Space lasers. It must've been space lasers.

This staggeringly important Kos entry rips apart the cover story surrounding the so-called "accident" in Oakland. Don't tell me you really bought that story about a truck hitting a freeway pylon? That's just what Bush WANTS you to believe, naive fool!

And if we have learned anything from 9-11, it is that FIRE CAN NEVER MELT STEEL. I mean, if jet fuel burning in an enclosed space had no effect on the steel in the twin towers, it is obvious that simply gasoline burning below an overpass could never get hot enough to effect the steel in the freeway, yet they expect us to believe...

Engineers said the green steel frame of the I-580 overpass and the bolts holding the frame together began to melt and bend in the intense heat - and that movement pulled the roadbed off its supports.

No freeway overpass in history has ever previously collapsed due to fire. And since it never happened before, obviously, it could not have happened in Oakland. The "official" story defies the laws of physics -- ask any physicist. Moreover, Kos diarist ETinKC has compiled HARD AND CONCLUSIVE PROOF that photos of the scene have been faked.

Fortunately, a group called Associated Scholars & Scientists For Acquisition of Conspiracy Evidence is looking into the matter. They have already fingered a likely suspect: Phil Spector. Remember when he ruined "Long and Winding Road" all those years ago? The pattern is obvious...

Tenet is not the target

The problem with progressive purists is that they prefer to hit allies rather than enemies. To prove the point, consider the current attacks on George Tenet, the last DCI.

Do I like George Tenet? No. Do I think that those criticizing him make good points? Yes. Do I think his memory is self-serving? Hell, I think we are all guilty of self-serving recollection.

But now is not the time to scream at the guy to give back his award and his book advance. Now is not the time to attack the former CIA Director.

Right now, the man is talking. He is of use. He is, like it or not, an ally. Of all the inside players likely to go blabby, he was probably the deepest inside.

So put a clothespin over your nose, if that is the only way you can tolerate the stench, and welcome him into your home. Tell him to sit in the comfy chair. Offer him a drink. You're looking great, George. Have you lost weight, George? We really admire what you're doing here, George. And now...TELL US MORE.

Later on, when he has spilled every bean that he is likely to spill -- later on, when some history has played out -- then we can throw shit at him. Not now.

For chrissakes, progressives -- would it kill you to think in tactical terms for just once in your damned lives?

Hubris

You've probably seen this story already, but I cannot let it pass without comment. The Bush administration turned down $854 million dollars' worth of foreign assistance in the wake of the Katrina disaster. Why?

Goodling's bad move

If Monica Goodling had gone to a REAL law school instead of Pat Robertson's Jesus U, she would have learned about obstruction of justice. And if she were a real Christian instead of a Pat Robertsonesque pseudo-Christian, she would never have practiced obstruction of justice.

See here and here.

If she had not made that immunity deal, she would be -- forgive me, Jesus! -- royally fucked.

7/7 mastermind captured -- or another terrorist fiction?

The right-wing bloggers know glee this day. From the Cassandra Page:

The next time someone tells you that Iraq has nothing to do with the War on Terror or 9-11, just say "Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi."

The name, incidentally, is also transliterated Abdul Hadi al Iraqi. And who is he? From the Times:

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.

Cassandra (as Lewis Carroll might have put it) chortles in her joy:

If we had pulled out of Iraq last year, we would not have caught Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi...

But then again, Saddam had no connections with Al Qaeda, or so we are assured by the MSM/DNC.

(Cute, huh? She wants us to think that the Democrats control mainstream news sources. That lie never dies.)

Other right-wingers denounce the "liberal media" for focusing on the illegal detention and not on the connection to 7/7 or to Saddam. These commentators refuse to recognize the problem always presented by confessions under torture: Right now, as far as we in the laity know, the evidence linking Abd al-Hadi to 7/7 resembles the evidence linking the Knights Templar to Satan-worship.

The remarkable Larisa Alexandrovna points out the indicators that this tale may be another BushCo piece of fiction:

Al-Iraqi was a Kurdish born member of Saddam's army, but he was a Pakistani mole, not a Saddam loyalist. This is like saying that someone like Aldrich Ames was a US intelligence officer and therefor represented the US government in his activities, when in fact, he was a Soviet mole.

Al-Iraqi was never even suggested as a mastermind behind the 7/7 attacks. Nor was he ever mentioned as in any way connected to the Luton cell.

(Emphasis added.) All other sources known to me (this Wikipedia entry provides a start) confirm that the British attack had never been credited to al-Iraqi until recently -- like, yesterday. He was wanted for other things, but not for that.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Bush administration would sit on the news of a capture this huge, especially before the mid-term elections. The Bush administration would have leaked this capture to the press and done the Sunday talkies with great fanfare. And if it was known that the man in custody was the mastermind behind 7/7, then Bush would have declared his capture one of the big victories in the war on terror. Yet we are to believe that they sat on this arrest, held the detainee in some secret facility until now, when they suddenly decided to let the world know that he was the official mastermind of 7/7?

Remember, this is the same Bush administration which proffered fake "yellowcake" documents as real, which built up an inane melodrama around the rescue of Jessica Lynch, and which staged the "spontaneous" fall of Saddam's statue using Chalabi's goons.

Perhaps someone could explain to our right-wing friends that Al Qaeda would never have had any foothold in Iraq if we had not invaded, and stayed, and stolen resources, and done everything we could to alienate the population.

So: What really happened on 7/7?

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

On April 9, 2006, the Observer published a leaked Home Office report on the bombings. According to this piece (which stems from an official and confidential document, not from data derived from a guy being starved and waterboarded), the attack was not the work of Al Qaeda:

Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts.

Back to the Times piece:

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.

Oh ho. So aside from information derived under torture, the only "evidence" connecting Al Iraqi to 7/7 comes from -- get this! -- Pakistani intelligence.

Consider the source. Strong evidence connects Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, with Osama Bin Laden and with 9/11. Those links are, in fact, much more compelling than any alleged ties between Al Qaeda and the U.K. atrocity.

As noted in an earlier piece, the paymaster for 9/11 appears to have been ISI agent Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. And after you've scanned his strange career, check out the troubling history of former ISI head Mehmood Ahmad Mehmood, paymaster to Atta and "enabler" of Al Qaeda's mass exodus from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Some observers think that MAM has always been the "real" leader of Al Qaeda. (Mehmood has pulled a vanishing act, no doubt with the connivance of the Pakistani government; some think that he is still pulling the strings at ISI.)

And yet according to the Times and the right-wingers, we are supposed to accept ISI's word against al-Iraqi -- or against anyone else. Riiiiiiiight.

(As for the case against Rauf: We've already had much to say about that scarecrow. Remember, Rauf was arrested in Pakistan -- where he marketed beauty and health products -- before the alleged jetliner plot was to be executed.)

To repeat: Nobody mentioned one word about a connection between al-Iraqi and 7/7 until after he had entered the torture chamber. Indeed, the British government had concluded as late as April, 2006 that Al Qaeda had no connection to the crime.

Perhaps you remember an old joke (I've told it before) about the time the head of the KGB, the head of the CIA, and the head of Mossad all went on vacation together. They decided to hold a contest to see who would be the first to a shoot a bear in the forest. Let's cut to the punchline: The Mossad guy won when he showed the other guys a battered and bruised rabbit. "He confessed! He IS a bear!"

Randy

As you probably know, Randall Tobias had to resign his position as head of the United States Agency for International Development because his name turned up in the latest DC sex scandal. Tobias, a married man in his 60s, had used Pamela Martin & Associates, the hooker service run by the latest DC Madame, Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

There is an aspect of this story that you may not know about.

Numerous books and magazines articles have stated without equivocation that USAID is often used as cover by the CIA. (See, for one example among many, here.) Randall Tobias is one of the few people who would know which agents were posing as AID personnel.

Obviously, a foreign intelligence service would love to compromise this guy. In the immortal words of Krusty the Klown: "You know -- click click!"

That possibility places into new perspective one of the more outrageous statements to come out of this scandal:

Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

Palfrey, according to Josh Marshall, used girls from Thailand. One does not need much imagination to see how easy it would have been to ensnare Tobias in what the spooks used to (and may still) call a honeytrap.

This sort of thing has happened before. Back in the Nixon era, Xaviera Hollander was servicing many powerful people, including Arab leaders. The co-author (or ghost writer) of her autobiography, Robin Moore, placed hidden cameras in her bedroom for...er...research purposes. Do a little Googling on Moore and you'll see that he has had a rather interesting history.

Another point worth mentioning:

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Now we know why he derided condom usage. "Mr. Faithfulness" was just looking for a BBBJ.

I wonder how many other advocates of abstinence only got these (a-HEM!) "massages"?

Did a secret U.K. memo refer to Bush as a "madman"?

That's what Wayne Madsen says:

Senior British civil servant David Keogh. a former communications and cipher officer at Number 10 Downing Street, is on trial at London's Old Bailey, charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for leaking a classified report on an April 2004 meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair. The four page report referred to Bush as a "madman." Keough is accused of slipping the report to parliamentary assistant Leo O'Connor, who then allegedly made it available to anti-war MP Anthony Clarke. O'Connor is also on trial for violating the Official Secrets Act. The Blair government accuses Keough of leaking the document to influence the 2004 presidential elections, a clear indication that Blair was interested in seeing Bush defeat his Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Alas, that's not quite how the BBC tells the story:

On Monday a statement by Mr O'Connor to police was read out in court, in which he said that the memo was a powerful document...

He said Mr Keogh wanted to get it into the public domain to influence elections about to take place in the United States.

Mr O'Connor told detectives Mr Keogh did not like President Bush.

The court heard that Mr O'Connor told police: "Something along the lines of 'The man's a madman' was said (by Mr Keogh).

"At the time it was the run-up to the American elections. I think his view was to get this document into this domain."

Madsen would have us believe that "madman" was the secret assessment of the U.K. government, when that word actually seems to have originated with Keogh. There's a difference between the opinion of one man and the opinion of a government.

The BBC report does not describe the actual contents of the memo. Apparently, the text addresses the situation in Fallujah, and may refer to plans to arrest Moqtada al-Sadr.

Stranger in Paraguay

In the latter parts of last year, many a blog (including this one) fastened onto a strange tale. The Bush family, it was said, had purchased a 90-something-thousand acre section of Paraguay, right next to the Reverend Moon's even more massive holdings. (The Moon purchase has been verified by multiple sources.)

Moon isn't the only controversial figure drawn to the area. Over the years, many haunting reports have placed Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and other Al Qaeda worthies in the region.

Problems with the story soon cropped up. Reports conflicted as to just which part of the country was under Bush control. The White House flat-out denied the claim. And the earliest news reports carrying the accusation appear to have been from Cuban news sources.

Now, a Kos blogger named residentcynic resurrects the story.

Bush bought land in Paraguay in 2006, a roughly 98,840 acre parcel in the Paso de Patria area called "Chaco", close to the intersections of Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. Apparently, it's a gorgeous spot. The land is close to the Bolivian wetlands, is situated near natural gas reserves, and sits atop one of the largest aquifers in the world, the Guarani indigenous water region. Part of the property has been designated an ecological reserve. And wow, they think of everything, it's close to the US Mariscal Estigarribia Military Base...

Why Paraguay? Aside from the area's impressive natural resources, there is the fact that a new lam in that country grants immunity to U.S. military personnel (including, presumably, the Commander in Chief) should they happen to be on the lam from any pesky international court handing out war crimes indictments.

The situation reminds one of Otto Skorzeny's notorious post-war sojourn in Argentina to hang with Evita. (According to Glenn Infield's book Skorzeny, ol' Scarface did more than hang with her. But that's another tale for another time.)

So: Is the story real? Has report congealed into fact?

Alas, residentcynics's links go to two late-2006 news pieces which reference the originator of the claim, Prensa Latina. Which is Cuba's news service. That kind of sourcing does not necessarily mean that the tale is false, but most Americans will require more.

As I wrote earlier:

If the entire Bush-in-Paraguay meme was concocted by one of Fidel Castro's spooks -- well, it's certainly no worse than the whoppers concocted by our own spooks. What troubles me is the sheer strangeness of the accusation.

Suppose, for example, the Cubans had planted a story that Bush had personally sold short one of the firms whose interests were harmed on 911. The political value of that kind of disinformation would be obvious. But...Paraguay? Most Americans simply don't give a damn about anything that happens in Paraguay. Why improvise on that theme?

In response to these words, reader (and D.U. luminary) HamdenRice offered this suggestion:

While most Americans have never heard of Paraguay, the news junkie and educated classes would immediately associate that country with fleeing Nazis. The purpose of spreading this meme would be to create exactly the effect the story did in fact have in the blogosphere, namely, the vague feeling that the Bush family -- having screwed up the country, committed war crimes, lost a two front war, and finally provoked revulsion and revolt among the citizenry -- was planning its getaway, just like the Nazis with whom the Bush lineage seems to be so closely linked.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Some stories, on first hearing, just feel like disinfo. Some stories, on first hearing, just feel like the truth. This one...to me...just feels like....

Ah, hell. At this point, I'm not sure what my gut says. What's your read?

They call him crazy...

...but he makes a lot of sense to me.

How things have changed! Not many years ago, no Democrat could have gotten near the nomination without first endorsing a "no first use" policy regarding nuclear weapons. Now, Mike Gravel is the only one taking that position. And people are calling him nuts.

A hidden story of prosecutorgate. This one has dead bodies.

I've known something about this for a while now, but I haven't been able to write about it properly. Since I may be busy for the next little while, all I can do right now is beg you to go here and read, read, read. Your attention will be rewarded.

Previously, I thought that U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of MO was "axed" to leave because exposure of that "fee office" palm-greasing business could have brought down Governor Roy Blunt. Turns out there's another theory of what really went down...

Also keep checking out the dribs and drabs we get from Josh Marshall. Today he published this interesting quote from Graves himself:

“I value the years I spent at DOJ (Department of Justice) and the friendships I forged there. But the current environment at the Department can only be described as toxic, and I am very thankful I left…What is going on now in DC is a three-ring circus, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

In Roman days, the "circus" was a place where corpses started to pile up. That clue should encourage you to read up.

Big Brother is doubleplus good

As you probably know, Britain has placed surveillance cameras everywhere -- and some of them are even pointed at a building George Orwell once called home:

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

(By way of media monarchy.)

Jon Stewart tells the truth

What the hell is WRONG with this country?

There are days (few) when I know optimism, and days (many more) when I see no hope. After reading this, I can't avoid pessimism. Take a look at the Quinnipiac poll's head to head match-ups, R-vs-D, in the three big purple states:

Pennsylvania: Giuliani beats Clinton, 47-43; Giuliani beats Obama, 45-41; McCain beats Clinton 45-43.

Ohio: Giuliani beats Clinton, 46-41; Giuliani beats Obama, 45-37; Giuliani beats Gore, 47-39; McCain beats Clinton, 44-42; McCain beats Obama, 42-36; McCain beats Gore, 46-39.

Florida: Giuliani beats Clinton, 49-41; Giuliani beats Obama, 49-38; Giuliani beats Gore, 47-43; McCain ties Clinton and Obama.

Giuliani and McCain can rack up those kinds of numbers in the midst of an unpopular war, an insecure economy, the looming prospect of $4.00 a gallon gasoline, a daily barrage of scandals, and a growing sense of national disgust with the current administration. What the hell does the Republican Party have to do to discredit itself?

I'm not saying that a win in 2008 is impossible. But...good lord. Why the hell are we still in the underdog position? 2008 should be the easiest Democratic win since 1964.

GRAVEL! (Update)

I HAVE FOUND MY CANDIDATE!!! I want to see Thompson vs. Gravel. In a pit. With knives. With the music from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time" playing in the background.

Update: I also want to see a battle between Fred Thompson's wife Jeri and Dennis Kucinich's wife Elizabeth. In a pit. No knives. With the music from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time" playing in the background.

PERSECUTION! (Update: Late-breaking Satan info!)

What a fool I've been! I've been under the presumption that the U.S. Attorney purge, the Lynch and Tillman testimonies, and the Skyway cocaine jet were stories worthy of attention.

But the web has another side, my friends. I've been there -- and now I can deliver the real news.

Satan's immigration plan! (This is the updated part.) A leading Republican in Utah exposes the conspiracy:

Don Larsen, a district chairman, has submitted a resolution equating illegal immigration to "Satan's plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion" for debate at Saturday's Utah County Republican Party Convention.

Referring to a plan by the devil for a "New World Order ... as predicted in the Scriptures," the resolution calls for the Utah County Republican Party to support "closing the national borders to illegal immigration to prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion."

Yes, the New World Order is in the Bible, and I'm sure there's a passage in there where Jesus himself denounces immigration as an evil. Except, y'know, when his own family had to toddle off to Egypt. That was okay.

California kids are forced to turn Muslim: Did you know that California's school curriculum "requires students to engage in Islamic religious practices and teaches some tenets of Islam as fact"? That's what Reverend Pat Robertson wants to warn us about -- alas, he is being opposed by those fiends at People for the American Way, who "are so intent on suppressing Christianity..."

(Odd thing. I live in California, and nobody here seems to know anything about this Islam-at-gunpoint problem currently afflicting our schools. In fact, I walk my dog past a local middle school quite often, and have yet to hear a single Muslim prayer. They must be whispering.)

Hate Crime bill is anti-Christian! According to the Concerned Women of America (Beverly LaHaye's outfit), the bill against Hate Crimes currently working its way through Congress "will officially give homosexuals and cross dressers special elevated status in society."

Oh, but it's worse than that. The bill will actually criminalize Christianity itself! Says so right here! You want proof? Why, just look at this "Wanted" poster -- what more evidence could anyone need? Yes, we are indeed reliving the days of Nero.

Rev. Louis Sheldon, director of the Traditional Values Coalition, which represents 43,000 churches across the nation, told WND that the Democrats sponsoring and supporting the issue "have sold out to the homosexual agenda."

He said churches need to awaken to the dangers of having pastors, lay leaders, or even those sitting in the pews sent to jail for their biblical views. "When they [realize they] could go to jail for preaching the Word of God, they'll be concerned," he told WND.

Those awful, awful Demon-crats want to put all Christians in jail! And even though the section of the bill reading "PUT ALL CHRISTIANS IN JAIL" is written in invisible ink, Rev. Sheldon possesses the special eyeglasses which allow him to see the secret text.

Wal-Mart promotes homosexuality: Yes, the mega-mart really does want to bring the world to its knees. "Wal-Mart suppliers owned by people who hold traditional values will face loss of contracts if they don't endorse immoral behavior."

(Actually, Wal-Mart's biggest supplier is China -- where homosexuality, though not illegal, stands condemned as "the moldering lifestyle of capitalism.")

Harry Potter is out to get you. The new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will appear in theaters soon, and once again, Christians must stand warned:

Magic is not a game, a pastime... it is a very serious matter, and for a lifetime. Experts say it is the best way to get demon-possession... don't play with it!... forget about Harry Potter!

Those are the words of experts, mind you. Note that demon-possession is something you catch, like herpies.

This page, which comes to us by way of Alex Jones (that noted spirit-filled expert on controlled demolitions) quotes "a young thelemite or solitary witch" in order to prove that people who read "Order of the Phoenix" often go on to be initiated as witches. Yep, solitary witches are "thelemites" -- i.e., followers of Crowley -- and those wiccans who insist otherwise are simply trying to fool you.

Video games are Satanic conspiracies: That's the horrible secret we learn from "Peter," a former member of the Golden Dawn. He can't reveal his real name because those demonic and extremely powerful Golden Dawners will KILL HIM -- but we know that he can't possibly be a fake because he says he's a Christian, and that settles that.

"Video games producers are getting smarter. They lead you to sites where you can be instructed by a real life occultist. You talk to hardcore people."

Happens all the time. Any gamer will confirm this "inside" report.

Christians are the MOST PERSECUTED GROUP IN THE WORLD TODAY. Read all about it right here:

There is a need today. The need is to crack down on all these degenerate Christians spreading their hate. Saying that Jesus Christ is the only way, all of us are sinners and the worst, Sodomites (homosexuals) are an abomination to God.

Folk’s; that’s what this Post Christian World we are live in is saying about us.

What's that? You folk's say you didn't know that we are living in a Post Christian World? And you say that you didn't know about all those laws "cracking down" on people who believe in Jesus Christ? Wake up and smell the bloodshed!

A Los Angeles artist opened an exhibit this week called "Christ Killa" in which the audience is invited to participate in a video game and shoot hordes of "homicidal Jesus Christs."

See? An artist in L.A. tried to make a name for himself by pulling an epater le bourgeois stunt. What more evidence do you need? I understand that zoos near D.C. have stopped buying meat, since Nancy Pelosi and her liberal DEMONcRATs are personally shoving all Bible-believing Lovers of Jesus into the mouths of lions and tigers.

The days of persecution are HERE!

Clint Curtis

He's still not giving up, and more power to him!

Curtis is the fellow who says that, years ago, he was asked to write vote-rigging software for Republican Tom Feeney, and who ran against Feeney last year. Curtis now says he has hard evidence that he should have received at least twelve percent more votes than the official tally states. (He lost by 16%.) Right now, with Feeney caught up (finally!) in the Abramoff investigation, even Florida Republicans may be thinking that they would have been better off with a Curtis victory.

At any rate, Curtis is asking to present his evidence an independent investigation -- a perfectly reasonable request, if ya asks me.

Pelosi and impeachment

Progressives -- who adore beating up Democratic politicians, and who find dishonor in the tactical assessment of any situation -- have long castigated Nancy Pelosi for placing impeachment "off the table." Some of you may recall my own feelings. Had she said anything else before the 2006 elections, she would not be Speaker now. Precisely because she is Speaker now, she must be the -- and I mean THE -- very last to say the words that so many of you short-sighted ones want her to say.

Her position places her next in line to the Presidency. The moment she says "Impeach!" the national storyline switches from "Bush: What a Moron" to "Nancy: Ambition Run Amuck."

Rush and Karl and Rupert are all dying to go with the N:ARA scenario -- and I suspect that many of you are dying to give those guys precisely what they most desire. Me? I want to keep the "Bush as Moron" dialog going -- and I think everyone in this country except Nancy Pelosi should scream "impeachment" every damn day.

Look at how she words her rejection of impeachment:

"We have to use our energies to end this war. I don't think the popular support is there for such a move, I don't think we can get any Republican votes to move forward."

Nothing here about impeachment being wrong or unfair. She simply thinks that the support is lacking, which means that we must generate a public outcry. She needs to be carried by gale-force winds, so it's up to us to huff and to puff and blow the Bush/Cheney house in.

By the way, does anyone know what the polls now say? I'm not talking about questions that read: "Should Bush be impeached if he..." Any such poll is meaningless. No, the question must be: "Should Bush be impeached?" Plain, simple, nothing added.

Pelosi goes wrong when she suggests that a failed impeachment would set back the Democrats' chances in 2008. That's not how history played out in 1998-2000.

Rudy gets KO'd

Perhaps some of you can refresh my memory. Didn't Maury Terry's book The Ultimate Evil contain some dirt -- old dirt, but still dirty dirt -- on Guiliani? I lost my copy of that thing a while ago.

Jessica Lynch

She says that she is no hero, and I know why she says it. But I must disagree. She proved her heroism in Iraq and on Capitol Hill.

Why was she chosen to "star" in a Wag the Dog-style myth? Partially because the circumstances were right, and partially because she's pretty. I imagine that someone did a quick psychological profile and presumed, incorrectly, that she would go along. The melodramatic "TV Movie" quality of the myth leads me to suspect that Karl Rove had a hand in its production.

The entire invasion of Iraq had a made-in-Hollywood feel. The allegedly "spontaneous" downing of the Saddam statue (by Chalabi's goons posing as real Baghdad residents) is the most obvious case in point, but I also saw fake battle footage that same day.

Every magician's trick is revealed eventually.

Is someone out to get Dick?

It says much about the administration's current status that the radio rightists won't be able to get much mileage out of the recent revelation, or claim, that Osama Bin Laden planned the suicide attack on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan while Dick Cheney was staying there.

As Josh Marshall notes, Dems can counter that we wouldn't have a continuing Osama problem if Bush hadn't let the guy go at Tora Bora.

President Bush decided to let bin Laden get away so he could get ready to attack Saddam Hussein. So pretty much anything bin Laden does from here on out is on President Bush. And how about Iraq? President Bush has screwed things up so badly that he's created a whole new generation of recruits for bin Laden. He's created a whole new army for bin Laden. Not by being tough but by being stupid.

Marshall gives only part of the story. Not only did Bin Laden escape, so did dozens of his men -- in flights that were obviously "protected" by the Americans. See the film 9/11: Press for Truth.

There remains the question of just how Osama (or whoever) knew that Cheney was staying at Bagram Air Base, when few Americans had that knowledge.

The whole trip (late last February) was quite mysterious. Allegedly the journey was for PR purposes, but the massive protests greeting Cheney in Australia did not exactly do much to engender goodwill toward America. There were rumors about a possible jet "malfunction" while he was taking off from Sydney, and a "generator problem" later caused an unscheduled landing in Singapore. Odd coincidence, that. At the time, all other jets available to the Veep were being repaired; that plane was the only one available to him.

So who told the Taliban that Cheney was staying at Bagram? The photo reproduced here was taken in October of 2006, and it may provide a subtle clue regarding the feelings of some of the personnel stationed there.

Alternative thought: Since I am in a mood, these days, to speculate about infighting within the administration, it occurs to me that someone close to Bush might have liked the idea of Cheney falling to an Al Qaeda attack. Such an incident would have elevated approval ratings for both Bush and his war, while ridding him of an unpopular Veep.

Remember how, not long after the attack, we saw the Dickster standing in the bushes, glowering sheer vituperation at his President? Watch the video, if you haven't seen it already. That glare could ignite barbecue coals.

I am, of course, engaging in irresponsible surmise. Really, my wrists deserve a good slapping.

Remember the Skyway coke jet?

Time flies, and so does cocaine: A year ago, an America-bound jet laden with 5.5 tons of coke was surrounded by police on a tarmac in Mexico. The jet bore the insignia of a pseudo-firm called Skyway, run by a scamster named Brent Kovar who has bragged about working for the CIA. The pilot got away -- even though cops surrounded the jet -- and Kovar has not gone to jail.

Daniel Hopsicker has been working this story doggedly, and as you will see, he has made real progress. The evidence seems clear that this was a "protected" (as in, spook-approved) flight -- all of which leaves us wondering how many such flights have made their way to the United States -- and how much of the drug trade goes to fund the world of covert operations.

SkyWay’s genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency.

· SkyWay was part of a network of companies, three of which—L-3 Communications, Net Command Tech Inc, and Triton Network Systems Inc.— were cited by Elliot Spitzer, then the Attorney General of New York State, for being used by Wall Street brokers in “pump and dump” schemes which cost unwary investors tens of millions of dollars.

· The suspicious involvement of L-3 Communications subsidiary Titan Corp of San Diego, the biggest donor to Southern California Congressmen convicted or being investigated by fired San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.

· The Israeli connection to SkyWay, including the involvement of an Israeli tele-com firm, Tadiran, accused of being involved in worldwide espionage, and which owned the headquarters of SkyWay in Clearwater, Florida.

· The involvement of Gulf Arab financiers, including an overseas bank, Banque Francaise de l'Orient, long associated with the Saudi bin Laden family.

· Evidence of Republican party involvement in the network, which included the free use of one of the smuggling aircraft by the current head of fund-raising for the national Republican party, U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, who "traveled to nighttime rallies in luxury," the St. Petersburg Times reported, “on a DC-9 owned by Skyway Global, a Clearwater security company whose owners are Martinez supporters.”

Folks, we have barely scratched the surface of this one. Meet me on the flip side, and we'll take a closer look at this strange In-Q-Tel firm, as well as the Israeli connections...

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

Although owned by SkyWay, the airliner was registered to Royal Sons Inc., a company controlled by an aircraft broker from Tampa, FL. named Frederic Geffon.

And:

“Geffon was under court order to not let the planes leave the St Petersburg-Clearwater Airport,” stated a source close to the Bankruptcy proceedings. “The Airport Tower had even been ordered not to let the plane take off."

"Geffon was in direct violation of the court order when that DC9 took off for Venezuela,” the source stated last week.

Yet Frederic Geffon has suffered no legal sanction at all, either for violating the court order, or for owning a plane busted with a plane filled with a box-car's worth of cocaine, evidence that, legally speaking, Frederic Geffon walks on water.

Hopsicker earlier quoted Geffon on Kovar:

"Their company is a scam and he’s a scammer. I got sold a bill of goods about his stock. Everybody out here at the (Clearwater-St. Pete International) airport invested with him, and we all lost it all."

These words carry a thieves-falling-out quality. And perhaps we can find here an explanation as to why the flight was seized. These flights were apparently routine; the airports and authorities are paid to look the other way. Either somebody didn't get his envelope, or somebody was trying to backstab a former partner.

Kovar knows a thing or two about water-walking himself. He and his family are now running another firm called “Homeland Security Tracking Enforcement.” I'm sure that this is a fine company providing both an important service and a reasonable rate of return for their investors.

Oh...one other thing:

Geffon’s Royal Sons Inc has one other distinction that needs to be mentioned: The firm occasionally listed its address as 224 E Airport Ave at the tiny Venice, FL airport, in a hangar belonging to terror flight school Huffman Aviation.

In case you've forgotten, Huffman is the place Mohammed Atta called home. Funny coincidence, that.

Now, I must be clear on one point: I am not personally accusing Tadiran (or Geffon, or anyone else) of wrongdoing. However, as regular readers know, these Israeli IT and telecommunications companies keep popping up in stories with "spooky" overtones. So I tend to keep an eye out for these guys. Here is some company info on Tadiran (which, incidentally, has a contract to supply radio equipment to the U.S. Army):

Tadiran Telecom is a private company, owned by Ron Bregman, Africa-Israel Communication Ltd., and Gifford Ltd. It is headquartered in Petach Tikva, Israel, with regional head offices in Port Washington, NY, USA, Moscow Russia, Beijing, China and Delhi, India.

After a brief scan, the only source I can find linking Tadiran with intelligence is Andrew and Leslie Cockburn's excellent book Dangerous Liaison, which reports that the company supplied the murderous Guatemalan military dictatorship with a computerized tracking system for subversives. The list included journalists, politicians, writers, students and so forth -- and anyone on the list was likely to find himself "disappeared."

In-Q-Tel, founded by former CIA Director George Tenet, is a pretty odd company in it's own right. See the New York Post story here, which describes the company as

a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group that is owned, operated and financed out of the black box budget of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The piece ends:

So tell me, people, are we OK with this? Are we OK with letting the CIA use taxpayer money to gamble on Wall Street for the personal profit of their own employees . . . and then not explain why?

There's much more to the Skyway story. You cannot attain Basic Life Competence unless you visit Hopsicker's site...

Dick, begone!

Impeachment charges against Cheney are here. Here is the synopsis and here is the warning letter to the Dickster. I hope all our readers give thanks to Dennis Kucinich.

Here's a summary of the summary:

Article 1: Intel manipulation and lying to Congress about WMDs in Iraq.

Article 2: Ditto regarding the Iraq/Al Qaeda fib.

Article 3: Threatening war against Iran despite an absence of a threat to U.S. This, says Kucinich, violates the U.N. Charter, to which we are a signatory: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force" unless the nation under threat has committed an act of aggression.

You can probably think of a few more ideas, but that's what DK has for you right now. Enjoy and savor.

Clap your hands if you believe in fairies

I don't think I need to summarize the Pat Tillman story. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich was a commander responsible for Pat Tillman's unit. Check out this gem:

Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

If only those pesky Tillmans accepted fundamentalist codswallop, they'd be more likely to accept Pentagon codswallop.

SmarTech and vote-rigging

In the past, we have focused on SmarTech, the GOP's internet provider which played a still-mysterious role in both computergate (a.k.a. the White House email scandal) and the 2004 election. A growing number of people, including Bob Fitrakis and Steven Rosenfeld, are looking at this company.

Before we get to their latest piece for Tom Paine, we should glance toward Democratic Underground, where a poster named philly_bob has published these words:

Here’s my layman’s account of some significant news about the 2004 Ohio election. It involves the Website Hosting History of . It may be proof that national -- not state -- Republican figures were able to change the election counts.

This data was produced using a NetCraft “toolbar” feature which, given a website’s URL, returns a history of changes in the website hosting service provider. The webpage handled the election results in the 2004 Presidential election.

The data shows ten changes in the Hosting History of the Ohio Secretary of State’s webpage between 2004 and 2007. Eight of the changes are routine changes in the hosting service arrangement with OARnet in Columbus Ohio.

But one of the changes is a Smoking Gun for vote-counting fraud: On November 3, 2004 -- the day before election day -- the Hosting History reports a switch from OARnet to Smartech Corporation of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The hosting switches back to OARnet on November 5, 2004 -- the day after the election.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

Why is this significant?

Because Smartech Corporation has strong ties to the Republican National Committee. For instance, it handled video at the 2004 Republican convention (http://www.smartechcorp.net/index.php?page=news⊂=sto... ) and it was in the news recently for hosting the “gwb43.com” RNC emails that the Judiciary Committee subpoena’d but have been mysteriously “lost” (http://www.robtex.com/dns/gwb43.com.html ).

(There is also a second mystery switch to Smartech on April 22, 2006, with a switch back to OARnet on April 27. I have no explanation for this.)

And now let's take a look at what Fitrakis and Rosenfeld have to say:

On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, the final presidential swing state, through a secretary of state who was a co-chair of the Bush campaign, but it also controlled the technology that allowed the tally of the vote in Ohio's 88 counties to be reported to the media and voters.

Privatizing elections and allowing known partisans to run a key presidential vote count is troubling enough. But the reason Congress must investigate these high-tech ties is there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio's 2004 election while tinkering with the results.

Did Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell or other GOP operatives inflate the president's vote totals to secure George W. Bush's margin of victory? On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the secretary of state were based on local precinct results that were impossible. In Clyde, Ohio, a Republican haven, Bush won big after 131 percent voter turnout. In Republican Perry County, two precincts came in at 124 percent and 120 percent respectively. In Gahanna Ward 1, precinct B, Bush received 4,258 votes despite the fact that only 638 people voted for president. In Concord Southwest in Miami County, the certified election results proudly proclaimed at 679 out of 689 registered voters cast ballots, a 98.55 percent turnout. FreePress.org later found that only 547 voters had signed in.

These strange election results were routed by county election officials through Ohio's Secretary of State's office, through partisan IT providers and software, and the final results were hosted out of a computer based in Tennessee announcing the winner.

And:

What's clear, however, is the highest ranks of the Republican Party's political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio secretary of state, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush's re-election to the presidency. Moreover, it appears the votes that gave Bush his 118,775-vote margin of victory—the boost from Ohio's countryside—have yet to be confirmed as accurate. Instead, the reporting to date suggests that what happened on the ground and across Ohio's rural precincts is at odds with the vote tally released on election night.

There's much more; read the whole piece at Tom Paine. (An earlier version was posted to the comments section of this very blog.) For my part, I can only repeat something I wrote earlier:

As the controversy over the 2004 elections gathered steam, Karl Rove made a joke about fixing the election returns from a computer in the White House basement. This remark always struck me as the sort of "joke" that the guy in Rope might have uttered: "Yeah, sure, I strangled my friend for no good reason and hid his body in the cupboard! Now seriously, how about that drink...?"

Friendly fire

The Office of Special Counsel -- part of the executive branch -- is going after Karl Rove, in part for his insistence on politicizing every aspect of governance. The OSC, which (ostensibly) uncovers Hatch Act violations, has promised to look into the matter I call computergate. They say they're going to take a very hard look at Rove's tendency to politicize every conceivable aspect of governance.

My take? For six years, Karl howled while the OSC snored. For six years, Godzilla has squashed buildings while the OSC has stood around saying "What lizard? Do you see a lizard?" For six years, Karl Rove has had a neon sign over his desk reading HATCH ACT VIOLATION IN PROGRESS, and the OSC has smiled and nodded while sipping coffee and humming Moon River.

OSC head Scott Bloch is a "loyal Bushie" -- a homophobic hack who considers whistleblowing a sin. If the automatons at OSC are now active, someone must have activated them. Someone told Bloch Do this, and Bloch replied: It shall be done.

It's a thought so lovely that one can hardly bring oneself to think it: Has someone in the White House finally decided that Karl must go? The obvious suspect here would be Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten or his Deputy.

(Fun fact: Bolten plays bass in a band called The Compassionates.)

Rove's antics constitute just one scandal among many. The FBI has finally decided to question Representative Tom Feeney for his Abramoff ties. Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman's family are testifying to the Pentagon's tendency to replace the truth with patriotic melodrama. (I've long felt, but cannot prove, that this problem also traces back to Rove.) Senator Diane Feinstein is asking whether Bush's counsel Harriet Myers sought to sack U.S. Attorney Debra Yang because Yang was looking into the corruption of Representative Jerry Lewis. And...

...and and and...

And there's just so much of this stuff that we're all starting to feel like a whirling dervish who has had about a dozen whirls too many.

So what's the big picture? I can't be sure, but I sense the presence of internal housekeeping, or perhaps internal sniping.

One can guess how some folks within the administration must calculate the matter. If the Republicans lose in 2008, the Democrats will have unbridled abilities to investigate, to reveal and to prosecute. After the horrors of the Bush years, a new Democratic administration may not adopt Bill Clinton's "let bygones be bygones" attitude toward the previous occupants of the White House. The Republican candidates are lackluster: McCain is fizzling, Guiliani cannot inspire the Jesus zombies, Mitt Romney is unelectable, and even Fred Thompson has issues that have not yet had a public airing.

If the Republicans are to have any chance of a win in '08, the Bushies must at least pretend to clean house. There must be a scapegoat, or perhaps a scape-cabal, a designated bad guy or group of bad guys who can be blamed for everything that went wrong. "The problem was not the Republican Party; the problem was Person X. And maybe Person Y. And now Person X and Person Y are gone. Everything will be better from now on. We promise."

The fall of Rove. Dare I dream it? Do I delude myself? Or can such a thing actually occur?

On this, the day of Yeltsin's death...

...I'm going to have a drink. He would have wanted it that way. I'll be thinking about the time he started a war in order to improve his single-digit approval ratings.

Oh, and Larisa: You know I'm a great admirer, and I probably should know better than to argue about Russian affairs with an actual daughter of the Motherland. But: Although British intelligence may say that those three guys killed Litvinenko, keep in mind that this announcement comes a mere day after British intelligence spewed a bunch of hooey about Al Qaeda and Iran being partners. Grain of salt, and all that.

Putin may be a right royal sunvabitch, but he was not behind this. I'm not going to be be be be be be be be be be be be BE BE B B B B B B B B B B B.B. B!B! BEE BEE BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB B B B B b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b be be be be be be be be be be be be the first one to state in print who ordered it.

The prosecutor purge and vote suppression

The scandal over the prosecutor purge has just begun. Brad Friedman has just published the best overview of the Mess in Missouri, in which he adds much clarity and detail to previous work on this scandal. (Here and here.) McClatchy Newspapers has a must-read piece on the same issue. Digby adds details, especially regarding the actual structure of the "fee office" scam. And Josh Marshall has warned us to remember one name: Bradley J. Schlozman. He's the fellow who replaced MO USA Todd Graves (love that name) and then did his damnedest to make sure that the peons stayed out of the voting booths.

The Alaska angle is just starting to heat up. (So to speak.)

And if you go to the post below and scroll down past my preparatory blatherings, you'll find a terrific piece by Michael Collins, who shows that Bush's role in prosecutor-gate and vote suppression could lead to impeachment.

Did Bush commit election fraud?

I haven't covered electoral problems much recently, if only because Brad Friedman is doing work that cannot be matched.

Brad and I have had a minor ongoing dispute over nomenclature. He uses the term "election fraud" to denote computer shennanigans and related abuses -- i.e., the Diebold stuff. Brad uses "voter fraud" to refer to the largely spurious claims -- often made by GOP hit men -- that our elections are beset by numerous false registrations. The Rovians make these allegations because they want the vote restricted only to those who can show multiple forms of ID -- which poor people often do not possess.

By the way, for the latest word on these shennanigans, go here. Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers has come out with a great piece on the situation in Missouri, which we have discussed at length in previous posts.

At any rate, I use the punchy term "vote fraud" to refer to what Brad calls "election fraud." And I think the mythos promulgated by Rove and company should be called "registration fraud," not "voter fraud."

Yeah, the names I use may be a bit different, but the idea is the same: Registration fraud is an (alleged) offense committed by the voter. Vote fraud is an offense inflicted upon the voters.

Vote fraud occurs when someone looks at a dozen eggs and says "I count 11." Registration fraud is a Republican fable designed to keep brown eggs out of the carton.

Such are the terms I use. Now I just need to get everyone else to use 'em.

Michael Collins has written a new piece on all of this, and he has given permission for publication here. His nomenclature may differ slightly from mine, but his conclusions are solid. Everything after the asterisks is his.

* * *

Did Bush Commit Election Fraud?
Gonzales Story - Smoking Gun #1

By Michael Collins
Part 1 of a 2 part series

There is sufficient evidence in the public domain strongly to suspect that Bush committed election fraud in the handling of the U.S. Attorney firings.

Before examining the evidence, it's important to know the difference between the contrived construct of voter fraud and election fraud, a very real phenomenon.

A Critical Distinction: Voter versus Election Fraud

Lorraine C. Minnite, PhD of Barnard College, Columbia University makes the distinction in the introduction to her comprehensive study:

Voter fraud is the "intentional corruption of the electoral process by the voter" ...willingly giving false information to establish voter eligibility, and knowingly and willingly voting illegally or participating in a conspiracy to encourage illegal voting by others. All other forms of corruption of the electoral process...(by) elected or election officials, candidates, party organizations, advocacy groups or campaign workers (is)...election fraud.

Minnite points out there were only 24 convictions or guilty pleas (page 9) for voter fraud at the federal level between 2002 and 2005. That's of real interest since the White House has an orchestrated campaign to promote the notion that this is a national epidemic.

While zero occurrences of voter fraud would be admirable, 24 hardly constitute an epidemic. The contrived voter fraud epidemic is used as justification for voter identification laws in at least 22 states which keep minority and poor voters away from the polls. The voter identification requirements, just one example of Department of Justice voter suppression, create a barrier to voting because the many minority voters lack the required identifications. Even the former head of the Department of Justice Voting Rights division agrees with the political use of voting laws since 2001.

Enough on voter fraud, whether real or contrived. Election fraud is the subject right now, the ultimate corruption of the electoral process.

New Mexico Meltdown

New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias is at the center of what may become a constitutional crisis.

Cong. Heather Wilson (R-NM) trailed her Democratic opponent in the first congressional district. She needed help. It appears that she requested a boost from U.S. Attorney Iglesias in the form of a timely pre election scandal involving a prominent Democrat. That's how Iglesias read her phone call concerning a pre election indictment.

Sen. Pete Domenici, (R-NM) called Iglesias as well. According to Iglesias, there was a clearly implied request for a pre midterm Democratic sacrifice at the altar of election injustice. Iglesias reports that when he refused on the grounds that he lacked evidence (one of those minor details that tends to annoy those in power), Domenici simply stayed on the phone...silent.

Iglesias was gone in a heartbeat for not cooperating with a prosecution that would influence the 2006 midterm elections in his state. But who made the decision? Fingers were pointed but nothing stuck until last week. The Albuquerque Journal reports that during talks with Sen. Domenici, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to fire Iglesias unless the president gave the OK.

Well, Iglesias was fired, wasn't he? Gonzales denied culpability, inferring his DOJ subordinate Kyle Simpson made those decisions. Simpson fired that charge back at Gonzales. But the Albuquerque Journal article provides the missing piece. Gonzales wouldn't move on Iglesias without a Bush sanction. How do these pieces fit together?

It's simple. Wilson needed help. Both Wilson and Domenici called Iglesias. No deal, Iglesias said. Then Domenici made the call to Gonzales who said, no way without a nod by from Bush. Iglesias was fired. Therefore, Bush is tagged for giving the order, Get rid of him. Gonzales passed the word and the deed was done.

That sequence of events points directly to Bush as the final decider. He's told us "I'm the decider" in public. Gonzales said as much to Domenici, no way unless the boss says so.

The problem is not only political but legal. Pressuring a U.S. Attorney into a bogus indictment is a federal crime. Domenici lawyered up after Iglesias described his conversation with the senator. Gonzales and Simpson both denied initiating the call on the firing. So it's Bush, and only Bush, as the author of a punishment delivered to a U.S. Attorney who failed to indict a citizen for purely political purposes.

Now that's what you call a high crime. Actually, it's called election fraud, which is defined as "corruption of the electoral process...(by) elected or election officials, candidates, party organizations, advocacy groups or campaign workers." Here we have politicians actively planning improper and illegal acts to influence an election through a contrived prosecution. It's not that complicated.

High Crimes

The New Mexico affair is critical to determining if and how election fraud was committed in the White House. We have a lot of people talking, some getting lawyers, and a critical conversation reported in the Albuquerque Journal, 15 April 2007:

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

That's the smoking gun. It's the vital link to Bush committing election fraud. He's a politician, the senior politician, corrupting the election process by replacing an honest prosecutor with someone who will cooperate the next time the Senator and the Congresswoman call with their requests that some prominent Democrat be indicted to give a hand to a campaign.

There is enough testimony, from a U.S. Attorney no less, to make a prima facie case that Bush committed election fraud. Ironically, the probable election fraud took place while the White House was promoting the Republican myth of voter fraud.

Let the impeachment process begin.

The tragedy next time

Perhaps readers will not welcome more words about the Virginia Tech shootings, but the case still gnaws.

Many of the mysteries surrounding this sad episode have finally achieved resolution. Why (many asked) didn't the cops lock down the campus after the first shooting? A few hours after the massacre, I offered this theory: "The cops arrested the wrong guy after the first incident. Now, they are loathe to admit that they made a mistake." Replace "arrested" with "questioned" in that sentence, and we have our answer. After the first round of gunfire, a friend of victim Emily Jane Hilscher told the cops that the young lady's boyfriend was a gun enthusiast -- and upon learning this, Blacksburg's answer to Inspector Lestrade did the Conclusion Hop. The police were questioning the boyfriend, even as the main event began.

Police always blame a spouse or lover. Usually, that presumption holds true. Sometimes it doesn't.

And yet I remain puzzled. Seung-Hui Cho (the family appears to prefer the western name order) seems to have singled out Emily Hilscher -- yet nothing connects the two. Indeed, to this day, the local authorities refuse to state definitively that Cho killed her, although his gun was used in the crime.

NBC partially broadcast the murderer's videotaped confession. Although many feel that the killer's video should not have been made available to the public, I wish that we had seen those materials in full. In the expurgated version, Cho refers to some event or series of events in his life which triggered his rage. But what was that trigger?

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

Cho's "creative" writings make obsessive reference to pedophilia, a fact which has led many to speculate that he had suffered from abuse. But we have no other evidence for this idea.

His plays remind me of the great controversy over Sigmund Freud's work: Were his patients genuinely abused, or did they (as Freud eventually concluded) create imaginary scenarios? Many modern critics of Freud chastise him for doubting the reality of the incest reports he received. However, I have had more experience that I ever cared to have with dissociative individuals, and I can assure you that there are a lot of people out there who do not recognize the line between fantasy and reality. They confuse that which they have read with lived experience, and they fasten onto delusions of victimhood as an excuse for personal failure.

Cho was an unsuccessful English student with no real future. He must have compared himself to his older sister, a Princeton graduate who went onto a prestigious position. In Cho's "Richard McBeef," the young protagonist accuses the titular character of pedophilia and "conspiracy." But -- and this is a telling point which many have ignored -- Cho indicates that the accusations are unfounded.

According to boyhood friend Kim Gyeong-won, Cho was fairly well socialized during his elementary school years. After he entered middle school, something happened -- either an abusive episode occurred, or he became jealous over his sister's growing success, or some other factor played a role. We will probably never know.

Well, Newt Gingrich claims to know: He blames liberals. I suggest you try to read (or at least to skim) the transcript of Newt's argument, if it can be called an argument. His words simply make no sense. In fact, I think that if you compare the ramblings of Newt Gingrich and Seung-Hui Cho, Cho comes across as rather more coherent.

We know now that this young man had set off all sorts of warning sirens. He had been sent in for psychological evaluation, and one teacher found his behavior so disturbing that she refused to have him in her class. Thus, the larger question raised by this incident is: How does our society deal with those who have lost their grip on sanity?

Some say that one out of ten people in this country become untethered from reason. I don't know if that statistic is accurate, but I do believe that, at one time or another, most people reading these words will have to deal with a friend or family member suffering from severe mental health issues.

At this point, discretion forces me to be vague. The case closest to my "circle" involved a woman who once was a well-regarded nurse. Call her Casie.

Over the course of several years, Casie's behavior became erratic -- severely disturbed. Hospitals suspected (but never proved) that she was stealing drugs; thus, she became unemployable. She lost custody of her children.

While still employed as a nurse, she had once cared for Betty Ford. In gratitude, the former First Lady graciously sponsored Casie's stay in the famous rehabilitation clinic bearing her name. Although I'm no fan of Betty Ford's husband, I will always revere that lady for her kindness to Casie.

One day, I took Casie's children to visit their mother at the center. Near the entrance is a "meditation chamber" which, I jokingly opined, would be a marvelous place to drop acid. "Everyone says that," Casie told me. I asked if she had spotted anyone famous, and she whispered a few words about a certain television actor. Her daughter overheard. Later, as we toured the grounds, the little girl suddenly pointed and shrieked, in a voice loud enough for all of California to hear: "Look! It's him! It's...."

(Obviously, I can't finish that quotation.)

Alas, the stay in rehab did no lasting good. Substance abuse was not the real issue.

Casie became suicidal and engaged in acts of self-mutilation. Then she became violent towards others, at one point attacking a very elderly man. After these episodes, the cops would take her away for observation, but she was never held for more than three days.

Everyone presumes that the mentally ill can be institutionalized if they become a threat to themselves or to others. Don't believe what you hear. Our underfunded mental health system quickly transfers patients to the street or into jail. Casie ended up in the latter.

Today, those few Republicans who bother to address our mistreatment of the mentally ill invariably blame the situation on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. In truth, it was that era's conservatives who most fervently embraced the drive to de-institutionalize the mentally ill. I can discuss this history at greater length at some later point, if need be.

For now, this much is clear: Seung-Hui Cho needed help. Medication may or may not have normalized his behavior. He may have required life-long observation, or he may have been eligible for release after only a few weeks. But he needed treatment; he needed removal from society.

That is not a post-hoc judgment. His instructors understood the problem well before the massacre.

Alas, we warehouse our mad in prisons and homeless shelters. We won't spend money on more humane options.

Which means that similar tragedies await us.

I believe we have discovered Fred Thompson's weakness

Have you noticed the images accompanying this post? Good. I thought they might attract your attention.

The lady on the left is country singer Lorrie Morgan, former girlfriend of Fred Thompson, the actor and former Senator now considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination. The lady on the right, standing next to the jowled one, is not his daughter but his current wife, Jeri Kehn, a "media consultant" who worked for the RNC.

A pattern emergeth.

In case you are wondering, Fred is 64. Jeri is 40 -- years old; I do not refer to any physical measurement.

(Dare I make the obvious joke? Yes. I am beyond shame.)

It's no wonder Fred remains loyal to Bush and Cheney -- he has a weakness for big boobs.

Whenever I suspect that I am over the hill, I shall have to remind myself that Fred married his first wife before I was born. The teen-aged couple lived in public housing, a luxury which you know damn well Fred would deny to anyone in similar straits today.

Since the lovely Jeri is an image consultant, maybe she can explain to the Jesus voters why they should consider all Democrats to be opponents of family values, even though our current candidates have managed to remain married to their original spouses. Perhaps she can also explain why "Hollywood" involvement with politics is such a horrible, evil, unforgivable thing, except when the Hollywooder in question is a Republican.

Good ol' Fred -- or, as some call him, "Hef" -- has also come out in favor of allowing every college student the right to carry a concealed weapon on campus. That'll make things much safer.

Previously, I thought Thompson would be the strongest Republican candidate. Now I am not so sure.

Did you know that he spent years as a lobbyist -- for the Savings and Loan Industry, among other clients? Did you know that he was the industry's "point man" pushing for the legislation that created the whole S&L deregulation debacle? Yep -- that's the guy many Republicans think will bail us out of our current financial mess.

You may know that he played himself in his first film, Marie, starring Sissy Spacek. Both she and he are quite good in that one. I've heard rumors that the real-life scandal which gave rise to that film is connected, in a somewhat roundabout way, to the Martin Luther King assassination. I'll check out those claims and then report back to you...

Jon Stewart at his best

Unstoppable. Untoppable. If you haven't seen it yet, SEE IT NOW.

Dick removal, and more...

IMPEACH! The movement is gathering steam. Dennis Kucinich will formally introduce articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney next Wednesday, and the Vermont Senate passed a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against both B&C.

Unfortunately, Vermont's Speaker of the House, Gaye Symington, considers the impeachment resolution "divisive." Well, duh. Can there ever be such a thing as a non-divisive impeachment?

Never give up: Dick Cheney still speaks of a Saddam-Osama link. His reasoning? Abu Musad Al-Zarqawi "took up residence" in Iraq.

Never mind that he actually resided in Kurdistan, controlled by American forces. And never mind that Zarqawi did not join forces with Al Qaeda (if he ever did) until after the invasion. And never mind the fact that the Pentagon was caught making up evidence about Zarqawi.

Simply consider this: Using the exact same evidence, we can speak of a "link" between President Garfield and the Jesse James gang!

John McCain, crooner of the Apocalypse, tells his critics to "Get a life." Better he should pledge not to take one.

Strange news

Okay, I'm not going to turn this blog into competition for the esteemed Professor Hex. But even though I like to fancy myself a curmudgeon and a rationalist, I just read a story that I found boggling and baffling. This story is as uncanny as Dick Cheney's sneer and as unnerving as a landlord's knock on the door. And here it is.

If you are one of those science-minded harrumphers (a category in which I usually place myself), I beg you to step in and try to harrumph away this tale. Right now, I could use some nice, calming harrumphing.

More weirdness: We have a new Mary Celeste.

Still more weirdness: We have new evidence in the Maury Island mystery.

I actually met a couple of the individuals named in this lengthy account of that classic enigma. And I used to know people who knew Michael Riconosciuto, a bizarre blowhard who seems to operate in that strange realm where spooks and con artists overlap. Indeed, I was probably the first writer to reject Mikey as the source for a story -- and this was well before Danny Casolaro got himself killed.

Boy, that stuff takes me back. One of these days I'll tell you about it...

In which I agree (in part) with Karl Rove

From Covert History:

In a question-and-answer period after his speech, Rove was asked whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war."

"I think it was Osama bin Laden's," Rove replied.

I cannot agree completely, since evidence indicates that the invasion of Iraq was in the planning stages well before 9/11. However, when Osama got the memo, I'm sure he wrote the Arabic equivalent of "I love it!" in the margins.

The invasion of a secular government detested by Al Qaeda? A government that had never attacked the United States? A military action against Arabs that would make Bin Laden look like a prophet throughout the Islamic world? An action that would radicalize all Muslims and magnify anti-U.S. sentiment?

From Osama Bin Laden's point of view, what was there not to love?

My sources tell me that Osama wrote a follow-up memo:

My American friends: Here are seven "musts" for the post-invasion period...

1. Engage in wholesale theft of Iraqi resources.
2. End nationalized health care in Iraq.
3. Revamp the economy according to neocon ideology -- and never mind what the Iraqis themselves want.
4. Stir up sectarian violence; when you finally learn the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite, make sure to favor one side over the other.
5. Install ineffectual puppets and encourage anarchy.
6. Keep the electricity "iffy" for years and years.
7. Open up the weapons caches to make sure that any insurgency is armed to the teeth.

"Hey," said Karl upon receipt of the message, "Osama's got some great ideas here!"

And half a world away, somewhere in Pakistan (or perhaps in Switzerland), Osama Bin Laden grinned and muttered: "Karl Rove. I love that guy!"

The pet food scandal is now a human food scandal

This is no longer a tale about Fido and Frisky. It's about all of us.

The latest products affected by the pet food recall are eight varieties of Royal Canin dog food and one production run of Blue Buffalo kitten food, both of which used rice protein concentrate from the same supplier used by Natural Balance. (Visit the web sites for specific information.) Royal Canin and Blue Buffalo are highly regarded firms, not known for cutting corners. So far, the recall is precautionary; no animal illnesses have been traced to these products.

An Artemis spokesperson has assured me that the rice in their food comes from American sources -- which is to say, their suppliers have told the company that all the rice they ship was grown in North America. Artemis, as I've mentioned a couple of times, is the brand I feed my own ravenous beastie, and she is doing well.

In South Africa, many brands (the cheaper ones, I imagine) were affected by corn gluten tainted with melamine, imported from China. Someone should tell the South Africans that the U.S. has plenty of corn for sale.

If you don't own a pet, don't think that you can escape this sorry business. After all, pigs gotta eat too:

Hogs fed pet food rejected as unsuitable for sale ended up eating a product laced with an industrial chemical, federal authorities said yesterday, expanding a food safety investigation that had been primarily focused on cats and dogs.

It remains unclear, however, whether products made from the hogs will be considered safe for human consumption.

Most of us don't like to think about the crap we feed our livestock. Yet now we must.

Investigators suspect that the melamine was placed in the products intentionally.

The current theory is that Chinese suppliers intentionally added melamine to ingredients that were low in protein to ensure they would test high enough to allow them to be labeled as protein supplements and command the prices of wheat gluten, rice-protein concentrate, or corn gluten.

China refuses to allow American inspectors into the country. Congress has responded with the kind of bellicosity normally associated with Ned Flanders and Wally Cox:

Members of Congress, pointing to $2.1 billion in agricultural products American companies imported last year from Chinese suppliers, are pressuring the Chinese government to cooperate with the FDA.

"We strongly urge the Chinese government to quickly issue visas to US inspectors," wrote Rosa L. DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. "Clearly, this is an important trading relationship."

Think about it.

Ten years ago, Congress would have provided action, not whining or pleading. Congress would have temporarily banned food imports from China, and officials in that country would have quickly acceded to our reasonable requests for access.

But now...China is Sean Hannity, and we play the role of alan colmes. China has become the Drill Instructor and the U.S. is the pimply young recruit sputtering "Sir, yes Sir." Congress can, in short, do very little -- for reasons having nothing to do with party or political ideology.

China prints money to service our debt. Our economy survives or dies at their caprice. They call the shots.