Emergency Ops v Rudy

Command Center - The Lies


Fire Fighters - Dead Because of Rudy


Radios - Dead On Arrival



This man wants to torture Muslims, deport Mexicans (and who gives a damn if they're here legally or not), and absolutely doesn't give a FUCK about black people, except as a way to gain political power by getting the cops to kill them now and then.

Many if not most of the deaths of 9/11 can be laid at his feet, due to his lack of emergency preparation.

Rudy really screwed the fucking pooch.

Like all Bush Republicans, Rudy's most at home telling the BIG LIE.

Take it from one who has actually worked car wreck after bus wreck after shooting after stabbing after beating after rape after home assault after child abuse after murder after motorcycle accident after train v car after helicopter crash after fire after explosion after head crushed in half after head blown off and after it all, one part becomes blindingly crystal clear...

On 9/11 Rudy was in a state of constant panic, being told what to do by his staff, with absolutely no command and control, operating out in the fucking street like a goddamn amateur, winging it.

Pro's DON'T wing it.

Rudy did, because the same radio's which had been for shit were still for shit, his fire department got blasted to hell when they couldn't talk to anyone on the shit radios, and his command center was destroyed in the one location Rudy demanded it be set up (WTC 7), overriding all rational advice and placing C&C in the same complex the bad guys had attacked before and said they'd attack again.

Rudy is running as Mr. 9/11 super-competent.

Rudy is a fake. Rudy is a liar.

Rudy is directly responsible for hundreds to thousands of deaths.

Watch the videos. Judge good ol' 9/11 Rudy for your self...

Would you really trust him with your life? Your families?

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Sick And Tired Of Your Sor-rys

What Hubris said...and then some...

Some 30-odd years ago, the poet/playwright Ntozake Shange wrote and choreographed one of the legendary pieces in the “Black Arts Movement” canon of the late 60's/early 70's—the blazing “For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf”. It was an amazing piece, dealing with the trials and tribulations of a variety of nameless women, identified only by the color dresses they wore onstage. Some of the most penetrating words in the performances came from the characters who suffered the most damage—for example, the “Lady in Red” and her recalling the terrible domestic abuse she absorbed. Many of the other characters would cite, breathlessly and in great detail how they coped with abuse they suffered—physical AND emotional.

The moment I recall best from it is a monologue by the “Lady In Blue” who fed-up with the constant enabling, and wallowing in the battered-wife syndrome that has cost her too much of her time, and waaaaaay too much of her dignity, says “enough is enough” and lays down the law for her suitors present—and in the future, that she is “sick and tired of their sorrys”.

“If you called to say you’re sorry,
Call somebody else.
I don’t use ‘em anymore.

---------------------------------------


One thing I don't need,
Is any more apologies.
I got sorry greetin me at my front door.
You can keep yours.
I don't know what to do wiht em.
They don't open doors,
Or bring the sun back.
They don't make me happy,
Or get a mornin paper.
Didn't nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
'Cause of sorry.

-----------------------------------

I let sorry/didn't mean to/and how could I know about that
Take a walk down a dark & musty street in Brooklyn.
I'm gonna do exactly what I want to
And I won't be sorry for none of it.
Let a sorry soothe your soul...I'm gonna soothe mine."

Shange's words have rarely been far from me, as I've seen that play performed at least six times or so, and the hard declaration of “no more sorrys” always stuck out for me in particular. It especially sticks out with the spot-on noting of the “battered wife syndrome” evidenced by too many of the Left's so-called elected “leaders”, particularly after Rep. Pete Stark's comments:

“The Dainty Republican Fainting Couch and Circle Jerk Society is in full effect and the press is running with it as fast as their dimpled little legs can carry them. The context that would show what is really going on is right in the story, but you won't hear about it:

Republicans jumped on the tirade, issuing statement after statement calling on congressman Pete Stark to apologize.

Now why do you suppose they did this? Are these macho tough guys really offended that some congressman made these comments in a debate? Are their feelings hurt on behalf of the president? Does CNN really believe that's what's going on? Does anyone think that what Pete Stark said on the floor yesterday truly upset the Republicans? Of course not. These are the same people who spent month after month calling president Clinton a rapist and worse, for crying out loud. They are not shrinking violets who believe that there are limits to acceptable rhetoric about the president. They don't believe there are limits to any rhetoric.

Everyone knows exactly why the Republicans sent out "statement after statement" about this obscure congressman's words yesterday --- distraction. Does anyone point that out? No. In fact, the damned Democrats go right along with this nonsense and "hold meetings" and leak to the press about how they agree with the Republicans agreeing that Stark caused the distraction, and basically showing themselves to be a bunch of pathetic fumblers falling for this nonsense over and over again.

Surely, they don't think they will ever be able to stop the Republicans from finding some silly comment somewhere that they can get the vapors over do they? Are they really battered spouses trying desperately not to say or do anything that will make their vicious, bullying batterer angry?

Somebody call Dr. Phil for gawds sake. I have said it before but until the Democrats figure out how to deal with this, the Republicans are going to keep doing it. Why shouldn't they?”

Hubris pointed out downpage a touch that:


Okay? As the “Lady in Blue” (funny how colors are just...I dunno, timeless) said, “We are sick and tired of your sor-rys”. The fact is, that every time an unwarranted, “quiet the baby” sorry leaves our lips, we only give the caterwauling, shit-Pampered brats the cue to cry louder, shriller and more frequently as it says that we will always give in—even when right just to keep things quiet...which it never fucking does.

They don't say sorry. Ever. You could have seventy-thousand 20/20-visioned spectators in a football stadium, and a have a prominent wingnut sprint to mid-field befor everyone's eyes, and clothes-line a blind nun singing “Ave Maria” during a halftime show, body-slam her onto a metal bench, do a sack-dance over her broken body, and somehow...somehow, he will find a way, in spite of seventy-thousand people having seen him fuck up before their eyes, to not let the words “sorry” or “apology” ever tumble 'cross his foam-flecked lips. The playing field is skewed that crazily.

So when we''re dealing with THAT LEVEL of bull-headed wrongness, to say “sorry” to these people for daring to be pointed, and hard in our truth-telling makes about as much sense as driving gloves on a fucking worm.

Fuck them. And Fuck their tender, drug-addled, morally-bankrupt, and ice-hearted sensibilities. Hard...and with NO LUBE, thank you.

The American people—the majority, is down with the aforementioned “Lady In Blue”. And so too are many American soldiers in Iraq, who are taking the direct brunt of the idiotic, “do not question the policy” policy being enforced via screaming hissy-fit by the right's cowards:

“When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street,” Alarcon said this week. “The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks.”

----------------------------------------

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice — 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad — Alarcon said no: “I don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life.”

No more sorrys. No more apologies. No more humoring these maladjusted, whiny, punk-ass babies.

Because in the end, we—the American people, end up being the ones who get hurt...not them. It's a one-way street with these clowns.

And if you don't believe me, just ask poor, Ol' Lou Costello below.

There's more...

Lies, Lies, LIES!

video by FOX Attacks

In my fantasies...

Let me start over.

In my occasional daydreams of how our politics could be fixed, leading off the three Network News broadcasts, their morning News programs, with smaller teased versions of this, and then and airing a simultaneous prime-time special co-anchored by all three networks:

"'Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire': The Bush Administration Lies To American, Lies to the World, Lies to Everyone"

Is right up there with the whole Christina Ricci thing. (Who is too young, anyway, and has a boyfriend.)

They lie.

Like

• secrecy
• incompetence
• corruption
• looting of public property & funds, and
• sexual hypocrisy

lying is their default position.

Well, also, the Missionary position.

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. After we convert the little heathens with these here waterboards ("The United States does not torture."; lies.), all their awl'll be ours."

"This war is not about oil."

Lies.

If they tell you their name and where they went to school, you need to check their name, that they did indeed go to school, at that school, and under that name. That they graduated. Who their classmates were then and in the surrounding years. That there is a school by that name and that it was operating when and where they said it was. Verify everything against original source materials, issued by sources they can't fake, and their supporters can't alter or destroy.

Trust nothing they say. Check everything.

Assume every word is a lie, inside a larger specific lie of a story, designed to lead you to a larger political point of world-view which is itself a lie of framing against our shared American values and democracy.

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Secrets on Postcards

A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book

How exciting for you if you're just discovering the PostSecret project.

Started originally as an art project by artist/author Frank Warren, still touring internationally as an art exhibit, an award winning web site, and now released in its fourth book, A Lifetime of Secrets, this is participatory, human art at its finest.

Highly, highly recommended.

What's your secret? Write it on one side of a postcard and send it here:

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Five Hours

Bush's Betray al-Qaeda Network to Fox Within FIVE HOURS

Remember when the Bush Administration were the "Grown-up Party", the party of National Defense?

Yeah, me neither. Although I remember a lot of bullshit about it during the campaign.

You can't trust the Bush Administration with ANYTHING. Not even secret National Security information in their own intelligent best interest to keep secret. If they're breathing, they're lying... count on it.

Last month, just before the Osama Bin Laden video was released, a small security company specializing in monitoring terrorist groups, got a copy of the video ahead of everyone. They provided a copy to two senior officials at the White House on the condition they not release it ahead of the official al-Qaeda release -- because to do otherwise would blow up the security companies' spy network, a network years in the making.

The White House promised to keep the source secret.

Obviously.

Back doors into al-Qadea simply don't come along every day, and here a private company is handing a back door to the enemy, over to the White House. You'd think the White House and the National Security organizations would be enormously careful to protect such a gift.

You'd think.

And then you remember Valarie Plame.

Of course, that was the Vice President's office (and the Vice President) actively trying to destroy an active CIA undercover agent and her entire CIA undercover organization against WMDs in the middle-east, over ten years in the making, in retribution for her husband's political actions against the Administration.

Here... well, we don't know, do we?

Perhaps this is on purpose, more than mere political showing off. Perhaps someone has a grudge against the private company, maybe those three-letter agencies don't like looking incompetent next to private enterprise (although I thought that was the point of the Republican Party. Maybe this private enterprise wasn't on the list?) or maybe the Administration is simply incompetent. ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.")

Regardless, it took all of five hours from promise till Fox News and others had the video and transcript.

Five hours.

Washington Post

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

She spoke first with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, whom she had previously met, and then with Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Both expressed interest in obtaining a copy, and Bagnal suggested that she send a copy to Michael Leiter, who holds the No. 2 job at the National Counterterrorism Center.

Administration and intelligence officials would not comment on whether they had obtained the video separately. Katz said Fielding and Bagnal made it clear to her that the White House did not possess a copy at the time she offered hers.

Around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, Katz sent both Leiter and Fielding an e-mail with a link to a private SITE Web page containing the video and an English transcript. "Please understand the necessity for secrecy," Katz wrote in her e-mail. "We ask you not to distribute . . . [as] it could harm our investigations."

Fielding replied with an e-mail expressing gratitude to Katz. "It is you who deserves the thanks," he wrote, according to a copy of the message. There was no record of a response from Leiter or the national intelligence director's office.

Exactly what happened next is unclear. But within minutes of Katz's e-mail to the White House, government-registered computers began downloading the video from SITE's server, according to a log of file transfers. The records show dozens of downloads over the next three hours from computers with addresses registered to defense and intelligence agencies.

By midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.

Al-Qaeda supporters, now alerted to the intrusion into their secret network, put up new obstacles that prevented SITE from gaining the kind of access it had obtained in the past, according to Katz.

Got to hand it to the Bush Administration. It took them over a week to betray Valarie Plame.

They're getting faster.

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On Sockpuppets

Anonymity is Important. So is Accountability.

Group News Blog allows people to post anonymously.

Not in any particular order, and not all our reasons either:

• People should be able to say stuff, especially political stuff, without everyone knowing it was them.
• Sometimes careers and relationships, current or future ride on maintaining privacy.
• Experimenting with an idea you might not want to commit your public reputation to.
• Ease of posting. We want as few barriers to participating as possible.
• Humor, not everyone shares your sense of.
• To keep a secret, criminal or civil.
• To protect your age.
• To protect your gender.
• Due to your health or well-being.
  
• "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
  

You're a talented group. No doubt you'll come up with plenty of reasons why anonymity is so darn important. Put them in comments.

Here's the thing...

Accountability builds trust.

Trust is an assessment we make that so and so is sincere and competent for taking care of some area in a particular domain of concerns. People, families, work-groups, companies and communities build trustworthy identities over time. When identities change, trust changes also. If identities are found to be being deliberately altered, trust is quickly lost.

One of the interesting features of the software we use to monitor GNB, is we know much more about y'all than you might think. Some of it we only know in aggregate. Some we know very specifically. Some we know when we start looking.

For example, I know that in the last little while, there's been a person taking multiple identities, what is called a sockpuppet, just bouncing around from thread to thread.

This person hasn't really caused any problem, so I haven't bothered to ban him. I say him, because 95% of the time, it is a him. I could mention his ISP, what town the ISP is located in, the name, address, phone number and contact name of the administrative contact to his ISP -- but all that would be impolite.

Besides, here at GNB, we protect the privacy of our readers. Seriously, we do.

But we discourage -- strongly -- sockpuppeting.

Pick a name please, and stick to it.

This place is home for many of us, and a comfy place to drop by for many more. We are who we are in part, because we trust each other.

We're more than willing to trust you. But you need to trust us as well. Pick a name. It doesn't even have to be one of the one's you've used already. Just pick one and stick with it please.

Thanks.

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GOP Surge Fantasists = Animal House's “Chip Diller”

“Remain calm!” BOOOOOOM! KA-BOOOOOM! “All Is well!”

In the following post, I slip off my deep blue, Group News Blog—Chief, National Affairs Desk blazer with the gold embroidered “GNB” logo on the breast pocket, and ease into one of Hubris Sonic's spare khaki safari jackets with all the pockets, (Swear to God, I won't get hummus stains on it), for a clutch of stories from Iraq that fit together like pieces in the much bigger, and mucho duplicitious puzzle that is the sad, and all-too easily debunked right-wing attempts at Iraq surge spin here stateside.

STORY ONE:
You will recall President Bush's shady, last-minute duck into Iraq about three weeks ago—like the ass-crazed neighborhood lothario sneakin' in and out the back door of a MILF's home—before hubby gets home from the slaughterhouse. While there, he stopped off in Anbar Province, the vaunted wee ur doinz it touchstone for the pro-surge right. (while it is actually more of a short-sighted bit of deal-cutting with local warlords so U.S. forces could cut their losses and get out.)

Seems Little Lord Clusterfuck visited with a fella—Sunni tribal leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha—and even did a photo op with the guy during the stealth “through-the-doggie-door” visit. Here's a snapshot of that glorious moment:


The pictured meeting was trumpeted as a sign that everything was now, after umpteen, touted Friedman Units™ going by, gettin' all hunky-dory-easy-peasy in Iraq—not Baghdad, where “the surge is working”. And working so verrrrrry well that this photo is probably the last image you'll ever see of Abu Risha actually drawing breath. You see, the man got himself Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok-ed to bits about ten days after this pic was snapped, when his heavily armored car hit an IED just down the road apiece from his house. It happened to be mere hours before Bush went on TV to crow about surge progress and “The Anbar Miracle” as wingnuts have taken to breathlessly calling it. Which allowed the term “Anbar Miracle” to then be re-defined as when a local Iraqi warlord who cooperates with U.S. forces doesn't get blown to smithereens.

STORY TWO:
The wonderful Vader-masked mercenaries foreign contractors from the U.S.'s Blackwater USA apparently went batshit, firing willy-nilly in a circle in droop-lipped Rambo-style, after a State Department motorcade came under attack.

Aaaaaaaannnnnd, they sorta wound up snuffing nine nearby civilians in the process. “Yawn!” and “Whoops!” from the usual suspects. The Iraqi Interior Ministry then “rescinded the license” for Blackwater to operate in country because of the shell-spitting wig-out—which in the end doesn't mean much, because Blackwater has effectively been immunized from any punishment by the U.S. government, regardless of how badly they screw up.

Now, Blackwater isn't going anywhere. What with troops extended to several notches beyond the maximum, and the failure of the Webb amendment to get them more rest, every finger on a trigger in Mesopotamia is needed. What is striking is what went down.

In the heart of “Surge-is-working-dad”, you still have State Department vehicles being fired on as casually as old, rotating, wooden ducks at a Coney Island shooting gallery.

By all means...show us the increased security and drop in attacks mo-naaaaaaaay!

Or not.

AND FINALLY, STORY THREE:
In the wake of Blackwater's lame re-enactment of the Matrix “Lobby” scene, the U.S. suspended all foot and vehicle travel by people other than U.S. military—namely diplomats and civilians—beyond the lead, garlic and adamantium-lined Green Zone in Baghdad.

It's an open-ended suspension of land travel, as....well, they don't quite seem to know just when it'll be safe again to send feckless politicos, straw-grasping freeper bloggers, and lacquer-haired Fox News bots into the Potemkin marketplaces and sniper guarded playgrounds where smiling Iraqi kids can grin and shake packs of just-given M & Ms for the camera—before relaying the route the U.S. vehicles took there to Uncle IED-maker.

NO. LAND. TRAVEL. IN. BAGHDAD. UNLESS. YOU'RE. WEARING. DOG. TAGS. AND. PACKING. STEEL.

Now, why are these three stories linked? What does their combination add up to, or indicate in the bigger picture? It's fairly evident.

When you hear the likes of the onetime “maverick”, and onetime “sensible” (albeit a brief time) American hero like John McCain go off the rails and into the Kool Aid-filled ditch like he did this past weekend on “Meet The Press”, screaming “The surge is working! The surge is working!...And keep yer ding-dang soccer ball off my lawn, it damages the grass!”, or when you see clowns continuing to defend the spin-clogged words of our own Baghdad Bob—“Beltway Dave” Petraeus, while obfuscating the reality on the ground by screeching about “What about the man's honor? Your words damage our delicate, olive-drab, medal-clad flower of virtue!”—take all of that shit with a grain of salt. And raise yourself a unicorn and a magic pony to boot...

...Because those three events I cited—all of 'em happening within the last seven days— on their face tell you everything you need to know about what's really going on in the thick part of the soup that is Iraq. It is just the steady, continuing clusterfuckery, post Beltway Dave's Irwin Corey-esque presentation of a pyramid scheme in front of congress. And once you hear the volume, and distortion rise in the screeching of “The surge is working! The surge is working!”—as it clearly is not, understand who these screechers have become.

Animal House's Chip Diller, as portrayed by Kevin Bacon—who stood there waving his hands furiously as utter bedlam broke out around him. A sea of marbles flooring the marching band, a smoke-spouting “Deathmobile” terrorizing the streets, and Bluto Blutarsky taking on an army, swinging from banners and scooping up hapless, bee-hived hostages.

Animal House's Chip Diller, standing there amidst Ragnarok, yelling “Remain calm! All Is well! All is well!” Where he eventually found himself mowed down by the crazed madness around him.

“Remain calm! All Is well! All is well!” = “The surge is working! The surge is working!”

And in thinking about Animal House for a minute, another classic line came to mind.

OTTER: (To a disconsolate, FLOUNDER, after cavalierly wrecking his brother's brand-new Lincoln Continental)
“Hey, you fucked up. You trusted us.”

We didn't trust Bush and his war-mongering pals to get this right—but too many folks did.

And now...“sigh!”

With that, I doff the pocketed khaki vest. Back into the blue, GNB stateside blazer. And back to you, Hubris!

There's more...

What Did You Do In The War, Mommy?

“Which Of These Three Just Doesn't Belong Here?
Tell Me, Can You Guess Which One?”

Been working on a few posts to put up here over the last 48 hours, but something else has leapt to the front of the queue today. Something that has been nagging at me something fierce, but was eloquently brought into sharp focus via this brilliant post by the take-no-prisoners TBogg:

MALKIN: “Like actress Sally Field, I am a mom. Unlike Sally Field, I do not live in La-La Land. We breathe a different brand of oxygen. We hold diametrically opposed worldviews. We have nothing in common but stretch marks.

Contrary to tongue-tied Sally's incoherent Primetime Emmy Awards diatribe, childbearing and childrearing experiences do not bond all women in a universal sorority of non-confrontation. There are sheep moms. There are lion moms. We know which kind Sally Field is.”

TBOGG: Michelle likes to categorize people. For example there are "good" people (made up of white people ...and Michelle), and there are "evil" people. They are brown. Unlike Michelle.

In fact, it seems like only last week that Michelle was discussing the difference between 9/10 people and 9/12 people:

MALKIN: But remembrance without resistance to jihad and its enablers is a recipe for another 9/11. This is what fueled my first two books, on immigration enforcement and profiling. This is what fuels much of the work on this blog and at Hot Air. Not every American wears a military uniform. But every American has a role to play in protecting our homeland–not just from Muslim terrorists, but from their financiers, their public relations machine, their sharia-pimping activists, the anti-war goons, the civil liberties absolutists, and the academic apologists for our enemies.

______________________


As the most infamous of all Internet leftists once said: Screw them.


--------------------------------------

There are 9/10 people and there are 9/12 people.

TBOGG: As an example of a 9/10 person, Malkin presents Cindy Sheehan, ...a woman who lost her son in a needless war in the wrong country. A war designed to give people like Michelle Malkin the warm fuzzies by making them believe that if we invade their countries and kill enough of them over there, they won't be killing us over here. 9/10 person Cindy Sheehan is a tragic example of what the loss of a child and the ensuing grief can do to a person.

Then there is Michelle Malkin, she is a 9/12 person. Strong. Resolute. She will not submit.

_________________________


She's not like Cindy Sheehan; she hasn't got time for sorrow.

Sometimes, the world stops
By Michelle Malkin • September 10, 2007 09:38 AM

I got a late start this busy Monday morning. Lots of news breaking and we’ll get to all of it. But none of it was more important this morning than my son’s very first day of preschool.

Right now, I’m just a misty-eyed momma.

TBOGG: It seems that there is a little 9/10 in Michelle Malkin too.

The only difference is that 9/10 Michelle Malkin's little boy will be coming home to his mother at the end of the day.

9/10 Cindy Sheehan's son will not.

It's an amazing read, replete with supporting photos that help hammer the point home. When you're done here, Go. Read. It.

Because it calls attention to something we're seeing more clearly than ever before, as this sillyfuck, opiate-conceived war sucks the wingers down the shitter and moves them along the sewer pipes of long-term minority status.

That point being that these people, who bleat and cry and wail till their vocal cords are the consistency lye-splashed spaghetti, are doing so while having actually felt very little pain themselves. The glycerin tears of John Boehner, the president's alleged end-of-“Breakfast at Tiffany's”-moments when he thinks of the troops he's sent off to die in a grandiose stroke of life-wasting egomania who've died in Iraq, the “outrage” of Rudy Giuliani over the MoveOn ad for its “undermining” of the troops, while he himself ducked out of Vietnam, and his 21-year old, prime Iraq war-aged son pursues a career...as a pro golfer—those things and much, much more, embarrassingly show wingnuts as the runny shit-talking cowards they actually are. Oh, the boys are soooooo tough!

But as Kool and The Gang sang, “It's Ladies Night!”, and it's there I want to swing the focus to, as the wingnuts are using them as a shield to attack from.

Time to hammer that fucker to pieces.

Malkin's rips on Sally Field for her statements at the Emmys, and more disgustingly, her attacks on Cindy Sheehan prompt one simple question.

What the fuck has she and her peroxide-ed co-horts sacrificed or given up to warrant her venom?

Claiming to be some sort of fearsome “lion mom”? Ooooooh, can't hardly wait for her turn in the Straight-to-DVD “Panic Room II: The Reckoning”. What was her grand sacrifice—her moment of “Wow! She's really putting it on the line”, that allows for her to so denigrate someone else as less tough than she? Her dog-and-pony trip to Iraq, so peril-protected that it made Couric's visit look like Ernie-fucking-Pyle? Walked to the same Potemkin markets as McCain and Graham, visiting pre-cleared Green Zone streets in a futile search for The Treasure of The Hopefully Non-Existent Jamil Hussein? All the while surrounded by mercs and military bodyguards who whack it to screen grabs from her “Defeatocrats” cheer.

Tough? Please.

What the fuck have the Malkins, and Morgans, and Ingrahams, and Coulters given up or done to claim the mantle of “Baddest Bitch”? These clowns are the ones that Pam Grier would effortlessly slap her way past to get to the “Boss Man” behind the double doors.

They have laughably wailed about Shar'ia law coming to Maple Street. They have caterwauled about how stars should “shut up and sing”—unless they silently agree with their genocidal ideas. They have flipped their blond manes (“Neeeeeeiiiiiiggggh!”) and screeched 'faggy-fag!”, and ripped widows who actually lost loved ones on 9-11.

Then...then, there is the woman who made the “ultimate sacrifice”, abusing internet video's ease of production and putting herself up for eternal ridicule with embarrassing “War on Terra” propaganda pieces that featured rapping so bad that it made Karl Rove's mic-rockin' “flow” sound like vintage Rakim.

And worst of all, or best, if you're into watching Gomez Addams quality train wrecks, her infamous actual cheerleading video ripping Harry Reid for daring to consider cutting funding for the Iraq clusterfuck war.

That's it? That's what they've done for the war? It can now be said. “Rosie the Riveter”, you can rest easy. “Michelle the Bullshitter” and her ilk are nothing to worry about insofar as usurping your place as an icon of homefront dirty work in “the war effort”.

The GOP's hapless deployment of their long-developed “Fembot Farm-Team” as defenders of the homeland, post-September 11th—skirts the fellas can hide behind as the ladies spit venom by proxy, is a bed shit. An unadulterated bed shit when you look at the body of work these no-talent, pre-fab “security moms” have produced in their “fight”, compared to the ultimate hell that Cindy Sheehan and Mary Tillman have lived through during Bush's war.

“What did you do in the war, Mommy?”

CINDY SHEEHAN: “I gave the country my child and he'll never draw breath again.”

MARY TILLMAN: “And I gave the country my child and he'll never draw breath again.”

MICHELLE MALKIN: “That's nothing! I went down to Costume Hut at the Dulles Town Center Mall, bought me a cheerleader outfit and spastically shook my narrow ass for the camera!

Save the cheerleader, and screw the world.

There's more...

No Rebates for You, Sucker

Rebate Requests Found in Dumpster

Ever sent in a rebate request?

Know that sick feeling you get wondering if you'll ever see your money? Yeah, me too.

Turns out you're not just imagining things.

San Jose Mercury News

I am staring at more than 1,300 rebate requests sent to Vastech on Bonaventura Drive in San Jose. The envelopes were tossed - unopened - into a garbage dumpster near Vastech. I have two boxes of envelopes that were thrown out without being processed. In all of my years of reporting, I have never encountered such outrageous behavior against consumers.

An employee of nearby Dominion Enterprises found the letters, along with hundreds of others addressed to Vastech, at his company's dumpster. He turned them over to his boss, Joel Schwartz, who gave them to me. All of the letters were addressed to UR-04 Rebate or some variation of the product name at the Vastech address.

Vastech is a small computer accessories company owned by Weizhen Tan, who goes by William. I didn't get a response when I sent e-mails as directed by Vastech's Web site. And the company's voice mail was always full. But he was there at the small office at 63 Bonaventura Drive in San Jose when I came calling, letters in hand.

When I asked why rebate letters were tossed out, he initially said it was due to a "bad employee." Later, he said that it was probably done by a friend of the family who was not a formal employee but was supposed to be helping out. That person, he said, probably threw the letters out because of "laziness." He said the person no longer does any work for the company.

Tan acknowledged receiving a lot of complaints, some filtered through Fry's Electronics, which he said was the only chain that offered the Vastech products with rebates. He promised to respond quickly to complaints lodged at the company's voice mail at (408) 786-7699, or its e-mail address at support@vastechinc.com.

"If we do rebates in the future, we will put in place a better system for tracking them," he said, promising that his company would be caught up on rebate processing this month. "It's unfortunate this happened. We will take responsibility for them and handle it better."

"They don't make it easy for you," said Vastech customer Richard Louie. "It's a lot of work. When it's a small amount of money, I don't keep track of it. For the bigger ones, I do keep track and sometimes I have to call them to complain."

Manuel Valerio, a spokesman for Fry's in San Jose, confirmed that Fry's had received complaints about Vastech's rebates and that Fry's had assisted some customers in getting paid. He said the store didn't know rebate letters had been dumped, adding that Fry's would likely not sell products from companies that engaged in such practices.

But Fry's has no plans to ban rebates.

"We certainly know there are many people who are no fans of rebates, and we are not the greatest fans of rebates as well, but the reality is they are out there," he said. "So long as manufacturers and other retailers offer them, Fry's will continue to do so because we don't want to be at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other competitors in the retail industry."

I avoid rebates.

Retail shopping is tricky enough for me anyway. I didn't grow up shopping. My mom and sister (and best friends' mom and sisters -- *waves to Ann*) did the shopping. I did the eating and the wearing. Till I became a single dad, shopping was an excruciating experience. I didn't even control a checkbook other than for my businesses.

Which explains how so many of my early start-ups and small businesses failed or had trouble. I lacked an innate grasp of ordinary shopping, money and business sense.

Rebates are an attempt to confuse an ordinary transaction. Just as Science Daily reports that smaller digits to the right side of a price, make the transaction seem smaller:

Science Daily

The researchers show that "right-digit effect" influences consumer perception of sale prices. When the right digits are small, people perceive the discount to be larger than when the right digits are large. In other words, an item on sale for $211 from the original price of $222 is thought to be a better deal than an item on sale for $188 from an original price of $199, even though both discounts are $11.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

When I started shopping, precisely because I'd never really been exposed to stores (and not a lot of television), initially I was very susceptible to marketing. Ended up with a lot of crappy carbohydrates in large boxes from big stores instead of the good food I'd eaten most of my life, t-shirts instead of stuff which made made me look handsome, and every geeky product I'd ever wanted to buy.

I learned. Along the way I learned to compare apples to apples.

Rebates are a way of tricking you from getting full value in a transaction.

A rebate is a promise to provide value in the future in the form of a check, that is, a pomise of future satisfaction. Like any promise it could be broken (as we discover in San Jose and have always suspected), therefore rebates -- actually all offers which mature in the future -- have less value now. So their face value is not worth the full face value now (the discount rate against face value.)

Because at a minimum --

a) rebates must be discounted against face value (even tiny rebates);

b) the cost of your time, the stamp and envelop must be factored in -- on a $3.50 rebate a $0.41 stamp plus envelop comes to a significant percentage of the total rebate; and

c) you might not get your rebate at all. At least on significant rebates you'll need to make a photocopy, keep a follow-up system, and all this takes your time. How much is your time worth?

-- rebates accomplish their intent...they make genuine price comparison near impossible, while sucking customers into stores and into purchases. Don't be a sucker.

If all goes well, you'll get your rebates.

If not...

There's more...

From a Horsefly On The Shed Wall in Crawford...

Scene from a weekend Texas barbecue—“Hope you don't mind Dick's Teriyaki Baby gettin' on yer Ginger Chicken, 'Berto.”

INT.- GEORGE W. BUSH'S CRAWFORD, TEXAS RANCH HOUSE-DAY

The walls are adorned with old Frederick Remington western prints, a poster for “Shanghai Noon”, and an old chest X-ray of John Wayne's, circa 1965. We hear a doorbell ring—or rather, the “ding” of a service station's customer bell when someone drives over the hose out in front. A staggering LAURA BUSH lurches into view—barely steady on her feet as she goes to the door. She's done up in a 70's-style double-knit western jumpsuit, with piping and fringe on the seams and pockets. She accidentally kicks a stuffed armadillo down the hall as she walks, holding onto the walls.

LAURA: I'm coming. I'm coming! (To herself) Shit! God...make this fucking earthquake stop! Coming!

She opens the door where we see ALBERTO GONZALES standing there holding a plate of wrapped food. A stunned Laura steps backward.

LAURA: Oh Goddamn. How did a fucking wetback get past the Secret Service? (She pounds on the wall intercom) Mayday! Mayday! Valley-Doll One is in distress! Repeat—Valley-Doll One is in distress!

GONZO: Mrs. Bush—Laura! It's me...Al.

She looks on, still wobbly and confused.

GONZO: Gonzales!

LAURA: (Recognizing him) Ohhhhhh! Well Goddamn, Al! Get yourself a... national I.D. card or something so a girl can identify you! (Laughs) Mmmmmm! I see you've brought treats...

GONZO: Tasty fish tacos, ma'am.

Laura clears her throat exaggeratedly—signaling there must be something more.

LAURA: Yes?

GONZO: Oh yes, and this! (From behind his back he produces a pickle jar-sized bottle of pills) A fine bottle of 1974 Seconal. Great vintage.

LAURA: (She sniffs at it.) It's got a lovely bou-quet! And a pre-Elvis bottling. You shouldn't have. (BEAT) But too late, you already did. Thanks!

They start walking through the house towards the back yard.

GONZO: So...where's the boss man? Out by the grill?

LAURA: No...he's hiding. From you.

GONZO: Me?

LAURA: (Sighs) He thinks you have a resignation letter or something for him, and he thinks if you can't actually hand it to him, it doesn't count. (BEAT) You don't, do you?

GONZO: Me? Naaaaaaah! Just brought...a nice plate of fish tacos.

LAURA: (BEAT) Wrapped in DOJ stationery.

GONZO: Yeaaaaaah...was all I could...y'know, get my hands on at...the-uh...time.

LAURA: Y'know, whatever. He's out there—hiding in the hay bales.

GONZO: Hay bales? I don't see any hay bales.

LAURA: (Pointing) Over there. The hay bales.

GONZO: Those aren't hay bales. They're rolls of fiberglass insulation, ma'am.

LAURA: (Chugging pills from the mouth of the jar) Mmmmmf! Hay bales, fiberglass—what's the difference?

GONZO: Well, what do you feed the horses?

LAURA: (Stunned) We have horses?

GONZO: Never mind, ma'am. I'll just find him.

Gonzales goes out the back door, onto the patio, where DICK CHENEY stands at the grill—unsteady, as he's holding a sweating bottle of Rumplemintz in one hand, while poking at charred meat with the other.

CHENEY: Hey, 'Berto. How's it hangin'?

GONZO: To the right, of course, sir.

CHENEY: Heenh-henh. Love that shit. Love it. (He picks up something extra well-done off the grill on a fork, waving it at Gonzo.) Baby?

GONZO: (Wincing at the offer) No. No thanks.

CHENEY: Sure? These are fresh ones—not from frozen embryos.

GONZO: I'll pass.

CHENEY: More for me, then. (He takes a huge swig off the Rumplemintz, dribbling it on his gingham shirt) F' you're lookin' fer Brilliantine, he's hidin' in that stack of insulation, there.

GONZO: (Walking off) Thanks.

CHENEY: (Calling out) Ehhh, I wouldn't take a piece of that and chew on it like he did. It ain't hay. Lips swelled up something awful.

GONZO: Gotcha.

Gonzales walks across the field over to the bales of insulation, which quiver and move as someone (BUSH) is obviously hiding behind them. We can HEAR him furiously scratching back there.

GONZO: Hello, sir. It's me.

BUSH: Don' know who yer talkin' to. There's nobody back here.

GONZO: Sir...I know you're back there. I can see your boot moving.

BUSH: No you don't.

GONZO: It has the Presidential Seal on it. I'm looking at it, now. Kicking.

BUSH: I stashed 'em here yestiddy so's I wouldn't nick 'em up clearin' non-existent brush. Yer lookin' at a boot with no man attached. So...be on yer way. No president back here, and he can't accept yer resignation. No sir!

GONZO: Guess he can't accept this plate of fish tacos I made, either.

BUSH: (Sniffs) Fish tacos?

GONZO: Yep...made with chopped-up Mrs. Paul fish sticks, too. Just the way the president likes 'em.

BUSH: Looka here! Foun' m' boots! (Bush rises from the fiberglass, covered in tufts of it, blotchy-skinned and totally hived-over) Hey, Berto! Let's see them tacos!

GONZO: Here you go, sir.

BUSH: Mmmmmm-mmmmm! Smells great! And ya wrapped it up so nicely, too. In paper?

GONZO: So they uh...steam better on the grill.

BUSH: And you wrote a message on it. Awwwww! (Reading) “Dear George, enjoy these tacos. Love, Fredo. P.S. I fucking...quit?” Grrrrrrrrrrrr! You son-of-a-bitch! You tricked me! (He flings plate of tacos at Gonzo who ducks it.) Fuckin'...Sancho...Villa- mother-fucker!

GONZO: It was the only way, sir. I'm sorry. And I think it's Sancho Panza.

BUSH: Whut-fuckin' ever! You can't resign! Whut about yer legacy? Whut about-about helpin' all the sexed-up children, like Chris Hansen does? Whut about makin' me look like my shit is over?

GONZO: I can't do it anymore sir.The jig is up.

BUSH: Jig? You're part Black? You specifically told me you were Mexican!

GONZO: I mean, it's done. I can't fight 'em off any more. There's nobody left at Justice. I called a meeting last week and got 15 out-of-office replies from people who'd quit. And I'd only sent out 10 messages! That's an omen, sir. Plus, I can't go back to Capitol Hill again to testify.

BUSH: Why not?

GONZO: Because I've officially run out of ways to say “I'm not gonna tell you shit!” I've said “I don't recall” 107 times. I've said “I don't recollect”, another 44 times. Said “Huh?” twenty times. Threw in a few “Duhs”. I'm spent. I'm burnt. They've got me.

BUSH: Well there's always “No habla ingles”, right? I mean, I can't actually habla the ingles real good, but for you, maaaaaan, that excuse fits like a corn husk on a tamale.

GONZO: Sir, they know I speak English.

BUSH: Yeah, but do they know it's not your first language?

GONZO: I dunno. I don't recall.

BUSH: There! See? You don't recall! You can still do this. You've got a few still in ya. C'mon. hang around. Me, Dick, and you?—We can be like the...you know, the stripped down versions of those bands from back in the day! Who fucking needs keyboards, and strings and shit? (Begins air-guitaring furiously as he “mouth-guitars” the opening chords from *Deep Purple's “Smoke On The Water”)

“Dahn-dahn-DAHN! Dahn-dahn-DAHN-dahn! Dahn-dahn-DAHN! Dahn-dahn-DAAAAAAAAHN!” We can do this!

GONZO: I-I'm afraid not, sir.

BUSH: You can be like that weird, little brown dude in The Association! C'mon!

GONZO: Here's my key to the White House washroom. I enjoyed handing towels to you.

BUSH: (exploding) Well fuck you then, Baba Looey! Fuck you sideways! Quick Draw don't need you, anyway! In fact...(Calls out) Laura! Get yer face outta that ditch and call the INS fer me! Seems we got us a non-citizen intruder!

GONZO: Sir, I am a citizen.

BUSH: So was yer boy, Padilla. Ha-hah! Don't mean shit! I don't need you! I don't need Karl! I don't need Condi-

GONZO: She hasn't quit, sir.

BUSH: Whut th-well where the hell has she fucking been? Screw it! I don't need anybody! All I need...(Lifts a clanking, clattering case from behind a roll of insulation) are my friends...fuggin' Moussy and O'Doul (Laughs) Moussy. Henh-henh, Sounds kinda Moo-slim. (Laughs again, then yells) They're all I need!

GONZO: Sir...that's an awful lot of bottles. Did you drink those today?

BUSH: Yes, I. Did! Mother! (BEAT) S' non-alcoholic, stupid! I can have a hundred of these fuckers!

GONZO: Well, that's good.

BUSH: It'd be a problem...if I was brewin' pruno in the well behind the shed, and was dippin' from it every time I went back there t' get baling wire for this... Goddamned, pink fuggin' hay! (Kicks at a roll, nearly falling down) That'd be a problem!

GONZO: Oh, shit. Look sir. I'm uh...I'm gonna go now.

BUSH: Go! Be out! (Throws a Moussy empty at Gonzo who eludes it) I'll ride this bitch out by m' lonesome! (To himself) Don't need no-Goddamn-body...

GONZO (Pointing at Cheney) You've still got Mr. Cheney.

BUSH: (Reeling with surprise) Are you fuckin' kidding me? 7 years in—I still don't know that nother-fucker! Do you see what he's cooking over there? Karl joked about that shit! Dick's fuckin' doin' it! I've still got Cheney? He's got me! Get the fuck outta here! (Throws another bottle at Gonzo, missing again.) Go!

GONZO: Just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to serve under you, sir.

BUSH: Yeah, yeah...serve this, bitch! (Grabs hard at his crotch.) Who needs you?! You were just along fer th' ride! Cha-ching! Hear that? That was me droppin' your token-ass in the slot! Got me a pocket fulla tokens just like ya! So, hah!

GONZO: Good-bye sir. (Walking away)

BUSH: What? No “Adios, amigo?” (Screaming now) Oh, of course! You're too good for that! Amigo would mean “friend”! And friends don't just book up!

GONZO: Enjoy the fish tacos.

BUSH: Slow yer roll there, Speedy. (Waves the bathroom key at Gonzo) You've got a little more than this key, outstanding. Yer gub'mint car? The Escalade? Where's the key fer that?

GONZO: I don't recall.

BUSH: And your cabinet officer's credit card?

GONZO: (Now jogging back to the house) I don't recollect, sir!

BUSH: Wait! Your passkey to the White House gym! Your Blackberry! The escort service discount card? Where the fuck are they?

GONZO: (Sprinting now, past Cheney and into the house, toward the front door.) ¡No habla ingles! ¡No habla ingles!

FADE OUT

*Thanks, Professor Fate!—LM

There's more...

Broken...Busted...And Beat To Hell

Years From Now, Historians Will Look Back At This Administration...And Consider Burning All Records Of Its Existence.

The Alberto Gonzales skid-mark of a tenure as Attorney General has been pretty well-covered by folks all around the reality-based end of the blogosphere. In fact, it's been what's driving the pursuit of this sordid bunch of stories—far better than the so-called digging on the part of print and broadcast journalists still "locked on lazy".

We even covered it at "Ye Olde News Blog” when this exploding cigar of a scandal first blew up in Bush's and 'Berto's faces a few months back—and had this to say about it:

"Simple question--right here and now. Why would an administration, its Attorney General, and involved partisan elected officials repeatedly lie about their involvement in something that they claim to be LEGAL AND ABOVE BOARD?

People lie for one of two reasons.

1.) To cover up a misdeed--an illegal or unethical act.

or,

2.) Because they are compulsive untruth-tellers who prevaricate about pretty much everything for little or no reason.

Neither of these reasons serves this administration well. The latter one indicates that they can be trusted on nothing, and the former one--the supremely prevalent one in general practice indicates serious, and damning illegality. They lied. Before Congress. Under oath. About circumventing the Constitution of the United States. Slaving the judicial branch--law enforcement, to the whims of the political needs of the executive branch. Somewhere in hell--probbly the boiler room, Pinochet, Marcos and Nixon are all smiling sweaty, proud "attaboy" smiles at this justice-poisoning news."

(Editor's Note: I can't front...I don't generally fall in love with graphics I come up with, but I LOVED lookin' at that one again! "Chortle!")

Which seems all the more apt now, as 'Berto's troubles' secondary prong—his differing statements about his involvement in the administration's wireless wiretapping scandal have come a' cropper.

"Come a' cropper" is nice folk-speak for, "caught lying his fucking ass off under oath." Jaws dropped all over the place, over his damning-as-all-hell "testimony" before Congress last week.

'In explaining why he and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made a dramatic visit to the hospital bedside of a seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gonzales points to a key meeting earlier that same day, March 10, 2004.

At that meeting, according to Gonzales, the bipartisan group of congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight, which oversees the most sensitive aspects of the intelligence community, demanded that a top secret surveillance program (widely believed to be the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program) be continued despite the refusal of the Department of Justice to sign off on the legality of the program.

----------------------------------------------------

But tonight Democratic leaders who were at that meeting dispute Gonzales' version of events. Spencer Ackerman is reporting that Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi at the time the Democratic minority leaders in the Senate and House respectively, dispute Gonzales' account. The Washington Post is likewise reporting that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, strongly takes issue with Gonzales' version of events.
Why would an embattled attorney general whose credibility is in tatters spin a version of events that others are in a position to debunk?'

That's a rhetorical "why" that TPM asks. They later give pretty much the skinny on it, brandishing the word that D.C. folks would sooner eat brine-soaked glass than let pass their lips.

Liar.

Ooooooh! Clutch the pearls, bitches—I do believe we feel a bout of them ol' vapors comin' on!

We already know he's been lying like a DUI-busted Lindsay Lohan about his level of involvement in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, but he's been able to hide behind the skirts, odd bangs, squeaky voices and jowls of underlings he's sacrificed in his stead. This nightmare, over the outright lying about the NSA scandal, goes even further—deeper actually, as it goes to the ash-heaping of one of the most fundamental rights we as Americans hold dear. The right to privacy. A laughably ironic one when you consider the AG's boss's claiming of the ultimate privacy right—"Executive Privilege" in the other prong of DOJ scandal, no?

He sat there, Gonzales did—and said that his creepy hospital visit to a Percoset cloud-dancing Ashcroft was about one thing—an alternate domestic spying program that we're not privy to, and claimed a shit-load of other people were briefed about it. Only to have those people ALL deny it, citing a different briefing date and topic of discussion—namely the one he initially denied under oath. The 'nad-kick was when FBI Chief Robert Mueller also contradicted "Seedy Gonzales" testimony—directly. Proven again, this time as a naked, stupid, bald-faced liar.

D.C.'s full of liars though. Sub shops, grimy Lotto joints, and liars—D.C. in a rat-nibbled nutshell. But it seems that all the other liars in town are so much better at lying than 'Berto is. Slicker...more accomplished at least. Halfway able to get close to "putting it over". Gonzales is that rarest of things in Beltway ciecles—a bad liar. A horrific one, at that. Incompetence and toadyism be damned; those are sadly, part and parcel of the Washington insider's game—but to be the sort of prevaricator whose words can be utterly disproven before the end of a news day, to where they are outright criminal? Well...that Ladies and Gentlemen, is a singularly destructive talent—or lack thereof.

But what makes 'Berto's folly soooooooo awful is it's poisonous leaching into things beyond just him, the person. We have seen, in the last 35 years, the office of the Attorney General get twisted around in some bad ways. We have seen the people in the office be little more than near-criminal hatchet-men and trail coverers. We have seen them reviled and heard their names invoked as evil incarnate, when their backing of an act or bill has displeased an "activated" portion of the populace. But by God, in spite of the worst that a John Mitchell might have done, (and please note what he was convicted of and did 19 months in the clink over) or the wild, and outrageous slings and arrows that buffeted a Janet Reno, this Attorney General, Mr. Gonzales, will go down in history as without a doubt, the most ethically damaged AG in U.S. history. He embarrassed himself publicly with the kind of fumbling, shifty, and on-the-fly lying that would make even a Stephen Glass blush, while covering for Constitution-trashing, illegal wiretapping. He wrapped uninvolved others—others who with but a word could expose him—in a badly-woven net of lies and dodges to protect himself and an equally sullied President. He has clearly perjured himself, and obstructed justice via his wavering lies.

But once you add to that, the scandal of the fired U.S. Attorneys, where even more lies were piled, you get a full look at the grotesque, hall-length mural that is the total trashing of the Office of the Attorney General...and, the laying to waste of the Justice Department itself. Fox News this past weekend unbelievably could not get a GOP panelist to come on-air to defend Gonzales. Host Chris Wallace actually said:

"By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales. We had no takers."

The office of the so-called highest-ranking law enforcement official in the land has been turned into a fucking joke. Janet Reno's going on SNL to break through a wall and dance a weird Frug with Will Ferrell left herself with several times more gravitas than Gonzales has today. Can one even cite scholarship in "the law" as something to hang a hat on for him? His lame inability to even parse words well to make a convincing argument when under fire, speaks far less-than-well for the possibility of hidden, great talent as a barrister. The mass resignations of high-ranking Justice Department deputies to shield him, and the awful "rotating of stock" in the department—filling every nook and available cranny with Christofascist toadies who care not for law, but rather, how to apply the law to further the goals of their faux-holy, retrograde, party-first bosses— has so damaged it, that it's a barely functioning arm of the federal government right now. Where the Justice Department was once a place where in spite of who ran it, you could reasonably count on many of the country's best and brightest legal minds finding a place there to flourish, and enforce the laws of the land in a fairly egalitarian manner, we now find it converted mostly into a farm of partisan pods. Pods planted like mad by this administration, that sprout the likes of the Bradley Schlozmans, Monica Goodlings and Rachel Pauloses we now find ourselves bedeviled with in this short six years or so.

That's right...it's The Invasion Of The Justice Snatchers. —which would explain that disturbing, reedy whine of Schlozman's quite frankly.

The Attorney General's office and Justice Department have been rendered un-inhabitable right now. Pretty much unusable, in fact. That is the legacy of Alberto Gonzales. Something John Mitchell and his poisonous hyper-partisanship, and Janet Reno and her gaffes and targeting for hatred by her enemies could never do.

They never managed to wreck the office of the AG—nor did they come close to the crippling of the DOJ itself. Gonzales has...and then some. And it's going to take an awfully long time to restore integrity to the office, regardless of who the next person is (in the next administration, that is—if he were forced out now, which could happen, his immediate replacement would be little more than a seat-warmer) to take the job. It's going to take even longer to fumigate the DOJ itself. The equivalent of scores of "roach bombs" one would think, to de-infest what's presently in there...eating at the walls, and fouling the conducting of business—which is the enforcement of U.S. law—not the creepy Judge Roy Moore school of pick-n'-choose, moralistic bashing.

It's gonna take years to fix. And we can only hope that whoever the President is going to be, has enough stones, and patience—as well as the vision to pick the right person to repair it.

This... smashing of Justice.

Did you ever—EVER, think that you'd look back on John Ashcroft's hoary singing, backward ways, and yes...freaky aversion to breastage on federal statuary with a sense of laughing nostalgia?

Thanks for that, 'Berto. Seriously. Ha. Ha.

There's more...

Tour de France: Stage 20

Marcoussis to Paris (Champs-Elysees) 146 km

Stage 20 ends the Tour. What a trip. GNB Sports. Welcome.

A beautiful day riding into Paris. Only 31 seconds separate Alberto Contador in Yellow leading the Tour from Levi Leipheimer in third, both riding for Team Discovery Channel. Cadel Evans 23 seconds back is in second for Predictor-Lotto. It's unlikely Cadel will try to move up but with only 23 seconds between them almost anything could be enough to cause the race lead to shift. The race isn't over till it's over. Discovery's job today is to protect the Yellow Jersey all the way to the finish.

After hours of meandering French countryside we're finally about to make the famous turn onto the Champs-Elysees, the roar of the crowd, and eight increasingly fast laps ending with a bell lap where the 141 riders of the 189 who started the Tour will scream past the cheering crowds in a dangerous sprint for the finish. AND ONTO THE CHAMP-ELYSEES THEY COME, around the right corner the peloton of the Tour de France led by Team Discovery the best team this year and George Hincapie leading out the team riding close around its leader Yellow Jersey holder Alberto Contador, the Discovery boys for the eighth year of the last nine, lead the way onto the fabled cobblestones for the first of eight circuits.

Across the finish line team Discovery rides at high speed with 31 kilometers left. And here we go... An hour of breakaways, quick reactions, attempts to sprint clear, tension, counter moves, and chases. What matters is Alberto Contador staying ahead of Cadel Evans, while Cadel Evans stays ahead of Levi Leipheimer. Any attempt by Discovery or Predictor-Lotto to make a move will be hit back hard and instantly. Everyone else can do as they wish as long as they're not seen to be riding in support of the main riders or a danger to the main riders.

Rabobank -- who you may recall pulled Yellow Jersey holder Michael Rasmussen out of the Tour after he won stage 16 claiming Rasmussen lied to the team, then fired him from Rabobank, then pulled the entire team out of the Tour -- has said that they, Rabobank will pay team members their shares of the GC winner's purse for their hard work over two weeks getting and then keeping Rasmussen in Yellow, that is paying the riders a full GC share just as if Rasmussen had gone on to win the Tour. An amazingly classy move by Rabobank.

Speaking of, Alexandre Vinokourov's B sample has come back positive; we know through a media leak, another violation of testing protocol via the French labs via the French press. Our experience with looking at the Floyd Landis case in lots of detail from a year ago through all of the hearings till today, short version, is we wouldn't want to be on trial on the basis Floyd is being tried. His case and that of other athletes in many sports lacks major elements of due process and what people in the U.S. would consider normal constitutional safeguards and protections. Additionally the presumption of innocence is reversed; the athlete is expected to prove a negative in many cases. Finally, the procedures of the French laboratories are sloppy past the point of being believable in any case where careers and reputation hang in the balance.

Having said all this, of course Vino may have doped. Desperate people do desperate things. We hope however no one reading this believes anything about doping because they read about it in the popular press or because the UCI or the Tour organization or the anti-doping laboratories say so, any more than most of us believe the main-stream media. In the same way, you certainly shouldn't believe the riders any more than we believe major media figures. About the Floyd Landis case, Trust But Verify has enormous credibility about doping. Want to learn more about all of the doping cases? Start there.

From London to Paris in 22 days around France. Now we're in the heart of Paris riding around in circles going faster and faster. The break of ten has 25 seconds on the peloton with two laps to go. A slight drizzle has started. The cobblestones are slick and increasingly dangerous.

Remember that stage 8 famous bidon pull Levi made to get back after mechanical troubles, the infamous ten second penalty? Levi's only down to Cadel by eight seconds. The unexpected penalty -- many would say uncalled for -- cost Levi second place on the final podium. Levi of course is nothing but gracious: "If it was for the win, it would have been more heart-breaking. We have two stage wins, the Yellow Jersey, the White Jersey and two guys on the podium. I think we can be happy with this Tour." Levi -- don't forget Discovery is about to win the Team Classification also!

The peloton swallows the break. It's all coming down to a sprint finish as we hit the BELL LAP. Alberto Contador and his Yellow Jersey is enroute to victory, tucked away and protected by his teammates about 20 riders from the front. It's the sprinters now racing flat-out for the stage win in a long line AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME AT OVER 55 kilometers per hour at 250 meters to the final finishing line, teammates swinging off, Bennati, Hunter, Thor Hushovd, Hunter, Zabel, Boonen, it's Bennati! Daniele Bennati on the line the man from Italy wins today in Paris.

Final Results 2007 Tour de France

Alberto Contador the 24 year old young man wins both the Yellow Jersey of the Tour de France Overall Win and the White Jersey of the Best Young Rider. Tom Boonen wins the Green Jersey of the Points Competition (Sprinters). Mauricio Soler wins the Polka-Dot Jersey of the King of the Mountains. And Amets Txurruka wins Most Aggressive rider.

2,200 miles, 21 days, and 31 seconds -- that's 500 meters at speed -- separates the three leaders from each other in the second closest ever finish in Tour history, behind only the 8 second gap of winner Lemond and Fignon. Alberto Contador may be the future face of the Tour, the first rider since Jan Ulrich in 1997 to win both the Tour and the White Jersey, although certainly Cadel Evans wants another chance to win Yellow. And Levi may have his eyes set there as well.

The Discovery Team wins the Team Classification award for the first time ever including all the years they rode for Lance. George Hincapie looks SO happy. *sighs*

That's the 2007 Tour de France. No way to sum up this Tour. Our article on doping and trust will be published this week. Thank you for for an amazing 22 days, for your insightful comments and for welcoming this series. It's been fun and worthwhile. Go ride a bicycle.

From the GNB Sports Desk, this has been Jesse Wendel. Goodbye.


Today's video highlights -- Great Tour coverage at VeloNews

A Feast on Wheels: Behind the scenes Tour coverage by correspondent Bonnie DeSimone of ESPN, Boston Globe and the Oregonian.

Cyclelicious -- What's Your Source of News for Le Tour?

TDF Stage 20 Results -- Top 5:
The top five in the 20th stage of the 2007 Tour de France is:
1. Daniele Bennati (ITA) LAM
2. Thor Hushovd (NOR) C.A
3. Erik Zabel (GER) MRM
4. Robert Hunter (RSA) BAR
5. Tom Boonen (BEL) QSI

TDF: Standings after Stage 20

1	112	CONTADOR, Alberto	ESP	DSC	91:00:26.000	00:00:00.000
2	041	EVANS, Cadel	AUS	PRL	91:00:49.000	00:00:23.000
3	111	LEIPHEIMER, Levi	USA	DSC	91:00:57.000	00:00:31.000
4	031	SASTRE, Carlos	ESP	CSC	91:07:34.000	00:07:08.000
5	071	ZUBELDIA, Haimar	ESP	EUS	91:08:43.000	00:08:17.000
6	018	VALVERDE, Alejandro	ESP	GCE	91:12:03.000	00:11:37.000
7	027	KIRCHEN, Kim	LUX	TMO	91:12:44.000	00:12:18.000
8	118	POPOVYCH, Yaroslav	UKR	DSC	91:12:51.000	00:12:25.000
9	073	ASTARLOZA, Mikel	ESP	EUS	91:14:40.000	00:14:14.000
10	011	PEREIRO SIO, Oscar	ESP	GCE	91:14:51.000	00:14:25.000

There's more...