Tête-à-Tête-Tête

If he wasn’t going to be the next President, this McCain gaffe would be absolutely the most hysterical campaign mistake I can remember. This coming from a candidate for President of the United States, or in the new parlance, Commander in Chief. The sole executor and protector of national security. This is a level of ignorance I expect in teenage kids with purple hair, not from a sitting senator or a Presidential Candidate.

It’s funny to see the GOP beating their collective chest about national security when their top guy is clueless even about the basics.

I remember when they called it a “gaffe” that Howard Dean told the truth about the capture of Saddam Hussein - that it wouldn’t make anybody safer. These same folks will be curiously silent about a real gaffe.

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After the House race / special election in Mississippi that everyone is talking about, there is definitely a Democratic surge in the air for November. Possible veto-proof majorities in either house or both.

Too bad the Executive has All Power and Authority now.

Look, I may have been overly pessimistic about the Presidential election in November. I don’t know. (See lyrics Paul Simon, Something So Right at end of post). But if I’m right, and it’s McCain, then we haven’t voted for the next President of the United States. We have voted for the next Supreme and Exalted Poobah.

There’s no doubt John McCain subscribes to the Bush Doctrine that Congress has no authority. If you question that, just ask him how long he’ll be in office before Harriet Myers & friends comply with the duly executed Congressional subpoenas to testify before Congress in the USAG case. Whether amnesty for law-breaking telcos is enough, or if full Presidential pardons with Medal of Honors on top are in order. Who gets to declare wars, who appropriates money for war, who makes rules for the regulation of the armed forces in both war- and peace-time. Ask him to name a Congressional authority that he, the POTUS, has to respect. You get my drift. After eight years of Bush, every talking head on teevee & practically every person sitting in their living room has the mistaken notion that the Constitution says that the executive branch is solely responsible for national security. Does Johnny McCain strike you as the type to just casually revert to sanity on stuff like this? I didn’t think so.

Anyway. Your promised lyrics:

When something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit.
The first to admit, and the last one to know.
When something goes right, well it’s likely to lose me.
Oh, it’s apt to confuse me.
‘Cause it’s such an unusual sight.

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I have never been one to buy into the global warming thing. I do not deny that the globe is warming I just don’t put a lot of stock in the notion that man is the driving force behind the changes in weather.

That being said I still am amazed at the weather we have been having around here. I spent a good portion of last night on my deck watching an incredibly cool wind blow very low hanging clouds across the face of the moon. It was eery. I felt like I was an actor in a Cecil B. Demille movie. The howling wind and the spooky sky combined to create an almost science fiction like feel to the weather we were experiencing.

I woke up this morning to find that a huge oak tree had blown down across my driveway sometime during the night and I had to spend a couple of hours this morning clearing a path large enough to get our cars out of the driveway. It put me about two hours behind on a Monday morning and Monday mornings are bad enough even if everything goes well.

I cannot remember ever experiencing the kind of weather we had here yesterday afteroon and last night. It feels nothing like the middle of May. I feel for the folks worldwide who are experiencing cyclones and tornados and floods and drought.

The weather rules supreme. It does what it wants to when it wants to. The wind blows all over the place and predicting it is not an exact science and sometimes I wonder if it is a science at all.

I got lucky last night. Sure I had to spend a couple of hours cleaning up a downed tree this morning but that is nothing. I could have awakened to a house with no roof or no house at all.

Is it just me or are things getting strange? The weather. Politics. The worldwide economy. The global zeitgeist. Sometimes everything seems like it is coming together to form some kind of perfect storm of biblical proportions.

It is probably just me and I try not to dwell on it because the line between sanity and insanity is a fine one indeed. Sometimes I just get the distinct feeling that something wicked this way comes.

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just sleeping…

By the way, Buck - jadarm… if the page looks different, weird, or broken, just bear with me. It’s only the three of us who will see it that way & only if we are logged in. I don’t know exactly how long this will go on.

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The news today is this:

Among the office’s recent inquiries was whether former White House political director Karl Rove and others improperly used U.S. agencies to help elect Republicans.

Mr. Bloch’s investigation of the White House political operation began after a Rove deputy gave a series of political presentations to government agencies on Republican prospects in specific congressional races.

Mr. Bloch’s office wanted to know whether such presentations violated the Hatch Act. A task force interviewed officials at more than a dozen agencies and examined White House emails but found few clear violations, lawyers close to the case said. The investigations remain pending.

Mr. Bloch also thrust his agency into other investigations where the agency’s authority was less clear. A document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows that the agency’s Hatch Act task force found in January that many of the investigations under way were without merit or should be closed.

The subpoenas Tuesday also asked for files about the one Hatch Act case that has been completed, which found misconduct by the head of the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan. The White House last week ordered Ms. Doan to resign.

Mr. Bloch’s investigative role made him a target for both political parties. He was sharply criticized in Congress, even by Republican members.

“This isn’t an ordinary bureaucrat, this is Special Counsel, the guy who is supposed to police this kind of thing,” said Rep. Tom Davis (R., Va.). The Geeks on Call incident “was a real red flag.”

That’s extra interesting because of the dotted lines connecting Bloch’s office to this:

Now a Republican lawyer from Alabama, Jill Simpson, has come forward to claim that the Siegelman prosecution was part of a five-year secret campaign to ruin the governor. Simpson told 60 Minutes she did what’s called “opposition research” for the Republican party. She says during a meeting in 2001, Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political advisor, asked her to try to catch Siegelman cheating on his wife. [..]

She says she spied on Siegelman for months but saw nothing. Even though she was working as a Republican campaign operative, Simpson says she wanted to talk to 60 Minutes because Siegelman’s prison sentence bothers her conscience.

Simpson says she wasn’t surprised that Rove made this request. Asked why not, she tells Pelley, “I had had other requests for intelligence before.”

“From Karl Rove?” Pelley asks.

“Yes,” Simpson says.

With more dotted lines going both here:

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testifies in front of the House Judiciary Committee after an email with Bud Cummins saying, “I will not sit by and watch good people smeared.” In his testimony, Comey contrasts his experiences with the fired attorneys with statements from the Justice Department. He also enumerates the detailed firing process undertaken to remove two US Attorneys during his tenure.

and, now, maybe to here:

In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

This is a web that will be a long while in the untangling.

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Well, that seems to be what is in the media today. I would personally love to see the movie because I was a Marvel comics fanatic when I was a kid (no, …not DC…Marvel)

I am not going to talk about Tony Stark though…I am going to talk about the Iron Man record held by Cal Ripken who surpassed Lou Gehrig in order to claim the mark…which currently stands at 2,632.

I have never been a big fan of this record. Its hard to talk to baseball people sometimes and say that because they will look at you with disgust. But I was watching the game and Carey and Simpson echoed my beliefs on the matter so I thought I would bring it up.

Right now, Frenchy has the current Iron man record for active players…but what does that mean?

Yes, It tells your manager that you will play hurt…that is great. But what about the other guys in the dugout? Like Skip said…the object is to win games…so if Frenchy or Cal…or Andruw was not entirely healthy enough to play then why sacrifice the efforts that the other 8 guys do out on the field so that one guy can have his record entact?

Ripken made “cameo” appearances in order to prolong his streak. He also had back problems…medical problems…along with that huge multi-million dollar contract…and he wouldnt even allow his own team to review them.

How is THAT for a team player??

The “record” was more important to Cal than the “team” was…that is why I am not a big Cal fan…I think he changed the position…he changed the game for that matter…but, from a managers perspective, …thats like trying to win with one hand tied behind your back.

To hell with records, streaks, whatever….that is what is SUPPOSED to make them special…its that the BEST player is in the game to help the team win…whatever happens from there…well, it happens.

…and with no asterisks.

Me?? …well, I would rather watch the movie.

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Over the next few weeks, we’ll all figure out that the Democratic Party nominee for POTUS is Barack Obama.

Then, over the following months, we’ll all figure out that John McCain is the next POTUS. That’s unless 51% of us figure out that John McCain will govern in exactly the same manner as 71% of us currently disapprove of George Bush doing it, only in English.

Not likely, really, considering that Obama’s preacher says things just as crazy and dehumanizing as virtually every other preacher in the United States of America says, but the wrong kind of crazy and dehumanizing.

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Five years ago today.

How the mighty have fallen.

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As always with politicians, it’s all about whose ox is being gored.

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Just throwing that out there.

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