Once upon a time, Americans didn't pay much attention to such things as Supreme Court nominations, cross-aisle attacks, lawyers getting shot on hunting outings, or that other kind of outing, the covert agent outing.

Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that we are all boning up on the founding fathers' work more and more lately?

Bush is kicking the HELL out of our world, trying to redefine reality to suit his great misguided image of The World According to Shithead.  And, in order to try to KEEP some semblance of the reality we have all lived with all our lives until 2001, we are having to get madder and madder and madder.  And all the while, we are looking into such things as U.S. Code 50, Chapter 15, Subchapter IV, Section 421 or learning what the heck a National Intelligence Estimate is, what a PDB is, and what really IS in that parchment we swear allegiance to...

Tueday, when Samuel Alito was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice, ended what has been a 34 year climb to dominance by the Ultra-Right branch of the Republican Party.  It was fueled by the John Birch-er mentality that lost horribly in the 1964 Presidential election along with their candidate Barry Goldwater of Arizona.  It began with the infamous Memorandum by Lewis Powell, a future Supreme Court Justice himself, they  pushed forward to take over the country by targeting certain areas of American life.

Now, they have gotten everything that they wanted to win - the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, concentrated ownership of the news media, half the states in permanent 75 IQ status ("better Red than dead", as Barry's kind used to say).  They have it all.  They are at their zenith... but...

see below the fold. . .

Over at TomDispatch, he has this: Vietnam Veterans on Civilian Casualties in Iraq, a good blog on Civilian Casualties in Iraq, with comments by Viet Nam Vets.  Tom makes mention of the parallels between Viet Nam and Iraq, but I want to talk a bit about terminology and our warfare concepts.  The terms we use determine HOW we perceive the world around us, and in war the heirarchy calling ths shots has a lot invested in us correctly misunderstanding what we see and hear and read.

Over and over and over, we have it drummed into our heads how barbaric the Palestinian or Iraqi suicide bombers or roadside bombers are, how cowardly they are to attack women and children.

more below the fold . . .

On May 9, 2001 - only 3-1/2 months after Bush took office, Jack Abramoff was in a sit down in the Oval Office with Bush and Coushatta Tribal Council Chair Lovelin Poncho for a 15-minute meeting.  Chairman Poncho had paid $25,000 to the non-profit organization, Americans for Tax Reform for the privilege of the meeting, and Abramoff had delivered on his promise that he could get the tribe a meeting with the President.

How is this really different from nights in the Lincoln Room?  Among the many questions that hopefully will be - and certainly should be - raised about this is a comparison of this meeting with the scandal during Clinton's administration over donors doing sleep overs in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House.

The double-standard GOP raised such a ruckus about merely SLEEPING in the White House in return for campaign and other donations.  How do they reconcile that with actually taking up the President's TIME?  I just find this completely ludicrous, that less than four months into his term, Bush was being pimped for money in the same way a bed in the White House was.  (see below the fold...)

As we find out that Jack Abramoff has the goods on 20 or 60 Congressmen, everyone is focused on WHO is going to be named, and what they will be charged with.  There is certainly more to all this than this SECOND round of someone trying to save their ass by squealing, though.

Remember that Abramoff wouldn't be in this situation but for the fact his partners in crime - Michael Scanlon in Washington and Adam Kidan in Florida - squealed like pigs in the first round, before Jack did.  (I was shocked that Jack chose to squeal.  I thought he'd take one for the team, like a good scapegoat.  It seems like these "Every man for himself" freemarket GOoPers really take that dictum to heart.  In this case, just the word "dictum" makes them all VERY squeamish - or is that "SQUEALISH"?  How many will squeal like pigs now so they don't have to squeal like pigs later?

But at least ONE of the questions at this stage is this: "Will any of the 20 or 60 Abramoff named ALSO squeal, expanding this to a new level?" ...more below the fold...

First two brief apologies: This may have been done already (but there are so MANY diaries it is near impossible to find out - plus the search is WAY slow).  And I don't want to distract TOO much from the Abramoff plea today.

Bush is making all these arguments about his executive order to wiretap without FISA Court approval and his continuing insistence on wiretapping even now, how it is all legal because he has the authority.  Oh?  Is that so?  Even HE knew better, once upon a time.

See below the fold...

This is a call to arms.

I think that the plans to pull our troops out of Iraq are all half-baked, and that something better can be done.  I am going to here put out a first draft of something that may be better.

My thinking on this was rekindled by Patrick Buchanan (of all people), in an article at Information Clearinghouse A Plague on Both Their Houses, where he chastises the Bush administration roundly over Iraq and the Democrats as being defeatists.

It seems that Scooter has retained one of the top lawyers who are experts on secrets.  It appears that their plan is twofold: to make an argument that Libby was dealing with so much important stuff that he shouldn't be expected to remember what he did two years earlier, and to make the prosecution back down rather than have certain secrets made public.

While the first may sound like a sound defense, Matt Cooper's account of his testimony before the GJ was that Fitz explained to him that he should only say he remembered something if he actually did, and if he could not remember, then to tell them so.  There is no reason to believe that Fitz handled Libby any differently than he handled Cooper.  How the FBI handled Libby, we may not ever know.

Link below the fold. . .

Venezuela's economy is not high on anyone's scoreboard these days, but this one I have to diary.  At the 34-nation trade summit at Mar del Plata, this item on Bloomberg caught my eye: "At a time of record high oil prices, one would expect to see a lot of progress against poverty" in Venezuela, White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Nov. 2 at a briefing on the eve of Bush's departure. "We're not seeing that. We're actually seeing some deterioration in the economy."

[more below the fold...]

It is at this point way, way premature and certainly the longest of long shots.  But some of the dynamics of the Gang of 14 appear to have similarities to a political party.

This diary is a takeoff from houndcat's diary a few hours ago.
houndcat made some nice points, which I borrow liberally (don't tell the neocons).  Between the Reuters article and houndcat's analysis, it sounds to me like the potential makings of a political party.

[more below the fold]

At the end of Wilson's Feb 2003 PBS interview: the root of Libby's obsession, seesdifferent says

This is why the Bushies continue to try to smear Wilson as a liar. Wilson is a debunker of the first magnitude, a reality based career public servant. He had to go down. He was too good, too smart, too informed, and too willing to talk. The Niger story was an excuse.

If there is anything that Joseph Wilson has accomplished, it is that he gave courage to others who are reality based people who are in position to debunk BushCo's lies.

In the lull, now that Fitz has to take a breath before proceeding further (and he will), I finally - after many months - got around to reading Nicholas Kristof's May 6, 2003 Op-Ed piece that was the first mention of the Ambassador that was to become Joseph Wilson.  (I still haven't finished it as I write this...)

Going back to things later can sometimes wake us up to new-old things and new-old connections.  There is an in-your-face connection between Kristof's piece and the Downing Street Memo that I had not heard of, so I mention it here.  It is HIGHLY likely that it was covered long ago, and if so, apologies.  But even so, it may be worth revisiting.  As so many point out - the CIA Leak case is about dissembling us into a war.  So dissembling evidence, especially from the inside, should provide us with some of the best leads on what is to come.

Along that line, read below the fold:

Hunter's story today (Oct 27th) about Knight Ridder, In a Room Full of Dynamite, a Spark, draws attention to the increasing courage we are seeing around the country, by people and organizations to stand up to the Bush administration and the neocons.  And it points out, correctly, that those that have to deal with BushCo have had to take injections of testosterone.

You see, no matter what the surface looks like, the real policy of BushCo was not one of spin and its attendant deviousness, folks.

The real policy of BushCo was one of intimidation.  Read on below the fold . . .

from http://turcopolier.typepad.com/ there is this - no time specified, but it is from today:

Update/Leak indictments

An hour ago I was contacted by a U.S. government official close to the Fitzgerald case. This person told me that there WILL be indictments announced later this afternoon, and the Special Prosecutor will hold a press conference tomorrow.

Richard Sale

I don't mind admitting I just don't get it.  I actually need help understanding this, folks...

For the millionth time, it seems, I have read an article about Rove/Libby/WHIG/White House/Wurmser/Hannah/BlahBlahBlah and the fact that they outed Valerie Plame Wilson in order to discredit Joe Wilson.  This time the article was Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say.

What I can't understand is why in the world they thought that her being connected to her husband's trip to Niger would in any way whatsoever bring discredit upon him.

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An item in Judy Miller's notebook - where she noted that "Wife works in WINPAC" - is bringing up some possible leads for Fitzgerald's investigators.

At the same time, it may afford Libby's lawyers to wiggle him out of danger.

It opens the door for several interpretations and scenarios.  This may actually be a BIG thing.  How it plays out, I cannot guess yet.  See below the fold for more...

Scooter Libby did, in fact, out Valerie Plame to Judy Miller.

Miller presents it all as if it is not an outing, but it clearly IS.

See below the break why.

Were all the overseas Lousiana National Guardsmen REALLY in Iraq when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit?

Some perspective shows that at least some of them are probably elsewhere, mis-deployed - and apparently illegally so.  It seems the plan is to have them there for a long time to come, too.  The article does not mention the LANG units in the same breath with the long term deployment in Uzbekistan, but that both are discussed in the same context certainly suggests that the LANG may be spending a lot of time in Central Asia.  I am sure the Louisiana citizenry will be glad to hear that is the case.