more on the Gonzales scandal

"There are no rules"
Alberto Gonzales, July 2007

"The attorney general took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Instead, he tells the half-truth, the partial truth, and everything but the truth. And he does it not once, and not twice, but over and over and over again."
Senator Charles Schumer, July 2007

ASTOUNDING stuff is trickling into public view in the Gonzales scandal. My point here is that we are seeing less and less tolerance in Congress for BushCo's lying, cheating, stealing ways, and that damage caused by Bush, Cheney, Rove and company is coming to light, stirring citizenry and congress, Demos and Reps alike, to call for punishment, adherence to the law, the public's right to know the actions of those who are supposed to represent us in government. BushCo has become its own ugly little entity and no longer serves the People of the U.S. The Gonzales scandal illustrates business as usual at BushCo- secrecy, lying, disregard for the constitution and law, attempts to discredit and obfuscate, contempt for the Bill of Rights and the very people the President is supposed to represent.

List of stuff that's been all over the news this week:

1. The entire top tier of the U.S. Justice Dept. was going to quit over the BushCo domestic spying program. That means ASHCROFT, yes, even Ashcroft was was so pissed about Bush's disregard for the law & Constitution that he was going to resign from his job as fucking ATTORNEY GENERAL, along with the head of the FBI Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General James Comey. This was in 2004. Link to Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey's 5/15/07 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

2. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are now trying to charge Gonzales with perjury, via a special council. Gonzales keeps saying- under oath- there was no internal dispute over the domestic spying program. Mueller and Comey, in their testimony, have been frank about how the people who ran the Justice Dept. at the time believed the domestic spying was illegal and were about to resign over it.

3. Karl Rove has been subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is part of the committee's 7-month-old proceedings regarding the BushCo purge of U.S. Attorneys.

4. It's coming out that the Attorneys were fired in states where the Administration believed the Attorneys would oppose Republican attempts to discredit Democrats and draw attention away from election fraud through phony "voter fraud" scandals.

5. In the media they are now referring to Gonzales as "Gonzo."

Link to DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE's New York Times article, which sums up the week's developments in the Gonzales scandal, and provides the adminstration's masterfully persuasive counter arguments, which arguments I'd like to quote:

“confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum where the greatest care must be used not to compromise sensitive intelligence operations.”
“The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified,”

It's worth noting that these strong-sounding arguments are handily deflated by sworn testimony of people who were there when this went down.

"Voter fraud" linked to U.S. Attorney firings

On an NPR edition of All Things Considered today I heard a story where for the first time it was mentioned that the Congressional response to the U.S. Attorney firings is now focused on Gonzalez' attempt to fire U.S. Attorneys who may have opposed BushCo's so-called voter fraud diversions.

The story, which story I cannot find on NPR's website, clearly stated that U.S. Attorneys were fired in states were Gonzalez & Co. thought said Attorneys might oppose election-timed investigations into said "voter fraud."

Paraphrasing the the NPR story, I'm quoting this story on ahn.com regarding a 52 page memorandum written by Michigan congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee:

The memorandum also says the congressional probe has turned up evidence that some of the U.S. attorneys were fired because of their handling of vote fraud allegations, public corruption cases or other cases that could affect elections.

...I am hoping this point makes it to the Arizona Daily Star tomorrow, and I am wondering if it will...

"Voter fraud" was a slimeball Republican tactic to divert attention from, and pacify objection to, election fraud.

Election fraud as, for example, illustrated in Florida, involving voting machines and the poorly covered up trail of bullshit involving voting machines, voter intimidation, and many other similar efforts, which helped put our current president in office.

The link between the U.S. Attorney firings and BushCo's "create-a-scandal-that-conveniently-discredits-Democrats-at-election- time" machinations illustrates BushCo's tendency to cheat, lie & discredit, and has come to light through congressional attempts to shed light on the actions of Bush's old friend, Alberto Gonzales.

No Country for Old Men trailer link

This film blogger has posted a trailer from Cormac McCarthy's No country for old men here. The movie is from the Cohen brothers, who always kick ass.

The trailer of course looks like it was put together by the Marketing department, and is full of jump-cuts and those annoying booming/squishy noises that Hollywood film adverts always seem to have these days. At least there are none of those annoying flashes.

anti-war protest sign mysteriously emerges

Kudos to the Star for having the guts to report on this. Photo above is by the Star's Kelly Presnell.

At a building being refurbished in downtown Tucson, a large anti-war sign from the Viet Nam era has slowly come to the surface on the building's west side. The sign says "Help End The War By Dec. 31, 1971. Join Common Cause," and is approximately 4 x 7 feet. The building is at Stone and Alameda. The City's Dept. of Transportation is the new tenant. The department, at the urging of the Tucson Museum of Art's Executive Director, will not paint over the sign.

The anti-war movement was strong in Tucson in the late 60s and early 70s. Congressman Morris K. Udall spoke out against the war as early as 1967. This Udall quote is from the sidebar to the AZ Daily Star article about the sign:

"This nation has the brains, the know-how, the courage, the imagination to begin to extricate itself from a war we should never have blundered into,"

Sound familiar? By 1971 protesters in the thousands appeared with some regularity in the University of Arizona area.

These days you're more likely to see well-funded anti-abortion circuses, "Christians" handing out leaflets, psycho mall-preachers, aggressive military recruiters, and gospel bands on the open air stage.

The early 70s anti-war sign, which as it turns out was painted by a wealthy young liberal who owned the building at the time, has obvious historical significance, but also has a timely element. That people started noticing the sign now, and that the sign will be preserved, says a lot about popular sentiment concerning the so-called war. The sign had been painted over years ago, and took its time re-emerging, but it chose now to become noticeable.

As it turns out, the building's owner, one Gene Vinik, who died in 1999, had also painted another sign on the building's east side. This sign, which was painted over years and years ago, will never come back. The sign, which had the building's tenant, a bank, threatening to move out, was a giant peach. It said "Impeach the President."

Im-PEACH. Get it? Go Mr. Vinik! A timely fellow, messages and thoughts back from the grave, saying what everybody is thinking right now.

Star article 2 on the story is here.

An aside: links to Star articles are not permanent, as I've discovered going back over some of my old posts. I'll remedy this by quoting more, & going back and trying to replace some of the dead links with links to stories from the Tucson Weekly &tc, whose material stays on the web permanently, and, like an archive should, remain accessible and a matter of historical record.

BBQ Movie

More Butthole Surfers. I am surprised YouTube did not pull this one. Whacky vid of "Fast Song" from BBQ Movie...