AddieStan

MSNBC is reporting that Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, once the darling of the Saudis and a leader of the U.S.-supported mujahadeen forces that defeated the Soviets, has issued a videotaped threat, which NBC says it obtained as an exclusive, calling on Afghans to revolt against the U.S. occupation. Specifically targeted is U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, according to the MSNBC Web site. Although the video is posted here , it has not yet been translated from Dari, the Afghan Persian dialect in which Hekmatyar, a Pashtun, made his appeal.

For those perplexed by the shuffle of the loyal John Snow out of the post of Treasury Secretary to make way for Hank Paulson, Glenn Kellis of Ob:Blog explains all : A friend will help you move... but a real friend will help you move a body . That's the message that today's booting of Treasury Secretary John Snow revealed....Bush needs to move a body... It's a big, fat body and it will take the biggest guns of Wall street and a piano case to disguise it from the public until after the midterm elections. This is a good one, mes cheris ; check it out . Whatever the outcome, it's a relief to finally have Snow's demise complete. It's been a George Raft death scene.

Honestly, mes amis , some mornings your blogstress just does not know what impels her to meet the light of day to examine the nation's news on behalf of her devotees. In the end, it may actually come from some overdeveloped sense of moral obligation. (Yes, bad girls can have morals.) This morning the papers tell us of the first truly onerous decision to come out of the court of Chief Justice John Roberts -- a 5 to 4 verdict against whistleblower protections for public employees. If the Bush administration hadn't succeeded well enough in chilling speech in the government workplace, this decision should finish the deal. Thank you, Justices Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito and Scalito. From the indefatigable Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times : Although several employee groups raised immediate alarms, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in fact contained the counterintuitive implication that employees might fare better by speaking out as "citizens" ...

This past weekend, Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul erupted in violence after a U.S. military convoy caused a major traffic collision that killed at least five people. More were killed in the violence that ensued, said by some to have encompassed some 2,000 rioters. Even though the U.S. military contends that troops shot only into the air, no explanation was offered for the dozens of people in a Kabul hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Among the dead -- reports range from between 14 to 20 killings -- was a seven-year-old boy. Carlotta Gall of The New York Times reports : Gunfire rang out as Afghan police officers and army soldiers tried to contain rioters who rampaged through the streets for about six hours, burning and looting a dozen offices, cars and police posts. By the end of the day at least 14 people were dead and more than 90 injured, hospital officials said. It was the bloodiest day in the capital since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. For an account from...

Over the course of the last several weeks, your blogstress has received a stream of e-mail in response to her May 5 essay at The American Prospect Online, which focused on a provocative advertisement about inclusion by the United Church of Christ that was rejected by the major television networks. Drawing particular attention was a single paragraph in your écrivaine 's piece -- an aside, a throwaway, really -- about her own experience of feeling rejected by her own church: In the Roman Catholic Church -- the church to which I was born -- a similar rite forms the central element of the celebration of Mass. At the Methodist service, I was beckoned to partake: "All are welcome at Christ's table," said the minister. In my own church, I am banned from receiving communion for multiple reasons (divorce, fornication, lack of commitment to the heterosexual lifestyle). No one ever asked me for my papers as I stepped up to the Communion rail, but my church's stance is ofte...

If you're not yet convinced, mes amis , that the executive branch has brought the reality of a police state to the federal level, consider this aside from Eggen's and VandeHei's piece on the tension between President Bush and House Speaker Hastert regarding the raid on Rep. Jefferson's offices: Another potential entanglement with the FBI arose yesterday when the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported that federal agents are seeking to interview top House members from both parties as part of an investigation into leaks about the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program to the New York Times. This is apparently part of the same probe that is targeting reporters for daring to publish or broadcast information about potential government lawbreaking passed to the journalists by sources. If the FBI was doing its job, mes cheris , it would be investigating the NSA for violating federal law with its warrantless domestic wiretapping. Of course, most of th...

So, with President Bush having arrived at his answer (as posted below) to the constitutional crisis now attending the FBI raid on the congressional offices of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), your blogstress humbly asks her devotees, "What's wrong with this picture?" Bush's solution to his fracas with House Speaker Dennis Hastert over the Justice Department's transgression of the Constitution's separation of powers was to place the material seized from Jefferson's office under seal with U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement who, according to the president , is not involved in the Jefferson probe. While that all may sound well and good, your cybertrix asks her readers to consider just what the solicitor general does (he argues the executive branch's cases before the Supreme Court) and to whom he reports (the attorney general of the United States, to whom the FBI director also reports). If you don't believe your Webwench (and why would you not...

Your blogstress is the first to admit that she has never been much of a fan of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. But these days, he is looking to her like more of a -- well, if not a hero, then at least an erstwhile defender of the most fundamental aspect of our Constitution: the separation of powers . It all began with the FBI's raid on the offices of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), who is alleged to have taken bribes from companies that were looking to do business in African nations where Jefferson had ties. While Jefferson is indeed looking like quite the bad egg, at issue is whether or not the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- an arm of the Department of Justice which is, in turn, part of the executive branch -- as the right to lay siege to the offices of the legislative branch, and remove materials from said offices. The Constitution pretty clearly implies, "uh-uh." Hastert has been leaning on the Bush administration to step in and restrain its attorney general a...

Unless his defense attorneys make a miracle happen on appeal, it looks as though Kenny Boy, as President Bush likes to call him, is going to be spending a long time in prison. The only better result would be if they would send him to a real prison -- not some Camp Cupcake . Lay's co-conspirator, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, has been spared of some seven or eight counts of insider trading, but he's been convicted of a dozen or so other felonious fraud counts. Now, will anybody look at the links between this massive fraud -- which cost thousand of people their retirement -- and the Bush presidential campaign . With Lay as a major fundraiser , the Bush campaign basically received a high level of donations from people who were flying high at the cost of the jobs of the rank and file, and the retirement income of investors and employees alike. Never mind the losses incurred by the havoc wreaked by Enron on the portion of the power grid that serves California.

CNN is reporting that a verdict in the Enron trial will be announced momentarily. Will former Enron CEO president Ken Lay, George Bush's #1 campaign contributor, face serious jail time?

After the ongoing expectation and subsequent daily disappointment of the unindicted status of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, your blogstress sees some glimmer of justice in yesterday's revelation by the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that Vice President Richard V. Cheney (the "V" stands for Vader; his cosmic first name being Darth, not Dick -- though the latter seems to suit him at least as well) may be called to testify as a government witness. Reporting from David Johnston in today's New York Times : On the issue of whether Mr. Cheney will testify, the brief said, "Contrary to defendant's assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial." Delicieux, mes amis, non? Well, not so fast. The guys on NPR are saying that this element of the brief filed yesterday by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is more a posture that says "Just try me" than an in...

Reading the news of the vote by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to move to the Senate floor the nomination of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to the post of director of central intelligence (DCI), your ordinarily serene blogstress is beside herself with emotion that veers from despair to fury. Vous et moi have been abandoned, mes amis , by the majority of Democrats on the intelligence committee who decided to support Hayden. They are: Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Carl Levin (Mich.) and Jay Rockefeller (W.V.). Hayden, you'll recall, is the architect of the Bush administration's domestic spying program -- the one of which he assured the nation was only directed at suspected terrorists who make calls to people overseas. That turned out to be a lie , of course, proven by the big USA Today story that reported the extent of telecom companies' involvement in the scheme, which was revealed to involve the government's snooping on the telephone t...

The attorney general of the United States said, on ABC's Sunday talk show, "This Week," that reporters who publish classified information will be prosecuted. According to the Associated Press (AP), Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to say whether or not the Justice Department would prosecute The New York Times for its December 2005 reporting that revealed the existence of a massive domestic spying program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) at the behest of President Bush. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected." Before rushing to the conclusion, mes amis , that Mr. Attorney General means only to protect your security and mine, your blogstress urges you to consider the fact that ...

Photo: 2005 © A.M. Stan for AFGE It's been a weekend of highs, lows and best-of-bad-choices for the good people of New Orleans -- including those in the Katrina diaspora. Those who might like to see the city take on a whiter character were dealt a setback this week with the re-election of Mayor Ray Nagin . Yet, given the mayor's performance during Hurricane Katrina, any large celebration would be premature. On a more distressing front, the city's congressman, Rep. William Jefferson, is being investigated for taking bribes, and the case against him looks pretty good. This couldn't come at a better time for those on the light side who would like to play the race card, since the bribes allegedly taken by Jefferson, an African-American, are said to have been for the securing of contracts between a Louisiana firm and African governments. In fact, the releasing of a previously sealed affidavit by the FBI, and a very dramatic raid on Jefferson's offices conducted this ...

If anything good is to come from the hype surround the movie version of the "Da Vinci Code," it is perhaps the mystery that surrounds the life of Mary of Magadala, who was arguably the most important disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. Although the movie reduces the importance of the Magdalene to her role as a breeder, the movie's release has given others the opportunity to delve deeper. In " An Inconvenient Woman ," Newsweek 's Jonathan Darman, together with collaborator Anne Underwood, offer, in this week's cover story, a succinct yet substantive history of the myth of Mary Magdalene, even as they explore possible historical truths. "The Da Vinci Code" seems to think that the secret tradition of Mary Magdalene speaks to the carnal. In reality, it tells of something far more subversive: the intellectual equality of the sexes. The current Magdalene cult still focuses on her sexuality even though no early Christian writings speak of her sexuality at...

This week, the newly formed Network of Spiritual Progressives met in Washington, D.C., to share insights among members and to eke out something like an agenda, according to Neela Banerjee of The New York Times : [A]t a session on ethical behavior, including sexual behavior, the 50 or so activists talked little about what to tell Congress about abortion or same-sex marriage. Instead, the Rev. Ama Zenya of First Congregational Church in Oakland, Calif., urged them to talk to one another about their spiritual values and "to practice fully our authentic being." Kimberly Crichton, a Washington lawyer and Quaker, grew impatient. "I think we would be more effective if we focused on specific legislation," Ms. Crichton said. "Are we going to discuss specific policies?" Ms. Zenya replied: "What we envisioned this time is saying we are a religious voice. More relationship-building, consciousness-raising." The man in the pew in front of Ms. Crichton transla...

In an e-mail exchange with your blogstress, her good friend, Phillip Coons of The Delusional Duck , writes: Forget what you read about the general and Rumsfeld being at odds or that special provisions will be written so that technically Hayden won't be in the DoD [Department of Defense] chain of command while serving as director. For the folks at the CIA to ever trust him, he has to shed the uniform. What do you think, mes amis ?

Can anybody tell your blogstress how the nomination of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to the directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) went, in the course of a day, from being " troubled " to " on track "? At his nomination hearing, Hayden consistently stonewalled on significant questions: detainees, NSA domestic spying and his role in such. (Of course, toi et moi will never know what he told the senators on double super-secret background in the closed session.) Your cybertrix believes that unless every Democrat on that committee votes "no" on moving this nomination to the floor, the idea of an opposition party is a cruel illusion. CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPT OF THE HEARING FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

On a different subject, a visit to The Delusional Duck yielded this overlooked tidbit on the criminal investigation of Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and his precessor, Gen. John Jumpers, for some funny business regarding a $49.9 million contract. Duck drew on the work of ABC's indefatigable Brian Ross for the goods. You'll recall that your blogstress had a conversation with Mr. Ross earlier this week for FishbowlDC in which Mr. Ross alleged that the government had turned anti-terrorism tools on reporters, including him.

Your blogstress's good friend, Phillip Coons of The Delusional Duck writes: Addie, I feel this is an important point! From Navy Times : Asked whether he is considering retiring from the military to take the CIA post, Hayden, dressed in his Air Force uniform bearing a host of medals, told the panel: “The fact that I have to decide what tie to put on in the morning doesn’t change who I am.” He said a more important issue was whether he could “bond” with those at the CIA. If the uniform “gets in the way of that, I’ll make the right decision.” CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPT OF THE HEARING FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

Although your blogstress would like to spend the rest of her day lolling about in her négligée , eating bon-bons and watching C-SPAN, other duties call -- and these blow-hards were supposed to have been in closed session by now. Your Webwench does, however, assure her devotees that she shall return later for a display of her customary wit as she dissects the remains of today's proceedings. CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPT OF THE HEARING FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

The Senate intelligence committee return from its lunchbreak not long ago, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) did one of those obnoxious, solicitous rounds of questioning for which he is famous. Here's your Webwench's paraphrase: General, did you approve this program because you wanted to pry in to the private lives of ordinary Americans? What's the guy gonna say. Indeed I did, Senator! CLICK HERE FOR A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF THE HEARING FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

Your blogstress could be wrong, but it seems to her that Gen. Hayden addressed neither Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) by their rightful titles. While the men who questioned the general were often addressed as "Senator," the only honorific he had for the women as "Ma'am." Looks like somebody needs a kick in the pants by a stiletto-heeled pump. CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPT OF THE PROCEEDINGS SO FAR FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

After being stonewalled by Gen. Hayden -- who declined to answer most of her questions in open session -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), apparently thinking she was off-mike, said, "He didn't answer any of them."

Under a grilling by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about the NSA's adherence (or not) to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, Hayden refuted the notion that searches may be conducted only by warrant. According to the amendment, Hayden said, and according to "relatives of mine who are in law school," (emphasis added by blogstress) the comma that comes between the clause between the protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures" and the one defining the terms of warrants means that a warrant is not necessary for a search that is deemed "reasonable" by the NSA. So let's get this right: Hayden is saying that he gets to decide what constitutes a reasonable search based on the judgment of law school students to whom he is related. Your Webwench is no constitutional scholar, but she suspects and absence of checks and balances in this scheme. Later, in trying to explain himself further to Sen. Feinstein, Gen. Hayden described the stan...

"Values are about following the law and doing what you say you are going to do....General, in evaluating your words, I now have trouble accepting your credibility..." --Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

Hayden seems to have just told Levin that the guidelines for prisoner treatment outlined by the Army Field Manual do not apply to the CIA.

In answer to a question from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Gen. Hayden disputed reporting in Sunday's New York Times that NSA lawyers had questioned the legality of the domestic spying the agency undertook under Hayden's leadership.

Levin could not get an answer from Gen. Hayden as to whether or not the news reports on domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) represent the whole of the program. He'll only say so in closed session, he says. Note that Levin wasn't asking what the program entails, just whether or not the full scope of the program has been revealed.

Gen. Hayden just told Sen. Kit Bond (R) that there is "easily documented evidence" that the the revelation of the NSA's domestic spying "has impacted the enemy." The general went on to say that the revelation means that now the U.S. will be catching mostly "dumb terrorists" because the smart ones have been tipped off. "It's Dawinian," he said. Does anybody really believe that before that revelation, the smart terrorists assumed nobody was listening?

To watch the Hayden nomination hearing in Real Player, click here .

Chairman Roberts to nominee Michael Hayden: ROBERTS: General, do you agree to appear before the committee here or in other venues when invited? HAYDEN: Yes, sir. ROBERTS: Do you agree to send Central Intelligence Agency officials to appear before the committee and designated staff when invited? HAYDEN: Absolutely, yes, sir. ROBERTS: Do you agree to provide documents or any material requested by the committee in order for it to carry out its oversight and its legislative responsibilities? HAYDEN: Yes, sir. ROBERTS: Will you ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency provide such material to the committee when requested? HAYDEN: Yes, sir. ROBERTS: Do you renounce Satan and all his works? HAYDEN: Yes, sir -- well, except for those that protect the lives of Americans in the War on Terror. All right, all right; your blogstress made that last part up.

Throughout today's hearing on the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to the post of director of central intelligence, your blogstress's devotees will hear references to a speech that Hayden delivered at the National Press Club in January, after The New York Times broke the news of NSA's domestic spying. Click here for the transcript of Hayden's National Press Club speech.

In his opening statement, Hayden said, "The CIA has got to get out of the news." Instead of blaming the CIA's celebrated problem-child status in the national news on internal leaks, Hayden might considering stopping the CIA from engaging in illegal activities like the U.S. of offshore, secret prisons where detainees are said to be tortured.

Your blogstress was intrigued by Gen. Hayden's paean, in his opening statement at his nomination hearing, to the man given the heave-ho whom the general was chosen to replace. Trying to appease Goss's pals on the Hill, perhaps?

Thank goodness for Michigan Senator Carl Levin who, in the Hayden hearing, is standing in for Jay Rockefeller, the committee's ranking Democratic member. Levin just essentially called the nation's attention to the lies the administration -- Hayden included -- has promulgated about the National Security Agency's widespread spying on Americans. While the administration has responded to last week's USA Today article on the massive database that, at the direction of Hayden, the NSA has created on the telephone traffic of virtually every American by saying, well, that's different from eavesdropping -- which the administration contends it is not doing on Jane and Joe Average. Not accepting the administration's framing of the issue, Levin argued not the merits of whether or not the American people mind their phone traffic being documented, but whether or not the American people have any reason to believe that that's all the administration is up to. Making his ...

Here's Chairman Roberts's idea of American values: "You have no civil liberties if you're dead." Of course, this nation was founded on Patrick Henry's cry, "Give me liberty or give me death."

At the Hayden nomination hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Ks.) opened by deriding critics of the NSA domestic spying program for "decrying a program about which they know nothing." Yeah, well, isn't that the point here? The administration, until yesterday, wouldn't even brief the congressional intelligence committees about this program so that they could administer the oversight with which the Congress is charged in the U.S. Constitution. Herewith the Roberts take: "...ignorance is no impediment for some critics."

At 9:30 EDT, the Senate will commence the nomination hearing of Gen. Michael C. Hayden to the post of Director of Central Intelligence. Stay tuned for priceless commentary from your blogstress. (For alerts to new AddieStan posts, subscribe to AddieStan's feed, and view through your favorite newsreader.)

Just in from the Associated Press: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- American and Afghan forces fought several battles with hundreds of Taliban militants in restive southern Afghanistan, and at least 57 insurgents, a dozen police officers and a Canadian soldier were killed, officials said Thursday. Are we paying attention yet?

As your blogtress writes this, the New York Stock Exchange composite (click on the "Indexes" tab in the box on the right) is down by 193 points and dropping. The sell-off is attributed to scary inflation numbers released earlier today, which show an increase of 0.6 percent, and an unexpected 0.3 percent for the ridiculous core inflation rate which, as explained by Glenn Kellis of Ob:Blog, excludes energy and food from its calculation. Your cybertrix prays that her readers have stashed something useful under the mattress.

Even as your blogstress writes, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees are being briefed by officials of the National Security Agency (NSA) about the administration's domestic spying programs. The NSA briefers are addressing the full committees, a development that represents a change from the leadership-only policy the administration had so adamantly adhered to for years. Today's move is widely seen as an attempt to save the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden, architect of the NSA's program of spying on Americans, to the post of director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose nomination hearing begins tomorrow before the Senate committee. Your Webwench will dilligently cover the hearings for her devotees, so stay tuned to AddieStan.com.

Check out your blogstress's tête-à-tête with ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross at FishbowlDC . It was Ross, you'll recall, who broke the story, earlier this week, of the government's spying on journalists.

Remember that limb on which your blogstress perched herself, overlooking the speculative media landscape? Well, down just came blogstress, Spandex and all. Your cybertrix had put her money on People magazine managing editor Martha Nelson to be the fixer of Time . She based this on an obviously poorly educated guess, since the buzz around the impending appointment was that the new leader of the venerable newsweekly would be a surprise, and would come from outside the magazine. Your écrivaine took this to mean that the new top Time ed would come from outside the magazine but within the ranks of Time Inc., since the Time Inc. corporate culture is famously insidey. Looking around up in the corner offices of the Time+Life Building, your blogstress found Ms. Nelson to be a likely choice, being the brilliant magazine editor that she is. (Not that your net-tête is sucking up, or anything.) "Outside the magazine" turned out to be a bit of a ruse, since the enigmatic Richard ...

Devotees of your blogstress will recall her puzzlement over President Bush's reference, in a commencement address last week at the Gulf Coast Community College in Biloxi, to a soldier who was killed "fighting terrorism" over "the Horn of Africa." Today comes word, thanks to the work of Emily Wax and Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post Foreign Service, that the U.S. is backing warlords in Somalia's civil war, ostensibly to prevent al Qaeda from taking root there: Africa researchers said they were concerned that while the Bush administration was focused on the potential terrorist threat, little was being done to support economic development initiatives that could provide alternative livelihoods to picking up a gun or following extremist ideologies in Somalia. Somalia watchers and Somalis themselves said there has not been enough substantial backing for building a new government after 15 years of collapsed statehood. "If the real problem is Somalia, the...

From The New York Times comes continuing coverage of the violations of the rights of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention. This is a story getting short shrift by the rest of the national media, but vitally important as the nation grapples with recent revelations about spying on Americans and the reporters who serve their interests. From today's Times : F.B.I. Is Seeking to Interview Jailed Activists By AL BAKER Published: May 17, 2006 As part of a continuing criminal civil rights investigation of the New York Police Department, the F.B.I. is seeking to interview protesters who were arrested in 2004 during the Republican National Convention and then had the charges against them dimissed. Investigators are specifically seeking one protester whose case prompted the federal inquiry. Question is, will protesters whose rights have already been violated in their attempt to exercise their constitutional rights trust the FBI -- the agency currently busying itself vio...

Admiral Stansfield Turner (ret.), in a surprising commentary on NPR's Morning Edition , today urged the Senate not to confirm the appointment of General Michael Hayden to the post of CIA director -- if Hayden maintains his previously stated contention that it is legal for the government to eavesdrop on the phone calls of Americans without a warrant. Turner served in CIA's top spot under President Jimmy Carter. NPR will post audio of the commentary at 10:00 AM.

One reporter, whom your blogstress could not identify, asked the president's new press secretary something like this: Why won't you address the USA Today story on the NSA's use of the phone records of ordinary Americans? Snow's reply? "Because it's inappropriate."

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting BellSouth's assertion that it did not turn over records to the NSA, and that the company "has no evidence," in the AP's words, of a contract with the super-secret spy agency: The regional Bell, which offers telecommunication services in nine Southeastern states, said Monday it had conducted a ''thorough review'' and established that it had not given the National Security Agency customer call records. On Thursday, USA Today expanded on earlier reports by other news agencies of a massive database of the nation's phone call and e-mail traffic being amassed by the National Security Agency. The USA Today piece claimed that Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T had all turned over phone records to the NSA, but that Qwest Communications had refused.

Amid all the intrigue about the FBI monitoring the calls of reporters, the NSA monitoring the calls of the rest of us, and the vice president's handwritten talking points that apparently led to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, your blogstress has found it difficult to concentrate on bigger things, like what the heck is going on with the global economy? Oh, mes amis , do not groan. Your loving Webwench promises to make this painless, and perhaps even amusing. But she asks your forbearance as she begins with a rather dry report in yesterday's New York Times : Under U.S. Pressure, China Allows Yuan to Gain By KEITH BRADSHER Published: May 15, 2006 HONG KONG, May 15 — China allowed its currency to strengthen today past the psychologically significant level of 8 to the dollar for the first time since 1994, in a concession to political pressures from Washington and the dollar's own weakness. The actual rise in the currency, known as the yuan or renminbi, was tiny: not...

Screen capture from Crooks and Liars Here he goes...he wants us to know that he's met people like us...people whose parents or grandparents came over from the old country. Of course, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to exploit the story of a man, a Latino, a non-citizen and U.S. Marine, who was wounded in the Iraq conflict (which the president convinced the country to accept based on a pack of lies.) Your blogstress, though of immigrant stock, knew only the U.S.-born generations of her family. But of his grandfather, who fled to America to escape conscription in the tzar's army, le père de la blogstresse , discussing the current debate over immigrants, said, "When my grandfather wanted to come over, all he had to do was get on the boat." Of course, that's when the nation was desperate for factory workers, and before unions won a minimum wage and an eight-hour day for workers. Today, an employer would have to give a documented worker overtime after eight ...

What with the soldiers, the drones, the satellite cameras, the motion detectors, the biometric devices, your blogstress wonders, are they trying to keep the Mexicans out, or preparing the infrastructure for keeping the rest of us in?

It will be technology, the president implies, that will really solve the illegal immigration program. We'll use drones, aerial photography and motion sensors. Yesterday, on "Meet the Press," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for a worker program authenticated by biometric means, such as retinal scans. Sounds like a boon for the nation's defense contractors, no? (Hey, isn't that the sector where the Bahrainis finally got a contract?)

The president is insisting that the National Guard will not be used in a law enforcement capacity at the Southern Border. So, then, what will they be doing? Building the fence? Filling out paperwork? What?

For decades now, says the president, America has failed to take full control of its border. And guess what? adds your blogstress. We never will.

While the wags wag away about the future of Time magazine, they have fixated on word from the honchos that the successor to Time editor Jim Kelly, who is said to be on his way out, will "come from the outside." And so the inevitable names of Tina Brown and Adam Moss are being bandied about. Your blogstress, however, speculates that while the magazine's new editor may well come from outside the magazine, this person may very well be lurking amid the upper ranks of Time Inc. And it will be a surprise -- no one will have seen this one coming. Of course, your cybertrix is way out on a limb here, but she suspects that Time is on her side. Need a hint: Tell Barbra Streisand to tune up her pipes and start warbling her theme song.

Cheney asks Libby, on a copy of Wilson's op-ed piece, if Wilson was sent "on a junket by his wife," CIA operative Valerie Plame. The notated newspaper clipping was entered into evidence on Friday by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It was Vice President Richard V. Cheney, we learned yesterday , who pushed the National Intelligence Agency (NSA) into its data-mining venture on the phone calls of virtually every American, according to The New York Times . According to the Times 's Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau, only too happy to do the vice president's bidding was Gen. Michael Hayden, the president's nominee for CIA director -- despite the reticence of the NSA's attorneys. From Shane and Lichtblau: For his part, Mr. Cheney helped justify the program with an expansive theory of presidential power, which he explained to traveling reporters a few days after The Times first reported on the program last December. Mr. Cheney traced his views to his service...

Well, whattaya know? Moammar Qaddafi is our friend. That's right, mes amis , Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice has announced that the United States of America is normalizing its relations with oil-rich Libya, the North African land of the nomadic Bedouin tribes, once known to Americans primarily as a haven for terrorists. Most notably, Libya was implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 , which killed everybody on board. MSNBC quotes Secretary Rice as follows: “We are taking these actions in recognition of Libya's continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism and the excellent cooperation Libya has provided to the United States and other members of the international community in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement. Wonder who's getting the contract to build the new embassy the U.S. plans to erect in Tripoli. (Halliburton? Bechtel?)

Visit the breakaway republic this evening during the president's speech for your blogstress's real-time commentary. Advance word is that he will call for militarizing the U.S. border .

From Tim Caggiano , your blogstress's comrade in creative chaos, comes this missive, written in response to last Sunday's Spirit feature , which focused on Curtis White's genius piece in the April issue of Harper's , titled "The Spirit of Disobedience: An Invitation to Resistance." On the extreme right we have the fear-mongering people of the word -- the church, the legal dogmatists and fundamentalists avec/sans head wrap. Take B-16 [Pope Benedict XVI],who early in his reign took troubles to denounce situationalists or anyone else with a little intellectual imagination. On the liberal left we have rationalist, humanist, big-D Democrats with utopian sugarplums a-dance in their heads. Some good ideas -- but, oh, those pesky unforseen circumstances. What's a mother to do? Well why not dredge the Bible, starting from jump. Adam and Eve get the boot from Eden for being too big for their intellectual britches. Trying to play God, for God's sake. Would that ...

Earlier this week, the Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert brought a tear to your blogstress's eye as he finished a New Testament quotation begun by his guest, former Secretary of State Madeliene Albright. If you've managed to escape seeing Albright interviewed this week, you are surely not watching political TV, mon ami , and are probably doing something quaint like reading a newspaper or watching Spike. As you may have guessed, Albright is promoting her new book, The Mighty and the Almighty , a tome about religion and the state. In this role, Albright has proven herself to be as charming as she is quick on her feet, and her dance with Stephen Colbert on last Thursday's Colbert report was one of the most entertaining bits of television your cybertrix has seen in some time. Your Webwench invites you to watch the video on the Comedy Central site. Herewith, your net-tête 's very own transcription of her favorite bit from the interview (what your écrivaine won...

In a day as filled with spying and intrigue as this, your blogstress finds herself loosening her stays so as to avert a case of the vapors. The Washington Post is reporting that the FBI conducted, this morning, a search of the home of Dusty Foggo , the CIA big caught up in the defense contract bribery (with a side of hookers and tobacco) scandal. If Patrick FitzGerald wants to get some TV glory for his said-to-be-impending indictment of Karl Rove, he'd best wait until next week, n'est-ce pas ?

Most disturbing, thinks your blogstress, is today's news from the Washington Post that a majority of Americans appear to be down with the NSA's snooping of their phone traffic. In writing his piece on the poll, reporter Richard Morin is careful to note the results as an initial reaction from the public. However, still to be determined is whether the poll would have a different result if the public was aware that the snooping is being done without court warrants in apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment. In earlier polls on the program -- before yesterday's revelation of the full scope of the spying on regular Americans -- respondents said they approved of the NSA's domestic spying. But when asked if they were okay with it being done without the required warrants, the public said it was not .

Your blogstress's pretty head is spinning, what with the torrent of revelations of executive-branch intrigue and corruption filling the front pages of the nation's newspapers today. So vast is the conspiracy landscape that what would have been, on another day, an A-list story -- the tale of the CIA's former No. 3 involved in what appears to be a bribery scandal involving prostitutes and cigars (did they learn nothing from Bill Clinton about the dangerous combination of sex and cigars?) -- has been pushed down on the list by the story of the Bush administration's spying on virtually every American. However, a brilliant bit of writing on the Goss scandal legacy in today's New York Times should not be missed. Herewith the opening graf of the article, from reporter Mark Mazzetti, Career C.I.A. Figure Is at Eye of Scandal : In a scandal featuring a cast of characters with nicknames like Nine Fingers and Duke, a former C.I.A. undercover operative called Dusty has becom...

Gen. Hayden just uttered his first public words since news broke in USA Today of the NSA's spying on virtually every American whose phone records it could access -- phone records that now comprise what is described as the largest database in the world. Emerging from a meeting with Sen. Mitch McConnell, Hayden was asked by an offscreen reporter to speak to "the legality of the measures taken by the NSA" in its domestic spy program. Hayden abruptly shut the reporter down, saying that everything the NSA does is legal -- perhaps, following the Nixon adage, because the president says it is. Meanwhile, as your blogstress toils over her iBook, President Bush is addressing the graduating class of Biloxi's Gulf Coast Community College. During the course of his speech, Mr. Bush lauded a mother-and-son team who are both graduating today, and who lost a respective son and brother "while fighting terrorists over the Horn of Africa." Your cybertrix had missed the U.S....

Your blogstress agrees with Matt Stoller that Qwest Communications deserves to be rewarded for its lonely position as the one telecom that refused to provide the National Security Agency (NSA) with the customer information the agency was demanding for the domestic spying program it conducts for the White House. Qwest is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Here's its latest earnings report . (Do be aware, dear readers that the company is not entirely pristine. The last CEO left after admitting that he had misrepresented earnings.) Depending on where you live, you may also be able to procure your long-distance service from Qwest , or use them as an ISP.

At Americablog, John Aravosis calls our attention to the revelation, unveiled last night by USA Today , that the White House domestic spy program, conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA), is worse than most have feared, and its scope stands in direct contradiction to President Bush's assertion that only calls and e-mails that involved one overseas party were targeted. Non, mes amis, non! Qui est le target de ce programme? Vous, mes amis, vous! That's right, darlings, there's not an American who's not in the NSA's sights. And it's all been done with the cooperation of telephone service providers -- with one notable exception: Qwest, the Colorado-based telecom. However, if your service is provided by AT&T, Verizon or BellSouth, you're totally screwed. As part of his post, Mr. Aravosis provides handy links to instructions for encrypting your e-mail. It's really come to that. Can't wait to find out what Gen. Michael Hayden, who oversaw...

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting on some juicy e-mails between the convicted felon Jack Abramoff, once the GOP's uberlobbyist, and the indicted former White House aide David Safavian. The unprecedented removal of Safavian, by then administrator of federal procurement policy at White House Office of Management and Budget, from his office in handcuffs has received scant attention compared to the sexier Rove and Abramoff stories, but this week the media seem to be connecting the dots to find the three all tied together. According to the AP, on the very day that the Washington Post broke the Abramoff story, Safavian reached out to the black-hatted-Jack with offers of help: 'Let me know if there is anything I can do to help with damage control,'' David Safavian, who is now under indictment, messaged Abramoff on Feb. 22, 2004. At the time, Safavian was working at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He later became administrator of federal procurement po...

Just posted at The New York Times online edition : Fed Raises Key Rate to Highest Level in 5 Years By VIKAS BAJAJ Published: May 10, 2006 The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates to 5 percent today, from 4.75 percent, and said that it may need to raise borrowing costs further in the coming months to contain inflation. [...] The Fed, whose chairman Ben S. Bernanke recently told Congress that policy makers might take a break in an effort so it can gather and analyze more economic data, was more equivocal today about its inclinations but tried to leave its options open. To understand exactly what that means, your blogstress suggests you check out this post from the Mogambo -- the favorite writer of your cybertrix's foxy friend, Glenn Kellis of Ob:Blog. Mogambo on today's move by the Fed: The Federal Reserve is still increasing Total Fed Credit, which increases credit in the banks, which increases loans, which increases the money supply, which increases prices, ...

In Newark, New Jersey, the largest city in your blogstress's home state -- and the nation's second poorest, according to The New York Times -- change has trumped prejudice with the election of Corey Booker as mayor, withstanding homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-intellectual goading from Newark's longtime mayor and godfather, Sharpe James. In an attempt to exploit against Baker, a Rhodes scholar, prejudices he presumed to be common among the city's denizens, Newark's 20-year leader had accused the Baptist, African-American and apparently heterosexual Baker of being Jewish, gay and not black enough. Kudos to the good people of Newark for not buying into this basest of appeals. The 37-year-old Booker, whose record of political accomplishment is thin, has quite a job ahead of him in a city blighted by poverty, corruption and a 40-percent high-school drop-out rate. But Newark is truly one of the nation's great cities -- full of beautiful buildings, active church...