The Stench of Corruption

For those of you keeping score: bushies in deep doodoo thus far:

Tom DeLay: The House majority leader was indicted today on a felony charge that he conspired to launder corporate campaign contributions through the national Republican Party in Washington and back to legislative candidates in Texas.

Bill Frist: The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are both investigating the Senate majority leader's sale of shares in his family's healthcare business just before the stock's value plummeted in June.

Jack Abramoff: The Republican super-lobbyist, known to have bragged about his contacts with Karl Rove, was indicted in Texas last month on wire fraud and conspiracy fraud charges related to their purchase of a a fleet of gambling boats. This week, three men were arrested -- including two who received payments from Abramoff's business partner -- in the Mafia-style killing of the man from whom Abramoff and his partner purchased the gambling boats.

David Safavian: The president's chief procurement officer stepped down two weeks ago and was arrested last week on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing a separate federal investigation into Abramoff's dealings in Washington. Some Republicans who received campaign contributions from Safavian are divesting themselves of his money now.

Timothy Flanigan: The president's nominee to serve as deputy attorney general has announced that he will have to recuse himself from the Abramoff investigation if he is confirmed because he hired Abramoff to help the company where he works -- scandal-ridden Tyco International Ltd. -- lobby DeLay and Rove on tax issues.

Michael Brown: The president's FEMA director resigned earlier this month amid complaints about his handling of Hurricane Katrina and charges that he and other FEMA officials got their jobs based on political connections and cronyism rather than competence or qualifications.

Bob Taft: The Republican governor of Ohio pleaded guilty last month to criminal charges based on his failure to report gifts as required by state law, among them golfing trips paid for by Tom Noe, a major Republican fundraiser who is the subject of his own scandal regarding the state's investment in $50 million in rare coins, some of which have mysteriously gone missing.

And then there's Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. The grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame is scheduled to complete its work in late October. While neither Rove nor Libby is apparently a "target" of the investigation -- and while the "corruption" in Plamegate is moral rather than financial -- both men are known to have played a role in revealing or confirming Plame's identity in conversations with reporters, which may be a crime under federal law.

(copied directly from salon.com)

Is this the best... day... ever?

logan is hot



tom delay is indicted

Tonight the earth will move for all us VMars fans. This day was already going so well... and now we find out Tom Delay is gonna be using community soap! Thank you God.

Gee, this time it's #2

Remember how we kept getting the #3 guy at al-Qaida (how do you spell that?)? But it was always some random guy you'd never heard of, and then there was some other #3 guy? Well now we say we've "gotten" the #2 guy in Iraq. Who is, that's right, some random guy you've never heard of.
And wouldn't it make more sense to, like, capture these guys and question them instead of just killing them? Just sayin'.

Oh lordy

This just in - a levee has been breached in New Olreans and it's starting to flood, again.

Waist-deep already apparently.

Someone should really do something about this hurricane business already. I mean, enough!

Sharon Olds is a beast

I went to elementary school with her son Gabey. At the time, of course, I had no idea that his mother had written a poem called "The Pope's Penis," but he was a pretty cool guy and I think has been a somewhat sucessful actor.

But if you are looking for good poetry, look no further. I'm not really a poetry person and I love her stuff. More to the point, however, she was invited by Laura Bush to do some readign and be in some White House thing and she said Hell No and proceeded to deliver a public smackdown.

Beautiful.

"Mom's look is priceless"

He's soooo no Clinton.

What a wanksta. Jeez.

I love Wonkette

I think I speak for all when I say that we here at BBD think of Wonkette as an inspiration. She may prefer her politics with heavy drinking, whereas we tend to go in other, more organic directions, but she is truly the mostest.
I also LOVE liveblogging. I will read anything liveblogged. The Oscars, supreme court hearings, anything. So the combination of Wonkette, liveblogging and a tanking president (did anyone else notice how stumpy his neck looked?) is like a bright star in the night sky.

Sinking ship, say goodbye to rats

Wow. Even Fox News can't get him good numbers.
I forget where I read it, but someone or other was saying that they think if Bush continues unpopular-like, Fox will just become less pro-Bush, because of course at root they care about ratings, not Bush. I think that's a little of what you're seeing over on CNN and MSNBC. It's not that they've "woken up" but rather that they are realizing that the money is elsewhere.
Which, you will recall, is what I was saying months ago.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, I was down with all 360 degrees of Anderson Cooper years ago, and I call dibs on Muji.

Hmmm

This may be tin-hat land but it's interesting nonetheless. Brad Blog (who is? I dunno) has an interview with an insider at Diebold, Inc., the company that left no paper trail as it delivered Ohio to W.

It'll never be proved or matter or go anywhere and we are all doomed, of course. They say at least 7% of the voting machines delivered to Ohio failed. Isn't that awsome?

You Thought I Was Shitting You

Admit it. You thought I was being fooled by some merry photoshopper. You thought, no freaking way.
But no, my friend, I was not shitting. I was not being fooled. I was giving you a picture to love and treasure for a lifetime. It's all over the web now (and forever!), but look at a real news source and see. I shit you not.

aaaarrrrggghhhiiiisplat!

(That's the sound of my head exploding.)

Give!

Today is of course the anniversary of something or other that happened a couple of years back.
It's only watching the memorial concerts (yikes) today that I realize how long ago that all seems.

So if you're looking for a way to celebrate patriot day (oh yes they're calling it that) or to give a little back, or if you haven't made a Katrina donation yet, may I suggest Noah's Wish. They do pet rescues in disaster areas and what's better than that?

and what's worse...

(see post below)
is that she's just been sworn in as our top State Dep't PR person. And this (you should really check out the link) is her perception of the world situation. At a time that we desperately need the world to like us just a tiny bit more, this asshat is our main woman.

Karen Hughes is a whore-bitch from hell

No, actually that's an understatement.
This woman is the most evil, soulless, disgusting piece of shit. I hope there's a special room in hell waiting for her. If you think I'm being too harsh, do not forget that she is in large part responsible for the president we have today. Oh, and then there's this.

That's right, she says that the thing that is shocking the world about Katrina is that there was looting afterwards.
Not that people were left on interstates and shelters to die in a major city in the richest country in the world, but that some guys took some TVs and diapers.

I fucking hate her.

Bizarro World

Another thing that is striking about all this (and again, I am not the first to mention it) is the reaction of the media. There's a growing list of TV reporters who have, well, gone native and called the shitters of bull on the bull they have shat.

A list of incidents I have seen personally:
Anderson Cooper
Keith Olbermann
Jack Cafferty
David Gregory
Soledad O'Brien
Geraldo
Brian Williams
Tim Russert
Dr. Sanjay Gupta (hey, he was getting deep)
Joe Scarborough
Shepard Smith
even Darryn Kagen! (Who, when she's not anchoring CNN, is Rush Limbaugh's girlfriend.)

and non-TV:
Christopher Hitchens
David Brooks
Andrew Sullivan

plus Newt freaking Gingrich is calling out the preznit. Damn.

In case you missed them, a lot of the clips are here.

Oh and watch The Daily Show! It's been kicking ass. See Tuesday's show, if you can.

Theories of a conspiratorial nature

There's something fishy going on.

By now there's not too much to say about the news itself - we have all seen the pictures and we know what's going on, in a general sense. But I think that there's some way more effed up shit happening.

First of all, there are numberous reports of FEMA not allowing aid into New Orleans. Including the Red Cross. A lot of aid workers said they were too scared to go in because they had heard about the violence and the looting. (I am among those who believe that a lot of the hype about violence was trumped up, and a lot of aid did not get to people in time because of that hype.)

In addition, offers of help from foreign countries were turned away as soon as Tuesday.

Then there are the stories about the consequent militarization of New Orleans. There are something like 50,000 troops in the area. Then there is the mandatory evacuation order and the ban on pictures of dead bodies. Now we hear that they're not letting the press in.

Now, I don't wanna be all weird, but they're hiding something. Something BIG. I don't really know what it is, but it's gotta be important.

Follow me here:
There are rumors that the 9th Ward (the poor district, apparently) was intentionally flooded to save other, more historic and wealthy areas. There are rumors that residents heard blasts on Monday from the area of the levee. As if holes were being blown in it to relieve the pressure.

And then there was what seemed like an almost coordinated effort to keep aid out of some areas because they were "too dangerous" despite the fact that the media was perfectly able to go in (and out).

And then there were the shoot-to-kill orders. Which, it is important to note, was an order to kill human beings to save property.

And then mandatory evacuations and a media blackout.

Hmmmm.

Could it maybe be that when the water goes down, there will be discoveries of things that won't just be tragic but also incriminating?

The Search is On for the Angry Lady

As many report, Condi went shopping in NYC recently and got confronted by some angry lady. We need to find Angry Lady and make her our leader. Anyone know where she is?

Un-fucking-believable

This guy is a certified a-hole.
Apparently what he used to do was run the US Arabian Horse Association. But he was fired. Really.

The horror and shock and evil of this situation is just too much. The TV anchors are losing it on the regular. I've seen Anderson Cooper, Soledad O'Brien and others just start freaking out on elected officials and FEMA heads and stuff. Even Dr. Sanjay Gupta lost his shit and was like, "if I can get into the hospital, why the hell can't the army?"

The Mayor of New Orleans lost it on TV this morning and started cursing and begging for help. The interview ended with both the Mayor and the interviewer in tears. Just watch - BushCo will try to make him and the Democratic Senator the fall guys in this, because THE story is now "WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GOVERNMENT" and there are a lot of goddamned questions and no answers and they are looking really bad.

I was here in NY on 9/11 and I would take 9/11 over this any day (except, azulita points out, for the political consequences).

Racism at Work

We've just seen two segments on Countdown dealing with hurricane survivors. The first segment showed 15,000 - 20,000 people, mostly African American, at the convention center with no water, no food and no working toilets, begging for help. Photojournalist Tony Zumbado said of the scene, "What I've seen I've never seen in this country."

The second segment showed suburban families at a local Lowe's store, telling their family and friends they were OK. They said things like, "we're fine! We have to wait in line for everything, but things are ust terrific otherwise. We'll call you when the phones come back on!"

I don't even want to try to explain how egregious a failure this is on the part of our government and how obviously and disgustingly racist and classist its inaction.

Welcome Home

This is unbelievable. I cannot understand what is happening in New Orleans. Where is the federal government? Where is the airlift? Where are giant army pontoon bridges being deployed? Where are the troops to keep order? It's complete chaos. There's no order, no plan.
The rage is intense.
The Dutch government (the world experts on levee/dyke systems) have offered their experts and the Canadians have offered their search and rescue experts and Homeland Security has not let them in.
People are dying of thirst in the New Orleans Convention Center.

NBC can get Harry Connick Jr. (who actually said some interesting things) to Canal Street to do a live feed but the goddamned government can't get some water in? Where is the fucking government?

Of course FEMA funds cut by Bush, and even the funds for the levee projects cut in the last few years. Of course 30% of Louisiana's National Guard are in Iraq.

The list of things to be furious about doesn't end. And this catastrophe is still getting worse. We need the UN here, we need international disaster specialists. This should NOT be a job for the New Orleans PD.

The rage.