I had a queasy and sickening feeling in my gut when I heard the news that Bush had commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence.  Maybe part of it was that I had simply not eaten dinner yet.  But it was this feeling that goes beyond my loathing of the George Bush presidency and the basic piling up of one item after another.

There is something off with the American political system.  It cannot seem to handle and sort out and destroy Pure BS.  I say this thinking that I need to pull together some Nixon era and Watergate era material for a future post regarding The Weary.  The writing was on the wall when every one of the Republican presidential candidates said that Scooter Libby ought be pardoned, chief cheerleader being Fred Thompson, the better to pander to a narrow part of the Republican base — the 29 percent of the American voters who support Bush.  The writing was on the wall when Lawyers of the Right, including would be Supreme Court Justice Bork, mind you, defended Scooter Libby. The writing was further on the wall when the David Broders of the world waxed on the pleasantness of Scooter Libby personally.  Or if you go further into the Movement Conservative ranks, the storyline that the National Review and the Weekly Standard and Fox News commentators have which flips the entire course of events on its head.

I have a reaction is “OH, COME ON!” Once upon a time I mocked the oh-so-sensible and serious Joseph Biden for giving a statement like that to one of the Bush Administration’s perfidies, but it dawns on me where Biden is coming from.  To react in proper order to the Bush Administration is to come out with drastic measures that will slide you into the role of fierce partisan.  It is the Flaw of the American system, why anybody seeking the Republican Nomination has to have that funny-vision view of Libby as Victim, and why if I stick around long enough someone might throw the example of my low opinion of Joseph Lieberman as hypocrisy, which adds to this weariness.
It is one more item of a barrel of insults, in its truest essence an item of “Obstruction of Justice”, the continued blocking of Fitzgerald’s vision of that game he is umpiring, commuted so that he will be pardoned when Bush gets ready to leave office.  Frankly, seeing as how Bush is at his low ebb in public esteem, and has nothing much to lose really, I think Bush oughta go ahead and Pardon Scooter Libby today.

Japan’s defense minister resigned on Tuesday over remarks that appeared to accept the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dealing a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling camp ahead of a national election this month.

[…]

Kyuma’s decision to quit came after a prominent lawmaker in the ruling coalition’s junior partner had said he should “decide his own course,” a phrase that is often code for urging a politician to quit.

Abe had attempted to quell the furor by reprimanding Kyuma, who said on Saturday that he thought the atomic bombings “could not be helped.”

But opposition parties, keen to press their advantage ahead of the election, had refused to let up pressure for him to resign.

I find this story interesting as a means of comparison between the sort of accepted terms of what an American is supposed to think of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be in the mainstream and what a Japanese is supposed to think.

Flip the accepted opinion from America of “We(tm) had to do it.  Damned right we dropped the bomb.  They started it!” to a Japanese politician murmuring in a “gaffe” (the definition of a gaffe is often just a politically unpleasant truth) of “Maybe they have a point.”

A dozen years ago, there was this furor over the opening up of a Hiroshima and Nagasaki Exhibit, full of acrimony that relatively banal statements on the number of deaths of Japanese civilians gave too much credence to any lingering questions of that impenetrable fortress of “Damned right we dropped the bomb!”  This is the opposite of that Japanese politician’s “gaffe”, though probably not as fully as that exhibit never really questioned the use of the bombs — just simply maintained that it had some rather unpleasant and unsettling effects — but an American politician wouldn’t say anything beyond that because she or he would meet up with the same fate and furor of that Japanese politician.
In college, a professor assigned the class a paper on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more or less wanting “Pro” or “Con”.  I wrote a “pro” paper based on a bit of psychology that the David Horowitzes of the world would eschew in flailing on about Left Wing Professors– oftentimes a college professor will give more leeway in grading if it argues against their worldview.  The only thing I will say is that Harry Truman and The Pentagon lied with their initial statements that “We Have struck a Japanese Military Base”.  And yes, it is a telling lie.

I saw, posted to a side wall of Fred Meyers, a note saying to the effect of:

Need some Drug Free Urine?
Call (phone #)
We’ll hook You Up!

I am fairly positive that when I go to Fred Meyers again tomorrow this slip of paper will be taken down.  I suppose there is a market for drug free urine, and it is a type of thing you cannot promote in the Yellow Pages, so you have to reach that market somehow or other.

………………………

I’ve noticed this ad placement at Yahoo.  I’m weary of posting the image to the ad, though you more than likely have seen it and passed by without a second’s thought.  I guess I’ll just shrug and say “Well… Free advertisement for that company!”

The thing about that question is that I really don’t know who is searching for me, but I really doubt that it is the woman pictured.

At least it is somewhat better than this one ad for some other internet company I won’t name which showed a woman in her bed waving her fingers to come toward her.

I suppose I should wander into the field of Larouche nuttiness again.

Two articles of note were published. The New Republic had a small and pointless article about Larouche discussing an interview with him, which I see is mentioned a small bit in the blogosphere, generally to the effect of “Lyndon Larouche. Huh. I forgot about that nut!” (Here. Here. Here.)

A few points to be made: maybe Larouche is running for president, maybe he isn’t. I wonder if I were to look through the rules of what point a presidential candidate receives federal matching funds if I would see a bar that a Larouche organization that is not on par with its past version cannot reach — meaning the fantasy world view that he is deeply allied with the Clintons will have to work. On the other hand, his coy rhetoric certainly created the framework for a supposed “reluctant” run — a direction for his cult to take for an election cycle. If it enables him to get those federal matching funds.
The article sits next to an article about Dennis Kucinich — the two articles entitled “The Crazy that is Running” and “The Crazy that is Not Running”. It is unfair to Dennis Kucinich, who I don’t think is a terribly serious politician — and my misgivings about Kucinich goes beyond his politics– who — I will say — does not operate a cult. To deviate from the topic and take a quick gander at this Kucinich article, past the obnoxious title — the phrase that his campaign throws him to a “Pacifica Archipelago” is an apt observation. Actually I do see method to Kucinich’s madness, and it is simply that he is building his national base composed of the average Pacifica listener.

The other article answers that old assertion from a Larouchie that I was taking Nick Benton’s article on Larouche’s internal memos as gospel. (Go over here.) Here, I suppose, is what the Larouchie was jabbing her stick at, the information I was supposed to have learned that would have showed me the truth about Nick Benton and his motives. Larouchies despise ex-Larouchies.
Beyond that, a copy of odds and ends:

Recordings from a “9/11 Truth” conference (conspiracy theorists on 9/11.)

Friday’s keynote speaker was Webster Tarpley (pictured), a historian who used to be involved with the Lyndon LaRouche org, and co-author of The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush [Sr.]. I actually read excerpts of this a few years ago. Tarpley looks and sounds somewhat like Mr. Lebowski, but has a killer vocab and a wicked sense of humor: An exceptional speaker.

Okay. Webster Tarpley. He is a fraudulent ex-member, meaning that he is a member who is more helpful to the cause if he claims not to be connected with Larouche nowadays. I know this because the discussion at factnet shows that he spoke on behalf of Larouche in Russia. I would post the exchange if I could find it right off the bat.
I think this is how Larouche has his hands in the “9/11 Truth Movement”, something the “9/11 Truthers” are weary of, something that I end up shrugging at thinking that they sort of deserve each other.

One last item from factnet of interest:

For those who were born before the Fall of the Berlin wall and were campaigning against the Soviet nuclear Armageddon… just this info I read at the time:
Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB defector, revealed (I quote) that during a November 1983 NATO exercise, to enable the Western alliance to practice its nuclear release procedures, the Soviets responded to the manuever by going into an “ill-founded panic,” since they believed that “belligerent imperialist circles in the U.S.A. are getting ready for war, and are preparing new weapons systems which could render a sudden attack feasible.” (ie the march ’83 Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative”, SDI aka “Star wars”) As a result of this “panic,” Gordievsky claims, on or about Nov. 8-9 (1983), the world “really passed through a war danger.”
I cannot help not to think that these “belligerent imperialist circles in the U.S.A.” associated to the SDI, were also connected to ours. We were all over the place at the time, officially invited to speak about the Reagan/Larouche’s SDI.
But in August that year, irresponsible larouche wrote an Open letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov: “YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO PLUNGE THE WORLD INTO WAR”, because of his rejection of Reagan’s sdi proposal. Then, in November these NATO maneuvres took place and were perceived by the Soviet KGB as a possible cover or preparation for a US military offensive…
Later we were attacked in the Soviet press as imperialist nazis connected to Reagan etc
So larouche played a very dangerous and irresponsible game then, as unofficial spokesman for Reagan’s “parallel diplomacy”. A “war of words” similar to Iran’s or North Korea’s today.
Maybe that motivitated the US authorities to get his mouth shut (that is : the 1986 FBI raid in Leesburg)

AND That should do it for this topic for a week. Unless something comes up.

(Additional: I cannot pass this up, from the very prolific xlcrer, after discussing the sales technique for the Pro-life magazine and the Fusion magazine, Larouche hidden until the end– AND:

When we call up subscribers for everything we sold they would ask why they have not recieved a magazine or why it is 6 months late. Wearing a Lyn dunce cap makes it easy for you to beleive the story appearing in the briefing about how Henry Kissinger or some new evil start up has sabatoged the Post Office from mailing out the materials. Instead of noticing that we are raising huge sums of money, 5 bucks a day is going towards labor and money for postage has been diverted, our people believe that some incredible and mysterious force which wants Lyn assasinated to unleash a New Dark Age has blocked us from paying our postage bills. […]

What the yutes should notice is how many of the slugs in the briefing written by Jeff and his friends have this twist where some unamed source tells us “I like the material but I think your boss is crazy”. Jeff is busy running his own end game around Lyn and lining up his pieces for a post Lyn world. Lyn is so delusional that he has not caught on after spending years in prison and giving some crazy figure like 11 million to scam artists that Jeff and Paul are the ones who bring in these grifters. Go through the ranks of security and you find quite a collection of people who are “out” but ‘in” with Jeff.

A decent enough answer for my weird little question of “What happens when Larouche dies?”

Maybe I’m just not a big enough sports fan, but I find Portland’s sort of civicly-enforced celebration of their drafting of Greg Oden a little wearying.  My basic problem is that the big brohauhau of an event at Pioneer Square, as well the storming of the court at the Rose Garden, seems like an excitement reserved for, I don’t know, winning a championship or something.

Did the city of San Antonio celebrate in as official a manner when the Spurs drafted Tim Duncan?

I understand that the Trailblazers fan has already projected out to a championship in four or five years, and seemingly five more after that one, based on what turned out to be abrilliant draft last year (at the time chided by Charles Barkley as “a joke”)  and … Greg Oden.  But this is a strange anticipatory glee, and maybe a little sad.

Actually a caller to the Rick Emerson Show put it well.  At Pioneer Square yesterday, you had a thousand white men (largely of an upper income, largely suburbanite) coming down to worship a tall lanky black man, presented by a group of women dancing — once removed from a local strip club.

I know Portland Trailblazers fans who state that they threw in the towel at the team after the Clyde Drexler era (during which the team lost two finals series), during which time they were just massive fans.  I never quite believe them.  It intersects with my problem with the basic line of the Trailblazers’s problems, and their image as a dysfunctional team — the “Jailblazers” — for, the timeline is given, the past decade, the past dozen years, the past twelve years.  Until a couple of years ago, the team consistently made the playoffs — they won of a sort — during which time all of Isaih Rider’s buffoonery was tucked away when the Blazers went on any little winning streak of any sort.  More to the point, even if I decide that they seriously turned their back on the Trailblazers at that time, there was a time period of roughly two and a half seasons (or two thirds) where they were one of the elite teams, poised for the Championship.  This window started in earnest during that shortened post-lockdown (and post Jordan) 1999 season, a season that effectively ended when the Trailblazers lost Game 2 on Memorial Day against the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals after leading the game for… oh, 59 minutes and 59.6 seconds or thereabouts.  The next season, when they were really ready for the run, ended in Game 7 against the Los Angeles Lakers when the team lead in the middle of the fourth period by, was it 16 points? — and then… went ice cold.

That was the end of it.  I suppose we can say that the next round of the Blazers are better built for a longer longer longevity– a couple of superstars working together, the traditional big man in the middle that is the force behind most NBA Championship teams, and a bunch of role players as opposed to what the Blazers had for that short window
when the team was built as “effectively having two starting line-ups!” — all good for a dozen points, none good for being the man to take over the game in the clutch.

But I find it difficult to imagine those Blazer fans who say they lacked all interest in the team past the much ballyhooed Clyde Drexler era saying not flocking to the team during that post-season (call it the Scottie Pippen era) … where they lost to the Lakers in that Game 7.

It was all a downward spiral after that, of course, and it is difficult to figure out what the lowest point was for the franchise.  I guess the immediate end of season after Maurice Cheeks was fired, and the team muddled through not even really playing the younger players in a rebuilding effort but in a play-out-the-string effort until they could clear their heads and figure out how to possibly move forward.  And nobody in this city has had a terribly good feeling about the Trailblazers team until somewhere in the middle of this last season.
Incidentally, simply in the interest of being a snotty semi-contrarian jerk, the Trailblazers might have been in much better shape if it were not for the great Clyde Drexler.   Think it about it for a second.  What is the reason always given for the Trailblazers’ Draft Pick #2 selection of Sam Bowie in the 1984 draft?  Well, there’s the obvious reason that a team always goes for the Big Man Center, the crucial man for most NBA Champions not named the Chicago Bulls, the sure-fire Center pick was just selected by the Houston Rockets at Pick #1 — Hakeem Olajuwon (helped the Rockets win two championships, right?) — and the Blazers already has a swell man at the position that the next pick — Michael Jordan — played at, ie: Clyde Drexler.  Retrofitting a bit, the Blazers fan chomps and wonders what a Jordan — Drexler court would have been like, but clearly it wasn’t, so… GODDAMNED THAT CLYDE DREXLER.  He destroyed that franchise!
… Rooting for Laundry, as the saying goes…

Say… I hear that Tom Potter received a bit of booing at that Greg Oden welcome ceremony.  I wouldn’t take it too hard if I were Tom Potter.  This is a crowd that is not entirely representative of the city as a whole, and is full of people who think Potter is the only thing standing between the city of Portland and the godawful and futile idea of luring a major league baseball franchise to the city.  Also they remember Potter’s lousy body-language watching the first game of the Portland Trailblazer, clearly he didn’t want to be there — but then again, nobody else did either.

It appears that we have entered an era of 5 to 4 Court Rulings, the supposed “swing vote” shifting from a Judge Sandra Day O’Connor who had the tendency to attempt conciliation and compromise for majority opinions, to Judge Anthony Kennedy, who seems just to be one in a 5 to 4 voting block.

I do not think we have seen anything like this since the first term of the Franklin Roosevelt administration — and perhaps a bit into the second term until the conservatives on that bench saw that they were now outnumbered and that staying on to fight Roosevelt’s New Deal was pointless– and the terms of the court’s effect in shaping policy for years to come, check-mating any swings in the mood of the nation’s electorate for their representative democracy, looks to be comparable to the Roosevelt leaving with a Supreme Court selected entirely by him.

(Earlier thoughts on the situation that I wish to parlay forward but do not wish to repeat found here and here — the last sentence of that last post, I need to assert, was a joke.)
What I can say is that the Democrats’ argument regarding the Supreme Court dwindles to the idea that a 5-4 court decision is less movable than a 6-3 court decision.  Also a little less liable to pull purely partisan decisions — perhaps the worst of the Supreme Court Justices — Clarance Thomas — once said that he has narrowed his news sources to Rush Limbaugh, and if we ever see a court decision that allows someone like Bush to do what Nixon could not — say, claim executive privilege in not turning over documents — we know what is going on.  (But we’ve been there before.  What was that Court case?  Bush V Gore, I think it was called.)
The tedium found with the latest 5 to 4 ruling, concerning busing and school integration — one of the large focal points of the conservative backlash of the 1970s, and perhaps a problematic solution to an even more problematic situation — is that we can expect a slate of angry whites storming into courts throughout the nation, suing school districts for essentially racial reasons.
Keep in mind this, though, when thinking about this Supreme Court, as the nation squabbles over social issues:

This “has been our best Supreme Court term ever,” said Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s litigation group. Of the 15 cases decided this term in which the Chamber took a position, the court sided with the Chamber 13 times.

Maureen Mahoney, a Washington attorney who has argued cases before the justices, said the court under former Chief Justice William Rehnquist was famously favorable to business, “but we now know that the Roberts Court is even better.” Rehnquist served as chief for 19 years until his death in September 2005. He was replaced by John Roberts.

Consumer advocates say the court’s pro-business decisions have weakened protections for ordinary Americans in a variety of areas, from banking to retailing.

None of which are as sensational as “Bong Hits for Jesus”, a court case whose decision I have some problems with not so much on legal grounds (I’ll let you know when I obtain a doctorate degree in Law, pursuing the law to pull together a basis for my political opinions… and yes, that was a joke) as a gut level of how Justice Roberts called it, differentiating between political speech for, for example — stating opinions on pro – drug legalization, and “Pro Drug” messages that the school can control — the “Bong Hits for Jesus” banner. Meaning… students can’t be silly? Or, probably better yet, schools get to regulate and decide how a student may be silly.

I believe under Great Britain’s system of government, the House of Commons, and their elected Prime Minister, serves at behest of the Queen.  It’s purely symbolic and a historical anachronism, degenerating into laws of pomp and circumstance.  Nonetheless, the Queen could tell Gordon Brown to shove it, and perhaps if in a future epoch the Monarch decides to leverage its power under some nationalistic clings to Past Greatness, one will.