Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This blog will pay for itself.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

When we show up, we win.

This really is a full service blog.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

New Life for “Able Danger?”

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This will certainly fan the flames for the next few days:

military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I.

Colonel Shaffer said in an interview that the small, highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger had identified by name the terrorist ringleader, Mohammed Atta, as well three of the other future hijackers by mid-2000, and had tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the F.B.I.’s Washington field office to share the information.

But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 plot was still being planned.

“I was at the point of near insubordination over the fact that this was something important, that this was something that should have been pursued,” Colonel Shaffer said of his efforts to get the evidence from the intelligence program to the F.B.I. in 2000 and early 2001.

He said he learned later that lawyers associated with the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command had canceled the F.B.I. meetings because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States. “It was because of the chain of command saying we’re not going to pass on information – if something goes wrong, we’ll get blamed,” he said.

Read the whole thing, but what is noticable absent is any mention of Jamie Gorelick, who had other conflicts of interest that should have kept her off the 9/11 Commission.

At any rate, as with everything, there isthe story, and then there is the story pushing the story. Why is this coming out now? It will be interesting to see what happens next.

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Bin Laden and the State Department

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Interesting piece on 1996 State Department warnings about Bin Laden in Afghanistan:

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden’s move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam “well beyond the Middle East,” but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.

In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that “his prolonged stay in Afghanistan – where hundreds of ‘Arab mujahedeen’ receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate – could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum,” in Sudan.

The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times, shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden’s history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him.

Before 1996, Mr. bin Laden was regarded more as a financier of terrorism than a mastermind. But the State Department assessment, which came a year before he publicly urged Muslims to attack the United States, indicated that officials suspected he was taking a more active role, including in the bombings in June 1996 that killed 19 members American soldiers at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Two years after the State Department’s warning, with Mr. bin Laden firmly entrenched in Afghanistan and overseeing terrorist training and financing operations, Al Qaeda struck two American embassies in East Africa, leading to failed military attempts by the Clinton administration to capture or kill him in Afghanistan. Three years later, on Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an operation overseen from the base in Afghanistan…

Michael F. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 led the Central Intelligence Agency unit that tracked Mr. bin Laden, said the State Department documents reflected a keen awareness of the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden’s relocation.

“The analytical side of the State Department had it exactly right – that’s genius analysis,” he said in an interview when told of the declassified documents. But Mr. Scheuer, who wrote a book in 2004 titled “Imperial Hubris,” under the pseudonym “Anonymous,” that was highly critical of American counterterrorism strategies, said many officials in the C.I.A.’s operational side thought they would have a better chance to kill Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan than they did in Sudan because the Sudan government protected him.

“The thinking was that he was in Afghanistan, and he was dangerous, but because he was there, we had a better chance to kill him,” Mr. Scheuer said. “But at the end of the day, we settled for the worst possibility – he was there and we didn’t do anything.”

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I Don’t Get It

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I don’t understand the administration position on this issue:

The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography.

Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, has asked for a hold to be placed on the contract to run the new top-level domain until the .xxx suffix can receive further scrutiny. The domain was scheduled to receive final approval Tuesday.

“The Department of Commerce has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children,” Gallagher said in a letter that was made public on Monday.

The sudden high-level interest in what has historically been an obscure process has placed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in an uncomfortable position. ICANN approved the concept of an .xxx domain in June and approval of ICM Registry’s contract to run the suffix was expected this week.

It seems to me this is precisely the sort of thing the governmentr would favor, as it would provide a relatively easy way to create filtering software and prevent children from viewing objectionable material. Unless of course, this is just moral posturing and that the real problem isn’t that pornographic materials exist and can be obtained by minors, but that pornographic materials exist at all. That wouldn’t be surprising, as this administration has show itself willing to treat adults like the government’s children on more than one occasion.

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When Patterico Speaks

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Patterico states I was over the line condemning Malkin’s post, and he is right. So:

1.) I apologize to you all and Michelle for the tone and tenor, as well as the language.

2.) I want it made clear that I in no way think the racist crap that is heaped upon Malkin is in any way fair, or justified, or deserved. I said I can understand why she gets it, but that in no way excuses the fact that people say those things. Really, some of the stuff that has been said in the comments of that thread sounds like something spewed by Stormfront or other white supremacist groups. Long story short- what I said was unfair to Michelle and stupid.

I still disagree about the relevance of Sheehan’s marital status and record, but there will be a time for that later, and I don’t want this turning into a typical Washington non-apology apology.

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The Left’s Bill Frist

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Apparently remote diagnosis isn’t simply the domain of GOP Senators:

Although I would never make a medical diagnosis without examining a patient, I feel confident in my observation that George W. Bush is a new kind of bi-polar: the poles being indifference and destructive violence. His indifference to families who lost their sons and daughters in Iraq is now writ large – thanks to Cindy Sheehan and an ever-increasing group of parents who demand that Bush explain the “noble cause” for which their sons and daughters continue to be maimed and killed in Iraq. As Sheehan told the press on August 12, Bush has more time for Republican donors than for talking with bereaved families camped outside his Crawford fortress.

Via Ezra Klein, who also notes Arianna slapping around Wonkette.

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Fox News Teaser

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In between tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, and swearing about not being able to fall asleep, I heard a teaser/promo (I am not sure what they are called in television) for Fox News regarding immigration/border security that ended with something like this:

“Illegal immigrants- violent, carrying disease, and with possible ties to terrorism?”

It was done with the normal booming sensationalist voice, and I have to state- I AM PARAPHRASING this because I was groggy from trying to sleep, and had turned the tv on to waste time. But I know the “violent, carrying disease, and with possible ties to terrorism?” part is mostly accurate.

Am I the only one who supports border security but finds this sort of approach a little troubling?

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