An Update, and A Pointer ...

The Update

Well, it appears, for now, anyway, we won't be seeing any "Tweety for Senator" signs popping up.

We wrote yesterday, the rampaging rumors that Matthews was gearing up for a 2010 run, ostensibly, against Republican Arlen Specter, should Tweety survive the college-prank-overstuffed phone booth, that likely would have surfaced for the Penn. Dem Primary.

Word comes via Nate Silver, at FiveThirtyEight.com, that Matthews has "flatly denied our report indicating his active hiring for the Pennsylvania Senate seat currently held by Arlen Specter.

"It is absolutely not true," said Matthews, in a statement."

Guess he's not feeling that thrill up his leg ... Yet ...

For, if we want to make like the Big Dog Pundits, spending hours parsing his statement, we could point to the fact that he didn't actually say he wasn't running, just that he was denying the reports that he is hiring staff for such a run.

Stay tuned Tweety Fans ... I'm sure this isn't the last time we'll have "clear-cut signals" of Tweety shopping for soap boxes to deliver campaign speeches from ...

The Pointer

I am still revoltingly shocked at the death of that Wal-Mart employee yesterday.

It's almost incomprehensible that people would be that rabid, over, making a purchase, mind you, this wasn't some free giveaway of Soylent Green, or anything.

Just what was so compelling, that X-amount of people lost all of their social bearings, their humanity, over?

Items on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.

Cheap consumer items, more than likely, all manufactured overseas, by people in dreadful factories, being paid sub-livable wages, in jobs that, perhaps, once were based in this country, but farmed out under the flag of downsizing, and free trade quotas

The inventory listed above comes from an AP article, that offers a potential of righting this horrible wrong;

Sought: Wal-Mart shoppers who trampled NY worker

NEW YORK – Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

I truly hope that the Nassau County officials pursue this vigorously, as well as bringing criminal charges against Wal-Mart.

This should not be swept under the carpet, as "too difficult".

There is, apparently, video of the stampede, there's certainly numerous still photos (the photo gallery offered yesterday), and, presumably, X-amount of those animalistic shoppers used debit and credit cards, to make their blood-soaked purchases.

They actually complained about the store closing, due to the death of the employee;

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

Larisa Alexandrovna, on her At-Largely blog, goes to the heart of it, in "Wal-Mart and the sick around it...";

Here is what happens when you get a bunch of American shopper's together without supervision - and of course, it would happen at Wal-Mart where everything is from China, polluted and tainted, and where employees are treated like slaves. When you willingly support a company with such little regard for human rights, worker rights, and so forth, the community that springs up around it will be just as contaminated. The worst is yet to come, however ...

Snip ...

My god, for shame! People around the world are dying of starvation and this polluted populace could not wait to buy electronics to the point of killing someone? For shame!

Snip ...

You read that right. Even after these people learned that their actions lead to the murder of a store clerk, they refused to leave the store and wanted to keep shopping. Oh, and as for Wal-Mart? Well, like I said, pollution feeds on pollution and sick feeds on sick. Sure they closed their doors long enough to get the dead-employee off their pretty floors. But then they re-opened shortly after.

What, Wal-Mart could not lose some money from one store where employees were traumatized, where an employee had been killed, where such a thing occurred? They could not take a day off to at least, if nothing else, to teach the community a lesson? No, because what can sick teach sick? For shame!

We give the last word to Will Bunch, over on Attytood;

There've been a lot of stories in the last week or two about what Great Depression II will look like, but I think trampling people to get bargains at a discount stores is pretty much it.

Hey Brother, can you spare a life?

Good Post Alert - Larisa Alexandrovna's "Mississippi Justice: Bush US Attorney targeted my wife, supporters and friends"

Here's yet another glimpse of the Bush Grindhouse justice system

Larisa Alexandrovna, over on The Raw Story, has a great piece today, of some serious shenanigans that played out down in Mississippi

Mississippi Justice: Bush US Attorney targeted my wife, supporters and friends

Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. was indicted in 2003 on charges relating to his receipt of a loan guarantee from trial lawyer Paul Minor - a personal friend and the largest Democratic donor in Mississippi - to help defray campaign debts. A Bush-appointed US Attorney, Dunnica Lampton, brought charges of bribery against Diaz, Minor and two other Mississippi judges. Diaz was acquitted of all those charges... Within days of his acquittal, Diaz was indicted for a second time. He was again acquitted.

Normally, a criminal investigation begins after a crime is committed," Diaz told me. "Investigators are sent out to gather evidence and a list of suspects is drawn up. Sometimes an investigation is begun after a complaint is made about suspicious activity. In our case neither of these things occurred."

"In other words," he continued. "An individual was singled out for examination from the federal government and prosecutors then attempted to make his conduct fit into some criminal statute. This is not how our system of justice is supposed to operate."

More of Karl Rove's vision of an America under Republican Majority

Check it out, it's a great interview.


Bonus Links

Good Posts Alert - Larisa Alexandrovna's "The Permanent Republican Majority"

Larisa Alexandrovna: Alabama Democrats are Under Attack

This Is Huge! ... Siegalman Released On Appeal!

Larisa Alexandrovna: Alabama Democrats are Under Attack

This is getting beyond ridiculous!

The Injustice Department has already bagged one Democrat Governor, and may be setting their sights on a second, and now this screaming news from Larisa Alexandrovna;

Alabama Democrats are Under Attack

"Now for the latest nightmare - the brown-shirts arrive. Honestly, this is so unreal, I have no words (emphasis mine):

"Montgomery, AL - Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Spearman today called into question the method by which U.S. Marshals attempted to serve legislators subpoenas to appear to testify in a grand jury proceeding. Reporters were apparently tipped off by calls stating U.S. Marshals were coming to the Alabama Statehouse to serve some legislators. "The drama surrounding these actions and the U.S.

Department of Justice's disruption of a legislative session for the routine serving of a summons to appear in court sends a poor signal to Alabama citizens who are already complaining about partisan political interference into the federal prosecution of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman," says Spearman.

These ladies and gentlemen have not been charged with a crime and could have been served by other means in their local communities, not in Montgomery during a legislative session in front of TV cameras and reporters." Spearman stated. State law actually prohibits serving members of the legislature while they are in session. Section 29-1-7 of the Alabama Code protects members from this kind of action by U.S. Marshals yesterday. In fact, the Marshals could have violated this law by their disruption of the session and have been charged with a misdemeanor."

Larisa has been all over what's going on in Alabama and you can catch up on the Siegelman Case here

So has Scott Horton, over at Harpers


And for the primer ...

The Permanent Republican Majority Part I

The Permanent Republican Majority Part II

The Permanent Republican Majority Part III

An Enigma, Wrapped Inside of A Riddle ... The Tesseract Archipelago...

"A concentration camp within a concentration camp that we pay a Communist nation to host."

I have to wonder, with all that we know so far, do they have a secret handshake as well? Have they issued super secret decoder rings? Lapel buttons, so they can know who is one of them, nod silently and knowingly, as they pass each other?

Well, after the Crony General the other day, the "Hear-No-Evil, See-No-Evil, Speak-No-Justice" Crony General, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that it has been uncovered that we have secret prisons inside secret prisons.

Only in the Bush Grindhouse...

We really should have titled this post "An Evil Enigma, Wrapped Inside A Riddle of Lies"

Larisa Alexandrovna, on her At-Largely, doesn't pull any punches, in a great post this past Thursday, "The Tesseract Archipelago..."

Here's a few nuggets;

"For the commie fearing right-wingers, their collective silence about US funding of communist Cuba through a business arrangement in which they give us land to house our concentration camps on is astounding. It is, however, no surprise that nationalists see human rights abuses as a necessary fall-out of war. After all, Christian extremists, like their Muslim counterparts see war as a tool of God, and they see God in a single man giving them orders, not in anything divine:

Aside from the security propaganda and its flag-waving boot-marchers, however, I want a legitimate explanation as to why we need this many camps, this many secret camps within camps, and just who the hell is being held there in secret and why in secret. I demand this as a US citizen. Because if we have people secretly boxed within secret boxes, which house even more secret boxes filled with even more secret people, then we cannot continue calling ourselves a democracy."

Maybe this is the reason that The Commander Guy thinks Vice President Darth Vader is "The Best Vice President In History".

How nicely it fits ... The secret, Shadow Government running secret prisons inside secret prisons.

Read Larisa's "The Tesseract Archipelago..."

Add it to the ever-growing Clean-Up/To-Do List, once we get these criminals out of office.

Bonus Secret Prisons Riffs

We Looked In the DIY Section, But Bob Vila Didn't Have A Handbook On It ...

Top Ten Cloves: Problems Created With President Bush Admitting To CIA Black Site Prisons

Paid News Scandal Widens; CIA Said To Run Network Of "Blue Hole" Newspapers; Detainees Forced To Work As Copy Editors Or Write Stories In Isolation; Old Typewriters With No Wite-Out Used

Breaking News! Leak of CIA Covert Prison System May Affect IPO, Franchising Rights; Early Heavy Investment Cools In Wake of Story; North Korea May Trade Nuke Program For Multiple Prisons

Good Posts Alert - Larisa Alexandrovna's "The Permanent Republican Majority"

It's a story that has, barely, bubbled up on the radar.

If you haven't been concerned and frightened about the Bush Grindhouse by now (and about your only excuse is if you suffered a serious head injury, or, perhaps, have been a victim of their Extraordinary Rendition, and your memory is now mush), the painstaking, digging, hard work of Larisa Alexandrovna (and Muriel Kane) of Raw Story (and her own blog, at-Largely) should help throw the light switch over your head.

It's a detailed rundown on the persecution and prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (the only person in the history of Alabama to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide offices: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor), at the hands of the GOP/RNC, led by Karl Rove and his cronies.

We haven't typically associated the phrase "political prisoner" with an American citizen - inside of America - yet, you can't think otherwise after reading Alexandrovna's articles.

It's compelling - and scary - stuff.

And, if you are keeping a scorecard, for the day our Congress (LOL) actually takes action and holds the Bush Regime accountable, pen these in the line-up for a turn in the batters box.

The Permanent Republican Majority, Part I

The Permanent Republican Majority: Daughter of jailed governor sees White House hand in her father's fall; Part two of a Raw Story Investigates series on the architects and the execution of backroom Republican politics

Horton has more on Siegelman's case today...

It's Monday, And The Cheneypalooza Is Rolling On! ... ' Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power'

Lots going on today ... Earthquake at 30 Rock, as news anchor Brian Williams takes a big tumble... Michelle Maudlin, and others in the Freak Show, are stirring up trouble (but nothing that can't be handled by a cutting, on-the-money post by Larisa Alexandrovna) ... And CNN flunks geography

Take all that in but don't let our Cheneypalooza pass you by ... Or the new series, started yesterday, by the Washington Post, "Angler - The Cheney Vice Presidency"

Over the next four days, The Washington Post will present an in-depth investigation of the vice presidency of Dick Cheney, the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office. The stories will examine Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

(Considering all of Cheney's underhandedness in building an Imperial Presidency, it is rather fitting that his Secret Service code name is/was "Angler")

Today's Installment: ''Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power'

Links

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Glenn Greenwald

They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11

More Cheneypalooza! 'A Different Understanding With the President'

"I Am Spartacus" ... The Bush Grindhouse and Cheneypalooza

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Dickie Right Over ... Its' A Cheneypalooza!

The Commander Guy and Angler coordinate their watches so they don't miss out on Cheneypalooza

Minced Garlic - Keith Olbermann, Paul Rieckhoff and Larisa Alexandrovna Expose Bush Giving Aid To The Enemy

"One of the things that did happen today that concerned me was that during Bush‘s press conference, he actually showed a graphic that showed 24 urban military outposts in downtown Baghdad ... Our enemies aren‘t stupid. They can look at that and figure out a grid coordinate and try to drop mortars on those exact locations ... "

All the spin, the smears, the lies, the attacks on anyone who opposed the Great Decider, labeling them as giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

When an opponent does, they're a Nazi Appeaser, or worse.

When Bush, or one of his henchman do it, why they are supporting the troops and fighting the global war on terror.

It was an unguarded, unprompted, unplanned moment last Friday evening, on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann was interviewing veteran, veteran advocate and 'Chasing Ghost' author Paul Rieckhoff regarding the continuing growing scandal over the death of Army Ranger Pat Tilman.

Near the end of the interview, Olbermann ask Rieckhoff to comment on the Harry Reid "The War is Lost" statement made in the Senate the day before.Rieckhoff briefly addressed that and then turned to the bombshell of President Bush, complete with slides, showing off military position around Baghdad at a speech in Ohio.

Larisa Alexandrovna, of at-largely, and also an investigative journalist, essayist and poet, managing news editor of Raw Story, and contributor to Alternet, and The Huffington Post, picked up on it as well.

"My good friend Paul Rieckhoff just made an interesting point on Countdown regarding a speech given by the Decider today. I had not noticed this, but apparently our beloved leader put a big red X on where US are positioned in Iraq, showing once again that his version of supporting the troops is at best political theater and at worst, dangerous to our national security."

Links

Note: The video of the Olbermann-Rieckhoff interview, the Bush giving aid to our enemies comes at the very end of the video. And Alexandrova's link offers a transcript of Bush giving his speech and spilling the beans on where troops are located.

Larisa Alexandrovna - Bush to terrorists: Here is a map of our troop movements

Video: Keith Olbermann - Paul Rieckhoff Interview - New details in Tillman investigation

Transcript of 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for April 20

'Chasing Ghost' author Paul Rieckhoff

Minced Garlic: Another Stellar Keith Olbermann Special Comment - “A special comment about lying”

Minced Garlic Redux! ... New Keith Olbermann Special Comment, - 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?' This Time, Slapping Down The Decider, Himself

VIDEO COMPILATION: Bush Fear-Mongering Reaches Fevered Pitch In


"He who laughs first, laughs last"