To kick off the weekend....

Moviegoing is a summer holiday weekend tradition. For whatever reason, my passion for movies left me sometime in mid-2005 after over seven years of spending most of my weekends staring at a glowing screen watching actors pretend to be people living lives. This year, it's seemed every weekend as if I'd rather sit and leisurely read the newspaper and try vainly to get a handle on my filing than go to the movies.

But I am about to embark on that rare thing in my life called A Week Off Work To Just Be At Home, and I'm hoping to take in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, and SUPERMAN RETURNS -- when I'm not painting my kitchen and hopefully getting started on doing a reface job on my cabinets -- yes, kitchen cabinet refacing; the same thing you hear abour relentlessly in radio ads. This is kitchen remodeling for those of us who can't afford remodeling.

My kitchen was last redone somewhere around 1975-1980, by the previous owners of the house. This was the era of dark wood cabinets and harvest gold appliances. The problem is that these people didn't put in new cabinets, they refaced the old knotty-pine builders cabinets that were installed when the house was built. So since 1996, I've been living with these ugly dark wood-grain laminate doors and the old veneers in which the glue has dried out, so the veneers are coming off the cabinets. It's really quite unattractive.

Refacing is supposed to be so easy that even a novice can do it. A friend's husband did it once and said it was easy. So two years ago I measured, then measured again, then bought $2000 worth of 23 oak flat-panel cabinet doors and matching veneers and plywood end panels online, and they're still sitting in the original wrapping. So it's time to get going.

Frankly, I'm terrified, because once I pry the old trim off the soffits, there's no turning back. So I hope you'll all join me as I embark on the biggest do-it-yourself project yet in my House of Surprises. I usually prefer to pay a professional for things I know I can't do, but we'll see how I do with this one. It can't look any worse than what I have now. For those who are interested, I'll post some progress pictures. Because misery loves company.

But for those of you whose idea of a good time ISN'T scraping old veneer glue off your cabinets; those of you who plan to spend a hot weekend in a cold movie theatre, let me refer you over to my absolute favorite obsessive-compulsive.. Nathaniel is best known for his annual Oscar® handicapping, which unlike most people, he starts most years in April. But in true movie obsessive fashion, he has spent the last few months compiling lists. And Nathaniel doesn't just compile lists, he goes into exquisite detail on his lists. So just go spend 10 minutes this weekend and take a look at Nat's 50 Favorite All-Time Actors, 50 Favorite All-Time Actresses, Actors of the 'Aughts, and Actresses of the 'Aughts. Go head. Limit yourself to 10 minutes. I dare you. See if you can do it. Because I sure as hell can't.

I Am Not Making This Up

Actual Drudge Report headline:



Is nothing sacred? Congressional Republicans had better get on the stick and pass a resolution declaring Superman to be an American -- and calling for anyone who disagrees to be gassed.

Here is the "faith-based community" to which Barack Obama thinks we need to "reach out"

Today's dispatch from the Christofascist Zombie Apocalypse:

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but antiabortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44 billion fortune, devotes the majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1 percent has gone to Planned Parenthood.

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, a Roman Catholic priest who is president of Human Life International.

Referring to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi death camp doctor, Euteneuer said Buffett "will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents."

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued statements praising Buffett and Gates for their generosity. Gloria Feldt, a former Planned Parenthood president, said she was appalled by the harsh attacks on them.

"What an outrage that these people have the gall to cast aspersions on other citizens for standing up for what they believe," Feldt said Thursday. "They have no right whatsoever to criticize people who put their money where their mouths are."

RU-486 Opposition
The foundation started by Buffett, and now named after his late wife, Susan, came under fire from some antiabortion groups in the 1990s after it gave $2 million to fund clinical trials of mifepristone, more commonly known as the RU-486 abortion pill. The foundation also has supported various abortion-rights and family-planning groups.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote a commentary this week holding the Buffetts partially responsible for the approval of RU-486 in 2000.

"Since then, approximately 500,000 American babies have been killed with RU-486," Perkins wrote. "Buffett's billions have the potential to do damage like this on a global scale."

Staff at the Susan T. Buffett Foundation in Omaha, Neb., said its executive director, Allen Greenberg, would not comment on the criticisms.

The Gates Group
The Gates Foundation also is a patron of reproductive-health programs, funding studies on contraceptive technologies and initiatives to improve access to birth control.

Let's look at the Gates Foundation web site for a moment and ponder some the programs that the Foundation supports:

• "Health issues that cause relatively few problems in developed countries continue to spread sickness and death in poorer regions of the world. The foundation concentrates its support on efforts to prevent and treat these diseases and conditions." [Hmmm....that sounds like it might save some lives, doesn't it?]
  
  
• "For each of the priority diseases and conditions, the foundation supports scientific research to develop new and better tools for preventing and treating disease." [Gee, that also sounds like it's geared towards saving lives.]
  
  
• "To make a difference, new tools and strategies for better health must be available to those who need them most. The foundation supports projects that help finance, test, deliver, and sustain access to health interventions." [Last time I looked, healthier people tended to live longer and better lives.]
  

What the Christian Pervert Minions have stated they dislike is the Foundation's support for Planned Parenthood. And I suspect that this has something to do with it as well. Because after all, if women are unchaste, don't they deserve to die? In the Christofascist Zombie Apocalypse, the answer is yes. Even if they aren't sex workers or promiscuous. As Melinda French Gates writes:

Despite the array of breakthroughs we've seen for AIDS treatment, prevention efforts still rely on the three practices described by the abbreviation ABC ("Abstain, be faithful, use condoms"). These approaches work, and we must encourage them, but they all depend on a man's cooperation. For millions of married women, abstinence is unrealistic, being faithful is insufficient and the use of condoms is not under their control.

I don't WANT to reach out to these people. I don't think we SHOULD reach out to these people. And I won't vote for anyone who thinks that these people have a right to shove their -- yes, I'll call it what it is -- evil religion down my throat. And when Barack Obama says that we need to reach out to these people, he says he doesn't want people like me -- committed, progressive secularists who don't need the fear of punishment or the promise of heavenly rewards to conduct myself in a moral way. (Chris Bowers has more on how Obama saying we have to speak to only the most conservative, retrograde sectors of society result in what we have now -- a government that responds ONLY to them.

And now that I've just spent a post defending the Gates's, I'm going to go pick the shards of my brain off the wall behind me.

The Supreme Court puts the reins on Bush -- for the last time?

ThinkProgress notes that yesterday's Supreme Court surprising decision that Congress' authorization of use of military force after 9/11 is not a blank check for the Administration to do anything it wants goes far beyond the Guantanamo Bay detainees:

The point here is that the AUMF does not authorize activity that was not specifically contemplated in the text or legislative history. This is incredibly significant. The administration is relying on the AUMF to justify its warrantless wiretapping program. Here’s Alberto Gonzales on 12/19/05:

Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

The Bush administration doesn’t argue that warrantless wiretapping was something specifically contemplated in the text or by Congress. Rather, the administration argues that it is implied as part of a broad authorization to “use all necessary and appropriate force.”

The Supreme Court has rejected that expansive interpretation. It’s a huge blow to the administration’s legal rationale for warrantless wiretapping.

Glenn Greenwald, who as a constitutional attorney is far more knowledgeable than I on the legal implications, concurs:

The Hamdan decision represents, in my opinion, a fatal blow to the Addington/Yoo theory of executive power. For the last four years, the Bush administration has been advancing the theory, both publicly and in its internal legal memoranda, that, as Commander in Chief, the president has the sole discretion to make all decisions regarding war-related issues, even when a duly enacted statute purports to limit his authority. This legal theory serves as the basis for not only the system of military tribunals at Guantanamo, but also the NSA program and the interrogation methods endorsed by the administration.

But if a statute can place valid and enforceable limits on the president's power to try foreign enemy combatants captured on foreign soil, then can there really be any doubt that a statute can place similar limits on the president's power to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens within the United States? Of course not.

And the Hamdan opinion completely eviscerates the administration's only other argument in defense of the NSA surveillance program, i.e., that the Authorization for Military Force (AUMF) somehow authorized the circumvention of FISA. The Court notes that "there is nothing in the text or legislative history of the AUMF even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth in . . . the UCMJ." All you have to do is substitute "FISA" for "UCMJ" and you know exactly what the Court would say about that argument.

In other words, if there was ever any reasonable doubt as to whether the NSA program is illegal, the Hamdan opinion dispels it. The same is true with respect to the administration's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Given that the court's resident authoritarian totalitarians, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, dissented and John Roberts recused himself from the case, this decision underscores just how important the Supreme Court really is. Most Americans don't seem to understand that these grey people that presidents appoint to the Court, and who are confirmed by some of the most boring C-SPAN programming imaginable, often hold the fate of the principles on which this country was founded in their hands.

The question now is "What will Congress do?" Given what we've seen from the likes of Arlen Specter of late, in his pathetic attempts to make anything Bush wants to do retroactively legal, and since Trent Lott has already been out there claiming that the big bad terrorists are laughing at us (a fate worse than death if you are a weasel like Trent Lott), and Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are out there trying to prove that "We're just like the Republicans -- only not criminally insane", we can assume that Congress is going to hastily cobble together new laws to give centralized executive authority to this president.

And herein lies the scenario that the Founding Fathers never considered -- that a rabidly partisan Senate and House would put the Cult of Personality surrounding a president and party loyalty ahead of their oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution and provide checks on unfettered executive power instead of enabling it.

With Congress abdicating its oversight role, one has to worry what is likely to occur should there be another Supreme Court retirement while the lunatic-in-chief is still in office. John Paul Stevens, who wrote this opinion, is 86 years old. Bush is in office until January 20, 2009. That's another 2-1/2 years. If Bush gets a chance to nominate another authoritarian wackjob like Alito to the bench (and don't count on the Democrats to block ANYONE he puts up), the last check on this Administration's march towards a dictatorship is gone.

Thank you, Ron Wyden

Sen. Ron Wyden has announced what amounts to his intention to filibuster the telecommunications legislation for which the telecom companies have been salivating:

Mr. President, the major telecommunications legislation reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed. The bill makes a number of major changes in the country's telecommunications law but there is one provision that is nothing more than a license to discriminate. Without a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the worse.

This one provision threatens to divide the Internet into technology "haves" and "have nots." This one provision concentrates even more power in the hands of the special interests that own the pipelines to the Internet. This one provision codifies discrimination on the Internet by a handful of large telecommunications and cable providers. This one provision will allow large, special interests to saddle consumers and small businesses alike with new and discriminatory fees over and above what they already pay for Internet access. This one small provision is akin to hurling a giant wrecking ball at the Internet.

The inclusion of this provision compels me to state that I would object to a unanimous consent request to the Senate proceeding with this legislation until a provision that provides true Internet neutrality is included. . . .

The large interests have made it clear that if this bill moves forward, they will begin to discriminate. A Verizon Communications executive has called for an "end to Google's `free lunch.'" A Bell South executive has said that he wants the Internet to be turned into a "pay-for-performance marketplace." What they and other cable and phone company executives are proposing is that instead of providing equal access for everyone to the same content at the same price, they will set up sweetheart arrangements to play favorites. Without net neutrality protections, this bill is bad news for consumers and anyone who today enjoys unlimited access to all of the Net's applications, service and content.

Ron Wyden gets it. Go show him some love.

The company they keep

More proof that the more Republicans shriek about moral values, the more you know that they are self-loathing perverts:

A political consultant whose company was behind a television ad accusing the Clinton-Gore administration of giving away nuclear technology was convicted of child molestation charges.

A jury deliberated almost two days before convicting Carey Lee Cramer, 44, of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecency with a child by exposure. He was cleared of nine other charges Tuesday.

The sentencing phase of the trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday. Cramer faces up to 149 years in prison.

Cramer, who now lives in Tucson, Ariz., gained national attention during the 2000 presidential election when his company created the ad that accused the administration of giving nuclear technology to China in exchange for campaign contributions.

The spot was modeled after the infamous 1964 "Daisy" nuclear scare commercial and was pulled after a barrage of Democratic criticism.

Cramer, who had been free on bond since his 2005 arrest, was taken into custody on a $4 million appeal bond after the verdict, The (McAllen) Monitor reported in its Wednesday editions

This is the Republican party, folks: bribery, sex tourism, child molestation -- are these the "moral values" they stand for? Are these the moral values of the religious right? And if so, why on earth is Barack Obama telling Democrats to suck up to the people who vote for them?

The leakers-in-chief

Ah, but it's so much more fun for wingnuts to fantasize about the executions of Bill Keller and the editorial staff of the New York Times, isn't it?

Too bad the loosest lips are at the top:

Bush administration officials have been lining up to condemn The New York Times for revealing a program to track financial transactions as part of the war on terrorism. But if the Times’ revelation about a program to monitor international exchanges is so damaging, why has the administration been chattering about efforts to monitor domestic transactions for nearly five years?

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, many journalists — including this one — were briefed by U.S. Customs officials on Operation Green Quest, an effort to roll up terrorist financiers by monitoring, among other things, "suspicious" bank transfers and ancient money lending programs favored by people of Middle Eastern descent.

I interviewed Marcy Forman, director of Green Quest, at her Washington offices in December 2001, when I was a writer for Government Executive magazine. Our meeting was sanctioned by Customs' public affairs office, and came at a time when the White House was eager to talk about all the work federal agencies were doing to hunt down terrorists. Forman told me the kinds of people, transactions, even locations that the government was targeting. (These are details, it should be noted, that the recent Times piece did not reveal.) Among the potentially sensitive items Forman told me, which were published:

“Operation Green Quest is focusing on the informal, largely paperless form of money exchange known as hawala, which is Arabic for ‘to change.’”

“Few undercover agents can penetrate Middle Eastern communities and money laundering rings because they look like outsiders and don't speak the language…. As a result, Green Quest has to be more clever, by setting traps on the Internet and working to flush currency traffickers out of their hiding places.”

“Treasury and FBI investigators have identified hawala as a means by which the alleged Sept. 11 terrorists may have received money from overseas.”

“Green Quest investigators, who've spent their careers dismantling money laundering rackets, were blindsided by the existence of the system. ‘Most of us couldn't spell hawala’ before Sept. 11,’ Forman said.”

“The agencies' [involved in Green Quest] cooperative efforts have recently culminated in raids of alleged money laundering operations that aid suspected terrorist networks.”

“Green Quest also wants to lower the threshold at which bank deposits and electronic funds transfers must be documented. Dropping the ceiling from $10,000 to $750, Forman said, may force money traffickers to try to get their cash out of the country by hand. They would then be subject to capture by a beefed-up cadre of Customs Service officers at border crossings, airports and seaports.”

Green Quest was only one of the administration’s efforts to combat terrorist financing which officials discussed publicly. More than two years after 9/11, federal officials testified before a congressional field hearing in Miami and "detailed efforts to stop the illegal financing of terrorist networks." A senior adviser for the Treasury Department "named several initiatives, such as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which is developing technology to let financial institutions report suspicious transactions more easily and quickly." The adviser also named the system FinCEN was developing to manage a database built to search financial transactions. And he said the department was working directly with financial institutions to help them "develop software to better identify potential terrorist-financing activities."

These details, provided by Customs and Treasury officials, undoubtedly gave terrorists some insight into how the U.S. government was tracking them, and what investigators knew about terrorism financing. These officials weren’t whistleblowers—they were sanctioned by the administration to dispense this information.

In the wake of the latest Times revelation, Rep. Peter King of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants the attorney general to investigate and prosecute reporters and editors of the Times for “aiding the cause of our enemies.” What King and others critics haven’t addressed is how the publication of specific details, over the past half decade, about the techniques the government employees to track terrorists’ money doesn’t also aid their cause.

-- Shane Harris

(hat tip: Americablog)

Out-of-control executive pay may affect YOUR retirement

As George W. Bush and his henchman, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, get ready to once again try to gut Social Security, a Wall Street Journal analysis of corporate financial filings shows that it's executive pensions, not pensions for the rank and file, that are causing the corporate financial squeeze at the same time that the rank-and-file are the ones bearing the brunt of the cutbacks:

This is the pension squeeze companies aren't talking about: Even as many reduce, freeze or eliminate pensions for workers -- complaining of the costs -- their executives are building up ever-bigger pensions, causing the companies' financial obligations for them to balloon.

Companies disclose little about any of this. But a Wall Street Journal analysis of corporate filings reveals that executive benefits are playing a large and hidden role in the declining health of America's pensions. Among the findings:

• Boosted by surging pay and rich formulas, executive pension obligations exceed $1 billion at some companies. Besides GM, they include General Electric Co. (a $3.5 billion liability); AT&T Inc. ($1.8 billion); Exxon Mobil Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (about $1.3 billion each); and Bank of America Corp. and Pfizer Inc. (about $1.1 billion apiece).

• Benefits for executives now account for a significant share of pension obligations in the U.S., an average of 8% at the companies above. Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million.

• These liabilities are largely hidden, because corporations don't distinguish them from overall pension obligations in their federal financial filings.

• As a result, the savings that companies make by curtailing pensions for regular retirees -- which have totaled billions of dollars in recent years -- can mask a rising cost of benefits for executives.

• Executive pensions, even when they won't be paid till years from now, drag down earnings today. And they do so in a way that's disproportionate to their size, because they aren't funded with dedicated assets.

One reason executive pensions have grown so large is that they are linked to ballooning overall executive compensation. Companies often design retirement payouts to replace a percentage of what a person earns while active.

[snip]

David Dorman was chief executive of AT&T Corp. from 2002 until its merger with SBC Communications in November. He left in January. His total of five years at AT&T earned him a yearly pension of $2.1 million. That will replace 60% of his annual salary and bonus in his final three years.

By contrast, former AT&T accountant Ralph Colotti's $28,800 annual pension replaces 33% of his final pay. He was at the company for 33 years.

Mr. Colotti's pension was held down by a change AT&T made in 1998 in the formula used to calculate pensions. The switch had the effect of freezing pension growth for older workers like him. The 55-year-old now works at another company with a pension plan. "Working here another 10 years won't make up for what my old pension would have been" without AT&T's change in formula, he said.

AT&T described its retirement benefits as excellent and said a pension on the scale of Mr. Colotti's is good in the telecommunications industry. Mr. Dorman's richer deal is "reasonable, customary and comparable to what similarly sized companies offer," AT&T said. A spokeswoman noted that "in any industry, senior executives are almost always provided with enhanced levels of benefits as a way to recruit and retain the best talent and the best leadership possible to lead the company."

In percentage of pay replaced, Pfizer's chairman and CEO, Henry McKinnell, does best of all. His future $6.5 million-a-year pension will replace 100% of his current salary and bonus.

Cutting Back

Even as executives' pensions grow, many companies are curtailing those for the rank and file. In one move, hundreds of employers, including Boeing Co., Xerox Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp., have switched to pension formulas known as "cash balance" plans. One effect is to slow the growth of older workers' pensions or halt it altogether. That's what happened to Mr. Colotti at AT&T.

Other companies, including Verizon Communications Inc., Unisys Corp. and Sears Holdings Corp., are freezing their pension plans for some workers. A freeze leaves intact pensions already earned but prevents any further growth during a worker's career.

Some employers have added pensions for executives at about the same time as they limited those for others. McKesson Corp. established a special pension plan for its executives in 1995 and froze those of other workers two years later. McKesson didn't respond to requests for comment.

Why is it that Republicans insist that rank-and-file Americans have to work hard and save for their retirement in the form of high-risk 401(k) plans, while the highest-paid executives of large corporations are able to replace the bulk of their incomes with traditional defined benefit pensions? And more importantly, why do rank-and-file Americans insist on believing that someday they'll be invited into the executive clubg?

A message from an army reservist's wife on how to support the troops

From "TigerMom" at Daily Kos, to all those morons with the ribbon magnets on their cars:

It's about those damn Support Our Troops magnets and the like. Please take them off your car.

I am the wife of an army reservist. My husband has not been called to active duty, but could be at any time. Every day there is a possibility that my life as I know it could be drastically changed. I know other military families who are in the same situation, and I know military families whose lives have already been drastically affected. It is the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

All that being said, what in the world does slapping a magnet on your vehicle have anything to do with supporting our troops? Everytime I see one, particularly when it mixed in with the "W" sticker and the screaming American eagle decal, I am insulted. Many times, the yahoo whose got the sticker on his car is of military service age, but would rather talk tough than put their ass on the line.

If you really want to support our troops, start calling for accountability and truth from this administration. If you really want to support our troops, start bugging your congress critters for a smart and strategic plan of action to bring our troops home. If you really want to support our troops, examine your congress critter's voting record with respect to their votes on legislation the aides our active and veteran military. If you really want to support our troops, ask your congress critter (where applicable) why s/he has voted against legislation benefitting our military men and women. If you want to support our troops, put your money where your mouth is and enlist - I hear they just raised the age to 42 to placate the throngs of folks who want to join

But for gawdsakes, take the damn magnets off your car.

The very serious problem of flag burning

Here is the vital issue that's so important to America's future, that the Senate is spending its time debating, while we have war without end in Iraq, a disappearing middle class, and more debt than five generations can ever pay off:

The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

The number has increased to four, from three.

Four. In the entire country, four people desecrated the flag this year -- one more than last year.

Man the torpedoes and fortify the gates!

I wonder if the four includes this guy, who clearly hasn't got a clue about how to treat the flag.

TITLE 4 > CHAPTER 1 > § 8 Prev | Next

§ 8. Respect for flag

(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.

(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

UPDATE: This one's from the "Sometimes the jokes just write themselves" file. And this guy doesn't know how to treat the flag either:

That's SCHÄDENFREUDE....

GARY COLEMAN:
Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy

NICKY:
I'll say.

GARY COLEMAN:
And when I see how sad you are
It sort of makes me...
Happy!

NICKY:
Happy?!

GARY COLEMAN:
Sorry, Nicky, human nature-
Nothing I can do!
It's...
Schadenfreude!
Making me feel glad that I'm not you.

NICKY:
Well that's not very nice, Gary!

GARY COLEMAN:
I didn't say it was nice! But everybody does it!

D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?

NICKY:
Yeah...

GARY COLEMAN:
And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?

NICKY:
Sure!

GARY COLEMAN:
And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,
Watching people out in the rain!

NICKY:
You bet!

GARY COLEMAN:
That's...

GARY AND NICKY:
Schadenfreude!

GARY COLEMAN:
People taking pleasure in your pain!

-- Schädenfreude, from Avenue Q

Looks like El Rushbo got nabbed trying to bring back prescription drugs illegally from the Dominican Republic:

Sources have confirmed to CBS4 News that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been detained at Palm Beach International Airport for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs Monday evening.

Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra.

No. Not gonna do it. It's just too damn easy.

Once you've clicked on the link above and heard the clip, let me hear you sing:

Schädenfreude...
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
To be!

UPDATES:

1) This is NOT going away: El Rushbo's doctors may face investigation (via TalkLeft):

The incident comes as Limbaugh waits in legal limbo, a felony charge of doctor-shopping still hanging over his head. Prosecutors charged him with the crime in late April, but entered an agreement with him whereby the charge would be dropped after 18 months upon completion of substance-abuse treatment. He is required to submit to random drug analysis.

State attorney's office spokesman Mike Edmondson said his office also will look into whether Limbaugh violated that agreement with prosecutors. Prosecutors also will examine the possibility of "any doctor being complicit and the possibility of doctors being charged as well."

According to the deferred-prosecution agreement, Limbaugh must refrain from violation of any law.

If prosecutors determine the Viagra possession to be a crime, Limbaugh could again face the felony doctor-shopping charge. Doctor-shopping is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Limbaugh's attorney, Roy Black, said in a statement Monday night that Limbaugh was detained after returning from an international trip.

The drug "had been prescribed by Mr. Limbaugh's treating physician but labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes," the statement said.

Uh, yeah, right.

Meanwhile, some are speculating that Limbaugh's trip to the Dominican Republic -- alone -- armed with a bottle of Viagra -- was not just for palm trees and pina coladas. You see, the Dominican Republic is not just a breeding ground for major league shortstops, it's also a leading destination for sex tourists. And not all the sex tourists going to the Dominican Republic are looking for adults.

Apparently Limbaugh stated on his show that he had had a great time in the Dominican Republic and wished he could tell his listeners all about it. So why can't he? Then, we have everyone's favorite tormenter of wingnut radio pinheads, Mike Stark of Calling All Wingnuts, who called into the show and asked Rush point blank about whether his was a sex tourism trip.

In 2005, Rush Limbaugh ranked #28 on the Forbes Top 100 Celebrities list, with an income of $30 million/year. The Dominican Republic is home to some of the most inexpensive all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. The DR is so cheap it makes Jamaica look like St. Barths. Hell, with an income of $30 million a year, he can afford to rent out Necker Island at a mere $30K/night and it hardly makes a dent in his wallet. So why DOES a guy like Limbaugh, who has nothing but bad things to say about Latinos, who could afford to rent out Necker Island, or go to St. Barths or Anguilla, or any of the other Caribbean playgrounds of the rich and shameless, go to the home of the $599 weekly all-inclusive package?

(Bumped up for updates)

This November, the elections will be meaningless

They will be meaningless because we cannot have any confidence in the voting machines we use to vote. Already, serious questions have arisen about the recent special election in the 50th district in California, and today USA Today reports on the long-awaited analysis of DRE voting machines by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice:

There are more than 120 security threats to the three most commonly purchased electronic voting systems, the study by the Brennan Center for Justice says. For what it calls the most comprehensive review of its kind, the New York City-based non-partisan think tank convened a task force of election officials, computer scientists and security experts to study e-voting vulnerabilities.

The study, which took more than a year to complete, examined optical scanners and touch-screen machines with and without paper trails. Together, the three systems account for 80% of the voting machines that will be used in this November's election.

While there have been no documented cases of these voting machines being hacked, Lawrence Norden, who chaired the task force and heads the Brennan Center's voting-technology assessment project, says there have been similar software attacks on computerized gambling slot machines.

"It is unrealistic to think this isn't something to worry about" in terms of future elections, he says.

[snip]

The new threat analysis does not address specific machines or companies. Instead, it "confirms the suspicions about electronic voting machines that people may have had from individual reports" of problems, Norden says.

Among the findings:

• Using corrupt software to switch votes from one candidate to another is the easiest way to attack all three systems. A would-be hacker would have to overcome many hurdles to do this, the report says, but none "is insurmountable."

• The most vulnerable voting machines use wireless components open to attack by "virtually any member of the public with some knowledge and a personal digital assistant." Only New York, Minnesota and California ban wireless components.

• Even electronic systems that use voter-verified paper records are subject to attack unless they are regularly audited.

• Most states have not implemented election procedures or countermeasures to detect software attacks.

"There are plenty of vulnerabilities that can and should be fixed before the November election," says David Jefferson, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory computer scientist who served on the task force. "Whether they will or not remains to be seen."

In the CA-50 election, emergency Town Halls have been set up to enlighten voters as to the many irregularities that took place, among them voting machines being taken home for days in advance of the election by poll workers.

This is a very real problem, folks, it is NOT theoretical. We have now had two questionable presidential elections, one midterm, and two special Congressional elections (the other being the Hackett/Schmidt House race, in which returns from Jean Schmidt's precinct were reported much later than every other precinct in the district) that are suspect. The stakes have never been higher than they are this fall, and yet we have a voting apparatus that is rife with real and potential corruption and a Washington Democratic Party that is either willfully ignorant, or just doesn't care.

If you don't care whether your vote is counted, and counted the way you cast it, who will?

"The media is guilty of publishing stories which might harm the political interests of the President..."

Glenn Greenwald points out how George W. Bush has been bragging about the very same bank monitoring program for which Republicans New York Times editors and reporters executed for reporting.

I'd go to a book signing for this

The Worst Person In the World : And 202 Strong Contenders, by Keith Olbermann.

Mark your calendars. Release date is September 18, 2006.

Good Food Show 2006

There is only one thing that drives most attendees of the Good Food Show: FREE SAMPLES.The Sydney Exhibition Centre. 23-25 June 2006. Silent witness to the nature of human condition at its most brutal. Forget about physical violence on the football field. There is no louder crunch of shoulders slamming than the mad desperate scramble for the last sample serving of King Island Beef pie.Okay so

Good Food Show 2006

There is only one thing that drives most attendees of the Good Food Show: FREE SAMPLES.The Sydney Exhibition Centre. 23-25 June 2006. Silent witness to the nature of human condition at its most brutal. Forget about physical violence on the football field. There is no louder crunch of shoulders slamming than the mad desperate scramble for the last sample serving of King Island Beef pie.Okay so

This is how they dismantle the government

1) Hire an unqualified crony to run a major government department. Cut funding if possible.

2) Ignore a national emergency until it becomes too severe to deal with.

3) Minimize oversight of the agency's work.

4) Watch as chaos ensues.

5) Gravely announce the elimination of the department because it isn't doing its job effectively.

So far this plan is working smashingly in the case of FEMA, the agency led by "Brownie" that took much of the fall for last year's hurricane response.

Today comes what will undoubtedly be the final nail in FEMA's coffin -- a report on the sweeping abuse of funds in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

A hotel owner in Sugar Land, Tex., has been charged with submitting $232,000 in bills for phantom victims. And roughly 1,100 prison inmates across the Gulf Coast apparently collected more than $10 million in rental and disaster-relief assistance.

[Note: Sugar Land is Tom DeLay's hometown. They sure grow good Christian Americans down there, don't they?]

There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.

And there is the Illinois woman who tried to collect federal benefits by claiming she watched her two daughters drown in the rising New Orleans waters. In fact, prosecutors say, the children did not exist.

The tally of ignoble acts linked to Hurricane Katrina, pulled together by The New York Times from government audits, criminal prosecutions and Congressional investigations, could rise because the inquiries are under way. Even in Washington, a city accustomed to government bloat, the numbers are generating amazement.

"The blatant fraud, the audacity of the schemes, the scale of the waste — it is just breathtaking," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Such an outcome was feared soon after Congress passed the initial hurricane relief package, as officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross acknowledged that their systems were overwhelmed and tried to create new ones on the fly.

"We did, in fact, put into place never-before-used and untested processes," Donna M. Dannels, acting deputy director of recovery at FEMA, told a House panel this month. "Clearly, because they were untested, they were more subject to error and fraud."

Officials in Washington say they recognized that a certain amount of fraud or improper payments is inevitable in any major disaster, as the government's mission is to rapidly distribute emergency aid. They typically send out excessive payments that represent 1 percent to 3 percent of the relief distributed, money they then ask people to give back.

What was not understood until now was just how large these numbers could become.

The estimate of up to $2 billion in fraud and waste represents nearly 11 percent of the $19 billion spent by FEMA on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as of mid-June, or about 6 percent of total money that has been obligated.

"This started off as a disaster-relief program, but it turned into a cash cow," said Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, a former federal prosecutor and now chairman of a House panel investigating storm waste and fraud.

I'm taking bets on how long it's going to take Congressional Republicans to call for the elimination of FEMA because of this waste, fraud and abuse. These calls are likely to be met with applause from the kind of sheeple who equate "government spending" with "welfare."

Unfortunately, THIS kind of government spending, the kind that happens when you privatize government functions, doesn't seem to matter to them:

• $213 million in overcharges by Kellogg, Brown and Root for importing fuel into Iraq.
  
• A contractor who paid $2 million in bribes in order to steer $8.6 million in Iraq contracts to his business.
  
• The company Custer Battles being handed $2 million of government funds in shrink-wrapped bundles of $100 bills.
  
• Halliburton giving >polluted water and expired food to American troops.
  

As the Baltimore Chronicle asks,

So where are these watchdogs when it comes to waste in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are they investigating favored contractors making billions for work not performed, or shoddily performed? (See the links below) What about wartime contractors who bill the American public for work not requested? Yes, it all adds up to fraud in the billions, but I see no congressional rush to call these people into account.

Clearly, it’s a bit safer politically to chase down Katrina fraud than to take on corrupt contractors in Iraq, who figure among the top Republican Party donors. So brace yourself for more accounts of FEMA debit card abuse. You can count on it. But are those antics really responsible for $1.4 billion in Katrina fraud? Think about it. Who’s doing the rebuilding, the heavy lifting at New Orleans redux ground zero? Why, it’s Halliburton, and a handful of other names very familiar amongst certain fund-raising circles. So you can be sure the libatious habits of aid recipients are going to continue to be the main focus of any congressional investigation into Katrina fraud. Overbilling and waste by the President’s supporters will be reported by only a handful of brave media outlets.

Among the first companies to receive Katrina reconstruction contracts were those with close Bush-Cheney ties: Bechtel, Shaw Group, and Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Meanwhile, a Congressional report from a committee convened by Sen. Frank Lautenberg shows that Dick Cheney still has significant financial interest in Halliburton, with stock options that increased 3281% in just one year.

But has this report received much press? Hardly. Instead we get the above-cited New York Times article reframed in Jeb Bush's state with a new, even more inflammatory headline.

Ronald Reagan used to say that the most frightening words in the English language was "I'm with the government, and I'm here to help." I'd say that "I'm with Halliburton, and I'm here to help" is far scarier -- particularly because Halliburton is unlikely to even show up, because its bosses are on the golf course with Cheney, counting their government largesse.

The Jerry Garcia golf balls were bad enough. But THIS?

Your head may just explode when you read this little tidbit.

(via Sadly No)

When rich people don't feel entitled to be greedy scumbags

When you think about Dennis Kozlowski's $6000 shower curtain, or homes of over 20,000 square feet owned by other Titans of Industry Corruption, or the grin of retiring Exxon chief Lee Raymond as he contemplates how he's going to spend the $400 million in retirement benefits he gets after presiding over Exxon Mobil's gouging of the American gasoline consumer, you'd be tempted to think it's just human nature for people who have more money than they can ever spend to still want more, and more and more.

Then along comes Warren Buffett, who not only is one of the most high-profile (along with William Gates, Sr.) defenders of the inheritance tax, but now is putting ALL of his money where his mouth is by giving away $37 billion of his $44 billion fortune to the William and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It isn't unheard of for a philanthropist to not believe that one's offspring is entitled to a free ride solely by virtue of being carried in the right womb, as Buffet once said. But after five years of news of one huge corporate executive compensation package after another, while the workplace for the rest of us is shrinking, there's something refreshing about a billionaire who believes that 8 billion is quite enough, thank you very much.

Never mind how odd it seems to not be able to hate Bill Gates anymore.

Chuck Schumer tries to strongarm Ned Lamont

If you'll recall, NY Sen. Chuck Schumer was successful in getting Paul Hackett to bow out of the Ohio Senate race against Mike DeWine in favor of Rep. Sherrod Brown.

Now Schumer has decided to run what is essentially an incumbency protection racket by trying to do the same to Ned Lamont.

David Sirota reports:

Schumer, a consummate Washington insider, is now using his position as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to try to crush his own party's activists in Connecticut. According to Time Magazine, Schumer has pressed Senate candidate Ned Lamont (D) to abandon his run against Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) - the Democratic incumbent who has repeatedly and destructively undermined the Democratic Party for years. Schumer has also said he would consider backing Lieberman's bid for re-election even if Lieberman leaves the Democratic Party.

None of this is surprising. Schumer's been a Washington politician for decades - and grassroots energy frightens people like him. But what is surprising is how Schumer has become so desperate, he is now flinging out wild stories to justify his actions. Time reports that "Schumer has told colleagues he thinks that if Lieberman lost the primary, it would send a bad signal to moderate voters and might hurt the party's chances of winning Senate seats in places like Montana and Missouri in November."

One of two things explains this comment - either Schumer is even more out of touch with American politics than previously thought, or he's so desperate he's resorted to fabricating patently laughable stories to justify his nauseating behavior. It is definitely possible Schumer is totally and completely out of touch - he's made similar comments in the past that expose him as having positively no understanding of anything that goes on outside his insulated world in Washington.  And self-important politicians and political operatives in our nation's capital do have a tendency to believe ordinary voters are super keyed into the minutia of politics - often making these insiders look particularly stupid and more out of touch.

But I believe Schumer's just desperate, and thus resorting to open dishonesty - because I just can't believe he could be so intellectually impaired that he actually believes Joe Lieberman losing would imperil Democrats chances in states thousands of miles away from Connecticut, with totally different political dynamics. The idea that a voter in, say, the critical swing area of Yellowstone County here in Montana is going to vote against Jon Tester in November because Joe Lieberman was defeated in a Democratic primary in August is beyond the scope of what can even be called "totally absurd" - it's an out and out lie, and one that could only be mouthed with a straight face in a place as sadly comical as Washington, D.C. is today.

Here's the deal: what's going on in Connecticut is good for the Democratic Party and good for democracy. No politician - not Joe Lieberman, not Chuck Schumer - owns a congressional seat. We the people do, and thankfully, at least some courageous Democrats like Sen. Russ Feingold (D) understand that and are willing to use their position to give voice to that truism. When incumbents get challenged by courageous people like Ned Lamont because those incumbents are selling out America, that's democracy in action. And any politician or political operative who tries to thwart that contest shows an ugly contempt for the democratic tradition our country was built on.

Schumer claims to be concerned with winning elections - but what he's really concerned about is maintaining his and his insulated colleagues' increasingly weakening hold on power. What will help Democrats win elections will be a surge in grassroots energy and a reengaged corps of activists who are working to take their party and country back - energy like we are seeing in Connecticut. What will hurt Democrats ability to win elections is New York Senators sitting in their comfortable offices in Washington, D.C. embarrassing themselves by making statements that show their isolation from America's heartland and using their quickly fading power to try to depress the grassroots energy that makes all the difference at the ballot box.

What Schumer's devotion to the power of incumbency means, combined with David Brooks' hysterical frothings yesterday which tried to elevate Markos Moulitsas Zúniga to the level of a kind of dweeby Oz the Great and Terrible, is that the Axis of Evil that the party apparatchiks and the press have become during the last five years, in their race to see who can fellate the Bush Administration harder, is becoming concerned about their ability to maintain power.

The Lamont/Lieberman race is a watershed moment in Democratic politics. If Lieberman manages to prevail, it slows, but does not stop, the growing influence of grassroots and netroots organizing. If Lamont should manage to score the upset against the entrenched Bush apologist that Joementum has become, it still doesn't mean that the netroots has scored a touchdown, for there is still November, Karl Rove, and Diebold to take into account. But a Lamont primary victory would force Schumer to show his hand, and that hand is that Schumer, like most Democratic leaders even down to the local level here in Bergen County, New Jersey, is not about democracy or leadership or policy -- it's about protecting the status quo at all costs. Schumer has indicated that he would support Lieberman if the latter should run as an independent. Even Russ Feingold, who supports Lamont, said on Press the Meat yesterday that he would support the Democratic nominee, even if that nominee is Lieberman; though he made clear that he would not be actively campaigning in Connecticut either way.

The 2004 primary race showed just how entrenched the status quo is, and how difficult it's going to be to topple it. Brooks' column yesterday has him putting on the progressive hat and essentially claiming that Kos has sold out. Far be it for me to defend the alpha dogs in Blogtopia (™ Skippy), but I'm not sure I can blame Kos for not adhering to the same scorched earth policy that I do in my vow to never again vote for a candidate that the party apparatchiks try to shove down my throat when that candidate doesn't stand for what I do.

I understand the "need to take back the House" from the Republicans, but here in the NJ Fifth District, I've just been through a campaign that saw a guy nominated by my party for Congress who doesn't even live in the district; a guy who thinks that asking him how he reconciles a terse statement in favor of net neutrality with having Mike McCurry as a shill is a "personal attack"; a guy who is perhaps the worst example of hack politics I've ever seen in this most hackish of states. Paul Aronsohn is the living embodiment of everything that is cynical, self-serving, and odious about New Jersey Democratic politics, and I'm not going to vote for him under any circumstances. Of course, I don't have children, and even if I manage to stay on this level of reality as long as my grandmothers did, that gives me about another 40 years -- and maybe we can manage to keep something together long enough for me to get done and check out.

But for those less cynical than I, I'm not sure I can fault them for trying, however futile that effort might be, to split the difference in the hope, vain as it might be, that something can be salvaged from the wreckage of the United States in the waning years of the Bush reign.

Thank you, Charlie Ergen!

After a half-season of just assuming that because we have Dish Network, we wouldn't have access to SNY, the new Mets sports channel, we found out this weekend that not only do we have this channel, but Dish Network isn't charging for it if you have the America's Top 60 package or above (we have the America's Top 180 package).

Another reason why despite the continued siren song of IO cable, we say it's still Cablevision and we say the hell with it.

Big changes coming at MSNBC

Headlines about big changes at MSNBC are the kind of thing that make me think of nightmarish scenarios like an entire lineup consisting of Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and Rita Cosby, all screeching about misssing white women.

Dan Abrams, of all people, is taking over the network, and while the three stooges cited above ought perhaps to update their resumes, it looks like Sir Keith is not just staying on, but is emblematic of the kind of changes NBC wants to make:

But there are bigger changes coming to MSNBC, especially in prime time, where the network will apparently be dropping some of its talk-show lineup in favor of more taped reports. That change is likely to take place as soon as the next couple of months. "I think we're going to have some program changes this summer," Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview. "Prime time is the focus. That's where the money is."

Mr. Capus said he would like the channel to change its identity in ways that would distinguish it from its two chief competitors, the Fox News Channel and CNN.

"All three channels are doing a variation of headline news all day and talk shows at night," Mr. Capus said. "We need to get away from that."

[snip]

One senior NBC executive said, "There will probably be one to two hours of long-form taped shows every night in prime time." The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because the decisions were not final and would affect some of the prime-time hosts, like Rita Cosby, Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough, now working on the channel.

Two of the channel's hosts, Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and Keith Olbermann of "Countdown," clearly will not be affected, because MSNBC's managers consistently cite those programs as long-sought breakthroughs.

"We've just got to build on those two shows," Mr. Griffin said, sitting beside Mr. Abrams in the conference room at MSNBC. "It's critical. We have to capitalize on their success."

[snip]

Mr. Olbermann, meanwhile, has picked up both viewers and some strong word-of-mouth for his irreverent style. His show is up 36 percent since January in that 25-54 group. MSNBC points out that during the same period, CNN and Fox have been down that those hours.

Of course, a little bump goes a long way at MSNBC, where ratings have been mainly dwarfish over the years, especially next to Fox News. Even with Mr. Olbermann's surge, for example, he draws well less than half of what Bill O'Reilly of Fox does in that age group — and only a fifth of Mr. O'Reilly's total viewer number.

But Mr. Griffin noted that MSNBC's two big shows were going in the right direction now, gaining viewers, while most of those on Fox and CNN were showing declines. CNN especially is a target of opportunity for MSNBC, Mr. Griffin said, because Mr. Olbermann has beaten that network on many nights recently.

I could live very nicely without HARDBALL, but it's nice to see that the suits at MSNBC understand what they have in Keith Olbermann. Now if they can just move him to 9:00 so that I can watch the reruns of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and then Countdown in its entirety, well, I may never get anything done around the house again.

UPDATE: Brent Budowski has more at HuffPo.

Meanwhile, back in the country everyone SUPPORTED invading....

FUBAR as well:

President Hamid Karzai criticized the U.S.-led coalition's anti-terror campaign Thursday, deploring the deaths of hundreds of Afghans and appealing for more help for his government.

Karzai's sharp assessment came as Osama bin Laden's deputy urged Afghans to revolt against coalition forces, and four more U.S. soldiers were killed.

More than four years after U.S.-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban government, Afghanistan is gripped by its deadliest spate of post-invasion violence. To try curb the bloodshed, more than 10,000 coalition forces have launched a major offensive against militants across southern Afghanistan. More than 600 people, mainly militants, have been killed since May.

But Karzai, who has previously scorned large-scale anti-militant campaigns, rejected the continued spilling of Afghan blood in military operations.

"It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying. In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. (Even) if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land," a clearly frustrated Karzai told reporters in Kabul.

On Thursday, Afghan and coalition forces raided a Taliban compound northwest of Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, killing eight militants, the coalition said. Six others were captured.

Karzai said the current focus on hunting militants didn't address terrorism's root causes. "We must engage strategically in disarming terrorism by stopping their sources of supply of money, training, equipment and motivation," he said.

He also said the war on terror needs to be broadened beyond Afghan borders.

"We are concerned about the increase of attacks in our country," he said. "Some of the reasons are the internal weakness of administration in our country, but most of the factors are foreign factors, terrorism and organized attacks."

He did not elaborate on which "foreign factors" were involved, but many Afghan officials have accused neighboring Pakistan of doing too little to catch Taliban militants planning attacks. Islamabad denies the claims.

Karzai said Afghanistan has received considerable help in reconstruction but has been given inadequate assistance to strengthen its police force, army and government administration.

Another business venture totally screwed up by Bush and then left to die on the vine.

Behind each death in Iraq is a grieving family

The Cueresma family is one of them. Please spend some time with them and keep them in your thoughts, along with the over 2500 other families that have lost their loved ones for a lie.

Then, when your wingnut friends tell you we have to "stay the course", pass sites like this on to them.

(via Hoffmania)

Even "cutting and running" is OK if you're a Republican

For the last week, Congressional Republicans and spokesbots from the Bush Administration have been blasting Democrats for calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq:

"This amendment effectively calls on the United States to cut and run from Iraq. Let me be clear: retreat is not a solution. Our national security requires us to follow through on our commitments. Artificial deadlines are not the solution — and those calling for an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq utterly fail to understand the potentially catastrophic implications of their proposal. Cutting and running is bad policy that threatens our national security and poses unacceptable risks to Americans." -- Sen. Bill Frist, 6/19/06

An amendment to a military spending bill, drafted by Sens. Carl Levin and Jack Reed, called for the U.S. to BEGIN redeploying U.S. troops by year end -- not complete a withdrawal, but begin a redeployment.

Sen. John Warner called it a timetable. Sen John ("Lapdog") McCain called it "a significant step on the road to disaster." Sen. John Cornyn said it "simply looks a lot like giving up."

This last week made it clear that Republicans are so afraid of looking impotent that they will continue this course that is leading nowhere indefinitely -- sending more and more American kids to die -- rather than lose face.

This is reprehensible.

In the week to come, watch the rhetoric from the Republican side very carefully, because now the top U.S. commander in Iraq:

...has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September

Perhaps in the Land of Delusions in which this president and his supporters reside, this is not a "phased withdrawal." But fron where I'm sitting, that's exactly what it is. Are the Senate Republicans going to call Gen. Gen. George W. Casey Jr. a coward?

More:

The commander met this week with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Friday, General Casey and Mr. Rumsfeld met with President Bush at the White House. A senior White House official said that General Casey did not present a formal plan for Mr. Bush's approval but rather a concept of how the United States might move forward after consulting with Iraqi authorities, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Well, Prime Minister Nuri Kama al-Maliki has issued his own plan, to be announced today, calling for:

A timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release of all security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons. Compensation for victims of coalition military operations.

The Iraqi Prime Minister wants us out in a phased withdrawal. The general in charge wants to get us out in a phased withdrawal. Are they all cowards?

Gen. Casey's plan is as follows:

In the general's briefing, the future American role in Iraq is divided into three phases. The next 12 months was described as a period of stabilization. The period from the summer of 2007 through the summer of 2008 was described as a time when the emphasis would be on the restoration of the Iraqi government's authority. The period from the summer of 2008 though the summer of 2009 was cast as one in which the Iraqi government would be increasingly self-reliant.

In line with this vision, some cuts would begin soon. The United States has 14 combat brigades in Iraq, plus many other support troops. Under the plan, the Unites States would shrink this force to 12 combat brigades by September. This would be done by not replacing two brigades that are scheduled to be withdrawn: the First Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division and the Third Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

A combat brigade would be kept on alert in Kuwait or elsewhere in case American commanders needed to augment their forces to deal with a crisis. Another brigade would be kept on a lesser state of alert elsewhere in the world, but still prepared to deploy quickly. As a result of these arrangements, the plan to bring the combat force down to 12 active brigades in Iraq is being called 12-1-1.

Still further reductions might be made by the end of the year. By December, the number of American combat brigades in Iraq would be 10 to 12. As with the September reduction, a brigade would be kept on alert and another brigade would be ready to deploy.

According to the projections in General Casey's briefing, the number of combat brigades would shrink to seven to eight brigades by June 2007 and finally to five to six brigades by December 2007.

At the same time the number of bases in Iraq would decline as American forces consolidated. By the end of the year the number of bases would shrink to 57 from the current 69. By June 2007, there would be 30 bases, and by December 2007 there would be only 11. By the end of 2007, the United States would have three principal regional military commands: in Baghdad and the surrounding area, in Anbar Province and the west and in northern Iraq.

If Senate Republicans were smart, and if they hadn't shot off their mouths on this last week from the safety of their little hidey-hole on Capitol Hill, they'd jump at this plan. It calls for the first redeployments to start just in time for the fall election campaign, thus allowing Republicans to save face a bit on Iraq. They could say it came from a respected military man who knows the situation on the ground. They could use their Mighty Wurlitzer to repeat the mantra "This isn't cutting and running."

But will they do this? Or are they now stuck with "stay the course"? So watch the White House and the Senate very carefully this week. Watch what comes out of the very same mouths that were repeating the "cut and run" mantra last week. This is going to be interesting.

John Aravosis has some notes on this as well:

1. Bush just adopted the Democrats' plan. A plan he and Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman and the Republican Congress savaged all week.

2. To use Bush's own language, he just provided "the enemy" with DETAILED dates for the withdrawal and the exact number of troops we would withdraw and where they remaining troops would be stationed.

3. What changed in Iraq for the better in the past two days that let the White House come up with a timetable for a partial withdrawal? Was it the kidnapping of 85 to 100 people north of Baghdad? Was it the US embassy memo saying the situation is deteriorating? There are no facts whatsoever to suggest that the situation in Iraq has improved at all, so what possibly can Bush be basing this on other than political pandering for the upcoming US elections?

4. Isn't it nice to know that the US military is now actively trying to influence US elections?

5. Check out the small mention the NYT gives the hypocrisy of the GOP:

Now, after criticizing Democratic lawmakers for trying to legislate a timeline for withdrawing troops, skeptics say, the Bush administration seems to have its own private schedule, albeit one that can be adjusted as events unfold.

Skeptics? Would the Times report that "skeptics say humans breathe oxygen?" Do facts not exist any longer in American media circles? The Republicans spent all week savaging the Dems for talking about beginning a withdrawal. Does the Murtha plan sound vaguely familiar to anyone over at the Times? And now that Bush has a plan for a partial withdrawal, suddenly only "skeptics" are the ones seeing some rather large hypocrisy here. The GOP about-face should be THE story, not a few lines in the story. Not to mention, where is the quote in the story about the administration being asked about the hypocrisy? There's nothing - it would seem the Times didn't bother asking.

This about-face presents a problem for the media as well, because this withdrawal plan is so similar to the various plans put forth by Democrats over the last six months it might as well be drawn from them. But the very same plan which has been characterized as "cut and run" when it came from Democratic hands now has to be categorized as "brave and pragmatic" coming from the Bush Administration.

UPDATE: Billmon has more on the reframing of withdrawal, including the best quote of the day so far:

The next step, of course, will be for the same people who three days ago were demanding the execution of John Kerry and John Murtha for even daring to suggest a withdrawal timetable to immediately begin calling for a withdrawal timetable -- that is, when they're not hailing the Cheney administration for having won a smashing victory in Iraq. In fact it's already started.

What is the formula?

How many Iraqi civilian lives are equal to one American life?

Even if you insist that the Iraq invasion was "revenge for 9/11", how many Iraqi civilians have to die before we're "even"? How many have to die before the American thirst for "revenge" has been sated?

At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies — a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration.

Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since.

The toll, which is mostly of civilians but probably also includes some security forces and insurgents, is daunting: Proportionately, it is equivalent to 570,000 Americans being killed nationwide in the last three years.

In the same period, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.

Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west. Health workers there are unable to compile the data because of violence, security crackdowns, electrical shortages and failing telephone networks.

The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad.

In the three years since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, the Bush administration has rarely offered civilian death tolls. Last year, President Bush said he believed that "30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."

Nongovernmental organizations have made estimates by tallying media accounts; The Times attempted to reach a comprehensive figure by obtaining statistics from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry and checking those numbers against a sampling of local health departments for possible undercounts.

The Health Ministry gathers numbers from hospitals in the capital and the outlying provinces. If a victim of violence dies at a hospital or arrives dead, medical officials issue a death certificate. Relatives claim the body directly from the hospital and arrange for a speedy burial in keeping with Muslim beliefs.

If the morgue receives a body — usually those deemed suspicious deaths — officials there issue the death certificate.

Health Ministry officials said that because death certificates are issued and counted separately, the two data sets are not overlapping.

The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while the Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from "military clashes" and "terrorist attacks" from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006. Together, the toll reaches 49,137.

However, samples obtained from local health departments in other provinces show an undercount that brings the total well beyond 50,000. The figure also does not include deaths outside Baghdad in the first year of the invasion.

The documented cases show a country descending further into violence.

At the Baghdad morgue, the vast majority of bodies processed had been shot execution-style. Many showed signs of torture — drill holes, burns, missing eyes and limbs, officials said. Others had been strangled, beheaded, stabbed or beaten to death.

The insurgency is a DIRECT product of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The blood of people killed in insurgent attacks is on our hands for allowing this president to embark on a war of choice.

Over 50,000 people dead in Iraq (not counting the American and allied dead and wounded). 2,986 people died in the 9/11 attacks. That's almost 17 Iraqi deaths for every American killed on 9/11/01.

How many before we're "even"? Does anyone even KNOW?

Convert THIS, bitchez!!

Ah, the sweet smell of Schädenfreude after a summer rainstorm.....

Watchers of right-wing Christian groups in the States say a new apocalyptic videogame released by cultish Revelations-based fiction series Left Behind is riddled with spyware.

Developers have incorporated software from an Israeli firm called Double Fusion. It incorporates video advertising and product placement into the game, and reportedly records players' behaviour, location, and other data to be uploaded to Left Behind's Bible-powered marketing machine.

Aimed at 13 to 34-year-old males, Left Behind: Eternal Forces casts the player as a director of God's Earthly militia, left behind in the Rapture to roam the streets of New York, battling Satan's minions and shooting unbelievers.

[snip]

In an interview on the series' website Greg Bauman of Left Behind Games explains: "Left Behind: Eternal Forces will help readers get a sense of the conflict and chaos of the time period portrayed in Left Behind and live out how they would defend themselves and their faith from the Antichrist and his Global Peace Keeping Forces." The United Nations, already organ of satanic machinations for many on the Christian far-right, features strongly in the game. Goat-footed demons reportedly emerge from UN peacekeeping humvees.

One reviewer noted: "The only way to accomplish anything positive in the game is to 'convert' nonbelievers into faithful believers, and the only alternative to this is outright killing them."®

And they thought the Jews were buying all their outreach bullshit! Hah! The wages of Christofascism is spyware. I like the ring of that.

(hat tip: Steve Gilliard)

The Advantages of Being Ignored by the Alpha Dogs of Blogtopia

No one call you Markos Moulitsas' lapdog or smears you in the pages of the Joe Lieberman of so-called liberal publications, The New Republic.

Now the day that I get ignored by ModFab and Jay and Spiidey and Tami and Skippy (even though Skip is kind of an "alpha minus" blogger) and Tata and Jeff and their ilk, THAT'S when I'll be upset.

Best quote on the "Hey Kids Let's Put On an Attack" Gang that couldn't organize straight

Via ShakesSis, I bring you George at I'm Not One to Blog:

The Miami group arrested as terrorists, which called itself the "Seas of David," evidently hoping that people might just think they're the latest Royal Caribbean line super ship, were cooking up a plot that was "more aspirational than operational," according to FBI deputy director John Pistole. Sort of like that old Catholic notion that if you think of the sin, you've already committed it. Or, to paraphrase Tom Edison, "Terrorism is 99% aspiration, and 1% perspiration."

The more I hear about these guys, the more they sound like a particularly nasty bunch of totally inept little boys playing at being badass.

I think it's hilarious that the Bushistas and their acolytes are portraying this as some kind of huge success in the War on Terror, never mind the fact that they want to have it both ways with these guys. I mean, if the war in Iraq is "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here", then if these guys are Big Bad Al Qaeda wannabes, we're fighting them here anyway, right?

And if the "terrorists here" are as dumb as this bunch is supposed to be, then don't you think that all this nonsense with vast data banks in AT&T secret rooms and amassing bank records is just a wee bit of overkill?

I mean, look at what he have here: Nineteen guys with baseball cutters, taking orders from a 6'4" guy on dialysis in Afghanistan manage to topple the World Trade Center and damage a third of the Pentagon. Some Latino guy (Jose Padilla) talks about dirty bombs without having any means of acting in his talk and ends up being disappared into a military prison, probably for life. Now these guys. This isn't exactly high-tech stuff, folks. This hardly makes "the enemy" that Bush talks about all the time sound worthy of being the focus of so much hysteria. In fact, the boogeymen that this Administration, with the help of the media flaying these stories until their flesh fragments, sound more like the Keystone Kops than the kind of threat for which Americans should be willing to give up their freedoms.

If this country is really that much threatened by every nut with delusions of destructions, then perhaps we need a serious gut-check.

Josh Marshall has more:

It seems the new terrorist cell rolled up near Miami was in such preliminary stages of launching their jihad that they hadn't yet set aside time to become Muslims.

From the NYT: "Neighbors said at least some of the men were in a religious group called the Seas of David that appeared to mix Christian and Muslim beliefs. The group wore uniforms bearing a Star of David and met for Bible study, prayer and martial arts in a one-story warehouse in the heart of the predominantly Haitian section of the impoverished Liberty City area."

From CNN: "The sister of Lyglenson Lemorin, or "Brother Levi," one of the men arrested Thursday on charges of concocting a terrorist plot, said her brother was involved with the group of men to study religion. Gina Lemorin, who had just returned from her college graduation in Atlanta, Georgia, when she learned of the charges, said he had been with the group in Miami doing construction work. But when the group began practicing "witchcraft," she said, Lemorin left and moved to Atlanta about four months ago ...The family of Phanor, who according to the indictment calls himself "Brother Sunni," told reporters in Miami he was innocent of all charges and was a practicing Roman Catholic, not a Muslim. "They all call themselves brothers and they well-mannered," said his older sister, Marlene Phanor. "All they was trying to do was clean up the community. We are Catholic. He's Catholic." She said the family attends St. Mary's Catholic Church in Miami. Sylvain Plantin, a cousin of Phanor's, said he was involved in a religious group called "Mores," which met to read the Bible."

From KR: "The group apparently did little to inspire fear in the Liberty City neighborhood where they took up residence. A close family friend and a distance cousin of Stanley Grant Phanor described the leader of the group, Narseal Batiste, as a "Moses-like figure" who would roam the streets in a cape or bathrobe, toting a crooked wooden cane and looking for young men to join his group. Sylvain Plantin, 30, said Batiste was a martial arts expert who preached an obscure religion."

I mean, hell, if running around talking like a religious nut means you're a terrorist, then we might as well arrest most of the Republicans in Congress right now.

In the Kitchen: Sushi Spectacular

Nigiri with prawns and kingfish sashimiThe last time we made sushi was in January 2005. I know this because that's the last time I blogged about it. Who said foodblogging didn't come in handy? =)It was a long time between sushi rolls, which necessitated an even greater leap to bigger and better creations. As always, my kitchen partner-in-crime was the ever-resourceful and gastronomically

In the Kitchen: Sushi Spectacular

Nigiri with prawns and kingfish sashimiThe last time we made sushi was in January 2005. I know this because that's the last time I blogged about it. Who said foodblogging didn't come in handy? =)It was a long time between sushi rolls, which necessitated an even greater leap to bigger and better creations. As always, my kitchen partner-in-crime was the ever-resourceful and gastronomically

"...a pathetic Hail Mary pass"

So sayeth Jonathan Alter on Countdown last night, in a scathing piece by Sir Keith that should pretty much put the final nail in Rick Santorum's electoral coffin, given that Man-on-Dog is 18 points down in the polls.

This isn't to say that a few voting machines won't be bedded down the night before the election at poll workers' houses as they were in the California Busby/Bilbray election this month, or that a few smartcards won't be replaced to change the outcome, which will then be attributed to "a last-minute surge by Evangelical voters" -- but on the off chance that we get a serious election conducted by serious people, Little Ricky will be history.

Something to think about while CNN is whipping you into a frenzy of fear over a bunch of guys in Florida

I was in a doctor's office this afternoon (nothing serious, just a consult before some middle-aged medical procedures that shall remain nameless) and the TV set therein was blasting CNN's frenetic coverage of the Florida arrests.

For some strange reason, I'm linked to today by none other than Pajamas Media (welcome, wingnuts!), the denizens of which seem to think that we liberals just can't give the Bush Administration credit for anything, that by arresting these guys, the Administration has just prevented a 9/11 attack from happening, even though there were no plans or equipment in place for such an attack, and even though this is yet another "thwarted attack" trumpeted from the rooftops at a time Bush and the Republicans in Congress who just voted to feed American kids into the meatgrinder that is Iraq in perpetuity need it most.

But those who continue to cling to the Bush is the Big Protective Daddy meme ought perhaps to take a look inside Ron Suskind's new book, The One Percent Doctrine. Gary Kamiya did, and found a few interesting things about He Who Claims To Be The Only One Who Can Keep Us Safe:

Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove pulled off a much more sophisticated job: a bureaucratic coup d'état. Without firing a shot, they silenced critics, squelched unwanted facts, and created their own false but salable reality. As a result, they were able to launch a war justified by lies and driven by nothing more than Bush's ignorant whim. It is, truly, the heist of the century.

[snip]

Suskind opens the book with a damning scene in which a CIA analyst warns Bush in August 2001 that bin Laden was planning to strike the U.S. Bush's response: "All right. You've covered your ass, now." That dismissive reply displayed not just Bush's frat-boy boorishness but his poor judgment. And after the terrorist attacks came, all constraints on Bush -- and Cheney -- vanished. Suskind depicts Bush as unbound, liberated by 9/11: While before the attacks senior staff worried that he wasn't thinking things through, now improvisation, not rational thought, was called for. This let Bush be Bush. "Left unfettered, and unchallenged, were his instincts, his 'gut,' as he often says, and an unwieldy aggressiveness that he'd long been cautioned to contain."

Once again, I ask you to think about the expression on Bush's face as he was told about the 9/11 attacks. Spiidey has it, in case you need to refresh your memory. Then think about the man in that photo dismissing a CIA analyst warning Bush -- IN PERSON -- that Bin Laden was planning to strike in the U.S. with "All right, you've covered your ass now."

I've always assumed that because of the Bush family connection with the Bin Laden family, Bush knew damn well what was going to happen and let it play out because he and his cronies stood to benefit hugely -- and certainly his conduct since then has backed me up. But what if it's more insidious than that -- what if Bush decides to know only what he wants to know -- and having tuned out the August 2001 warnings, 2900 people paid the price for his willful ignorance?

Kamiya again:

Suskind all but comes out and says what many have suspected: that Bush, although a man of deep faith -- he reads Scripture or a religious tract every morning -- is grossly intellectually unqualified to be president. Again and again, Suskind describes scenes that display his disengagement, his lack of curiosity, his ignorance of the most rudimentary facts. His inner circle knew his weaknesses, and assiduously prevented them from being known. "He is very good at some things that presidents are prized for, and startlingly deficient in others. No one in his innermost circle trusts that those imbalances would be well received by a knowledgeable public, especially at a time of crisis. So they are protective of him -- astonishingly so -- and forgiving."

[snip]

Cheney and Rumsfeld, Suskind writes, viewed Bush as an inferior, the child of their contemporaries. A master at bureaucratic stealth, Cheney quietly orchestrated the war, which was "about the only matter on which all three agreed ... So, as America officially moved to a detailed action plan for the overthrow of Hussein, only three men would be in the know: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld."

[snip]

But Bush, in Suskind's portrayal, was hardly putty in Cheney's hands (although Suskind reports that inside the CIA Cheney was nicknamed "Edgar," after the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, whose famous dummy was Charlie McCarthy). Bush played along with the game. He didn't want to know any more than Cheney wanted him to know. "No one would dare say that the President made it clear to his most trusted lieutenants he did not want to be informed, especially when the information might undercut the confidence he has in certain sweeping convictions."

Now the charitable view towards the Administration would be that Bush has learned from his mistakes in August 2001 and is determined to do a better job this time -- and that's why we're seeing this drumbeat about seven guys in Florida. But since we've seen little from this president in the way of contrition, and even less willingness to admit that his Iraq war was a misbegotten adventure that is damaged beyond repair, I'm skeptical that this spate of "We stopped a terrorist attack" media blasts is anything more than yet another attempt to salvage what's left of a credibiilty that this man never should have been granted in the first place. This administration is all about the politics, and always has been. It has never been about leadership. Bill Clinton's administration stopped a number of New Year's Eve 1999 attacks and never uttered a peep about it. This bunch claims to thwart attacks every time their numbers are in the toilet and a swarthy guy with a bottle of iced tea gets on the F train.

Fool me once, shame on....shame on you. Fool me .........can't get fooled again.