A Spork in the Drawer

Lather. Rinse. Repeat

The White House is refusing to turn over more that 600 pages of documents related to the investigation of convicted briber Jack Abramoff. Henry Waxman is upset at this.

A Sternly Worded Letter™ is sure to follow.

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I'm No Fan Of Joe Biden's...

...but this is a damn good line:

There's only three things [Giuliani] says in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11

Needless to say, some wingers are freaking out.

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Buh-Bye

Karen Hughes out:

Long-time Bush adviser Karen Hughes will leave her post as undersecretary of state at the State Department in mid-December, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Wednesday.

Hughes served as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs since her appointment to the post in March 2005, and was charged with running the State Department's campaign to "win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world."

Supergenius Hughes was on one of those trips to the "Muslim world" when she said this:

"Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans' lives," she said. When an Egyptian opposition leader inquired why Mr Bush mentions God in his speeches, Hughes asked him whether he was aware that "previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our constitution cites 'one nation under God'."

Not that familiarity with the Constitution has ever been a prerequisite for holding a top job in the current administration.

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Question

Is there a Republican who isn't a closeted gay?

State Representative Richard Curtis says he's not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women's lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis' activities publicly.

[...]

Curtis, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday, went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague on October 26th at approximately 12:45 a.m. The store clerk, who had talked with Curtis, referred to him as "The Cross-Dresser" and said that during their conversations he confirmed he was gay and was married with children at home.

During his visit to the video store Curtis was observed wearing women's lingerie while receiving oral sex from an unidentified man in one of the movie viewing booths inside the store.

And we still don't know why JimmyJeff GannonGuckert was spending so much time at the White House.

An odd bunch, those Republicans.

[Via Attaturk.]

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Today In Wingnuttia (AKA The Republican Party)

Top Giuliani advisor Norman Podhoretz has Hitler on the brain. Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!

Meanwhile, Crazy Rudy himself proves that, well, he's crazy:

"This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House," Giuliani said.

"Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball," he added.

Remember, friends, Rudy is the "moderate."

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Good Work If You Can Get It

I have never done one single thing to lose Merrill Lynch $8,000,000,000 so why don't they just give me as much as $250,000,000?

I mean, given the facts, I'm more deserving than Stanley O'Neal.

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Haven't They Suffered Enough?

Paris Hilton to head to Rwanda next year

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Whoops!

The good news is that he didn't shoot anyone in the face. The bad news is...

Although a heavy police presence kept the media and curious local residents at a distance, Cheney's visit did stir up a bit of controversy when a New York Daily News photographer snapped a picture of a small Confederate flag hanging inside a garage on the hunt club property.

[...]

...Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said neither Cheney nor anyone on his staff saw such a flag at the hunt club.

Whether Cheney was aware of the flag or not it certainly says something about the owners of the club. And there can be no doubt that DeadEye Dick knew their attitudes.

Indeed, via Think Progress, we find this:

Club officials threatened a reporter with arrest when he sought comment.

Nice people, huh?

And speaking of nice people, what sort of hunting was Dick doing? Need you ask?

Farm-bred pheasants were released on the preserve 24 hours before Cheney arrived, making them easy targets for the hunting party.

"The way they hunt, I'm not fond of," said Linda Smith, 52, who runs a local preschool. "It's not what I would call a real sportsmanlike activity."

The Veep sure does enjoy injuring and killing defenseless creatures. That certainly explains a lot about him.

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Curiouser And Curiouser

The Greenwald/Boylan imbroglio takes another turn. Greg Mitchell:

E&P contacted Boylan for a clarification about the email. Late Monday night he (or someone claiming to be him) replied: "I am denying writing and sending it. I know from past experience with Mr. Greenwald that any email exchange with him would be posted to his site as well as there is no need to discuss anything with him. I would only contact him in response to anything he would directly send to me as he did in this case. I have not contacted Mr. Greenwald since this summer" -- until Greenwald asked him to confirm the Sunday email, when "I told him it was not mine and I did not send it."

[...]

Knowing that I had a brief exchange of emails with Boylan last spring, I went back and found them -- with the Boylan in them sounding an awful lot like the Boylan in the disputed email to Greenwald.

Personally, I think Boylan is lying. The irony is that Boylan (if it was him) was disputing Glenn's writings on the politicization of the military and Boylan's e-mail (if it was him) was an entirely political complaint.

Perhaps more seriously, if the e-mail wasn't sent by Boylan that would mean the military has a very serious security problem.

Somebody might want to look into this.

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Mysterious Friends In High Places

Here's a surprise:

Potential prosecution of Blackwater guards allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians last month may have been compromised because the guards received immunity for statements they made to State Department officials investigating the incident, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.

FBI agents called in to take over the State Department's investigation two weeks after the Sept. 16 shootings cannot use any information gleaned during questioning of the guards by the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is charged with supervising security contractors.

Golly, imagine that. BushCheney's favorite mercenary outfit/cult (Amway) gets to skate.

So who made the decision to grant immunity to the mercs? Who knows!

It is unclear when or by whom the grant of immunity was explained to the guards. Under federal case law applying to government workers, only voluntary answers to questions posed by the employing agency can be used against them in a criminal prosecution. If an employee is ordered to answer under threat of disciplinary action, the resulting statements cannot be used.

[...]

Diplomatic Security spokesman Brian Leventhal declined to comment on the situation, first reported yesterday by the Associated Press. Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for North Carolina-based Blackwater Worldwide, also declined to comment.

It almost makes me think the executive branch has become a lawless criminal organization but that couldn't happen, could it? We live under the rule of law, not men, don't we?

Or perhaps it's once again time for the chairs of various Congressional committees to send more Sternly Worded Letters™ to the White House.

That'll get to the bottom of this.

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The Wisdom Of Frederick Of Hollywood

Sage words:

"Every time you're somewhere, that means you're not somewhere else," Fred Thompson said to reporters after he filed here in New Hampshire.

[Via Taegan Goddard.]

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International Fugitive

Retired Field Marshal von Rumsfeld:

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.

[...]

"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.

Is this a known known, an known unknown, or a unknown unknown?

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Socialism!

Ed Stein:

(A always, click to enlarge.)

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The Obama Implosion Continues

Aravosis.

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Colbert-mentum!

Stephen Colbert visits his home state of South Carolina to begin his presidential campaign:

"I am here not only to accept the honor you have given me but to prove to everyone that this campaign is real," Colbert said. "To put an end to the vicious rumors that this is not a serious candidacy."

[...]

"In the 19th century, South Carolina was the first to secede," he said. "In the 21st we will the first to succeed. First to secede. First to succeed. I own the copyright on that phrase, if you use it you must pay me a royalty."

Mayor Bob Coble also declared October 28th "Stephen Colbert Day." Coble has endorsed another South Carolina native for President, the Democratic former Sen. John Edwards.

Colbert immediately went on the attack, accusing Democrat John Edwards of not being a "native son:"

John Edwards left South Carolina when he was 1 year old. He had his chance. Saying his parents moved him — that’s the easy answer.

The Edwards campaign quickly shot back:

RHETORIC VS REALITY: STEPHEN COLBERT - PLAYING LOOSE WITH THE FACTS

CLAIM: Edwards abandoned South Carolina when he was one year old.

FACT: Edwards was born in South Carolina, learned to walk in South Carolina, learned to talk to in South Carolina, and will kick Stephen Colbert's New York City butt in South Carolina.

"Stephen Colbert claims to represent a new kind of politics, but today we see he's participating in the slash and burn politics that has no place in American discourse. The truthiness is, as the candidate of Doritos, Colbert's hands are stained by corporate corruption and nacho cheese. John Edwards has never taken a dime from salty food lobbyists and America deserves a President who isn't in the pocket of the snack food special interests."

It looks like it's going to get dirty.

Watch Colbert launch his candidacy:

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You Can't Keep A Corrupt Iraqi Down

Judy Miller's favorite:

Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.

His latest job: To press Iraq's central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That's the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success.

[...]

Chalabi "is an important part of the process," said Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."

Never mind that Chalabi, among other things, is suspected of spying for Iran. He's the neocon's boy until the end.

As a side note, the Col. Steven Boylan mentioned above had a bizarre e-mail exchange with Glenn Greenwald yesterday. Col. Boylan might not be all that right in the head.

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Odd Critter Roundup

An ocean quahog clam thought to have lived more than 405 years has been found off the coast of Iceland. A study of the mollusk could lead to insights on the aging process.

---

In the Allegheny Forest northeast of Pittsburgh a camera fitted with an "automatic trigger" set by a hunter took a picture of Bigfoot. Or maybe a bear with mange.

My money is on the bear with mange.

---

To my friends in the Hudson River Valley: Be afraid. Be very afraid. Josh Marshall passes along the news the none other than Dead-Eye Dick Cheney will be visiting with a gun.

Maybe he'll be hunting Bigfoot. Or perhaps a bear with mange. Either way, keep to your basements up there.

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A Bit Of R.B. Kitaj

Died last Sunday. NYT obit.

Los Angeles no. 20, 1990-2003

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Saturday Palate Cleanser

Seems apropos - Tom Lehrer, "So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)"

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Conscription (Of A Sort)

Who wants to go to Iraq? Nobody:

The State Department said Friday it will begin ordering diplomats to serve in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers to work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the first such large-scale call-up since the Vietnam War.

[...]

Those notified that they have been selected for a one-year posting will have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go to Iraq and face dismissal if they refuse, Thomas said.

[...]

"If someone decides ... they do not want to go, we will then consider appropriate action," [Harry Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service] said. "We have many options, including dismissal from the Foreign Service."

You can add the Diplomatic Corps to the list of things BushCheney has destroyed.

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When Fact Is Fiction And Teevee Reality

So, earlier today the deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, held a televised press conference to discuss the fires in SoCal. Question after question from the assembled reporters were softballs. Did I say "reporters"? Well, it turns out there were no reporters there, just FEMA staffers pretending to be reporters.

Life in Bushworld is unsettling.

Think Progress has the video.

---

This just in: The FEMA press conference was so egregiously dishonest that even WH spokescritter Dana "The Dip" Perino condemns it.

.

Valley Of The Kings

Pierce:

In fact, it's long past time for simple ridicule to become the default position on the entire Republican presidential field. Romney is deeply, profoundly, relentlessly silly; he appears to be enrolled in a course in Human Being as a Second Language. Rudy Giuliani gets crazier almost by the hour and, at any meeting of his foreign-policy advisory team, he's the sanest lunatic in the room. Fred Thompson seems to have been unearthed a week ago in the Valley of the Kings. The second tier is populated by people like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, neither of whom you would hire to park your car. Ron Paul -- an authentic libertarian crackpot -- is treated as a serious phenomenon even by people who don't believe that the U.N. is speaking through the fillings in Katie Couric's teeth. This past week, we had a general all-hands-on-deck attempt to inflict Huckamania! on the general populace as good ol' Mike announced his disapproval of Charles Darwin. And then there's John McCain, who's spent this entire campaign doing things he'd vowed he'd never do in the last one. I swear to God, they all ought to climb into one little black car and drive into the next debate behind jugglers, high-wire acts, and a parade of circus bears. I cannot remember a presidential field in my lifetime -- not even the one that coughed up Mike Dukakis in 1988 -- that is as publicly hilarious as this one is. How dare a major political party hand this collection of shills, fakes, loons, and mountebanks on the American people? And one of them is going to win. Jesus wept.

Read the rest.

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Welcome To Pennsylvania!

Elections are a-comin' and maybe you've recently moved. Maybe you ahven't voted before and would like to start. So one of the first things you'd want to do is find out where your polling place is. Good luck:

State officials have decided not to publicize their list of polling places in Pennsylvania, citing concerns that terrorists could disrupt elections in the commonwealth.

The Department of State was influenced by the terrorist bombings that struck just days before Spain's national elections in 2004, spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said. Election officials consulted with state police, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the state Office of Homeland Security.

"The agencies agreed it was appropriate not to release the statewide list to protect the public and the integrity of the voting process," Amoros said.

[...]

The comprehensive list helps candidates for statewide office coordinate volunteer get-out-the-vote efforts, Singer said.

"A big part of (mobilizing voters) is keeping track of where polling places are, or when they change," Singer said.

My knee-jerk reaction is that we are a deeply stupid people. But to don the tinfoil chapeau for a moment, maybe this is intended to drive voter participation down.

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Sign The Letter

Over at the Lake, Jane has this:

We’re joining together with the following people to send a letter to Harry Reid to tell him to respect Chris Dodd’s hold on any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom companies:

American Civil Liberties Union
ColorofChange.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Moveon.org Political Action
Working Assets Wireless
Duncan Black, Atrios
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, DailyKos
Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Matt Stoller, OpenLeft
John Aravosis, Americablog
Chris Bowers, OpenLeft
Taylor Marsh Taylormarsh.com
Digby, Hullaballo
John Amato, Crooks and Liars
Howie Klein, DownWithTyranny

We want you to be a part of it. If you feel strongly about this issue, please co-sign the letter to Harry Reid with us (you can view the entire letter here). (.pdf-ed.)

This is important.

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Yes, But

So what might happen to the oil market if (when?) BushCheney attacks Iran? The WaPo takes a look:

A U.S. military strike against Iran would have dire consequences in petroleum markets, say a variety of oil industry experts, many of whom think the prospect of pandemonium in those markets makes U.S. military action unlikely despite escalating economic sanctions imposed by the Bush administration.

The small amount of excess oil production capacity worldwide would provide an insufficient cushion if armed conflict disrupted supplies, oil experts say, and petroleum prices would skyrocket. Moreover, a wounded or angry Iran could easily retaliate against oil facilities from southern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz.

We already have this:

Continuing:

Oil traders said that even if the chances of military conflict with Iran were small, the huge run-up in oil prices that would result encourages some speculators and investment funds to bid up the price of oil, adding a premium of $3 to $15 a barrel.

"It will be chaos. . . . I can't really see it," said Abdulsamad al-Awadi, an oil trading consultant and former executive at Kuwait Petroleum. "Having been in the marketplace for almost 30 years, I can't see a scenario for it, or precautionary measures" that oil companies could take. "There are no precautionary measures."

The problem with these various oil traders and analysts is that they're thinking rationally. We already have ample evidence that those who are most pushing for an attack on Iran - the Cheneys, the Kristols, the Boltons - aren't rational.

Just something to keep in mind.

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The Rule Of Holes

When you find yourself in one, stop digging.

Apparently Barack Obama hasn't figured that out yet.

Obama's campaign is going to crater in 5...4...3...

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The Hell?

Some nuthatch rightwing group called "Family Security Matter" (FSM) has released a list of the "The Ten Most Dangerous Organizations in America." Let's just go to the list, shall we?

10) ThinkProgress
9) Muslim Student Association
8) CodePINK
7) American Civil Liberties Union, National
6) Family Research Council
5) Center for American Progress
4) League of the South
3) MoveOn.org
2) Universities and Colleges
1) Media Matters for America

Uhhhh..."Universities and colleges"?

Pied Cuckoo (Oxylophus jacobinus) - photo by David Behrens




That said, congratulations to those ten fine "hate" organizations! I'm proud to be a member of several of them.

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Speaking Of Iraq...

Frederick of Hollywood:

We will not be a safer country, we will not be a safer America if the whole world watches us being defeated by a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices.

Doddering Fred is starting to sound like his hero. Remember what George said earlier this year?

...it is our job to “work to change the conditions that moved 19 kids to come on airplanes to murder our citizens. … I could not send a mother’s child into combat if I did not believe it was necessary."

I can' figure out which it is. Are terrorists twelve feet tall and made of steel or little children?

.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Perhaps a copy of Dale Carnegie's famous book should be sent to Defense Secretary Bob Gates:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday questioned the commitment of some NATO allies to winning in Afghanistan, saying the outcome there is at "real risk" because some European nations are unwilling to provide enough troops and resources to the mission.

"In Afghanistan a handful of allies are paying the price and bearing the burdens," he told a conference of army leaders from 38 European nations organized by the chief of U.S. Army Europe.

If you ask me other NATO countries are being smart. Why put their troops under the command of BushCheney?

Funny thing is the US had more than enough troops to stabilize Afghanistan all by itself.

Too bad certain people decided to invade and occupy another country which posed no threat.

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And People Wonder Why The Country Is Screwed Up

Oy:

Put Conrad, a homemaker from Hampton, Va., firmly in the camp of the 34 percent of people who say they believe in ghosts, according to a pre-Halloween poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos. That's the same proportion who believe in unidentified flying objects — exceeding the 19 percent who accept the existence of spells or witchcraft.

Forty-eight percent believe in extrasensory perception, or ESP. But nearly half of you knew we were about to tell you that, right?

[...]

To put the roughly one-third who believe in ghosts and UFOs in perspective, it's about the same as, in recent AP-Ipsos polls, the 36 percent who said they are baseball fans; the 37 percent who said the U.S. made the right decision to invade Iraq; and the 31 percent who approve of the job President Bush is doing.

Now for the truly depressing part:

A smaller but still substantial 23 percent say they have actually seen a ghost or believe they have been in one's presence, with the most likely candidates for such visits including single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services. By 31 percent to 18 percent, more liberals than conservatives report seeing a specter. [Emphasis added.]

It's a good thing that liberals have open minds. But nobody's mind should be so open that their brain falls out. Rational thought is a good thing!

And a quibble with this: "...with the most likely candidates for such visits including single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services." Presumably people who do attend religious services believe in gods and angels and whatnot. How is that different from ghosts?

.

The Roll Out Continues

Condi:

The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday — the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 — charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the steps the Bush administration is taking against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks are designed, among other things, to punish Tehran for its support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East.

Springtime in Tehran, anyone?

.

I Get E-mail

Let's get right to it and talk about how we stop retroactive telecommunications immunity from becoming law.

The way I see it, there are three ways to get this provision stripped from the final bill:

1.) The first step would be to make sure the idea doesn't make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- where it will be considered shortly.

If we can get it stripped there, it will have to be offered as an amendment to the overall bill where it will be a lot easier to get 41 votes against retroactive immunity than 41 to sustain my filibuster if necessary.

Take a moment and call up members of the committee, let me know what they said, and join others in tracking our progress in stopping the provision right there.

http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

The other two ways:

2.) If retroactive immunity does make it out of committee, Senate leadership can honor the hold I've placed on any legislation that includes retroactive immunity.

3.) If leadership does not honor my hold, I remain committed to filibustering, and working to get the 41 votes necessary to maintain it.

This has the potential to be a long fight -- so let's build a solid foundation for our effort today by asking members of the Judiciary Committee to vote against any FISA bill that includes retroactive amnesty.

http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

I'd like to see a little more spine, frankly, on these issues. People tell us they want to lead, but a little leadership right now would certainly be welcomed on these questions.

I don't want to, but I'm not afraid to do this alone.

Chris

And just this morning, as Marcy notes, AT&T needs a favor from BushCo™:

AT&T has been consulting lawyers in Washington about how long it would take to get government approval to purchase either EchoStar Communications Corp. or DirecTV Group Inc., people familiar with the matter said. If it does make a bid for one of the satellite providers, AT&T could unveil the offer before year's end in hopes of getting federal antitrust officials to approve the combination before a new administration takes over, these people say.

---

ADDED: Atrios sums up:

George Bush says "Give me everything I want, including retroactive immunity for telecom companies for breaking the law or I'll veto it."

Democrats then have a choice. They can send him more reasonable legislation, at which point he vetoes it and says the Democrats are going to let Al Qaeda eat your babies. Subsequently, they can either point out that George Bush vetoed the anti-Al Qaeda baby cannibalism bill or they can scamper like cowards and give him everything he wants.

Or they can just give him everything he wants right away.

This isn't about sensible FISA adjustments, this is about whether George Bush gets the power to do whatever the hell he wants because the Democrats in Congress think the best way to be strong is cave into the bullying of Mr. 24%.

This isn't about sensible FISA adjustments, this is about whether George Bush gets the power to do whatever the hell he wants because the Democrats in Congress think the best way to be strong is cave into the bullying of Mr. 24%.

.

Hee Hee

Poor dears:

House Republicans are fuming over Democrats' decision to hold the next vote on the State Children's Health Insurance Program on Thursday -- when many Republicans will be in California as President Bush tours areas hit by wildfires.

"Five to seven members are going, all of whom would be 'no' votes, and [Democrats] know it," House Republican Whip Roy Blunt told CNN. "This is clearly designed to minimize the Republican opposition to this bill."

Oh no, the Repubs would never, ever, use tricks to get a bill passed (such as holding a 15-minute vote open for 50 minutes so a bribe can be offered arms can be twisted).

I'll leave it to my friend to sum up:

.

Rudy and Willard

Newsweek interviews Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. What fun!

NEWSWEEK: So we wanted to ask you, first of all, about the third party idea and whether it's serious. A number of people are suggesting it is just a threat.

Land: My intuition [is that] this is not a bluff. If Giuliani is the nominee, there will be a third party. There are things that Giuliani could do to help mitigate the damage. But I have been in too many discussions over the last 15 years where evangelical leaders have said, "The one thing we will never allow to happen is for the Republican Party to take us for granted the way the Democrat Party too often takes the African-American community for granted."

This is not a bluff.

[...]

NEWSWEEK: Did I hear you say that there are things that Giuliani can do that could mitigate...

Land: No, he's not going to do that, and if he did, nobody would believe it. He would [have to] say, number one, "This is a pro-life party; I realize I am out of step with where the party is, and I am not going to try to in any way weaken the [pro-life] plank." He could say, "I will only appoint strict constructionists, original-intent jurists to the federal judiciary." Strict constructionists by definition think that Roe v. Wade was an overreach, and is a badly decided decision. If he were to agree to appoint a pro-life attorney general in the mode of a John Ashcroft…

And then Land is asked about Mittens:

NEWSWEEK: Well, I think the term "flip-flopper" was coined by your side, wasn't it?

Land: Well, not by me… But I think that if [Romney] wants to gain the kind of support [from] evangelicals that he wants, he needs to give a JFK-type speech [in which Kennedy said he was "not the Catholic candidate for President," but rather a candidate "who happens also to be a Catholic."]. I have told him this.

Oh, yes, Mitt should definitely give that speech. But Land and his friends would certainly be unhappy. Why? The central point of Kennedy's 1960 speech to Greater Houston Ministerial Association was this:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute...I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

This, it should go without saying, flies in the face of the modern evangelical movement. They deny the very concept of "separation of church and state" and proclaim the US to be a (very conservative Protestant) Christian nation.

So Mitt should definitely give a big speech in which he proclaims his devotion to the separation of church and state.

Then sit back and watch Land's head explode.

.

Senate Dems Cave Again

Here.

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The Death Of Newspaper Columns

The rehabilitation of L'il Ricky is in full swing. After bursting gloriously back onto the stage with "Islamofascism Awareness Week" comes this:

Buried in the middle of the Inquirer’s A3 Rick-Santorum-blasts-brown-people story this morning is a bracketed announcement that the former U.S. senator, our state’s preeminent Islamo-Fascist Warrior, will begin a biweekly op-ed column for the paper starting next month.

Yes, you read that right: Former Sen. Santorum (R-AKC) will be dropping nuggets of his shit wisdom twice a week onto the citizenry of Philadelphia. Could a syndication deal soon be in the offing? Stay tuned!

Ricky's family hears the news.

[Via Think Progress.]

.

RudyMania!

Kevin Drum:

Choosing the best presidential candidate among the 2008 contenders is a tough job. Picking the worst is easy. Rudy Giuliani is the guy you'd get if you put George Bush and Dick Cheney into a wine press and squeezed out their pure combined essence: unbounded arrogance and self-righteousness, a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood, a studied contempt for anybody's opinion but his own, a vindictive streak a mile wide, and a devotion to secrecy and executive power unmatched in presidential history. He is a disaster waiting to happen.

Yep.

.

Kill Me Now

Fox News: Al Qaeda is causing the CA wildires.

.

Damn! I Forgot!

Yesterday was our planet's birthday. Exactly 6010 years old.

Doesn't look a day over 5327 if you ask me.

.

Willard "Misspeaks"

The Mittster:

"Actually, just look at what Osam -- Barack Obama -- said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq," Romney said. "That is the battlefield ... It's almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded."

Now I, like most people, have started to say the wrong thing then catch myself. Here, Willard starts to say the right thing then catches himself.

Ooops. Or should I say, "Ooops."

.

Fiscal Conservative? Not So Much

George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he's arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.

“He’s a big government guy,” said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian research group.

[...]

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative research group, blamed a ravenous Congress that was eager to show constituents how generous it could be. (Republicans ran that Congress until January. Bush never vetoed a single GOP spending bill.)

Good on McClatchy for pointing out the lack of vetoes.

LBJ = Tax and Spend

GWB = Spend and Spend.

You tell me which is worse.






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And On It Rolls...

More flat-earthism from BushCo™:

The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents. [Emphasis added.]

[...]

"It was eviscerated," said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly "heavy-handed," with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

We can't have actual, y'know, facts and data. They might cut into somebody's profits. And facts and data will prevent the triumphant return of the Baby Jesus!

It's just another day in BushCheney's America.

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Stay Safe, SoCalians

(From Open Left:)

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Buyer's Remorse

I gave money to Jason Altmire in his race against Missy Hart.

That's a mistake I won't be repeating.

A true Bush Dog.

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In Case You Missed It...

...The CIA's new "Terrorist Buster" logo:

And yes, judging by the name, it's supposed to look like this:

Still, I suppose it could've been worse. The CIA could have designed a logo based on this guy:







I know I keep saying it but we really are ruled my morons.

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Beam Him Up, Scotty

Hopeless Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich talked to visiting space aliens and tried to outlaw "chemtrails."

Frankly, there's little practical difference between New Agers like Kucinich and End Timers like, well, most Republicans. The former may be more benign but both groups are operating from an anti-intellectual mind-set. And after the last seven years I think we've had quite enough of that.

Here's another one who should go away quietly.

(Gosh, I am single-handedly winnowing the Democratic field today, ain't I?)

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Headline Of The Day

No brothel visits when on duty, Belgian police told

So much for reducing on-the-job stress.

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New Kid

Say Hello To Guardian America!

Mike Tomasky explains:

The journalistic shorthand version is that Guardian America is the US-based website of the Guardian newspaper of London and Manchester, which will combine content produced in the UK and around the world with content that we originate here to create a Guardian especially tailored to American readers. I am sometimes asked what, or who, this means we will try to be "like"; the questioner wants an American reference point the better to slot this project into a known category. The only answer is that we will try to be like ... the Guardian.

[...]

So Guardian America will, yes, promote the liberal interest. Not with a sledgehammer; one of the most important liberal interests, after all, is in free inquiry, debate, scepticism, even about one's own positions. But I suspect that, among the Americans who like the Guardian, one of the things they like is that the paper expresses its view of the world a bit more openly than American newspapers do.

Update your bookmarks and/or RSS feeds today!

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Happy Islamofascism Awareness Week!

No, really.

And, needless to say, God's Own Bestiality Obsessed Former Junior Senator from Pennsylvania is in the thick of it.

A regular modern Paul Revere

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He Lost Me. Perhaps Forever

Just what the hell is wrong with Barack Obama? Even after finally issuing a tepid statement on the matter most aren't impressed. Aravosis:

PS You know Obama's campaign was fully aware of just who this bigot was - this wasn't a mistake. The bigot has been in the news, a lot, for his virulent homophobia. Obama simply didn't care. And he doesn't care now.

I guess this is the Obama campaigns attempt to win some South Carolina redneck votes.

It's time for Obama to quietly exit the stage.

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Neither Stalin Nor Mao. And Not Hitler

Reformed war supporter Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek brings some sanity:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Definitely a must read, especially in light of Dick's weekend speech. Scott Horton:

Is Cheney threatening war against Iran? Yes, that’s exactly what he is doing. As Greg Djerejian reminds us, in the lead-up to the war against Iraq, Cheney gave a number of speeches making clear the intention to resort to arms against Saddam Hussein. And he used exactly the same language, including specifically the key phrase “serious consequences.” And note the focus on the Quds unit of the Revolutionary Guard. This is an exercise in target-practicing. As several sources have noted, Cheney has advocated targeting the Quds unit in the first bombing raids. He and his chief of staff David Addington have also advocated putting the Quds unit on the scheduled list of terrorist organizations, presumably for prior Congressional authorizations for the use of military force canbe drawn upon to justify the attack without the need to go back to Congress.

Last week over at Slate, Fred Kaplan discussed the frightening behind-the-scenes debate amongst generals and admirals about what to do if the order to attack Iran comes down.

May you live in interesting times, indeed.

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A Bit Of Edward Hopper

Night Shadows (engraving), 1921

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Saturday Palate Cleanser

Raspunina - "1816 The Year Without a Summer"

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