Lazy Links

- At least 9 shot dead in clashes at Pakistan mosque
- White House Wants Another New Legal Category For Guantanamo Prisoners
- Al-Qaeda blamed for Yemen attack
- Europeans see U.S. as biggest world threat.
- Japanese Minister Resigns Over Remarks
- Israel, Palestinian Authority hold security talks
- 33 Militants Killed in Afghanistan
- Pressed for Money, McCain Cuts Campaign Staff
- Sen. Leahy digs in heels on subpoenas
- NYC Man Held for Reciting 1st Amendment
- CREW: Bush administration is ‘crossing the line.’
- Press Corps To Snow: "You're Insulting Our Intelligence"

Freedom... From Accountability For Scooter Libby

- The Update: Bush spares Libby

- Bush says doesn't rule out pardon for Libby

- Editorials Hit Libby's Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

- Bush "Is Not To Be Believed"

- Only 21% Of Americans Support Decision

- Fitzgerald: "Fundamental To The Rule Of Law That All Citizens Stand Before The Bar Of Justice As Equals"

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My biggest question to everyone is "Why are you so surprised?" that Bush let ole' Scoot off the hook?

Seriously, has this Administration ever led you to believe even once that they or their henchmen could actually be held accountable for their misconduct?

I can't even pretend to be outraged anymore. I'd be more surprised if the Bush Administration would have left Scootie Puff Junior sit in prison.

Now President Bush is saying not to rule out a full pardon, well.. duh. Should we expect anything different from the Great Leader?

By the way, if Bush is going to pardon someone why isn't Bush pardoning Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso, the right wing has repeatedly called for pardons for these men as well - so why pick Libby? Oh, that's right because Libby was doing the Bush Administrations bidding by helping to oust the CIA agent Valerie Plame, so of course he deserves a pardon.

The pattern is consistent, the Bush Administration will do everything in it's power to avoid any kind of accountability at all. These men truly feel they are above the law.

Conservatives : Reinventing History One Site At A Time

Back in May I wrote about the Conservative YouTube called QubeTV, today I bring you Conservapedia.

We all know about Townhall.Com and other "mainstream" Conservative publications and their blatant attempts to insert bigotry into our national dialogue and we know about their shameless and false reconstruction of history and current events.

We already knew that Conservatives couldn't cut it at YouTube, and now we also know they can't hang at Wikipedia either.

Conservapedia, what an interesting concept... Do we need a Leftapedia now so we can keep up with the constant flow of disinformation streaming out of Conservapedia?

Let's look at Conservapedia's entry on George W. Bush.

Economy :

"Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobil has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well." Emphasis is mine.

If you read between the lines you can see the Plutocrat that lies deep within all Conservatives.

These Conservatives are failing to see that to the majority of the country witnessing Exxon Mobile making huge profits while we suffer at the gas pump is not a good thing, it is something we view as very, very bad.

The majority of the American people who are just hard working people with families do not see CEO's getting 300 million dollar bonuses while we pay record high gas prices as something positive!

Furthermore we are even more disgusted that these high oil prices are blamed on a lack of refineries which the oil companies refuse to build, instead giving their executives outrageous bonuses.

Sorry Conservapedia, we do not see getting raped at the pump as a positive improvement and this so called entry about the economy shows how out of touch the Conservatives are with the American public.

So how accurate is Conservapedia?

Let's look at the "Family" section for GW Bush :

"George W. Bush is the son of George H. W. Bush, who served as vice-president from 1981 to 1989 and as president from 1989 to 1993.

George W. Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, and many people feel that George W. Bush's faith is sincere and profound. The Faith of George W. Bush, a non-political book by author Stephen Strang, made the New York Times best-sellers list."

So Conservapedia doesn't even bother to mention Bush's daughters or his wife in the "Family" section? Is this supposed to be some sort of ultimate proof that Conservatives view woman as worthless?

If sexism is not the reason the President's daughters and wife are not mentioned in the "Family" section of the George W. Bush entry in Conservapedia then sloppiness and disregard for accuracy must be the answer. Quite a slapdash entry considering that you are writing a small bio for the current President of the United States...

Instead of mentioning the President's daughters and wife in his "Family" section Conservapedia finds it more important to discuss how "profound" Bush's faith is, according to some guy who is trying to sell a book.

Conservapedia also claims that "the anti-War movement was defeated" because Democrats were unable to pass a bill that included a withdrawal date.

What Conservapedia fails to mention is that President Bush vetoed two bills presented by Democrats that included timetables. Conservapedia also fails to observe that the antiwar movement has not been defeated, in reality public disapproval with it is at an all time high.

Comparing Conservapedia to Wikipedia is a joke.

Conservapedia's entry for the President is only 7 paragraphs long and offers zero insight into the life or career of George W. Bush.

Wikipedia's entry for the President on the other hand is at least 65 paragraphs long and offers information from his early life including controversies and it doesn't fail to mention his wife and daughters by name.

The bigger point of my post is that Conservatives are desperately and actively seeking to present an alternative to the truth (right wing domination of the radio, QubeTV, Conservapedia) that they are shameless in disseminating.

This brand of Conservatives disregard the facts that they find inconvenient to their narrative. It started with FOX and the right wing radio shows that dominate the air, now they are developing web platform which we need to be constantly aware of.

Conservatives always claim to set up these enterprises only in order to counter the "Liberal bias" that they see in everything imaginable- but the only thing I can really find "Liberal" about YouTube or Wikipedia is the fact that they are free and everyone is allowed to come in and only a rowdy few get kicked out.

When examining Conservapedia I am astounded at the lack of factual information. Only 7 paragraphs are offered on the current President and torture isn't even mentioned once. Warrantless wiretapping? Nope. Alberto Gonzales? Yeah, right...

But wait - Conservapedia's entry for Bill Clinton is 28 paragraphs long. Conservapedia offers some insight on their enemies, it's just their hero's they don't want you to know anything about.

But compare Conservapedia's 28 papragraphs to Wikipedia's 80 paragraphs for Bill Clinton and we can see that Conservapedia is light on the facts compared to Wikipedia, no matter what the subject is.

For Conservapedia and other Conservative media it is not about preserving the facts and the truth of the subject matter, it is about spinning the truth until it becomes favorable to Conservatives, no matter how many facts it omits and how many pretzel like contortions it has to make in order to do so.

London Bomb Threat - What's Next?

Reuters reports :
"Explosive experts defused a car bomb packed with petrol, gas and nails on Friday which could have caused huge loss of life in London's busy theatre district and raised fears of a terrorist attack"

Thank God or whoever that an explosion was somehow avoided. There are two things I worry about following a terrorist attack:

1) The loss of life.
2) The game of political "freak out" that will inevitably follow.

When progressing threw the 21st century we must be constantly aware that our progression can and probably will be interrupted by terrorist and political madmen.

One thing we can never allow to happen is for the terrorist to intimidate us into giving up essential liberties for the temporary illusion of security.

We cannot allow the inhumanity of the terrorist cause us to abandon our own humanity in pursuit of justice or revenge.

Most of all we should not allow fear mongering politicians to take advantage of our vulnerability and use it as an opportunity to bolster their own self image.

Let there be no doubt that Conservatives will attempt to exploit the latest foiled plot in London as just another example of the reasons they believe we need to continue the war in Iraq and the War on Terror.

Shortly thereafter, once the message has been disseminated the Conservatives that are seeking to bolster their self image will then attack their Democratic adversaries, predictably stating that if we leave Iraq that the same types of plots will continue.

The truth is that as long as the Middle East is politically unstable and the United States contributes to that instability is as long as Islamic extremist will try to attack us.

As long as we continue to see the Israeli/Palestinian issue as a one sided matter, as long as we occupy the Middle East, as long as we don't secure our own ports and borders, and as long as we are dependent on Middle Eastern oil we will always be vulnerable to extremist.

Furthermore, as long as we are vulnerable to extremist we are easy prey for political ideologues seeking to position themselves as the so called protectors of America while advocating a policy that is actually detrimental to national security.

UPDATE: Second car found rigged with explosives

Lazy Links

- The Update: London car bomb defused
- Police called to second suspect vehicle in London
- Powell Tells Of Dysfunctional White House, ‘We Weren’t Aware Of The Advice Cheney Was Giving’
- Justices reject school integration efforts
- Blair, Bush's Enabler, Can't Pacify Mideast: Margaret Carlson
- In the West Bank, Hamas supporters forced to lie low
- Israel kills militant from Abbas's Fatah movement
- Lebanese soldiers fire on Palestinian refugees in north, wound several
- Baghdad Roadside Bomb Kills Five US Soldiers, Injures Seven
- 22 killed as blast rips Baghdad bus station
- Romney's in the doghouse with some voters
- Romney Strapped Dog To Car Roof
-

White House Claims Executive Privilege After Claiming VP, Pres Not Executives

Related :

- Cheney claims a non-executive privilege
- Bush claims oversight exemption too
- House Claims executive privilege to avoid senate subpoenas

But I thought they said they were not executives?

After all it was only a few days ago that Vice President Dick Cheney claimed he did not have to comply with executive record keeping laws because he is not an executive. The next day the President made the same claim.

In Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution it is written:

"The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America."

Meaning the president is the head of the executive branch of the federal government. So not only is the President an executive, he is the executive.

So a few days ago George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were not executives, but now they are executives so it turns out they have executive privilege?

This is quite a grandstanding claim to make. You can't have it both ways.

You can't claim you are not an executive but have executive privilege.

You can't claim your not an executive to avoid record keeping laws and then claim you don't have to show the records anyway because you have executive privilege. It just doesn't work that way in a system of logic and truth. It doesn't work that way in a democracy either, by the way.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Democrats need to be on every talk show in America informing the American people about the outrageous claims of the Bush Administration and making the case against the Bush Administration.

As for the media, what can I say? They have failed the American people by not enlightening them about the terribly abnormal time we are living in. They refuse to go into details thinking the American people are too stupid to understand them. They refuse to offer insightful exposes in fear of being called "unpatriotic" by the treasonous bastards who have hijacked this country and used it as a weapon of war. They fail to provide balance and wisdom, instead we get Paris Hilton and Tom Delay.

These are last ditch attempts by the Bush Administration to avoid oversight and accountability. If the Bush Administration was not doing anything illegal or unethical then it should have no problems handing over it's records.

The true problem lies in what is in the documents the Bush Administration is trying so desperately to keep secret from the rest of the government.

What is perhaps ironic is that the Bush Administration is fighting to keep documents about the warrantless wiretapping program secret, when all along the Bush Administration claimed that if Americans were not doing anything illegal then they should not be worried about all their personal emails and phone calls being monitored by the NSA.

The same logic can be applied to the documents which the Bush administration is trying to keep secret from Congress and the National Archives. If the Bush Administration was not doing anything illegal or unethical then why is it so afraid of sharing it's information with the rest of the government?

And don't even try to feed me that "national security" BS, it's not going to work.

Gap In Blog

Hello everyone. I would like to apologize for my lengthy disappearance. I had to attend to personal matters which prevented me from being online.

Update : comments will now be enabled on this blog. In the past I allowed comments but had problems with spam being posted so I blocked comments, I am going to try this again.

Lazy Links

- Cyber Attack Hits Pentagon
- Bush under new pressure to explain domestic spying
- Breaking: Senate Judiciary Committee Issues Subpoenas For NSA Domestic Spying Documents
- Twelve U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq: military
- Soldiers discover 24 emaciated children in Baghdad orphanage
- U.S.-backed Iraqi police get just 8 days of training.
- Report: Fatah on rampage in West Bank
- Pentagon Spends $78 Billion On "Gay Bomb," Psychic Teleportation, Human Commanded Sharks
- Order nixing habeas rights goes into effect.
- Spying fears lead to Blackberry ban for government workers
- China says cancels debt owed by Iraq
- U.S. nuclear envoy visits North Korea
- Bloomberg a Long Shot at Best
- Lieberman Holds Fundraiser For Republican Collins Tonight
- Missing: Large lake in southern Chile
- Bush vetoes embryonic stem cell funding
- Missing Soldier's Wife Faces Deportation
- Walter Reed Security Officer Arrested for Firing Gun
- Replacements named for indicted SC treasurer, Giuliani camp chair
- Giuliani Skipped ISG Meetings For Motivational Events Featuring ‘Christianity’ And ‘Pumping Music’
- New Orleans 'still a flood risk'
- Crowd kills passenger of car that struck child
- Pentagon Spends $78 Billion On "Gay Bomb," Psychic Teleportation, Human Commanded Sharks
- Reopen the investigation of Abu Ghraib
- Jobless claims rise unexpectedly
- Egypt invites leaders to peace summit

Comparing Palestinians To Nazi's

ThinkProgress reports that Ben Shapiro on Townhall.Com recently said of the Palestinians:

"The problem runs deeper than a few figureheads. The Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core."

Orthodox Jew and radically Conservative Shapiro also claimed :

"They are as responsible for their government’s longstanding evil as the Germans were for the Nazis’."

Why doesn't Shapiro just come out and say what he means? Shapiro obviously despises all Palestinian people. It is Shapiro who sounds "rotten to the core." This guy gives me the chills.

By this very same misguided logic every American citizen is also guilty of the torture and sexual violation of inmates in Abu Ghraib. By this logic every American citizen is responsible for the all the atrocities our government ever carried out.

I've heard this logic before.... where was it? Oh yeah, it was Osama bin Laden when he said it was OK to kill American civilians because we elect our leaders so we are responsible for what they do.

Shapiro's animosity and hatred towards all Palestinians is not justified, I don't understand his viciousness. Is this simple transference?

The Germans had contempt for all Jews and hated everything about them, just like Shapiro has contempt for all Palestinians and hates everything about them. So to my ears Shapiro is the one who sounds like the fascist.

Why compare the Palestinians to the Nazi's?

The Nazi's had concentration camps, gas chambers, and modern weaponry.

The Palestinians live in walled cities which they are not allowed to leave from without the permission of the Israeli's. The weapons of the bad guys? Malfunctioning AK-47's and homemade "rockets".

There are so many fundamental differences between the Nazi's and the Palestinians it isn't even funny.

For one, there are not hundreds of thousands of armed Palestinians with tanks and airplanes making line invasions into a neighboring country and throwing a particular ethnic group into ovens.

More importantly, it is the Palestinians who are living in strife and oppression. I see a holocaust of sorts, but it isn't happening to the Jews. I see a destruction of a society, a destruction being pushed from the outside and aided from the inside. I see injustice, which leads to widespread anger and eventual violence.

The German Nazi's invaded neighboring countries in a quest for world domination, the Palestinians want their own country and there has to be a way to work on that, but as long as their are pretentious self serving racist around like Shapiro it will be an uphill battle.

This archetype of people only feed into the militants hostility and anger and only make it easier for them to find recruits.

What do they need propaganda video's for when all they really need is a few articles written by Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager translated into Arabic? Then the militants can say "See how much they hate you? They don't want peace, peace is a lie."

Comparing the Palestinians to the Nazi's is to compare apples and oranges and I think this Shapiro character must have a hideous mind.

Lazy Links

- Bomb kills 78 in Baghdad, U.S. in big offensive
- Book on Baghdad `Green Zone' Wins $59500 Samuel Johnson Prize
- Israeli tanks rumble into Gaza
- Bush, Olmert Praise Palestinian Leader
- British police break up pedophile ring, 31 children rescued
- Nine 'courageous firefighters' die in warehouse blaze
- Report slams deletion of White House e-mail
- Following Bush Signing Statements, Federal Agencies Ignore 30 Percent Of Laws Passed Last Year
- Democratic rivals trade jabs on Iraq
- Congressmen Back Off Bid That Delayed Energy Bill
- Giuliani Prioritizes Fundraising Over Iraq Strategy
- Woodward questions Thompson role in Watergate.