September 2006 Archives

Actually, this is more than just schadenfreude:

Congressman Mark Foley, Republican from Florida, resigned today just hours after ABC news questioned him about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving current and former underage male Congressional pages. Foley used the login name Maf54.

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny ?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

Foley was the chairman of the house caucus on missing and exploited children and has long crusaded for tough laws against those who use the Internet for sexual exploitation of children.

(via AmericaBlog)

Democrats need to run with incidents like this. The Republicans have carred the morality thing into torture and terrorism, time to throw it back at all of them when they pull this sick crap.

As the upper house of the Republican Parliament moves to bless the desire of the disrespectful piece of shit who lives in the White House to become the "Torture President," Russ Feingold actually finds himself in agreement with the Crisco Kid:

Mr. President, in closing let me do something I dont do very often and that is quote John Ashcroft. According to the New York Times, at a private meeting of high-level officials in 2003 about the military commission structure, then-Attorney General Ashcroft said: Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history. But at least we had fair procedures for him. How sad that this Congress would seek to pass legislation about which the same cannot be said.

of course, the Republicans believe that a white boy like McVeigh deserves better treatment than suspected arab terrorists because he wasn't an Eebil Sand Monkey.

These people make me sick.

When Mr. Allen of Virginia denied ever using the word "nigger" the other day, all I could think of was how much bullshit that is. He's from the south, after all. That started me down memory lane.

...are becoming more and more prevalent. Via Crooks and Liars comes this item from Raw Story:

Liberal bloggers in New Hampshire busted an aide to Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) who was posing as a liberal blogger on such blogs as Blue Granite, NH-02 Progressive and others. Bass’ office admitted culpability to HOH and said the staffer would be “appropriately disciplined.”

The unnamed aide to Bass — who, like many others in his party, faces a tough re-election fight — was routinely trolling liberal New Hampshire political blogs calling himself “IndyNH” and more commonly IndieNH, pretending to be a progressive.

The common way to bust a concern troll is to question items the troll posts that don't add up. This troll was stupid enough to use a House of Representatives computer:

Finally, after noticing that lots of things he said just didn’t add up, a couple of the bloggers traced IndieNH’s IP address to the House of Representatives.

And they thought, “How many offices in the U.S. House would be interested in one race in New Hampshire?” The answer: Very few. Probably only one.

Laura Clawson, who runs the Blue Granite blog and writes as “Miss Laura,” told HOH that she and another blogger easily traced IndieNH’s IP address to the House server. They could even see the searches Mr. or Ms. IndieNH was doing to gather opposition research on Bass’ challenger, Paul Hodes (D), such as “Hodes and gay marriage” and “Hodes and taxes.”

So incredibly stupid. Too lazy to even go to a Starbucks and post from there.

Makes one wonder, though, if any of our bush-is-bad-but-dems-suck-too concern trolls here are really working for Republican politicians...

...I'm surprised he's not out on the field with an upraised middle finger, laughing at all the people who spent their hard-earned money to make him richer.

"These four hours [the saints-falcons game] are all they have. Then it's back to their FEMA trailers. And that ain't nice."

--Spike Lee, on ESPN during tonight's game.

...and everything to do with airport commerce:

WASHINGTON - Passengers will be able to carry lotions and gels onto airliners again after a six-week ban — but only in tiny containers of 3 ounces or less and only if they're in clear zip-top plastic bags.

Starting Tuesday, air travelers also will be able to buy drinks or other liquids or gels at shops inside airport security checkpoints and carry them on board under partially relaxed anti-terror rules.

can you say "duty free shops?" sure, I knew you could. Booze and perfume are most certainly liquid. And let's not forget all those "The Body Shop" stores that were all but put out of business when we went to terror level Ernie.

Do I feel any safer today than I did when liquids were banned? No. If someone can buy a bottle of rum in duty-free, they can burn it in the overhead bin. That'll ruin someone's day, to be sure.

TSA is a re-active agency, not a pro-active one. Combine that with bosses who gain a significant advantage politically when they cultivate fear and it's an ugly situation.

Some closure this week on the WorldCom and Enron fronts:

Bernie Ebbers To Start Serving 25 Year Sentence

WorldCom founder Bernie Ebbers, age 65, will report to federal prison tomorrow to begin serving his 25 year sentence for fraud. For Ebbers, it is a life sentence.

In the category of longest prison sentence, WorldCom Inc. founder Bernard J. Ebbers recently bested the organizer of an armed robbery, the leaders of a Bronx drug gang and the acting boss of the Gambino crime family.

Also on Tuesday, Enron's former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow will be sentenced. He cooperated with the Government and faces no more than ten years in prison.

Exercising one's constitutional right to a jury trial has never been more perilous. Ebbers' cohort, Scott Sullivan, the architect of the WorldCom scheme, was sentenced to only five years after he decided to cooperate and testify against Ebbers. Ken Lay was facing 25 years after his conviction, and Jeff Skilling is looking at the same, after they went to trial and were convicted, in large part due to Fastow's testimony against them.

[via TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

I don't know if our right to a jury trial is in any more danger now than any other time based on the WorldCom and Enron prosecutions. There are decades of examples of Asst. US Attorneys climbing up the food chains of drug organizations, crime families, you name it. Does that lessen the impact of Bernie Ebbers' life sentence? No, it's still an extreme example. Fastow cooperated with the feds, but he's still a crook:

In 2002, Fastow was charged with fraud and money laundering in a 78-count indictment. He pleaded not guilty and was preparing to fight the charges when the government brought tax-fraud charges against his wife, Lea, also a former executive. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one charge of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. He agreed to forfeit $23.8 million and serve a 10-year sentence, the maximum allowed. His wife also agreed to a plea deal and served one year.

Da Feds used a typical tactic to get Fastow to roll on his bosses. Fastow's wife was also up to her eyeballs in this mess, so he cooperated to get her a better deal (she only served one year in prison). They're giving back $23.8 million in ill-gotten gains. A guy on the street can get ten years for robbing me of my wallet. I'm not going to shed too many tears for a guy who is giving back $23.8 million. The feds have been getting street-level drug dealers to roll on their suppliers for years. When middle-class folks get wrapped up in the drug trade, it can ruin families, and prosecutors regularly play on those relationships to turn suspects into informants. This is a fundamental part of the way we hunt down violators of federal law. I'm OK with revisiting these tactics in general, but if an AUSA can use them against a waitress making $30K/year, I'm OK with disrupting the Fastow family by the same means.

Via Crooks and Liars, the disrespectful piece of shit that lives in the white house thinks

BLITZER: Let’s move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war–if not already a civil war–We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy. (emphasis added)

I wonder if he'd feel the same way if his twins became one of those "commas" as a result of their service to their country...

oh wait...

nevermind.

discussing his speech at Coretta Scott King's funeral, and how he "upstaged" Hillary:

"I read about that, and I said, 'Hillary, if we both spoke at the Wellesley reunion, you'd probably get a better reception.' I said, 'You can't pay any attention to this.' I said, 'This is my life. I grew up in these churches ... You don't have to be better at this than me. You got to be better than whoever.'"

this isn't just the Big Dog being arrogant, it's important for candidates not from the south to remember. When you grow up in the South, you grow up with Southern preachers. Even if you grow up catlick, we've got catlick priests who do the whole southern-preacher-cadence thing as good as any Baptist rev. If you've ever seen Bill Clinton on the stump, you'll see this in full force. When he's in a church, it goes into overdrive. This skill isn't limited to the Big Dog, either (even though he's perfected it). Gore does a pretty good church-cadence stump when he gets worked up, also.

You can consider Hillary a Chicagoan because of her birth or a Noo Yawker because of her current residence/occupation, but she'll always be a Yankee, her time in Arkansas notwithstanding. Bill's right, Hillary needs to stick to what she's good at.

that Cornyn consorts with racists is no overwhelming shock. For openers, he's Republican, then parlay that with the fact he's from Texas. But when you start consorting with virulent racists, it's a bit much:

On Tuesday, September 18, inside the Dirksen Senate Office building, Republican Texas Senator and Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Citizenship Chairman John Cornyn spoke at a conference entitled, "Defending the Homeland: America's Immigration Crisis." The conference was organized by the Rockford Institute, publisher of Chronicles Magazine, and was moderated by its president, Thomas Fleming.

Even though the Rockford Institute has been dubbed "xenophobic, racist, and nativist," by its former New York branch director, Richard John Neuhaus; even though Rockford's current director, Thomas Fleming, is a leading anti-Semite and Holocaust revisionist; even though Rockford's flagship publication, Chronicles, has served as a nest for white nationalists like Sam Francis; Cornyn -- a moving force behind Republican immigration policy -- accepted Rockford's invitation to headline their conference.

(from Blumenthal at HuffPo via Seder)

At this rate, we'll be hearing from Cornyn that it's OK to drag Mexicans behind trucks like they do blacks in Texas.

In a Salon article about Rove, Walter Shapiro makes an interesting point:

"Hubris" also draws an important distinction between Libby's indictment by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for perjury and Rove's clean-slate escape, despite a faulty memory and five trips before the grand jury. "Whatever his suspicions about Rove's account," Isikoff and Corn write, "Fitzgerald was a professional who would not indict a suspect unless he could establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And perjury is notoriously difficult to prove ... Fitzgerald didn't have a parade of witnesses contradicting the White House aide's account -- as he did with Libby."

("Hubris" is Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book about the Plame affair.)

Had one or both houses of Congress been in Dem control this year, the investigation of Rove would have gone beyond the relatively quiet (and secretive) world of a federal prosecutor looking for a conviction and into the slime pit that is congressional hearings. Congresscritters could have summoned the entire cast of characters before committees, like D'Amato did to the Clintons and their cohorts during the Whitewater investigations.

There's always the risk that a congressional committee might big-foot a DoJ investigation, as in the Iran-Contra fiasco, where convicted felons North and Poindexter were not forced to face justice, but Rove's off the hook anyway.

I'm trying to understand why so many folks are being arrested.

U.S. Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report released today, marijuana arrests reached an all-time high in 2005 -- 42.5% of all drug arrests were for pot. Pot arrests have doubled since the 1990's.

 

[via TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

I don't buy NORML's argument in the source article, though:

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 40 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Cops are targeting pot smokers? Granted, my experience with cops is strictly anecdotal, but pot busts tend to be secondary. A pot smoker gets stopped for a traffic violation and the cop smells herbal essence, that's probable cause to explore the situation further. It seems more likely to me that cops are reacting to overall increases in crime that are resultant from poor economic conditions in many areas, and pot smokers are catching it as a result.

When it comes to Saxby Chambliss' latest remarks about the Civil War, Pam doesn't get it, and that's interesting since she's a Southerner. Guys talk about military history. English guys talk about the English Civil War and the Napoleonic wars. American guys discuss the War Between the States and WWII. Discussing the strategies and tactics of long-ago battles is common in pubs, lodge halls, barbecues, you name it. This sort of discussion is NOT limited to southerners and NOT limited to conservative crackers like Chambliss.

It's not hard to find a southern family who either has an ancestor who fought/was killed in the Civil War or lives within miles of a site that has significance to that war. It's even more likely that you'll find families who have a direct connection to WWII. Guys are going to talk about how if this general did this or if their grandfather's commander in France would have done that, and what might have been. It doesn't mean those guys want to start a war. It doesn't mean (in terms of Civil War discussions) that they're advocating slavery. It's a guy thing, get over it.

What matters here is that Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) is a piece of crap. He's a chickenhawk who got where he is by sliming the reputation of a real soldier (Max Cleland). He's a lock-step Republican who is bad for the country, like many of his smarmy colleagues in the Senate. They need to go, so they can discuss military history on K street or wherever.

Let's get those jerking knees back under control! Eyes on the ball, please.

The website says it all.

via TalkLeft

Broder's pretty pathetic, but to still be stroking the Clenis^tm in the face of over 2600 Americans dead because of a President's lie is incredulous.

They Write Letters

Ruthalice Anderson writes to Romenesko:

Reading David Broder's answers to online questions clarifies the problem many people have with mainstream opinionmakers like him -- lack of common sense. Repeatedly asked to compare Bush and Clinton's lies, he again and again argued that Clinton's lies were too egregious and that he should have resigned. Bush's lies, however, arouse much less ire or even concern with Broder. What can you say about a man who is more upset about lies about sexual indiscretions than about lies that cost tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars? Worse, what can you conclude about any paper that gives a megaphone to someone with such a distorted sense of justice?

via First Draft, I encountered an interesting post about New Orleans from a blog called "American Zombie" The author is describing dinner conversation in Los Angeles with a young-republican type:

I was having dinner in L.A. with some folks I knew, and some folks I didnt. I ended up sitting next to a guy I didnt know. He was a young guy, about to get an undergraduate degree in business and then go to law school. He was quick to inform everyone that he was a diehard republican and wanted to eventually become a judge. He was neatly groomed, a little too neat for a guy....you know the type. He was the kind of guy that has the world keenly compartmentalized in his mind...with an obsessive need to get the people he meets into those cerebral compartments. Kind of like the way Obi Wan described the Sith One who speaks in absolutes....you know the type.

I do my best to avoid young-republican types from the get-go, but when you're in a social setting, sometimes it's difficult to avoid it. This blogger goes on about feeling anger, etc., because the moron-American questions whether or not to rebuild New Orleans.

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but if I was at dinner with a moron in Los Angeles, and said moron questioned the logic of re-building my home town, I think I would remind said moron of how much federal money was pumped into Los Angeles after the 1994 earthquake. I'd also remind him that no doubt a bit of that money came from New Orleanians. I might even point out that nobody ever advocated moving away from one of the worst fault lines in the world because of the 1994 quake.

The biggest challenge to this discussion for me would be to try not to end each sentence with "you fucking asshole."

I like Salon's Broadsheet column--its focus on women's issues and politics makes it a good read. When I read the headline "The blogosphere's breast debate" in the list of articles in Salon's daily update e-mail, I was looking forward to an interesting article.

Come to find out, it was just a recap of Althouse's bitching about how Jessica Valenti of Feministing has breasts. Seriously, it's just a bitch-war where law professor Ann Althouse lets loose a jealous screed about another female blogger.

*sigh* Here I was hoping for something truly interesting. Ann Althouse is an unmitigated idiot, so naturally I'm disappointed.

but it makes sense. We know that other childhood vaccinations save lives, so why not HPV?

LANSING, Mich. Sep 12, 2006 (AP)— Michigan girls entering the sixth grade next year would have to be vaccinated against cervical cancer under legislation backed Tuesday by a bipartisan group of female lawmakers.

The legislation is the first of its kind in the United States, said Republican state Sen. Beverly Hammerstrom, lead sponsor.

The vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June for use in girls and women and has been hailed as a breakthrough in cancer prevention. It prevents infections from some strains of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer and genital warts.

I wonder if the wackos will go after this state senator, even though she's a Republican. I'm still amazed that anyone would think vaccinating against a virus that causes cancer is a bad idea, but those nuts are out there:

Some conservatives around the country have expressed concern that schools would make the vaccine a requirement for enrollment. They have argued that requiring the vaccine would infringe on parents' rights and send a message that underage sex is OK.

Parents rights? We don't give parents the right to send kids with measles or mumps to school, so why should we give them the right to send kids with STDs to school? Oh, I forgot, children of conservatives don't have sex before marriage. Right.

back during the Clinton years, we had a movement down here in Louisiana where a couple of state legislators sponsored a bill that would de-criminalize beating the crap out of flag desecrators, since doing anything to the flag itself was protected by the First Amendment.

I guess the Secret Service would have something to say about anyone from Louisiana trying to beat the crap out this flag desecrator:

via the War Room and Avarosis

Alterman has heard rumors that GE/NBC is tightening the political controls on MSNBC, hence his firing.  Interesting.  I guess Olbermann and Alterman were just getting too effective.

 

Your Liberal Media

Alterman fired from msnbc.com, though he will have a new home at Media Matters.

This is the kind of shit that makes it difficult to separate "average" Muslims from terrorists. I'll grant that there are a lot of wingnut Christian psychos in this country, but we don't let them change rape laws:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Pakistan has agreed to include Islamic fundamentalists on a panel considering a change to Pakistan's rape law intended to help victims, a government spokeswoman said Thursday. The agreement is an apparent concession to hard-liners opposed to changing the much-criticized law, which is based on conservative Islamic rules.

Fundie Islamic clerics making laws means you get such incredibly twisted laws like this:

Under the current Hudood Ordinance law, approved by a former military dictator in 1979, prosecuting a rape case requires testimony from four witnesses, making punishment nearly impossible. A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove it risks being convicted of adultery — which is punishable by death.

Four witnesses to a rape? Yeah, like that's possible in many cases. OK, so kudos to the Pakistani government for proposing changes to remove the 4-witness requirement and the adultery prosecution consequence, but that's what's got the fundies lit up:

The proposed changes have encountered fierce resistance from some religious parties, with 68 lawmakers threatening to vacate their seats in the 344-seat Nationality Assembly if the government amends the existing law.

hence the inclusion of the conservatives on the reform panel. They'll do their best to try to kill any changes.

Sick psychos. Just like the majority of Christians reject the psychos who kill people at abortion clinics, Muslims must stand up and reject men who allow women to be raped legally. NPR did a great piece this morning on Muslims in suburban Chicago, but it gets overshadowed by the horrors of Pakistan.

I really just can't take listening to this nutball anymore. I usually listen to NPR's "Morning Edition" via their website, so I can at least just fast-forward through her.

...well, this guy's report is classified and he doesn't appear to have leaked it, so hopefully his career isn't fucked:

'Pessimistic' report on Iraq leaves little hope in Anbar

WASHINGTON - The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time a senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.

One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily, but we have been defeated politically — and that's where wars are won and lost."

What differs here from Vietnam is that we were defeated militarily in that war. Nixon had to escalate things to Operation Linebacker to bring the North Vietnamese to the table, and that totally lost him the political side. I don't know if it's possible for any american government to "win" the political side of this conflict at this point, though.

...because they don't lie like attack-poodle reporters:

Schoolchildren Spent 9/11 With the President SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Tyler Radkey and other second-graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary School didn't know what to think when an aide leaned in and whispered something to President Bush on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

"His face just started to turn red," said Tyler, now 13 and in seventh grade. "I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom."

For a puzzling seven minutes, the youngsters read aloud from the story "The Pet Goat" while the shaken president followed along in front of the class, trying to come to grips with what he had been told - that a second plane had just hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under terrorist attack.

"He looked like he was going to cry," said Natalia Jones-Pinkney, now 12.

One of the themes that will always amaze me about 11-Sep is the extent to which criticism of the disrespectful piece of shit who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was forbidden. Will Bunch of Attytood (which is where I got the student story from) remembers:

Remarkably, most of the mainstream media obeyed. On the second anniversary of 9/11, in 2003, I wrote a story in the Daily News that, among other things, mentioned that Bush had spent at least five minutes reading "The Pet Goat" in that Sarasota classroom. It was an indisputable fact, and yet I received hundreds of emails from readers, many asking if I would be fired for reporting such a simple and inconvenient truth. When Michael Moore showed the actual footage in "Farhrenheit 911" months later, much of the nation was shocked to learn for the first time what really happened that day.

The Emperor will try to use today to don a new suit of invisible clothes and wear them proudly through the fall campaign season. But everyone will just see a naked, drunken, coward.

but wait, we're always told that Dems are out of touch with Main Street, USA:

Number of Republicans declines to 32-month low

The number of Americans calling themselves Republican has fallen to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. Just 31.9% of American adults now say they're affiliated with the GOP. That's down from 37.2% in October 2004 and 34.5% at the beginning of 2006. These results come from Rasmussen Reports tracking surveys of 15,000 voters per month and have a margin of sampling error smaller than a percentage point.

The number of Democrats has grown slightly, from 36.1% at the beginning of the year to 37.3% now.

Those who claim to be unaffiliated have increased to 30.8% this month. That's the highest total recorded since Rasmussen Reports began releasing this data in January 2004.

Add it all together and the Democrats have their biggest net advantage?more than five percentage points?since January 2004. In the first month of 2006, the Democrats' advantage was just 1.6 percentage points. Last month, 32.8% of adults said they were Republicans and 36.8% identified themselves as Democrats.

no surprise here, who wants to be associated with Bush and Rumsfeld?