Oh this is SO overdue. Kudos to Congressman Conyers for staying on top of this. It's time to bring all the crooks, liars and cheaters down and put them where the belong - behind bars. Only after a "fair and balanced" trial, of course!
:)

"I predict..."
Anybody here remember The Great Kweskin rising from his coffin and making predictions; his first line being "I predict..."

(the reference is appropriate I think because of the last 78 years of the mind numbing effects of the Neo-con zenith. After all this time the soul- killing and mind-numbing effects of the PTSD beginning to fall away...)

I predict that when/if Conyers starts to cave he will be visited by Vice President Biden. That's Joe's job. That also assumes that Senator Conver's isn't acting in response to a visit or call from the VP.

Rove could well be the first opportunity for the new President Obama's use of force majeure. Rove could very well end up sitting in a cell for presumptive contempt if he blows this subpoena off.

I may be too optimistic but President Obama is playing chess while most everybody else is still playing checkers. He needs to break a couple of bones early so he won't need to slow down to do it later. Rove is the perfect target.

Ooooooh, another strongly worded letter from Mr. Conyers. If the last time Rove ignored his subpoena didn't have legal standing, why not go straight for contempt and put porky behind bars? Is there a statute of limitations on Contempt of Congress, because KKKarl has been in Contempt since he blew off the last subpoena?

This one is much more than a "strongly worded letter", NCC. At least for the moment...

I ain't falling for anymore of this Democrats Get a Spine theater. When Conyers has Rove hauled in by the scruff of his fat oily neck, THEN I'll make a hairy deal out of it. Until then, pfeh, pfeh, pfeh....

Here! Here! I totally agree. The Dems will have plenty of opportunity to cave in on this one. Somewhere, someway, somehow--they'll find a way.

Hi Brad,

I really enjoyed looking through your blog. My name is Odin from Brave New Films, and I wanted to know if you would be interested in keeping in contact with us for our future campaigns. As you can see from our website, www.bravenewfilms.org, we are a progressive new media company. A few examples of our past work include "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," and the series "The Real McCain."

If interested, please contact me at oozdil@bravenewfoundation.org.

Thank you,

-Odin Ozdil

Seeing the enforcement of this subpoena is believing. I haven't yet seen it. I will not believe it until I see it.

And,by the way, I am not holding my breath either.

So,Mr.Conyers,if you really believe in the rule of law,PROVE IT!!

I respectfully disagree with the nay-sayers for a couple of basic reasons:

The Democrats have been under the heel of Neocons for so long they forgot how to close the deal, they don't know how to play an end game and they had no support for an end game.

They do now and it's to their and the Administrations benefit that they play to a successful end.

The people are screaming for blood (myself included) and that is a distraction. No matter how morally correct it may be in the long run it is a distraction to have it occupy a lot of time and attention up front. The criminal fallout for Bush and his folks needs to go on in the background because it's going to take a long time and be distracting.

Rove is the first target for Conyers because he stands a good chance of being the arrogant asshole that he is and will give Conyers a good reason to put his head on a pike.

This literally tosses red meat to those of us that need it (and our name is 'Legion') and scares the hell out of other folks that will be called to inquiry. It will assuage the desperate need for obvious justice and allow us to put that pot on the back burner where it belongs. We need some obvious process (for us process wonks) but the process is going to take so long all we really need is a highlight every now and then to make sure the process is working.

This will solidify Conyers usefulness to Obama.

The House to some good extent, and the Senate Specifically, is also a club, a fraternal organization, a medieval body that draws strength and derives authority from it's leader. Their leader (and their leader is President Obama because Reid and Pelosi, not global thinkers or good chess players, have failed them.

Obama has the voters, Obama has the political capital and he has made it clear that they must prove themselves if they want a seat at his (the grownup's) table.

Obama assembled the Republican leaders to his table along with the two biggest impediments to his agenda: Democratic leaders Reid and Pelosi, and owned them with three words, "Because I Won". That was a remarkable thing and no one in the media on the left seemed to truly value the significance.

If Obama had said "We" it would have been ambiguous. President Obama is not an ambiguous guy. "We" would have included Reid and Pelosi as well as the voters as his team mates. By using "I" he refused Reid and Pelosi spots on his team. It was an astounding rebuke. They have to earn a place on his team. (Did you see the faces at that table? EVERYONE was obviously in shock and confused at what had gone on.) With three words he unilaterally dismissed the authority of the most powerful members of the Republican party in the House and Senate.

Obama did exactly the same to Democratic leaders Reid and Pelosi and anyone not a natural ally or that was not immediately and effectively useful. And he made it personal. "I".

((Aside: he made it look like 'mentoring' and 'shadowing' for Reid and Pelosi which it was and this is how it played in the media. The media isn't on to him yet.))

Real politics is going on here and a lot of it is subtle and it's got deep patterns and small things easily dismissed as 'lighthearted moments' have deep and significant meaning. Conyers IMHO is one of the few people who gets it.

Obama's playing chess on a masters level and we just haven't seen anything but the brutish checker playing of the right for so long we aren't used to seeing real politics anymore. We need to get up to speed. The smart guy won and I think the change is gonna' astound us all.

Maybe I'm just over-thinking it and wrong as hell.

Brad & i are from "Mahzurrah"... i've already shown the gub'ment mine by paying taxes- now show me yours.

The title of the post makes me slobber, but I understand the skepticism.

At least we can hope Karl Rove doesn't have assurances he'll come out of this smelling like a blossom.

If we want to proceed with cleaning up the turds, we have to get rid of the asshole.

I'm optimistic.

At the split second that the Rethuglicans believe that Rove is vulnerable, they will cut him loose and let him twist in the wind. Nobody really ever liked him, but they were scared to death of him.

I await the moment with glee.

I tend to agree with NCC (comment #3). The House Judiciary Committee just doesn't have any teeth left, anymore. Rove is Rubber, they're glue. I doubt they can, even with all their new-found super-majority-subpoena-power, barely chaffe Rove's impenetrable exoskeleton of hardened turd.

But I am very taken with LottaKatz's comments (especially #9)and I'm glad to entertain the notion that Obama is indeed that gifted.

Forgive me for not remembering, but someone posted an astute comment here recently re: an independent prosecution of the Bush administration by the war crime investigative branch of the U.N. That thought has been shadowing me all week. How delightfully appropriate. How deliciously vindicating. How distinctively...inevitable?

I've been amazed this week that the drum beat for investigations and prosecution of these shit-bags has become deafening! It's coming from the Blue Dogs, the Progressives, the MSM, and the rest of the whole world. This, for me, causes my sneaking, creeping optimism to come out of the closet for a spell and have a nice, uninterrupted, unpolluted cup of coffee.
Perhaps, says my "abused optimist", I'll live to see the Return of Justice. Maybe as LottaKatz supposes, just maybe if Joe Biden pays Conyers that visit to tell him to cool his heels--maybe it could be an indication of a back-room deal between Obama's people and the international community?

Now THAT'd be 'check mate' for the books.

Well, how in the hell would we get any of them nabbed and put in jail? Would the deal have been you-prosecute-and-we'll-extradite... really? Can he do that? Would he do that? I don't think so. That's a dream, and Obama is not a dream. Believe me, I hate to sound like Hillary Clinton, but Obama is charming and going way too far into his unification of the warring factions thing for me to believe that.

We just want heroes.

We just want saviors.

We aren't getting them because we don't deserve them... we won't back them with our bodies, our deeds, our lives. We will adore them in words and on the internet, but that's as far as it goes.

It will be a miracle if any of these criminals pays with more than just his or her [putative] conscience.

This will prove to be a dog and pony show.
Quite possibly Karl will be thrown under the bus only to appease those that want their heads.
To indict one means to indict them all (both parties).
My guess is 200 indictments would only be a start.
The Govt. is corrupt to it's core.
And 95% of the citizens are dead from the neck up.

Any back room deal would have been more like if-you-show-up-for-a-few-puny-hearings-everything-will-be-mellow. That's as far as this broken government, this fascist government would go. They have shown over and over and over again that they don't want to hold anyone to account. They only wish to play around with it enough that some of us think they want to but can't.

The drill is come-out-with-tough-rhetoric-on-tv-and-then-completely-cave. They do that over and over and over because most of the people see the tough rhetoric and think it's all being handled... never think further about it... and then they vote for them next time they come up for election.

That's the whole gig with sheeple. They've got our number, and Obama really has it. He's making some scary appointments, and showing every sign of continuing as though he were a darker shade of * in the Middle East.

I know. I know. "It's only been a few days." "Give him time." "He's playing chess." Yadda, yadda. I want him to succeed. I want him to do well. I'm on his ass because I want it so much, but, really... now I'm going to sound like Erma... people have to quit dreaming and get busy forcing this stuff to come out well.

I hate to be a hope-monger. I'm not a hopeful person and would steal Skeptical Cynic's 'handle' if I could. If it being comprised of a double negative means the opposite of absolute cynicism then it doesn't suit me, but the word-play is choice

President Obama is actually using standard negotiating tactics in a very well thought out and skillful way. I have been going over his moves routinely and even made lists and notes because he seemed to be pissing me off at every opportunity but making me feel he did the right thing. A few days later I would see the benefit of his actions in the context of an overall strategy. The only way it made sense to me is if he considered his campaign promises a contract with the voters and now had to be a negotiator skilled enough to get a good contract.

I'm reverse engineering the argument of course. I got to that conclusion in a forward manner but once I got to that point everything fell neatly into place. Nothing to support my conclusion has to be forced. It feels and thinks right. To me anyway. Again, maybe I am just totally wrong. But I never left Missouri, I still live here (literally and figuratively) Jacki and I'm kind of wondering just what I'll see. I'm not going to automatically assume anything though, I stopped doing that about 3 days ago. Even if he doesn't deliver a damned thing beyond what he has already it's way better than McCain and Palin would have done. Our new Attorney General just said water-boarding IS torture. I feel like someone just turned off the shit shower.

I do want to debate (in the most convivial and classic meaning of the term) some comments made though because they're good comments and are central to exactly why I was so angered by what Obama was doing and continues to do. Agent 99 made most of them and Jim made another and I'm in no way on your case's or ass's '99 and Jim. You just made the points that I've been obsessing over and I'm sleep disrupted; I won't go to sleep for the night for a couple of hours yet and I may as well write as watch another DVD Also your comments are an opportunity to clarify these points I've been mentally developing into actual positions and arguments to see if they hold up coherently. It's a form of self-checking.
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"This will prove to be a dog and pony show.
Quite possibly Karl will be thrown under the bus only to appease those that want their heads.
To indict one means to indict them all (both parties)."

Once you get past the Executive office and senior appointees everyone else has good political cover. Congress was voting on horrific programs and policies based on what they were told by the White house and hand full of Congressional Committee chairs assure them. The Committee chairs gave assurances based on what they were told and were sworn to legally binding secrecy. The Justice Department positions had not been overturned by any courts when the early votes were taken. No liability. This does not relieve them of culpability on later votes specifically the one protecting the tel-com companies. Congress will not be indited except at the ballot box IMO.

Low level appointees that were not privy to strategy sessions and documents and other incriminating communications won't face indictment either. Who planned and knew what, and when, is why the e-mails went missing and private accounts were used and the shredders in the Vice President's office overheated and started that fire. The shredder/fire connection is only a suspicion but I think a good one.
--------

"The drill is come-out-with-tough-rhetoric-on-TV-and-then-completely-cave. They do that over and over and over because most of the people see the tough rhetoric and think it's all being handled... never think further about it... and then they vote for them next time they come up for election."

Absolutely correct. It's good politics. Anything that gets a politician elected is good politics to a politician. 'At least he's trying to do something' is good enough to get one re-elected if the standards are set low enough. The last two elections indicate that the bar is being incrementally raised for the House and Senate. Just 'trying' isn't going to be good enough because the longer the pain goes on the more demanding the electorate will become. People are sick of the shit and I have thought for quite some time now that cities could start burning. Last weeks riot in Oakland didn't surprise me.

The country is threatened in every major aspect of it's function and this should enhance Obama's chance to succeed in delivering on his electorate-endorsed agenda as long as progress is seen by the electorate. If his opposer's are seen to be prolonging the pain of a dysfunctional government they will be punished in two years. A smart politician does whatever he has to do to get re-elected.
-------

"Obama is charming and going way too far into his unification of the warring factions thing for me to believe that"

The Neocon strategy and toolkit are well known after 20+ years of their ascendancy to power in various branches of government. Their moves are well known to Democrat's and likewise the Democrat's moves in opposition are well known to Neocons-con's. So far President Obama has confounded both traditional sets of moves by developing a third set of moves unknown to both parties. He has removed the comfort of ritualized, well known game-play.

Obama's latest deal making regarding the budget is being decried as 'caving' on the tax cuts. An op-ed on another blog or TV pundit said that this was a serious mistake because it played into the tactics that the Neocons have been using for years. That an early concession was always met with resistance and the initial concession then became the threshold for even further demands. This is accurate as long as the method of tactical moves remains 'conventional'.

It no longer is IMO. Obama is a counter-puncher. He sets up a situation by playing to a conventional scenario and then uses it to his advantage to deliver a stronger punch; his opposer's strength can become their weakness. Instead of starting low and negotiating upwards Obama started high and did so quickly. His op poser's see it as weakness or inexperience but it's not. By responding typically, they have have cast themselves as obstructionists and full responsibility for any delay is theirs.

Obama spoke today and was not conciliatory, he was serious in tone and speech affect and said this was not a time for delay. He did not respond to McCain and Boehner is a conventional way. All he or his surrogates need to start doing now is to make it clear that further delay of the American Economic Recovery Act for the purpose of continuing and expanding Bush's tax policies is insulting after those policies were repudiated by voters less than 90 days ago.
---------

"He's making some scary appointments"

He's consolidating his revolution as early as possible. He is reorganizing the nature of the power structure without regard to Party loyalty or personal loyalty. It will be comprised of those people that can be most effectively used.

Obama has appointed natural allies to trusted positions because they love the work, are moving in the same direction he is anyway and are going to be easy to deal with.

Obama has appointed holdovers that were neutrals or dissidents because they fall easily into the natural ally column and already had a network of other neutrals / dissidents built up in order to do their job. One knows and cares for ones own as a matter of survival. Their network will be useful to circumvent the Bush bureaucracy that is left at the lower levels. These are people hired for career positions of high authority (Senior Executive Service positions) by Bush appointees.

Obama is appointing 'enemy' holdovers to high positions because he knows that they sold their soul and knowingly broke the law for a couple of dicks like Bush and Cheney. These appointee's need the President's cover. They are not motivated by morality. They will do anything the President asks to get what they need. He knows, they know, everybody knows. We want them in jail but they can actually be more useful in the Administration if they're used right.
----------

"I want him to do well. I'm on his ass because I want it so much"

Exactly. I've got a shortcut to the new White House site and written a couple of 'questions' already but prior to him actually taking office. I still e-mail the Senate and House, my representatives and Committee heads and members. Obama's minions are looking for ways to keep us engaged because we are the key to his/our power; power is success. If we drift away the momentum stops. The Administration wants us to call the recalcitrant Democrats and Republicans and raise hell just like we did with the stimulus package and Telecom immunity. And we need to follow up those calls with calls to, now, the White House whenever that's appropriate. I'm holding off on the White House because I don't know if the President is doing right by me or not and he's surprised and confounded me routinely so I'm giving him breathing room. Clever bastard probably planned it that way

If I WAS A DEMON AND I DIDNT THINK I HAD A SOUL TO KEEP ANYMORE AND I DID NOT THINK ABOUT ETERNAL LIFE AND THINGS AS BAD AS BEING IN HELL I WOULD SEE TO IT SOME HOW TO WASTE THIS GUY ALONG WITH OTHER BUSH HELPERS WITH MANY OF THE BUSH FAMILY AS THEY ARE DEMONS ALL OF THEM AND WE NEEED TO BE SURE NO MORE BUSH FAMILY WILL BE ENTERING INTO POLITICS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
THIS ERA OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE DAMAGE TO OUR COUNTRY HERITAGE AND WELL BEING THAN ANY ADMINISTRATION EVER HAS ACCOMPLISHED. BUSH , CHENEY, RUMSFIELD AND OTHERS WHO STARTED THIS WAR IN IRAG SHOULD BE GIVEN A SHORT TRAIL AND THE FACTS LAYED OUT AND THEN CONVICTED AND EXECUTED USING A FIRING SQUAD AS THEY DO IN MANY COUNTRIES.

http://collindemsnews.bl...al-holder-threat-to.html

[ed note: Michael, please read our commenting rules. No copy and pastes of whole articles. Thank you. --99]

Chairman John Conyers needs to talk to the Justice Department about offering a plea bargain to Jack Abramoff, R.R., G.N., M.S., and T.R. who used Indian casinos money to fuel Bush's Lieutenant Karl Rove political Hit Program. The scheme involved Bush appointing willing candidates, a major publishing company, money launderings, and tens of millions of Dollars. Some victims still don't have the slightest idea.

Siegelman has been in Rove’s sights for over two decades, because he has not been easy to squash. He is very much like Joseph; God is with him. Watch what I say, Siegelman will be restored to a position greater than he ever had. I'm not going to speculate what God has in mind for those who conspired against him.

PLEASE DON´T CLOSE GUANTANAMO,
THIS WOULD BE A PERFECT PLACE TO PUT ALL THOSE CREEPS FROM THE BUSH ADMIN..THE LIARS, THIEVES, CRIMINAL TRAITORS.
MOST OF CONGRESS COULD FIT INTO THOSE BEAUTIFUL ORANGE SUITS....AS FOR THEIR ZIONIST/DOUBLE CITIZEN WAR CRIMINAL MASTERS, WATERBOARDING SHOULD NOT BE OFF THE TABLE!!!

Just look at Rove's face. He clearly is a pig. Years of acting like a pig left their impression in his look.

Add one more to the comments that say, which I reduce to the one word made so famous by former VP Cheney, "So?".

5000 FBI agents can't bring Karl Rove in.

Does anyone else ever get struck by the physical resemblence of Karl Rove and Rush L.?

Anyway I don't really care so much if bush and cheney are strung up or executed for warcrimes or face life imprisonment, etc. However, I DO feel strongly that Rove is the single most damaging influence for the good of the United States to have hit this country in a generation. Rove needs to go to prison at the minimum, and if his actions can be construed as treasonous (because effectively he was trying to overthrow the US government by illegal means), he should be one of the few (the first?) person to be put to death under the treason clause.

I'm highly skeptical Conyers has the backbone to follow through with the arrest after Rove ignores his subpoena.

Lotta

He's consolidating his revolution as early as possible. He is reorganizing the nature of the power structure without regard to Party loyalty or personal loyalty. It will be comprised of those people that can be most effectively used.

This assumes he can control these people effectively and he's chosen some of the least controllable people there are. Rahm Emanuel will have absolutely NO compunction about eating him for breakfast if he doesn't toe the line on a bunch of issues, foremost among them the further enrichment and empowerment of Israel, and Rahmbo doesn't have a thing to lose by torpedoing Obama. Hillary will give him the Medal of Freedom in 2013 if he does.

The old "friends close and enemies closer" chestnut is good counsel for gladiators. Obama is a one-man charm offensive and you can't charm people like Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton. They are political Caligulas. Obama fucked up badly by alienating Howard Dean, and he better be going to the gym every day because he's going to get beaten to a bloody pulp if he can't turn into Mohammad Ali really fast.

I really want to think he's got the balls, heart, and brains to deal with this stuff, but that's just it! I want to think that. Objective assessments don't bear out what I want to think.

There really is some truth to the campaign tactics used against him. He is extremely short on substance, and very long on charisma. Is his brain only going to out-charismaticking everyone involved in the issues he has to face?

That is so not going to cut it!

Here, watch him doing his campaign bit to al-Arabiya via CNN.

That's a damn modified for Muslims campaign speech. It's taking the myth of al-Qa'eda, "The Toilet", and that OBL is still alive, and turning it into a basis for sounding smart and tough. It's promising to go to them and charm their pants off to get back their good will. He fucking made his first call as POTUS to Abu Mazen, the NOT president of Palestine who is very clearly selling his own people down the river, and has made it clear that he's not going to deal with the elected body of the Palestinian government; to wit: Hamas. He's virtually indistinguishable from * on the Israel/Palestine question, even as you know Jimmy Carter has to have impressed upon him that Hamas is the genuinely elected government of Palestine.

So, anyway, as I say, he's made some terrifying choices and is not doing such a great job in his first week. Every time I hear him, he still seems more to be on the campaign trail than anything else. He's made for soaring oration, but he's not showing me any statesmanship. He didn't in the Senate and I am scared to death he won't in the White House either.

Assuming Rove even shows up which is doubtful all it will be is a dog & pony show.
One or 2 people (probably only Kucinich) may ask a decent question, Rove will LIE there will be no follow up questions and rove will stand up flip them the bird and stroll out.
Hell even if Rove admitted to everything the seriously inept Democratic congress will do absolutely nothing anyway so why bother?

If anything this will only close the book on the crimes committed by these fascist.

Better to keep this pathetic congress out of it completely and let the private sector handle this.

Get Vincent Bugliosi on his a$$ and I bet Rove sings like a canary with his tail feathers on fire.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/w...W8bk&feature=related

Part 2. http://www.youtube.com/w...h?v=THlq3dOeIHI&NR=1

Part 3. http://www.youtube.com/w...ij24&feature=related

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/w...e6bk&feature=related

Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/w...oFvU&feature=related

Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/w...B6ag&feature=related

Nunyabiz@ 27 said

Better to keep this pathetic congress out of it completely and let the private sector handle this.

How 'bout a website/fund where people could donate $$$ towards a bounty for these war criminals. Yeah, a bounty to turn them into the Hague for a tribunal, similar to the bounties that Sadam and Noriega had put on them. Once it gets to $100,000,000, (maybe less) I'd bet there would be some blackwater types out there looking to cash in.

Money is tight right now, but I got at least $5 on it.

COMMENT #19 - 99

On the copy and paste comment - I know - the full posting I wrote on my blog repeated the main post info so I copied parts of my blog's post over as a comment. Plus, I didn't want to jump Brad's readers off his site. Sorry - won't do that again... And, thanks for the link over to my blog...

Yer welcome.

are you kidding me????

Conyers is a FAKE, a liar and a treasonous bastard. How many subpoenas did he issue last year, and the year before?? Where did that get us?? No where.

Conyers is a crook, who NEVER gets anything done. he just ACTS like he is doing something FOR THE PEOPLE.

FUCH him, and you who support such criminals!

Oops I think my less than sign messed up the format.

[ed note: Seems like it, and when that happens, unfortunately, it makes the software drop everything after it, so I can't retrieve it for you, sorry. --99]

The problem with Conyers is he makes a lot of noise and then doesn't follow through. In the 2004 election, Conyers was supposedly going to subpoena Kent Blackwell, SOS of Ohio. Nothing ever happened. It will be interesting to see if he follows through on this.

"They are political Caligulas." True, as are they all. There is no historical name/reference that is too horrific to apply to a skilled, long time politician (as a class) and they ALL scare me.

Emanuells' close ties are a worry because any solution based on anything but what will work toward justice for all parties is morally repugnant. He is by no means the only staunchly pro-Zionist in a powerful position. If there are religiously extremist countries in the ME with a nuclear arsenal you want one tied to you. all President's will have a strong Pro-Israeli position. I think that's where we are now. I know the plutonium for some of their arsenal 'came from' South Africa but I don't know that it was proved that it came from the US THROUGH SoA. Wouldn't doubt it a minute.

I stopped being a Zionist when I got old enough (about 12) to realize that they weren't given flat, empty desert by the British and Allies after WWII. Whoever in Egypt gave the go-ahead for the first war was an idiot IMO because it gave the Israelis an opportunity to put in place the religious/imperial policy that no one in the West was prepared to stop or speak against at that time; which kind of brings us to where we are today and speaks to (in a way) your stated concern above. The sky raining WP is a war crime under any condition IMO and so is a disproportionate response. So is stealing some ones /homeland country a bite at a time because you can. Lot's of luck (to us sane people) with getting any that prosecuted. Bah!

"Abu Mazen..." The dismissal of the coalition government that included Hamas was stupid in the extreme and led directly to Hamas gaining the governent. Between Bush and Mazen calling for elections how could the depth of cr+p not rise neck deep? Thanks guy's, the world needed that complication. I knew what would happen and I know you did also 99. Yes, calling him was an insult; he's looking for 'moderates' to talk to IMO. Wasn't a female Israeli politician that wants to halt and roll back the settlements (and who has aspirations to the Prime Minister position also invited to Washington? I could be/am probably wrong about that- I didn't pay much attention to her name and couldn't find her on Google when I looked. Ti*** something. Didn't know the correct spelling.

My bad. I swear I will never get off on an obsessive response and paste it again. EVER. Swear. But I still have to type my responses in UltraEdit cause a short response takes 10 or more minutes (I never learned touch typing) and i need a spell check program. If I didn't spell check, my comments would be EVEN MORE unintelligible and I'd be banned from this Blog entirely. Srsly. My bad.

Tzipi Livni.

She is a war criminal. She is an exterminator of babies.

She is a rabid exterminator of babies, and by many reports this is the popular stance within the Israeli electorate... which is meaningful to her party at this time because their election is a week away.

Calling Abu Mazen first of anyone, let alone at all, was unforgivable, even if we want Obama to press ahead and do better. I won't ever forget that he did that, even if he manages to earn a measure of forgiveness down the road. He is under pressure as no new president in history has ever been, so I do try to take that into account, but he is also, or should be, one of the best-informed new presidents in history and some of the screw ups are outright no brainers for people of good will. I know he has other shit to consider than just good will, but he is making plenty of seriously disappointing and extremely consequential decisions, no matter what the pressures, even if understandable when the consequences aren't so dire.

DON'T go obsessively pro-Obama. It will blind you. It will help give him room to underperform and wuss out on vital stuff. You are only his friend if you keep the pressure on him to live up to his promises of change. Already he's installing a solidly mainstream DC administration and insisting that he, himself is the change he meant. Hubris, Lotta, that's called hubris. You don't want it leading to nemesis? You be careful about cutting him slack. For him. For you. For all of us. All of us in the world.

Seems like the Dems might be developing a modicum of backbone these days.

We'll see if this is just more bluster or if they actually put some teeth behind it this time...

Maybe they (the Dems) did have a plan after all to get elected first, then start to clean up some of this stuff...

Time will tell...