Memo

For anyone who didn't hear, MK is having a New Year's eve party. Starts around six. See ya there.

Broke

Buried in today's Washington Post is an article about our government's spending. You see, we've maxed out our credit card again. From WAPO:

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said yesterday that the United States could be unable to pay its bills in early 2006 unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, which is now capped at $8.18 trillion.

Snow, in a letter to lawmakers, estimated that the government is expected to bump into the statutory debt limit around the middle of February.

"At that time, unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations," Snow wrote.

If the department were to carry out various accounting maneuvers -- as it has done in the past to avoid breaching the limit -- that would free up finances and allow the government to keep paying its bills "no longer than mid-March," Snow wrote.

Don't worry China, we're totally good for the money. Buy some more bonds, we'll fuck over some old people or children or both for it.

Standing Up

Well, it looks like the Iraqi army is ready to do some of that standing up we've been hearing about from the Bush administration, standing up to fight each other. From Knight-Ridder:

Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable.

The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted.

"It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion," said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army who was escorting a Knight Ridder reporter through Kirkuk. "Kirkuk will be ours."

We're though the looking glass, Alice. Really, we have been for almost two years when Rumsfeld fucked up the initial occupation. But now it should be clear to everyone, Iraq is now a money pit, money pit, money pit.

The Onion

If you're not a regular reader of The Onion, this week's issue is a good place to start.

As If They Didn't Have It Bad Enough

US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are about to get a late Christmas present. Probably not one they want, but they are getting it anyway. The Second Amendments are preparing to go play six oldies laden shows for them. The Second Amendments are comprised of five members of the US House.

They talked to the USO about performing, but were told there were "logistical snags." I think that is the polite way of saying, "You guys stink." So instead, they will go play as part of their own official congressional trip.

I can't really believe a bunch of kids really wants to hear these guys play oldies, and that's one of the bad things about being in the military. I sure for some service members, attendance will be mandatory. Hmm, getting shot at or listening to the Second Amendments play. Tough call.

I can see it now. The lights go low....Collin Peterson's gravelly voice cracks the din of murmurs...We are The Second Amendments...and we're hear to protect your right...your right to bear...GUITAR! Or something else as equally cheesy.

Change

If you see some strange characters show up here it's because I'm using a new keyboard and the Alt, Ctrl, Del keys are all in new places and I am still getting used to it.

Chemical Plant Security

The Editorial Board of The New York Times writes an op-ed today endorsing a bill put forth by Susan Collin and Joe Lieberman concerning chemical plant safety. I agree with the Times that the bill is good first step, but I also don't believe it goes far enough. In reading the article though I got the impression that the editors really don't have much of an idea about industry. From the Times:

If terrorists attacked a chemical plant, the death toll could be enormous. A single breached chlorine tank could, according to the Department of Homeland Security, lead to 17,500 deaths, 10,000 severe injuries and 100,000 hospitalizations. Many chemical plants have shockingly little security to defend against such attacks.

OK, without looking at the EPA's RMP list, which would be the facilities covered by this act and numbers about 15,000, I don't know what is covered. I have to believe that there are at least three times that many facilities in the US where the above mentioned chlorine tank breach could happen. The Times might consider where they buy the paper on which they print the "paper of record. There are also lots of other facilities that I wouldn't exactly consider chemical plants that this kind of disaster could strike, many with virtually no security.

I'll have to look into this a little further and get back to you.

Posting

Posting should return to near normal levels today.

Happy Sol Invictus

You know, the Pagan holiday that the Christians co-opted to create Christmas. Posting has been light, but you really should have better thing to do anyway.

The Dirty Dozen

Jack Abramoff has nearly completed one of his plea deals, the Miami one, and probably serve five to seven years in prison. The New York Times tells us what prosceutor's are going to get as the two cases converge:

At the same time, prosecutors in Washington have been sifting through evidence of what they believe is a corruption scheme involving at least a dozen lawmakers and their former staff members, many of whom worked closely on legislation with Mr. Abramoff and accepted gifts and favors from him. Although Mr. Abramoff is also in negotiations in that case, it is unclear whether a settlement can be reached in time for both agreements to be announced at once.

A dozen dirty congressmen. If you throw in Duke Cunningham, that's a baker's dozen of members who will at least be indicted from the 109th Congress.

Holy Fucking Fitzmas!

Raw Story is reporting that Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the Valerie Plame affair will not end with Karl Rove and may go to that magical place we all hoped it would. From Raw Story:

The investigation is expected to shift back to top officials in the Office of the Vice President, the State Department and the National Security Council, and may even shed some light on the genesis of the Niger forgeries, lawyers close to the case say. The forged documents, cited in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, claimed Iraq sought yellowcake uranium from the African country. It may also reveal how key players in the White House decided to expose Plame's undercover status and top secret front company, Brewster Jennings.

Separately, these people said, the FBI's renewed interest in probing the Niger forgeries grew out of Fitzgerald's probe. [emphasis mine]

We're going way past outing a CIA agent if Fitzgerald goes this route.

Unemployed?

I have a feeling that the NCAA official who ruled USC quarterback Matt Leinart ineligible for the Rose Bowl last week in now looking for a job. The ruling was very quietly appealed and subsequently overturned. The suspension had something to do with Leinart appearing in an ESPN promo.

Who knows how much ad revenue ABC would have lost if the suspension would have been upheld.

Time To Compare Notes?

There is an interesting tid bit in today's New York Times article about Jack Abramoff looking to cop a plea. From the Times:

Florida prosecutors are also investigating corruption in that case, focusing on Mr. Ney and his chief of staff at the time, Neil Volz, according to people involved in the case. Mr. Volz reportedly agreed to put negative remarks about Mr. Boulis in The Congressional Record, even though Mr. Ney had no obvious reason to comment on Mr. Boulis.

Now, this is the other Abramoff investigation, not the one where Michael Scanlon has already plead guilty to bribing Ney. So, now there two separate investigations pursuing corruption charges against Ney. Ney is as they say, toast.

Score One For Sanity

A federal judge has ruled against the Dover school board in an intelligent design case. The case was somewhat moot because all eight of the idiots on the school board that were pushing intelligent design were round stomped in November's election. However, this ruling is still a complete victory for science as it sets a good precedent. From The Washington Post:

In his ruling today, Jones said several members of the Dover Area School Board repeatedly lied during the trial to cover their motives for promoting intelligent design even as they professed religious beliefs, the Associated Press reported.

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID [Intelligent Design] Policy," Jones wrote.

Jones said advocates of intelligent design "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors," adding that he did not believe the concept should not be studied and discussed, AP reported. But he concluded that "it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

Specifically, Jones said the school board's policy on intelligent design violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

[snip]

But Jones wrote in his 139-page opinion that "the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

Jones sharply criticized some of the school board members, writing, "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

That's a spanking folks, Judge Jones actually went as far as to call the promoters of ID liars. With the turnover on the school board this case is dead, but it will come up again somewhere else and another school system will be forced to use valuable resources to defend itself.

Gestapo Like

The following exchange took place on CNN's American Morning this morning in a discussion about the Ohio Patriot Act:

COSTELLO: I do. Let's talk about what's happening in Ohio, because that state may be on the verge of getting the toughest terrorism law in the entire country. That's because Ohio has its own Patriot Act. It calls for people to show their I.D.'s before entering any train station or bus depot. I think most Americans would say, "Well, that's fine."But here is the provision that could cause the most controversy. Police would be allowed to arrest anyone in public who refuses to give their name, address, or birth date. And that's even if you're just standing around and doing nothing. Local news reports say Ohio Governor Bob Taft is expected to sign the bill. But of course, it could be held up by legal challenges.

SANCHEZ: That sounds Gestapo like.

COSTELLO: Doesn't it?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes. I mean, you can just be standing anywhere, and some police agent could walk up and say, "Rick, when were you born?"

SANCHEZ: Name, rank and serial number.

COSTELLO: They wouldn't say, "Rick." They wouldn't know you. If he'd say, "Rick," you'd be done.

O'BRIEN: That makes no sense.

SANCHEZ: I'd say, "Wait. You know!"

COSTELLO: That's pretty scary, isn't it? We'll see what happens in Ohio.

Make no mistake, this piece of legislation will be used to disenfranchise voters in the future if it is not reversed. Bob Taft is poised to sign it today.

Iraqi Elections

Preliminary results from the recent Iraqi elections seem to show the worst case scenario. The secular parties got crushed and it appears that the fundamentalist Shia party The United Iraqi Alliance will come very close to gaining a simple majority in Parliament. The Sunni's are already claiming election fraud. One good thing happened, it doesn't appear at this point that Ahmed Chalabi garnered enough votes to win a seat in Parliament.

Looks like we're a little closer to civil war.

Great

Somebody just walked away from a bunker near Albuquerque with 400 pounds of high explosive and 2500 detonators. Scary shit.

Lean On Me

N ew York Times editor Bill Keller and publisher Arthur Sulzberger got summoned tot he White House on December 6th so Bush could lean on them to spike the illegal spying story according to Eric Alterman in Newsweek.

Now, these two had been spiking the story for what they call a year or so. I'm not sure if that means twelve months or fourteen months, which would put it before the election. I certainly suspicious it is the latter. The Times needs to come clean about why they held the story and provide background for the Bush meeting.

As for Bush, yesterday's explanation of the illegal wire taps doesn't hold water. The FISA court has only rejected four wire tap requests in the last twenty two years and you can make the request retroactively so they're is no need to avoid getting the warrant. These acts are the illegal excesses of a dictator. Hey, if it goosesteps like a duck.

Update: The LA Times has now confirmed my suspicion that the New York Times had this story prior to last year's presidential election. Time for Keller to go.

Clap Harder

MSNBC has a story up which is titled Holiday Sales Are Solid. This morning the same story was titled Holiday Sales Disapointing. Must of been a hell of a sales day.

Also the story contains this paragraph:

Again, merchants are relying on procrastinators during the final days before Christmas and post-holiday sales _ expected to be boosted by the redemption of gift cards.

This money is already in the door.

New York Times

It's not a story that we had secret prisons around the world. Of course we did. It's not a story that we were spying on American citizens. Of course we were. The Bush administration and the rule of law don't exactly skip down the road hand in hand. I doubt they have ever met. But, for The New York Times to sit on the spying story for a year, that's ridiculous.

Anyway, I have some advise for Time's editor Bill Keller. Go glossy, because now you have revealed yourselves to be nothing more than a tabloid rag and when I read about who Angelina Jolie was fucking a year and a half ago, I like the pictures to be shiny.

Also, some advise for Time's stable of columnists. Money may talk, but credibility certainly takes a walk.

WTF

Did any of you see the president's presser today. I didn't, but from the press coverage I've read I can only say, "what the fuck?" He apparently called the leaking of his illegal activities a "shameful act."

Also, there is some guy out there named Saddam Osama who sounds like a pretty bad dude. We better get that fucker quick.

Know Your Hacks

I'm sure you've been sitting around wondering who is our Chairman of The Congressional Advisory Board on Missile Defense. His name is Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. If you're an older reader you might be thinking, "Back in the seventies, I used to get high with a guy named Jeff Baxter. I think he played in a band, what were they called? Oh yea, the Doobie Brothers."

Yep, same guy.

State Party Chair

On Monday we are going to elect a new state party chairman. Chris Redfern seems to have the necessary votes to win, although a last minute coalition is attempting to beat him. What's bad about this is that Redfern isn't planning on giving up his day job.

Look, we need a full time state party chair. Hell, we probably need two or three the way this operation has been run into the ground. We don't need a guy who is going to do a half assed job half the time. Next year's elections are too crucial for that. Whoever wins next year gets to run as an incumbent in 2010, and whoever wins then gets to redraw the lines.

Redfern isn't even that good of a minority leader. I guess the bottom line is that frankly put, Chris Refern as state party chair is failure's savior.

Ningún Béisbol Para Cuba

The Bush administration has bowed to pressure from Florida's Cuban population and blocked Cuba from participating in The World Baseball Classic. Cuba needed a licence from the Treasury Department to play in the Classic, but Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla asked the Bushies to block it.

This is ridiculous, without Cuba this becomes the World Baseball Crappic. Can't you just smell the fifty years of failed policy on Cuba. Doesn't give you much hope on Iraq, does it.

Gray Power

An article in today's Wall Street Journal has got to be giving republicans in Congress chills. The old folks are pissed, and we all know they vote. From WSJ:

The results can be seen in Americans' attitudes toward Congress 11 months before Election Day 2006. By a 65%-19% margin, Americans age 65 and above disapprove of the performance of Congress; those under 65 are also negative but less lopsidedly, 58%-27%. Moreover, senior citizens say by 47%-37% that they want Democrats rather than Republicans to win control of Capitol Hill. Those under 65 prefer a Democratic victory by a narrower 45%-39% margin.

That disparity, like some other political differences between older and younger Americans, is relatively slight. But it has big implications for the 2006 campaign for two reasons.

One is that older voters, having given Mr. Bush slightly greater support than younger voters in his narrow 2004 re-election victory, have now become the most critical of his job performance. In the Journal/NBC poll, for instance, Americans under 65 disapprove of Mr. Bush's job performance by a margin of 16 percentage points, while those 65 and above disapprove by a margin of 20 percentage points.

The second is that older voters play an outsize role in midterm contests, because they traditionally turn out at higher rates while many young voters tune out campaigns not featuring a presidential contest. Voters older than 60 made up 24% of those voting in 2004, but a larger 28% in the 1998 midterm contest, the last such campaign for which exit-poll data are available.

The GOP had better get to work on that nursing home voter disenfranchisement.

Contest

I'm working on a contest where readers have to find me in a bar and hit me with a plain corn tortilla thrown frisbee style. Something between Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego? and Hide And Seek. I'm still working on the prize package which will mainly consist of holiday stuff I get from suppliers plus a free shot of your choice.

Marcy Kaptur

Back on October 10th, I hinted that, at that time, a fourth gubernatorial candidate may enter the race in Ohio. I had heard rumors, but they died down so I figured she had ruled it out. Today, the rumor spilled over into the mainstream press. From the ever so great Toledo Blade:

One of Ohio's most powerful labor leaders is pushing U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur to run for governor next year, and the Toledo Democrat is considering it.

Lloyd Mahaffey, the director of the United Auto Workers in Ohio, said yesterday that he and other UAW officials have told Miss Kaptur for months she'd make "a great governor."

"I've been trying to urge her to run," Mr. Mahaffey said, "and I know other people have, too."

I think Kaptur would make a good governor, but that's an awfully powerful position to give up for a race that's not necessarily a slam dunk. Tough call.

Hat tip to commenter MB for pointing this article out to me.

The Check Is In The Mail, But To Whom

One of Jack Abramoff's "charities" claimed it gave over $300,000 in grants in 2002. From The American-Statesman:

Capital Athletic Foundation, a charity run by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff now at the center of an influence-peddling investigation on Capitol Hill, told the IRS it gave away more than $330,000 in grants in 2002 to four other charities that say they never received the money.

The largest grant the foundation listed in its 2002 tax filing was for $300,000 to P'TACH of New York, a nonprofit that helps Jewish children with learning disabilities.

"We've never received a $300,000 gift, not in our 28 years," a surprised Rabbi Burton Jaffa, P'TACH's national director, told the Austin American-Statesman. "It would have been gone by now. I guess I would have been able to pay some teachers on time."

Abramoff may be the most corrupt guy in the history of corruption. There has been a lot of speculation that he may cut a deal soon in exchange for implicating others, but what kind of deal could he get. I mean, this guy has broken so many laws that I don't know what kind of deal prosecutors are going to offer. Hey Jack, rat these guys out and we'll only give you fifty.

I'd say barring an out the door pardon from Bush, Abramoff is going to be cooling his heels for a long, long time.

The Terminator

Arnold Schwarzenegger has got to be saying, "Are you fucking kidding me?" The next guy scheduled to get the needle is seventy-six years old, blind from diabetes, and in a wheelchair.

This is where the anti-death penalty crowd should take a cue from the right. How? Form a made up pro-death penalty group and go around crowing that justice must be served. By the way, shaves and haircuts are required.

Oh No, They Are Losing

It appears we have a winner in the War On Christmas, although it remains unclear who lost. Jerry Falwell had this to say to MSNBC:

"We are, for the first time, on offense,” says Christian televangelist Jerry Falwell, “and we're kicking their butt out of the arena."

Who are they? Who is this straw man who Falwell is giving a Christianly butt kicking? There are two sides to this war. On one hand, you have the Christian right whose collective vagina bruises easier than a week old peach. On the other hand, you people who just don't care. There isn't anyone actually out there attacking Christmas.

So, what's the reason for this "war"? It's money. You see, Falwell has to show his flock his bruised vagina to pry a little extra coin out of little old ladies who watch his network. Christmas is his competition, and he's got to keep up that opulent lifestyle.

Babysitting

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing has come under fire recently by other Washington Post reporters for its content and title. Their contention is that the title leads readers to believe they are reading a White House beat reporter's column when it is clearly opinion, but the truth is that they are apparently upset that Froomkin sometimes says snide things about the administration and the way they treat the press. I don't know if this is some sort of right wing push back or if the other reporters are pissed off by the fact that he is pointing out that they are not doing their jobs.

Post Editor Len Downie chimed in in the Editor & Publisher:

"We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion," Downie told E&P. "And that readers of the Web site understand that, too."

Okay, so the Post is worried about whether or not the Bush administration understands the column is opinion because Downie concedes that the readership at large understands that it is opinion. By the way, I read it all the time and it clearly is opinion.

Solution: The Bush administration is a fairly small group of people, perhaps the Post could hire a babysitter to walk them through the daily column. I'm thinking maybe a first grade English teacher.

Tookie's Dead

This morning, Tookie Williams became the twelfth person executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The amazing thing is that the case got this far. There are currently 647 people on death row in California, the vast majority of which will die in prison before they are executed.

Why do we bother with this ridiculously expensive ritual when most of the people sentenced to it end up serving life without parole?

Homecoming

I got up at an ungodly hour this morning to catch a replay of the Masters Of Horror episode on Showtime. It originally aired on a Friday night and I have better things to do on Friday nights than to stay at home and watch TV. If you're unfamiliar with this episode, it's the one where soldiers killed in the Iraq War (Not mentioned by name) become zombies to try to influence the presidential election.

I'd have to say it wasn't worth getting up early to see, it's not that good.

The War On Christmas

I have to admit, the War On Christmas is quickly becoming my favorite holiday tradition. Anything that makes the radical right so frothy, makes me feel good. Plus, the WOC which is fully a figment of the right's imagination is being prosecuted by morons. Here's the latest from ABCNews.com:

The latest salvo in the "war on Christmas" has been fired — this time over the lyrics to the venerable Christmas carol "Silent Night."

Many who believe Christmas has been overly secularized are pouncing on a Wisconsin school that will present the tune with different words, under the title "Cold in the Night."

The controversy began when the father of a student at Ridgeway Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wis., was upset with the lyrics his child brought home to learn. He told the non-profit group Liberty Counsel they are: "Cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite, how I wish I were happy and warm, safe with my family out of the storm."

Offended by the new words, he was unable to convince the school not to perform the song and contacted Liberty Counsel, which provides free legal assistance in religious freedom cases.

"We first try to educate a lot of people who are confused over the law," said Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel. "This kind of a situation is not so much confusion as it is an insensitivity and an attempt to secularize Christmas, because here they're actually taking a song and mocking it, in my opinion."

It makes you wonder what other anti-Christmas God hating organizations would attempt put on such an insidious play. I'll bet it's those sons a bitching heathens over at the Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Midland, MI. From their newsletter:

Thanks to all who helped with The Advent Celebration on December 2. We had craft activities, Bible study, lunch, carol sing, Rainbow Bells performance, a Teen Choir performance, and an advent play. The play The Little Tree's Christmas Gift was very meaningful. Thanks to all who helped decorate the church for Advent.

And you know who else. Yep, those hell bound Satanists over at the Bethel Temple Christian Center in Abilene TX. From the Abilene Reporter-News:

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PRODUCTION

A Christmas musical/drama, "The Little Tree's Christmas Gift," will be presented by the Children's Church at 10:35 a.m. Sunday at Bethel Temple Christian Center, 3101 N. 12th.

The musical, written by Ann Lambert and Dwight Elrich, stresses that everyone has something special to offer.

This all begs the question, Why does Jesus hate Christmas? The answer is actually pretty simple. I mean come on, do you really like your birthday? Nobody likes to be another year older, even if you're dead.

And remember to have a better than average end of the year annual events time period.

NeyDay, NeyDay, I'm Going Down

It looks like the Nigel Winfield story is starting to bubble to the surface. Winfield is the three time convicted felon Bob Ney met with at a private casino in London. The Dispatch has the story today:

Ney had dinner during the trip at a posh London casino with FN Aviation Director Nigel Winfield, a convicted felon whose offenses have included tax evasion, and Fouad al-Zayat, a Syrian-born businessman known as a high-stakes casino gambler. Walsh has said Ney did not know about Winfield’s background.

Ney returned to the same casino on a personal trip later in 2003 and reported on his financial disclosure form that he won $34,000. Walsh has said Ney parlayed a $100 bet into the large winning on two hands of a three-card game of chance. Questions arose over the FN Aviation trip when NBC News in May reported Winfield’s background and disclosed Zayat’s involvement with the company.

The posh casino in question is Les Ambassadeurs, and don't think Las Vegas posh, this joint costs £1,000 ($1,754.27) just to get in the door. It's a ultra high end casino where hundred of thousand of dollars loosely change hands. Ney's "$100 bet" would be like ordering a hot dog at a steak house. In fact, I doubt they even have table limits that low.

When Ney "won" the $34,000, he got in as a member's guest and although Ney's lawyer claim he doesn't know who the member was, my money is on Winfield or Zayat. Both are members.

Snow Teams Back peddle

Well, that major snowstorm we've been hearing about all week never materialized here in Columbus, OH. Last night, around 9:00 I looked out of the window at the bar where I was meeting with friends and thought, that's it?

This morning the local snow coverage looked rather silly as they were driving around central Ohio looking for someplace that actually got a lot of snow. The money quote of the morning goes to WBNS' Chuck Gurney who actually said, "It's not the size of the snow storm you get, it's how fast you get it."

Nice over dramatization Chuck, but actually the converse is true. It's much better to get six inches of snow in one hour than six inches of snow over twelve hours. The former meaning you only have to plow the roads once versus the repeat plowing necessary for the latter.

Run For Your Lives

Alert, Alert. Run for your lives. It's going to snow here in Columbus. Let me explain the three levels of snow emergency. First of all.....Your not still reading this are you? Didn't you hear what I said? Shitloads of snow are coming!!! Snow! Bitches! Snow! It's your life, I warned you.

Level 1: All travel is restricted to driving about five miles per hour. In fact, don't drive. Hell, don't even look out your window. There's white shit out there.

Level 2: No travel, no leaving the house. All meals must be eaten cold out of a can. Watching 24hr Snow Team coverage is mandatory. Use the amphetamines in your snow kit to stay awake. Martial law is declared, habeas corpus suspended.

Are you still fucking reading this? Are you insane? Run!!!! Run away now!!!!

Level 3: All human life ceases to exist. That is all.

Burt Prelutsky

Some people just don't get it. On Townhall.com Burt Prelutsky writes:

But the dirty little secret in America is that anti-Semitism is no longer a problem in society; it’s been replaced by a rampant anti-Christianity. For example, the hatred spewed towards George W. Bush has far less to do with his policies than it does with his religion. The Jews voice no concern when a Bill Clinton or a John Kerry makes a big production out of showing up at black Baptist churches or posing with Rev. Jesse Jackson because they understand that’s just politics. They only object to politicians attending church for religious reasons.

This is the same kind of stupid thing dumb people say about the terrorists. You know, they hate us for our freedoms. It's always about policy. Just because reality shows dominate television doesn't mean we are all children. I don't hate Bush because he is Christian, or because he stole the 2000 election, or even for the fact that he is an idiot. I hate him for his disastrous policies that are destroying the country.

Now, I do accept the fact that anti-Christianity is running high right now, but that is mainly due to the radical Christian right shoving a toxic form of the religion down every ones throat. It's reactionary, its blow back, plain and simple.

Prelutsky, who is Jewish, goes on to blame the Jews for the War On Christmas:

It is the ACLU, which is overwhelmingly Jewish in terms of membership and funding, that is leading the attack against Christianity in America. It is they who have conned far too many people into believing that the phrase “separation of church and state” actually exists somewhere in the Constitution.

You may have noticed, though, that the ACLU is highly selective when it comes to religious intolerance. The same group of self-righteous shysters who, at the drop of a “Merry Christmas” will slap you with an injunction, will fight for the right of an American Indian to ingest peyote and a devout Islamic woman to be veiled on her driver’s license.

I'd have to say that's a little overly dramatic. In the last paragraph Pelutsky salutes his Christian overloads:

This is a Christian nation, my friends. And all of us are fortunate it is one, and that so many Americans have seen fit to live up to the highest precepts of their religion. Speaking as a member of a minority group – and one of the smaller ones at that – I say it behooves those of us who don’t accept Jesus Christ as our savior to show some gratitude to those who do, and to start respecting the values and traditions of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, just as we keep insisting that they respect ours.
Merry Christmas.

Are we going to have to endure this imaginary war every year? Oh well, have a better than average end of year annual events time period.

Engaged?

Barbara Bush's six month foreign good will tour to avoid jury duty has run into the Page Six crowd. Babs was wearing a ring on that finger that generally indicates a wedding is in the future during a visit to the National Children's Hospital in some strange far away place known as DC.

The White House has denied that she is engaged, and her future husband was too busy cooking up a new batch of trailer park meth to comment.

Airline Shooting

Federal Air Marshals just capped a guy claiming to have a bomb aboard a American Airlines flight at the Miami airport.

Those Crazy Aspens

Remember the cryptic letter Scooter Libby sent Judith Miller? The one that ended with this message:

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work -- and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby."

The next issue of Vanity Fair will reveal that Judy used to sleep with US Congressman Les Aspin. Aspen, Aspin. Pretty similar, huh. Judy has long had a reputation for sleeping with her sources, so was this quote a reference to her sleeping with Les Aspin and then quoting him as a source? Further more, does the turn in clusters phase constitute a threat to reveal other sources Judy tapped for her stories?

I don't know, but it is certainly interesting.

Fitzy

Old Saint Fitz is in court today with the elves and lots of bags of goodies. No idea who the Silent Knight is looking at today, but hopefully Rove has run out of last minute mystery witnesses to run at Fitzgerald to stave off his indictment.

Idiots And, Well, Idiots

Howard Dean was an idiot for what he said that the idea we could win the Iraq War is "just plain wrong." I agree with him at this point due to the leadership running this country, but as head of the DNC, you just can't make statements like this or even if it was taken out of context, statements close to this. It doesn't play well politically. You've got the base Howard, go get the middle.

That being said, President Bush's statement yesterday is equally idiotic, and somewhat quixotic. Bush said, "I know we're going to win," and "Our troops need to hear not only are they supported, but that we have got a strategy that will win."

What strategy is Bush talking about? I certainly hope he's not talking about that buzz word filled glossy piece of crap from last week that was written in no small part by a White House pollster. Then again, it was shiny so Bush might believe it. I guess we'll just keep on skipping down the IED laden road to stay the courseville.

The strange part is "I know we're going to win." Is Bush harking back to his cheerleader days in college? Exactly what part of this fiasco has led Bush to this conclusion? I don't get it. All I see are continuing American casualties, increasing Iraqi military and police fatalities, and strengthening private militias. None of those things add up to a win.

Today is the anniversary of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Sounds like the perfect time for somebody in the White House to sit Bush down for a sneak attack of reality.

No Jury Duty For Barbara

Nice catch by patprouseyo over at kos. Barbara Bush the younger had the White House lie to get her out of jury duty. From Foxnews.com:

Strother said one of Bush's twin daughters, Barbara, received a jury summons for his court a month ago. Someone called to reschedule her jury service, saying she would be out of the country for the next six months, the judge said.

This simply isn't true, but why bother to lie? Just call it a security threat and move on. No judge would enforce the summons. I've never seen a group of people so challenged by the truth.

Big Box Jesus Leading The War Against Christmas?

This has got to make Bill O'Reilly stew. Several megachurches are canceling their Sunday services in a couple of weeks because Christmas falls on that day. From CNN.com:

This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country.
Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.

[snip]

Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, said church leaders decided that organizing services on a Christmas Sunday would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources.

The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 1994, and only a small number of people showed up to pray, she said.

Et tu, BBJ? Ha Ha

Diebold

Rawstory is apparently currently working on an interview with a Diebold insider for all of you conspiracy types out there. The story isn't up yet but some quotes are up. Including that the insider alleges "company plagued by technical woes," and "Raises questions about Georgia gubernatorial election and Ohio November results."

For the record, I don't believe that Diebold flipped the election in Ohio last year.

UPDATE: The story is now up here.

Lowell Weicker Jr.

Right now there is a lot of talk on liberal blogs about a potential challenge of Joe Lieberman by former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker Jr. I haven't agreed with Joementum much over the past several years, but I do have to question the wisdom of taking out a sitting Democrat with a 74 year old man, especially in a state with a popular republican governor.

Just seems like a bad idea to me. Find someone younger.

Tom Delay

Well, it looks like Tom Delay has managed to weasel his way out of the conspiracy charge against him. Unfortunately for him, the trial for the remaining charge won't take place until after the leadership elections for the House GOP, and he still has Abramoff stuff hanging over his head.

Bottom line, today was a small speed bump on Delay's road to ruin.

Frustrating

Blogger has been a bitch today.

Disappointing

Number two is retiring. Of course I'm referring to Tyra Banks who is the second most beautiful woman in the world. Obviously, Salma Hayek is number one and anyone who disagrees with this non-debatable fact is obviously an idiot.

Given the fact that my favorite bar closed on Saturday combined with the fact that I had car trouble this morning and now that number two is retiring, I think it's pretty clear that there is a vast conspiracy out there with the intention of turning my life upside down.

I'd better go home and barricade the door while cautiously peering out the window through the blinds until this storm passes. I'll use this downtime to search the web for a new number two to, umm, how to I put this, satisfy certain needs of mine.

Still, if you have any photos of Miss Banks, send them to my e-mail address.

Closing Time

Our favorite bar will be closing Saturday and we still haven't settled on a new hangout. One thing is for sure, the new hangout will not feature Motoman Robotics' RoboBar.

Frickin' robots, it's always the frickin' robots.

More FEMA Fuckups

Here is a before and after photo of Maria Russell's house which was damaged in Hurricane Katrina. Yesterday, they received a letter from FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the State of Mississippi have reviewed your request for disaster assistance. Listed below is our decision regarding your request. The initial determination will not preclude you from receiving future assistance.

Determination: IID-Ineligible - Insufficient Damage

Total Grant Amount: $0.00.

If only those pillars would have fallen down.

We're Still Letting Them Die: Iraq Version

Ten Marines were killed by an IED today comprised of several large artillery shells outside Falluja.

Okay, your average Iraqi doesn't have large artillery shells lying around the house. These shells were pilfered from one of the many ammunition dumps around Iraq that the Pentagon didn't deem necessary for destruction. Hell, we didn't even guard them. We just let the insurgency stroll in to shop till they dropped these bombs in holes to kill American soldiers.

This is a total clusterfuck that must firmly be laid at the feet of George Bush. If a major conflict erupted right now we would have to go nuclear as we now don't have the troops, and for that matter the munitions to fight it. We need to pull back to Kuwait now to regroup. But we're not going to do that because the war we were told that would last weeks now requires patience. I'd wager about three more years of patience.

Again, why does Donald Rumsfeld still have a job?

We're Still Letting Them Die: Katrina Version

The first death of Katrina survivors from the coming winter has occurred in Ocean Springs, MS over the last weekend. A nineteen year old was found in the yard of a heavily damaged house where he had previously built a bonfire for warmth. On January seventh FEMA will put thousands of people in this same dilemma by ending their hotel vouchers.

We should all feel shame for this.

John Derbyshire = Creep

John Derbyshire has an strange post about not wanting to see Jennifer Aniston's breasts because she is too old. From The National Review Online:

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20.

Fifteen? Can you say pedophile?

Anyway, don't worry Jen. Bring those puppies over here, I'll take a peek.

Mark Warner

In a move that will certainly play to the base, outgoing Governor and 2008 presidential hopeful Mark Warner has decided he doesn't want to be Mr. 1000. Warner has commuted the sentence of Robin M. Lovitt, who would have been the 1000th person executed since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1976.

Warner did have a good reason to commute his sentence, a clerk had thrown away evidence that could have exonerated Lovitt, but the sense I get is that some other reason would have been found if needed. It's a good move for Warner. This will excite the left wing of the Democratic party and these are the only ordinary people who are actively watching the presidential race right now. This will be long forgotten by the time conservative democrats start to pay attention.

This Sucks

I didn't realize that when CNN was expanding American Morning they were going to stop going live at five AM. I want my live news at five AM back! I do understand that I am probably the only person watching, but let's be clear. ME! ME! ME!

Coleman Out

Michael Coleman has dropped out of the Ohio Gubernatorial race.

Dumb Duke

How did it take so long to catch Duke Cunningham? On of the bribes he accepted was a thirty thousand dollar personal check that he deposited in his Congressional Credit Union account. Must of thought that hiding the money in plain sight was the way to go. Dumb.

12%

An interesting event will take place this week as the United States will execute its 1,000th prisoner since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976. It will probably take place in Virginia, which will execute its 95th prisoner, second only to Texas with 355.

I have mixed emotions on the death penalty. I am mainly opposed to it due to the cost. Life without parole is a much cheaper alternative, although keeping the death penalty around helps steer criminals to plea to avoid it, so I'm not necessarily for banning it.

My only problem is that 122 inmates sentenced to the death penalty have been exonerated since its re-implementation. That's roughly 12% of the total we will have executed by week's end. If we are going to continue to apply justice in an irreversible manner, I think we owe it to ourselves to do a tad bit better than the upper eighties in correctly convicting people for capital crimes.

Critics might point out that the 12% number is misleading being that there are currently 3,415 inmates serving time on death row in America today, but I would like to point out that those inmates have yet to reach their demise. A few will be exonerated, and some will be executed, but most of them will simply die in prison from mostly natural causes. California currently has 648 inmates on death row, but has only executed 11 since 1976. With most of these inmates ending up serving life without parole, the only thing that has been accomplished is that we paid Cadillac prices for Geo sentences.

Approval for the death penalty is at an all time low so this event may lead to some renewed debate about its application, though it will probably get pushed aside if Rove gets indicted.

Ownership

What does it cost to own a US Congressman? Here is a sample of the Duke's gifts of grafts. From Fox.com:

It is "clear from the facts that this was a crime of magnificent and extraordinary audacity," said U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.

The case started earlier this year when Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, were accused of using the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale of his home in Del Mar home to buy a $2.55 million mansion in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe. Cunningham then had the capital gains tax on the property paid by his conspirators.

Though no others were named, in prior reporting, defense contractor Mitchell Wade was said to have bought the Del Mar, and then sold it nearly a year later for a loss of $700,000.

Lam said Cunningham also was given money for a yacht, a party for his daughter's graduation, rugs, antiques, furniture and a Rolls Royce as well as travel expenses for his wife and a payment of more than $500,000 to pay the mortgage in the Rancho Sante Fe home.

All in all, it summed up to about $2.4 million.

Rove

From the various things I've been reading, it's pretty clear Karl Rove will be indicted later this week. I'm going to guess that he gets indicted on three counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements, and one count of obstruction of justice, unless he pleas out. It's Fitzmas all over again.

The Duke Pleas Out

Duke Cunningham has pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiring to take bribes and for tax evasion for not paying taxes on those bribes. Sentencing is set for Febuary 27. He's going to give a press conference at 2:30 EST outside the San Diego Federal Court. Just in case you want to track all of your republican scandals in one place, here's a scorecard.

Cuba

I think yesterday's New York Times article about Cuba misses its true potential. Sure, Cuba will become a major travel destination once Castro is gone and these silly sanctions end, but the real potential for Cuba is to become the number one retirement destination for aging Americans.

There is already a movement to retire south of the border to stretch ever shrinking retirement benefits, but Cuba has something the rest of Latin America lacks, some of the finest affordable health care in the Western Hemisphere. Hell, they have a lower infant mortality rate than the US.

All that this requires is for the United States to reverse 46 years of failed policy. That reversal would certainly bring some new players to the table to lobby their position. Big Pharma for instance? I can't imagine they want a couple of million customers getting on the socialized medicine bandwagon.

Fingered

There's a mouse in the house. A big one, specifically Big Tony Moscatiello. Moscatiello has fingered Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney pal Adam Kidan as the financier in the gangland murder of Gus Boulis. Big Tony went as far as to basically label the killing dumb. From the Sun-Sentinel:

Moscatiello said that killing Boulis made no sense and he never would have approved of it. Even if there were a lengthy legal fight over SunCruz, it would still have been a profitable venture for him, he said.

"It's a company doing 147 million a year," Moscatiello said. "If you can't skim a few dollars off 147 million a year, ha-ha you shouldn't be in business."

Moscatiello said later in the conversation, "I'm not going to go down the yellow brick road for something that I would ... I would have been dead set against and never, never once in a million years would I have said, `Let's do this.' And I'm just not going to go ... I'm not going [to] do life without parole for this."

By the way, Moscatiello has made a career out of not doing time when entangled in criminal probes. He was once indicted with John Gotti's brother Gene, but mysteriously the charge went away and he never did any time. The funny thing is that either Moscatiello didn't tell his lawyer that he is a career stoolie or his lawyer is trying to keep him alive long enough to make it to witness protection. Really funny couple of paragraphs from the Sun-Sentinel:

David Bogenschutz, Moscatiello's attorney, said Wednesday night that he had not seen the transcripts of his client's statements to police.

"At this time and since the time from his arrest, Anthony Moscatiello is not cooperating," Bogenschutz said. "He never intends to cooperate and does not have a history of cooperating."

Oh, I think he does, and did, and will. Enjoy LWOP Adam.

General?

I wonder if this guy is a general in Bill O'Reilly's push back in "The War Against Christmas"?

Who?

On this Thanksgiving morning, I am thankful for someone whom I do not yet know. That someone is the person willing the make public the Bush-Blair memo about the bombing of al-Jazerra. The British government is threatening any publisher with the Official Secrets Act. The memo must be made public. If valid, it shows that the United States is currently being run by a madman, and that madman must be removed from office.

I don't know if the average American can grasp what this truly means. An attack on the free press, even a foreign free press, is an attack against all of us. It is prima fascia evidence of tyranny being committed against free men. Evidence of this nation committing the same offense that turned the Thanksgiving attendees of 229 years ago into revolutionaries to form this country to rid ourselves of the tyranny of King George III. It's one of the reasons cited for fighting this current war.

Who will stand against this tyranny? Publish the memo.

They Write Letters

Rebecca Lusignolo-McGlone writes a letter to today's Dispatch imploring people to leave Thanksgiving alone. She's talking about the supposed "War on Christmas" that has been trumpeted by the right the last couple of years. From the Dispatch:

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this quote in an Ohio Historical Society tract while attending a school field trip a couple of weeks ago. Rather than mentioning the Thanksgiving holiday by name, it was listed as "a day set aside to celebrate good fortune." This, by the self-described historical society!

These people are nuts. I don't know how the whole Happy Holidays thing got turned into a conspiracy by the left to attack Christians, but it isn't. These things are focus grouped and studied to death by marketers and apparently they feel it helps them sell more crap, period. I personally don't care, but let me be the first to wish you a better than average end of the year annual events time period. May whatever gift giving fiasco you celebrate be fruitful.

Liar

Murray Waas has found the smoking gun that proves the Bush administration lied to the American public on at least one aspect of the pre-war intelligence that led to the Iraq War. On September 21, 2001 George Bush received a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) in which he was told there was no connection between Iraq and al-Queda and no evidence to the contrary has ever been given to the president. From the National Journal:

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

[snip]

The conclusions drawn in the lengthier CIA assessment-which has also been denied to the committee-were strikingly similar to those provided to President Bush in the September 21 PDB, according to records and sources. In the four years since Bush received the briefing, according to highly placed government officials, little evidence has come to light to contradict the CIA's original conclusion that no collaborative relationship existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"What the President was told on September 21," said one former high-level official, "was consistent with everything he has been told since-that the evidence was just not there."

In arguing their case for war with Iraq, the president and vice president said after the September 11 attacks that Al Qaeda and Iraq had significant ties, and they cited the possibility that Iraq might share chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons with Al Qaeda for a terrorist attack against the United States.

Gotcha bitches!

Batshit Loony

George Bush met face to face with Tony Blair last April to bounce an idea off of him. Bush wanted to blow up al-Jazerra's headquarters in Qatar. Blair shot the idea down. If two members of the British government weren't being charged with violating the Official Secrets Act in leaking this information, I'd be tempted to say this is bullshit. However, David Keogh and Lee O'Conner are being charged so there must be some validity to this.

Can Bush really be that insane? This is the stupidest thing I've heard yet come out of the White House.

Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Ney, Goodbye

The Dispatch has all the juicy tidbits that Michael Scanlon will testify against Bob Ney. From the Dispatch:

In the agreement made public by Justice Department officials, Scanlon will testify that he and Abramoff provided Ney and his staff with all- expense-paid trips to the Marianas Islands in 2000, the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., in 2001 and Scotland in 2002 to play golf at the prestigious St. Andrews course.

The papers also say Scanlon has told prosecutors that he and Abramoff supplied Ney and his top aides with free tickets to concerts and sporting events in Washington, made campaign contributions and paid for meals and drinks at a posh Washington restaurant that Abramoff used to own.

Some-body's going to do some time. Maybe Ney can bunk with Jim Traficant.

Shameless Revisionism

Dick Cheney simply sounds like a fool with the latest line of attacks on critics of the administration's prosecution of the Iraq War. From The New York Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney stepped up the White House attacks on critics of the Iraq war on Monday, declaring that politicians who say Americans were sent into battle based on a lie are engaging in "revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety."

Let's take a look at some of the shameless revisionism that has marked the rhetoric in the Iraq War. Remember when we had to take out Saddam Hussein because he had large stockpiles of WMD? Hmm, that didn't quite work out for us so then the rationale became that Hussein had an active WMD program. Yep, that's why we attacked him. Oops, no program either, umm, well the real reason we went to free Iraq from a dangerous dictator. After all, who could argue that the world isn't a safer place without Saddam.

That's some mighty fine shameless revisionism, if I do say so myself. The latest reason given as to why we have to stay given by the administration is that we can't let Iraq's oil fields fall into the hands of terrorists, and unfortunately, there is some merit to that claim. But if you parse that statement closely what Bush is saying is that we really fucked up, and we have to keep on fucking up otherwise our enemies will get there hands on a lot of money to really fuck us up. That's not a policy, that's a prayer.

Jean Schmidt

I was talking over the weekend with a friend of mine from across the aisle who works at a large state agency. When Jean Schmidt's name came up, he told me that the director of the agency wouldn't even send her a congratulatory letter when she won the primary last year. The reason? He said she was a pathological liar and he was afraid she would claim that he had endorsed her.

My friend then looked at me and said,"your guy almost pulled that out." I replied,"Yea but I'm glad he lost. It would be difficult to hold that seat next year and now your stuck with that idiot."

Out Of Touch

If there is anyone out there who still isn't convinced that the republican party is out of touch with mainstream America, they should be forced to read this story from the Washington Post.

Bruce Springsteen famously was "born in the USA," but he's getting scorned in the U.S. Senate.

An effort by New Jersey's senators, both Democrats, to honor the veteran rocker was shot down yesterday by Republicans who apparently are still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The chamber's GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album "Born to Run."

This goes to show not only the level of vitriol of the modern republican party, but also their arrogance.

Closing Time

The bar that me and my crew hang out at, Brian Borus, is closing. It is located in an apartment complex that went condo and the condo association doesn't want a bar there so they bought the business to close it. It will become some sort of crappy retail space. So, where do we move to? We go out a lot, and we spend a lot of money. We debated over the weekend what demands we should put for the new hang out to acquire our business. (We really spend a lot of money at bars) One bar manager has already offered us ten% off of our tabs. We also debated buying our own bar.

Use the comments to put in your input into what bar should be our new hang out. We would prefer to stay in the Short North. Food is always a plus, as is a large amount of bar space. (We would rather sit at the bar than at tables) Also, and I hate to admit this being the good liberal I am, some hotties on the staff doesn't hurt either. Anyway, any ideas are appreciated.

Then We Can Leave

I've written my beliefs about Iraq here before, but I left one thing out. We gotta clip Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before we can leave.

Hoops

Brad Pitt is now taking an interest in trade with Africa. Ah, these are the hoops you have to jump though to tap one of America's, or um, Cambodia's greatest resource...the eco-pussy of Angelina Jolie.

Ratted Out

Why does cash suddenly appear?

Everytime Bob Ney is near

Congressmen aren't free

Ney needs to be, "duped" by you

.

Why does cash fall down from the sky?

Everytime Ney walks by

Congressmen aren't free

Ney needs to be, "duped" by you

.

Scanlon flipped, noose tightens

Jean Schmidt

Jean Schmidt just had to withdraw her words from the House floor or face censure. She called John Murtha a coward. She also should have faced censure for that um...thing she was wearing. Apparently it was stolen from a patriotic clown.

Fitzy

Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence to a grand jury in the Plame Case. Today the Washington Post reported this:

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in court filings that his investigation "will involve proceedings before a different grand jury than the grand jury which returned the indictment" against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

I'm not an attorney, but my inclination is to think that Fitzgerald is preparing to ask for another round of indictments. This will be an existing grand jury that is not familiar with the case so I don't think Fitzgerald is going to take it over, but instead ask for specific indictments based on the information he has acquired.

Perhaps in house attorney Jeff would like to speculate on my theory.

The Game

Who's coming to the bar to watch the OSU - Michigan game tommorrow?

Duncan Hunter & John Murtha: Two Side Of An Irrelevent Coin

US House member and part time food critic Duncan Hunter had the following to say in response to John Murtha's call to leave Iraq.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. And I'm joined by my colleagues today to make some comments regarding the recent congressional initiatives that would call for an immediate pullout of American forces from Iraq.

You know, American military operations have two phases. In the attack phase there's great patriotism, there's a groundswell of support for the troops and much flag waving.
The second phase is a more difficult phase. That's a time when you have casualties. That's the time when you make incremental gains. And it's a time when you sometimes see faltering political support. That always happens. And right now in the war-fighting theater in Iraq, we're in the second phase.

Okay, the second phase Hunter is referring to is the nation building phase, and the only time it is more dangerous than the first stage is when you totally fuck up the first stage. In fact, the first stage is not yet complete. We are still fighting it because, unfortunately for us, the Iraqis did not dutifully line up in tight formations on the battlefield to be blown to bits. Much like a group of rag tag revolutionaries did in this country 230 or so years ago, the inferior force resorted to guerrilla warfare. It has been the standard playbook when fighting a superior force ever since then. The fact that the planners of this war didn't take that into account is the reason we're in this mess to begin with. Well, that and the fact that we never should have been there in the first place. Let go back to Hunter's statement.

And I thought that we would talk a little bit about what's at stake, because I think that the attack on 9/11 is something that Americans have not forgotten, and I think they understand that the aggressive operations of America's military have helped to keep the insurgents in the war against terror off balance.

That's why Americans today are able to go to parks, go to schools, go to the grocery store, live life without fear of having a second 9/11 attacks, and that's why four years have expired without a second attack on our homeland: because we've aggressively projected America's fighting forces in the theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they are doing a superb job.

Yep, gotta drop in a couple of 9/11 references when deflecting criticism about a completely different war. The bottom line is that both these paragraphs are complete horseshit with the exception of the Afghanistan mention. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with keeping our homeland safe from terrorists. In fact, what we've managed to do is create the greatest terrorist training camp in the world. Iraq is now a laboratory where terrorist can test new methods soon to be exported to other parts of the world.

Also, it is important to remember that just because our homeland hasn't been attacked, our allies have, lest we forget Madrid, London, Amman, and Bali. Hunter had one other thing to say that interested me.

And we are in the process of delivering a free Iraq and delivering a nation that will be, instead of an enemy of the United States, a friend of the United States in a very strategic area of the world, that will not be a platform for terrorists, that will have a modicum of democracy and therefore not be a threat to the United States.

As soon as they are able to, the Iraqis are going to throw us out of the country. It is going to be simply impossible to get elected in a new "free" Iraq having a pro US stance. That's the danger of creating a democracy where we are hated.

That being said, John Murtha is also wrong. The danger here is not in repeating the mistake of Vietnam. It is in repeating the mistake of 1980's Afghanistan. Once the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, we basically threw the Afghanis to the wolves. Of course, other factors made it difficult to continue aid such as the untimely death of Pakistan's leader Zia-Ul-Haq in a 1988 plane crash and the KGB blowing up one of our arms warehouses in Pakistan. But, the reality is we left Afghanistan to become a failed state. How did that work out for us? Oh yea, thirteen years later some assholes flew some planes into some buildings. (I highly recommend reading Charlie Wilson's War for more information on the covert 1980's CIA operations in Afghanistan.)

We can't let Iraq become the same thing, but what are our current real-time options. First of all we need to commit enough force to Iraq to make the population restive. I can only come up with three ways to accomplish this given that our military is becoming increasingly battle weary. The first is obviously to have a draft. Not gonna happen with presidential approval ratings in the thirties. Members of Congress like being members of Congress and approving a draft puts you in the fast lane out of town. The second is recruit foreigners to replenish our ranks. Bad idea, leads to a clusterfuck of a military. The third, and in my opinion the best option is to play a high stakes game of chicken with the UN. Tell them to give us 150,000 troops next month or we are going home. This isn't going to happen either. So, there are no military options available to us except for Bush's policy of staying the course. He doesn't seem to understand that we can't keep on fucking up and expect a conclusion to our liking just because we are Americans.

The other option is to allow the free elections and let the Iraqis expel us. Once we're gone, there will probably be an extremely violent civil war with the Madhi army siding with the Sunnis to go against the Badr Brigade and the pro-Iranian Shia. The ugly reality is that we are going to have to pick a side and arm them though a third pass though country. And we're going to have to hold our nose while the ethnic cleansing takes place. We're also going to have to whack a few guys, it's going to be messy. Then we're going to have to live with whatever government the winner sets up. Probably a pro-Iranian theocracy. We have to try to make nice with them which will be hard because unlike Afghanistan, they won't need our money, they have oil. We are also going to have to lean on Turkey not to intervene when the Kurds withdrawal from Iraq to form their own country.

Hopefully, we will not all feel the scalding steam blast from the pressure cooker that George Bush foolishly opened.

Irresponsible

Wow, how well did irresponsible score in the focus group. Bush can't put together more than ten words right now without using it. Thing is, it doesn't matter anymore. My sense is that the American people are not hearing him. When the administration's credibility left town, so did its ability to use the bully pulpit that comes with being president. Their constant prattle about irresponsibility is nothing more than the muzak at your local supermarket. Bland, irrelevant, and most importantly forgettable.

Kanye Was Right

Despite the fact that four out of five team members of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division assigned to review Georgia's new voting legislation deemed it likely to disenfranchise African-American voters, Bush political appointees overruled their recommendation and gave it "pre-clearance."

Two courts have ruled the law unconstitutional, but hey, how could they pass on the chance to disenfranchise black voters. From The Washington Post:

State Rep. Tyrone L. Brooks Sr., a Democrat and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, said he was not surprised by the Justice Department's position in the case.

"Some of my colleagues told me early on that, because of politics in the Bush administration, no matter what the staff recommendation was, this would be approved by the attorney general," Brooks said. "It's disappointing that the staff recommendation was not accepted, because that has been the norm since 1965."

My God, are we going to have to resort to that fucking purple finger thing to have a fair fucking election in this country. If 2006 turns out to be the shit storm I think it will be for republicans, I want to be in the front of the line when it comes time to hand out cock punches.

RightMarch.com

RightMarch.com has paired two conservative musicians to write a song praising President Bush. They are planning on making a video to air on MTV. Wow, is it bad. I'm really hope their Robo-calling minions get this on MTV, it will allow us to claim a generation of voters without lifting a finger.

First of all the music appears to be almost entirely lifted from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire."

Secondly, the lyrics are written in a form similar to something a ten year old would write.

RightMarch.com sent an e-mail so potential viewers will be ready to call TRL once the video is done. Here is a sample:

This is what the youth in America need. They’re already bombarded with songs on the radio and videos on MTV that trash our President, conservative beliefs, and traditional American values. From “Mosh” by Eminem, to “Idiot Son of an A**hole” by NOFX… all of these songs serve to fill young people’s minds with LIES.

And of course, everywhere they turn, the mainstream media is lying to them about the FACTS — like the FACT that WMDs *were* found in Iraq, including enriched uranium, chemical weapons agents, chemical warheads containing cyclosarin, radioactive materials in powdered form, roadside bombs loaded with mustard and “conventional” sarin gas, etc.; or the FACT of clear, uncontested, proven links between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda; or the FACTS of all of the GOOD news that’s happening in Iraq, which the media refuses to report!

Okay, as far as I know, NOFX doesn't even make videos, and the second paragraph is about as far away from reality as you can get.

I'm going to post a link to a sample of the song, but beware. If you are susceptible to involuntary urine releases during fits of laughter, go the the restroom before listening.

Here's the link.

Comments

Always feel free to leave comments on this blog. I wouldn't have them turned on otherwise. You can leave them even if they are off topic, no, especially if they are off topic, no, even, no, especially. Fuck it, leave anything you want.

Bodies

I've been wondering about the houses they didn't search in New Orleans, specifically whether or not they contained any bodies. Apparently they do. Relatives are now coming home to find decomposing loved ones in their ruined homes. The death toll has jumped 104 since the state stopped searches on October 3rd. This is with the Lower Ninth Ward, which had the worst flooding, still closed to the public. I think there are still a lot of bodies in attics to find. This is just fucking ridiculous.

Found via Atrios via Scout Prime

Branded

In a Newark Star Ledger poll taken after last Tuesday New Jersey Gubernatorial election, the top reason cited for impacting voters was political party, the second most cited reason was Doug Forrester's association with President Bush. It's important right now that we brand the entire republican party with the House Of Bush brand. It's pure political poison.

Diet Time

In a rare foriegn policy coup for the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice has brokered a deal that will allow Palestinians to travel to and from the Gaza Strip with relative freedom. Relative freedom means Ariel Sharon, pictured on the left, will now only have the authority to eat every fourth Palestinian that makes the crossing. It is rumored that Sharon consulted with Jenny Craig before agreeing to the accord.

Collapsing

It looks like the Bush administration is now collapsing under the weight of the pre-war intelligence. Today, the New York Times runs a lead editorial effectively calls Bush a liar. That's an upgrade in the rhetoric. From the Times:

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.

EJ Dionne piles on in the Washington Post noting that "the president clearly needs to tend to his credibility problems. But his partisan attacks on the administration's critics, in a Veterans Day speech last week and in Alaska yesterday, will only add to his troubles."

As for my two cents, in the two speeches mentioned by Dionne, the Bush administration is starting to sound like a small child who blames the dog for coloring on the walls.

Sorry For The Light Output

It's Michigan Week, what do you want?

Sinking In

Doug Forrester, the recently defeated GOP candidate for governor in New Jersey, has admitted what I talked about here earlier. Hurricane Katrina was the Democrats 9/11, at least politically. After Katrina, everything changed. From The Star Ledger:

Doug Forrester, in his first postelection interview, laid the blame for his loss in the governor's race last week directly at the feet of President Bush. He said the public's growing disaffection with Bush, especially after Hurricane Katrina, made it impossible for his campaign to overcome the built-in advantage Democrats have in a blue state like New Jersey.

"If Bush's numbers were where they were a year ago, or even six months ago, I think we would have won on Tuesday," Forrester said. "Katrina was the tipping point."

Yep, get used to it.

Audio Bullys

I just got an advanced copy of the new Audio Bullys CD titled Generation due out on January 26. After a couple of listens it sounds mellower than their previous releases. Fave tracks are I'm In Love, This Road, and the only really hard driving track on the album, Shot You Down. There are seventeen tracks in all. It's probably worth buying, but not necessarily a must have.

Deeply Irresponsible?

The one trick pony that is the Bush administration is using that one trick on critics who claim that Bush lied about prewar intel to get us into the Iraq War. Attack. Attack. Attack. Today in Tobyhanna, PA Bush gave a speech in which he said the following:

“While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began,”

Irresponsible? If you change the first r in that word to an m and throw in an apostrophe, you get a lot closer to the truth at hand. I'm-responsible. That is what the president can't tell you, but I will. He's responsible for the prewar intel that was given to Congress. He's responsible for the 2,062 American deaths to date in this war that was made possible by those cooked books. He's responsible for the 200 billion dollars this war has cost to date.

But of course, the Bush administration is woefully unable to own up to any of the facts in its many screw-ups, so they resort to the one trick they know. Unfortunately for Bush, he no longer has the credibility to back up those attacks.

Why Bother

I don't really know why anyone bothers paying any attention to election law. Actually, the republicans don't. The case involving ads ran against Alice Resnick in 2000 by Citizens for a Strong Ohio, a front group for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has been resolved. It took five years, five fucking years. And for what? Citizens for a Strong Ohio will be fined $1,100. They ran seven million dollars worth of illegal ads and they only get fined $1,100. What a fucking joke.

Of course that's not all. They also will receive a written reprimand. That's right boys and girls, not an oral reprimand, but a written one. I'm beside myself wondering why they even fought this. They should have shook some fucking nickles out of their pocket, gave the Ohio Election Commission the finger, and walked away.

If you want some real campaign reform, you might want to start by putting some fucking teeth in existing campaign law.

Lott Backpedals

Trent Lott has backed off the remarks he made about the lunch leak, saying he was referring to another story in the Post. I still want to know however, which other Senators are secret torture meeting club?

Legal Defense Fund

Bob Ney has joined the swelling ranks of republicans with a legal defense fund. After all, you don't expect these assholes to pay a lawyer out of their own pocket for their criminal dalliances. It's actually starting to be a crowded field so I'm proposing the GOP as a whole hold a telethon for all of their legal defense funds. Two weeks from today sounds good, maybe name it the Thanks For Giving Pay For Play Day Telethon. Remember, this is the gift that gives back, if you know what I mean. (Assuming acquittal)

Ah, I can see it now. For only a dollar a day...You can give a republican in distress a much needed gift, a billable hour.

Judy Miller Unemployed

Judy Miller's severance package is now a done deal and she is retiring from the New York Times. Tomorrow's Times will feature a letter from Judy explaining her side of the story. She will not be missed.

Parsing Trent Lott

Yesterday, when speaking to reporters about the secret prison story in the November 3rd edition of the Washington Post written by Dana Priest, Trent Lott mentioned a luncheon for republican Senators attended by Dick Cheney held on the 2nd where information similar to the Post story was disseminated by Cheney to those in attendence and suspected that the leak about those prisons came from that luncheon. From Democracy Now:

"Information that was said in there, given out in there, did get into the newspaper. I don't know where else it came from…. It looked to me that at least one of those reports came right out of that room."

That doesn't make sense to me, at least on the surface. I don't think that Priest received the leak on Tuesday afternoon, wrote her article, fact checked it, and then confirmed it with other sources in time to make deadline for Wednesday's paper. I could be wrong, I'm not privy to the inner workings of the Post, but it seems difficult.

What I believe actually happened is this. Someone leaked to Cheney that Priest was working on the story and Cheney used the luncheon to prepare a response. After all, Cheney wasn't talking about these prisons with the full intelligence committee, just select republicans. Why else would he be discussing these prisons at all?

So, that brings us around to motive for revealing that the luncheon happened at all. Lott has been at odds with the White House for some time now, and I believe that Lott is really making this statement to cut Dick Cheney's throat. In other words, he is laying the prisons directly at the Vice President's feet. Unfortunately, the media took Lott's statement that a fellow Senator may have been the leak at face value.

Whatever the truth is, I have to think that Lott has now had his secret torture meeting club card revoked.

Oops!

Ah, there must not be anything like waking up on yet another rainy election day in Ohio only to see your office's $90,000 screw-up on the front page of The Dispatch. That's the position Mike Pirik is in today as the Municipal Clerks office released Eric Shipley on felony drug possession for $10,000 instead of $100,000 as ordered by the court. From the Dispatch:

Shipley’s bail bondsman called it the "biggest goof-up" he’s seen while working with the courts.

"I’ve never run across this before. I’ve been in this business for 10 years and I’ve never heard of this happening," bondsman Conrad Meyers said last night.

Ouch, happy voting.

Ohio Senate Poll

Today's US Senate poll in The Dispatch appears to have over-sampled Democrats based on previous Ohio polls. I would have to guess both Paul Hackett and Sherrod Brown trail Mike Dewine by a slight bit. Still, with Dewine's numbers as low as they are for an incumbent, next year is looking like a gold watch year for Dewine. Brown and Hackett should both push ahead of Dewine as the primary season heats up.

It's looks like the over-sample happened due to a lack of response from Southwest Ohio. It could be because of zeal on the side that seems to have the momentum, or just a general malaise among republican voters in the aftermath of the Noe scandals, the Katrina debacle, and continued lack of visible progress in the Iraq war.

I'd have to call the poll an outlier for now.

Paging The IRS

The La Times has a story today about All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena getting a letter from the IRS concerning their tax exempt status due to a sermon given last year that criticized George Bush and the Iraq war.

The sermon reportedly was more about helping the poor and being against the war than last year's presidential election. I think the IRS ought to drag itself to Ohio to check out World Harvest Church and the way more political Rob Parsley.

Subpeonaed

Bob Ney's office has been subpeonaed in the Abramoff case. Like Josh Marshall, I find it amusing that in a 206 word statement, Ney's spokesperson failed to mention the word subpoenaed. Ney has claimed he was "duped" by Abramoff. That's par for the course for Ney, although I doubt he went that low at St. Andrews. How many times can you be duped before the voters realize your a dope?

Jerry Kilgore And The Chimp

Jerry Kilgore is hoping a Monday night rally with president Bush will put him over the top in the Virginia gubernatorial race. It's a risky play to bring in Mr. 35% so Kilgore must believe he is somewhat behind.

What is really telling about this rally is that it is at the airport. President Bush is such damaged goods that the only place he can rally the voters from is the airport. This is going to hurt many republicans in the mid-term elections. When you have to distance yourself from the top dog in your party during an election, you usually end up walking a knife's edge between pissing off the base and losing the middle. It is a fine line that makes success difficult.

I think Kaine wins this race but it is going to be extremely tight.

51%

Zogby has finally been forced by the Downing Street crew to put the impeachment question back into his polling. 51% now favor impeachment if George Bush lied on Iraq. This poll just dropped and I don't have a link yet.

PR Fiasco

I didn't catch this in last Sunday's Washington Post, but Magorn over at Kos did. The short of it is that last Thursday, George Bush paid a visit to the traditionally African-American Howard University for a youth summit. The summit was held at the Blackburn Center, which holds the university's dining hall thus shutting the dining hall down. Angry students were told they would have to come back later and go around to the service entrance in the rear to get their food.

How do you fuck up a PR event this badly? This think this line from WAPO sums it up:

To set off a student protest at this school, you'd have to be politically tone-deaf in the extreme, out of touch and flying blind. And yet, Bush did it.

Do You Believe Me Now?

Last month I wrote this about the Christian Right:

You guys are considered to be backwoods snake-handling goat fuckers by the pro-business part of the republican party.

Yesterday, a memo from Mike Scanlan, an aide for Tom Delay, was revealed to say this:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

Cronies

Cronyism is alive and well at the White House post Katrina. Last week, George Bush filled nine of the sixteen positions on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board which oversees national intelligence with fundraisers from his re-election campaign. Yes, these extremely important national security positions were filled with hacks by our "security president." Feel safer yet?

Somebody should tell Bush that the French and Indian War is over. We don't need any pioneers being our first line of defense. Of course, if Al-Queda decides to attack us with bundled checks, these guys will sniff it out well in advance.

Unlikely Backer

Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed the Reform Ohio Now inititives despite pleas from Denis Hastert. I don't know why Schwarzenegger thought he had to involve himself in the Ohio effort. Yes, he does have Proposition 77 on the California ballot this year which basically does the same thing as Issue 4, but he could have simply dodged taking a position on the Ohio inititvies. He could have answered that how should he know what's right for the people of Ohio, or simply said that he hadn't seen the wording of the Ohio proposal. Instead Schwarzenegger seems to have actively pursued giving an endorsement as if he needed to get some sort of street cred for Prop 77.

Ohio republicans are certainly peeved and were the ones who enlisted Hastert to lean on Schwarzenegger.

I also endorse the Reform Ohio inititives.

Found via Kos