The Hammer gets hammered

There is much rejoicing in the liberal blogosphere. And Democrats might finally dare to hope that the light they see is the end of the tunnel, not a GOP locomotive steaming toward them. The Far Right's house of cards may be tumbling. For Tom DeLay has finally been indicted. Of course, he claims innocence. I'm sure he's not using hyperbole when he says, "This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. It's a sham."

I dunno man, seems pretty baseful (is that a word?) to me. Let's break it down: You formed a PAC to take money from corporations and give it to the RNC, which gave nearly equal amounts of money to Texas political candidates around the same time. Of course, I'm sure you didn't do that to skirt a Texas law banning corporate donations to candidates, right? And I'm sure it did not help you take control of the Texas house, enabling you to have the congressional lines redrawn to increase Texas' GOP representation in the U.S. House by six seats.

And I love how the machine keeps trying to attack the D.A. as a "partisan fanatic." Sorry, doesn't hold up under the light. Upon further review, Ronnie Earle has prosecuted 15 elected officials in his career. A whole three of them were Republicans. Then again, maybe they're right, he is a partisan fanatic. A Republican one. Which could make sense. Maybe he's a real Republican, one who's disgusted by what the neocons in control are doing, and wants to help bring them down, even if it means giving the Donkeys a chance to be in charge for a while.

Personally, although I'm quite gleeful inside that this fool is going down, I'm not sure the celebration at Kos is entirely warranted yet. We have to make this stick and work for us, and the Dems have proven repeatedly that they can fumble any opportunity, no matter how juicy. They need to run this into the 2006 elections, hammering home the following message:

America cannot trust these people to govern with the people's best interests in mind.

It's that simple, really. Even if you are so naive as to believe that Bush is not involved in the corruption, EVERYONE around him is. Frist conveniently sold stock in his family's hospital company from a "blind trust" -- while other company insiders were also selling -- just before bad news sent its price down. The result: He avoided losing $6 million or so. He claims he sold it because it represented a potential conflict of interest. But that stock had been the source of conflict-of-interest accusations before, and he had brushed them off. Why the change of heart?

DeLay already had ethical issues before the indictment, many of which are shared by his replacement, Rep. Roy Blunt. And the source of the whole investigation, Jack Abramoff (news), also has close ties to Rove and the White House staffer who was recently arrested.

And EVERYTHING these people do is for one of two reasons, sometimes both: 1) Money. 2) Power. They NEVER do things to benefit the American people. We need to get people like Barack Obama out with this message: The people in charge of the Republican Party simply do not care about the welfare of the American people. They are corrupt on every level and it's time to throw them out. I quote the United States Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

Thanks to Howard Zinn for not letting us forget that, and for reminding us all what it means to be a true American

Tipping the scales

So, let's see...roughly 100,000 people march in Washington in support of Cindy Sheehan and against the war. Roughly 500 people showed up a day later for a "support the troops" rally, organized by the "You-don't-speak-for-me-Cindy" crew. That's right: five hundred people. Can you even call that a rally? We got that many protesting against the war in Humboldt County! To be fair, maybe all those SUV drivers with yellow ribbons just couldn't afford the gas to drive to Washington and show their support.

And yet, someone at Fox News will still spin Cindy into a leftist nut, "way outside the mainstream." But I'd say that a 200-1 ratio of supporters makes Cindy the current definition of "mainstream," at least when it comes to Americans' views on Iraq.

And now they've gone and arrested her. I'm sure this was not ordered by Karl Rove. This will further inflame her status as antiwar hero and spokeswoman. As she was being dragged off, the crowd around her started chanting, "The whole world is watching!" Damn right.

Good things come in threes

Kos points out today that the Republicans have pulled off an astounding feat. Be sure to follow the link to Josh at TalkingPointsMemo elaborating on Rove:

The trifecta is complete. The Republican leadership in the Senate, House and White House are ALL officially under investigation.

Frist

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock sales made by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in HCA Inc. shortly before the Nashville, Tenn.-based company warned it wouldn't meet its previous second-quarter earnings forecast.
Mr. Frist, a Tennessee Republican and a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in HCA about two weeks before the company's share price plunged. News of the stock sales surfaced in news reports earlier this week. The company was founded as Hospital Corp. of America in 1968 by Mr. Frist's father, Thomas Frist, his older brother Thomas Frist Jr., and Jack Massey, who had made millions as the owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The SEC is looking into whether Mr. Frist had any inside knowledge of problems at the company that prompted his sales, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Rove

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff bragged two years ago that he was in contact with White House political aide Karl Rove on behalf of a large, Bermuda-based corporation that wanted to avoid incurring some taxes and continue receiving federal contracts, according to a written statement by President Bush's nominee to be deputy attorney general.

Timothy E. Flanigan, general counsel for conglomerate Tyco International Ltd., said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that Abramoff's lobbying firm initially boasted that Abramoff could help Tyco fend off a special liability tax because he "had good relationships with members of Congress," including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

Abramoff later said "he had contact with Mr. Karl Rove" about the issue, according to the statement by Flanigan, who oversaw Tyco's dealings with Abramoff and his firm and received reports from Abramoff about progress in the lobbying campaign. Flanigan's statement is the latest indication that Abramoff promoted himself as having ready access to senior officials in the Bush administration.

(Josh fills in some of the blanks in that Washington Post story I quote above.)

DeLay (in addition to the Abramoff stuff)

A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 elections that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.

They're taking elections for granted! Hooray!

The spin machine never ceases to amaze me. The top U.S. official in Afghanistan has attributed the low turnout for the country's elections last week on the unbridled success of democracy there:

From AP:

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann called the elections a "great success," putting an optimistic cast on reports that voter turnout appeared lower than for October's presidential election.

"In America, only half of the people vote," Neumann said. "If people are getting a little more used to elections, then maybe Afghanistan is turning into a normal country."

Yep, that's it. They're such a perfect examle of democracy that they take elections for granted. Utterly ridiculous.

It's incomprehensible

Last weekend I was the best man at my friend's wedding, and I sat at a table with two friends from high school that I don't see very often. Turns out they both, shall we say, have differing opinions from mine on most things political. (Who talks politics in high school? Life was so much simpler back then.)

We talked briefly about the economic side, and while I could get one friend to concede that capitalism is not perfect, he still thinks it's the best system. But things eventually got around to Dubya. And this is the point where I just can't even entertain the other side's argument. The entire administration, from the top (whether you believe that's Bush or Rove) down, is evil incarnate, and I can't comprehend how people don't see that.

Every single thing they do is full of lies, deception and hubris. Iraq was built on lies, lies, lies, lies, and lies. And the exploitation of the fear generated by 9/11. And what did we get for it? A country that is now actually full of terrorists -- it didn't used to be, and no, Saddam had NOTHING to do with 9/11. A country that is also on the verge of becoming a Shiite theocracy and Iran's new best friend! Hooray! A National Guard that took Louisiana's high-water vehicles to the brutally dry, sandy desert. A bill for hundreds of billions of dollars. Oh, and gas prices have doubled.

Today, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan actually said, with a straight face, that this administration emphasizes accountability. That is an outright lie. Show me one single example of this administration showing accountability. This comes one day after Bush announces that he will be leading an investigation into the slow response to Katrina. This is the textbook definition of "conflict of interest." Dubya is one of the people who must be investigated, so he can't be the investigator. It defeats the purpose. (I can see the press conference now: "After many months and many millions of dollars spent, I, George W. Bush, have found that I did everything perfect and it's that sobby b**** Blanco's fault. Oh, and the mayor screwed up, too. But not me. God bless America.")

And what's worse, they do it all in the name of God. Bush designated Sept. 16 as a "national day of prayer and remembrance." OK, I'll do mine a week early: Dear God, Please restore normalcy for all those affected by Hurricane Katrina in the swiftest possible manner. Have mercy on those who died. And PLEASE, open the eyes of all Americans who are so blind that they can't see through the lies that come out of their mouths at every turn. Amen.

CNN president vs. U.S. president

I often read the Drudge Report -- despite the fact that Matt is a wingnut -- because it is a convenient place to gather interesting headlines. But sometimes he really pisses me off. Yesterday he pissed me off so much that I wrote him the following e-mail:

It was absolutely preposterous of you to use a "Flash" story to tell us that the president of CNN spent Katrina's worst days on an island off Massachusetts. His actions did not in any way negatively affect CNN's coverage during the crisis. On the other hand, the president of the COUNTRY stayed on his vacation for several days when the country needed him most, then had the nerve to say, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." And FEMA director MIchael Brown (Arabian horses?!) didn't know for a whole day that 20,000 people were stranded in hellish conditions at the Superdome. CNN knew it, despite the fact that its president was on an island. But hey, Brownie's doing a heckuva job, ain't he?

And where was Fox News President Roger Ailes last week?

Last night Jon Stewart highlighted this exchange between Dick Cheney, a journalist(?) and a heckler:

Heckler (several times):Go f*** yourself Mr. Cheney.

Journalist: Are you getting a lot of that, Mr. Vice President?

Cheney: It's the first time I've heard it.

Wait. Didn't you hear yourself that time when you said it to Sen. Leahy?