Morning roundup... Rove and PATRIOT

Please don't confuse, good reader... I don't mean to infer that the second noun after the ellipsis is actually an adjective modifying the first noun after the ellipsis... quite the contrary...

At any rate, on the Rove front, dKos has some really juicy shit that was actually posted last evening, after I'd left the world of the intarwebs connection:

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News supposedly has the bombshell of bombshells:

"Bloomberg News has slotted a story alleging that senior Bush advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff 'Scooter' Libby provided false testimony to the special prosecutor to a Washington-based grand jury, RAW STORY has learned.

The story is expected to hit after midnight, when Bloomberg typically moves stories.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the Chicago special prosecutor appointed to investigate the outing of former covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, may also be looking at whether other crimes -- such as perjury, obstruction of justice or leaking classified information -- were committed."

What will the children think? It's not the blowjob endangering national security by outing an undercover CIA agent, but the lies about it!

Actually, it is the national security thing. The lies are just the icinig on the cake.

Yikes. Atrios at Eschaton goes on to mention that the nature of the false testimony has been revealed:

"July 22 (Bloomberg) — Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity."

I'm no Russert fan, but quite frankly, I can't believe Word One that comes out of anyone involved in this administration's gaping, filthy maw... and certainly not Ol' Cooter Scooter.

This just keeps getting better and better, don't it? Don't get me wrong... I'd much rather the identity of a covert CIA agent was never leaked to the press, she was never outed, and our operations in regards to Iraq's WMD capability (or lack thereof) were never compromised... but since all that happened... the more proof that lines up in neat little arrows pointing at BushCo... the better. Period.

Finally, for something completely different... and more serious, to boot, we turn to Billmon:

The Sociatas blog (Thom Haslam, editor) remind us that while Left Blogostan is spitting out reams of electronic type about the two "R"s (Rove and Roberts) the letter P, for PATRIOT Act, also deserves some urgent attention:

"Congress will vote to renew and possibly expand PATRIOT today, tomorrow or early next week. This will all be over long before Roberts has a hearing, before Fitzgerald finishes his investigation.

If Congress renews or expands Section 215, as they seem intent on doing, you can kiss the 4th Amendment good-bye . . . What two World Wars and a Civil War could not accomplish, al-Qaeda and the cowardly leadership of George Bush will. (emphasis added)"

This is probably a good time to remind people what Section 215 gives the government the power to do:

Ugh... just look over his list and remind yourself how evil PATRIOT really is. Billmon also links to ACLU pages that can help you contact your reps. Now. Go.

London, Roberts, and Rove... OH MY!

There are plenty of places to catch coverage of the latest London bombings... I've been following along mostly here and here and here. It sounds like the fellows who tried to pull this one off were not only misguided, evil, and insane... but downright lazy. Or maybe dumb or ill equipped to pull off mass murder, because it appears their devices didn't work. At least, didn't work to the extent they were intended to.

While this is better for London than the alternative, it's cold comfort to say the least. What to do about suicide bombers bent on shredding your populace and striking fear into the hearts of millions? Fuck if I know. No one elected me for anything, so it isn't my job to figure it out. Blair... Bush... I'm looking at you two. Snap to it.

I'm a fan of The Moose. He's got the nail squarely within the sites of the hammer on this whole Roberts nomination issue:

Smart conservatives who aren't shills for the Bushies have every reason to be concerned about Roberts. He may very well be a right-to-lifer. His wife is and that is significant in pro-life circles. But if Roberts agrees with his wife, why is he afraid to say it? If asked by Senators, he would readily answer whether he was against child abuse or slavery. Why not mass murder (if you accept that premise about abortion)?

Eeeeeyup.

Finally, I've been following Plamegate/Wilsongate/Leakgate/Whateverthefuckgate and while I think some on the left are drooling a little heavily here, it is nice to finally see that sumbitch Rove beginning to get what's coming to him. I can't even go on about it, because I'm too excited about what will all fall into place. I get the feeling we on the left won't really have to work too hard at the start here... just let the facts come out, then Roveinate Rove himself by spinning that shit so fast it'll tye-die his triple chins.

I can't wait.

Back into the swing of things

I wanted to point out that I'm not the only one who feels a bit in the dark on the Roberts nomination. I'm not quite up on things like I was a few years back in college, so I'll have to get the balls rolling and the wheels turning (spinning) again, all that.

American Leftist mentions a good Roberts primer at Salon, but Salon requires registration/membership (and not the free kind, at least not for any decent length of time), so I'll refer anyone who cares back to the dKosopedia entry mentioned in the last post. I'm still working my way through it while trying to make it appear that I'm still actually working. Not an easy feat.

In the morning....

Sometimes, I think it's far too early for this stuff...

If you didn't already hear... and shame on you... Bush's appointee for SCOTUS is John G. Roberts Jr... If you're unfamiliar, Kos links here to some info, including a dKosopedia entry and an open comments thread. Explore. Edutain.

Lindsay Beyerstein at Political Animal postulates that the Rushed Roberts recommendation really regards reflecting rage from Rove... I'll get better at those...

On the other side of the aisle, John at Powerline details his beliefs about the Democratic plan of attack regarding the newest SCOTUS appointee. And while it's no surprise to me, Ann Coulter says everyone should be pissed... but her site appears hosed as I write this, so here's Michelle Malkin's take on Ann Coulter's take.

I may have my own take on this later, plus there's, for lack of something witty to say, "that whole Rove thing" going on... but for now, this will get those of you not up to speed, up to speed.

FIRST POST

I've decided to start blogging about politics. Why? Because there simply aren't enough people out there doing it, that's why.

Perhaps I should have paid more attention in economics classes. "Supply and demand," indeed.

If you want a head-start, Slate's "today's blogs" columns are always interesting. Tomorrow, I think I may actually bring my own commentary to all the folks who couldn't possibly be reading this.