Stunning bureaucrat you're so fucking lost
Signing the letters and cutting the costs


Barnaby Furnas, John Brown, 2005

* New York Times: Mr. Gonzales’s Incredible Adventure. excerpt:

"There were many fascinating threads to the testimony on Tuesday by the former deputy attorney general, James Comey, who described the night in March 2004 when two top White House officials tried to pressure an ailing and hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft into endorsing President Bush’s illegal wiretapping operation.

"But the really big question, an urgent avenue for investigation, is what exactly the National Security Agency was doing before that night, under Mr. Bush’s personal orders. Did Mr. Bush start by authorizing the agency to intercept domestic e-mails and telephone calls without first getting a warrant?

"Mr. Bush has acknowledged authorizing surveillance without a court order of communications between people abroad and people in the United States. That alone violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Domestic spying without a warrant would be an even more grievous offense.

"The question cannot be answered because Mr. Bush is hiding so much about the program. But whatever was going on, it so alarmed Mr. Comey and F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller that they sped to the hospital, roused the barely conscious Mr. Ashcroft and got him ready to fend off the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, and Mr. Bush’s counsel, Alberto Gonzales. There are clues in Mr. Comey’s testimony and in earlier testimony by Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Ashcroft’s successor, that suggest that Mr. Bush initially ordered broader surveillance than he and his aides have acknowledged.

"Mr. Comey said the bizarre events in Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room were precipitated by a White House request that the Justice Department sign off on a continuation of the eavesdropping, which started in October 2001. Mr. Comey, who was acting attorney general while Mr. Ashcroft was ill, refused. Mr. Comey said his staff had reviewed the program as it was then being run and believed it was illegal.

"So someone at the White House (and Americans need to know who) dispatched Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital bed. Mr. Ashcroft flatly refused to endorse the program, Mr. Comey said. Later, he said, Mr. Bush agreed to change the wiretapping in ways that enabled Justice to provide a legal rationale. Mr. Comey would not say why he opposed the original program — which remains secret — or how it was changed.
...
"While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2006, Mr. Gonzales was asked if Mr. Comey had expressed reservations about the eavesdropping program. Mr. Gonzales replied, 'There has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed.' By that, he must have meant the program that included modifications made after the hospital visit and after Mr. Comey’s meeting with Mr. Bush.
...
"The Republican-controlled Congress did a disservice to the nation by refusing to hold Mr. Bush to account for the illegal wiretapping. The current Congress should resume a vigorous investigation of this egregious abuse of power."

* John Phillips' She's Just 14.

One reviewer claims "John recorded a song called ‘she's just 14’ that was inspired by trying to kick a bathroom door in at a party because inside that bathroom Mick Jagger was fucking his fourteen year old daughter Mackenzie." another reviewer claims Mackenzie was 18 when she and Mick got together, noting that Mick had told her at the outset of the liaison he'd been waiting for this moment since she'd been ten.

Regardless, the band on the recorded track included keith richards, mick taylor, ron wood and the production was by keith and mr jagger himself. John recorded a whole album with the Stones but it wasn't released until fairly recently, as Pay Pack and Follow.

* "I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers." -- Howard Zinn

* In DC? Tonight at The Red and The Black (1212 H Street NE): The Foreign Press, with Hammer No More the Fingers (North Carolina) and Barkitechture (Arlington). 9pm. $8.