A NY Times Reporter who covered the White House for five years, Elisabeth Bumiller, writes that "anonymous Republicans" were often White House-sanctioned leakers who would pass on information West Wing officials wanted, then the White House spokespeople would lie and act surprised about the leaks. Doesn't that sound familiar in the Plame case? Shouldn't Patrick Fitzgerald subpoena Bumiller?  

She also calls the Bush administration "one of the most secretive White Houses ever," says Laura Bush "excoriated" her over a paragraph buried in a story, and Rove got so mad he put her email address in his spam filter - the nerve!

Moreover, Bumiller also claims most reporters she knew were not "passionately political, left or right. Our real ideology is a love of conflict." She must not know the same reporters I do. I've worked in the media for 25 years and know plenty of reporters who are passionately political, mostly on the right side.

In a  news release sent out today on PR Newswire, Young [Fascist] America's Foundation claimed that so-called "big government, multiculturalist, anti-military, liberal" speakers such as Gen. Wesley Clark [yes, somehow to this bunch Clark is anti-military and chicken hawks like Bush, Cheney, Rove and Limbaugh are pro-military], Sen. Bob Graham, Gov. Timothy Kaine and Al Gore's daughter dominate commencement ceremonies. They decry how their favorite propagandist and pin-up doll Ann Coulter has never been invited to speak at a graduation ceremony.

Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera charged, "It's not surprising that the Left uses its stronghold on campus to give one last blast of the same old big government, multiculturalist, and anti-military message."

Here's a parody song that I sent to Stephen Colbert. It's sung to the tune of "What a Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. NY songwriter Joel Landy rewrote the words shortly after Bush stole the White House and I recently updated the words.

Can't you just see Colbert singing something like this at the next White house correspondent's dinner attended by Bush and Laura? That is, IF the bushes ever attend another one and IF Colbert is ever invited back. Maybe he can sneak in by using Gannon's media credentials.....

Don't know much about hist'ry,
Don't know much f'ern policy,
Don't know much about the troops who died,
Don't know why it matters that I lied.
But I do know who has paid my way,
For corporate interests and the NRA,
What a wonderful world this will be.

With more emphasis on so-called morals and religion and giving government money to churches these days, it's appropriate to take a closer look at what churches actually do with the money they rake in.

It's tough to find some objective studies and information on the matter. About all I could find is an article here by some church consultants in 1998 that estimated that less than 3 percent of the average church's budget goes towards programs that help either poor members or the needy in the community. And I doubt that figure has changed much in eight years.

I finally rented Bowling for Columbine and watched it recently. I've been meaning to watch it for a couple of years since I saw filmmaker Michael Moore on Oprah.

I'd much rather watch Bowling for Columbine than watch Bush fumble his way through reading a teleprompter while looking like a scared chicken. Hell, I'd much rather bowl in Columbine or do anything else than watch Bush.

I think Moore gets to the heart of the gun issue - it's not so much that guns cause gun violence in the United States at a much greater level than say, Canada. Canadian people possess guns, including rifles, at about the same level as people in this country, although the U.S. handgun ownership rate is significantly higher. Yet, the Canadian murder rate is three times lower than in the U.S., where there are 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 people annually, according to government statistics.

by Jackson Thoreau

NOTE: This story first appeared in Oped News at www.opednews.com.

The indictment and resignation of Scooter Libby on Good Friday is just the beginning. The best news is that a new grand jury was impaneled.

Libby's indictment includes a passage in which an "Official A" told Libby that he had talked with conservative syndicated columnist Robert Novak about CIA officer Valerie Plame and that Novak would be writing a story about Plame.

And who is "Official A?" None other than Karl Rove, according to my sources.

Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, told off Dick Cheney before the media on Sept. 8. He was later detained and hand-cuffed by Cheney's goons in front of his destroyed home after the media cameras left.

Now, he is allowing anyone who
wants to view the video he and a friend shot of the scene
before/during/after him saying, "Go f*** yourself, Mr. Cheney."

To view it, go here.

This article originally ran in OpEdNews.com.

By Jackson Thoreau


For further proof of what a sorry, callous, shitty response the Bush administration made to Hurricane Katrina, check the following timeline, which I'm updating almost on a daily basis as events unfold.

Bush & Co. were warned days in advance, and still Bush stayed on his five-week vacation and focused on ignoring the wishes of a mother of a soldier who died in Iraq to meet him.

The day after the hurricane hit, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving thousands more stranded and in danger of dying, Bush spoke about immigration with his Department of Homeland Security director and at a public forum in Arizona, did a birthday cake photo op, and attended at least one political fund-raiser on the West Coast, more than a thousand miles from the Gulf Coast. The next day, Bush tried to play guitar with a country singer as more people in New Orleans died.

By Jackson Thoreau

OpEd News.com broke the story of Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side and told off Dick Cheney before the media on Sept. 8, being detained and hand-cuffed by Cheney's goons in front of his destroyed home after the media cameras left.  

Our story has helped the eBay auction of Marble's video of his Cheney confrontation climb above $1,900, as of early Sept. 10. Although that site has had some problems staying up with the Republican-leaning owners of eBay objecting to even bleeped-out profanity and apparently getting a lot of pressure to take down Marble's auction site.

We'd like to do more to help Marble, who lost his Gulfport, Miss., home and most of his possessions in Hurricane Katrina. So we're raising funds at OpEd News to go towards helping replace some of the items he lost. With eBaby being such unamerican censors, perhaps this is a better route to take.

By Jackson Thoreau

This originally ran on OpEdNews.com here.

Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Thursday, that's the least we can do.

Marble is a complex guy, to say the least. Some of the lyrics he writes can be considered harsh by some - personally what I've heard is very much on target - but he has a softer side as an organizer of breast cancer fund-raisers, not to mention an ER doctor.

When he, like thousands of others, lost his home due to Hurricane Katrina last week, it was the single most traumatic week of his life. That led to his confrontation with the man who best represents the worst of the most callous, heartless, shittiest administration in U.S. history on Thursday.

By Jackson Thoreau

Bush and Rove have done it again, temporarily taking the heat off Rovegate by nominating a far-right lawyer for Supreme Court, which causes progressives to have to devote more time battling this nominee, rather than focus on the campaign to fire Rove. And it gets the media to focus more on John Roberts, Bush's Supreme Court nominee, rather than Rove.
Roberts does deserve some focus. He has only actually been a judge for two years. In his work as a right-wing lawyer, he sought to have Roe v. Wade overturned, among other things. And he's only 50 so not only does he have little judicial experience and is a right-wing extremist, but he will be on this court for decades if he is confirmed.

Bush, Rove engaged in dirty tricks of their own, as far back as Watergate, highlighting the need for present-day Deep Throats

By Jackson Thoreau

As right-wing criminals like G. Liddy mangle the historical record and hypocritically lecture us on ethics in the wake of the disclosure that former No. 2 G-man W. Mark Felt was Bob Woodward's Deep Throat, many people are ignoring an obvious connection.

The current occupants of the White House have long engaged in dirty tricks that make Liddy and co. look like the bumbling fools they largely were. Even during Watergate, as Felt told Woodward about the illegal acts of
the Nixon adminstration, George W. Bush engaged in similar actions. In 1972, as the Watergate break-in broke, Bush coordinated the campaign of an Alabama Republican Senate candidate. Among his acts was to
distribute campaign materials that included a "doctored tape" of a radio debate that distorted the Democratic senator's position on bussing, making him look like he favored bussing.