Days Later...

10 to be exact. Ten long, pain-filled days of packing, cleaning and driving across country to our new Deep South locale. Thank you all for your patience and support. Tomorrow, I begin blogging anew.

Private Contractors at Walter Reed fail to deliver mail

WASHINGTON - Turns out the trouble at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the focus of a firestorm of criticism over poor treatment of wounded war veterans, reached into the mailroom.

MSNBC reports.

Snow Job

Via the laptop:File under:AYFKM? (are you fucking kidding me?): Tony Snow presidential spokes-hole, tells us, "President Bush Is ‘On The Frontlines’ Of The Iraq War ‘Every Day’..." After you read the article via Think Progress, please come back and explain WTF.

Moving Day

Today we are relocating. As the computer is about to go into a box, I shan't be posting for a few days. Wish us luck as my husband and I continue our illustrious "Red State Tour." Somebody's gotta do it. I guess it will make me really appreciate getting back to California, whenever that happens. See you in a few days.

Can you say subpoena?

TPM is reporting BREAKING NEWS: Top White House Officials Subpoenaed Over Attorney Scandal

Former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former top Karl Rove aide Sara Taylor, who served as White House political director before resigning last month, have been issued subpoenas over their connections to the U.S. attorney scandal.

UPDATE: These are the first subpoenas delivered to the White House regarding the attorney firings. The House Judiciary Committee issued the subpoena to Miers, and the Senate Judiciary Committee issued the subpoena to Taylor. Emails showing Taylor and Miers deeply involved in the Justice Department’s response to the scandal were released last night.

UPDATE II: The AP reports, “The Senate Judiciary Committee’s subpoena for Taylor compels her to testify on July 11, while the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena for Miers compels her testimony the next day.”

UPDATE III: CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reports, “The White House has made clear it will cite executive privilege for conversations that took place within the White House on the U.S. attorney matter, and if the people with those conversations happen to have subsequently left the White House, that doesn’t matter. They’re still going to cite executive privilege, and these people are not going to be allowed to testify anytime soon, it appears, if the White House remains as it has been. … Even if they want to testify.”

H/T to BB for the linky.

Shoephone over at Evergreen Politics has this posted:Subpeonas Issued, Bush Spews More "Executive Privilege" Garbage Give it a read.

Hump Day Quiz

Just got this in an email, thought I'd share. This test is based on Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs typological approach to personality. As it turns out, I’m a ENFJ “Teacher Idealist.” Take the test (about 5 minutes), and tell me what type you are in the comments.

People on my list:

Oprah Winfrey
Mikhail Gorbachev
Billy Graham
Ralph Nader
John Wooden
Martin Luther King Jr.
Margaret Mead
Pope John Paul II

Ten Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You

Stolen from What a Weenie!

USAF used to fill thinning Army ranks

The Washington Times is reporting that enlisted Airmen, mostly from Lackland AFB, are being given a two week training course to assume the Army duty of escorting and running convoys. USAF Airman are being used to fill out the thin Army ranks. Hard to get water from a dry well, eh boys?

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself one of the most dangerous in Iraq these days. But the camouflage-clad young men and women training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they are Air Force.
They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do soldiers duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign that the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

read the rest...

Larry Johnson at No Quarter also has a piece up on the missed recruitment goals in the Army. And if you have time, a little cartoon for the kiddies.

The Difference

The boys over at Sadly, No have posted a charming piece comparing and contrasting the 'difference' between the wingnut diehards and the nazis. Interesting.

The Nazis were bad because they used violence, racism and propaganda to fuel the persecution of an innocent minority group for no other reason than their ethnic and religious status. Ask us if torture is wrong: we’ll say of course it is, under all circumstances, because the use of savagely inhumane treatment against other human beings is something that should be opposed even if it were effective, which it isn’t. Ask us why we hope to prevail against terrorism, and we’ll say, once we finish eating our brisket taco, because we believe that democracy, freedom and justice are values worth preserving — the very basis of our national identity, and to be defended fiercely against anyone who would take them away, whether an internal or external threat. We’re always saying high-minding shit like that.

Ask a lot of folks on the right what was so bad about the Nazis, though, and it seems pretty likely they’d say “They directed their tactics at the wrong people.” Ask if torture is wrong, and they’ll say “only if the other side uses it.” Ask why they hope to prevail against terrorism, and they’ll say “because we’re America, and they’re not.” It’s as simple as different names for sides with a lot of these people, which saves them all the messy trouble of deciding how far is too far, what threat is a legitimate threat, and whether it’s possible to err by adopting the methods of your enemies. (The answers, for those of you who haven’t been watching the G.O.P. debates, are “none too far”, “all of them” and “no”.)

read the rest...

Ex-Navy chief 'took private legal advice on Iraq'

The Independent is reporting the the former head of the British Navy was so concerned about the possibly illegal invasion of Iraq that he sought outside, private, legal advice.

Admiral Sir Alan West, the First Sea Lord, approached lawyers to ask whether Navy and Royal Marines personnel might end up facing war crimes charges in relation to their duties in Iraq. The extraordinary steps taken by Sir Alan - which The Independent can reveal today - shows the high level of concern felt by service chiefs in the approach to war - concern that was not eased by the Attorney General's provision of a legal licence for the attack on Iraq.

Read the rest...

The SAUSHEC Redemption

I want to offer a brief but very deserved congratulations to the best and the brightest--the graduates of SAUSHEC 2007. San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium, redeeming the military one class at a time. The Air Force, Army, and Navy have just graduated a new class of over 300 graduate medical professionals. Medical specialists in every specialty. Good luck to all of them and special prayers to the ones on their way to deployments downrange. Godspeed.

Powell: Close Guantanamo Now, Restore Habeas

This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Gen. Colin Powell strongly condemned the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, calling it “a major problem for America’s perception” and charging, “if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo — not tomorrow, this afternoon.”

Read the rest, Think Progress has it.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Gen. Peter Pace is OUT. The now-former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been told to pack his bags. The Washington Note, takes note.

Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007

I've been so busy that I only now have received this sad news: Steve Gilliard has died.

Please read the posts and obituary written up at his site News Blog. When I started blogging last year, Steve was an inspiration and a help. we chatted a couple of times in comments and he was always helpful. He will be missed. Condolences go out to his family and his ever-faithful Jen and all the friends he made in the blogosphere. Rest in peace Gilly.

Steve's passing has generated tremendous outpourings of affection around the world - no surprise, considering how he was considered to be a "blogger's blogger" - the cream of the crop. This link provides a good indication of the impact Steve's work had on the lives of others, from all corners.

TB Man more popular than Bush

Today’s Borowitz Report:

TB Guy Tops Bush in New Poll
Latest Sign of Trouble for White House

In the latest erosion of President George W. Bush’s job approval rating, a new poll released today reveals that Mr. Bush is now less popular among the American people than the so-called “TB Guy,” Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker.

While the president’s approval numbers have been in a virtual free-fall in recent months, few political insiders expected him to be trounced by Mr. Speaker, who has been accused of exposing airline passengers to tuberculosis.

Additionally, the poll results are historic in another way, since they mark the first time that a sitting president has been deemed less popular than a quarantined disease carrier.

But at the White House today, official spokesman Tony Snow tried to put a positive spin on the numbers, saying that Mr. Speaker’s poll numbers received an artificial “bounce” as a result of all of the press coverage he has received in recent days.

“If President Bush had been quarantined for spreading tuberculosis around the world, his numbers would be right up there with the TB Guy’s,” Mr. Snow claimed.

Perhaps in an attempt to change the subject, President Bush participated in a ceremony today in which he declared victory over peace activist Cindy Sheehan.

Posing in front of a banner reading “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Bush said that Ms. Sheehan’s departure from the peace movement means “I won’t have to spend this August in Crawford hiding in the barn.”

Elsewhere, getting married can have significant psychological benefits for those suffering from depression, according to a study published today in the Journal of Larry King.

Thanks to BB for the Borowitz.

Radio Diversity? Not

Think Progress has this post on the latest developments with the FCC and the mega-conglomerate desire to own ALL the radio stations in America which of course, are broadcast on the PUBLICLY OWNED AIRWAVES. Then check the "Think Fast" post.

Go Left

Something new in the left blogosphere and in the DeepCon media links section. Introducing Go Left TV. A media, links and video site for the left of center.

After checking out Go Left TV, check out this past weeks episode of Ring of Fire. Great commentary that I call the best of the left.

Rush to Judgment

Don't know if you read this, but I just caught James Wolcott's Vanity Fair article:

Rush Limbaugh, he's got the life. His days flick through the slot like postcards from paradise. Where most gab-show hosts report for duty at radio studios where candy bars get stuck in the vending machine and the carpeting is a certain industrial shade of indifference, Limbaugh—a man, a mission, a mighty wind—has carved out his own principality in Florida's Palm Beach, a lion preserve where he can roam undisturbed. Drinking in the rays, puffing on those big-shot cigars, riding the range in a golf cart—he's got the complete Jackie Gleason how-sweet-it-is package deal. But just as the Great One suffered from melancholia aggravated by alcohol, Limbaugh's indulgence in his own creature comforts hasn't been able to insulate him from the demons within.

read the rest...

Storm off Hormuz

Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Not much news from the msm about this 5.5 cyclone off the coast of Oman or where we get our oil. Stellar reportage from Isis over at Floating Down Denial a resource blog about "peak oil." Thank goodness for the blogosphere.

Monday Factoid File

From the Thom Hartman Program:

-In 2003 it cost $25,000. to have your picture taken with George W. Bush

-Last year the same photo op cost $10,000.

-Today you can get a JPEG with Junior for a mere $5,000.

What a deal.

3495

What a way to end the weekend.

Faster, Kill Pussycat

File under: Paul Oakenfold, DJ Extraordinaire, Sunday Follies,Tea Dance.

Manage This

By Milo Freeman, SPC, United States Army, Iraq

TO: Senate Democrats, Republicans, and "American Idol" viewers across the nation.

1. You. Punk. Ass. Pantywaisted. Bitches.

2. You had a chance. You could have put your money where your mouth is--could have put some ass behind all those claims of "favoring an end to war."

3. And you fucking choked.

Read the rest...