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.