Month: October 2005

My first experience with political disillusionment came during the late summer of 1988. Coming out of the Democratic Convention, Michael Dukakis had an enormous 17% lead in the polls over George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush was widely suspected of being implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, he was seen as lacking leadership skills, he was unpopular with the Reagan crowd, and the biggest MSM talking point about him was that he was a ‘wimp’. Making matters worse for Bush, his selection of Dan Quayle to be his running mate was deeply controversial and prevented him from getting the usual bounce out of his own convention.

But then something happened that changed the minds of tens of millions of voters, virtually overnight.

The GOP started running commercials about the Massachusetts prison furlough program, focusing on one example of a furloughed black man who raped a white women.

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I personally want to say that I would just love to see Cheney go to jail and Bush with him. I think that they are both worse than Sadaam and in fact are more urgently in need of being on trial than Sadaam.

But I am afraid that our prosecutor friend Patrick Fitzgerald is going to be beholden to his Republican Roots and probably will do as much as he can to mute the investigation for political and ideological reasons emanating from his own extremely conservative philosophy and thinking.

If he could not find serious wrong doing after 2 years that go beyond possible perjury and obstruction of justice (which he cannot hide from the Grand Jury, since they are the ones who would have witnessed it) then we can say this is certainly a partisan investigation. Any prosecutor can find wrong doing if they want to. No politician is so clean that there is not intentional or unintentional wrong doing by the politician or those around him, doing something wrong for which he can be held accountable.

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Two days ago, Raw Story reported that David Wurmser is reportedly a second cooperating witness in the Valerie Plame affair. Subsequent research shows that Wurmser has been questioned three additional times in separate investigations for his role in leaks of classified information. More inside.

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I can’t get enough caffeine in my system.

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Crossposted at Daily Kos, European Tribune and My Left Wing

They say when it rains, it pours… except not in the Brazilian tropical rainforest. Today we get this piece from The Independent. (Pictures and captions from Greenpeace).

A small stream runs through what was once a huge lake. In an area used to ample rainfall a drought as severe as this in the Amazon basin is having dramatic and devastating effects on the wildlife and people of this unique region. The mighty Amazon River is being reduced to a trickle in places, grinding the entire region to a halt. The people of the Amazon rely on the river and its many tributaries for everything from food to transportation.

More below the fold…

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