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.

.

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.

.

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.

.

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.]

.

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."

.

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.

.

Haven't They Suffered Enough?

Paris Hilton to head to Rwanda next year

.

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.

.

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.

.

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.

.