I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Keep the pressure on. The nut has to crack sometime.
I was frist... but my post was irretrievably damaged when I transferred it from the microfilm.
I swear.
Shorter Rove: Hmmm, well, I know you guys are just not going to believe this, but, guess what? See, it seems that there's been a terrible fire in Texas and, strange as it may seem, they were able to put the fire out, but not until it, most unfortunately, burned all of Bush's records in Texas.
Shorter Scottie: Helen, I'll come back to you in a minute.
Here's the really interesting possibility: that they discover that the microfiche in TEXAS was ALSO "accidentally" destroyed.
My guess is that it would only be easier for the Bush team to pull that off than it would have been to do the like in Denver.
I'd almost be willing to place a bet that we're going to find out that two separate dogs will have eaten his records.
Imagine what a coincidence it will be when those Texas microfilms are found to have been "accidentally" destroyed -- nobody in our media will dare to raise an eyebrow.
Fuck, I hate what has happened to my country.
Shorter George Bush: I was going to turn in my records, but the dog ate my administration.
I have a copy of the .swf for that JibJab flash cartoon that's really getting attention. Email me if you want a copy. (must have flashplayer or flash itself to view the .swf)
jack
frankly0: I'd almost be willing to place a bet that we're going to find out that two separate dogs will have eaten his records.
Heh! The same pack o' dogs that ate Chalabi's multiple hard drives, in Baghdad and London, that had databases detailing the "oil-for-food scandal."
.
Note to self - it was a mistake to make a big deal about getting that Whoopi Goldberg video...
The American people are safer!
Those records came from federal records clearinghouses. Texas law requires separate record keeping for state National Guard service, and those records should exist on microfilm in Austin, the AP said.
whoopsie! whaddya know, those are gone too! Darn! Shit happens!
My taste buds are tingling and bursting with the flavor of my own ripe and tangy anus!
Will the definitive information ever be revealed? I doubt it. This story will die like all the rest of the Bush adm scandals.
Let's keep our collective fingers crossed, though!
George Bush: Fire the Associated Press!
Maybe they cannot make a copy of the microfiche because that will destroy the original microfiche? I've heard that somewhere before...
Hmm, from what I know about microfilm from the 60-70s:
1) It is safety film, so it won't break apart or fuse like early nitrate stock.
2) Being microfilm, you can easily examine "fragments" under a microscope
3) Even film that has gotten wet and dried can be salvaged. About the only thing that will destroy it is fire.
Why does the press buy the "destroyed" argument? Don't they realize the above? Can we get an archivist or librarian to talk to the press? Will the other copies also be "destroyed" or "lost"?
anyone follow(ing) through on the idea someone else posted here several days back, to FOI a copy of aWol's tax return from that year and sort of reverse engineer how much $ he was paid from the TX ANG on those missing pay records?
just curious...
I'm no doubt getting this story all confused at this point (well, I guess that IS the point, isn't it?) but I thought the Texas records had already been scrubbed, back in 1999 or 2000, or perhaps when he ran for governor. I thought that's why they were trying to find them in Denver in the first place.
This administration is making my head hurt.
It wasn't my fault. Honest! I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn't my fault, I swear to God!
anyone follow(ing) through on the idea someone else posted here several days back, to FOI a copy of aWol's tax return from that year and sort of reverse engineer how much $ he was paid from the TX ANG on those missing pay records?
Yeah, because we know GWB wouldn't cheat on his taxes, would he?
:-D
FOI a copy of aWol's tax return from that year and sort of reverse engineer how much $ he was paid from the TX ANG on those missing pay records? - a thousand black bats
How do we know AWOL was actually being honest about his taxes?
It will destroy all our computers if we have to respond to any FOIA requests, even if the FOIA request seeks a microfilm.
"However those were the microfilm copies stored in Denver."
Yes, but as we've already heard from the Bush admin, the copying of electronic files runs the risk of deleting the original files. I would imagine the duplicating of microfilm would be equally dangerous.
Duplicating microfilm is a very tricky business indeed. Why, such a process may result in the destruction of the original microfilm!
...*cough*
great minds, DAS, great minds. either that or too much tin foil...
I doubt you can FOI tax returns.
Let's not get too excited. There are about 105 days until the election. The Bushies will probably win on running out the clock on this one. (Don't forget--Florida 2000 was all about running out the clock so they could go the Supreme Court and say "we don't have enough time under the Constitution to do a recount.")
If Bush wins (I shudder to think), it dogs him in a second administration. If Bush loses, it's a good story but of only historical significance.
Where was the AP two years ago?
How long until Scotty jumps ship?
This Just In: Texas Archives Burns Completely
Got both coloring books, as well as Bush's microfilm records.
So, what's gonna prompt Bush's Saturday Night Massacre? Is it Plame?
semper -- that was my understanding as well, that the key word "scrubbed" was used by the Shrub's people in Texas as referring to what they did with his TANG records before he started his run in 1999.
If they were able to do that in Colorado, it would be astonishing that they were unable to do it in Texas.
But one other thing -- what about service and payroll records for the last quarter of calendar 1972 and the first of 1973? Wasn't he supposed to have been aWol from May 1972 to May 1973? All the campaign-released records showed was that he was at a dentist's appointment in early January 1973. BFD.
Considering the lack of indignation we've seen so far from the Murikan public, I have to assume that this will not become a real issue even if the records come out. Unless, that is, he was fighting for the VC or whatever.
No, probably not even then. Because, see, Murika is safer.
Murika is safer.
Murika is safer.
It's really hard to explain
How the Chimpster could fly a plane.
In order to train
You'd need half a brain,
And a test to prove you were sane.
NEWSFLASH: Bush TANG records microfilm mysteriously replaced with filmstrip of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".
maybe this 'tactic' was mentioned on a recent dkos blog...
if I recall correctly, by comparing aWol's total reported TX ANG pay for that year to the pay records we do have, then we'd know if he got paid for the missing months. if he wasn't paid at all for that time, then that is indirect proof dubya really was aWol. if he was paid during that time, one might be able to back-calculate how many days he was paid for during those missing months.
Dear Mr. Bats,
I don't believe there is a statute of limitations on federal income tax evasion. Even if all that was found was George cheating on his taxes it would still be a worthy effort.
Ta-ta!
I think Tax records are private unless Bush agrees to release them.
And I know it's been said before, but can you remember the national broohaha over Hillary's billing records? If my memory serves, they hauled her ass down to the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse and made her testify w/o a lawyer before the grand jury. (BTW, great coat that day, Hil!)
Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had announced that some of his important records had been accidentally destroyed? Smathews and Cokie and company would have gone ballistic for days and days and days.
Bush -- the war president -- says his military records were accidentally destroyed and it's still all Martha all the time.
You know, Herman, if you burn down the Reichstag, we can blame the Jews for it.
Why yes, Mein Fuhrer that would work very well, eliminate the opposition and blame the Jews.
---Mysterious fires of history, volume eight
You all can shit on Dubya all day long if ya want, but I'm looking forward to that great day in American cinematic history when Chimpy and Bill Murray team up for Stripes 2. There's just something about Chimpy that says "Stripes" over and over and over again.
Anybody can make their tax return records public. They just have to give permission. I can't FOIA your tax return info, but if I tell the IRS that my tax returns are allowed to be publicly accessed, then they're fair game.
So someone has to ask Shrub whether he'll release his tax return info, in the interest of clearing up this mystery. And watch them squirm, and claim that they've 'released all the records'.
Social Security has aggregate numbers, but it won't have a line item for just his Nat'l Guard pay. And I'm guessing he made more from his trust fund and his coke dealing than from his Nat'l Guard pay.
Of course, the coke money is all off books.
PS - I work at one of the federal agencies involved, so yes I know what I'm talking about. But no I can't go fishing anywhere near there personally or I'd be fired faster than bunnypants runs from hints of protesters.
I'm no doubt getting this story all confused at this point (well, I guess that IS the point, isn't it?) but I thought the Texas records had already been scrubbed, back in 1999 or 2000, or perhaps when he ran for governor.
They scrubbed his actual physical service file for the Texas Air National Guard at Camp Mabry in Austin. These are different files.
Amen, sister Hecate! Testify! That goddamn draft-dodgin' CLINTON'S hatred for the military is the real reason GHWB didn't destroy "Sad'm" when we had the chance. What the Chimpster did while supposedly serving is of no import.
In other news, video recordings of alleged torture at Abu Ghraib prison were inadvertantly erased when Karl Rove, wearing the 20-lb magnet he commonly wears around his neck on a chain, entered the storage facility where the recordings were kept.
About the microfilm... I've had experience microfilming and microfiching records. Microfilm is the original negative of the paper record, stored in plastic sleeves. From these, you can bang off as many microfiches (the film positive of the original) as you want.
The stuff tends to be pretty stable, and can actually take a lot of abuse and still be legible. If I remember correctly, there were something like a hundred pages on a single microfiche of about 4x6.
The whole idea of 'fiching info, of course, was compact storage and security, and the operation I was at made at least two, if not more, sets of everything, for distribution to different departments.
Since the military tends to be even more redundant than civilians, there's no way there'd be just one microfiche of those records.
And has anyone done an FOIA request for W's records in Alabama? Although I love the Tax return idea as well, and I think they'd be available to the public via FOIA. Of course, the requester would probably be mysteriously audited shortly after making the request...
Weren't Bush's Texas records allegedly "scrubbed" a few years ago? I thought the only reason they were looking into the Federal records was that Bush's Texas records were damaged/inconclusive? In other words, that the only possible records that could verify Bush's assertions were both coincidentally destroyed?
It's a shame this isn't as important a scandal as Filegate, Whitewater and Travelgate. Then we could get the GOP scandal hounds involved and really get to the bottom of it. Perhaps if a copy of Bush's records were to turn up at the Rose Law Firm...has Bush ever flown into Mena airport?
Why does the AP hate America?
GDoyle
Do these hammerheads on here who defend Bush realize they're making our argument for us? By all means, keep spewing. I suggest you print a copy of your emails because years from now you will deny saying any of this.
well, 4LG, I guess they better get to work then, huh? Maybe a nice can of soda, spilled in just the right file drawer? We can call it Dr. Pepper-gate.
--
2LB 
wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?
Wouldn't his tax records have a W-2 from the ANG? Wouldn't the ANG have records of ALL W-2's they sent for a particular year? Wouldn't the IRS have it as well?
GDoyle
Do these hammerheads on here who defend Bush [...]
I think you mean hammerSKINS.
.
.
.
oh go google it or something.
Wouldn't his tax records have a W-2 from the ANG? Wouldn't the ANG have records of ALL W-2's they sent for a particular year? Wouldn't the IRS have it as well?
GDoyle
For heavens sakes!
Why is it even necessary to haggle over this microfilm/microfiche? We're not talking about ancient history here!
Isn't there ONE person out there who was alive and semi-coherent in the early '70s who can confirm or deny what Dubya was up to from May - November 1972?
Funny how the NYTImes was all over the Whitewater episode, but doesn't seem to have a word to say about the bizarre coincidences and claims in the Bush record destruction.
Therecords in precisely the quarter of interest are destroyed? They're destroyed in 1996-97, the same period in which his paper records are examined by his flunky Bartlett? They're destroyed in a "restoration" project that know one seems to able to verify? This restoration project examines microfilm that's only 20 years old at most, when microfiche ordinarily can survive hundreds of years intact?
And if there WERE destruction of these records, we are talking about a very large, very political conspiracy that violated all kinds of federal laws against destruction of such records?
Oh wait, this is the NY Times we're talking about, and they aren't being spoonfed their "news" by someone else, namely a wellfunded wingnut operation, as in the Whitewater case.
Lazy, stupid sluts.
Updating An Earlier Story:
Firefighter sifting the burned rubble of the Texas Archives Building today found only one undamaged document. It appears to be the checkout records of microfilm relating to Texas Air National Guard records.
Many of the entries are smudged, but there is one clear entry - that someone named "H. R. Clinton" checked out the microfilm records of Lt. G. W. Bush in 1991.
More as it becomes available.
It's a shame this isn't as important a scandal as Filegate, Whitewater and Travelgate. Then we could get the GOP scandal hounds involved...
One big reason this isn't as big as any of those, is that people (and politicians) on the center-Left tend not to be the type of giant economy size asshats we see on the Right. As a group, we tend not to caterwaul, howl, and drool over the wrongdoings, real and imaginary, of the other side. Oh, we get a kick out of it, sure, and we like seeing them "get theirs", but we have a hard time getting the media in on the fun, craven as they are, because we lack the fire in the belly, not to mention the bats in the belfry...
"during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm".
According to this website, microfilm is supposed to last for 500 years. That is why libraries are preserving paper documents on microfilm. Why do such a project if the medium is going to deteriorate in twenty years. In library time, that is a blink of the eye. They do admit that if microfilm is poorly stored in a developing country it can deteriorate within 20 years. But the Pentagon's archives are not in some humid Third World hellhole. Also, do they have actual evidence of this "project" to salvage microfilm or have those records "disappeared" too.
http://www.librarypreservation.o.../
microform1.htm
Fuck, I hate what has happened to my country.
Blecht | Email | Homepage | 07.16.04 - 2:38 pm |
--- I said it before under another name awhile back, but it bears repeating. A Jingo ate my country
The thing about this and a lot of the other Bush scandals that pisses me off is that they may indeed manage to run out the clock on the pursuit of them until after the election. We have only a few months left before the election, and these things have not exactly been proceeding at a tremendous pace.
Even if, for example, indictments come down on the Plame case, how long will it be before we get any definitive facts? Bush and friends may be able to stall and stall and spin and spin until after the election, declaring that Bush is sure that his minions will be exonerated, innocent until proven guilty, etc.
I wonder if the Senate report dealing with the Wilson/Plame affair isn't a preemptive hatchet job intended entirely to provide cover for the Bush WH long enough to get past the elections, even if indictments come down the pike.
Big Dog got elected even after the repukes called him a draft dodger. While I think Chimpy's a fucking deserter, even if we were to get all of his records, most people wouldn't care...unless proving him a deserter meant he would be tried and sentenced like say, tomorrow. What is the sentence for DESERTION?
One could only dream.
Isn't there ONE person out there who was alive and semi-coherent in the early '70s who can confirm or deny what Dubya was up to from May - November 1972?
Why yes, glad you asked. There were at least two:
http://tinyurl.com/2jacy
Need to get someone under oath saying they were "accidentally" destroyed.
that was my understanding as well, that the key word "scrubbed" was used by the Shrub's people in Texas as referring to what they did with his TANG records before he started his run in 1999.
I think the key word is "scoured", which is what Doofus told Timmie Boy had been done with all his records.
Gillard, the leftists. They blamed the leftists for it. In their mythology, that included and connected to the Jews, but besides this it is generally accepted that the Dutch guy really did burn it down (of course with the help of "stood down" security).
NEWSFLASH: White House reports meteor has just struck Austin National
Guard records depository and the errant rock hit the one drawer containing copies of the records of our noble leader. Really sorry about that, but Acts of God you know!
I tried to find this tidbit out that might lead to other things.
Who was in charge of the "preservation" project? Who runs/funds that company? Can we talk to the people who did the work?
Can you tell us about, "the accident"
Can you prove it?
What process were you using based on what observed problem?
Were they paid for their "work"?
Were they fired after the accident, or given more jobs?
Who inititated the project? When? Why?
dunno if any of you saw this back in february, but at least one person didn't see aWol in AL:
http://www.memphisflyer.com/MFSe...from=2&
aID=2837
the 'tinyurl' provided brought up something unrelated entirely. my apologies for not understanding haloscan well enough to embed a url properly.
The world of archival librarianship is a small one and if this had actually happened, word of it would have gotten out. It would have appeared in some archival library journal as an example of how not to preserve microfilm. Librarians talk to each other often and exchange information and attend conventions.
And also the people whose pay records had been destroyed would probably have been informed and asked to check their own files to see if they had any papers that could help reconstruct the lost microfilm.
How come part of Bush's record IS still available on microfiche? Wouldn't anyone working on "restoring" microfiche work on batches at a time? So why isn't all of Bush's record missing?
Just have to say that it would be completely ludicrous, preposterous, and absolutely likely that those secondary microfilms will disappear in another accident.
Gotta love it. You can almost hear someone in the White House saying "... what do you mean, there's more?"
(AP) a 500 megaton nuclear bomb was accidently dropped on Denver today during a training mission. In a strange coincidence, the bomb landed at the Air Reserve Personnel Center/DSMR
6760 E. Irvington Pl. #4600
Denver, CO 80280-4600. White House spokesman Scott Mclellan said "oops. We're sorry."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/0...print&
position=
"The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card records.....He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll records, explaining, "The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records."
"Talbott's office would not respond to questions, saying that further information could be provided only through another Freedom of Information application."
Not very forthcoming are they? And microfilm ain't "fragile".
Why doesn't AP have a Guard member from the same time period request their records from the Pentagon and when they get them show how selective this destruction happened to be.
I'm starting to think there isn't much in the records and when the media finally get a hold of them, the Bushies will all go...See?..See?
I'm thinking Rove is setting some people up for a big fall.
Sekmet, honey, you broke the Haloscan!
Try tinyurl.com (it works real good. Honest)
or click on this!
They're never gonna find it. It's all gone, or well hidden, and our beloved Fourth Estate is too embarrassed and self-conscious to go looking. After all, just how many of them served, wanted to serve or care about any of this unless it involves boobies or booties?
I recall seeing the old (yes I remember inputting data on those ancient things) IBM 129 cards on a website this week or, maybe it was last week. During my 14+ yrs in the military, you come to figure out there are many ways in which the military duplicates itself. This info I 'witnessed' was the punchcard version of W's 'drill data' - ie; the times he had actually reported and it was RECORDED that he showed up and 'drilled' (put in time) with the unit he was assigned to.
Microfiche is usually the manner in which data is historically archived in records centers (ie; like Denver or Texas ANG), but there remains paper copies of the original data in the flow.
I might remind you - a week or so ago, Atrios posted a website of a gentleman who put immense time into researching W's military history. And a most outstanding bit of research it was, by the way.
AP will get what it wants - that being the denial of what is already been found by astute and pissed off Americans. Probally Veterans like me.
Tired of getting shit upon, over and over, and over.
usndemvet.com has a lot of posts on aWol's 'service'.
Anyone with new links or info please search the site. jofish has a good blog and links up ati, bolo, billmon, and many others!
I just visited my library here in Arizona. There's microfilm from 1970 there, and it works fine. I do not for a minute believe this shit from the Pentagon, which last time I checked, is being run by a pathological liar.
What is the sentence for DESERTION?
DemonBush - haven't they just set an interesting precedent? I mean, aren't they going after the Korean War (I mean "police action") veteran who stayed in North Korea and married a Japanese woman? That was even more decades ago.
You guys are pathetic. Grasping at straws.
Any of you interested in getting John Kerry to release his military medical records that detail the minor wounds that got him his Purple Hearts so that he could bug out early from Vietnam? I didn't think so.
Hasn't one damn reporter in this entire country been in the military?
The FIRST THING TO REVIEW should be the DD214.
Every vet has one.
I keep mine in a trunk.
My girlfiend's father has his in a drawer.
It's the one damn form you need for everything and anything related to your military service.
Bush never released his
What gives?
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