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A gentleman by the name of Tom Flocco is reporting that the president and vice-president have been indicted by a Chicago grand jury. Needless to say, the “Bush-hating” mainstream media is all over this one, because those liberal reporters just hate hate hate our glorious conservative president:

BUSH AND CHENEY INDICTED

A Chicago grand jury has indicted the President and Vice-President of the United States along with multiple high officials in the Bush administration

U.S. federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s Chicago grand jury has issued perjury and obstruction of justice indictments to the following members of the Bush Administration: President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney, Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former Senior Cheney advisor Mary Matalin.

There were no indications given as to whether the President and his top staff members would appear publicly before cameras at the grand jury proceedings, given the gravity of the charges.

Besides the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, the Fitzgerald probe is reportedly far-reaching and expanding much deeper into past White House criminal acts involving Bush-Clinton drug money laundering in Mena, Arkansas to White House involvement in 9.11; but also for sending America’s young people to their deaths or to be maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretenses.

Interestingly enough, the U.S. Attorney’s office first stated that it had no comment, then commented that its OFFICE hadn’t issued any indictments. Which, of course, says absolutely nothing about whether the GRAND JURY issued them. Despite the heavy coverage on CNN and Fox, Citizen Spook decided to check it out:

CS: “Who am I speaking with?

Female assistant: “I’m not giving you any names for anybody here.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any indictments?”

She hung up.

I called the main number again, and asked for Richard Sanborn’s, was transferred and got the same female assistant on the phone:

Female assistant: “I told you we have no comment to your question.”

CS: “But I have more than one question.”

Female Assistant: “And we cannot comment, I have to go.”

CS: “Please don’t hang up, the duty paralegal said your office was the only place to go for a comment. And I understand you can’t comment, and I’ll respect that, but I have to get you on the record as saying ‘no comment’ to the questions I have, and not just a blanket answer. I understand you can’t comment, but will you please allow me to ask the questions, and if you’re answer is ‘no comment” that’s fine, I won’t press you, but please let me ask the questions so we can understand what you’re saying ‘no comment’ to.

Female assistant: “What’s your question, sir?”

CS: “Regarding Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, has the US Attorney presented any Indictments to the grand jury for deliberations?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Is the grand jury currently deliberating over any indictments?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any true bills?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any not true bills?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any bills of ignoramus?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has your office issued any Indictments?”

Female assistant: “This office has not issued any indictments.”

This is not a Ben Shapiro column, this is just a tribute.

I’m a Midwestern boy, born and bred. I’ve lived in host of very small cities of which you’ve probably never heard, sometimes near live animals. Even though my parents are from the East Coast, the closest I’ve ever come to big city living is watching Friends. The friends often visit a coffee shop called Central Perk, which is a very clever play on words because it is located next to Central Park in New York City. So when I was invited by my uncle’s cousin’s friend’s family to visit San Francisco, I was very excited.

Many people in flyover country like to look down on people in blue state country, because they are all going to Hell. It’s no surprise that our preacher paints inhabitants of the East Coast and the West Coast as pagan, often evil, straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah. Anyone who says “cah” instead of car or has a name ending in a vowel is labeled unamerican by those in the Midwest. Looking down on coastal dwellers gives lots of Midwesterners a sense of superiority, secure in their knowledge that they are more righteous, less likely to impregnate a 14 year-old Vietnamese immigrant and more decent than the disease-ridden people in the urban hellholes. After all, out in Rochester and Fargo there are boys who don’t call each other “dog”, milk delivery services and churches where the pastor still believes in God. What could be nicer?

Well, after spending a few days in the city by the Bay, it’s even clearer to me that the Midwestern elitists have everything upside down. Here are just a few of the lessons I learned from folks who live on the coasts:

Looking people in the eye isn’t a crime. Just the other day, a very muscular man with a mustache wearing a police hat and a sleeveless leather vest was staring at me. When he saw me notice him, he gave me a big smile and invited me to a dance party. Wasn’t that nice!

You don’t have to keep your distance, friend! In the Midwest, people don’t like to touch each other, especially men. Here in the friendly big city, people will greet each other with hugs, even kisses sometimes. Those mustaches sure tickle! But I think one very ugly woman who was wearing fishnet stockings might have overdone it a little when she grabbed my behind and asked if I’d ever played Wheelbarrow before.

There’s plenty of time. There’s always a pot of coffee on at my parent’s house, and that Norwegian black tar sure can keep you up at night. But my new friends at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge have turned me on to something that works even better. Two hits of their homemade crystal meth and suddenly you feel like there’s 48 hours in the day!

Tune in next week, when young Mr. Shapiro reports his exciting new discovery that south of the border, a strange and incomprehensible language called “Espanol” is being spoken by the short, brown-skinned natives.

From the Washington Post:

Former State Department counterterrorism official Larry C. Johnson reported on his blog yesterday that the Global War on Terrorism, or GWOT, or The WOT, “may still be alive.”

A couple months ago, our colleague, Susan B. Glasser, reported that the Bush administration was undertaking a major review of its strategy on counterterrorism, and that officials wanted to change the name GWOT to something like GSAVE — Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. That would take into account the changed nature of the battle against international terrorism.

“GWOT is catchy,” a senior administration official said then, “but there may be a better way to describe it.”

In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 10 days ago spoke about a “global struggle against violent extremism [GSAVE].”

Apparently nobody told President Bush. At a White House meeting of senior officials Monday, Johnson wrote, “Bush reportedly said he was not in favor of the new term… In fact, he said, ‘no one checked with me.’ That comment brought an uncomfortable silence to the assembled group of pooh-bahs. The president insisted it was still a war as far as he is concerned.”

By yesterday, Rumsfeld was back to GWOT in his prepared remarks to a Dallas business group.

So we’re back to warring against method. Yeah, George Delano is going to be ranked up there with Alexander, Napoleon and J. Freaking Caesar, isn’t he.

Forget the Vietnam comparisons. I’m beginning to get the idea that Vietnam is going to look like a success story compared with this historical debacle. No amount of low-level jihadist-killing in Iraq is going to accomplish anything whilst the president is saluting the accession of his good friend, King Abdullah, to the head of the Wahhabist House of Saud.

Meanwhile, we lost 21 of our best in three days this week. I’d be surprised if we lost that many troops to combat in the German and Japanese occupations combined. Unsurprisingly, you don’t hear a lot about those historical comparisons anymore from the administration’s cheerleaders, do you.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the writers and editors at what is supposedly the staunch bulwark of right-wing thought, The National Review, are apparently much fonder of reading and quoting The Huffington Post than WorldNetDaily?

WND isn’t for everyone, to be sure, but it’s much more widely read and breaks far more news than the irritating Greek lady’s latest toy. Now, I understand that it’s important to know what is going on with the other side, but I do find NRO’s incessant links to the Huffer Puffer to be remarkable. All the more so after trying to slog my way through one or two of them.

Naked Man With Sword Chases Complaining Neighbors

JB agrees, even though it’s pointless:

Finally! A columnist with the intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade. I’ve been angry watching our performance in Iraq ever since “major combat operations” were declared “over” by the president. You are correct. There is no war on terror, and there never has been. One way you can tell is that there is absolutely NO offensive strategy to obtain victory. We’ve been fighting this “war on terror” almost as long as we fought in WWII. Too bad Americans are just so comfortable that they accept any spin from the administration these days…. Several months ago, the president goofed in an interview with Brian Williams (I think) and said that the war on terror is not winnable. Of course, the next day he explained in the media that he misspoke and that we certainly will win the war on terror….

Oh, well…. Thanks for calling it like it really is, I really enjoy your columns because you have courage. No one is really listening, but I appreciate your efforts.

It’s been said that a gaffe is when one accidentally speaks the truth. As for no one listening, that’s the price you pay for not sticking to the script.

Dread treads a trail of tears:

I’m wasting my time with you and apparently many on this blog. If people will not wake by now, F___ it! The republic is apparently dead. Nobody really cares anymore about the truth. Asking asinine rhetorical questions is enough evidence for me that this nation does’nt WANT to get a clue.

To expect people who have been operating under a given set of assumptions for their entire lives to suddenly throw it away simply because several pieces of public information do not add up is unreasonable. If you subscribe to an opinion, however factually based, that is out of the mainstream, you have to expect that very, very few people are going to agree with you, by definition.

People today are very accustomed to believing whatever the government tells them and they are unaccustomed to thinking for themselves. This is why your neighbor can insist that his stocks are going to go up because inflation is low, then chortle about how the value of his house has increased 50 percent in two years before complaining about the $2.39 price of gas and the $1.19 chili cheese burrito at Taco Bell. Despite the preponderance of evidence before his own eyes, he still believes in the official CPI number even though he has no idea what it is or how it is related to real inflation.

People mock the unfamiliar for three reasons. One, they are absolutely sure of their position and know they have no need to defend it. This seldom applies to conspiracy-related issues, since the vast majority of people on the planet are in no position to know anything. Two, they have so little grounds to defend their position that there is little else they can say and still participate in the discussion. Three, they are secretly afraid that the other party is correct and they are attempting to avoid giving the matter serious consideration.

I don’t expect most people to see things how I do. They simply aren’t capable of it, having neither the historical knowledge nor the emotional distance even if they have the intellect. This surely sounds arrogant, but then, my track record speaks for itself, those errant stock market expectations notwithstanding. Also, for the most part people do not wish to see things how they truly are, and I can’t say that I really blame them. Mankind has a long history of accepting the status quo, and the reason we lionize martyrs and heroes is that so few of us are capable of emulating their courage.

The key to avoiding frustration is to appreciate the value of winning over a single mind. I may not be capable of instigating significant change for the better, but perhaps someone else whose mind has been opened to the truth of things will be. The mockers will always be there, but they are merely expected background noise and should be of no more concern to anyone than the birds chirping outside your window.

The administration gestured and David Frum barked. Now he’s rethinking the wisdom of lapdoggery:

This over at the FT [Financial Times] is rather more disturbing. The story deals with the emerging attempt within the Bush administration to rename the “Global War on Terror” as the “Struggle Against Violence Extremism.” When I first heard the new term, I thought it had a lot to recommend it. I was cheered to note that Victor Davis Hanson thought so too, and for similar reasons: The new language seemed to expand the problem from the what of terrorism to the who behind the terrorism.

Okay, anyone who actually thought this latest bit of incompetence by the Bush administration had a lot to recommend it should be forced to turn in his pundit’s card immediately. This is a level of monumental cluelessness usually only approached by Maureen Dowd. Now, I understand that it is very, very difficult for the Three Monkeys – even a single-issue Three Monkey like VDH whose work I generally like – to admit to the mere possibility that St. George’s jihad is less than divinely inspired, supremely strategized and brilliantly realized.

But still… if you did not respond to the announcement of The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism with at least a snort of disbelief, if not a contemptuous guffaw and shake of the head, then you need to have your head examined. If you’re still supporting administration and its conduct of the war – sorry, I meant to say struggle – the mere fact that its loudest cheerleaders are thinkers of this abysmal quality may make you want to reconsider a few things yourself.

What was once tragic but arguably necessary has been transformed into parody piled on top of farce.

Hollywood, as always, is full of merde:

FX’s new drama OVER THERE about an Army unit in Iraq is well produced and visually arresting but takes a sharp left turn from reality. After watching the Pilot episode of ‘Over There,’ I conclude that the only thing they got right were the uniforms which, right down to the black socks used to cover goggles, were spot on.

Unfortunately, the costume designer is the only person who seems to have actually studied the war, pictures of the war or video of the war. As someone who has been over there it was easy to see that if Steven Bochco hired a military consultant, he didn’t pay attention to him or, if they did listen to him, that consultant should be fired. In Bochco’s depiction of the war, the tactics are wrong, the dialogue is wrong, the set-ups are wrong and the scenarios are ridiculous….

In the fake war on FX, a high-tech communications unit is brought in to transmit the negotiations. In the real war, this would result in a secure coil/compound being set up. With the addition of another Platoon sized element and possibly an outer cordon.

In the real war, one, five-man fire team would not be the only grunts on the scene. A fire team may be in an area off on their own for a while, but once the bullets started flying, every swinging soldier in the area would be converging on the action.(1)

In the FX war, the soldiers are given orders to advance towards the building. So, in keeping with the ‘reality’ of this ‘gripping’ drama, they all stand up on-line and walk towards the building. Wrong.

A fire team advancing over open terrain towards a building they took fire from would be in 10 yards sprints, one team member at a time.

Finally, there is the shoot-out. The terrorists rush out of the buildings in a mob and the Hollywood tacticians have members of the fire-team rush at them as if recreating a scene from Braveheart.

In real life, the grunts would just sit back and pick the terrorists off. But, evidently that isn’t dramatic enough for FX.

What’s annoying is that the producers and their defenders will tell you that it’s necessary to highlight sex, violence and foul language because it’s “true to life”. But the truth is that whenever reality gets in the way of what they want to show, they toss it out the window without thinking twice.

From the Telegraph, via NRO’s Corner:

“A wealth of evidence has come to light to show how, over the next two decades, the British Army will have been almost wholly reorganised and re-equipped as part of the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), directed from Brussels, using equipment supplied almost entirely by other countries in the EU. No longer will it be technically or politically possible for Britain’s Armed Forces to fight independently, or in alliance with those of the US. Yet the scale and the speed of this astonishing transformation has been deliberately concealed by the Ministry of Defence – to the point where British firms are being instructed to buy foreign-made defence equipment which can be relabelled to look as though it is British-made…Britain’s abandonment of its military co-operation with the US in favour of integration with our European “partners” has been prompted by the forthcoming revolution in warfare centred on satellites, electronics, and a new generation of vehicles, unmanned aircraft and weapons systems. Almost across the board, the MoD is turning its back on joint defence projects with the US, even where these involve British firms, in favour of equipment supplied or developed by firms in France, Germany, Italy and Sweden.”

You may wish to keep this in mind this as NAFTA+CAFTA morphs insensibly into the American Union. It wasn’t all that long ago when people told me that I was being paranoid by insisting that the European Common Market was a dictatorial political entity in the making – it’s just a free trade zone, they protested, that’s all. They’re not saying that anymore.

I seem to recall a certain saying about fooling someone twice….