What the Hell happened to it?

I was thinking about this the other day when I was going over some writing I'd done in the past six months and came across various stories that blew up in a few days then just completely disappeared.

Consider the story about Chalabi and telling the Iranians about how the US had broken their code. Broke on a friday and was a huge buzz for about 48 hours. Chalbi's relatives were pushed out of the interim government and charges were brought against him in Iraq. That story? Who the Hell knows?

Consider Plame, remember her? There was talk about an end to the Grand Jury, there was talk about an impending frog march. Then, right before the elections we hear Rove is testifying. That story? Who the Hell knows?

Consider the Israeli spy in the Pentagon broke on a friday and was a massive buzz. There was talk of a frog march. There was talk about the perp being close to the president and a deputy to a cabinet member! That story? Who the Hell knows?

Is it me, or have some pretty remarkable stories just been forgotten in the briefest period of time?

"I am one of those who believe that there should have been a second resolution from the UN Security Council to green-light the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime," Annan said.

....

"I have indicated that it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, and from the charter point of view it was illegal," he said.

....

"It was up to the Security Council to approve or determine what those consequences should be," he said.

He added that the US decision to go ahead and invade Iraq, with British forces at its side, "was not in conformity with the Security Council, with the UN charter".

Asked if he meant that the decision to invade was illegal, Annan replied: "Yes, if you wish."

Normally, you'd think this would cry out for an investigation. Normally, you'd think the media would rise to the occasion because this is an issue of charecter and credibility. Has the president been lieing? How did the president recieve his honorable discharge? From the facts, it appears the president was AWOL in AL and MA- was the president never held accountable for this because of his political connections?

Probably the most used method of changing topics or denying reality is this:

"You just hate Bush. There is a lot of you, Bush Haters. You just hate the guy because he's a man of faith and he's from Texas!"

It's not McCain that turned my stomach. It's not the negative attacks coming from Republicans at the Convention that I've read about. It's the sickening way the Republican Party has politicized a national tradgedy. The way the Republican Party is shamelessly exploiting 9/11.

The spy was a defense analyst that worked with both Fieth and Wolfowitz. The report said that secret policy documents about US posture towards Iran were given to Israel through an Israeli PAC (AIPAC) thus allowing Israel a "spot at the table" in developing US policy.

The report further put into question this analysts relation to the development of policy against Iraq- implying that Israel, through it's spy might also have had a hand in developing Iraqi policy.

AIPAC and Israel have denied the charges. The CBS report did not reveal the name of the spy although they clearly know it.

/sigh

I can't find a link online yet to this story.

"If You Don't Believe Saddam Hussein Is A Threat With Nuclear Weapons, Then You Shouldn't Vote For Me."

or

"If you do not think that Saddam Hussein with his weapons program poses a grave threat to the United States, you should not vote for me"

I've found a lot of Right Wing websites link to it as being from this source:

Ronald Brownstein, "On Iraq, Kerry Appears Either Torn Or Shrewd," Los Angeles Times, 1/31/03"

But for the life of me, I can't find this source archived.

I know in January, 2004 Kerry said:

""If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don't vote for me." -- John Kerry, Jan 2004"

Ineffective and confusing Medicare cards?
Unbalanced tax cuts?
An unfinished Afghanistan?
Continuous intelligence failures?
More jobs lost than gained?
Iraq in anarchy?
Seucrity marginally better in the US today than on 9/10/01?
The Patriot Act?
Osama still free?
North Korea and Iran with operational nuclear programs?

So far, every cable and network media whore show I've seen has drawn on top-level Democrats "censoring" the speeches and asking speakers to drop lines that were overly critical.

Personally, I think this is retarded. Yes, concentrate on the positive- when you're up against these Republicans it's not that hard but at the same time, we need to hit them.

First he turns Gibsons central argument that "media" outlets have a political agenda around on Gibson's Fox network.

Then he does something so awesome- he actually says al Jazeera could be like the "less professional" or "successful" Fox News. He made the point without saying the word "propaganda" but fuckin-A was it clear.

Gibson looked uncomfortable throughout and couldn't defend himself or his very, very biased view of the world.

Huh?

Now, I suppose if you add up the jobs created over the past 7 months while discounting the jobs lost over that time you might end up with 700,000 but I didn't know the answer so just let it lie (in more ways than one I am assuming).

Does anyone know the truth about this meme?

Ooooops.

Earlier last week I recalled seeing some econ pundit on Cavuto saying that a cut in output would be a "vote for John Kerry" but he expected OPEC to stay at current production levels.

I just wanted to make a diary to gauge if enough members of this community would care to start a online (Yahoo, ESPN or whatever) rotisserie baseball league?

Yahoo is free so that's cool. I figure if we had 12-16 people who were interested, I could set it up the league with a password and email it to people who might be interested.

I imagine asking here is ok with Markos since he is as big a baseball fan as me.

"In a three-hour anti-American diatribe that described US President George Bush as an illegitimate leader and an "asshole", Chavez spelled out on Sunday what would happen if America turned up the diplomatic pressure.

"If Mr Bush is possessed with the madness of trying to blockade Venezuela, or worse for them, to invade Venezuela in response to the desperate song of his lackeys ... sadly not a drop of petroleum will come to them from Venezuela."

Full story:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/91EC7937-5B25-41D2-A138-9A61A7562168.htm

I wonder if the American press will dare touch this?

Doubt it. I remember how they barely reported on the attempted coup that was reportedly supported by the U.S.

If the Bay of Pigs event happened today- it wouldn't be covered.

During the PM's questions last week a British MP had mentioned that Hussein was being held on Cypruss which I would understand- they certainly don't want him in Iraq. They'd want to hold him in a totally controlled environment in order to serve him a mind fuck worthy of Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984. False newspapers, sleep depreviation, drugs- we may not torture per se but I bet we can use a strobe light and loud, obnoxious music to great effect!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10376-2004Feb3.html

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this the second time in a few weeks that Haliburton is reimburing us for overcharging the US tax payer?

What do you have to do in this country in terms of possible corruptions for the government to eventually shut down contracts to these particular companies?

How much more chicanery is going on that is falling under the radar?

Why aren't any of the Democratic canidates using these robberies in the race? Is it too much preaching to the choir to point out what Bush and Cheney's buddies are actually up too?

It's time to stop these kinds of welfare payments to corrupt corporations who take the tax payer dollars then shrink or overcharge on the service. I don't care about 'well KBR and Halliburton are best equipped to preform the service' or any of those other half-baked excuses- I am sure other US firms are capable of fufilling these contracts if they were ever given the chance to bid. Or we could gasp actually contract out to Iraqi firms, which would probably be cheaper and put more Iraqi's to work faster- that might actually help with the occupation.

It's time for someone in the House or Senate to write and push a bill that makes firms caught overcharging or not fufilling their contracted service incapable of recieving US contracts for a period of years. No chance to argue about it and payback in full what you've stolen.

Unfortunately, I can only find the story on Aljizeera- it doesn't look good at all.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6D3305DA-B58A-471C-9917-0F69BE5C4C87.htm

Last night Diane Sawyer of ABC News took a new look at Governor's Dean's Iowa speech, and determined in a "mea culpa" that what the networks had shown over and over wasn't quite the same as what happened on the ground. Turns out that famous video snippet failed to capture the crowd--or the sound of its cheers. Sawyer says:
After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again -- in fact played it to them -- I noticed that on that tape he's holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise [...]

So, we collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage[...]

Dean's boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd. And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn't really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.
Was the coverage fair? ABC asked the network chiefs themselves:
CBS News: "Individually we may feel okay about our network, but the cumulative effect for viewers with 24-hour cable coverage is -- it may have been overplayed and, in fact, a disservice to Dean and the viewers." -- Andrew Heyward, President - CBS News

ABC News: "It's always a danger that we'll use good video too much." -- David Westin, President - ABC News

CNN: "We've all been wrestling with this. If we had it to do over again, we'd probably pull ourselves back." -- Princell Hair, General Manager - CNN

Fox News: "It got overplayed a bit, and the public clearly thought that, too, and kept him alive for another round." -- Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO - Fox New

Anyone surprised they waited to do this until the day after New Hampshire?

Full story with links to video and such at BFA:
http://www.blogforamerica.com/

Excuse me if this had been diaried over the course of the day and I missed it.