"TV made him a hero, and we'll use TV to take him down" - New York City fire chief Jim Riches

Looks like the FDNY has had quite enough, thank you very much, of Rudy Giuliani trying to climb into the Oval Office on their shoulders:

A group of 9/11 firefighters and victims' family members with eyes on derailing Republican Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign is close to a decision on forming an entity that would run issue ads in key early nominating states.

"TV made him a hero, and we'll use TV to take him down," New York Fire Chief Jim Riches told ABC News.

The final decision about the formation of an outside entity will happen sometime within the next few weeks after the group finalizes its plans at a meeting scheduled for after Thanksgiving. So far, though, under Riches' leadership, the group has sought legal guidance and help from political consultants.

If the group decides to move forward, it would set up a 527 committee -- or something similar to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 helped sink Democratic Sen. John Kerry's White House bid.

This Monday, the firefighters and family members are holding a meeting at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire hoping to spread the word about what they say is Giuliani's "egregious" use of 9/11 for political gain.

The group also is considering additional trips to early presidential primary states Iowa, Florida and South Carolina.

Riches, who lost his firefighter son Jimmy in the World Trade Center's north tower, said, "We don't want him running on 9/11 or the bodies of all these dead people or my dead son saying that he did a great job that day."

Actually, that's pretty shitty journalism -- equating the lies told by the Swiftboaters with the FACTS to be presented by the FDNY. But that's the world we live in, where a lie told often enough becomes truth, whereas the truth if not told by wingnuts is regarded as lies. But of course we've come to expect that sort of thing from ABC.

The issue about the radios is real and is documented. And until Rudy Giuliani set himself up as the Saint of 9/11, the Tough Guy Who Knows All About Terrorism, and started lying about having been obsessed with terrorism for decades when he told the 9/11 Commission under oath that he really hadn't thought about it, it's unlikely that anyone would have made the radios an issue. But if Rudy is going to run on 9/11, then let's let him run on ALL of 9/11.

Labels: 9/11, FDNY, Rudy Giuliani

Just because they're not writing for Sumner Redstone at the moment doesn't meant they're not writing:



(And how much does John Oliver rock for appearing in this?)

Labels: The Daily Show

Boy, CNN really, really, really wants Hillary to be the Democratic nominee -- along with every other major corporation. You kind of have to wonder why that is and why those who think she's going to be some kind of force for change don't find anything odd about that.

But the one person for whom you have to feel badly is Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval, the UNLV student who asked Hillary if she prefers diamonds or pearls. Yesterday I was listening to Randi Rhodes and the callers were just brutal to this kid for asking such a trivial question.

Turns out that CNN told her what to say:

"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN...I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance. CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question."

Now, if I'd been in her shoes, I'd have either said "Fuck you, I won't do it" or said "OK" and then asked the question about Yucca Mountain anyway. After all, what are they going to do to me? Escort me out, at the end of the debate?

But I'm not a college student, and I'm not going to fault a 20-year-old for not being that quick on her feet in a nationally-televised situation. I am going to fault Randi's staff a bit for not getting the information about how CNN dictated the question to her, because it was already on the blogs by yesterday afternoon. And it's clear that many people were angry about the question, because Parra-Sandoval's MySpace page where the above quote that was reprinted at Huffington Post originally appeared is now set to private. (More here and here.)

There are two extraordinary articles in today's New York Times today; articles which we never would have seen were it not for the blogs, and which demonstrate clearly where the Times goes looking to see what stories are newsworthy. One of them is on Rudy Giuliani's change of tune about universal health care since he became a Republican presidential front-runner, and the other further serves to damns CNN for its obvious Hillary partisanship by having James Carville as part of the post-debate panel:

Among the experts trotted out by CNN to comment was James Carville, a Democratic strategist and CNN commentator who is also a close friend of Mrs. Clinton and a contributor to her campaign.

Mr. Carville’s presence aroused the fury of rivals and bloggers. They called it a conflict of interest and criticized CNN.

“Would it kill CNN to disclose that James Carville is a partisan Clinton supporter when talking about the presidential race?” Markos Moulitsas wrote on his liberal blog, Daily Kos. Mr. Moulitsas drew hundreds of comments.

Tom Reynolds, a spokesman for Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, said: “What you saw last night lacked full disclosure. The average viewer out in middle America may not know the inside-the-Beltway connection.”

A CNN executive conceded that the cable channel should have more fully disclosed Mr. Carville’s past and that it was discussing how to handle such situations.

The criticisms were among a series against CNN for how it managed the debate, a two-hour event in Las Vegas that ran nearly 15 minutes late. Viewers criticized segments like the opening, when candidates bounded onto the stage in a style reminiscent of a sports event.

Voters and commentators wrote online about how the audience cheered and booed, the way the CNN hosts reframed audience questions and whether it was correct to demand yes-or-no answers to complex questions.

Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval, a student who asked Mrs. Clinton whether she preferred diamonds or pearls (Mrs. Clinton answered “both”), said she had prepared a list of more serious questions but had been directed by CNN to ask her trivial question.

CNN said the debate was the most watched in this campaign, drawing more than four million viewers.

Viewers directed most of their criticism at the commentary. The channel has been ridiculed by conservative groups as the Clinton News Network, partly because its commentators include Mr. Carville and Paul Begala, an adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Carville said in a phone interview that he did not have a role in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and that he had “never been paid a nickel by her.”

He also said he considered her a close personal friend, had contributed to her presidential effort, had friends working for her campaign, planned to vote for her in the Virginia primary and spoke to Mr. Clinton regularly.

Carville too has a tin ear when it comes to such political connections, and obviously inadvertently told us how business is done in Washington by thinking that having "never been paid a nickel" somehow makes him less partisan towards her than being a close personal friend -- implying that money is the only currency of political support.

It is only to the good that CNN's obvious and han-fisted efforts to give Hillary Clinton a rebound after her subpar performance in the last debate is seeing the light of day. One can only hope that Iowa and New Hampshire voters ask themselves why the giant corporate media companies are trying so hard to get her the nomination. But equally important is the presence, albeit on page A34, of two stories that in the absence of blogs, would never, ever have seen the light of day in the mainstream media. Now granted, the blogs that gave "diamonds or pearls" story traction are alpha dogs like ThinkProgress, HuffPo, and the Talking Points Memo family of sites, but I don't care where the mainstream media finds these stories, as long as they pick them up and get them out there where the vast majority of Americans who don't yet read blogs get their news. Let it be an embarrassment to those outlets that refuse to cover them.

Labels: blogs, CNN, corporatism, Hillary Clinton

If this law in Colorado passes, that's exactly what you'd theoretically have to do (no, I'm not going to say "conceivably". That would be tacky):

The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person.

The court approved the language of the proposal, rejecting a challenge from abortion-rights supporters who argued it was misleading and dealt with more than one subject in violation of the state constitution.

If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process.

[snip]

t doesn't outlaw abortion, it doesn't regulate birth control," said Kristi Burton, 20, of Colorado for Equal Rights. "It's just a constitutional principle. We're laying a foundation that every life deserves protection.

Burton said the initiative would simply define a human.

"It's very clearly a single subject," Burton said. "If it's a human being, it's a person, and hey, they deserve equal rights under our law."

Back in the real world:

"Even if there were an accurate test for fertilization, a finding that some fertilized eggs do not implant after ECPs are taken would not mean that ECPs can work after fertilization, since many if not most fertilized eggs do not implant. ("Mechanism of action of emergency contraception pills", Contraception 74, 87-89)

How pregnancy (conception) occurs

Most women are able to become pregnant from puberty, when their menstrual cycles begin, until menopause, when their cycles stop. A pregnancy starts with fertilization, when a woman''s egg joins with a man''s sperm. Fertilization usually takes place in a fallopian tube that links an ovary to the uterus. If the fertilized egg successfully travels down the fallopian tube and implants in the uterus, an embryo starts growing.

Ovulation, fertilization, implantation

All the eggs for a woman''s lifetime are stored in her ovaries. Women do not continually produce eggs. This is different from men, who continuously make more sperm.

About once a month, an egg is released Click here to see an illustration. from one of a woman''s two ovaries. This is called ovulation. The egg then enters the nearby fallopian tube that leads to the uterus.

If a woman and a man have unprotected sexual intercourse, sperm that is ejaculated from the man''s penis may reach the egg in the fallopian tube. If one of the sperm cells penetrates the egg, the egg is fertilized and begins developing.

The egg takes several days to travel down the fallopian tube into the uterus. Once in the uterus, a fertilized egg usually attaches to (implants in) the lining of the uterus (endometrium). However, not all fertilized eggs successfully implant. If the egg is not fertilized or does not implant, the woman''s body sheds the egg and the endometrium. This shedding causes the bleeding in a woman''s menstrual period

When a fertilized egg does implant (conception), a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) begins to be produced in the uterus. This is the hormone that a pregnancy test measures. It prevents the uterine lining from being shed, so the woman does not have a period. O
Author: Merrill Hayden Last Updated May 23, 2006
Medical Review: Joy Melnikow, MD, MPH - Family Medicine
Kirtly Jones, MD - Obstetrics and Gynecology

© 1995-2007, Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.

So if this law passes, it means that if you have an ectopic pregnancy, you must die because your fertilized egg, which implanted in your fallopian tube, has a "right to life" -- even if it kills both itself and you in the process. It means no more IUDs, because IUDs make the uterus inhospitable to fertilized eggs. And it means that if you have a menstrual period, you may be committing murder if you had a fertilized egg that didn't implant -- whether you knew it or not.

So tell me how this law should NOT require government inspection of the products of menstruation?
(h/t)

Labels: fetophilia, insanity, wingnuttia

Even Dianne Feinstein broke with her Republican masters last night to send the telecom bill to the full Senate without immunity for the telecommunications companies that have illegally spied on Americans. It's clear that Republicans will try to add an amendment restoring such immunity, but Chris Dodd has already stated he will filibuster, thereby requiring Republicans to somehow garner 60 votes to pass it. Dianne Feinstein, despite her vote last night, and Jay Rockefeller, are reliable telecom lackeys, and can be expected to vote with Republicans. Let's see which other Democrats spit on the Constitution when the final bill comes up for a vote.

Labels: NSA wiretapping, telecommunications

I recorded the first part of the debate, and if someone else hasn't already uploaded it to YouTube, I'll try to put it up over the weekend.

Some quick thoughts:

Joe Biden: What a shame that this guy is such an egotistical blowhard and Washington insider tool of the banking companies, because he invariably gets the best lines in ("Don't do it, no! Don't make me speak!" ). When you don't have Mike Gravel on stage, he's the best jokester. Biden is a hell of a smart guy. Dead wrong most of the time, but smart.

Bill Richardson: A better performance than we've seen so far, but still seems to be running for Secretary of State in a Clinton administration.

Dennis Kucinich: Dennis gives me fits, because if I were going to vote on an issue-by-issue basis of who absolutely most closely reflects my values and what I'd like to see, it's Dennis Kucinich. But while pragmatism is the kind of thing that makes people think Hillary Clinton is "electable", I realize that my utopian dreams are never, ever going to be enacted into law, because this country is never going to elect a president who advocates a "Department of Peace." I love what Kucinich is standing for, and I adore him for being the one person in the House to introduce articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney. I want him out there fighting the good fight, but he's just not a viable presidential nominee.

Barack Obama: Obama looks tired and worn out already, which makes me wonder what he'd do when the Republicans get hold of him. He sounds like the college professor played by Donald Sutherland in National Lampoon's Animal House before taking the kids home to get high with him. He's knowledgeable, earnest, and utterly, fatally dull. Obama is going to be great someday, but he just doesn't seem ripe yet. And his naïve insistence that you can reach across the aisle and compromise with people who will leave you with a bloody stump where your arm used to be makes him fresh meat for the Republican hate machine. Sorry, Barack...not this year.

Chris Dodd: Good Lord, what on earth has this man done with his hair? And did he have Botox? He looked terrible. Dodd has had a fantastic couple of weeks, with his almost singlehanded crusade (along with Russ Feingold) to prevent the telecom companies from obtaining immunity from prosecution for illegal surveillance of Americans and mass dragnets of their communications. But last night he sounded just loud and bombastic.

Hillary Clinton: I realize that I'm the only progressive woman blogger in the country who DOES think Hillary is playing the gender card, but enough already with the "I'm inspiring to women" bullshit. I don't give a shit if Candis Cayne is president, if s/he can end this Godforsaken war in Iraq, stop the hemorrhaging of money in the Middle East, get us going on alternative energy, stop the migration of jobs overseas, and repair our reputation in the world. I'd love to be able to support a woman for president, but not one who's cozying up to Indian outsourcing firms, having lunch with Rupert Murdoch, and whose husband is making nice with the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife. You want me to believe you're a progressive, Hill? Then stop hanging out with the worst kind of corporatists and wingnuts.

John Edwards: Not quite as flawless as the last debate, but strong. The media has decided to put the Howard Dean is Angry cape on Edwards this time out, and this is one time when his youthful looks and honeyed voice serve him well to dispel that framing. This guy hasn't made $30 million in courtrooms fighting corporations for nothing. He correctly reminded the audience several times during the debate that the so-called "attacks" on Hillary Clinton aren't personal, but are about pointing out differences. He's not calling HER corrupt, but she IS working within a corrupt system, and it is perfectly legitimate to point that out.

See Edwards video from the debate here.


That the Iowa race is a dead heat at this point, and that John Edwards could possibly pull out a win is giving the mainstream media fits. Newsweek/MSNBC's Howard Fineman is doing his duty for General Electric by penning a love letter to Hillary. MSNBC's Chuck Todd is being a good corporate soldier by keeping up the notion that this is a two-person race. CNN political editor Mark Preston says she recovered after her last weak debate performance.

Because when you're Hillary Clinton, and you have America's biggest corporations behind you, not outright screwing up means you won.

Labels: 2008 election, democratic debate

I'm here for ya.

I was gonna post about the cyclone heading toward Bangladesh, but was just too damn lazy.

Ya never know with Mother Nature. She can be benevolent or a veritable hellion.

Headline: Powerful cyclone kills 242 in Bangladesh

The loss of life is truly ghastly. I would never have guessed the carnage would be so severe. I naïvely thought people would seek safe shelter. Then we come to the next story.

A huge earthquake hit Chile.

Headline: Quake kills 2, damages homes in Chile

Mother can surprise you.

OK, here's the education part of this fucking post. My mind is so full of trivia, facts, useless knowledge I need to spit some of it out now and then to make room for more trivia, facts and useless knowledge.

Let us start with a Richter Scale 3 earthquake which is just a damn annoyance to people on the west coast of the US. From there, things get really hairy.

The quake in Chile was 7.7 magnitude. Bear with me. This will floor you:

The magnitude of most earthquakes is measured on the Richter scale, invented by Charles F. Richter in 1934. The Richter magnitude is calculated from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave recorded for the earthquake, no matter what type of wave was the strongest.

The Richter magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale (base 10). What this means is that for each whole number you go up on the Richter scale, the amplitude of the ground motion recorded by a seismograph goes up ten times. Using this scale, a magnitude 5 earthquake would result in ten times the level of ground shaking as a magnitude 4 earthquake (and 32 times as much energy would be released). To give you an idea how these numbers can add up, think of it in terms of the energy released by explosives: a magnitude 1 seismic wave releases as much energy as blowing up 6 ounces of TNT. A magnitude 8 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 6 million tons of TNT. Pretty impressive, huh? Fortunately, most of the earthquakes that occur each year are magnitude 2.5 or less, too small to be felt by most people.

So we're talking 10 times 3. Then 10 times 4. Then 10 times 5. Then 10 times 6 plus a few more points.

Folks, that's goddamn huge. Thank God only 2 died.

FYI: Indonesia had a quake of 8.5 magnitude. So did Sumatra. And Alaska.

Hey, that's nearly 10 times the destructive force of the Chile quake. And the list of 8+ magnitude earthquakes is almost endless

As you should know by now, don't fuck with Mother Nature. You will never win.

Cross post from SPIIDERWEB™.

Labels: Mother Nature

Here are the stories that made me say "Holy shit!" today:

1. Barroid has been indicted:
   
   

   Major League Baseball's all-time home run king Barry Bonds was indicted Thursday on perjury and obstruction justice charges, according to KTVU reporter Rita Williams.
   
   The five-count indictment -- four counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice -- could put baseball's home run king in prison for up to 30 years.
   
   The White House quickly weighed in on the indictment. President Bush is a former owner of the Texas Rangers.
   
   "The president is very disappointed to hear this," Bush spokesman Tony Fratto said. "As this case is now in the criminal justice system, we will refrain from any further specific comments about it. But clearly this is a sad day for baseball."
   

   
   Yeah. And they "do not comment on an ongoing investigation", yada yada.


2. Leora McConnell, the dominatrix who allegedly taught George W. Bush all he knows about torture in the 1980's and who ran for governor of Nevada last year, is missing. (h/t: Jurassicpork)
   
3. David Bernstein, that wonderfully savvy radio guy hired by Mark Green to put "less substance" on the radio, who banished Sam Seder to three hours on Sunday (only one if you manage to get the New York affiiate) and decided that the ghastly "Lionel" was somehow a better choice, has had his job "eliminated". Where I come from, we call it "shitcanned." Note to Mark Green: Time to make nice with Marc Maron, arrange to give him the money the previous owners owed him after his divorce is final, and give the man the show he's deserved for the last two years, ever since Danny Goldberg decided to cancel Morning Sedition. And while you're at it, since Lionel probably has some iron-clad contract for some ungodly number of years, move Sam back to that 8-10 slot.
   

Labels: Air America, Baseball, George W. Bush

Last summer Mr. Brilliant and I went to Jamaica. Thanks to Harmon stores, which greet you upon entry with the world's largest assortment of teeny-tiny containers of everything you might need, we each had our little one-quart bag full of such teeny-tiny bottles, ready for inspection. It wasn't until after we'd gone through the checkpoint that I realized that one of the bottles I'd put in my one-quart plastic bag was a four-ounce bottle of Oil of Olay lotion. And I'd gotten through security.

So much for these ridiculous procedures we're going through at airports. Do they even really look at these things?

While they're pulling aside old ladies and asking them if they know Osama Bin Laden, it's still easy to smuggle bomb-making parts aboard planes:

Undercover investigators carried all the bomb components needed to cause "severe damage" to airliners and passengers through U.S. airport screening checkpoints several times this year, despite security measures adopted in August 2006 to stop such explosive devices, according to a new government report.

Agents were able to smuggle aboard a detonator, liquid explosives and liquid incendiary components costing less than $150, even though screening officers in most cases appeared to follow proper procedures and use appropriate screening technology, according to an unclassified version of a report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm.

The report concludes that the Transportation Security Administration needs to adopt even more stringent security measures, despite "a significant challenge in balancing security concerns with efficient passenger movement."

The report provoked sharp criticism of the TSA from members of Congress just days before the start of an expected record Thanksgiving holiday travel week. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which requested the investigation, plans a hearing on the subject this morning.

"These findings are mind-boggling," said the committee chairman, Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.). "In spite of billions of dollars and the six years TSA has had to deploy new technology and procedures, our airlines remain vulnerable. This is unacceptable. The American public deserves better."

Two years ago, TSA officials said they needed more time, more resources and better technology to provide adequate security, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), the panel's ranking Republican and former chairman, said in a written statement. "Unfortunately . . . TSA still cannot consistently detect or prevent prohibited items from being carried onto aircraft."

Six years after the 9/11 attacks, we are $1.5 trillion poorer, we are embroiled in war without end in the Middle East, Osama Bin Laden is still out there, you can still smuggle deadly items on board aircraft, and Tom Tancredo is out there saying that if you don't vote for him, you'll die in a terrorist attack, presumably enacted by Mexicans of Mass Destruction.

And we're supposed to believe that Republicans are the people who'll keep Americans safe?

Labels: air safety

I admire the way Matt Damon has been able to resurrect a once-promising and then moribund career and become one of the more interesting actors of his generation. After roaring out of the gate in Good Will Hunting and surviving one of Robin Williams' mid-career maudlin performances, it must have been difficult to watch buddy Ben Affleck become one of the country's biggest stars in big-dollar action clunkers while Damon was overshadowed by golden boys like Jude Law in movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley. But while Damon may have found the perfect character in Jason Bourne and held his own against a Leonardo DiCaprio finally emerging from his own hype machine in The Departed, from where I'm sitting, he still looks like a kid.

The People Magazine "Sexiest Man" issue is the swimsuit issue for the hair salon crowd. Year after year, this rag serves up the usual assortment of chiseled jaws, moussed hair, and six-pack abs to bring us an entirely predictable assortment of pretty boys (no matter how hard Johnny Depp tries to hide his looks behind the kind of fashion no other straight guy could pull off).

A few years ago, I had the idea to put out a "hunks of the left" calendar, which would feature the kind of guys towards whom we more cerebral gals gravitate. It never got off the ground, largely because I am too lazy to contact publicists asking for permission, research about fee structures and publishing and such. But today Salon takes a stab at some less predictable swoonworthy guys, such as:

• John Amaechi ("Amaechi's self-deprecation is beyond refreshing -- it's hot. Combine that with a British accent, a sharp sense of humor, a delightfully screwy dental structure, and a history of vocal opposition to the National Rifle Association, and you've got my vote for the gay male heartthrob of the year.")
  
• Ira Glass ("He could be all nerdy self-deprecation and we'd still be hot for him, but what's sexy about Glass is that he seems to know damn well how sexy he is: He's relaxed, he's genial, and he gazes at the camera with a directness that could bore a hole right into you.")
  
• Jeffrey Wright ("He's the actor whose depth and intelligence are no mere performance, the sex symbol with a degree in political science. With his slightly freckly face, deep brown eyes and rich, throaty purr of a voice, Wright never fights for your attention. He just smiles enigmatically and knows you'll give it anyway.")
  
• Sean Penn ("But not only is Sean Penn sexier with a mustache -- have you seen the style of mustache that Sean Penn has the massive cojones to walk out the door wearing? I've seen Sean Penn in magazines, his twisted mug in that semi-smile/semi-glower, staring lazily at the camera through squinty eyes with a pencil-thin Zorro clinging daintily to the ridge of his upper lip. Are you kidding me? Absolutely nobody should be able to do that. It would be like me, a half Jew, tugging on a pair of cowboy boots, perhaps the most fashion-risky footwear to tread the earth since the moccasin.")
  
• Flight of the Conchords (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement) ("A guy with a guitar is hot. A guy with an accent is hot. And a guy who can make us laugh is really, really hot. What, then, could be better than a man who embodies all of the above? Two men who do.")
  
• Peter Sarsgaard ("That wan smile of his blossoms easily into a goofy grin, and his signature murmur can shift quickly from soothing to menacing. He comes off as familiar, but also mysterious, in performances that are always layered and subtly intense.")

...and a choice that made me grin from ear to ear. It was a deep, dark secret that I kept during the days I was reviewing movies, because for some reason, Anthony Lane was regarded in the online critical circles in which I travelled as some kind of poseur. But for me, Lane was often THE reason to read The New Yorker (at least until Sy Hersh started pulling the veneer off the Bush Administration with a vengeance). If there's one thing hotter than a ferociously smart and funny and snarky New York Jew (see also: Sam Seder and Marc Maron, who were selected to appear on the HOTL calendar), it's a ferociously smart and funny and snarky English guy. The combination of Wildean bon mots, British humor, and cheekbones like cheese graters is the stuff of which weak knees are made. And he's straight! And while more recent photos don't look at all like this, in his book jacket still, he even looks like Lord Alfred Douglas as played by Jude Law.

The only other reviewers who ever made me laugh as hard at their writing are Paul Rudnick in Libby Gelman-Waxner drag, Vern, and Stephen Himes. the man on the Salon staff who selected Lane for this list of sexy men for thinking people, chose the following to illustrate the Lanean criticism universe:

"Widening her eyes to maximum chocolatey hue, she stares into his, which are of that sea-cold, grayish blue favored by Gestapo officers in war movies … In a last, despairing gesture to Georgian England, they do not kiss. Oddly, however, they do rub noses, like well-bred Eskimos, while the rising sun gleams between the tips."

My own list would contain people like:

Joseph Wilson: Tall, handsome, brave, age-appropriate. Is there anything sexier than a guy who'll take on to the right-wing noise machine to defend the honor of his wife? Add to that the swashbuckle of someone badass enough to stand up to Saddam Hussein and you have a kind of real-life James Bond who's also a loyal family man. And he has awesome hair, too.

Thomas Doerflein: We all know that we tend to go weak-kneed for glum, soulful types. But when the glum, soulful type spends almost a year of his life living at the zoo at which he works to hand-rear a polar bear club, the combination of brooding, nurturing, and cuteness is enough to make the cranium explode.

Carlos Delgado: Sure, he had a shitty year. But this is a guy who made a political statement about the Iraq War when it was actually dangerous for someone to do so, particularly when wearing a baseball uniform. A stand-up guy who never blamed anyone else for his failings this season, he's also gorgeous in that way that you don't notice until he's finished reading the teleprompter so dead-on that it looks like his eyes are boring into your soul. Then it's like a sledgehammer to the back of the head.

That's just a few of mine. Who would YOU put on YOUR list? Or if you're a guy, who would you like to be?

Labels: pop culture

When I was in junior high and high school, we learned American history. In eighth grade, my history teacher made us memorize the preamble to the Constitution. We were encouraged to do researh.

Today, students are expected to keep their mouths shut and not do anything creative or research anything controversial.

A group of New Orleans high school student recently learned a lesson about the cost of telling the truth.

Scout Prime at First Draft:

You may remember the video made by New Orleans high school kids that I posted last week. It effectively utilized humor in a critical treatment of the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers and called for support of an 8/29 investigation.

Well  ACE and ASCE are not happy about it and want the video pulled from YouTube though it is true that ASCE was paid $1 million by ACE and that...

The American Society of Civil Engineers confirmed the launch of an
internal ethics probe of its staff and members based on complaints by a
University of California-Berkeley professor, who served on a separate
independent panel investigating levee failures.

SNIP

The video was produced by Stanford Rosenthal, a senior at Isidore
Newman School and the son of Levees.org President Sandy Rosenthal, who
said her group would remove the video from the Web by Tuesday night,
although she believes the allegations it contains are accurate. It has
become an Internet phenomenon, garnering tens of thousands of viewers
in just a week.

"I told them, yes, we'd take it down, but our Webmaster is 17 years
old and is on a field trip and out of town," Rosenthal said Tuesday.
"That same youngster is going to be honored this week with the
outstanding youth and philanthropy award of the Association of
Fundraising Professionals." The student she is referring to is her son.

SNIP

"The reason we're taking it down, quite simply, is we just don't have
the personnel or resources to wage a legal battle with the ASCE,"
Rosenthal said, "even though we stand by every word of the public
announcement and contend it's completely accurate." (my emphasis)

I see now that the video is no longer publicly available at YouTube (though it can still be seen at the Times Picayune site)

In the name of free speech and truth, here's the video:



(h/t: Skippy)

If life is commerce is art is politics...well, The Tipping Point has arrived:


Shot in the Andes, this is the most expensive commercial that Guinness has ever made.
The creators, as seen in the "Making Of" video below, seem to have inadvertently piled the things of life into what might, here in America, be construed as a huge social statement, where a simple game turns into a domino rally that becomes a deconstruction or disassembly of life in a town that holds the dusty remains of a post apocalyptic America.

OK, OK...its just two silly Brits sitting around and making things up, and a bunch of special effects guys figuring how to rig it, but to me there is something about things falling, falling, falling , and ending in a huge ...er...beer... that smacks a little close to home these days.



c/p RIPCoco

Labels: media

Remember 2004, when Dick Gephardt and John Kerry tag-teamed Howard Dean, and then Kerry became the anointed nominee because as a war hero, he was more "electable"?

How'd that "electability" thing work out for ya, America? Not so hot, right? Even if John Kerry has now, three years after the election, decided he's going to fight back against being swiftboated. Barn door, horse, etc.

But if the latest New York Times/CBS News poll is to be believed, voters are still trying to parse what they think other voters are thinking in determining whom to support:

Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — the states that begin the presidential nominating battle — say Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards are more likely than Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to say what they believe, rather than what they think voters want to hear, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Polls. But they also view Mrs. Clinton as the best prepared and most electable Democrat in the field, the polls found.

Republican voters in those two states say that Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, shares their values and views on immigration, a red-hot issue for Republicans in Iowa especially. But they are divided over whether Mr. Romney or Rudolph W. Giuliani, who Republican voters say does not share their values, would be the party’s strongest general-election candidate — and electability looms as a crucial factor for Republican voters in those states.

[snip]

...50 percent of New Hampshire Democrats said they would not be prepared to vote for a candidate who wanted to keep troops in Iraq “longer than you would like,” even if they thought the Democrat had a good chance of victory in November.

This makes absolutely no sense, if a majority of Democrats think that the candidate who best reflects their values is not electable, but they think that the most political animal is the one OTHERS will vote for?

I'm starting to think the caucus format is a better idea than a primary, because it at least gets people out TALKING to each other. Perhaps if voters understand what drives their fellow voters, they'll stop this assumption, fed by the media, that the candidate they don't really want is the one for whom everyone else will vote.

Labels: 2008 election

Oh, the Bernie Kerik saga just keeps getting better:

Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed today protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.

The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.

Ms. Regan makes the charge at the start of a 70-page filing that seeks $100 million in damages for what she says was a campaign to smear and discredit her by her bosses at HarperCollins and its parent company, News Corporation, after her project to publish a book with O.J. Simpson was abandoned amid a storm of protest.

In the civil complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Ms. Regan says the company has long sought to promote Mr. Giuliani’s ambitions. But the lawsuit does not elaborate on that charge, identify the executive who she says pressured her to mislead investigators, or offer details to support her claim.

In fact, the allegation about the executive makes up a small part of a much broader array of claims concerning what she says was her improper removal from a job atop one of the more commericially successful book publishing operations.

A News Corporation spokeswoman who declined to be named said that the company saw no merit in the filing.

Ms. Regan had an affair with Mr. Kerik, who is married, beginning in the spring of 2001, when her imprint, ReganBooks, began work on his memoir, “The Lost Son.” In December 2004, after the relationship had ended and shortly after Mr. Kerik’s homeland security nomination fell apart, newspapers reported that the two had carried on the affair at an apartment near ground zero that had been donated as a haven for rescue and recovery workers.

Mr. Kerik, who said he had withdrawn his nomination because of problems with his hiring of a nanny, was indicted last week on federal tax fraud and other charges.

“Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”

One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.

"We are fully confident that the evidence will show that Judith Regan was the victim of a vicious smear campaign engineered by News Corporation and HarperCollins," Mr. Kerr said.

The Smoking Gun has the filing.

That News Corp. wanted to discredit Judith Regan is hardly something over which to shed tears. When one unsavory party goes after another unsavory party, the Rules of Schadenfreude dictate that all we should do is pop a bag of Orville Redenbacher (or since I'm not crazy about popcorn, rip open a bag of something from Dale and Thomas). But if we're talking about the parent company of Fox News telling Regan to lie to investigators about Bernie Kerik in order to protect Rudy Giuliani's presidential aspirations, suddenly we have a "news" network operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over what are PUBLIC AIRWAVES, as an advocacy arm for a particular presidential candidate (although unannounced at the time). Imagine the outcry on the right if MSNBC's entire programming strategy was designed to prop up the reputation of Hillary Clinton. (And for all those wingnuts who will find their way here, spare me the talk of "liberal" Keith Olbermann, who's been plenty tough on Hillary. And Chris Matthews' hatred for her borders on the pathological.)

UPDATE: No one delivers more hairball-hawking Rudy Judy Judy goodness than Lower Manhattanite.

Labels: Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani

When I see an idiot in high station I will add such terrors to his elevation as I can. I will put as many thorns in his crown as the leisure that I can snatch from the pressure of other pleasures will permit me to weave in. And neither the deprecation of his friends nor his own retaliatory lies shall stop the good work. - Ambrose Bierce

It’s no secret that I’m an avid reader and fan of The Nation magazine. Mrs. JP got me one of the best Xmas presents I ever got in a subscription to that wonderful old liberal rag last year and I fully intend on renewing my subscription.

A necessary antidote to the toxic hateful stupidity of parakeet liners such as the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic and the National Review, The Nation covers political, social and cultural items of great interest generally snooted over by the corrupt, lazy and increasingly rightwing corporate boardroom-controlled media. And they hire and commission on spec some of the best and brightest liberal journalists in America such as the recently-departed David Corn, Jeremy Scahill, Naomi Klein, Max Blumenthal and others to author well-researched articles that ought to be of interest to all Americans.

However, I have to take exception to Ellen Chesler’s paean to Hillary Clinton in the 11/26/07 edition. The cover story, “A Time to Choose”, offers profiles of the eight Democratic presidential contenders written by eight different people, among them Gore Vidal (on Dennis Kucinich, offering in the process a good partial explanation why Kucinich was back in 1993 unfairly named one of the Cleveland’s five worst mayors) and Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson (on Bill Richardson).

Since I’ve studied all eight candidates in depth, I’m in a position to say there’s not much to disagree with since many of the profiles (not all of which are outright endorsements. John Nichols, for example, who’d written Joe Biden’s profile, echoed my political sentiments when he wrote that he’d rather see Sen. Russ Feingold throw his hat in the ring. Amen, brother) are well-written and, for the most part, well-vetted.

Ellen Chesler’s contribution on Hillary Clinton begins with feminism, continues groping in blindness and ends with unabashed feminist partisanship. Actually, the angry feminism begins in the third paragraph when she writes, “She stumbled momentarily in the seventh round under withering personal attack by six angry men.”

There are so many very egregious lapses in factual remembrance packed into those 15 words that I’m virtually paralyzed with indecision as to where to start.

Firstly, Hillary was not “attacked” in a spate of misogynistic ad hominems. She was called on her equivocations and for opting for the non-committal scripted line over taking a stand. Secondly, Chesler all but claims that poor Hillary “stumbled” (there’s that word again) only after being victimized by this televised political gang-banging. As I’ve just said, criticisms aimed at her were partly about her fence-straddling rather than being the cause for it. Hillary clearly wasn’t prepared to take a stand on anything but abstract talking points and bland, well-worn criticisms of the Bush administration.

Thirdly, Chesler is guiltiest of hyperbole in saying that it was “six angry men” who’d attacked her. There were six men on stage that night but they weren’t angry as much as exasperated by Clinton’s pitch-pipe politics and finger to wind positioning. Dennis Kucinich wouldn’t pile on since he was, typically, gagged and marginalized and Bill Richardson wouldn’t have any of it and played a tubby Don Quixote to Hillary’s Dulcinea (in fact, the few men who’d bothered criticizing her, it ought to be noted, immediately came to heel after Richardson’s admonishment. Read the transcript, if you don’t believe me.).

Now, if we were to accept Chesler’s creative chronology of events of the debate a fortnight ago, it would go like this:

Hillary gets criticized. Hillary crumbles.

My question: In the immensely pressurized world of presidential politics, in which political injury is often much more serious than being needled by your party’s peers for certain campaign contributions from anti-progressive, self-dealing industries and for disingenuousness, is Hillary Clinton really the person you want in the hub of that high stakes, incalculably dangerous world? (Indeed, Chesler’s high dungeon at Hillary’s imagined rogering seems to run counter to the principles of true feminism, which would encourage battle with the male elite in order to prove equal to them, not to be indignant about such confrontations because of the so-called inequality of gender.)

Fortunately, we’ll never have to actually ask ourselves that question because Hillary Clinton is tougher than stale beef jerky and would make for a surprisingly strong president. So Hillary wouldn’t cave under criticism or pressures from Democratic has-beens and also-rans or Third World tyrants.

She would however, cave in to Republican tyrants like Bush and Cheney and Senate Republicans. She did it and not for the first time last September when she cast yet another disastrous vote to add her voice to the growing chorus condemning Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization (something Chesler conveniently sidesteps.).

And since we’re talking about pirouetting in the pasture, I had to bark out a laugh when I read about how tough Hillary was on Michael Mukasey (even though she’s not on the Judiciary Committee).

Funny, that, because I don’t seem to recall hearing any “impassioned opposition” to Mukasey during crunch time. That may have something to do with the fact that Hillary wasn’t there for the up-and-down confirmation vote (neither, for that matter, were the other three Democrats vying for the Oval Office. McCain played hooky, too.)

Did she withhold her vote to once again keep from solidifying her position on Mukasey’s fitness to be AG because she didn’t want to be perceived as soft on terror, which has proved time and again a still-formidable boogeyman to use against Democrats? And is Mukasey already so synonymous with torture that opposing him, someone who was himself as evasive and non-committal as Hillary, would be construed as being weak on terrorism?

Clinton’s, Biden’s, Obama’s and Dodd’s no-shows didn’t affect the 53-40 outcome. But their cowardly refusal to make their verbal opposition known and official regardless of how they’d predicted the outcome isn’t exactly a profile in courage nor is anything close to the kind of leadership that we already desperately need now let alone from 2009 on. Not a single Republican voted against Mukasey and only three withheld their votes. Hillary and her rivals actually succeeded in once again making the government-loathing Republican party look more committed to their core principles, as rancid as they are, and to the Democratic process than even the Democrats themselves.

Elsewhere, Chesler claims that health care is Hillary’s “signature issue.” Uh huh. Well, let’s just conveniently forget that Iran really is, in light of her recent vote and her own saber-rattling of late.

Let’s explore, instead, Chesler herself conveniently forgetting that Clinton had studiously avoided talking substantively about universal health care for the first 6-7 months of her campaign. Just as she forgot that Hillary didn’t unveil her own “health care plan” until long after Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Kucinich had rolled out their own.

Just as Chesler conveniently forgot that that Hillary’s plan, while giving little patient perks, primarily is dedicated to further bloat a managed health care industry that’s been licking its chops and rubbing it hands waiting for a plan such as this. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of health care plan that reflects the massive donations made to the presidential campaign of the person who’d largely written it. This, in spite of an all-but unanimous consensus among progressive voters that a single payer, not-for-profit plan is the way to go.

Still, at least she didn’t give a target date of January 2013 for a universal health care plan as Obama did back in March.

Finally, Chesler gets around to telling us what I suspect to be her overarching rationale for her endorsement: “I am supporting Hillary Clinton because I think she is the best candidate for this job, but I shamelessly want her to win because she is a woman.” Ah, finally, some truth.

But I have to ask in response: Is it really so important that we make feminist history by putting in the White House an “independent”, empowered woman who chooses to use her popular husband’s surname instead of Rodham when we’re still in the middle of making history of the most disastrous variety, a history that Hillary wants to see extended until at least the end of her first term? A history that she seems dedicated to extending to a country east of Iraq on yet another pack of long-digested lies?

Barack Obama is either delusional, under some kind of voodoo Joe Lieberman mind control, or a complete sellout after less than one term -- and the Republicans will eat him for lunch if he's the nominee. Because those guys play for keeps. Winning isn't enough; they have to destroy their opposition, then burn the corpse, then eat it, to make sure the opposition is really dead. You simply cannot be conciliatory with these people. You cannot "reach across the aisle" or you'll pull back a bloody stump.

(h/t: Digby)

Labels: Barack Obama, spinelessness

Sometimes when I hear the things that my friends who have children tell me I wonder what the hell is happening in suburbia. It's clear that the social-climbing, keeping up with the Joneses factor is ferocious in some communities, particularly those situated next to more affluent ones. In recent years it's been fed by a wave of home equity loan-financed purchases of more cars, home theatres, giant additions designed so that children never, ever have to share a bathroom, luxury vacations, and other trappings of what middle-class people believe to be characteristic of the lives of the wealthy. I know people whose kids refuse to wear anything that doesn't come from Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch -- companies whose stores refuse to hire anyone who isn't, as the mother of one employee who looked like a cross between Jodie Foster and Gwyneth Paltrow once told me, "perfect."

Kids have always been cruel to each other. I was a chubby kid and I developed pimples at the age of nine, which ended up with me being called by a nickname that referred to my skin problems by the very boys I wanted to like me when I was thirteen. I look at photos of myself from that time and wonder about the disconnect between how I felt and how I looked. But at least in those days, kids had to be cruel to your face, or if not to your face, at least it took place in meat world.

Today, kids can gang up on each other without even leaving the house. Perhaps what happened to the Meier family could have happened even when I was a kid. I'm sure that even then, there were kids who killed themselves because they could no longer bear the ridicule of their peers. But what the hell does it say about a society in which PARENTS get involved in the tormenting? What kind of sick fuck do you have to be to play mind games with a teenager because she had a falling out with your kid?

If I were an adolescent now, I probably wouldn't have survived to adulthood either.

(via Melissa)

Labels: Ugly Americans

David Brooks, last Friday, November 9:

Today, I’m going to write about a slur. It’s a distortion that’s been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months. It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale.

[snip]

The distortion concerns a speech Ronald Reagan gave during the 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., which is where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier. An increasing number of left-wing commentators assert that Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign with a states’ rights speech in Philadelphia to send a signal to white racists that he was on their side. The speech is taken as proof that the Republican majority was built on racism.

The truth is more complicated.

[snip]

In reality, Reagan strategists decided to spend the week following the 1980 Republican convention courting African-American votes. Reagan delivered a major address at the Urban League, visited Vernon Jordan in the hospital where he was recovering from gunshot wounds, toured the South Bronx and traveled to Chicago to meet with the editorial boards of Ebony and Jet magazines.

Lou Cannon of The Washington Post reported at the time that this schedule reflected a shift in Republican strategy. Some inside the campaign wanted to move away from the Southern strategy used by Nixon, believing there were more votes available in the northern suburbs and among working-class urban voters.

But there was another event going on that week, the Neshoba County Fair, seven miles southwest of Philadelphia. The Neshoba County Fair was a major political rallying spot in Mississippi (Michael Dukakis would campaign there in 1988). Mississippi was a state that Republican strategists hoped to pick up. They’d recently done well in the upper South, but they still lagged in the Deep South, where racial tensions had been strongest. Jimmy Carter had carried Mississippi in 1976 by 14,000 votes.

So the decision was made to go to Neshoba. Exactly who made the decision is unclear. The campaign was famously disorganized, and Cannon reported: “The Reagan campaign’s hand had been forced to some degree by local announcement that he would go to the fair.” Reagan’s pollster Richard Wirthlin urged him not to go, but Reagan angrily countered that once the commitment had been made, he couldn’t back out.

[snip]

...spoke mostly about inflation and the economy, but in the middle of a section on schools, he said this: “Programs like education and others should be turned back to the states and local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can at the community level and the private level.”

The use of the phrase “states’ rights” didn’t spark any reaction in the crowd, but it led the coverage in The Times and The Post the next day.

It's unusual for one New York Times columnist to so publicly smack down another, but Bob Herbert masterfully does it to Brooks today:

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.

Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

Congress overrode the veto.

Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too.

Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up that dismal record.

Game, set, match to Herbert

Labels: Bob Herbert, civil rights, David Brooks

As Grandpa Fred sinks slowly into the oblivion of the vanity candidacy, the Washington press corps needs a new face with which to fall in love. They thought it would be Thompson, but with his obsession with the Soviet Union, his public declarations that he really doesn't so much want to BE president as to DO things you can only do if you're president (forgetting that in theory at least, there still are two other branches of government), and his general attitude of "I don't give a shit but vote for me anyway", he's made it impossible to prop up his candidacy.

Before that they thought it would be Rudy Giuliani, but the more we know about the extent of Bernie Kerik's crimes, and the nuttier Rudy sounds, the more difficult it is for so-called "serious people" to take him seriously. And before that it was Mitt Romney, who was "perfect" or "well-sculpted", and "looks like a president" -- until he opened his mouth.

Now it's Mike Huckabee, the unflashy Baptist Preacher who's the Republican "Man from Hope", Arkansas. It's easy, as even I did, to regard Huckabee as the least loathsome option -- until you look at his record. I've already linked to Tristero's terrific coverage of his granting of clemency to Wayne Dumond, who had raped a woman who turned out to be a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. The wingnuts decided that this meant by definition that Dumond had been framed, and so Huckabee let the guy out -- whereupon he proceeded to rape and kill two more women. But it's more than just the Dumond case. In Salon today, Arkansas journalist Mike Brantley debunks the rest of the "Huckabee's Fundamental Decency" myth:

Huckabee seems to love loot and has a dismissive attitude toward ethics, campaign finance rules and propriety in general. Since that first, failed campaign, the ethical questions have multiplied.

In the 1992 contest with Bumpers, Huckabee used campaign funds to pay himself as his own media consultant. Other payments went to the family babysitter.

In his successful 1994 run for lieutenant governor, he set up a nonprofit curtain known as Action America so he could give speeches for money without having to disclose the names of his benefactors. He failed to report that campaign travel payments were for the use of his own personal plane.

After he became governor in 1996, he raked in tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including gifts from people he later appointed to prestigious state commissions.

In the governor's office, his grasp never exceeded his reach. Furniture he'd received to doll up his office was carted out with him when he left, after he'd crushed computer hard drives so nobody could ever get a peek behind the curtain of the Huckabee administration.

Until my paper, the Arkansas Times, blew the whistle, he converted a governor's mansion operating account into a personal expense account, claiming public money for a doghouse, dry-cleaning bills, panty hose and meals at Taco Bell. He tried to claim $70,000 in furnishings provided by a wealthy cotton grower for the private part of the residence as his own, until he learned ethics rules prevented it. When a disgruntled former employee disclosed memos revealing all this, the Huckabee camp shut her up by repeatedly suggesting she might be vulnerable to prosecution for theft because she'd shared documents generated by the state's highest official.

He ran the State Police airplane into the ground, many of the miles in pursuit of political ends. Inauguration funds were used to buy clothing for his wife. He once took control of the state Republican Party's campaign account -- then swore the account had been somebody else's responsibility when it ran afoul of federal election laws. He repeated the pattern when he claimed in a newspaper story that his staff controlled the account to stage his second inauguration. When I filed a formal ethics complaint over what appeared to be an improper appropriation of donated money, he told a different story, disavowing responsibility for the money. He thus avoided another punishment from an Ethics Commission, which had sanctioned him on five other occasions. He dodged nine other complaints (though none, despite his counter-complaints, was held to be frivolous). In one case, he was saved by the swing vote of a woman who left the chairmanship of the Ethics Commission days later to take a state job. She listed the governor as a reference on the job application. Finally, unbelievably, Huckabee once sued to overturn the ban on gifts to him.

[snip]

Huckabee insists he's not one of those harsh, punitive, "angry" conservatives, but again, there are witnesses who might say otherwise if anyone's interested.

Ask the retarded Fort Smith teenager, raped by her stepfather, who sought Medicaid funding for an abortion as federal law required. Huckabee stood in the hospital door, at least figuratively, to prevent state funding. Ask the gay people belittled by his cracks about "Adam and Steve." Ask the scientists who've seen evolution virtually disappear from the textbooks and classrooms of Arkansas with his administration's acquiescence.

Social issues alone should give moderates pause. He championed a law in Arkansas making it harder to get a divorce, the so-called covenant marriage law that has been widely ignored except when he and his wife recommitted in a Valentine's Day publicity stunt held in a 17,000-seat arena.

[snip]

But then, you don't have to believe me about any of this. After all, I live in Little Rock and, as Huckabee has often said, I'm just the editor of a trashy, throwaway liberal tabloid. Why not look instead to a conservative voice from the national media? At the American Spectator, once home to the anti-Clinton Arkansas Project, senior editor Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial writer, wrote recently, "National media folks like David Brooks [of the New York Times], dealing in surface appearances only, rave about what a nice guy Huckabee is, and a moral exemplar to boot. If they only did a little homework, they would discover a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics."

Republicans are desperate for the perfect candidate, a candidate who can somehow keep the 28-percenters who still regard George W. Bush as the second coming of Christ in the fold without being seen as Just More of George. The media are also desperate for a Republican candidate who can somehow overcome Americans' disgust with Republican doctrine. This is a desperation that is probably not necessary, given the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the party's determination to nominate the most divisive and corporatist candidate possible, and the Democratic Congress' demonstrated willingness to crumple into a fetal position in the corner at the mere thought of the words "weak on terrorism".

But if there was ever a case of "Not to know him is to love him", it's Mike Huckabee.

Labels: 2008 election, Mike Huckabee, Republicans

The Republican candidates for president seem to be having a contest as to which one can be the most idiotic in the quest to appeal to the worst reptilian brain components of their constituency.

First we had Rudy Giuliani saying that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would invite Osama bin Laden to their inauguration (and would that be so terrible if it meant he were apprehended?). Now we have Mitt Romney saying that Adam and Eve looked "promiscuous".

No, I am not joking.

Jake Tapper:

Romney: Adam and Eve looked slutty
November 10, 2007 6:39 PM

OK, that's not quite what he said, but still...the former Massachusetts Governor (and current Iowa and New Hampshire GOP frontrunner) made an odd joke, it seemed to me, while campaigning in New Hampshire today, reports ABC News' ace cub reporter Matt Stuart (LINK).

At one young couple's house, Romney remarked at the large leaves on their tree, quipping, "Adam and Eve would not have looked as promiscuous if they had had leaves this big."

Huh?

Adam and Eve were naked. (Before eating from the Tree of Knowledge, that is, after which they became ashamed of their nakedness.)

Does naked = promiscuous?

Asked what he meant, a Romney spokesman told Stuart he meant what he said.

Adam and Eve looked promiscuous? Remember that scene from Bananas in which the new "President" of San Marcos dictates that all citizens must change their underwear every half hour and wear it on the outside, so he can check:



Doesn't sound like just the stuff of screwball comedies anymore, does it?

(h/t)

Labels: insanity, Mitt Romney, Republicans

Remember this?

TIA was the massive surveillance program to be run by Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter at the Pentagon that was defunded by Congress in 2003 as part of the 2004 defense appropriations bill.

As Eliot Cohen notes, S2248, the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 that would give Big Telecom retroactive immunity from prosecution for its role in the program (much of which went ahead anyway, at AT&T's San Francisco Hub) essentially makes TIA completely legal:

S. 2248 is now before the Senate Judiciary, and will be voted on in just a few days. Unless public opposition is once again vigilant and strong, this new TIA bill has a good chance of passing in committee and of reaching the full Senate floor. Unfortunately, the dire consequences of this legislation for the survival of democracy in America, including the potential to destroy fair elections, have been greatly muted, misrepresented, and downplayed by the mainstream media; and mounting pressure on Congress from both the Bush Administration and the giant telecommunication corporations have combined to increase the odds that S. 2248 will soon become law.

The bill would quash about 40 pending lawsuits against AT&T by granting it full retroactive legal immunity for its alleged role in helping the National Security Agency (NSA) acquire the contents of millions of domestic and international electronic messages sent by American citizens through the AT&T network. These messages were allegedly routed to secret rooms requiring NSA clearance hidden deep inside major AT&T hubs throughout the United States for purposes of building a massive data mine. This unprecedented surveillance offensive was first exposed in 2005 when an AT&T employee at the San Francisco hub blew the whistle.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil liberties organization based in San Francisco that has filed a class action suit against AT&T, the company had installed a fiber-optic splitter at its San Francisco office that copies all e-mails and other Internet traffic passing through the system and deposits these copies into a separate government computer network. The EFF alleges that the secret NSA rooms, to which the copies are sent, contain "powerful computer equipment connected to separate networks. This equipment is designed to analyze communications at high speed, and can be programmed to review and select out the contents and traffic patterns of communications according to user-defined rules" (emphasis added).

With this cooperation from the telecoms, the Bush Administration now appears to have realized a major component of its TIA project, a publicly denounced program that was presumed to have been abandoned by the Bush Administration. The purpose of this project was to "imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness." In its present form, the integrated surveillance network has the capacity to maintain fully searchable copies of the contents of all electronic communications of American citizens. Since there is virtually no judicial oversight, the Bush Administration now has a blank check to define its search criteria any way it wishes, not only to look for terrorists but also for anyone else it may deem a threat -- including investigative reporters and political opponents.

It would be the most hideous of ironies if the one program whose very logo conjures up tinfoil hattery with its slogan of "Scientia est Potentia" -- Knowledge is Power -- and its eye-in-the-pyramid symbol -- were to be enshrined in law, not by Republicans who have marched in lockstep with this aspiring dictator of a president, but by the party that's been the only place to look to apply the brakes to this march towards fascism.

Labels: FISA, NSA wiretapping, totalitarianism

Yup...thunderstorms at 9:30 at night in November when it's 45 degrees out are perfectly normal...

Labels: global warming, weather

Does anyone else find it interesting -- and more than a little bit appalling -- that the only "person with special abilities" on Heroes whose "special ability" consists solely of causing people to die is a Latina trying to get across the border into the US?

Labels: Heroes, xenophobia

On the one side, there's being charged with federal crimes. On the other, there's the deaths of almost 3000 people right before your very eyes. No difference, right?

That's right -- if you are Bernie Kerik, who is proving to be every bit the "It's All About Me" narcissist that his boss Adolf (sic) Giuliani is:

I just want to say I'm disappointed the government brought forward this case. It is an extremely difficult time for me and my family," Kerik said.

"My life has been marked by challenge ... (This is) the worst challenge, until this time (since) my challenges during and after 9/11," Kerik said.

There you go: noun, verb, and 9/11.

And here's what he did:

IRS officials said Kerik did not claim more than $500,000 in income on his tax forms. This includes more than $200,000 he received from a New Jersey construction firm, Interstate Industrial, that was seeking city contracts at the time. The payment came in the form of free renovations to Kerik's then Riverdale apartment. In exchange, prosecutors said Kerik set up meetings with city officials to try to help the firm get contracts even though it had alleged ties to the mafia. Prosecutors said from 1998-2006, Kerik engaged in a conspiracy to cover up the payments he received from Interstate. When he applied for government posts, including U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, the indictment alleges Kerik lied about his ties to Interstate. They also say he lied by never reporting that he had received a a $500,000 loan from a wealthy Israeli industrialist. In addition to the renovation work, Kerik allegedly cheated on his taxes by not reporting $75,000 in royalties from a book deal, claiming New Jersey residence to avoid paying NYC taxes while living in an Upper East Side apartment and had claimed $80,000 in charitable deductions, contributions prosecutors said he never made. Officials said as he was leaving the post as police commissioner, he accepted a free Upper East Side apartment from a wealthy developer and future business associate. The apartment rent was worth $9,000 a month and totaled more than $236,000 in free rent over a two year period. Kerik allegedly never claimed this benefit on his tax returns.

But this is exactly the same as almost 3000 people losing their lives in a terrorist attack. Just like Rudy Giuliani's 29 hours at Ground Zero make him the same as those who worked on the pile for months.

Haven't we had enough sociopaths in the federal government for one lifetime?

Labels: Bernie Kerik, corruption, narcissism, Rudy Giuliani, sociopathy

This is what utter, dismal failure gets you if you're of the monied class:

This year, thousands of Citigroup employees can expect bonuses based on their work in 2007, when the bank’s results have been less than stellar. One, however, will get a bonus based largely on his performance in 2006, which was a better year: Charles O. Prince III, who resigned under pressure as chairman and chief executive last week.

Mr. Prince, arguably the person most responsible for Citigroup’s enormous problems, can expect at least a $12.5 million cash bonus, compared with last year’s cash payout of $13.8 million.

And as he awaits his official retirement next month, Mr. Prince can rest assured that he will leave with $68 million, including his salary and accumulated stockholdings; a $1.7 million pension; an office, car and driver for up to five years — all in addition to the bonus. That is on top of $53.1 million he has taken home in the last four years, a period when $64 billion in the company’s market value has evaporated.

His $12.5 million bonus is based on a formula that adjusts the 2006 bonus for current stock performance, instead of simply awarding it on his performance during 2007, as with most everyone else. Pay experts say the unusual time-traveling maneuver effectively guarantees him a windfall.

Mr. Prince’s payout raises questions about Citigroup’s compensation philosophy at a time when Wall Street bankers are anxious about smaller bonuses and the current credit crisis. It also raises new questions for Citigroup’s board, which for years handed Mr. Prince lavish paychecks that encouraged risk-taking — and is now handing him extra money despite the billions in losses on his watch.

While the rest of us are told that there are no jobs for us because we "lack the necessary qualifications" at the same time as companies are clamoring for increases in H-1B visas, and while the rest of us are subject to employer whim or the financial realities of our employers, these guys who run companies into the ground never have to worry about a cent for the rest of their lives WHEN THEY FAIL. With this kind of reward for failure, where's the incentive to succeed?

Labels: corporatism, greed

What the hell is wrong with these people? I can't put it any better than Toby Barlow does:

News Alert: If You Love Renewable Energy, It's Time to Freak Out
Pelosi and Reid are just about to do the stupidest thing imaginable: pull the rug out from underneath the blossoming renewable energy economy at the time when we need it most.

(Start reaching for your phone...)

Just as every single magazine in the country is giving the energy crisis more press than Paris Hilton, and just as renewable energy is becoming the entrepreneurial equivalent of the internet revolution and just as the news about climate change is getting weirder and scarier every time we open the freakin' paper, our crazy-assed Democratic leaders are completely dropping the ball, and you gotta call Capitol Hill right now and tell them to get their head's straight fast.

As Adam Browning of Vote Solar put it "Thursday morning, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi decided to drop the renewable energy standard out of the energy bill and drop the tax title. No tax title means no extension of the investment tax credit for solar, and no extention of the production tax credit for wind. Let's see...nothing for solar, plus nothing for wind, hmmm, add no renewable energy standard, carry the zero...yep, that adds up to precisely nothing for renewable energy.

Got that? Congressional leadership is moving an energy bill with nothing in it for renewable energy. Dropping the biggest pro-solar provision this country has ever seen, just when the industry is gaining momentum and making an impact."

According to Adam, we've got maybe 24 hours to turn this around. 24 hours. That's not a lot of time.

Nancy Pelosi's office: 202- 225-4965
Harry Reid's office: 202-224-3542

Ask them who's paying them, and how much. No, don't. But DO ask whom they think they're representing with this. Then comment back on what they tell you.

Labels: corporatism, Democrats, renewable energy

As if Ben & Jerry's wasn't already the most rockin' ice cream on the planet:

John Edwards' latest endorsement was sweet.

Caucus4Priorities, a group headed by Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, backed the Democratic presidential candidate on Friday. The group, dedicated to cutting wasteful Pentagon spending, says it has 10,000 Iowa members who promise to vote for Edwards in the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Cohen, chairman of the Iowa organization and founder of the national Priorities Action Fund, joined Edwards at a news conference to announce his endorsement.

He said the next president needs to cast off "obsolete weapons from a bygone era that do nothing to protect us from today's threats."

"Our politicians in Washington have neither the spine nor the whit to make these choices, and the people who end up paying the price are our kids," Cohen said. "Well, the jig is up, and Iowa is leading the change."

Edwards will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe, but he won't do it at the expense of other priorities, Cohen said.

If elected, Edwards said he would examine the nation's missile defense system and the F-22 fighter jet.

"The idea that America, over the long-term, can control the spread of nuclear weapons _ and just look at what's happening in Pakistan as a perfect example of this _ is a fantasy, it will not happen," he said.

Cohen said nearly all of the Democratic candidates had courted support from the group. Members of the organization have become a fixture at campaign events, where they hand out brightly colored pens, frosted cookies and stickers, all featuring a pie chart that details Washington spending.

Peggy Huppert, Caucus4Priorities director, said that over the past two years the group's staff and volunteers attended 550 campaign events and asked more than 250 questions of the candidates.

"Now we plan to turn our persuasion and education efforts toward making caucus night a victory for John Edwards," she said. "10,000 caucus-goers can tip the scales in a tight contest."

Please, Iowa....don't fuck this up.

Labels: 2008 election, Ben and Jerry's, John Edwards

Yesterday I linked to an account of one man's experience with local police on Long Island after he was escorted out of a bookstore after WABC radio's programming director objected to questions he was asking of the station's hosts at a book signing. Although the police asking if the guy had been arrested before seems somewhat out of line, they did their job -- asking what happened before busting heads. "Dave from Queens"' decision to go to this book signing makes him a provocateur, to be sure, but being a provocateur is still legal. At least in this case, the police were civil servants and in theory at least, accountable to those whom they serve.

We've already seen what "private security" does under similar circumstances last year, when Mike Stark was assaulted by thugs "guarding" then-Senator George Allen. We also know that Blackwater mercenaries who patrolled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina were authorized to use lethal force -- the same Blackwater that's been investigated for killing civilians in Iraq.

But Blackwater isn't the only company supplying mercenaries who kill at will. The latest name to hit the news is DynCorp:

An Iraqi taxi driver was shot and killed on Saturday by a guard with DynCorp International, a private security company hired to protect American diplomats here, when a DynCorp convoy rolled past a knot of traffic on an exit ramp in Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday.

Three witnesses said the taxi had posed no threat to the convoy, and one of them, an Iraqi Army sergeant who inspected the car afterward, said it contained no weapons or explosive devices.

“They just killed a man and drove away,” Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said in his office on Sunday afternoon. He added later, “We have opened an investigation, and we have contacted the company and told them about our accusations, and we are still waiting for their response.”

It was the latest in what the Iraqi government has said are unprovoked shootings on the streets of Baghdad by security companies hired by the State Department or contractors affiliated with it. On Sept. 16, guards with another of those concerns, Blackwater, opened fire a few miles south of Saturday’s shooting, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding at least 24, according to Iraqi investigators.

The Iraqi government has accused Blackwater of involvement in at least six questionable shootings in Baghdad since September 2006. DynCorp has not drawn the same scrutiny, though it is unclear whether it has been involved in any other episodes in which Iraqis have been killed.

The shootings have stoked outrage among Iraqis, driven efforts to hold private security companies legally accountable for their actions in both the United States and Iraq, and created new challenges for American officials who were already forced to do much of their business within Baghdad’s protected Green Zone.

Why don't Americans care about this? Is it that we don't care what's done in our name as long as it means American young people aren't drafted into this war? Or is it that we really don't care that civilians are being killed because "our oil is under their sand?" Or is it that most Americans don't know what's happening?

We need to look at what these so-called "private security companies" are doing in Iraq, because you know damn well the next time there's a disaster here like there was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the only law that will matter is the law that exists at the barrel of a gun held by a cop-for-hire.

Labels: mercenaries

When you work for a state agency, today is the "observance" of Veterans' Day, which means we have the day off. I had debated writing an angry screed listing all the names of the Iraq war dead, or a compendium of how the Bush Administration is screwing over returning soldiers, or about the appalling incidence of homelessness among veterans or their inability to find jobs after serving in the Middle East, or about how veterans who don't toe the Bush Line were barred from participating in yesterday's parade in Long Beach, California. But when you have outrage fatigue, as I do now, sometimes you have to step back a bit. It isn't that we don't think about what this Administration is doing to its own military, but when Mr. Brilliant, after watching yet another apocalyptic program on the History Channel, opined that we are all going to die horribly and screaming in pain in 2012 because not just the Mayans, but every major religion says so, you have to step back or you'll go insane.

So here's a story about one World War II veteran who ought to inspire everyone who says "It's to late for me to [insert your own thwarted dream here]":

Harold Dinzes may be the oldest college kid in New Jersey and is surely one of the most gung-ho.

At 91, Dinzes is a history major at Montclair State University at a time when the percentage of college students age 65 and older has plummeted in New Jersey.

Four days a week, the Passaic man is on campus wearing jeans and a backpack like any other student, drawn by the lure of academics and a conviction that he has discovered a place where he finally belongs. He has even asked the administration if he can be buried at the school.

As he makes his way across campus, Dinzes is greeted by professors, secretaries and classmates who wave and holler, "Hi Harold!" At the academic advising office, the counselors welcome him with hugs and pecks on the cheek. At the library, mature librarians and young interns whisper with him about gems in the stacks. At the student cafe, pals from class plop down beside him to discuss assignments.

"These kids," he says, referring to everyone on campus under 80, "make me feel like a million bucks."

[snip]

Even before Dinzes graduated from Passaic High in the 1930s, he dreamed of going to college but his family needed him to work. His parents could afford to send only one child to school and Dinzes' sister was the brainier one. Their mother hocked all her jewelry to pay the tab.

In 1942, Dinzes was drafted, spending four years with the Army in the South Pacific. He yearned for books but the only book at the base – besides Army manuals, and he even read those – was a worn copy of Plato. He read it until it came apart in the jungle humidity.

When the war ended, Dinzes signed up as a reservist. But in 1950, with tensions rising in Korea, he was tapped again. His wife was four months' pregnant with their first child. Dinzes served until 1953.

After his return, Dinzes worked with his father in a plumbing supply shop, which Dinzes eventually took over. His sons worked with him until he closed shop at age 84, trounced by the Home Depot down the street.

Unsure of what to do next, he applied for a job at the Barnes & Noble in Clifton. Five times he was turned down, but he pestered them until they relented. When he's not in class, he still works there.

At 88, he applied to Montclair State, where his granddaughter is in graduate school. His 83-year-old wife, Doreen, says he checked the mail every day to see if he had been accepted. When the letter finally arrived, he framed it.

He has taken 21 classes -- mostly in history, anthropology, archeology and political science -- about half the amount needed for graduation

[snip]

His wife says sometimes it's wearing to live with a college boy.

"I have to be quiet in the morning when he's sleeping or studying, and we don't have any social life because he always says, 'I have to go home and study,' " she says. "I thought when he retired he'd finally be around more, but he's always busy with school. I had to take up canasta and mah-jongg to find something to do."

[snip]

Does she look forward to the day he graduates?

"Are you kidding? He says he's going to be in college until 2099, and I won't be here then."

Labels: Veterans