Admin Neocons Can't Even Convince Condi of Anti-Iran "Evidence"

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Saturday February 03, 2007 · 7:22 PM PST

2007/02/03 · 19:22

I'm sure that most of you have heard about the allegations by the Bush (mal)Administration of evil-doings on the part of Iran. The Neocons have been trying to blame some of the attacks on US troops as being carried out with weapons (shaped charges used in IED's) that were made in Iran. There are a few reality-based problems with these charges and, apparently, even some of the Bushies are having trouble swallowing this one.

LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Gee whiz, I wonder why? Maybe because the claims are, in fact, lies?

"The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.

Truth? Facts? Wow, I didn't know Hadley even knew those words existed.

More after the flip...

MarkInSanFran

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Friday January 26, 2007 · 11:04 PM PST

2007/01/26 · 23:04

This is from one of the best MSM venues, the McClatchy Washington Bureau(formerly the Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder):

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is transforming the ranks of the nation's top federal prosecutors by firing some and appointing conservative loyalists from the Bush administration's inner circle who critics say are unlikely to buck Washington.

The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

This was originally broken by Talkingpointsmemo (see the spectacular TPM coverage here http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/... but this is the first MSM mention I've seen that connects the dots, and what an ugly picture is revealed.

More after the flip...

MarkInSanFran

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Tuesday January 09, 2007 · 1:48 PM PST

2007/01/09 · 13:48

One year ago today, Chris announced the MyDD Polling Project:

Ever since the 2003 primary season, the notion of political blogs conducting or commissioning their own telephone polls has flickered to the surface every now and then. A few months ago, Impeach PAC became the first blog to actually go through with it, raising enough money to commission Zogby to run a poll on impeachment.

That was really cool and impressive stuff by Impeach PAC, but now here at MyDD we are going to take things at least one step further. As our first move in what we hope will become a semi-annual series of netroots commissioned polls, MyDD is going to commission a comprehensive nationwide poll that will ask twenty questions that most polling firms, especially those attached to commercial news organizations, seem unable to ask themselves.

The questions concerned Impeachment, and the results back then were that a plurality favored Congressional consideration of impeachment. Unfortunately, those polls are no longer being done, so any possible present desire (fervor?) for impeachment on the part of the electorate can be oh-so-conveniently ignored.

Ah, what to do? ....

MarkInSanFran

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Saturday January 06, 2007 · 9:07 PM PST

2007/01/06 · 21:07

Scott Adams (think Dilbert) has opened a can of whoop-ass on torture, in a manner that will appeal the all sides of the "debate":

Lately I've moved from "pretty certain" to "doubtful" about the effectiveness of torture.

Today I'm addressing only whether torture sometimes works better than conventional interrogation. If torture doesn't work better than the alternatives, not ever, then you don't need to discuss morality or world opinion because torture doesn't even pass the first filter. I'm not saying that morality and world opinion aren't important -- you just don't need to worry about them unless torture at least produces good results.

Can he be serious? For the "yes and no" answer, see below...

MarkInSanFran

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Wednesday December 13, 2006 · 2:41 AM PST

2006/12/13 · 02:41

War seems to make for strange bedfellows, and with the war of aggression that Bush so disasterously made on Iraq the bedfellows are strange indeed. Only a phenomenal screw-up like Bush and the neocons could have driven Saudi Arabia and Israel into each others arms.

According to Juan Cole (click here for the whole post, it's excellent as usual):

Meanwhile, a de facto Israeli-Saudi alliance appears to be building against Iran and the Shiites. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz is now saying that the 2002 Beirut peace plan put forward by then crown prince--now King--Abdullah of Saudi Arabia must be the basis for going forward with an Arab-Israeli peace process. Abdullah got the Arab League to offer Israel full recognition and political and economic relations if only they'd go back to the 1967 borders and recognize a Palestinian state.

Wow.

More wows after the flip...

MarkInSanFran

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Sunday December 03, 2006 · 6:07 PM PST

2006/12/03 · 18:07

North Korea, which has recently tested a nuclear explosive (a fizzle, it would seem), has now offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits, in exchange for Russia's backing of NK in the stalled six-party talks concerning sanctions against NK in response to NK's nuclear program:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

Exerpts after the jump...

MarkInSanFran

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Wednesday November 29, 2006 · 6:11 PM PST

2006/11/29 · 18:11

First time I have used the "Breaking" thing here, but I think it is warranted in this case.

According to Michael Hickins at internetnews.com:

A federal agency is set to recommend significant changes to specifications for electronic-voting machines next week, internetnews.com has learned.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is recommending that the 2007 version of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) decertify direct record electronic (DRE) machines.

DREs are currently used by more than 30 percent of jurisdictions across the U.S. and are the exclusive voting technology in Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina.

More below...

MarkInSanFran

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Monday July 10, 2006 · 8:45 PM PDT

2006/07/10 · 20:45

The recent decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, although primarily addressing the issue of military tribunals, also provided some very bad news for the Bush administration. According to Glenn Greenwald today:

...the Supreme Court in Hamdan deliberately laid at least the theoretical foundation for high officials in the Bush administration to be charged with war crimes. They expressly ruled that the military commissions violate those Conventions, and if any prisoners were to be executed by virtue of commissions which violated Common Article 3, or if detainees are deliberately and systematically mistreated in violation of that provision, that would be a war crime, by definition. I simply don't believe that there are government officials who are subjected to those sorts of suggestions from the U.S. Supreme Court who are not taking them seriously.
(Emphasis added)

Follow me below the fold and see what else Glenn's legal analysis reveals... Read More

Juan Cole Debunks Negroponte's Fake Doc Dump

MarkInSanFran

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Saturday March 18, 2006 · 12:39 PM PST

2006/03/18 · 12:39

Yesterday a recommended diary by Maha revealed that Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte dumped documents onto the internet that purported to be from Sadaam's archives; documents that supposedly gave proof of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection. Assrocket (from the pissant blog Powerline) as well as Investors Business Daily zeroed in on one particular document, calling it "a manual for Saddam's spy service". Problem was, the first page is in arabic and the rest was written by the Federation of American Scientists back in 1997.

The mystery was, what did the arabic say? Was it the Iraqi spy agency saying "wow, they sure fingered us but good"?

Arabic translation by Juan Cole on the flip... Read More

U.S. Attorney to The Duke: Stunning Betrayal

MarkInSanFran

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Saturday February 18, 2006 · 8:24 AM PST

2006/02/18 · 08:24

The U.S. Attorney has issued the recommendations for sentencing in the case of one Randy "Duke" Cunningham as part of a plea agreement. The "reduced" sentence calls for 10 years in the slammer, plus the payment of millions of dollars. This is the reduced recommendation.

This guy is unreal. Those republicans just can't keep their hands off the money! Follow me on the flip to see some tasty excerpts from the memorandum. Read More

Soj, DHinMI, and the Mohammed Cartoons

MarkInSanFran

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Monday February 06, 2006 · 12:12 AM PST

2006/02/06 · 00:12

Earlier today there was a recommended diary by Soj, charging that the Saudi Arabian government was responsible for causing the widespread unrest among Muslims in response to the publication of several cartoons containing depictions of Mohammed - a taboo among some Muslims. The fact that the cartoons were actualy published last September, but are only causing trouble now made this seem reasonable, or at least made it seem that the media isn't telling the whole story.

Later there was another recommended diary by DHinMI that contested the Saudi linkage and pointed out that the link provided by Soj as proof appeared to be a parody.

It seemed to me that the charges by Soj were serious, and so I called on my go-to guy on the Middle East: Juan Cole. Below is his detailed analysis, just for us :-) Read More

NY Times: Astrology and Cosmology are the same

MarkInSanFran

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Sunday February 05, 2006 · 12:44 AM PST

2006/02/05 · 00:44

Apparently the Bush administration's war on science is now being assisted by the New York Times, who were so helpful in facilitating the war on Iraq. From the New York Times Book Review:

Modern man can choose from a veritable smorgasbord of Type 1 errors: string theory, neo-Darwinism, cosmology, economics, God. Astrology is as good as any...

Oh, now I get it. Science is just a bunch of nice stories, kind of like in the Bible.

But who is this writer, and why did the NYTwits let him get away with such an idiotic statement? More after this mouse-click... Read More

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Admin Neocons Can't Even Convince Condi of Anti-Iran "Evidence"

Gonzales Has Replaced at Least 9 US Attorneys with Wingers

Let the People Speak on Impeachment

Spectacular Torture Op-Ed in WaPo

Updated - The New Saudi-Israeli Alliance - Juan Cole

North Korea Offers Uranium Deal to Russia - AP

Updated [Breaking] National Institute to recommend decertification of all touch-screen voting

Glenn Greenwald: Bush Officials Can be Charged With War Crimes

Juan Cole Debunks Negroponte's Fake Doc Dump

U.S. Attorney to The Duke: Stunning Betrayal

Soj, DHinMI, and the Mohammed Cartoons

NY Times: Astrology and Cosmology are the same