(Thanks to Marc Maron for dubbing Tom DeLay with that moniker, oh so long ago)

You can't fire him, he quits:

It's been quite a fall for Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House majority leader who formally stepped down today as he awaits trial on charges of conspiracy and money laundering. He retains his seat in Congress but reliquishes his leadership role.

In addition to his own legal troubles, which include charges that he laundered campaign money used in state legislature races, DeLay's association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff has further hurt his reputation. Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion in a corruption probe that has linked him with lawmakers from both parties.

[snip]

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has served as acting majority leader and has indicated he'd like the post permanently, although Kline said he supports Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who is chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., is reported to be vying for consideration, and more candidates are sure to come forward.

This should get interesting. Roy Blunt is up to his elbows in filth too:

Last fall, the grand jury indicted three close associates of the DeLay-Blunt leadership team. One of those men, Jim Ellis, was indicted for money laundering. Ellis, who ran ARMPAC, DeLay's federal political arm, once ran a political laundromat for Roy Blunt called the ROYB Fund.

In 1999 and 2000, when Ellis ran both DeLay's ARMPAC and Blunt's ROYB Fund, ARMPAC made contributions to Blunt's committee totalling $150,000. In return, Blunt made a series of payments to the Alexander Strategy Group (ASG), a firm controlled by former DeLay staffers, that also happened to employ DeLay's wife at the time. Over the course of a two-year period, Blunt's payments to ASG totalled $150,000. For a detailed schedule of the payments, click here.

In the same quarter in 2000 that Blunt received a contribution from DeLay for $100,000, Blunt made a contribution to the mysterious DeLay Foundation for $10,000. Blunt's PAC also paid rent to the U.S. Family Network, yet another DeLay controlled entity.

The so-called U.S. Family Network is similarly steeped in Abramoff dung:

The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.

During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners would not identify the money's origins.

Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).

The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy.

John Boehner doesn't seem to have taken any illegal contributions directly from Jack Abramoff, but his voting record is 95% in lockstep with Tom DeLay's, voted to weaken ethics rules solely to help Tom DeLay, then when the Republicans ran that up the flagpole and no one saluted, he flip-flopped back again. So if you want to parse the definition of "is", he "is" "clean", but only to the extent that a man not be judged by the company he keeps.

Meanwhile, Dennis Hastert is separated from Abramoff only by Abramoff's Washington DC restaurant, Signatures:

Signatures restaurant, the expense-account haven owned by super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has hosted at least 60 GOP fund-raisers since it opened on Washington's Pennsylvania Ave. NW in early 2002. But the June 3, 2003, lunchtime gathering was special: The guest of honor was House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and the event was a relatively intimate gathering dominated by lobbyists from Greenberg Traurig, the law and lobbying firm where Abramoff then worked.

The problem? Nobody paid for the lunch -- or reported it in disclosure documents as an in-kind contribution -- as federal election law requires, BusinessWeek Online has learned. The tab -- which Hastert's office would not disclose -- was paid only this month, around the time that BusinessWeek Online began to investigate fund-raisers for Republican politicos held at Signatures. Hastert's office says his staffers uncovered the oversight.

The bottom line, folks, is that the entire Republican party is pwned (sic) by Jack Abramoff, lock, stock and barrel.

AP/Ipsos poll:

(Early December results are in parentheses)


1. Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?

-Right direction, 32 percent (33)
-Wrong track, 65 percent (64)
-Not sure, 3 percent (3)

2. Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

-Approve, 40 percent (42)
-Disapprove, 59 percent (57)
-Mixed feelings, 1 percent (1)

3. And when it comes to handling the economy, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?

-Approve, 39 percent (42)
-Disapprove, 59 percent (55)
-Mixed feelings, 2 percent (1)

4. And when it comes to domestic issues like health care, education and the environment, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?

-Approve, 35 percent (39)
-Disapprove, 62 percent (59)
-Mixed feelings, 2 percent (1)
-Not sure, X percent (1)

5. When it comes to handling foreign policy issues and the war on terrorism, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?

-Approve, 44 percent (45)
-Disapprove, 54 percent (53)
-Mixed feelings, 1 percent (2)
-Not sure, X percent (X)

6. When it comes to handling the situation in Iraq, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?

-Approve, 39 percent (41)
-Disapprove, 58 percent (58)
-Mixed feelings, 2 percent (1)
-Not sure, X percent (X)

7. When it comes to Social Security, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?

-Approve, 35 percent (38)
-Disapprove, 60 percent (57)
-Mixed feelings, 2 percent (3)
-Not sure, 3 percent (2)

8. Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way Congress is handling its job?

-Approve, 34 percent (31)
-Disapprove, 63 percent (65)
-Mixed feelings, 2 percent (3)
-Not sure, 1 percent (2)

9. And if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress?

-Republicans, 36 percent
-Democrats, 49 percent
-Neither (VOLUNTEERED), 12 percent
-Not sure, 3 percent

C-Plus Caligula isn't even pulling a majority on what's supposed to be his strength -- the so-called war on terror. And still, the Democrats feel they have to tiptoe around him while the mainstream media still behave as if he's a popular president.

There are still some of us who want to see democracy work in this country, but Jesus H. Toe-Tapping Christ on a Bicycle, when are we going to have an opposition party step up to the plate already? We have an insane president who thinks he's a king, a Republican Congress that's corrupt to the bone, a ruling party that's too fucking cheap to provide body armor that could have saved 80% of the soldiers who have died from upper-body injuries -- and the fucking Democrats are still wringing their hands lest they be thought of as weak? And Chris Matthews and his ilk are still hoping to get invited to the White House Weenie Roast?

I swear, we have allowed nineteen guys with boxcutters and a few thousand guys living in caves topple this country. War on terror? It's already been lost.

This is ModFab's worst nightmare.

My wingnut representative, Scott Garrett, is nothing if not a loyal Republican. While this particular dispute is taking place in the Senate, I'd be interested to know his thoughts:

high-ranking Senate lawmaker on Tuesday said he try would block federal funding for projects in New Jersey if Garden State officials were to continue objecting to a plan to deepen the Delaware River's main shipping channel by five additional feet, and to 45 feet overall.

"I will do everything in my power to stop anything beneficial to New Jersey, period. I will use everything I have until New Jersey lives up to their commitments," said U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican and third-ranking official in the Senate chamber. "Every single thing that benefits New Jersey in particular I will do everything I can to make sure that it gets slowed down or stopped."

Santorum claims that New Jersey Democrats have reneged on a good-faith deal about the dredging of the Delaware River they made with Pennsylvania officials last year.

Of course, once Little Ricky is booted out on his ass later this year, all this will become moot. Maybe that's what Garrett will wait for. Of course we're hoping HE gets voted off the island as well.

Tracey Schmitt, RNC Spokesmodel, on why George Bush is keeping more than $100,000 donated by Jack Abramoff to Bush's re-election campaign last year:

"There is nothing to indicate that those contributions reflect anything but support for the re-election campaign,"

(hat tip: Julia, subbing for Digby)

Reading this is like hearing the phone calls from people trapped in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01:

Some of the 12 coal miners who died following an explosion left notes behind assuring family members that their final hours trapped underground were not spent in agony, a relative said Thursday.

“The notes said they weren’t suffering, they were just going to sleep,” said Peggy Cohen, who had been called to a makeshift morgue at a school to identify the body of her father, 59-year-old mining machine operator Fred Ware Jr.

Cohen said a note was not left with Ware’s body, but that she planned to retrieve his personal belongings later Thursday to see if he left one in his lunch box. But she said the medical examiner told her notes left with several of the bodies all carried a similar message: “Your dad didn’t suffer.”

Ware was among a dozen miners who were found after 41 hours inside the mine. They were found at the deepest point of the Sago Mine, about 2½ miles from the entrance, behind a fibrous plastic cloth stretched across an area about 20 feet wide to keep out deadly carbon monoxide gas.

Meanwhile, Congressmen George Miller and Major Owens has requested hearings, because -- guess what -- mine safety oversight has been cut to shreds during the Bush Administration:

Dear Chairman Boehner:


In light of the tragedy at the International Coal Group's Sago Mine, in Upshur County, West Virginia, we are writing to respectfully request that the Committee on Education and the Workforce conduct a series of hearings on the effectiveness of law enforcement and safety inspections at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These hearings should begin immediately.


A cursory review of citations issued by MSHA against the Sago Mine reveals a workplace with a deteriorating safety record. In 2004, the mine had received 68 citations from MSHA. In 2005, the number of citations jumped to over 200. Of those over 200 citations, 46 resulted from an 11-week review just before the disaster, and 96 were considered "significant and substantial." Moreover, since 2000, the Sago Mine has had 42 injuries that resulted in lost work time. In 2004, the Sago Mine's injury rate was almost three times the national rate for this type of mine.


One might expect massive penalty assessments under federal law for such a dismal record. On the contrary, the 2005 violations by the International Coal Group by the Department of Labor resulted in just a few thousand dollars of penalties. These penalties included assessments for noncompliance with requirements related to mine ventilation plans, accumulation of combustible materials, and roof support. Most of the fines ranged from $60 to $440, despite what would appear to be repeat violations.


Oversight hearings should consider, among other things, whether the current fine schedule or application of that schedule provides a sufficient deterrent to companies that would otherwise treat law-breaking as a cost of doing business. The International Coal Group had revenues exceeding $136 million in 2004.


The hearings should also review recent Congressional actions on MSHA. The Labor-HHS-Education Conference Report for fiscal year 2006 that sets next year's MSHA budget included a $4.9 million cut in real-dollar terms in MSHA's budget compared to FY 2005. Since 2001, MSHA staffing has been downsized by 170 positions. The bill also included a $6.7 million cut in real-dollar terms in OSHA's budget between FY 2005 and FY 2006. That agency has been downsized by 162 positions since 2001.


The Committee should investigate whether the Bush Administration has employed people with proper regulatory experience in leadership positions at MSHA. Many senior MSHA officials have come directly from the mining industry, raising concerns about their ability to effectively oversee the industry and protect its workers. The United Mine Workers has compiled a list of MSHA officials' connections to the mining industry. For example, President Bush's first appointment to MSHA was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health David Lauriski, a long-time management official in the mining industry. In addition, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for MSHA John Caylor held management jobs with Cyprus Minerals Co., Amax Mining Co. and Magma Copper Co. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for MSHA John Correll served in management posts at Amax Mining and Peabody Coal companies. Special Assistant for MSHA Mark Ellis served as legal counsel to the American Mining Congress. And Chief of Health for Coal Melinda Pon was a management official at BHP Minerals-Utah International.


Since Mr. Lauriski resigned his position in November 2004, the agency has been operating under an acting administrator. The President did not nominate a replacement for Mr. Lauriski until September 2005. That replacement has yet to take his seat.


With mining company officials at the helm of MSHA, the agency's focus has clearly shifted away from protecting miners. A 2005 report by the AFL-CIO found that "at MSHA, 17 standards to improve safety and health for miners have been withdrawn since President Bush took office, including the Air Quality, Chemical Substances and Respiratory standards...For the most part at MSHA, those standards that have been proposed during the Bush Administration favor industry by moving to roll back existing protections. There are no pending standards to protect miners from hazards on their job."


We are concerned that MSHA has also injected political considerations into its safety enforcement program. In April 2004, the Administrator for Coal Mine Safety and Health (through the issuance of Procedure Instruction Letter No. I04-V-01) changed investigative procedures in such a way that may allow high-level administrators at MSHA - who may have no experience in handling on-the-ground accident investigations - to inject themselves into the violation drafting process. Under the new procedures, the draft report and conclusion of professional investigators regarding a serious or fatal accident are now apparently subject to re-review by the Department of Labor's political appointees to determine what action, if any, to take against the mining company.


The Committee should consider whether this new procedure allows political considerations, rather than safety considerations, to be injected directly into the investigation and enforcement process. Indeed, this change in investigative procedure came after MSHA investigator Jack Spadaro publicly blew the whistle on changes made to his team's investigation report on the 2000 Martin County Coal sludge spill, reducing the number of violations MSHA would impose on the mining company from eight to two. Mr. Spadaro, a highly-regarded expert on mine safety, was transferred, demoted, and ultimately forced out of the agency.


The Committee has not held a single oversight hearing on MSHA since President Bush took office in January 2001. As you know, MSHA is responsible for the health and safety of tens of thousands of mine workers, who work in one of the nation's most dangerous occupations. In the last five years, the only legislative Committee hearing on any worker safety issue concerned proposals to weaken the Occupational Safety and Health Act. A Subcommittee hearing billed as "oversight" focused instead on new amendments to promote OSHA's voluntary compliance programs.


Mr. Chairman, we believe hearings should commence immediately on the effectiveness of law enforcement and inspection processes at MSHA and OSHA under current law and under current management. These hearings should provide ample opportunity for the Committee to hear from MSHA and OSHA officials, experts, worker advocates, as well as individual miners and their families.


On behalf of the tens of thousands of coal miners and their families and friends, we urge you to commence these oversight hearings right away. We greatly appreciate your immediate attention to our request.

Sincerely,


GEORGE MILLER
Senior Democratic Member
Committee on Education and the Workforce

MAJOR OWENS
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Workforce Protections

I don't know about anyone else, but I have no interest in any platitudes any Republicans have to say about this. Last night on The Majority Report, Sam Seder played a clip from Ruch Limbaugh, in which the Oxycontined One opined that workplace safety is un-American, that it's the stuff of the Soviet Union. It's appalling, but at least Limbaugh is honest in his utter contempt for the people who work every day in the worst job in the world -- coal mining. It's the suits in Congress and the White House who give lip service to compassion but instead try to screw over people like these 12 miners and their families, just so they can stuff a few more bucks into their pockets.

...and his name is Howard Stern:

According to today's New York Post, King of All Media Howard Stern made strenuous objections to the Princess of All Media, his 22-year-old daughter Emily, doffing her clothes on stage. Emily, an actress and the eldest of Stern's three daughters, had been playing Madonna (the celebrity, not the mother of Jesus) in a theatrical send-up of the Jewish mystical sect Kabbalah at the off-Broadway Jewish Theater of New York.

The part involved dressing only in an exagerated cone bra and yellow panties favored by the Material Girl. When told by a rabbi that if she gets naked, the Messiah will appear, the actress was to take it all off. Sounds Stern-worthy to us!

But according to the play's director, Papa Stern was dismayed about his daughter's public nudity, and had begged her not to do the part. This week, reportedly under pressure from her father and nervous that bloggers were going to start posting photos of her on the internet, Emily abruptly quit. The production debuted in mid-November, and was scheduled to run though the end of January. It has now shut down.

So, Howard...If you can't take the heat, mightn't it be best to get out of the strip club?

So I guess it's OK for OTHER people's daughters to get naked in front of HIM, but not OK for HIS daughter?

Haven't we heard this before...in the context of the Iraq war?

Wanker de luxe John Hawkins has posted his list of the "Twenty Most Annoying Liberals in the United States" -- and Your Humble Blogger is nowhere to be found.

Ordinarily I don't link to crap like this, but this list is notable for the amount of overlap between this list and my own Brilliant 25 of 2005:

1) The Huffington Post. OK, so I assigned the spot to founder Arianna Huffington, whereas Hawkins assigns the honor to the blog. Whatever. #19 on Hawkins' list, #16 on mine.

2) Randi Rhodes. #11 on Hawkins' list, #12 on mine.

(This is getting scary, isn't it?)

3) Jack Murtha. #5 on Hawkins' list, #9 on mind.

And the winner of the coveted #1 spot on BOTH lists: Cindy Sheehan.

The Hawkins runners-up who DID make it onto my list are George Clooney and James Wolcott.

I must admit to some shame at having not included Helen Thomas on my list, for she deserves a spot on anyone's list. Ditto for Paul Krugman. And I probably should have included Joseph Wilson, though I still have him in mind if I ever get it together to do the "Hunks of the Left Calendar" I've been talking about for two years.

I have to try harder to make Hawkins' list myself next year. Add that to my list of resolutions.

So much for the miraculous power of last month's Iraqi election:

In the country’s deadliest day in months, bombs killed at least 120 Iraqis and seven U.S. soldiers on Thursday — shattering hopes that last month’s election and the new year would usher in a more peaceful era.

At least 200 people were wounded in the attacks on Iraqis in two cities. Another three bombs exploded in Baghdad, two of them detonated by suicide bombers. And insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline near the northern city of Kirkuk, causing a huge fire.

The attacks in one of Shiite Islam’s holiest cities, Karbala, and the Sunni Arab stronghold of Ramadi raised fears of an escalation in sectarian tensions.

In Karbala, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt laced with ballbearings and a grenade, killing at least 50 and wounding 138.

Television pictures showed pools of blood in the street, which was littered with debris. Passersby loaded the wounded into the backs of cars and vans, and one black-clad woman stood crying while clutching her dead or wounded baby to her chest.

70 killed in Ramadi
In Ramadi, another bomber blew himself up near police and army recruits, killing at least 70 and wounding 65, hospital sources said. The U.S. military said the blast ripped through a line of around 1,000 recruits as they waited to be security screened.

After the debris and body parts had been cleared away, hundreds of Iraqis reportedly returned to the queue.

It was the worst single attack in Iraq since July and the latest in a long string of assaults on police and army recruits, tasked with taking over the lead in the fight against the largely Sunni Arab insurgency from the U.S. military.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a roadside bomb killed five American soldiers patrolling in the Baghdad area. Earlier, Iraqi police Capt. Rahim Slaho said a U.S. convoy was heading for Karbala when it was attacked 15 miles south of the city, and that five soldiers were killed.

Another two U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, Iraqi police said. The bomb also killed two civilians and wounded seven people, including three U.S. soldiers.

Devices also exploded in Baghdad, although with less impact.

Three car bombs, two of them suicide attacks, rocked the capital in quick succession, suggesting a level of coordination that may be a response by Sunni Arab insurgents to the largely peaceful parliamentary election.

The bombs killed two people and wounded six, police and Interior Ministry sources said.

Now, what was that noble cause again?

OK, in all fairness, I have to reveal that Lynn of Astrological Musings does double-duty as my sister, among her many other talents, so today's blogwhoring of her astrological profiles of Ariel Sharon and Jack Abramoff aren't SOLELY about them being pretty damn fascinating, even though they are.

If you've ever thought astrology was complete horseshit, try adding AM to your daily RSS feed. Give it a couple of months and see if you reconsider.

James Moore, co-author of the book Bush's Brain, is on the terrorist watch "no fly" list:

This week last year I was preparing for a trip to Ohio to conduct interviews and research for a new book I was writing. My airline tickets had been purchased on line and the morning of departure I went to the Internet to print out my boarding pass. I got a message that said, "Not Allowed." Several subsequent tries failed. Surely, I thought, it's just a glitch within the airline's servers or software.

I made it a point to arrive very early at the airport. My reservation was confirmed before I left home. I went to the electronic kiosk and punched in my confirmation number to print out my boarding pass and luggage tags. Another error message appeared, "Please see agent."

I did. She took my Texas driver's license and punched in the relevant information to her computer system.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "There seems to be a problem. You've been placed on the No Fly Watch List."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm afraid there isn't much more that I can tell you," she explained. "It's just the list that's maintained by TSA to check for people who might have terrorist connections."

"You're serious?"

"I'm afraid so, sir. Here's an 800 number in Washington. You need to call them before I can clear you for the flight."

Exasperated, I dialed the number from my cell, determined to clear up what I was sure was a clerical error. The woman who answered offered me no more information than the ticket agent.

"Mam, I'd like to know how I got on the No Fly Watch List."

"I'm not really authorized to tell you that, sir," she explained after taking down my social security and Texas driver's license numbers.

"What can you tell me?"

"All I can tell you is that there is something in your background that in some way is similar to someone they are looking for."

"Well, let me get this straight then," I said. "Our government is looking for a guy who may have a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem? We need to find this guy. He sounds dangerous to me."

"I'm sorry, sir, I've already told you everything I can."

"Oh, wait," I said. "One last thing: this guy they are looking for? Did he write books critical of the Bush administration, too?"

I have been on the No Fly Watch List for a year. I will never be told the official reason. No one ever is. You cannot sue to get the information. Nothing I have done has moved me any closer to getting off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to a European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000.

Sounds like the "no-fly list" is more about Bush's political opponents and whistleblowers than about terrorists.

I try mightily not to get sucked into too many television shows. At worst, it means you end up working your life around television. At best, it means you stack up more stuff on your DVR that you'll ever watch. Right now I have stuff on mine that I probably will never get around to watching. And how many network shows are really worth committing to? I mean, I love Boston Legal, but my life is not diminished because I rarely get to watch it. Lost is indispensable, and the upcoming Survivor: Exile Island promises more sick psychological fun and a return to nice beaches this season, but that's about my limit. With one exception.

That exception is the upcoming eight trial episodes of The Book of Daniel, on NBC. This show stars the eminently watchable Aidan Quinn as an Episcopal priest with an addiction to Vicodin and a gay son, who talks to Jesus. Needless to say, the Christofascist Zombie Brigade is having apoplexy over this show, and that in my book makes it "don't miss TV."

Pam reports that some affiliates have already dropped the show at the behest of -- you guessed it -- the American Family Association, thus proving that some companies have learned NOTHING from the Ford Motor Company Fiasco.

Even if you're only mildly interested, tune into The Book of Daniel Friday night. And go to Pam's site for more info on how to support the counterinsurgency.

As all bloggers know, it's kind of fun to look at the Google searches people use to find one's blog. A good percentage of OUR referrals come from some permutation of the words Marc Maron Danny Goldberg Morning Sedition, but occasionally we do get our share of "sex with mules" referrals.

We have one this morning, however, that to my mind is emblematic of what we can expect in the post-Roe era, after Sammy the Stem Cell Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=pregnant%20get%20an%20abortion%20without%20your%20parents%20knowing%20florida

The person who came to us via this search visited at 3:20 this morning.

I don't think this is someone just idly searching. This sounds like there is a kid in Florida who's pregnant, doesn't want to be, and doesn't want her parents to know -- and was up in the wee hours trying to get information. Is she from an abusive home? Are her parents Christofascist zombies who will force her to "wear the mark of her shame" by carrying the pregnancy to term? Is she just your average kid from your average nice family who doesn't want to disappoint her parents?

Think about this girl for a few minutes, especially if you oppose a woman's right to an abortion, or if you think parental notification should be codified into law. Put yourself in her shoes for a minute:

You're an intelligent girl, and you know what it means that your period is two weeks late. You spent the entire Christmas season with a nagging, gnawing fear. Every time you felt a twinge from eating too much Christmas candy, you ran to the bathroom hoping to find the spotting that meant your period had come. Oh, sure, you went out with your friends New Year's Eve, but you couldn't have a good time, because you knew what's waiting for you in the new year. You've had plenty of time -- weeks, in fact -- to think about your predicament and what you want to do.

Let's assume that our visitor is just a nice girl from an average family. She has a boyfriend whom she loves, but she has plans for college and a career. Maybe her plans involve this boy, maybe they don't. Her grades are good, but she's not a stellar student. She works hard at school to get the grades she does. Her parents are proud of her, because she's a good student and has nice friends. They like her boyfriend, though they do worry about them spending so much time together. All their hopes and dreams for the future are embodied in their children. They want her to have an entire world of opportunity open to her. They will be crushed with disappointment if they find out that she's made such a terrible mistake. Their opinion of her will be changed forever.

At least that's what she's thinking. Perhaps she's right. Perhaps she isn't. But she knows better than we do. So she's sitting in her room, alone, awake at 3:20 AM, doing research on the internet as to whether she can take the action that's right for her without risking her relationship with her parents.

My heart hurts for this girl.

If you are reading this and you are the girl who visited us early this morning, alas, I can't give you information about the laws in Florida, especially with the Christofascists working overtime to change laws as quickly as they can. I would, however, suggest that you call your local Planned Parenthood and ask for a consultation. They will discuss your legal and medical options with you. You can still go for counseling without your parents' permission, I believe.

If you are reading this and you are not this girl, think about this country after abortion is no longer an option. Then imagine you are her. How do you feel?

If I were a truly paranoid lunatic, as opposed to just your garden-variety paranoid, I'd be thinking one of two things about the massive stroke suffered by Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last night. I'd think that either it's an assassination attempt by right-wing Israelis (or the neocon cabal in Washington) to prevent further dismantling of settlements); or an assassination attempt by the White House to draw attention away from the Jack Abramoff scandal.

But because I still retain some shreds of my sanity, I think it's just what happens when you have the kinds of health problems that Sharon has had at his age.

Still, this casts a strong shadow over the elections scheduled for March, and gives hard-liners like Benjamin Netanyahu an advantage going into the election.

Sharon's emergence as a pragmatist, and his dismantling of settlements in the Gaza Strip, has been one of the more hopeful signs in the seemingly intractable problem surrounding the particular Middle Eastern pile of rocks over which people have been fighting for thousands of years. If the absence of Sharon is even the symbolic leader of the new centrist Kadima party indicates its demise, we could be looking at another hard-line Netanyahu regime -- and more bloodshed.

If so, we're headed into Nixon territory.

John Aravosis has been covering this story, and today Attytood distills the available information.

In an NBC News interview with New York Times reporter and author James Risen, Andrea Mitchell, otherwise known as "Ewwww, you mean she fucks Alan Greenspan?", and who is a known Bush Administration shill, asked him, "You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?" After John reported on this story the it started circulating through Blogtopia, NBC removed the offending question from its "official" transcript.

Why on earth would Andrea Mitchell ask this question if she didn't know something, and why on earth would the Bush Administration use its newfound dictatorial powers to do whatever the fuck they want spy on Christiane Amanpour, of all people? Yes, she is of Iranian descent, and it would certainly be in character for the Bush Administration to spy on anyone with an Arabic name. They probably already are. Or it could be that her hard-hitting investigative techniques might have put her in contact with Al Qaeda.

The least cynical answer would be because her recent reporting would have brought her into direct contact with members of al Qaeda. In August 2002, not long after Bush began to authorize the warrantless spying program, Amanpour worked with CNN's Nic Robertson on a special that was billed as an inside view of al-Qaeda.

Actually, it was Robertson who did the heavy lifting on this one, smuggling 64 purported al-Qaeda videotapes -- showing terrorist training exercises and the like -- out of Afghanistan. But Amanpour played a role, according to this Aug. 19, 2002, article in Electronic Media.

There are some taped demonstrations of bomb making, for which written instructions had been found by CNN's Christiane Amanpour after President Bush's war on terrorism opened Afghanistan to the international press. There are lessons in firing small arms, rappelling down what looks like a cliff and assassinating someone.

Even so...a high-profile journalist like Amanpour is likely to come across information like this if she's doing her job. And videotapes like the ones found by Amanpour and Robertson could be construed to HELP, not hurt the war effort. At any rate, a free press is as vital to our functioning democracy as is our right to privacy.

Oh yeah. Right. I forgot. We don't have a right to privacy now that George W. Bush has essentially disbanded Congress and declared that it is not required to adhere to the rule of law.

But Attytood points out another reason why Amanpour might have been targeted:

Then there is the issue of Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, former official in the Clinton administration State Department. You may have forgotten (we did, frankly), but Rubin re-emerged in 2004 -- as a foreign policy advisor to John Kerry. Do husbands and wives use the same telephones and computers? Is the Pope German?

Now, isn't that convenient? It's a veritable quadrifecta of Bush Gestapo techniques. You get to wiretap a high-profile reporter for an American news network that for all its move to the right, you still regard as a leftist media outlet. She's of Arabic descent, she's a known critic of the media's collective act of fellatio on George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks -- AND her husband is an adviser to your campaign opponent in the bargain. Who could resist such sweet temptation?

These days it seems that watching Countdown is more important than watching the previous night's reruns of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Usually we switch back and forth between MSNBC and Comedy Central, and last night we were lucky enough to be able to see Stephen Colbert make corny beef hash out of Peggy Noonan, who richly deserved the evisceration she got. However, as soon as 9 PM rolls around, MSNBC is not allowed to pipe itself into our home, once Scratch McHuskerson, a.k.a. Rita Cosby, comes on. For one thing, the woman has become a walking Natalee Holloway joke. For another thing, there's That Voice. But Editor and Publisher reports that last night, Cosby and other ghouls in the media reached new depths of loathsomeness by crowing about the twelve trapped miners in West Virginia being found alive. Except for one problem. They were all dead:

In one of the most disturbing media performances of its kind in recent years, TV news and many newspapers carried the tragically wrong news late Tuesday and early Wednesday that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners in West Virginia had been found alive and safe. Hours later they had to reverse course.

For hours, starting just before midnight, newspaper reporters and anchors such as MSNBC's Rita Cosby interviewed euphoric loved ones and helped spread the news about the miracle rescue.

I'm singling out Cosby here, even though it's reported that even the sainted Anderson Cooper was out there interviewing euphoric family members as preliminary reports had the miers found alive, because of her relentless coverage of Missing White Women, and her evolution into a one-woman Natalee Holloway conglomerate. At least Cooper doesn't trade in death ALL the time. And Cooper is reported in this same E&P story as having

ripped the coal company at 3 a.m. for not correcting the wrong reports for so long, but did not explain why CNN went with the good news without strong and clear confirmation.

This is one of the inherent problems with "if it bleeds, it leads" journalism. It requires that broadcast networks send all their on-camera talent out to the site, in search of the best "human interest" story. On Countdown last night, Bob Hager made a valiant effort to convey the near-certain hopelessness of the situation without conveying the near-certain hopelessness of the situation. But it's one thing to allow for a sliver of hope; another to deliver miraculous good news to anxious, grieving families without knowing for certain what you're doing. This sort of journalism turns such families into unwitting reality show contestants at their most vulnerable time. I know that sticking microphones into the faces of these people is nothing new, but in a world with a 24x7 television news cycle, the stakes for careers are higher and the tactics more aggressive.

Remember "baby Jessica", the baby who fell down a well? Imagine if instead of a healthy, if bruised baby had come up, a tiny corpse had been found instead. How important would the story have been then?

I for one would not have felt my life diminished in any way had the networks waited to reveal the tragic outcome until they were damn sure what they were dealing with. Sometimes "breaking news" isn't breaking -- it's just broken.

June 1, 2004:

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Chalabi is an Iraqi leader that's fallen out of favor within your administration. I'm wondering if you feel that he provided any false information, or are you particularly—

A: Chalabi?

Q: Yes, with Chalabi.

A: My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.

Scott "No Comment On An Ongoing Investigation" McClellan, today, denying that George W. Bush knows Jack Abramoff, who was a "Pioneer" donor to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. "Pioneers" were so recognized for persuading supporters to give more than $100,000 to the campaign:

"The president doesn’t know him, he does not recall meeting him...It is possible that he could have met him at a holiday reception or some other widely attended event."

Remember, back in those good old days when what Clinton did with his dick was the obsession of Republican Washington? They justified their witchhunt with the mantra "rule of law."

Now the tune is different, of course, with the justification being "9/11 changed everything." Including the need of the president to uphold the Constitution and obey the law, apparently:

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security.

''We are not going to ignore this law," the official said, noting that Bush, when signing laws, routinely issues signing statements saying he will construe them consistent with his own constitutional authority. ''We consider it a valid statute. We consider ourselves bound by the prohibition on cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment."

But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ''ticking time bomb" scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.

''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

And if that happens, you change the law. The law exists for a reason. If the President doesn't believe the law allows him to do his job, then let him go to Capitol Hill and enlist the help of Congress to change it.

9/11 changed absolutely nothing. Evil, power-mad men will still use a national tragedy as an excuse to turn themselves into dictators.

Bush apologists have forgotten that he works for us. He is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but not of the entire population. WE are HIS commander-in-chief. And it is OUR responsibility to make sure he behaves in a manner consistent with the law. And if he doesn't, WE must hold him accountable.

L'état, ce n'est pas lui.

The Poor Man has it in the latest installment of Kommando Komics.

I read about this in MoDo's column today, but had to see it in a straight news article for it to really sink in. This is just another example of the appalling lack of empathy that Smirkboy has -- the kind of lack of empathy that's indicative of a sociopathic personality.

This guy goes to visit wounded soldiers in a military medical center -- many of them amputees. And just as he equates his cushy no-show National Guard gig with the men who fought in Vietnam, now he's equating clearing brush on his Texas "ranch" (just how much fucking brush is on that place, anyway?) with the wounds of the soldiers he sent to Iraq:

Brooke is also home to an amputee care center, which opened in January 2005. In September, ground was broken here on a $40-million rehabilitation center. The first such center, which opened in early 2004, is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Bush said that while on vacation at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, during which he cleared brush for exercise, he had received a two-inch scratch on his forehead "in combat with a cedar."

"I eventually won," he quipped, adding that he had dissuaded hospital staff from providing first aid for the cut.

How on earth must a 21-year-old kid, perhaps one who has played sports all his life, perhaps one with a new wife and a baby, who wonders how he's going to manage the rest of his life minus one or more limbs, feel when this guy makes jokes about "combat with a cedar"?

Yes, the Bush apologists are going to make excuses for him joking to prove what a "regular guy" he is -- the kind of guy that people voted for because they think that a beer buddy would make a great president. But the fact of the matter is that these kids are maimed for life -- maimed in a war that was started on lies and bullshit; maimed in a war that this president has botched. Legislators from this president's party have voted to cut veterans' health care, and he has done nothing to stop them. And then, in an effort to pretend he's one of them, he cracks jokes.

This man, this president is scum. He is a foul, vile excuse for a human being, and we should all be ashamed that he represents us to the world -- and to the increasing number of young Americans who are coming home in pieces from his fuckup.

Maybe this is why Tweety is trying mightily to paint the Abramoff scandal as bipartisan: Because HE represents the "bi".

John reports that around the time of the Iraq invasion, Chris Matthews and Fox's Tony Snow and Brit Hume agreed to host an all-Republican fundraiser for a shady charity run by Jack Abramoff:

Abramoff forms a group called the "Capital Athletic Foundation." The group appears to play a key role in the Abramoff scandal:

...allegations that Abramoff used NCPPR and CAF to pay for overseas trips for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other Republican lawmakers and that he attempted to influence lawmakers with large donations from various American Indian tribes.

More on the non-profit's role from the Washington Post:

The Capital Athletic Foundation's Web site portrays youths at play: shaking hands over a tennis net, learning how to hold a bat, straining for a jump ball. Its text solicits donations for what it describes as "needy and deserving" sportsmanship programs.

In its first four years of operation, the charity has collected nearly $6 million. A gala fundraiser last year at the International Spy Museum at one point attracted the Washington Redskins' owner as its chairman and was to honor the co-founder of America Online.

Records for GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths, and federal investigators are looking into how large amounts of money were funneled through the nonprofit group to support Abramoff's interests. (Thomas Butler -- The Hill)

But tax and spending records of the Capital Athletic Foundation obtained by The Washington Post show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths.

Instead, the documents show that Jack Abramoff, one of Washington's high-powered Republican lobbyists, has repeatedly channeled money from corporate clients into the foundation and spent the overwhelming portion of its money on pet projects having little to do with the advertised sportsmanship programs, including political causes, a short-lived religious school and an overseas golf trip.

Then we go back to March 5, 2003 and find out that Chris Matthews helped put on an event benefiting the very same "Capital Athletic Foundation":

It's called the Interactive Spy Game Gala. Scheduled for March 26 at the International Spy Museum in Washington, the event's purpose is to raise about $300,000 for the Capital Athletic Foundation....

Fox News Channel's Tony Snow is master of ceremonies, and Fox's Brit Hume and MSNBC's Chris Matthews are aboard. Opera great Placido Domingo is an event committee member. But, this being Washington, the event will be mostly populated by powerful lawmakers, including Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

And it was only just a few hours ago that we reported how Chris Matthews was trying to downplay the impact of the Abramoff scandal in terms of what it said more generally about Republicans. Very interesting indeed.

This information really needs to get out there, because once you get past Keith Olbermann (and David Shuster's terrific report on Countdown last night which ties many of the Abramoff tentacles together), there seems to be a pretty coordinated effort in the media to set the "Democrats are tainted by this too" meme in stone in people's heads.

Swell. Now in addition to being discriminated because you're old, companies are discriminating if you aren't as skinny as Calista Flockhart:

The number of obese Americans is climbing — research from the National Center for Health Statistics determined 65 percent of U.S. adults are overweight, and 30 percent are obese. As health-care costs rise and more and more health problems are linked to weight, corporations are searching for ways to assess and address employees' weight problems to keep company expenses down.

[snip]

January is the biggest month for the weight-loss industry. Every year programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers see an early year spike in new customers as thousands sign up to undo the damage of the holiday eating season. Both companies have numerous corporate partnerships with businesses eager to reduce health-care costs, and they say employers have become more interested in taking an active role in weight loss.

"In business, it all comes down to the bottom line, and what they're realizing is that an overweight work force is hurting their bottom lines," said Barbara Fulmer, director of corporate sales at Jenny Craig.. "They're looking at how weight problems affect time off of work and office visits and how those things affect health-care costs."

At the same time, insurance companies are offering an ever-expanding list of weight-management services, and researchers are even trying to determine whether obesity limits the work done by employees while on the job.

One study published in the late 1990s showed that weight-related health problems lead to 39 million workdays missed every year and 239 million days of restricted activity.

In the past, most businesses calculated health costs only in terms of absences and medical expenses paid to an insurer. The question companies now ask is: How much does that "restricted activity" cost in terms of lost productivity? Researchers are trying to answer that question.

Integrated Benefits Institute, a nonprofit health benefits research organization in California, estimates that obesity is the seventh leading health problem in the U.S. work force. But in terms of lost productivity, obesity is the sixth-most prevalent health problem. Employees who might be considered "well" under the old paradigm of just measuring attendance and doctors' visits are actually a drain on overall productivity.

"It negatively affects productivity even when a person is sitting at a desk or working in a factory or whatever it is they do," said Thomas Parry, president of IBI. "It's not just an issue of absenteeism."

"The effort is to quantify how much work time is affected and tell people, 'This is what it really costs your company,'" Parry said.

At Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, employees have participated in a 10-week "Dump the Plump" contest for the past five years. More than 3,600 pounds were lost by 530 employees who competed in teams for cash prizes collected from employee entry fees last year.

Somehow I think that most companies "dump the plump" by laying them off or refusing to hire them in the first place.

Look, folks, I'm under five feet tall and I'm a 16. I also have blood pressure of 110/70, LDL numbers that I can keep down to 130 if I'm careful, and HDL of 54. I've taken exactly four sick days in the last five years. I work out 3-5 days a week, and have more energy than many people half my age. I get a mammogram every year and a blood draw and a pelvic exam -- and that's the extent of my non-dental medical usage. But if I were unemployed, all that the inevitable 25-year-old skinny size four big-haired Human Resources Bimbo Bitch would see is "old and overweight."

I'm really tired of people insisting that people like me -- healthy people who eat right and exercise and are still a larger size -- can't possibly exist. Well, I do exist, and here I am. And there are tens of thousands more like me.

And what makes these employers so sure that the size fours aren't going into the ladies' room after lunch to puke it all up? Is that healthy?

Companies don't care about the stress-related ailments that constant worry about job security can cause. They don't care about the stress-related ailments that come when you're expected to work 80-hour weeks. Nope. The only health issue they care about is if you're overweight. I'd say that's pretty damn selective -- and pretty damn ignorant.

Those of you not in the New York area may not be familiar with the New York Post -- the world's only newspaper in comic book form. The Post, a screaming wingnut Murdoch-owned rag, is famous for some of the most gonzo headlines in journalism history -- headlines like "Headless Body in Topless Bar" and "Axis of Weasels", with the heads of weasels photochopped onto members of the UN General Assembly.

But today the Post has been tossed from atop the Headline Heap, replaced by the lowly and drab abcnews.com:

Barbie Accused of Being Part of the Transgender Movement

Yes, now that Christmas is over, the Christofascist Zombie Brigade has a new target for its gay obsession: Barbie:

The Concerned Women for America were … well, concerned. Outraged, even. Was Barbie becoming part of the transgender movement?

On Dec. 30, CWA, a leading Christian conservative group, noted on its Web site that on the Barbie Web site, www.Barbie.com, "there is a poll that asks children their age and sex."

You can see a screen grab of the poll here.

The age choices were 4 to 8 but children "are given three options for their choice of gender": I am a Boy, I am a Girl and I Don't Know.

Bob Knight, director of CWA's Culture and Family Institute, said Barbie manufacturer Mattel was being influenced by the "transgender movement."

To pose "this transgender question at little girls, they've really crossed the line," Knight said, who added that "bisexuality gender confusion" is the Web site's agenda, which is "very dangerous."

The concern comes after a conservative boycott of Mattel's American Girls dolls. The American Family Association and the Pro-Life Action League protested that some American Girls dolls were wearing "I Can" wristbands, which support Girls Inc. Girls Inc. is a national, nonprofit organization that promotes education and self-esteem programs, as well as sex education, and supports abortion rights and the acceptance of gays and lesbians. The Mattel-Girls Inc. partnership ended on Dec. 26.

But Mattel, which also manufactures Barbie, said the Barbie incident is much ado about nothing.

"This was just an innocent oversight," says Lauren Bruksch, a spokeswoman for Mattel. As a rule of thumb, Bruksch said, the questionnaires at barbie.com always try to have a neutral answer or nonresponse option. For gender, this third option should have been "I don't want to say," rather than "I don't know." The Web site has since been fixed.

Knight had said CWA would contact Mattel to investigate

I happen to think it was the word "sex" that gave them the vapors.

John notes that apparently it's now OK for Scotty to "comment on an ongoing criminal investigation."

Tweety has already Assumed the Position, as reported by Jane Hamsher.

ThinkProgress analyzes the House that Jack Built.

Remember...taking contributions from groups, even if linked to Abramoff, is not illegal. Taking contributions in a quid pro quo for official actions IS illegal. The former is what the few Democrats whose names have been mentioned in conjunction with the Abramoff scandal have done. The latter is what Bob Ney and other Republicans have done.

The Mighty Wurlitzer is going to be hammering at the "bipartisan scandal" and "bad apples" memes for the next couple of days. It's up to us to set the record straight.

And while we're at it, note to Democrats: If you lie with dogs, you get fleas.

Or less politely, "Not on your life, Jack."

Or even LESS politely, "No fucking way in hell."

Borrowing a page from Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s 2000 postelection playbook, Kerry has kept much of his presidential political organization intact. He has also used his fundraising prowess to aid Democrats across the country, collecting chits that could be called if he seeks the party's White House nomination.

"He believes in his heart and soul that he came just a whisker away from being president," said Ronald Kaufman, a veteran GOP operative with Massachusetts roots.

Traveling extensively since his 2004 loss, Kerry generated nearly $5.3 million for dozens of Democratic candidates, state parties and charitable causes, according to aides.

He gave more than $200,000 to help Washington state Democrats prevail in Christine Gregoire's gubernatorial recount.

Kerry has expanded his campaign's e-mail supporter list, a vital organizing tool if he runs again. He has bought TV and newspaper ads promoting pet issues such as children's health care and his opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He also reunited several members of his campaign policy team.

"No other past presidential candidate, with the exception of McCain, has done what Kerry has done in terms of converting his presidential campaign into a grass-roots political and legislative operation," said Wade. "He's dedicated to electing Democrats."

Despite such political spadework, Kerry can expect an uphill fight in 2008.

Not the least of which is the fact that "the base" feels profoundly betrayed by his lackluster, pussy-ass campaign, his turning the other cheek to unjust attacks, his utter inability to articulate a coherent position on anything, and his inability to pull out a victory, even with the shenanigans in Ohio and Florida, against an obviously drunk, stumbling, and incompetent president. If he couldn't beat this moron, what makes him think he'll be able to beat a fresh, new Republican nominee?

I've already said that if this party nominates Hillary Clinton and her rah-rah-war stand as the nominee, I'm staying home. And now, I'm going on record with another one.

I spent most of the weekend at movies or working on Mixed Reviews, so I didn't do much blogging. However, I would be remiss in not pointing out what may be the single most indispensable blog entry for progressives in the history of Blogtopia. This one's from ShakesSis. If you enjoy life in these here United States, thank a progressive.

Like the proverbial canary:

Jack Abramoff will plead guilty to three felony counts in Washington on Wednesday as part of a settlement with federal prosecutors, ending an intense, months-long negotiation over whether the Republican lobbyist would testify against his former colleagues, people involved with the case said.

Mr. Abramoff, 46, is pleading guilty to fraud, public corruption and tax evasion, setting the stage for prosecutors to begin using him as a cooperating witness against his former business and political colleagues. In exchange, Mr. Abramoff faces a maximum of about 10 years in prison in the Washington case.

After entering his guilty plea in United States District Court in Washington, Mr. Abramoff will also announce a plea agreement in a related Florida case, in which he was indicted last year. In that case, he is pleading guilty to fraud and conspiracy in connection with his purchase of the SunCruz casino boat line, and will face a maximum of about seven years' prison time.

Mr. Abramoff has been talking to investigators in the corruption case for many months, participants in the case said, giving them a full picture of what evidence he could offer against other suspects. His participation in Washington has taken place mostly below the radar, as prosecutors made the Miami case the focus of their public work and as Mr. Abramoff and his associates claimed they were preparing to stand trial, facing up to as many as 30 years in prison.

Mr. Abramoff will enter separate pleas in both locations. But the deal reached with the Justice Department is all-encompassing, reducing the severe penalties Mr. Abramoff could have faced in either investigation, in exchange for his inside knowledge of certain lobbying work and legislative actions. One element of the deal is that any he can serve prison time in the two cases concurrently, although the sentencing will not take place until much further along in the investigation.
[snip]

Now, after more than two years of investigations, prosecutors have developed a list of at least a dozen lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists whose work appears suspect and who are now at the core of the case. With Mr. Abramoff's cooperation, the Justice Department will have a potentially critical witness to alleged patterns of corruption or bribery within the Republican leadership ranks, which in some cases they believe also took the form of campaign donations and free meals at Mr. Abramoff's downtown restaurant, Signatures.

Now, the wingnut spin is going to be a combination of the standard "Everyone Does It", in an attempt to trivialize the corruption within the Republican Party; and "Democrats got money too", citing Sen. Max Baucus, who received $19,000 in Abramoff money. By the time this is over, the MSM, let by Chris Matthews, are going to be painting this as an exclusively Democratic scandal. The NRSC has started already:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is planning a public-relations offensive tying leading Democrats to lobbyist Jack Abramoff in an effort to neutralize accusations that Republicans have been embroiled in a “culture of corruption.”

The campaign will zero in on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, both Michigan Democrats; and the Democratic Senatorial Committee (DSCC), among others, for taking money from Abramoff’s former clients.

Stabenow is up for reelection next year; Reid and Levin are not. With the entry of Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard (R) into the Senate race in Michigan, many leading Republicans believe they have a reasonable chance of unseating the first-term senator.

Republicans have spent months trying to blunt Democratic ethics charges. But the new communications blitz — which will include disseminating talking points to Capitol Hill Republicans and flooding local media with information linking Democrats to Abramoff — marks a more coordinated effort to halt the anti-GOP tide.

NRSC spokesman Brian Nick said the campaign committee would “be getting the resources” not only to senators up for reelection but to all members of the Republican Conference “so that they can offensively message that Democrats are playing partisan politics with an issue that involves all of Congress.”

Note what's bolded above: the Democrats are accused of taking campaign contributions from Abramoff clients, but if you look here, Abramoff's direct contributions are all to Republicans.

Such subtleties aren't going to matter when the spin machine gets going, however. And certainly no one is claiming that the Democrats are above being bought either. (I'm talking to YOU, Sen. Biden.) But I have seen too many Republican scandals over the last five years to believe that any of them will ultimately stick.

Here are mine, in no particular order. What are yours?

1. Stay employed. Much of this is out of my hands, as my employment is contingent on contracts, but anything I can do, any effort I can put forth, any time I need to put in to ensure that we get new ones, I'm happy to do.

2. Work out consistently. I'm usually pretty good at this, except in high summer when the heat is just too much, even in our cool basement. But recent colds, followed by bad falls on ice and bone bruises have put a crimp in my workout schedule. Weight loss would be wonderful, but after 50 years on this earth, I'm not holding my breath.

3. Get the goddamn kitchen cabinet refacing done already. A year and a half ago, the shipment of new doors and veneers arrived, and I still haven't started yet. That this involves removing old veneers from the LAST reface job done 25 years ago by the previous owners of the hosue doesn't help, but still -- enough is enough.

4. Finish revamping the Mixed Reviews site. Actually, I'm hoping to get that done this weekend.

5. New template for this here blog, and adding enhancements such as advertising and a better layout.

6. Appreciate Mr. Brilliant every day. I do that anyway, but it can't hurt to remind myself. The value of still enjoying the company of one's spouse after over 20 years together is beyond measure.

7. Make time to work on the 3 novels I now have in my head.

8. Management of the aging process without selling out to the pharma and cosmetic industries: healthy eating, regular exercise, calcium supplements, and tons of moisturizer.

9. Keep in better touch with friends. See the real-world ones more often, keep up with the online ones better.

10. Do what I can to effect the impeachment and lawful removal from office of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Can you stand one last countdown as you down a little hair of the dog?

This is by no means an exhaustive list of who or what was fascinating in 2005. For one thing, there are no books here, because I had almost no time to read books, except on vacation. But these are 25 people or groups of people that made MY 2005 interesting.

Your mileage may differ.

25. Mike Doughty: A number of years ago, Mr. Brilliant and I went to see the Dave Matthews Band at Madison Square Garden, and sat through an awful Soul Coughing set. I knew that this was Matthews' favorite band, and I couldn't understand why. Fast-forward a few years, and Soul Coughing lead singer Mike Doughty puts out the terrific Haughty Melodic. Doughty's gravelly voice, catchy tunes, and odd lyrics combine to make him one of the more interesting of the current crop of male singer/songwriters. And oh yeah -- he was an early Morning Sedition booster.

24. The Maletosterone Boys of Survivor Guatemala: It's somehow fitting that the year in which evolution become controversial again and a gentle movie about two male sheep herders in love seemed cataclysmic, that the aging reality show Survivor played into both phenomena. First there was the proof in the form of New Jersey's own Judd Sergeant that we truly ARE descended from apes, pontificating about "it's a maletosterone thing" while the camera cut to Guatemalan howler monkeys. Then we were treated to the most homoerotic Survivor season ever, from the infamous Bobby Jon Drinkard/Blake Towsley pee alliance, to southern country boys Bobby Jon and Jamie Newton seemingly auditioning for Brokeback Mountain: The Sequel. In addition to being arguably the finest male eye candy in Survivor history, these two near lookalike model/actors had the gayest love/hate relationship in the show's history, starting with the Chest Bump Heard Round the World, and culminating in an obviously plastered-to-the-gills Newton gnawing lovingly on Drinkard's neck at the live reunion show. Now THAT'S entertainment.

23. J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof: I never thought I'd live to see the day when obscure references from Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy and Kerry Wendell Thornley's Principia Discordia would inform a mainstream television series on a major network. But ABC's Lost, with its six mysterious numbers, one of which is the ubiquitous Discordian 23, and its I Ching-hexagram Dharma project logo, has got to be the most Trash Culture Mutant TV series in history. Forget the hot cast and the layers-of-an-onion plotting. For those of us who cut our geek teeth in 'zine culture and are perfectly willing to spend hours deconstructing its mysteries, Lost is pure gold. So it's fitting that this most Discordian of television shows comes in at #23.

22. Norbert Leo Butz: Move over Nathan Lane, there's a new clown in town. This adorably snarky little guy from St. Louis with the Jimmy Cagney face and the rubber body singlehandledly turned the otherwise ordinary Dirty Rotten Scoundrels into the most fun to be had on Broadway. If you're like me, you sat through the movie version of The Producers thinking, "God I wish it were Norbert Leo Butz in this instead of Matthew Broderick!" If you haven't seen it yet, the enormously talented and charismatic Mr. Butz, who won a Tony Award for his performance as the lowlife grifter Freddy Benson, is only in the show until June, after which he's slated to disappear into TV sitcom hell.

21. Jeff Latas: Jeff Latas, a career air force pilot, came to my attention via these incredibly moving posts on Daily Kos in which he talked about his son Jesse's battle with leukemia. Jesse is in the U.S. Army Reserve, and was recently medically evacuated from Iraq and is awaiting a bone marrow transplant. Jeff is one of the Fighting Dems -- military veterans running for Congress on the Democratic ticket. He's running in the Arizona 8th District if you want to help him out.

20. Jim Morrell, Chairman, Pamal Broadcasting: CEO of the company which owns the best radio station you never heard of. In the New York area, there's been precious little radio to listen to of late for those with an affinity for alt-rock. Yes, WFUV fills that niche to some degree, but skews a bit too much towards singer-songwriters. WXPK-FM (107.1 in the New York area) plays a mix of older and new rock bands, the inevitable singer-songwriters, and even some reggae. Not since WNEW was last good back in 1993 has here been a radio station in this area you can just turn on and leave on all day. And they NEVER play Stairway to Heaven.

19. Jeff Skoll, Founder, Participant Productions: Proof that not all dot-com millionaires blew it all on mansions, Porsches and cocaine. Skoll, a former president of eBay, started Participant Productions in 2004, under the notion that "a good story well told can truly make a difference in how one sees the world." 2005 has been a terrific year for Participant, with its first two major releases, Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana both being mentioned in the Academy Awards race. He also chairs The Skoll Foundation, which he founded under the now-subversive notion that "it is in everyone's interest to shift the overwhelming imbalance between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. People like Jeff Skoll prove that just because you become wealthy doesn't mean you have to adopt "I got mine and fuck you" Republicanism.

18. Sen. Barbara Boxer: While John Conyers was fighting the good fight in the House, Barbara Boxer, the mighty mite of the Senate, was doing her part in the other house of Congress. Boxer asked the tough questions of Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearings as Secretary of State that her male counterparts lacked the balls to ask. Recently, on December 20, Boxer delivered a scathing speech on the floor of Senate about the war in Iraq, the Bush Administration's fraud in perpetrating that war, and the price we're paying at home, both economically and psychologically, for that war. At a time when so many Democrats (I'm talking to you, Mrs. Clinton) are still hewing to the Bush line, for fear of being labeled soft on terrorism, Barbara Boxer still has the courage to speak truth to power.

17. James Wolcott: Like his differently-spelled Algonquin Roundtable namesake in the OLD Vanity Fair, Wolcott has become THE must-read commentator on the American sociopolitical scene. Wolcott would make this list if all he'd done was to point out that "a world without Sammy the Stem Cell is a world that might as well stop revolving." But his blog has become must-reading, as is his book Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror.

16. Arianna Huffington: At first I was as suspicious of Huffington's motives as I was when David Brock left the Dark Side and came over to our team. After all, could we really trust someone who came to progressivism via comedy bits that involved being in bed with Al Franken? But any doubts were dispelled this year with the introduction of The Huffington Post. With the Web's most eclectic stable of writers, HuffPo is both informative AND entertaining. And anyplace that gives me an opportunity to comment directly to John Cusack in response to his terrific column on the death of Joe Strummer is just way beyond cool.

15. George Clooney: Clooney has always been an acquired taste, the charms of whom I never really understood till this year. An actor with the looks of a 1930's studio system movie star, he's always tried to hide his looks behind an incongruously boyish, "Ain't I adorable?" veneer. This year he finally decided to grow up, and became a powerful force not for leftist politics, though his leanings are decidedly progressive, but for the morality of Doing What's Right. Good Night and Good Luck marks Clooney's maturation as a director, bringing to fruition the promise he showed with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It may be unfair for one person to be blessed with that much looks, that much intelligence, and that much talent, but I for one am glad that he's on our team.

14. Rachel Maddow: After a slow start as the strident voice on Air America Radio's Unfiltered, Maddow came into her own this year as not just an entertaining radio personality, but also the smartest woman in media. It remains to be seen whether her new 7-9 AM slot on AAR is enough to make me stop mourning the demise of Morning Sedition, but watching Maddow systematically demolish Tucker Carlson night after night is enough to make one glad to be alive.

13. Green Day: I have a confession. I've always liked Green Day, even back in the Dookie days. Yes, this falls into the realm of "Hey you old fart, go find your own music!" But you see, Green Day's music has its roots in MY early 20's, something easy to forget now that almost all of the Ramones and Joe Strummer are dead. Green Day manifests the perfect confluence of aggressively bad drumming, mediocre bass playing, snarky, occasionally clever lyrics, and the catchiest pop hooks this side of Tin Pan Alley. In 2004 the band, whose members are already on the shady side of 30, started to grow up, and while American Idiot may be only a minor variation of the band's signature 3-chord Ramones-punk, it has a certain teenage wasteland grandeur. No one will mistake Billie Joe Armstrong for Bono in the philanthropy department any time soon, but if this scrawny punk Paul McCartney can get the under 25-set to realize that they have a stake in the future, Green Day can join the ranks of bands that truly made a difference.

12. Randi Rhodes: Randi may not have the sheer power of grey matter that Rachel Maddow has, but Rhodes is the best-prepared talk radio personality around. It can't be easy to do four hours of talk radio day after day, but Randi does it. With her too-many-cigarettes voice and willingness to talk about her female problems to any and all, she has single-handedly made being over 40 hot. Sure, she does not suffer fools gladly, and her screaming at wingnuts can get old awfully quickly. But for everyone who wants to know how to do talk radio, give Randi a listen.

11. Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert: After a slow start, The Colbert Report has become even funnier than the Bill O'Reilly bombastfest it spoofs. Stephen Colbert's affiliation with The Daily Show has allowed him to leap right out of the gate with high-profile journalist guests such as Cokie Roberts, Leslie Stahl, and Anderson Cooper, most of whom at least pay at having no idea what he's doing to them. As for Jon Stewart, well, The Daily Show is continuing its most excellent self like a well-oiled machine. The rise of Keith Olbermann (#4) as the King of Snarky Real News has taken some of the pressure off of Stewart to be the news guy of record, but he's as on target as ever.

10. Paul Hackett: Hottest. Candidate. Ever. Paul Hackett is a Democratic candidate out of the dream factory -- tall, handsome, smart, articulate, an Iraq war veteran, and the kind of no-bullshit style that made Howard Dean a phenomenon. Hardly a raging liberal, Hackett represents a kind of pragmatic progressivism with none of the DLC's sellout tactics. This year, Hackett won 48% of the vote in a special Congressional election in a district that went 75% for Bush last year. Now he's running for Senate. Hackett was the first, but he's inspired a slew of other Iraq war vets to similarly run for office -- on the Democratic side. Did I mention he's hot?

9. Rep. Jack Murtha: Who would have thought at the beginning of this year that a hawkish Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania with over 30 years in the House and 37 years in the Marines would be turn out to be one of the Iraq war's biggest critics, and the most recent target of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders' rage? On November 17th, Jack Murtha lobbed the verbal equivalent of an incendiary device at the Administration when he dared to point out that the emperor is naked: "The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region" Ultimately, Murtha's statements on the war have changed nothing yet, but his courage has enabled other military leaders to speak their minds as well.

8. Rep. John Conyers: The House of Representative's Don Quixote. Conyers is running a near-solitary effort to make the House do its job in keeping the executive branch accountable. This year alone, Conyers has organized a letter-writing campaign demanding that George Bush not pardon anyone indicted in the Plame leak case and another one demanding that Karl Rove explain his involvement in said case or resign; tried mightily (albeit in vain) to get the Reform Ohio Now initiatives passed, worked to stop the expansion of the USA PATRIOT Act; organized a House letter writing campaign to the White House in support of Cindy Sheehan, held hearings into the Downing Street Memo, and most recently, released a detailed report which ties together the Bush Administration's fradulent case for war, the Downing Street Memo, the torture scandal, and the other impeachable crimes of this Administration. Conyers is an American hero and patriot, and I wish he were my congressman.

7. Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ang Lee: More than simply the gay Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Brokeback Mountain may very well be the final blow that knocks down the doors which have prevented gay Americans from being a fully-recognized part of American society. Two straight actors, one a rising star, one on the fading side of a disappointing career, breathed life into two sheep herders in love in 1963, and made them real to a country in which there are still many people for whom gays are the frightening "other." And Ang Lee, a Chinese director, proved once again that no one directs western culture as well as he does. A uniquely gay film with universal appeal, Brokeback Mountain hit the zeitgeist more quickly than any film in years. And yes, it really is that good.

6. Marc Maron and the Morning Sedition Crew: Forget about the neurotic mess you saw in Left of the Dial. By 2005, Marc Maron had matured into an accomplished radio professional, and combined with smart comedy provided by the gleefully nutty Jim Earl, Kent Jones, and Tom Johnson, with Mark Riley as the straight man, Morning Sedition had become the most entertaining radio show since kids would listen to Jean Shepherd on their transistor radios. The show was smart, funny, and as tight a news/comedy enterprise and as consistently excellent as The Daily Show. So of course Air America Radio CEO Danny Goldberg had to kill it -- just as six million Howard Stern listeners were going to be looking for a place to hang their hats -- thus proving that you don't have to be a wingnut to be a corporate asshole who can run a company into the ground. (pictured, from left: Sedition crew members Kent "Lawton Smalls" Jones, Dave "Little Goliath" Livingston, Wayne "News Daddy" Gillman, John "Boy Genius" Crimmings, Marc Maron, Jim "Sammy the Stem Cell" Earl, Mark Riley, Dan Pashman, Kris LoPresto)

5. Russ Feingold: The only true progressive who's making noises about running for president in 2008. Best known for working with John McCain on campaign finance reform, Russ Feingold has been fighting the good fight for us in the Senate. Whether it's putting the brakes on a full extension of the USA PATRIOT Act, amending a defense spending bill to include transition benefits for returning military personnel, or refusing to rule out a filibuster against the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, Feingold is a reliable progressive voice whose name is mentioned more frequently as a candidate in 2008. I don't believe for one minute that this country is going to elect a twice-divorced guy named "Feingold" as president, but right now he's the only potential nominee who could get me to show up at the polls on election day.

4. Keith Olbermann: The most underappreciated and most principled name in television news. That Olbermann's show Countdown runs opposite the reruns of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report is all by itself an argument for DVR boxes. Countdown is what The Daily Show would be if it were a REAL news show, and Olbermann, whose role model is Edward R. Murrow, has had his own Murrow Moments this year, most recently in his impassioned call for Fox Jesus Nazi John Gibson to leave the profession Olbermann so clearly loves in the aftermath of Gibson's appalling claim that all religions other than his are wrong. Keith Olbermann may be the last journalist in America who takes seriously his responsibility to report the news, not just shill for the entrenched power structure. That this respect for the American journalistic tradition is coming from a guy who made his name in sports broadcasting, and who has a regular popsicle-stick puppet theatre for high-profile legal cases, says something, but I'm not sure what.

3. John Aravosis: 2005 was the year in which John Aravosis of Americablog became The Blogger Who Gets Things Done. From his blockbuster exposure of JimmyJeff GannonGuckert as a male prostitute posing as a conservative journalist, to his David vs. Goliath standoffs with Microsoft on its pulling of support for the Gay Games, and Ford Motor Company in the face of a threatened Christofascist zombie boycott, Aravosis proved this year that while the Jeebofascists make the noise, WE have the power. For my money, John is the best, and certainly the most effective blogger in America.

2. Patrick Fitzgerald: Who would have thought that an investigator hired by George W. Bush to investigate a leak the Administration itself perpetrated, that of CIA NOC and WMD expert Valerie Plame, would turn out to be a real Eliot Ness. Fitzgerald, the kind of hard-nosed, thorough, non-showy prosecutor we thought no longer existed, isn't finished after indicting Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby. He's already presenting evidence to another grand jury about Karl Rove, and it looks like Turdblossom might not be out of hot water yet. Fitz is so clean not even the wingnuts can touch him.

1. Cindy Sheehan: Woman of the year, perhaps of the decade. A half-million people marched in New York City in advance of the Iraq war, but it wasn't until this one very ordinary woman from Vacaville, California decided to camp out in Crawford and ask the President what the noble cause was for which her son died that the antiwar movement achieved critical mass. And Cindy Sheehan became extraordinary. Sheehan isn't the first woman to be galvanized into activism as a response to losses suffered at the hands of George W. Bush's policies, but her dramatic vigil in Crawford this past summer and subsequent leadership role in the peace movement made her the face of bereaved war moms all over America, and immortalized her son Casey as the face of the young Americans George W. Bush is so blithely feeding into the Iraq meatgrinder. Bush's presidency may never recover.

If this still isn't enough lists for you, pop on over to Modern Fabulousity, for all the lists you can possibly eat.

And stay tuned for my New Year's resolutions (all of them guaranteed to be broken) and my 10 best movies list, coming, oh, well, sometime.