The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Come join me for some hoppy beer and hopped up conversation.
Let’s all drink a toast to Scooter Libby, and take bets on how long it takes Bush to get out his pardon pen crayon.
Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities and Vancouver. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.
I find it ironic that Scooter Libby gets convicted of lying to the FBI when that agency has lied to us all in the past. Double standard?
Libertarian never attends DL because Libertarian does not like going into King County.
Libertarian has posted 100% of the posts on this tread!
Well “PARDON ME” he will spend basically no time in jail!
It’s too nice a day to be cooped up in a dank tavern with a bunch of liberals — although that’s a hell of a lot better than being cooped up in a convention hall with Michelle Malkin and the Coulterbeast!!!
Dept. of Justice Threatens Fired Prosecutors
The Dept. of Justice has warned 8 fired U.S. Attorneys the administration will retaliate if they talk to reporters.
“The Bush administration also applied a heavy hand after the firings of eight prosecutors became public and some of the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been quoted in media, according to one of those ousted, Bud Cummins of Arkansas.
“Cummins said in an e-mail released by the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, had called and expressed his displeasure that the fired prosecutors talked to reporters about their dismissals.
“‘If they (DOJ) feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully,’ Cummins said in the e-mail to five other fired prosecutors.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/yuo5uu
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is gonna blow up in the GOPers’ faces big time!! E. Washington should feel embarrassed they elected one of the least ethical people in Congress – Do-Nothing Hastings.
MONTLAKE NOTE: We’ll be joined tonight by Steve Clemons, of THE WASHINGTON NOTE.
Steve is one of the great observers, connectors and bloggers on the D.C. foreign policy scene … among other things, he’s Director of the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program, Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute, and John Bolton’s worst nightmare.
Send Scooter to Gitmo! If Gitmo’s good enough for terrorists, it’s good enough for a traitor.
Looks like Coultergeist got some bad news today. All of her major advertisers pulled out of her web site. There’s nothing that hurts a so-called conservative more than hitting them in the wallet.
Man it must suck to be a rightie these days. HE HE!
by Steve Clemons, of THE WASHINGTON NOTE.
WELL HOW WONKY IS THAT? WHAT WOULD A BELTWAY GUY LIKE CLEMONS BE DOING HERE IN THE OTHER WASHINGTON ESPECIALLY WITH THE MOTLEY CREW OF LIBERAL NERDS AT THE MONTLAKE?
IT’D BE KEWL IF YOU COULD SCARE UP A PODCAST AND GET HIM ON IT.
Where are the trolls? Laying low while the GOP intelligentsia tries to dream up talking points for today’s fiascos?
Bush Strips Libby of Nickname
President: ‘I Hardly Knew the Man’
Just hours after Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty in his trial relating to the CIA leak scandal, Mr. Libby suffered another setback as President George W. Bush officially stripped him of his nickname in a somber White House ceremony.
“Scooter Libby, you are Scooter Libby no more,” Mr. Bush declared, to the applause of Mr. Cheney and top White House aides. “You are now just plain old I. Lewis Libby.”
Mr. Bush told reporters that he decided to strip Mr. Libby of his nickname because “I hardly knew the man.”
Referring to Mr. Libby’s trial, Mr. Bush said, “Just like Lewis Libby can’t remember anything he did in the five years he worked here, I can’t remember him working here at all.”
White House spokesman Tony Snow said that Mr. Libby’s former nickname, Scooter, would likely be reassigned to someone else in the upper echelon of the administration.
“We may start calling Postmaster General John E. Potter ‘Scooter’ Potter,’” Mr. Snow said. “It’s a good nickname for the Postmaster General because it makes him sound all speedy and all.”
For his part, Mr. Libby was philosophical about being convicted on four out of five counts in his perjury trial, telling reporters, “One out of five ain’t bad.”
“This verdict means that I was telling the truth twenty percent of the time,” Mr. Libby said. “That’s still way above average for this administration.”
Andy Borowitz
Ernest Gallo Dies At 98
Gallo figured out how to sell wine cheaper than water, creating generations of winos. Too bad he couldn’t figure out how to make cars run on his cheap wine.
Ernest Gallo Dies At 98
THAT BASTARD PAID OFF A LOT OF POLITICIANS OVER THE YEARS TO LOWER HIS ESTATE TAXES. HATED HIS WINE. TOO CHEAP FOR DRINKING, TOO EXPENSIVE FOR COOKING.
@13 And cars and lawn mowers wouldn’t run on it. Yeah, he was a sick bastard, all right.
Josef Diamond of parking lot infamy also died this week — he was 99.
I think old Joe was a Democrat, though. He practiced law with Al Rosellini.
Scooter. What kind of name is that? It must be a Wasp name.
Do you suppose thgat his sister’s name is Muffy?
His father probably talked like Winston Howell III.
Wasn’t Gallo a big funder of Bob Dole? Did I learn that on 60 Minutes?
The only mistake Scooter made was talking to te “Drive by” Media. He got hit. Why repubs dont learn this lesson is beyond me. Does the MSN lie…. Hell I documented it. hehehe
@19 The only mistake Scooter made was breaking the lie, then lying about it under oath.
breaking the law
21
What law did he break??? Did he get convicted?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703060008
In anticipation of this misinformation, Media Matters for America has listed those baseless and false claims likely to surface in the coming days and weeks. You can be ready for each one as they surface:
· No underlying crime was committed.
· There was no concerted White House effort to smear Wilson.
· Libby was not responsible for the leak of Plame’s identity.
· Libby merely “left out some facts.”
· Libby’s leak was an effort to set the record straight.
· There is no evidence that the Plame leak compromised national security. Fitzgerald is a partisan prosecutor.
· Fitzgerald exceeded his mandate in investigating violations beyond the IIPA..
· Plame’s employment with the CIA was widely known.
Scooter libby got convicted about lying about telling the truth about a liar. That is all.
Senate Approves Union Rights for Airport Screeners
Time magazine reports:
“The Senate voted Tuesday to give 45,000 airport screeners the same union rights as border patrol, customs and immigration agents, despite a veto threat from the White House. The 51-46 vote was on an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to remove the union rights from a broad anti-terrorism bill to implement recommendations of the 9/11 commission previously rejected by Congress.
“The House passed a similar anti-terrorism bill with the same union provision for airport screeners …. Republicans vowed to strike the union provision when negotiators sit down to merge the House and Senate bills ….
“‘We’re not going to let big labor compromise national security,’ said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. …. White House officials released a statement last week saying President Bush’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill ….
“The screeners’ boss, TSA chief Kip Hawley, told a Senate panel Monday that … ‘Going backwards to a system that adds bargaining … does not improve security’ ….
John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, … said …[,] ‘When we hear that collective bargaining rights will affect our national security, I really take offense.'”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info, see http://tinyurl.com/3yjzuh
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This administration has treated airport screeners like coolies. Why anyone would take the job is beyond me. The pay is crap, and the working conditions would make a Nazi labor camp blush. As Gage said, to say giving workers a say in their pay and working conditions is a threat to national security is profoundly offensive. Who could say such a thing?
CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVES, that’s who!!! People like Road Kill McGavick, who makes $14 million a month for part-time “consulting work” but wants waitresses to work for $2.13 an hour. Roger Rabbit says, why the fuck work? These people HATE and DESPISE workers, pay them nothing, treat them like dirt — so … WHY THE FUCK SHOULD ANYONE WORK? I don’t. I live off pensions, interest, and capital gains. It doesn’t pay to work. This government pays you not to work, giving favorable tax treatment to lazy oafs who spend their days clipping interest coupons and cashing dividend checks, while punishing workers by taxing wages at twice the rate of stock market winnings. So I got smart and quit working! I no longer lift a paw to do anything! The Republicans can take out their own garbage, because I sure as hell won’t do it for them!!! I’m not their fucking servant, and I’m not willing to be their fucking slave.
If Bush vetoes this bill, he can screen airport passengers himself. All the screeners should quit.
Loocy: Wow Shocking Media Matters!
Two words; Richard Armitage. Keep holding on. Keep hope alive.
@22 Read the newspaper yourself! I’m not your goddamn research assistant.
Cripes, talk about a disingenuous comment. A Republican crook gets convicted on 4 felony counts by a jury, and some wingnut asshole says, “What law did he break?” Sheesh …
Robert January: Is that the real name for Mr Stupid?
Libby did exactly the same thing Clinton was impeached for: He lied to a grand jury. Spin that, hypocrite assholes.
25
You mean left wing lying matters.
The Senate today passed a bill that will give airport screeners union rights, although they would not be allowed to strike. The House has already passed a similar measure. The White House is threatening a veto.
Pellethead@29: Yes you are right, but to a ‘tard it’s okay to lie! You ‘bats have been lying to my people for 43 years!
Like everything else the Bush administration has touched, the airport screening program is a fiasco. Pay is low, working conditions awful, annual turnover exceeds 100%. These are truly crummy jobs, and the only way working conditions will ever improve is if the workers have representation and grievance rights.
What kind of boss doesn’t want his workers to have any say in working conditions? The kind of boss who has 100% annual turnover, that’s who.
Then Bush and Cheney blew her cover. Yes, it’s a federal felony. So your hero-god, Bush, signed an executive order (I kid you not) which retroactively declassified her identity while the investigation was in its earliest stages.
Bush refuses to disclose how many agents and contacts were killed as a result of his political stunt. That’s classified, don’t cha know?
03/06/2007 at 10:18 pm
Yeah that’s the ticket. Everyone knows CIA agents routinely appear of national magazine like Vanity Fair to cover their cover. Why people don’t see this as a travesty is (roll eyes) beyond me.
FITZGERALD, A REPUBLICAN PROSECUTOR, NAILS LIBBY FOR LYING TO COVER UP THIS ADMINISTRATION’S CRIMES AND WINGNUT FOOLS LIKE DOOFUS JUST SPEW THE SAME OLD TALKING POINTS.
NOW REPUBLICAN PROSECUTORS LIKE MCKAY ARE BEING FIRED LEFT AND RIGHT. FIRING FITZ IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME.
GEE I WONDER WHY THIS IS HAPPENING?
“Workplace conditions jeopardize passenger safety, screeners say
“By Ken Armstrong, Cheryl Phillips and Steve Miletich
“Seattle Times staff reporters
“On any given day, federal workers who screen passengers and luggage at the nation’s airports stand a good chance of being berated by bosses, harassed on the job, injured while lugging heavy bags, ordered to work extra hours or cheated on their pay.
“In Seattle, a screener received a letter of admonishment for this offense: ‘Hands in uniform pants pockets.’ A Denver screener says a supervisor repeatedly called him ‘boy’ — and explained it away by saying that where he is from, that’s what blacks are called. …
“Some screeners struggle to stay awake while trying to spot weapons in grainy X-ray images. Some get distracted by managers prowling for petty infractions. Some have been fired by mistake, victims of bureaucratic bungling.
“Morale has suffered, and with it, security. … Time and again, audits have blamed failure to detect guns, knives or bombs on low pay, high turnover, insufficient training and a kind of thankless work that combines tedium with stress. … Fatigue, fear and confusion undermine the work of federal screeners, creating a daily risk of another major breakdown. …
“An internal TSA memo, obtained by The Seattle Times, chronicles the agency’s management failures — and, coming from management itself, helps validate the complaints of screeners to TSA, Congress and others. The Feb. 20 memo was sent to TSA’s acting administrator … from an advisory council of TSA directors in charge of security at individual airports. It warns that TSA has subjected screeners … to a litany of abuses. …
“More than 100 current or former TSA employees interviewed by The Seattle Times … described a workplace defined by intimidation, pettiness and marching orders that fluctuate by supervisor, shift and airport. …
“[S]creeners say it doesn’t take much to run afoul of the rules and of certain supervisors. Socks must be black … and ink must be blue …. Some managers dictate posture, ordering screeners … to stand at parade rest — hands clasped behind back, feet a foot apart — as though in the military. … Many screeners interviewed by The Times complained of inexperienced supervisors, leadership by intimidation, and promotions based on favoritism (at least two security directors have lost their jobs over nepotism charges). …
“Mismanagement hobbled TSA from the very beginning. …
TSA failed to keep proper tabs on … human-resources contractors, creating a host of problems, according to a government audit. TSA … hired felons … and wrongly fired … people with clean records. Some screeners say TSA used bait-and-switch tactics. A former Boston screener provided The Times with his hiring letter, which promised pay of $31,200 … [b]ut TSA paid him only $26,800, according to pay records. He complained, he said, only to be told his hiring letter wasn’t an official contract. …
“[M]any screeners say distrust divides management and front-line workers. Some managers document screener missteps in such detail that personnel files become hundreds of pages thick. (A Portland screener’s is 493 pages — and that covers only 10 months.) One screener told The Times he secretly tape-recorded conversations with managers. One supervisor said he refused to use a work locker, afraid a manager might plant something incriminating inside. …
“Across the country, many screeners have reached out to unions, members of Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although TSA forbids screeners to bargain collectively, about 700 employees have joined the American Federation of Government Employees, seeking help with lawsuits, discrimination complaints and better working conditions.
“‘There is no effective safety valve at TSA,’ said Peter Winch, a national organizer for the union. ‘There is no good way to raise concerns about the way you’re being treated.’ …
“TSA employees get hurt or sick more than any other federal employees, suffering back, shoulder and knee injuries, pulled muscles, tendinitis, and cuts and puncture wounds from sharp objects tucked in luggage. In the fiscal year that ended last September, nearly one in five TSA employees sought workers’ compensation, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Overall, 4.2 percent of federal workers suffered work-related injuries or illness. TSA’s percentage was 19.4 — nearly five times as high, topping Park Service employees and federal marshals. … Those numbers also create a cycle: the more workers out sick or hurt, the greater the strain on those who remain, causing fatigue and more injuries … many screeners attribute TSA’s injury rate to insufficient training and inadequate safety equipment. …
“Screeners can go weeks without a day off. In Boston, some have worked so many double shifts ‘they are ready to drop,’ says Michael Jasilewicz, a former screener. Breaks can be six hours apart. After two hungry and tired screeners were denied breaks, they actually passed out, Jasilewicz said. …
“TSA officials acknowledge that they rely heavily on overtime, especially during the busy summer months. In 2003, TSA employees worked more than 7 million hours of overtime — an average of three weeks per employee … some screeners … say they … sometimes clocking 20 hours of overtime in a week. For screeners, mandatory overtime and rigid scheduling create stress, dashing planned vacations or requiring personal affairs to be rearranged on a moment’s notice.
“In Seattle, a screener ordered to work overtime reluctantly left her children, ages 12 and under, at home for three hours, unsupervised. She said her supervisors told her: Work, or lose your job. One Boston screener was to be best man at his nephew’s January 2003 wedding in Florida. In October, he requested the time, only to have supervisors say he was asking too early. So he asked again in November, only to be told in late December — mere days before the wedding — that his request was denied. Ordered to work, he quit. He went to the wedding. More than a year later, TSA sent him a letter. Because of a payroll error, it said, he owed TSA about $1,000.
“Work conditions that include forced overtime, a high injury rate and flagging morale typically lead to high turnover. And at TSA, examples abound of workers calling it quits. … In fiscal year 2003, the government reported that 131 of TSA’s Seattle employees left. But internal pay records, obtained by The Times, show the actual number was at least 193 …. Instead of tracking each screener’s hours electronically — an early goal of the agency — TSA records pay manually, then sends the information to personnel contractors that have been widely criticized for losing or mishandling paperwork.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info, see http://tinyurl.com/2av9dn
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There is hardly any group of workers in America who needs a union more badly than airport screeners. Unions keep managements honest. A good union forces bad managers to clean up their act — resulting in improved morale, higher productivity, greater accuracy, reduced turnover, and lower costs. Only a dumb jackass opposes union representation for workers.
@32 Wanna see a liar, look in a mirror.
@32 “My people?” WTF is that supposed to mean? Are you something other than an American citizen like the rest of us? Better not answer that, you might embarrass yourself.
@34 “Yeah that’s the ticket. Everyone knows CIA agents routinely appear of national magazine like Vanity Fair to cover their cover. Why people don’t see this as a travesty is (roll eyes) beyond me.”
What a piece-of-shit lie! Plame didn’t appear in Vanity Fair until after you Republican traitors blew her cover and made her a celebrity. You should all be hanged.*
* Not really! Just a Coulter joke, ya know! Boiling oil is better.**
** Hey, just kidding! A Jonathan Gardner joke, ya know?
@35 After they fire every licensed lawyer in the country, all the U.S. attorneys will be student interns.
Man, the wingnut liars are having a BAD DAY!!! Libby convicted, the U.S. attorney scandal blowing up in their faces, Congress approves union rights for airport screeners … Republicans are writhing in agony!
Wingnuts Are Stupid
On the day Scooter Libby is convicted of 4 felony counts, a wingnut idiot says: “What law did he break??? Did he get convicted?” (@22)
The ignorance and stupidity of Republicans is appalling.
re 44: What’s really amazing is that one out of every three people still believes them!
Puffybutt won’t be posting anymore tonight. He’s busy reporting for count at the sex offender unit on McNeil Island.