no, i didn't write last night. yes, i planned to.
i didn't plan to have a baby shower last night either. that was a total surprise.
flyboy and i started going to the people's iraq study group after our honeymoon and stopped only when i couldn't travel in the early stage of my pregnancy (and during my 'if i leave the house, i'll miscarry' panic stage for a few weeks after). so we know every 1 in that group and that was such a surprise and so nice of them to have done that.
in addition, there were members of flyboy's family and my family there as well. also a surprise. my super friend t was there as well with her girlfriend. (t was on vacation this week and they just got back friday so i've dubbed her 'my super friend' due to the amazing time she must have made on friday to get back in time for that - i kid that she has wonder woman's invisible jet.)
it was really wonderful and i thank every 1. i especially thank trina, elaine, mike, t, ruth and my mother-in-law who worked like crazy to plan this ('weeks ago,' t told me). and of course trina, her husband, mike and mike's sister for having the shower at their home. i actually thought something might be up when i saw ruth arriving yesterday. she runs her own iraq study group on friday mornings with friends in her neighborhood. i was teasing her that she was there to scout out some ideas and tactics. and for about 30 seconds, i thought 'something must be going on if ruth's here.' then the idea flew out of my head and i didn't think about it again until elaine got up to speak and that's when the cake came in and all. it was a wonderful surprise.
i told flyboy to be prepared monday because we've got a ton of thank you cards to write and mail.
the shower was so wonderful that the last thing i want to do is dive into the alberto gonzales cesspool but trina's on her computer here (in her kitchen) so i booted up the laptop. i'm not rushing, i'm just really not in the mood for the vile and disgusting alberto gonzales.
let's start things off with robert parry and his observations and connections about thursday's testimony:
Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush's government.
"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," said DiIulio, who had run Bush's office of faith-based initiatives. "What you've got is everything – and I mean everything – being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
The American people are finally waking up to the consequences of what DiIulio observed during his one-year stint on the inside. Everything is about the building and maintenance of power, not via sound policies but through political tactics – ranging from the conduct of the Iraq War to the handling of federal prosecutors. [For more on DiIulio's comments, see Ron Suskind's Esquire, January 2003, article.]
It would be unthinkable in a traditional administration for a White House political adviser, like Karl Rove, to have a direct role in such diverse topics as blowing the cover of a covert CIA officer and the firing of U.S. Attorneys. Those were two areas that traditionally were walled off from crass partisanship.
For obvious safety reasons, there were strict rules limiting distribution of CIA identities even among officials with proper security clearances. Because of the life-and-death risks involved, those identities were revealed only on a strict need-to-know basis.
Nevertheless, political guru Rove was brought in on the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame in summer 2003 as part of a Bush administration campaign to discredit her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for challenging the President's use of a bogus claim about Iraq obtaining uranium from the African country of Niger.
Rove was a source on Plame's identity for both right-wing columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper. Yet, if you factor out politics, there was no conceivable need-to-know for Rove to have been briefed about Plame.
Almost as astonishing is that Rove would have passed on complaints to Attorney General Gonzales about three U.S. Attorneys for not bringing indictments in cases of alleged "voter fraud" involving Democrats.
Gonzales testified that Rove lodged the complaints last fall, but the Attorney General insisted he was unsure of many other details.
'if you factor our politics' - parry makes the very real point that this was political hay. the plan included denying the right to vote. why? because the g.o.p. just hates people voting? no, because they hate losing and they would (and have) done anything to make sure they didn't lose. no law (my opinion) was going to stand in the way. they'd ignore it, they'd break it. there was no respect for the rule of law in any other area so this reluctance on the part of some to call it out with regards to voting rights has always shocked me. you saw the attacks on r.f.k. jr. and mark crispen miller and others who noted the very real theft of the 2004 vote. noted it and documented it. and yet so many of the supposed big bloggers of the supposed left wanted to ignore that. it probably helps when you're a white male because that's not the class directly targeted. or maybe it's just that the crowd was too busy trying to become insiders in the democratic party that they couldn't call out anything that the party didn't want discussed. good little puppets, lousy citizens.
the washington post reports that bully boy has announced he has 'full confidence' in alberto gonzales. of course he does. e! is reporting that bully boy's back on the sauce and laura's checked into a hotel. but it doesn't take bully boy being active in his disease to issue such a statement. gonzales' isn't a nominee groomed through the lower ranks, spit polished and presented to bully boy as what he's going to do. gonzales knows too much. and unlike scooter libby of the church of dick cheney ('i'll die for you dick'), gonzales is a loose canon that can only be pushed so far. 'he'll always save his own ass,' as 1 texan put it when we were visiting texas in march. 1 who once knew alberto very well. there are increasing calls from congress for alberto to step down. you better believe the white house knows alberto has to be eased out if he's going. he can't be pushed. he's supposedly always been a gosspi (and they don't want an angry loose tongue) and he isn't the boy scout the likes of reuben would like to paint him as. (i hope to look for trash from reuben next week, i'm not in the mood for his ditherings this morning - but after thursday's testimony, it will be interesting to see how reuben defends his boy this time. it's also interesting that reuben's column didn't note a few things but i guess disclosures will be 'forthcoming'?)
here's cnn on some of the calls for alberto to go:
Several administration officials and the House Republican Conference chairman said Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step down, following the harsh response to his Senate testimony on last year's firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Gonzales for hours Thursday about the dismissals.
[...]
"He did not distinguish himself in the hearing," said Rep. Adam Putnam, House GOP conference chairman. "There remains a cloud over the department."
"I think that they would be well-served by fresh leadership," said Putnam, who is often a spokesman for House Republicans. He said no one was doing "high fives" after the testimony.
During the hearings Thursday, while Democratic senators criticized Gonzales' leadership, some of the sharpest criticism came from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including one who called for his resignation.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, said Gonzales should resign.
in the same article, cnn also notes that jeff sessions (republican senator, on the committee that alberto offered stumbling testimony to thursday) says alberto should step down. and, get this, 1 of the names republicans are whispering as a replacement for alberto is ted olson. ted olson!
if that happens, hillary has no shot at the nomination. if she can't prevent ted olson - if she and bill can't prevent ted olson - from becoming attorney general, she has no power. ted olson is the piece of human filth who was a large part of the witch hunts against the clintons during the 90s.
by the way, the washington post (no link) has a column screaming that hillary should give back monies from producer and sometimes rapper timbaland. i think that's nonsense. when the same crowd starts calling for republicans to give back monies from weapons manufacturers i'll believe they're sincere. as any reader knows, i don't like hillary clinton. i saw that headline and thought, 'oh goody!' and expected to enjoy it. but it's nonsense in my opinion. (doesn't mean she won't end up giving it back.) i'm not a fan of timbaland (or any 1 who works with mommy may i pet with danger justy) but that's just nonsense. there are people who are offering up more than words to contribute to the violence we live in around the world. so when you start going after those people, i'll take you seriously. until then, don't blow smoke up my ass.
this is john dean's take:
Senator Charles Schumer (D.NY) toward the end of the proceeding told Gonzales that his continued evasive answers - there were over 100 questions to which he claim he could not recall the answer - left a clear impression on the Senator: Since no one in the Department of Justice could explain how some of the names got on the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired, he could only conclude that this must have been a White House- orchestrated operation. I think this fact has become clear.
Some of the most important and revealing information during this hearing did not come from Gonzales, but rather from the newest member of the committee, freshman Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D.RI). Senator Whitehouse is the former Attorney General of Rhode Island, and a former U.S. Attorney. He thus understands well how the Justice Department should operate, and how it actually is operating.
In a premise to a question for Gonzales, Senator Whitehouse said he had found correspondence in the files of the Senate Judiciary Committee from the days when Orrin Hatch was chairman relating to an investigation of the relationship between the Clinton White House and the Justice Department (under Attorney General Janet Reno). Hatch was concerned about the independence of the Department of Justice, so he wanted to know who in the White House could speak with whom in the Justice Department. The correspondence showed that four people in the White House (the President, Vice President, chief of staff, and White House counsel) could speak with three people in the Justice Department (the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney and the Associate Attorney General) - period.
Senator Whitehouse discovered - and created a chart to make the point - that in the Bush White House, a shocking 417 people could speak with 30 different people in the Justice Department. It was a jaw-dropper. As Chairman Leahy said, when he asked Senator Whitehouse to continue when his time expired, in his thirty years on the Judiciary Committee, he had never seen anything like the open contacts from the White House to the Justice Department that had occurred in the Bush Administration.
Gonzales really had no response when asked about this subject. But this information shows that, in this Administration, the Department of Justice has become a mere political appendage of the White House. (I have a number of friends who are career professionals at the Department of Justice, and since Gonzales arrived, they have said that morale at the department has tanked, for they all feel the politicization of the place, and they do not like it. Many of these gifted, experienced professionals are leaving, which will hurt the Department, the government, and ultimately all of us.)
no offense to john dean or his friends, but i'm struggling to picture a tanking - gonzales replaced j-ass, who held morning prayer meet ups when not tossing drape cloths over statues. he came off like the fussy client of doris day's in pillow talk - the 1 that's obsessed with a small statue until she discovers it is a cambodian fertility god.
now on the efforts to circumvent the legally required archiving sytem that would keep a record of all white house e-mails, karl rove and others were doing white house business in their g.o.p. accounts. truthout reports that the white house is now insisting that before such e-mails are turned over to congress, the white house be allowed to see them first. they gave up that right when they used g.o.p. accounts. they made the choice to use political party accounts and they can't now come in (or shouldn't be allowed to) and say, 'that may have official white house business!' i'm sure it does. i'm also sure that official white house business is legally supposed to be conducted via the white house e-mail accounts. when they broke the law, they gave up the right to claim 'executive priv.' ap reports that the democratic party is suing the republican party saying that the e-mails must be turned over to congress.
and that's about all the cess pool i can handle in 1 morning. read betty's 'Friedman takes a trip' and here is c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot' for yesterday:
Friday, April 20, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces the death of another service member, "development" passes for an answer in Baghdad ("Time-shares" is next), Helga Aguayo explains the status of her husband (war resister Agustin Aguayo), and Bobby Gates finally gets to act out his long held dream to be Marisa Tomei.
"The investigating officer said that it was in the best interest of the military to discharge him and that he believed that Agustin was sincere. However, higher ups in the chain of command -- that never met with my husband -- decided that he wasn't sincere and just didn't really give a reason, just said that he didn't qualify as a conscienious objector," Helga Aguayo speaking to Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) today. Helga Aguayo sketched out
how her husband came to see the illegal war as immoral while serving in Iraq, how he attempted to receive CO status, the obstacles there and a great deal more including the the convictions of missing movement and desertion. On the latter, she noted that it "is unheard of for people that are gone less than thirty days -- soldiers that are gone less than thirty days." Aguayo was gone from September 2nd through September 26th. The rule of thumb is that if you are gone less than 30 days, desertion isn't even a possible charge. Not only was Aguayo gone less than 30, he turned himself in. Helga Aguayo explained how the two felony convictions mean trigger an automatic appeal:
Helga Aguayo: And the other thing is that Agustin will not be discharged. I'm getting congratulations -- 'Oh, congratulations, he's coming home' -- we don't know when he's coming home, one. And, two, he actually will not be discharged from the military for twelve to twenty-four months from now, because he got a bad-conduct discharge and it's such a serious offense. He has two felonies. It goes onto an automatic appeal, and because of that, he will remain active-duty, which means he has to abide by the standards that is required of every soldier. He could potentially be charged with anything else during the time that he's on voluntary or involuntary leave or administrative leave. They'll give him of the three, if it's approved. And we won't know if it's approved.
Amy Goodman: Could he sent back to Iraq?
Helga Aguayo: I hope not. I don't think so. I think it would be -- I mean, Agustin's gotten a lot of support. And I, you know, would definitely just go to the press and go to the people. I don't think it would be in their best interest to do that.
Agustin Aguayo's repeated attempts to receive CO status demonstrate the need for the system to be fixed. As does the case of Robert Zabala who had to take the issue to the civilian courts to be awarded his status. The two, and many others, illustrate the problems with and arbitrary nature of the way the US military chooses to recognize (or not) CO status.
This is why the Center on Conscience & War has declared May 14th the day to lobby Congress to pass a law that would "protect the rights of conscientious objectors".
Aguayo is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Turning to news in Iraq, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates landed in Baghdad Thursday to provide war weary Iraqis and US service members with a bus and truck show of My Cousin Vinnie. David S. Cloud, Alissa J. Rubin and Edward Wong (New York Times) report that he visited "to press Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq to move faster on Sunni-Shiite reconciliation at a momment when Mr. Maliki's ability to deliver appears limited, at best." This allowed Bobby Gates to attack the part of Lisa with vigor as he stomped his feet in the safety of the Green Zone.
Bobby Gates: Well I hate to bring it up because I know you've got enough pressure on you already. But, we agreed to get an oil law passed as soon as we installed you. Meanwhile, ELEVEN MONTHS LATER, no oil law, Iran is making us nervous and our bully clock is TICKING and the way this war is going, I ain't never going to see the theft of Iraqi oil.
While Gates was telling/ordering al-Maliki to step it up, Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) reported that it really doesn't make a great deal of difference: "Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces. Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, had dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said."
As most play mum on that revelation, Mark Tran (Guardian of London) notes, "Washington today said it would take political reconciliation in Iraq into account when it decides this summer whether to reduce troop numbers." Translation? There will be no real reduction unless the people insist upon it. Just more stalling tactics on the part of the US installed puppet and more bluster from the bullies of the US administration. Meanwhile, the government of Turkey has set a deadline. KUNA reports that Turkey now has: "a 'specific timetable' for trans-borders operations including intrusions into northern Iraqi, Turkish NTV news website reported Friday. . . . The plan, envising the intrusion of thousands of Turkish troops into northern Iraqi areas to hunt rebel Kurds, is about to be a reality, according to the report."
Meanwhile in "New Listings" news, need a getaway? How about some place just east of a river, a gated community with rustic charm? CBS and AP report that gated communities are coming to Baghdad in the form of "a three mile wall": "When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community or Azamiyah, on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be gated, and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will be the only entries, the military said."
Gated communities? And people think the US administration has no ideas in the tank.
While the US administration continues their attempts at stand up, Tom Clifford (CounterPunch) notes the very real increase in Iraqi deaths including that last month was the deadliest in the last 12 months and that the escalation has claimed at least 7,400 reported deaths. And in some of the reported violence today in Iraq . . .
Bombings?
AFP reports a Nasiriyah bombing that killed 4 "including an 11-year-old girl". Reuters reports an eastern Baghdad mortar attack the killed 1 person and left 4 injured as well as a truck bombing in Falluja that killed 2 people and left 37 wounded. Lebanon's Daily Star reports that gunfire and helicopter fire were used around a mosque as US forces attacked what they hope are 'guilty' people since they killed four -- however, they originally denied the deaths and the attack only to correct that later on..
Shootings?
Reuters notes two police officers shot dead in Baquba and eight wounded, 1 person was shot dead in Falluja (2 more injured), and 1 person shot dead in Kufa. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports: "Employees working for the North Oil Company were targeted in Kirkuk by gunmen yesterday evening. The gunmen attacked the employees' while they were coming to Baghdad, the incident took place on Karkuk-Baghdad motorway when the insurgents opened fire injuring 4 employees."
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 19 corpses discovered in Baghdad on Friday.
In addition, the US military announced today: "A Task Force Marne Soldier was killed and two were wounded when a rocket struck Forward Operating Base Mahmudiyah Thursday night."
And in news of activism, Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) notes the national Make Hip Hop, Not War tour which attempts to welcome important segments that have otherwise been overlooked. Ford writes: "The 'Make Hip Hop, Not War' movement finds only lip-service support from the white-dominated anti-war 'movement,' which finds itself unable to include the most anti-war segment of the American public: Black people. Rosa Clemente, of Pacifica's New York radio station WBAI and a founded of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, says, 'This is why the anti-war movement is not working. How are you going to have an anti-war movement that marginalizes Black people?'"
