she said. "We need to get them up to Category 5, and we are working to do that."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said the city was ready — but only to evacuate.

"You will never see a replay of last year, as long as I'm the mayor of the city," he said Sunday. "It's the storm surge that's really the major concern. ... We don't expect the catastrophic failures."

Contradicting other Bush administration officials, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the U.S. Army Corps' chief, conceded it isn't clear whether the levees could withstand a big hurricane this year.

Also undercutting a lot of the spin is the largely discredited Michael Brown, former head of FEMA, who says that the real problem is all the extra layers of bureaucracy Bush and the Republican Congress put into place when they formed, at great expense and with much disruption of federal agencies responsible for our national security, the dysfunctional amorphous blob called the Department for Homeland Security.

Bush government, you're doing a heckuva job!