Enemy Combatant
Monday, November 20, 2006
The Wizard Of Ozymandias Abroad
Apparently the lying sneaking cowardly little shit who occupies the White House is finding that his Emperor's-New-Clothes schtick is selling overseas even worse than it is domestically:
Asian leaders fail to back Bush's strategy to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions
· President loses battle for united anti-nuclear stance
· Trip to Indonesia curtailed over security concerns
Suzanne Goldenberg in Hanoi
Monday November 20, 2006
The Guardian
President George Bush suffered his most visible diplomatic setback since his party's defeat in mid-term elections yesterday when Asian leaders failed to back Washington's call for robust action against North Korea.
Mr Bush, in Vietnam on his first foreign trip since the elections, had lobbied strenuously for a unified strategy aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions, meeting the Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese leaders on the sidelines of the summit.
The rebuff - the second for Mr Bush this weekend on North Korea - underlined the president's diminished powers in the wake of his election defeat. So too did the muted response to Mr Bush's presence in Hanoi, a shadow of the tumultuous reception for President Clinton, when he visited Vietnam six years ago.
But that is far better than the hostile reception that awaits Mr Bush today when he flies in to Indonesia, where thousands of protesters were on the streets yesterday accusing the US of war crimes. Mr Bush is to spend just six hours in Indonesia after the secret service decided that it would be too dangerous for him to remain in the country overnight. Intelligence officials say there have been warnings of a militant attack during Mr Bush's visit.
We're fleeing them over there, so we don't have to flee them over here.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Bush is down to 33% approval in the latest Newsweek poll.
That's damn near Nixon-waving-from-the-helicopter numbers, folks!
Bush is down to 33% approval in the latest Newsweek poll.
That's damn near Nixon-waving-from-the-helicopter numbers, folks!
Monday, August 14, 2006
When you get to DC, please remember to visit the National Statuary Hall Collection, located in the Capitol Building.
And I see they've decided on Bush's statue for the collection:
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Wingnuts: Wrong From The Beginning
Before it disappears down the dark tubes of the internets, I wanted to bring to everyone's attention an excellent historical/analytical essay about the American Right Wing from Harper's magazine, entitled "Stabbed In The Back." (The essay is all the more timely given the latest news about the neocons' attempts to throw Condi Rice under the bus, over Bush's wall-to-wall trainwrecks in the area of foreign policy.)
What's particularly engrossing is the history of how the wingnuts have been wrong about every major policy issue for the last 75 years (and it doesn't even touch on civil rights)! But what saves the Right, time after time, is its enduring ability to forget entirely its past mistakes (even its past positions!), and blithely adopt new heroes and causes without breaking its stride.
Case in point: Harry Truman. The wingnuts of his day loathed the man, and did everything in their power (fortunately not much) to bring him down. Now, of course, they'd like to canonize him. His biggest sin, in their eyes at the time, was firing Gen. MacArthur in the midst of the Korean War. But does anyone remember what MacArthur had in mind as that war's "endgame?"What the general proposed was a massive escalation of the war. U.N. troops would not only "blockade the coast of China" and "destroy through naval gunfire and air bombardment China's industrial capacity to wage war" but would also "release existing restrictions upon the Formosan garrison" of Chiang Kai-shek, which might lead to counter-invasion against "vulnerable areas of the Chinese mainland." Above all, MacArthur urged that no fewer than thirty-four atomic bombs be dropped on what he characterized as "retardation targets" in Manchuria, including critical concentrations of troops and planes. Even this soon seemed insufficient. MacArthur later added that had he been permitted, he not only would have launched as many as fifty atomic bombs but also would have used "wagons, carts, trucks, and planes" to create "a belt of radioactive cobalt" that would neatly slice the Korean thumb from China. "For at least sixty years," he said, "there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the north."Sound familiar?
Monday, July 03, 2006
Put Him In The Hall Of Fame
Songstress Jill Sobule has a neat yet audacious idea, along the lines of, say, giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet -- let's give W a golden parachute that he'll jump at:
Anyone read the Declaration of Independence lately? Apart from its (still-breathtaking) claim that -- if and when things get bad enough -- "the People" have the right to revolution, its recitation of "repeated injuries and usurpations" committed by King George is particularly illuminating.
Have a great Fourth, everybody!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
"It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."
Frister, please!
It is but a vile, overbearing and undemocratic act, exhibiting a disappointing, woeful misunderstanding of the First Amendment, for you to shamelessly grandstand about the flag, with the country (and the Constitution!) crumbling around you.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
PUNK LIVES!
"The Press Corpse," by Anti-Flag
The [Downing Street] memo says . . .
. . . We gotta work to make the facts fit the false charges
Pull the wool over the eyes of the filthy masses
Stab the people in the back for the corporate choice
Roll the propaganda out using The People's Voice
We don't want to talk about it . . .
The press scribble scribble every half-truth spoke
Then shoot it round the country like an April Fools joke
Hype the nation for a Desert Storm love affair
Wave the stars and stripes like you just don't care!
They talk it up all day, talk it up all night
Talk until their face turns blue - Red white and blue!
But when the truth escapes the night and crawls into the day
We find the picture still askew
They don't want to . . . talk talk talk talk talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and mindlessly salute (Whoa-oh, Whoa-oh)
They don't want to talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and cowardly salute (Ooooooohhh)
And on the TV screen . . .
. . . Diversion and aversion is the flavor of the day
Was it WMDs? Or Democracy?
Blame it on MI-6 or the CIA
The White House Press Corpse only has one thing to say . . .
"We don't want to talk about it!"
The White House boils over, "Al Jazeera got it wrong!"
The Press Corpse jumps onboard singing the White House song
While over in Iraq thousands are dead because of lies
The spineless war drumming-press corpse have taken lives
They talk it up all day, talk it up all night
Talk until their face turns blue - Red white and blue!
But when the truth escapes the night and crawls into the day
We find the picture still askew
They don't want to . . . talk talk talk talk talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and mindlessly salute (Whoa-oh, Whoa-oh)
They don't want to talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and cowardly salute (Ooooooohhh)
(1,2,3,4!)
(1,2,3,4!)
Fires fueled on endless lies
Black shrouds coat desert skies
A nation's viewpoint blurred and led
As embeds report what they're fed
We don't want to talk about it,
We don't want to talk about it,
We don't want to talk about it,
We don't want to talk about it,
We don't want to talk about it,
(We dont, don't want to, We dont' want to talk about it)
We don't want to talk about it,
(We dont, don't want to, We dont' want to talk)
They don't want to . . . talk talk talk talk talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and cowardly salute (Whoa-oh, Whoa-oh)
They don't want to talk about it
They want tiptoe, walk around it
Wave the flag and cowardly salute (Ooooooohhh)
Friday, June 23, 2006
Sometimes, You Just Have To Say, "WTF??!"
Here's a current headline and brief story running on Yahoo! News:
Business as usual at Sears Tower despite plot
CHICAGO - Tourists lined up to take in the view atop America's tallest office building on Friday and workers went to their desks inside as usual despite news that the Sears Tower was the target of a foiled terrorist plot. "The possibility (of an attack) will always exists, you can't stop living," said Terrie Coles, 52, office manager for an engineering firm, as she headed inside the 110-story building. "I just hope and pray that people are doing their jobs to keep us safe," she added, but "I'm skeptical the plot even existed."
"Terror hype much?" These clowns in Liberty City: (a) had no weapons; (b) had no means of using weapons; and (c) were a helluva long ways from Chicago. Can we expect more hysterical-yet-nonsensical headlines like this in the immediate future? Something along the lines of:
Business As Usual At Mental Health Facilities, Despite Plethora Of Napoleons
Skies Remain Clear, Despite "Wrath Of God" Directives From Televangelists
Iraq Remains Anarchic Hellhole, Despite "Happy Horseshit" Talk From Washington
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
FoxNews Grants ACLU Entire 3-Second Response To 147-Count Wife-Beating Allegations
"Some will say" that this proves Fox News hates the ACLU, and will bring one of the group's members on their shows just to ridicule him. I think it just proves that Fox News tries to populate its programming with too many wingnut airhead Ken and Barbie dolls, trained seals who read their lines dutifully, but can't improvise -- or even effectively rephrase talking points read off their laptops, apparently -- for shit, particularly in the midst of a dressing down by an ACLU (semi-, former)spokesman.
Pathetic, puerile, and partisan -- that's Fox News for you!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Bush's New Secret Nickname For Peter Wallsten:
Ray Charles.
Watch the video:
Then find out what the idiot fratboy found worth snickering about.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Straight Outta Kafka
Ask A Question, Go To Jail:Like most travel writers, I avoid identifying myself as such. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle of journalism is that people tell different stories when they know that that what they say or do may appear in print.
Normally, that's not a problem. If people don't like what I'm doing, they say so by words or gestures, and I stop. I smile apologetically. They smile (usually), and in any case I go on about my business and my journey.
I've been asked to leave places where I didn't see the "off limits" signs (if there were any), or they weren't in any language I could understand. And I've been asked to stop taking photos.
But never, anywhere in the world -- including a fairly wide variety of police states -- have I been threatened with arrrest while travelling, merely for asking questions about what was happening.
Until last month, at Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC, USA.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Enough With The Partisan Pudenda Punditry!
Jamison Foser has an excellent (if unimaginatively-named) piece over at Media Matters, about (among other slanted coverage) the Beltway Bloviators' obsession with political panty-sniffing -- but more specifically (and exclusively), Democratic panty-sniffing. I advise you to go read the whole thing, but here's a pithy excerpt:We've previously denounced "sexual innuendo" about political figures and the "frivolity" of questions about politicians' personal lives. We've argued that the media focuses far too much on these matters, at the expense of serious issues. Put simply, we don't think personal lives are the business of anybody but the people involved.
But if the media are going to put candidates' personal lives on the table, it's time they do so for all candidates. If common decency and the shame that should accompany behaving like voyeuristic 10th-graders aren't enough to convince the David Broders and Chris Matthewses and Tim Russerts of the world that the Clintons marriage is none of their damn business -- or ours -- then basic fairness dictates that they treat Republican candidates the same way. Because the only thing worse than a bunch of reporters peering into bedroom windows of candidates is a bunch of reporters peering into the bedroom windows of only one party's candidates.
Take John McCain, for example. He divorced his first wife (after having a series of affairs) to marry (a month after his divorce) a wealthy and politically connected heiress ... just in time to launch his political career. And what of his relationship with the second (and current) wife? Let's apply the New York Times test to them, shall we? How many days a month do they spend together? How many days are they apart -- she in Arizona and he in Washington, or traveling the country raising money? How close can they really be, given that he reportedly had no idea his wife was addicted to painkillers she was stealing from a charity she founded -- had no clue of an addiction that caused her to check herself into a drug treatment center.
Is this the sort of thing that should be a front-page story in The New York Times? No. Is it the sort of thing that Tim Russert and Chris Matthews and David Broder should tout and hype as a "hot topic" of McCain's presidential campaign, and speculate about endlessly? No. But there is simply no justification for covering John McCain and Hillary Clinton in such disparate ways. If Hillary Clinton's marriage is relevant, so is John McCain's.
This is one area where the Right's relentless mau-mauing of the media has become so commonplace for so long, it's virtually invisible to everyone now. But if we're ever going to have another election turn on real issues (rather than on journalistic snark), then
It.
Must.
Stop.
Now.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Will Tomorrow Be Fitzo De Mayo?
'Bout frickin' time, I'd say. From the WaPo:
The prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation presented a summary of his case to a federal grand jury yesterday and is expected to announce a final decision on charges in the two-year-long probe tomorrow, according to people familiar with the case.
Maybe this explains Rove's dramatic weight loss lately, too: He's trying to improve his "dating" prospects in the federal pen . . .
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The Iraqi word for "My Lai"
is "Haditha" . . .
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.
When does the fragging begin?
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Wow. At first, when I began to watch this, I thought it was the most racist crap I'd seen in a while. Then, I realized it was just reflecting back media stereotypes to us . . .
. . . by which point, Howard Beale showed up, and I realized this is brilliant, in precisely the way Stephen Colbert was brilliant at the Press Club Dinner.
It's called "Planet Of The Arabs."
Which brings up a question: If PNAC gots its gameplan executed flawlessly in the last five years or so (at least all the preliminary steps, if not the current aftermath), didn't they have to send out feelers to their Hollywood cronies for quite some time beforehand, to "soften up" the voters, for what they had planned?
Just a thought.
"Scot-TAY! Beam On DOWN, Baby!"
Don't know why exactly, but this video cracks me up each time I see it:
And who knew that Spock -- kickin' it in his crib with his homies -- sounded so much like Charley Murphy?
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Colbert Roasts Bush
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Outstanding! I'm sure whoever invited Stephen Colbert to play Court Jester at the White House Correspondents' Awards Dinner expected a milder version of Lear's Fool; what they got instead was Poe's Hop-Frog.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Bushwhacked
Yes, we've all been Bushwhacked. Evidently, however, some of us require a helluva lot more blows to the head than others . . .
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Et Tu, Merle?
Let's get out of Iraq
and get back on track
and let's rebuild America first.
Why don't we liberate
these United States
We're the ones who need it the most
You think I'm blowing smoke?
Boys it ain't no joke
I make twenty trips a year
from coast to coast
When Bush has lost the C&W crowd, he's lost Red State America.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
For The Wingnut Doilies Who Read WorldNetDaily
Here's a good reason why Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance in violation of FISA is nothing like Clinton's "using spy satellite surveillance of white supremacists after the OKC bombing" --
the first story is true; the second one is FALSE! Apples and oranges . . .
If you do a google search, you'll find the sole citation for this latest "Clinton did it, too!" defense to be the McCurtain [Oklahoma] Daily Gazette -- a wingnut publication that seems to have two crusading "journalists" who have scooped everyone else in the world on the OKC bombing -- it's a huge coverup, and the federal government was behind it!
(They like to publish "Bigfoot"-sighting stories, too, but let's not hold that against them.)
What do Little Dixie's Woodward & Bernstein base their Clinton-spy-satellitestoryconfabulation on? Why, on US Secret Service documents that their birdcage liner alone got wind of! In fact, these two get leaked more sinister government documents (which, curiously, never seem to get reviewed by authentication experts) than any pair SINCE Woodstein!
Because if I'm gonna leak an earth-shattering story, about sinister government conspiracies, I'm running off to Bumfuck, Oklahoma, to do it in THIS newspaper!
(This also answers a question often asked on wingnut websites and discussion groups:
"Why hasn't this story been circulated and publicized more by the mainstream media?"
{raising hand:} Oooh! I know! I know!
Uh, because it's bullshit?)
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Those Of Us In The Reality-Based Community
would like to wish those of you in the faith-based community a very Happy Zombie Jesus Day.
Or a Happy G_d-Spared-Us-His-Genocide Day.
Or whatever the hell kind of freakish magical nonsense it is, that you believe makes this a "holiday season."
No, really.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
The Economic Correlation Between Pipers And Tunes
Seems only fair. After all, he worked a helluva lot harder for Halliburton than he did for America last year . . .
Friday, April 14, 2006
"Double-Secret Probation" Declassification?
Reading through Sidney Blumenthal's latest dissection of Bushco perfidy, one finds this gem:The formal rules for declassification were amended by Bush's Executive Order 13292 of March 25, 2003, on "Classified National Security Information." Under any circumstances the president has the authority, as he always has, to unilaterally declassify official secrets and intelligence "in the public interest." But a decision to declassify a document normally passes through the originating agency and then through the Office of the National Security Advisor. Then the document is stamped declassified and the declassified order is appended to the document.
None of these procedures was followed in this case, which is why Libby's antenna was gyrating. He sought the advice of Cheney's counsel, David Addington, Libby's close ally. In approaching Addington, Libby must have known what he would hear. Addington is the foremost legal advocate in the White House of the idea that the president should be unbound, unchecked, unfettered in his authority, whether in the torture of detainees, domestic surveillance or any other matter. Unsurprisingly, Addington "opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."
Only four people -- Bush, Cheney, Libby and Addington -- were privy to the declassification. It was kept secret from the director of central intelligence, the secretary of state and the national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, among others. Indeed, Hadley was arguing at the time for declassification of the NIE but was deliberately kept in the dark that it was no longer classified. Fitzgerald writes about Libby: "Defendant fails to mention ... that he consciously decided not to make Mr. Hadley aware of the fact that defendant himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified." Having Hadley play the fool became part of the game.
Here's a question I have no answer to: Given his newly-found "unitary executive" fetish, isn't the idea that the president can carve out huge essential portions of his own branch of government -- here, the national security apparatus -- and deliberately keep them in the dark about what's declassified and what isn't, sound a little hinky to you? (Granted, if Bush and Cheney were true to form, they've already materially lied to Fitzgerald's grand jury and/or the FBI, so this may well prove a moot point.)
I strongly suspect that Bush got a juvenile kick out of playacting "doublespy secret agent" in this whole affair. It would be ironic justice if his Agent Cody Banks hijinks are what ultimately trip him up enough to topple his administration entirely.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The Spirit of Woody Guthrie
is alive and well, and living inside Billy Bragg. "The Price Of Oil," 10/22/02
Norman Rockwell, Prophet
On the left, Harry Taylor. On the right, Norman Rockwell's 63-year-old prophecy of this day.
All praise to the Prophet! And all praise to his messenger, The Saturday Evening Post!
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Fatwa-Man and Little Boy
OK, now we know Bush and his minions are batshit-crazy. Seymour Hersh in this week's New Yorker lays out Bushco's plan to hit Iran with tactical nukes in the near future:The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”Keep in mind, too, that while it appears tortured confessions haven't made their way into our court proceedings (even before the FISA Court), our "intelligence" on Iran's nuclear capabilities is likely being extracted from Farsi-speakers with pliers and blowtorches. Isn't it reassuring to know that our Iran "intel" has all the earmarks of accuracy as the Confession of Agimet of Geneva? (And likely will be used for similar purposes?)
The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Without Further DeLay
Now let's hope the media keeps their glaring spotlight on his weaselly little ass for the next few months, as he tries to turn into a lobbyist himself. I mean, I have no problem with his supporters having just been duped out of their campaign donations (which will now magically transmogrify into his legal defense fees); what irks me is the thought of him slipping back through the revolving door next week or next year, just long enough to pull off one last enormous taxpayer trainheist before the feds bring him to ground.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Newsflash: Nation's Founders Join The ITMFA Party
While Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory was busy being quoted at the NSA wiretap hearings today, in questions by Sen. Feingold to witness John Dean, you can rest assured that Glenn left his blog in capable hands. Today his guest blogger, Hume's Ghost, posts excellent and wise refutations, point by point, of each of Bushco's fascistic inclinations and rationalizations.
Best yet, Hume's Ghost didn't even have to write them. The Founders of this country already did.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Sic Semper Tyrannis
On this, the Ides of March, our Democratic Senators in particular would do well to contemplate a fullthroated return to speaking the plain, blunt truth to the American people, and begin fighting back against the GOP bombthrowers, by tossing their verbal grenades right back in their laps.
Look at it this way: If John Kerry had taken office at the beginning of last year, and performed exactly as Bush has performed since then, Republicans wouldn't bother with impeachment -- they'd have his head on a pike by now. (You think I speak metaphorically, but I don't.)
So the Dems need to realize that they've got nothing to lose; nowhere to go, but up. They might as well begin to use words like dishonorable and liar and impeachment and treason, because they've had all of them used by the GOP against them for years now, and over far more petty shit. Progressive voters -- at least the ones I talk to -- have had it up to here with triangulation and bipartisanship. Grover Norquist told us all, years ago, that "bipartisan" was just another word for "date rape." Yet Democrats in Washington show up, night after night, and drink the roofie-laced cocktail time and again!
Of course, Bush and his cohorts play the McCarthyite heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game perfectly; Anne Coulter can joke about poisoning a sitting Supreme Court Justice and nobody at the FBI blinks an eye, yet I've heard no elected DC Democrat (even Feingold) say that Bush is a danger to this country, and needs to be removed from office immediately. Because that language always gets distorted and conflated through the GOP noise machine from a call to end Bush's public life into a call to end his life, period. What I'm dying to see is some Democrat get really angry when that happens, and call it for what it is: bullshit.
Yes, Republican heads will explode in response. But they can't have it both ways anymore; for the longest time now, when it's come to political rhetoric, somehow the GOP has been allowed to be an NFL linebacker on offense, and your elderly grandmother on defense.
Wouldn't that be something, though, for a change? Between now and November, Democrats will talk simply and bluntly and mercilessly about the Republicans (and the issues), and the Republicans in turn will cry and whine and make excuses and get the vapors, and then we'll let the voters decide.
Err, And Go Bray
Perhaps taking their cue from our sniveling, groveling Senators (Donkey as well as Elephant), who are loathe to do the right, principled thing by holding Bush accountable for his misdeeds, and are willing to undergo any contortions necessary to bend the law to suit Bush's will, American Catholic bishops are granting the faithful "special dispensation" this St. Patrick's Day, so they can, without sin, eat their traditional corned beef and cabbage on a Friday.
Too bad they can't pull the old Lazarus trick with old St. Paddy, bringing him back to drive the snakes out of the White House . . .
Friday, March 10, 2006
Live Fast, Die Young . . .
. . . leave a good-looking corpse.
I guess Eddie Van Halen figures two out of three ain't bad. There's your anti-meth ad, right there. (He's 51, BTW.)
Monday, March 06, 2006
Advice To The Fourth Estate: Stick A Fork In Him; He's Done
Could someone in the press please ask Bush (or his minions) why -- if we managed during the 20th Century to win two World Wars and vanquish the Soviet Empire, all without wholesale abandonment of the Bill of Rights -- we now must kowtow to the whines and complaints of the Laziest Figurehead Preznit Ever, and give up our precious rights just because, when it comes to defending this country from terrorist attacks and natural disasters, he can't find his own asshole with both hands, a flashlight, and a six-man search team?
Friday, March 03, 2006
Ave Sharia
The Dominos Pizza magnate, a Catholic-crazed orphan, is building Popeville in Florida. No shit. You won't be able to buy an abortion, contraceptives, pornography, or (I'll bet) any volumes off the Index Librorum Prohibitorum there.
Interesting civil liberties question: How big can your "church" be? Can it encompass a whole town?
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Let Me See If I've Got This Right:
Mild euphoric taken for medicinal purposes, not OK;
hallucinogenic tea taken for religious purposes, that's OK;
Hmmm . . . I predict an imminent upsurge in Rastafarianism among cancer and AIDS patients hereabouts . . .
It Just Keeps Getting Better!
Did some digging at the local library this afternoon, and the following quotes are from a 3-page outline about the United Arab Emirates found in a book entitled Global Studies: The Middle East (8th ed., Dushkin/McGraw Hill, 2000), on pp. 154-155:[The UAE is a] federation of emirates [which] came under British protection in the 1800s, and were given their independence of Great Britain by treaty in 1971. [. . . T]he Wahhabis, militant Islamic missionaries, spread over Arabia in the eighteenth century. Wahhabi agents incited the most powerful coastal group, the Qawasim, to interfere with European shipping. European ships were seized along with their cargoes, their crews held for ransom. To the European countries, this was piracy; to the Qawasim, however, it was defense of Islamic territory against the infidels. [ . . . S]oon the whole coast of the present-day UAE became known as the Pirate Coast. [. . . ] Under [a Defense Cooperation Agreement signed with the U.S. in 1994], a force of 300 U.S. military personnel is stationed in the emirates to supervise port facilities and air refueling for American planes patrolling the no-fly zone (the 36th parallel in northern Iraq). [ . . . ] Disagreements within the ruling families have sometimes led to violence or "palace coups," there being no rule of law or primogeniture.
So let me see if I've got this right: An unstable monarchial government with a long history of shipping piracy is considered so unstable, we made an agreement with them 12 years ago to have OUR military run THEIR ports, at least with respect to our military's duties out of those ports. And now, we're going to let THEM run OUR ports. Uh huh.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Sins Of The Fathers, Etc.: In Dubai-ous Battle
It's fascinating to watch the Bushco ship of state capsize and quickly begin to take water over their proposal to let the United Arab Emirates run six American shipping ports. Now, of course, we're getting the inevitable double-super-secret probation details leaked to us (I wonder by whom? And on whose "declassification" authority?). This revisionist history recounts how Admiral McGoo is supposed to have had -- all along! -- a "secret agreement" with the UAE over the ports deal, that he just finished telling us he first found out about only yesterday.
An inconvenient historical fact: In response to 9-11, this country detained over 250 UAE nationals without charge or trial. The majority of those people were still being held at the end of 2003. I'm not saying that mass detention was right or legal, but you've got to wonder about the secrecy and cronyism (not to mention the hypocrisy) of this administration, which one day hold hundreds of UAE nationals on (what can only be called) a presumption of terrorism, and shortly thereafter offers up our shipping ports to these same foreigners' less-than-trustworthy government.
But of course Bush is blind to just how closely this "business deal" of his skirts the line of treason -- hello? Whose grandfather, as a result of his "business dealings" during World War Two, was convicted of violating the Trading With The Enemy Act?
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
The Dark Dungeons Of The Internets, Chapter XXVII:
courtesy of AllHatNoCattle.net
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Dick Cheney Channels Aaron BurrWASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.Added the Vice President, "Look, right now I'm basically subsisting on red meat, Scotch, Viagra, and Air-Force-grade amphetamines -- that, and updates on the daily body counts.
Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.
He was described as in stable condition by Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi.
"Harry said something to piss me off, and when my blood is up, watch out," he insinuated vaguely, in a hospital interview quickly quashed for "national security" reasons.
"Whenever feasible, I like to slip into Kabul or Baghdad, unannounced, and go 'off-rez' for a few hours; smoke a few 'ragheads' out in the 'dustbowl,' so to speak. Cleans out the pipes," he continued, while rituallistically cutting his chest with a machete and head-butting his fellow hunters.
"What can I say? I miss it," he added.
We Can Have The Rule Of Law. Or We Can Have The George W. Bush Regime. But We Can't Have Both.
Glenn Greenwald's excellent law blog, Unclaimed Territory, has become a daily read for me now. Besides being a clear writer on the profound legal issues (read: assaults on the Constitution) facing us today, Glenn has debated at least one defender of the warrantless NSA wiretaps on CSPAN.
Toward the end of a broader and deeper piece on the burgeoning NSA scandal, Greenwald had this to say:
The right-leaning Jon Henke at QandO provides further evidence that one need not ascribe to a liberal political philosophy in order to find the Administration’s excesses and deceit repugnant to the values on which this country was founded. Jon points to a new article from National Journal reporting that only a small minority of detainees at Guantanamo had anything to do with Al Qaeda, and that the Administration’s assurances regarding who it was who was detained there were fundamentally false. As Jon concludes:
This is why we have due process. This is why we have transparency. This is why a free people who want to remain that way ought to insist we apply due process and transparency even to suspected terrorists. Instead, we've largely stood by while the Bush administration has run roughshod over innocent people; while the Bush administration detained innocent civilians and lawful combatants, and abused them into false confessions. And then that administration had the temerity to say that legislation removing legal recourse by those people "reaffirm[s] the values we share as a Nation and our commitment to the rule of law"....
Remember: the people who told us that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were all Taliban, captured on the battlefield or otherwise terrorists are the same people who swear, really, that the domestic surveillance program is "solely for intercepting communications of suspected al Qaeda members or related terrorist groups."
A commenter here a few days ago remarked that he never really cared about political issues until recently, but has almost been forced into caring by the radical and extremist measures taken by the Administration, which truly threaten our most basic political values. I feel the same way. I am far more engaged politically now than I was, say, five years ago, because I really perceive that not just political differences, but the kind of country we fundamentally want to be, is what is at stake in our current controversies.
I fully share these sentiments expressed the other day by Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings:I have spent my life loving this country for its values, among them the right not to be tossed in jail at the whim of some ruler, but to be guaranteed the right to live free from searches, wiretapping, surveillance, and arrest unless some official could convince a judge that there was probable cause to believe that I had committed a crime. I could scarcely believe it when Padilla was locked up: I was as shocked as I would have been had Bush asserted the right to ban Lutheranism, or to close down the New York Times. It was such a complete betrayal of our country's core values that it took my breath away.I couldn’t agree more. For me, the real trigger - the final straw - was the due process-less but indefinite detention of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla in a military prison with no access to lawyers or even charges of any kind, while the Administration argued that he no right to even have a court review his detention, which occurred on U.S. soil. To me, nothing is more un-American than that – nothing.
I feel the same way about the NSA story.
And the rationale on which those actions were predicated are exactly the same as the rationale on which warrantless eavesdropping and a whole host of other excesses are predicated. If someone isn’t opposed to these things and isn’t willing to fight against them, it’s hard for me to see how someone can claim to believe in the values and traditions of this country.
It's good to see that there are other lawyers out there who recognize, and will say plainly on television, that after 9-11, we went right Through The Looking Glass, constitutionally-speaking. (Some of us, in fact, date the dawn of the Lewis Carroll Era from the decision in Bush v. Gore.)
Thursday, February 09, 2006
It's a GOP thang; you wouldn't understandIs there a hotline for black people to call to get eulogy approval? Or approval on how to behave during a hurricane? Or for approval on how many kids we have? Or for what we name our kids? That would make my life so much easier, even though I don't work, but I still have kids and they don't have fathers, but I digress.
As an uneducated black woman, and by uneducated I mean that I want to learn how not offend the likes of Kate O'Beirne, Tucker Carlson, Chris Matthews, Don Imus, Matt Drudge and any other offendables, even if they themselves have made racist comments or done things to hurt the world. Oooops, I should remember my place. Sorry about that last dig. I did not mean it.
it hurts | 02.08.06 - 1:11 pm | comment poster at firedoglake
The day we start to worry about what this cowardly psychopathic incompetent finds personally offensive, is the day our democracy dies.
So what, he got his little wingnut bubble burst? 'Bout fuckin' time!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
All Voters Are Equal, But Some Voters Are More Equal Than OthersHouse Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.
Idiots! I mean, the instructions for voting couldn't be simpler! They should just throw out all their votes!
(Oh, I guess those rules only apply to Democrats in Florida, eh?)
Friday, January 27, 2006
SOTU? STFU!
Who needs to watch the State of the Union speech?
The Upright Citizens' Brigade brings it to you four days early!
Point Of Order, Mr. Chairman!
Here's a project for everybody: Get your state legislature to pass a resolution supporting Bush's impeachment. It's actually one of the approved statutory methods to start impeachment proceedings in the House.
What's more, if the resolution makes clear it's for "impeachment," and not simply for "investigations leading to impeachment," it takes priority over other House matters, and must be voted on first, ahead of the rest of their agenda.
What if each of the blue states, in turn, sent the Congress these impeachment demands, one by one? Maybe we'd actually have a major topic of discussion leading into the November elections that breaks our way, for a change.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Yo Ho Ho -- Time To Pirate Up!
The current crop of Democratic Senators remind me of the meek, elderly, veddy British chartered accountants of the Crimson Permanent Assurance Company, in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. Wetted fingers forever to the wind, they wait endlessly in the Doldrums for a strong gust of public opinion to break their spell of inertia and send them sailing toward victory over their vicious corporate overseers (read: the GOP).
Well, fantasies are great -- but if that pirate raid is ever going to happen, they've got to learn to pull up anchor and set their own course. And to do so, they would do well to learn a little about the swashbuckling origins of the term "filibuster."
The first order of business, of course, would be to force Sam Alito to walk the plank. Despite what the so-called liberal media are telling us, his ascension to Sandra O'Connor's seat on the bench is not a done deal, because their calculus has discounted entirely the possibility of a filibuster. The public, we are endlessly assured, supports the Alito nomination, because they believe he won't vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the public, like Mr. Bumble's law, is often an ass, an emptyheaded cypher offering opinions based on nothing more than misinformation and lies.
While time is running out, it nevertheless is yet on the Democrats' side on this issue. They have done a piss-poor job of "framing the issues" with Alito: pointing out how the Court doesn't need another regional, political, partisan, constitutional, ethnic, religious, educational and familial clone of Antonin Scalia; how the Federalist fetish for a "unitary executive" is the looniest of tunes this side of Scientology, and Alito is its Tom Cruise; how giving Busholini unchecked power will make reversal of Roe v. Wade a minor blip on this country's low road down to fascism; how problems might arise when a supposedly secular country that claims to be 52% Protestant and less than one-quarter Catholic decides to put its first Papist majority on its highest Court.
If you haven't yet contacted your two Senators in Washington, to urge them to filibuster the Alito nomination, I ask you: What's your excuse? Do you care about your country, and its Bill of Rights? As for me, if I don't see a filibuster out of these invertebrates in the Upper Chamber, they'll never see another dime out of me -- it's that simple.
The second order of business for the Democrats is to show the public that all is NOT well in Washington, and that we face a danger far greater than jihadists brandishing boxcutters -- but this will have to be done by "catapulting the propoganda," if I may borrow a brain-addled phrase. The best way to show that sort of outrage, it seems to me, and right in the teeth of the complacent, wingnut-enabling media, is for our elected Democratic Representatives and Senators to rise up, as one, during next week's State of the Union speech, and collectively walk out on Bush and all his corrupt GOP colleagues. Let his empty rhetoric echo off the walls of a half-empty chamber, for a change. Refuse to act as props in Caesar's annual bread and circuses act anymore. It's mutiny time, Mr. Christian!
Believe me, if the Democrats did these two things, the public would take notice. The GOP would go into their Screaming Banshee routine, and so would their sycophants in the Beltway media, but so what? I'm sick and tired of the Democrats' sniveling battered spouse routine, ever hopeful that more beatings will improve our morale. This is a public that the GOP has numbed down and dumbed down to the level of enjoying professional wrestling -- let's give them a smackdown they won't soon forget.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Great White Elephant-Mockingbird Speak Heap Big Bullshit
Over at firedoglake, they point out the forked-tonguedness of the "bipartisan Abramoff scandal" GOP meme that the Washington Post is trying to peddle, like so many cheap beads and blankets:Is [the WaPo] trying to assert that the Indian tribes were just too stupid to know on their own that giving campaign contributions to Harry Reid might be a wise thing to do? Is he saying that they needed Jack Abramoff to hold them by their little Indian hands while they wrote their big Indian checks?
More reliable news organizations are quick to point out that Indian donations to Democratic candidates dropped dramatically during the Abramoff era, and it does not take tremendous gifts of deduction to conclude that this was probably the direct result of Abramoff's influence. But there is consistently a strong current of anti-Indian condescension in the Post's reporting and in Mr. Willis's assessment of the situation, and they really need to either prove that the Indian tribes would not have given this money to these Democrats if Abramoff hadn't told them to or STFU.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
A Sports Analogy Suitable For "Framing"
Desperate to drag as many Democrats down with them in The Great Abramoff Shitstorm of '06 as they can, Republicans and their media sockpuppets have been endlessly repeating the lie that "Democrats took 'Abramoff-linked' money, too!"
But -- here's the thing: No Democrat has taken a penny of money from Abramoff. For years, officeholders of both parties have taken donations from Indian tribes, some of whom, for a time, hired (and were ripped off by) Abramoff as their agent.
Now, how to explain the real situation (as opposed to the conflated Republican lie) to a sports-obsessed public?
Here's one way:
Leigh Steinberg is a prominent sports agent, who has represented, for example, Troy Aikman (Dallas Cowboys), Steve Young (San Francisco 49ers), Ricky Williams (Miami Dolphins), Mark Brunell (Washington Redskins), Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis.
Let's say each of these athletes has donated money to various charities over the years.
Let's say, as well, that some government agency investigates Steinberg, and finds that he's "dirty" as hell -- and has swindled each of the above athletes, as well as others.
Now, about that money that those Steinberg-represented athletes donated to charities -- is it "Leigh-Steinberg-linked" money?
That's EXACTLY the scenario the GOP wants us to swallow, when it comes to Abramoff and Democrats . . .
Retreato On Scalito?
If the Democrats have an actual plan to filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, it's the best-kept secret since D-Day.
Indeed, other than a single article indicating that Joementum (of all people) "hasn't ruled it out," there's been radio silence on the issue.
Putting aside his shucking and jiving on whether he'd vote to reverse Roe v. Wade (and how he'd rule on every other hot-button issue), it's not like he hasn't offered three different explanations about his ruling in cases in violation of his express promise to recuse himself where: (a) his sister's law firm represented a party; and (b) he held stock in one of the corporate parties. It's not like his explanation why he joined the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) -- a fretful rearguard organization dedicated to keeping women and minorities out of the university even absent affirmative action and where they could prove demonstrably better grades and higher test scores than white males -- made no sense.
Indeed, his entire career indicates a fawning willingness to suck up to power. Right now, what the country needs is a judicial candidate with the stones to stand up to the most aggressive, unchecked Executive power grab in history. Sam Alito is not that candidate.
But will the Democrats risk the anger of the GOP -- and possibly the latter's exercise of the "nuclear option?" If they won't filibuster this extremist perjurer, isn't their "right" to filibuster gone already?
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Plus ça change . . .
This is from The National Lampoon Radio Hour -- a radio skit first broadcast December 29, 1973, featuring the voice of Chevy Chase, entitled "Mission: Impeachable":"Good morning, Mr. Hunt. Several high-ranking members of the Democratic Party are attempting to seize control of the government of the United States by legitimate means. They plan to use the free press, open discussion of the issues, and the universal franchise, in an all-out effort to win the Presidency.1 In reality, it only lasted half that long -- another eight months. Good call, though.
"Should they succeed, all our efforts to repeal the Bill of Rights, pack the Supreme Court with rightwing morons, intimidate the media, suppress dissent, halt social progress, promote big business, and crush the Congress, will be destroyed.
"Your mission, E, should you choose to accept it, is to stop these men once and for all, by insuring that the weakest of them, Senator George McGovern, wins the nomination and then, sabotaging his campaign by any possible means.
"You will have at your disposal electronic bugging equipment, burglary tools, wigs, voice-alteration devices, a camera disguised as a tobacco pouch, forged documents, a safe house, five hundred loyal but clumsy Cubans, and two million dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.
"As always, if any member of your CIA force is caught or killed, the President will disavow any knowledge of your activities.
"This administration will self-destruct in sixteen months.1 Good luck, Howie."
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Deficit Donations?
Maybe this is the "new accounting," that they're using in Bushco (and that has brought them so much success with the federal budget), but can somebody explain to me how Abramoff's Indian tribe clients donated $1.4 million to politicians of both parties, and Abramoff and his associate Michael Scanlon billed those same tribes $80 million, yet there were "Abramoff-linked" funds left over at the tribes' disposal to pay to politicians?
"It's a miracle! Like the loaves and fishes!"
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Penumbras Radiating From The Sun King
I must point out that Glenn Greenwald has been subbing for Digby over at Hullabaloo, and doing a yeoman's job utterly demolishing the specious arguments being put forward by Bush to justify his violations of federal (FISA) wiretap laws. Suffice it to say that Bush's defense requires one to follow the most contortionist meanderings of legal logic imaginable, and a "kingly" interpretation of expansive executive power nowhere to be found in the language of the Constitution itself:The Administration’s previous view of this matter is, of course, the precise opposite of its position now. The Administration now seeks to claim that the Congress -- when it enacted its 2001 resolution authorizing the use of military force in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda -- somehow intended with that Resolution to amend FISA and thereby silently and "impliedly" gave the Administration the right to engage in exactly the secret, warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens which FISA makes it a criminal offense to engage in.Yep, that's right. The "strict constructionist" crowd is now telling us that Congress "impliedly" and "silently" granted the President powers to break the very laws that the Congress "expressly" and "publicly" enacted -- the same laws the Congress now "specifically" and "vociferously" maintains were never changed.
What we really have from these paragons of Judicial Restraint trying to defend George Bush is everything except plain language and original intent – the very tools of construction which these "conservatives," when not concocting legal defenses for the President, claim that they believe in. That’s because the plain language of the law is crystal clear ("A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally— (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute") and leaves no doubt that George Bush broke it.
One immediate outcome of this debate, I predict: Sam Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court is toast. Remember, you read it here first.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Uh -- what Ezra Klein said:He Ain't The Law
Partisan Republicans would have you believe that the legal contention in this issue is over whether or not FISA was constitutional. If it is, what Bush did was illegal. If it isn't, one could make the argument. They argue the latter.
But here's the thing: FISA, currently, is the law. And it's not an incidental law with language that accidentally enlarges it to apply to this case. Congress passed it specifically to constrain executive authority over surveillance matter. Specifically to outlaw, well, this.
When Congress passes a law that certain groups think to be unconstitutional, there's a procedure worked out for pursuing resolution. It involves a handful of old dudes and a couple old women who wear long robes and issue complex legal opinions on constitutional matters. And until they rule one way or the other (or pass an injunction), the controversial legislation remains legally binding. That's why a member of NORML can't walk down the street smoking a spliff and a wingnut mayor in Mississippi can't prosecute women who have abortions. Laws are in effect until they are repealed or declared invalid by the Supreme Court. Whatever you think of FISA's legality, it was neither repealed nor declared invalid by the Supreme Court. It was in effect.
Bush's actions were illegal. And that's all there is to that. You can argue that they were justified, or righteous, or that the legislative structure is outmoded and wrong, but none of that changes the fact that they were in flagrant violation of the law of the land, a law the White House could have attempted to amend or asked the Supreme Court to invalidate. Which means that not only were Bush's actions illegal, but he offered no attempt to make them legal.
One more thing: Under the relaxed requirements of the FISA statute, the President is authorized to immediately begin wiretaps upon a congressional declaration of war, and given 15 days to continue such wiretaps before even being required to request a warrant for doing so from the FISA Court.
Why that 15-day, warrantless "grace" period, you ask? According to the congressional Conference Report issued at the time FISA was passed, "The Conferees intend that this [fifteen-day] period will allow time for consideration of any amendment to this act that may be appropriate during a wartime emergency. The conferees expect that such amendment would be reported with recommendations within 7 days and that each House would vote on the amendment within 7 days thereafter." H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-1720, at 34 (1978).
This wasn't just Bush "ignoring" Congress. This was a gigantic, blatant "Fuck you!" from Bush to the Congress. Let's see what (if anything) this Congress will do about it.
