It's the Saudis, Stupid!

Since the beginning of the "war on terror", I have always wondered what the Saudis role has been in this shell game.

Osama bin Laden is Saudi Arabian. Fifteen of the alleged nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabian. George W. Bush and Co. flew members of the bin Laden family out of the United States in the hours after the 9/11 attacks while the rest of the country was grounded. Reports that the rising insurgency in Iraq over these past four and a half years have been that approximately 45% of the violence stems from Sunni factions supported by Saudi Arabia and only 15% from al-Qaeda.

Well now the mainstream media have finally gotten on the bus:

NYTIMES: Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”

...Officials in Washington have long resisted blaming Saudi Arabia for the chaos and sectarian strife in Iraq, choosing instead to pin blame on Iran and Syria. Even now, military officials rarely talk publicly about the role of Saudi fighters among the insurgents in Iraq.

They don't have to talk publicly about it because anyone who hasn't lost their mind yet and still lives in the sane, real world knows that the Bush family have long been business partners with the bin Ladens and the Saudis. Someone in the Bush administration finally had the guts to point at Saudi Arabia and the news finally decides to report it. But I don't expect to see this on the fake FOX News. It's "blame Iran and Syria" all of the time.

The New York Time continues:

The accounts of American concerns came from interviews with several senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed that openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family at a time when the United States is still trying to enlist Saudi support for Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi government, and for other American foreign policy goals in the Middle East, including an Arab-Israeli peace plan.

...the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years explicitly told senior Bush administration officials of the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there. Last fall, King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq, American and Arab diplomats said.

Who the hell are we fighting for, us or the Saudis? And the fallacy that Saudi Arabia is one of our strongest allies is repeated over and over and over again by the criminals in the White House. Why isn't Saudi Arabia, or King Abdullah for that matter, on a terror watch list? Didn't Bush give a "for us or agin' us" speech a while back?

Bush, September 20, 2001: "...we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Well, almost every nation. Stop Saudi Arabia and you will almost immediately quell the violence in Iraq by almost half. HALF! But I tend to forget... it's about oil, isn't it...?

Did I Say September? I Meant November

Remember that troop surge that Chimpy announced in January which started in February and decreased violence in Baghdad in March but increased sectarian strife everywhere else in April to the point of making the "Green Zone" not so green in May and got congressmen on both sides of the aisle to voice their disappointment in June but W. wouldn't budge in July until General David Petraeus made his assessment in September because Bush insisted that the war should be run by the commanders on the ground, not the politicians in Washington? Yeah, that surge.

All we heard was September September September September September. Well, the old September is the new November.

CNN- Thursday, July 19th: "In order to do a good assessment I need at least until November," said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, a deputy to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

But on Friday, Odierno clarified his statements.

"There is no intention to push our reporting requirement beyond September,"he said. "Nothing I said yesterday should be interpreted to suggest otherwise. My reference to November was simply suggesting that as we go forward beyond September, we will gain more understanding of trends.

In other words, if they are looking at November, September means nothing. Let's all take a vacation in August while more soldiers and civilians die in Iraq.

Korey Rowe Arrested For Desertion

Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Korey Rowe has been arrested and handed over to military officials without bail for allegedly "deserting the Army".

New York Daily Star:

The Associated Press reported last month that deserters are rarely court-martialed by the Army. Although 3,301 soldiers deserted in the 2006 fiscal year, there were just 174 troops court-martialed. The AP report said some deserters are returned to their units, while others are discharged in non-criminal proceedings.

According to MSNBC, "Despite a rise in desertions from the Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the U.S. military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on."

Korey Rowe enlisted in the Army in August of 2001 and left in June of 2005. How can he be arrested for desertion? When so many deserters are virtually ignored, what makes Rowe an exception to the rule? Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing it has something to do with his movie making career.

Korey Rowe is one of the producers of "Loose Change", a film claiming to present evidence that September 11th was an inside job, and to prove that elements within the United States government planned and orchestrated it. An updated version of that film is supposed to be released just before the 6th anniversary of 9/11.

Rowe is a political prisoner. Welcome to Fascist America, courtesy of George W. Bush and Co.

Also read PrisonPlanet.com's story and how you can get in touch with those in charge to politely demand his release.

O'Reilly Shows His Hypocrisy Again

A few days ago, Bill O'Reilly slammed JetBlue for sponsoring Yearly Kos, a convention held by the Daily Kos website, on the grounds that Daily Kos was a "vicious far left website" and equating them with the KKK, Nazis and David Duke. He sent a camera crew to the home of JetBlue CEO David Barger, to try to paint him into a corner.

O'Reilly then goes on to quote some of what commenters, not the facilitators, on the site write and avers that if it's on your site, you have to take responsibility for it.

Well how about this, Bill?

Americablog:

...O'Reilly's own Web site contains some of the most hideous hate you've ever seen. ...you'll be interested to know that while O'Reilly holds others responsible for the words strangers leave on their Web sites, on O'Reilly's Web site, he's not responsible at all for the hate and threats his readers leave behind. And I quote O'Reilly's own Web site:

"BillOReilly.com will not be held liable for any user activity on the message boards. We do not actively monitor user-submitted content."

You see, it's okay when he does it.And with no further ado, examples of BillOReilly.com's threats against Hillary.

Posted By: Wildabeast (4638 posts) - 24 July 2007 8:15am PTReply:
RE: If Hillary WIns, WIll You Be Respectful of Her?
If Hillary wins, I will be respectful of our leader. If you could read my thoughts, I would be on the SS [Secret Service] watch list.

Sounds like a threat to me. But O'Reilly's site isn't responsible. And by the way, you have to PAY to leave comments on O'Reilly's site, so BillO could easily find out where the comment came from and let the Secret Service decide if it's credible. Call me crazy, but I don't think he'll be very helpful.

This guy should just crawl back under the rock that he came from.

Here's The Colbert Report's take on it:

The Billing Records for Thompson Lobby

In an earlier post, I criticized Fred Thompson for denying that he lobbied for a pro-choice organization during his lobbying career. All Thompson had to do was admit that as lobbyist, sometimes you represent ideas on behalf of your client. But he didn't do that. Instead he chose to deny it and his spokesman insisted it was a smear.

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.

In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen." In a separate interview, John H. Sununu, the White House official whom the family planning group wanted to contact, said he had no memory of the lobbying and doubted it took place.

Apparently, Republicans of a feather stink together. You want documents and billing records? Here they are.

New York Times:

According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.

Mr. Thompson’s work for the family planning agency has become an issue because he is positioning himself as a faithful conservative who is opposed to abortion.

All Fred had to do was be honest and this situation would have probably gone away. Instead he chose to take the Republican road and tried lying his way out of it.

And as for my commenter, Sturm Ruger, who claimed that " it's just another drive-by media hit piece done for the Clintons against one of their political opponents", I hope Sturm has second thoughts. You wanted the billing records, Strum. You got 'em. An apology would be nice too, but I won't hold my breath.

Executive Orders to the Nth Degree

This past week, George W. Bush made it absolutely clear what he thinks of the US Constitution and the "separate but equal" branches of government.

As reported in the Washington Post, Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday [July 19, 2007] in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Uh, excuse me? Well I guess I didn't realize the Justice Department worked for the White House... oh wait, IT DOESN'T. But Gonzo does.

...Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."
"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

This comes on the heels of the latest executive orders, which state that the government can seize your assets and block "property of certain persons who threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq" without prior notice.

What does that mean? And who gets to decide what the definition of "threatening stabilization efforts" is? Is it protest? Does it mean dissent of White House policies? Can Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's assets be seized for vocalizing anti-Iraq war sentiments while they campaign? And the topper is that anyone who attempts to aid someone who is in this situation can have their assets frozen as well. So if I am deemed a threat to stabilization efforts in Iraq due to this blog, I can have my assets frozen. If my friend lends me money to pay my mortgage so I don't default on my loan, he can have his assets seized as well.

In his latest speech on July 24th in South Carolina, W. mentions "Osama bin Laden" 23 times and "terror" or "terrorists" 39 times in a twenty-nine minute speech. This from a man who admitted he didn't "spend that much time on [bin Laden]" only 6 months after the 9/11 attack. It seems the only time he mentions Osama bin Laden is at a local Bush supporter rally to further his ill-fated ideological cause. Bin Laden is not important to W. unless his name can be used to frighten the public at hand.

Johann Hari: Ship of Fools

Hate to the nth degree. I knew there are people like this out there, but this is staggering. This article is a must read for all of us.

EXCERPT:

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

It only gets better.

You Want A Filibuster? You Got A Filibuster!

From BobGeiger.com:

Forcing his Republican colleagues to put up or shut up on the notion of an up-or-down vote, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) just moments ago announced that he will immediately file a cloture motion on the Reed-Levin troop redeployment bill and, if Republicans follow through with a filibuster, will place the Senate in a prolonged all-night session Tuesday to force a true continuation of debate.

Senator Dick Durbin bitchslapped Minority Senate Leader Mitch "Jowls" McConnell on the Senate floor today regarding his obfuscation and defense of Bush's failed policy in Iraq. Bring in the steel cage! There's a filibuster in the Senate!

Here's New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez explaining the situation:

UPDATE: Bob Geiger: Reid's Nine-Hour Protest Against Senate GOP In 2003

"...Reid's surprise move to hold the Senate in session all night tonight if Republicans block yet another Iraq-redeployment bill certainly took the political world by storm yesterday, [but] Senate watchers know that Reid is no stranger to holding the Senate open to take a stand and make a point."

Read more.

Christian "Activists" Disrupt Hindu Prayer in Senate

From The Times of India:

WASHINGTON - Christian activists briefly disrupted a Hindu invocation in the U.S Senate on Thursday, marring a historic first for the chamber and showing that fundamentalism is present and shouting in the U.S too.

...three protesters, said to belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, interrupted him by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the ''false prayer'' of a Hindu in the Senate chamber. "Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester shouted. "This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You."

...they continued to protest as they were headed out the door by the marshals, shouting, "No Lord but Jesus Christ!" and "There's only one true God!"

So much for America's "Melting Pot". Here's the video:

...Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the incident showed the intolerance of many Religious Right activists.

"They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion." Americans United Executive Director Rev. Barry W. Lynn, said.

"America is a land of extraordinary religious diversity, and the Religious Right just can't seem to accept that fact," Lynn said. "I don't think the Senate should open with prayers, but if it's going to happen, the invocations ought to reflect the diversity of the American people."

Just goes to show that fundamentalists are out there in every facet.

An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Dear CNN,

Well, the week is over -- and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.

I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn't have to correct the false statements you made about "Sicko." I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.

Think again. I'm about to become your worst nightmare. 'Cause I ain't ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. "The Most Trusted Name in News?" I think it's safe to say you can retire that slogan.

Read the rest of the letter here.

Lil' Bush

If you haven't caught an episode or two of this hilarious new show on Comedy Central, what the hell are you waiting for?



Don't miss the post show press conference.

Bush's Distortions, Delusions and Distractions

BUSH: “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

Here's my assessment on that quote: BULLSHIT.

The Al-Qaeda fear card is coming up more and more frequently as Bush gets further away from reality and the administration sits in their bunker trying to figure out how to salvage what little left there is to their pathetic term in office. The more they realize that the GOP will probably get a "whoopin'" again in 2008, the more they use fear and the threat of terror to try to justify their debacle in Iraq.

As Bob Woodward reports, even CIA Director Michael V. Hayden catalogued what he saw as the main sources of violence [for the Iraq Study Group] in this order: the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, general anarchy and, lastly, al-Qaeda. Though Hayden had listed al-Qaeda as the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, Bush regularly lists al-Qaeda first.

Even "general anarchy" is ahead of al-Qaeda in his assessment of the situation. But the more trouble the administration gets into, the more they shout "al-Qaeda". Just this week, Harriet Meirs, on advice from the White House, disregarded a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee and decided not to show up. ...AL-QAEDA!!!

"I can't fathom a private citizen getting a subpoena to come before this body and not showing up," said Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat. "What we've got here is an empty chair. I mean, that is as contemptuous as anybody can be of the government, of the process, of the country."

But will she be charged with contempt of Congress and arrested like any other "private citizen"? I'm guessing the answer is a big, fat NO. ... AL-QAEDA!!!

At least Sara M. Taylor, the former White House Political Director showed up in person to spit in the face of the committee: "I have a very clear letter from Mr. Fielding," Taylor began at 10:40 a.m., pointing to the letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding that has "directed" Taylor not to testify about internal deliberations and external communications while she worked in the West Wing.

She finally did start answering some questions after she was reminded by Chairman Senator Leahy what sort of questions she could and couldn't answer. And her answers proved that either she is one of the "loyal Bushies" that Kyle Sampson categorized, or that her mind is just as full of holes as Alberto Gonzales'.

Speaking of Gonzales, Dahlia Lithwick from Slate.com reports, "In April 2005, Gonzales testified before the Senate that "there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" as a consequence of expanded FBI powers under the Patriot Act. We now learn that at the time, he was in possession of at least six FBI reports detailing unlawful surveillance, searches, and improper use of national security letters. It's tempting to write off Gonzales' failure to admit to these numerous abuses as yet another punch line. "Ooopsy. Lied again." Heh heh. Shrug. But at least grant that Gonzales' buffoonery serves a larger Bush administration purpose. His dereliction of duty takes our minds off the real story: the extent of the damage he and Bush have done to the Justice Department in a few short years.

...It's difficult to ascertain the precise moment in the Bush administration in which confessing not to have been doing one's job at all became the best defense against the claim that one did one's job badly. But given the choice between admitting to perjury or incompetence, you can bet that Gonzales will easily, indeed gleefully, cop to the latter."

It just doesn't stop... AL-QAEDA!!!

The Panic Ensues

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made comments regarding our national security against terror threats and although he had no evidence to raise threat levels, he chose to make these remarks on a "gut feeling". Yes, that's right. A "gut feeling".

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk. Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said of al-Qaeda. "We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities." Why Michael? Is it the heat? Does summer remind them of home and therefore they feel more comfortable? What an idiot.

I have a gut geeling that Michael Chertoff is a moron. Wait, that's not a good comparison because I've probably gathered more evidence that he is a moron than he has gathered on terror threats.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson is questioning Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling"... Thompson has written to the secretary asking him to explain his feeling. The Mississippi Democrat asked what color code is associated with a "gut feeling" about the terror threat and what cities should be working their police on double shifts as a result.

The White House responded to Chertoff's gut feeling: "There continues to be no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an imminent threat to the homeland," said Tony Fratto, deputy press secretary at the White House, a day after Chertoff made his remarks to the Tribune's editorial board.

As far as the Crypt Keeper worrying about Al-Qaeda rebuilding their activities, that's a legit concern. But the problem is that he shouldn't worry about the "rebuilding" phase because according to a U.S. intelligence report, Al-Qaeda is at its greatest strength since it was expelled from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The intelligence assessment is titled "Al-Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West." Another home run for the Bush Administration... I wonder what team they're playing for.

As for Press Secretary Tony Snow, a little thing like terminal cancer isn't stopping him from giving his standard, smart-aleck answers to the Washington Press Corps. When asked of Chertoff's gut feeling, Snow said, "I don't want to try to get into gastrointestinal descriptions." Oh, ho-ho, ho, Tony! You're such a card.

But it looks like the fear mongering has already started to work. A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to New York early Thursday because of what officials said may have been unfounded fears of a security breach. The fears were unfounded because the passenger in question was actually an employee traveling in a private capacity. Chertoff said he had gotten information from airline representatives. "It may very well turn out that this is nothing more than a misunderstanding with an employee."

Carrying 230 passengers, the flight landed at JFK at about 3:30 a.m... The plane was searched and nothing suspicious was found, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Sonja Whitemon. The passengers onboard had to be re-screened and put on new planes because [the] original was canceled due to flight crew time regulations. American Airlines said the passengers will start boarding alternate flights starting at 8:30 a.m.

Heckuva job, Crypt Keeper. Why does everything these people touch turn to shit?

If you were in an Al-Qaeda cell, wouldn't you just be driving by now?

Thompson - Swing And A Miss!

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a Los Angeles Times article accusing Fred Thompson of lobbying for a pro choice organization. One commenter suggested I disregard the LA Times piece until they produce billing records as proof. Fair enough.

So why is it that when Sean Hannity asked Thompson of the "attack" on his character, Thompson doesn't give him a direct yes or no answer? Thompson got a softball question from Hannity and whiffed at it, but the crowd roared regardless.

HANNITY: "They have attacked you, they have attacked your family, and now, they come out in the Los Angeles Times with a piece that says you lobbied for abortion rights. You say that's absolutely not true."

THOMPSON: "No... You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself. They will probably come at me, in 35 years of law practice, with some people, I represented criminal defendants. I was a prosecutor. I had a general law practice. So that in and of itself doesn't mean anything anyway... I'm not gonna get down in the weeds with everything they dredge up over the next six months." Then cheers from the ignorant audience.

Sounds like a little back-peddling to me. Why not just say, "No. Absolutely not. I have never been pro-abortion." As Thoman B. Edsall reports, in the July 7 LAT story, Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo firmly rejected charges that Thompson had lobbied in support of the pro-choice group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said.

In response to a Huffington Post inquiry today [July 11] however, Corallo was more equivocal: "He said he has no recollection of doing any work and does not recall lobbying anyone on it."

From "No, period" to "I can't recall" in just four days.

"You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself."
To my ears, this sounds like, "Hey, they hired me to do a job. Why should I turn it down? If I can represent criminal defendants, why not this? It doesn't mean anything anyway."

I wonder what else Mr. Thompson won't be able to recall as all this progresses. And to my commenter "Sturm", any input? What do you think the reason is that he shrugged it off instead of vehemently denying it?

Former Surgeon General Kept On A Leash

A quote from former surgeon general Dr. Richard Carmona, on the Bush administration's efforts to politicize his office and "muzzle" him on key issues like embryonic stem cells and abstinence only programs. Carmona served as Surgeon General from 2002-2006.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried... The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party."

Regarding stem cell research, Carmona said he was prevented from talking publicly even about the science underpinning the research to enable the U.S. public to have a better understanding of a complicated issue. He said most of the public debate over the matter has been driven by political, ideological or theological motivations.

"I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made -- stand down, don't talk about it."

Do we really expect anything different? It's just another day in the bizarro world of the Bush White House.

Read the entire story here.

Michael Moore Rips Wolf Blitzer a New One

Michael Moore was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room after a three year absence to discuss his new movie, SICKO. Before being interviewed, Wolf presented a two minute "journalism" piece by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the exaggerations in Moore's movie. There was only one problem: there are no exaggerations.
You'll see Moore standing by for his interview with a confused look on his face as Wolf introduces their crack journalism as "a reality check from our CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta", as they try to discredit the facts and figures Moore uses in his film.

Unfortunately for Wolf, Moore was having none of it and proceeds to batter Wolf to a pulp, including wondering why Wolf isn't apologizing for trying to discredit FAHRENHEIT 9/11 three years earlier "because it turns out everything I said in Fahrenheit was true, everything that's come to happen... I took you in that film to Walter Reed hospital and it took three years before you or anyone else in the mainstream media would go to Walter Reed hospital to see what was happening to our troops... You're the ones who are fudging the facts. You fudge the facts to the American people now for I don't know how long - about this issue (health care), about the war and I'm just curious: When are you going to just stand there and apologize to the American people for not bringing the truth to them that isn't sponsored by some major corporation?... I will sit here for as long as it takes if you can do that for me!"

Of course in the bumper to Lou Dobbs, we see how idiotic Dobbs looks in trying to make a joke out of the whole thing and compares Moore to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Blitzer was too shell-shocked from Michael Moore's thrashing and only responded with a whimper of a chuckle.

A must watch video!

UPDATE: Here's Moore and Blitzer on Day Two, the promised taped interview continuing from the day before.

Fred Thompson - Flip Flopper

So Fred Thompson was not only a mole for Nixon, but he's also a gun for hire.

We all know that Thompson was a Washington lobbyist, but we didn't know he'd lobby for anyone, regardless of ethical or moral conflict. That is, of course, if there actually is a conflict.

The LA Times reports that "Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter."

The abortion "gag rule" was then a major political flashpoint. Lobbying against the rule would have placed Thompson at odds with the antiabortion movement that he is now trying to rally behind his expected declaration of a presidential bid.

...Former Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.), a colleague at the lobbying and law firm where Thompson worked, said that [Judith] DeSarno, [president of the family planning association in 1991], had asked him to recommend someone for the lobbying work and that he had suggested Thompson. He said it was "absolutely bizarre" for Thompson to deny that he lobbied against the abortion counseling rule.

Susan Cohen, a member of the association's board of directors in 1991, said in reference to DeSarno and Thompson: "We were looking, of course, for a Republican who might have some inroads to the White House at that time, and so that's how she came upon contacting him."

Of course, Thompson's camp is denying that he ever lobbied for the group. Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.

In a separate interview, John H. Sununu, the White House official whom the family planning group wanted to contact, said he had no memory of the lobbying and doubted it took place. "I don't recall him ever lobbying me on that at all. I don't think that ever happened. In fact, I know that never happened."

In response to Sununu's denial, DeSarno said Thompson "owes NFPRHA a bunch of money" if he never talked to Sununu as he said he had.

Geiger: The Senate Silence on Libby

Please read Bob Geiger's blog regarding the lack of any public statements regarding the Libby commutation from any of the 25 remaining US Senators that voted to impeach Bill Clinton in 1999.

"...it's odd that there's not one similarly scathing statement about George W. Bush deciding to effectively pardon a convicted criminal just because he's a loyal Bushie -- oh, and also to keep him from coming forward with the truth about the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

It could be that the Senate is in recess and that all of their press secretaries are vacationing in Nepal and simply can't get to their laptops.

...But maybe it's just possible that all of these Republican Senators are a bunch of cynical, hypocritical cowards who simply don’t have the guts to speak with what little conscience they have on this issue.

I think I'll go with that one."

Fred Thompson - Another Leaker

When asked what he thought of Fred Thompson's criticism of his new movie, Michael Moore smiled and said, "Fred Thompson is one of my favorite television actors!"

Thompson was a vocal proponent of Scooter Libby's pardon and ran a defense fund for him. He thought that the perjury and obstruction of justice conviction of Libby was a ""shocking injustice . . . created and enabled by federal officials." It's no wonder that Thompson felt that way because he's been there before.

As the Boston Globe reports, back in July, 1973,"The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

So Fred Thompson sympathizes with Scooter Libby because he knows what it's like to be a leaker. Birds of a feather... Of course, Thompson did the ol' sidestep when asked about the matter this week, and responded via e-mail without addressing the specific charge of being a Nixon mole: "I'm glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it's taken them over thirty years."

Well we're reading now, Fred. I hope it makes you happy.

CLINTON DID IT TOO

On a side note, I understand the GOP wagons circled again and pulled out the reliable "Clinton did it too" excuse when it came to the commutation of Libby's sentence.

Let's get something straight: Bill Clinton issued 140 pardons and commutations on his last day in office. All of the people he pardoned had served part or all of their jail sentence. He never pardoned or commuted the sentence of anyone working in his administration during the middle of a term.

As for the pardon of Marc Rich, the international commodities trader who fled the US while being prosecuted on charges of tax evasion, let's not forget that even Rich's attorney, whom Clinton described as a "distinguished Republican lawyer", supported Rich's pardon and never wavered on his claim of innocence.

That distinguished Republican lawyer was Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

UPDATE:

Also read: Dan Froomkin's White House Watch

Independence Day: What Are We Celebrating?

As I sat in my living room listening to the fireworks last night, I began to think about what we were celebrating. Since the Mets were getting shellacked in Colorado, I flipped over to the the Macy's Fireworks broadcast and enjoyed a few minutes of fireworks on TV. (My home doesn't have a western exposure so I couldn't see them from my window.)

And then it happened. The cameras were panning the crowd as God Bless America and The Star Spangled Banner blared, and the fireworks display was being crossfaded with the American flag on my screen. I literally felt my blood begin to boil as cheery, ignorantly blissful faces waved miniature flags. "Yay us! Woohoo, America is the greatest! We're #1! We're #1!"...sigh.

I completely understand getting caught up in the moment; feeling proud to be American while seeing a beautiful fireworks display and hearing our national anthems. But didn't anyone in that crowd feel a little sad? Didn't anyone feel a little ashamed of what our country has meant to the rest of the world over these last few years? Did one person think about the corrupt, crumbling Bush administration and the damage they've done, not only to our reputation, but the literal damage they've done to the citizens of this once great country?

Now I don't know if we were ever great. Revisionist history always plays a part in how you perceive your country. But perhaps our greatest moment was the day that we were celebrating in the first place. The signing of the Declaration of Independence, our defining moment as a nation, might be the best thing we have done all these 231 years later.

The thought that a group of 56 men just like us; lawyers, farmers, merchants, professors and clergymen, got together in rebellion because "The history of the present King... is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations...". They decided, as representatives from their individual colonies, to secede from their original homeland and by definition become treasonous for want of a better way of life. They all agreed "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

They sat down and in careful fashion, listed what they believed were the illegal acts of their King, defining him as a tyrant and effectively impeaching him. But they had no governmental process for replacing him. They had to start from scratch. Yet they vowed in support of the Declaration they were about to sign to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." They would support the Declaration of Independence or die trying.

So here we sit 231 years later. A different George is playing the role of King now. Do we list his illegal acts? Most won't touch it... but Keith Olbermann did:

OBMERMANN:
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

Is he wrong on any count? Not to mention the illegal US wiretaps and ignoring the FISA court, the firings of US attorneys for political advantage, the suspension of habeas corpus for purposes of keeping detainees indefinitely and without charge, defining torture in a memorandum and failing to adhere to the Geneva Convention, leaving the Gulf Coast to rot in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina almost two years ago, and on, and on, and on.

And what do you suppose will happen, Mr. Bush, when you decide to enforce Presidential Directive 51, that you probably signed stealthily in the dead of night like so many cockroaches avoiding the light? What do you suppose will happen when you declare a "catastrophic emergency", most likely at the hands of your very administration, in an attempt to usurp the branches of government and continue your stay as leader of this country?

You were handed the 2000 election by the Supreme Court before the vote count was completed. You were handed the 2004 election by your minions after they stole it with illegal voter roll purges, rigged electronic voting machines, suppression and intimidation. And now you sign a presidential directive entrusting yourself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch, and giving yourself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”

When we celebrate Independence Day, we should spend a few moments really reflecting on what the celebration is all about. What do you suppose will happen when King George declares a catastrophic emergency?

What else can it take for the leaders in Congress to impeach? Prepare for a revolution.

UPDATE: Also read "Dead On the 4th of July" Jesse's Blog at TVNewsLies.org

Bush Commutes Libby's Jail Time

I knew this was going to happen, but I am stunned it happened so soon.

George W. Bush, a pathetic sociopath of a president, has commuted the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney. And why shouldn't he? This is a clown of a man who claimed after the stolen 2004 election that had political capital: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."

Well, Chimpy, your wallet is empty. It's been empty for a long time. Now you are using credit from the Republican Party - credit that will have to be repaid in November of 2008. And the interest rate is a bitch.

On September 30, 2003 Bush said, "There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of." I suppose by "taken care of'" he meant since they do his dirty work for him, he'll take care of any trouble they get into with a flick of a bic.

In July of 2005 Bush said, "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." But Scooter Libby continued to work in the White House until he was indicted. Yet another lie in the long list of the Bush legacy. And now he plays judge, jury and excuser, reversing a decision handed down by the courts just hours after learning that Libby would not be freed on bail while pending an appeal.

Bush, July 2, 2007: "I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

You respect the jury's verdict? You respect the jury's verdict?! You just spat in the face of the judicial system, commuted the sentence of a man who committed perjury at the very least, something a former president was impeached for. You commuted the sentence of a man who possibly got people killed by helping to leak the name of a CIA operative, we'll never really know because he also obstructed an FBI investigation into the matter, and you dare say you "respect the jury''s verdict"? There's a special place in hell for people like you.

And let's not forget our upcoming presidential candidates' reactions to Chimp-Man's decision:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois
“This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an Administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law..."

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware
“...It is time for the American people to be heard — I call for all Americans to flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow expressing their outrage over this blatant disregard for the rule of law.”

Former Sen. John Edwards
“Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today ... George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York
“Today’s decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law... This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice.”

But let's not stop there. What do you think the Republican candidates have to say about Bush's decision? I think you can guess where this is headed.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
“After evaluating the facts, the President came to a reasonable decision and I believe the decision was correct.”

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney
“I believe that the circumstances of this case, where the prosecutor knew that there had not been a crime committed, created a setting where a decision of this nature was reasonable.”

What part of "obstruction of justice" and "perjury" doesn't ring in Romney's head? It drives me to the brink of insanity when these jokers claim that a crime wasn't committed because the initial investigation was about finding out who leaked a CIA operative's name to the press. Am I wrong, or didn't the investigation hit a wall with Libby's lies? Hey Mitt, lying to FBI investigators and a Grand Jury ARE CRIMES!

And what does Golden Boy Fred Thompson have to say about commuting the sentence of someone who committed perjury? The same Thompson that voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for... wait for it... perjury!

Former GOP Sen. Fred Thompson, likely presidential
candidate
"I am very happy for Scooter Libby. I know that this is a great relief to him, his wife and children. While for a long time I have urged a pardon for Scooter, I respect the President’s decision. This will allow a good American, who has done a lot for his country, to resume his life."

Does it surprise you that a possible Republican presidential candidate who voted to impeach a Democratic president for perjury in the case of an extramarital affair would then urge for a pardon of a Republican aide to the White House for the same offense when it comes to matters of national security?

It doesn't surprise me either.

Also read: Jeralyn Merritt: Hyposcrisy, Thy Name is Bush

Lewis Black - Conservative Media Fights Back

One of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black gives us a quick look at the response to the "liberal bias" in the media. Yeah, I know you're laughing.

Ron Christie is a Weasel

David Schuster has been filling in for Tucker Carlson and doing an amazing job. He's not in it to regurgitate the latest softball questions that Tucker does; he actually listens to the answers for the questions that he asks and... follows up. I don't think Ron Christie was ready for that.

Christie is a former aide to Darth Cheney as well as Scooter Libby, and is actually trying to defend the latest abomination coming out of this administration that neither the vice president or the president are legally bound by their own administration's presidential order. Whaaaa?!

Christie also tries to discredit the Washington Post exposé on Cheney (which everyone should read) because it relies on unnamed sources, as if this is the first time that's ever happened in journalistic history. Maybe they should change "unnamed source" to "Deep Throat" or "Curveball".

Schuster doesn't take any crap and goes back at Christie like a real journalist should - something I haven't seen in a very long time. Tucker should be careful that Schuster won't become his "Wally Pipp".

Thanks to Crooks & Liars for the clip and the post.

Windows Clip Quick Time Clip

The September Surprise

They’ll Break the Bad News on 9/11
Frank Rich - New York Times

BY this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House's top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam's aluminum tubes. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq — the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America — had officially begun.

America wasn't paying close enough attention then. We can't afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we'd be wise to heed.

The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the "surge" was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we'd have "a pretty good feel" whether his policy "made sense." On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a "snapshot" of progress in Iraq. "Snapshot," of course, means "Never mind!"

The second message was more encoded and more ominous. Again using similar language, the two men said that in September they would explain what Mr. Crocker called "the consequences" and General Petraeus "the implications" of any alternative "courses of action" to their own course in Iraq. What this means in English is that when the September "snapshot" of the surge shows little change in the overall picture, the White House will say that "the consequences" of winding down the war would be even more disastrous: surrender, defeat, apocalypse now. So we must stay the surge. Like the war's rollout in 2002, the new propaganda offensive to extend and escalate the war will be exquisitely timed to both the anniversary of 9/11 and a high-stakes Congressional vote (the Pentagon appropriations bill).

General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker wouldn't be sounding like the Bobbsey Twins and laying out this coordinated rhetorical groundwork were they not already anticipating the surge's failure. Both spoke on Sunday of how (in General Petraeus's variation on the theme) they had to "show that the Baghdad clock can indeed move a bit faster, so that you can put a bit of time back on the Washington clock." The very premise is nonsense. Yes, there is a Washington clock, tied to Republicans' desire to avoid another Democratic surge on Election Day 2008. But there is no Baghdad clock. It was blown up long ago and is being no more successfully reconstructed than anything else in Iraq.

When Mr. Bush announced his "new way forward" in January, he offered a bouquet of promises, all unfulfilled today. "Let the Iraqis lead" was the policy's first bullet point, but in the initial assault on insurgents now playing out so lethally in Diyala Province, Iraqi forces were kept out of the fighting altogether. They were added on Thursday: 500 Iraqis, following 2,500 Americans. The notion that these Shiite troops might "hold" this Sunni area once the Americans leave is an opium dream. We're already back fighting in Maysan, a province whose security was officially turned over to Iraqi authorities in April.

In his January prime-time speech announcing the surge, Mr. Bush also said that "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." More fiction. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's own political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, says it would take "a miracle" to pass the legislation America wants. Asked on Monday whether the Iraqi Parliament would stay in Baghdad this summer rather than hightail it to vacation, Tony Snow was stumped.

Like Mr. Crocker and General Petraeus, Mr. Snow is on script for trivializing September as judgment day for the surge, saying that by then we'll only "have a little bit of metric" to measure success. This administration has a peculiar metric system. On Thursday, Peter Pace, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the spike in American troop deaths last week the "wrong metric" for assessing the surge's progress. No doubt other metrics in official reports this month are worthless too, as far as the non-reality-based White House is concerned. The civilian casualty rate is at an all-time high; the April-May American death toll is a new two-month record; overall violence in Iraq is up; only 146 out of 457 Baghdad neighborhoods are secure; the number of internally displaced Iraqis has quadrupled since January.

Last week Iraq rose to No. 2 in Foreign Policy magazine's Failed State Index, barely nosing out Sudan. It might have made No. 1 if the Iraqi health ministry had not stopped providing a count of civilian casualties. Or if the Pentagon were not withholding statistics on the increase of attacks on the Green Zone. Apparently the White House is working overtime to ensure that the September "snapshot" of Iraq will be an underexposed blur. David Carr of The Times discovered that the severe Pentagon blackout on images of casualties now extends to memorials for the fallen in Iraq, even when a unit invites press coverage.

Americans and Iraqis know the truth anyway. The question now is: What will be the new new way forward? For the administration, the way forward will include, as always, attacks on its critics' patriotism. We got a particularly absurd taste of that this month when Harry Reid was slammed for calling General Pace incompetent and accusing General Petraeus of exaggerating progress on the ground.

General Pace's record speaks for itself; the administration declined to go to the mat in the Senate for his reappointment. As for General Petraeus, who recently spoke of "astonishing signs of normalcy" in Baghdad, he is nothing if not consistent. He first hyped "optimism" and "momentum" in Iraq in an op-ed article in September 2004.

Come September 2007, Mr. Bush will offer his usual false choices. We must either stay his disastrous course in eternal pursuit of "victory" or retreat to the apocalypse of "precipitous withdrawal." But by the latest of the president's ever-shifting definitions of victory, we've already lost. "Victory will come," he says, when Iraq "is stable enough to be able to be an ally in the war on terror and to govern itself and defend itself." The surge, which he advertised as providing "breathing space" for the Iraqi "unity" government to get its act together, is tipping that government into collapse. As Vali Nasr, author of "The Shia Revival," has said, the new American strategy of arming Sunni tribes is tantamount to saying the Iraqi government is irrelevant.

For the Bush White House, the real definition of victory has become "anything they can get away with without taking blame for defeat," said the retired Army Gen. William Odom, a national security official in the Reagan and Carter administrations, when I spoke with him recently. The plan is to run out the Washington clock between now and Jan. 20, 2009, no matter the cost.

Precipitous withdrawal is also a chimera, since American manpower, materiel and bases, not to mention our new Vatican City-sized embassy, can't be drawn down overnight. The only real choice, as everyone knows, is an orderly plan for withdrawal that will best serve American interests. The real debate must be over what that plan is. That debate can't happen as long as the White House gets away with falsifying reality, sliming its opponents and sowing hyped fears of Armageddon. The threat that terrorists in civil-war-torn Iraq will follow us home if we leave is as bogus as Saddam's mushroom clouds. The Qaeda that actually attacked us on 9/11 still remains under the tacit protection of our ally, Pakistan.

As General Odom says, the endgame will start "when a senior senator from the president's party says no," much as William Fulbright did to L.B.J. during Vietnam. That's why in Washington this fall, eyes will turn once again to John Warner, the senior Republican with the clout to give political cover to other members of his party who want to leave Iraq before they're forced to evacuate Congress. In September, it will be nearly a year since Mr. Warner said that Iraq was "drifting sideways" and that action would have to be taken "if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function."

Mr. Warner has also signaled his regret that he was not more outspoken during Vietnam. "We kept surging in those years," he told The Washington Post in January, as the Iraq surge began. "It didn't work." Surely he must recognize that his moment for speaking out about this war is overdue. Without him, the Democrats don't have the votes to force the president's hand. With him, it's a slam dunk. The best way to honor the sixth anniversary of 9/11 will be to at last disarm a president who continues to squander countless lives in the names of those voiceless American dead.

Cheney Unbound

This is stunning. In case you missed it because I glossed over it in a previous post, Dick Cheney is claiming that his office is not required to comply with a Presidential Order regulating the handling of classified information because he doesn't consider his office part of the Exectuive branch. Once his refusal was rebuffed by the National Archives Oversight Office, he tried abolishing said office that was asking for the information.

As an LA Times op-ed piece stated, that's like trying to disband the Internal Revenue Service for demanding a tax audit.

...Cheney's inventive argument is that because the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, his is "a unique office" that is not part of but rather "attached to" the legislative branch. Yet the vice president is funded and housed by the executive branch, travels on Air Force Two, enjoys Secret Service protection and seldom appears in his (mostly symbolic) Senate office. And he has never subjected his staff to the even more restrictive Senate rules on handling classified material. Apparently, Cheney sees himself as a fourth branch of government that enjoys all the authority of the presidency but is bound by none of its rules.

On Friday, the White House defended Cheney yet again, saying the president never intended the veep to have to comply with the presidential order. Bush should stop enabling his errant No. 2 and enforce the rule of law.

But why stop there? The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.

"If the president and the vice president don't take their own rules seriously, who else should?" said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University in Washington that lobbies for open government.

"If they get a blank check, it's a recipe for disaster. I can't think of a quicker way to break down the credibility of the entire security-classification system." Blanton noted that the White House had acknowledged that a substantial number of in-house e-mails had disappeared in recent years, at a time when investigators wanted to review them for possible evidence of inappropriate leaks of classified information.

"If there are all these great safeguards in place, then where are the e-mails?" Blanton asked.

By the way, for you to get any of this information, you would have needed to read it in the newspapers. All the TV "journalism" shows were too busy looking for a missing pregnant woman.