The Price Of Loyalty, Redux

I remember a long, long time ago when a man named Ron Suskind wrote a book with a man named Paul O'Neill, wrote a book called The Price of Loyalty. O'Neill was one of the inaugural class of refugees from the Bush Administration. The book included one of the * first known * public suggestions that the Bush Administration's push to fight in Iraq was, perhaps, somewhat unnatural.

I remember it like it was just spring 2004. I ran out and bought the book, despite its sunny cover photograph of O'Neill and President McCokespoon. I read the book. And I told everyone I knew that it wouldn't be the last time we'd hear the suggestion that the Bush Administration cobbled together a case for war in Iraq from September Eleventh scrap.

Spring 2004? It seems so much longer ago than that. And, it seems incredible today that at one time, voices like O'Neill's and that of Richard A. Clarke were rather singular, so singular that every such claim warranted its own 60 Minutes interview.

The latest voice comes from Rep. John Murtha, a moderate Democrat from Pennsylvannia, a former Marine, and, incidentally, the first combat vet from Vietnam to be elected to the House, recipient of the Bronze Star and two Purple Heart awards.

It's Good To Be King

It is, I must say, mighty nice to wake up one morning and realize that your vote actually counted. Nice to know your vote actually helped elect somebody. Nice.

Rachel Maddow winds up the election results nicely. Go on over and download the Nov. 9 podcast. G'wan. There's nothing I can say here that she didn't.

Bush: Ready To 'Rock Out' With 'Cock Out'

(ABP) President Bush today reiterated the confidence he has in his policies, his administration, and his loyal staff, saying he was prepared to "rock out" with his "cock out."

Bush, besieged by reporters during a stop in Panama, continued as he did throughout his entire tour of Latin America, trying to emphasize the progress made there. Tenacious reporters continued to hound him with questions about other topics, such as his 35 percent approval rating, the indictment of Lewis Libby and the hovering cloud over his own right-hand man Karl Rove, more pronounced scrutiny of his administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and so on.

"Mr. President, do you feel that your administration is in crisis?" asked a reporter in desperation as Bush was walking away.

The president turned around suddenly and reapproached the microphone. "Hey, listen. All I know is I got a job to do. Everyone in the White House, they got a job to do. And we're gonna do it, the job we got to do. And we're gonna do it good. Real good. I'm gonna rock out with my cock out, beeyotch," he replied.

White House Press Secretary later denied that the president had actually said that he was going to "rock out" with his "cock out."

"He never said that," said McClellan. "I asked the president if he actually said that, and he said he didn't. Besides, whether the president said he was going to 'rock out' with his 'cock out' is part of an ongoing investigation, and we don't comment on ongoing investigations."

McClellan also refused to confirm that the president had answered a question about gas prices by saying, "Hey, ass, gas, or grass, you know what I'm saying, baby?"

The Metaphorically Beefy Forearm of Harriet Miers

You're a guy standing in a kitchen with a chick, and said chick hands you a jar of Ragu and asks you to open it for her. You nod confidently, and you grasp the jar lid in one hand and jar in the other, and you apply as much testosteronie to the lid as possible, but it does not come off. You twist and squrim until your hockey-dad vein pops out, until you are scared that if you try any harder, you'll make in your pants. You tap it on the counter, you run it under hot water, you speak to it tersely, but the thing is a modern day excalibur.

You hand it back to her saying it can't be done, and she twists that molhagger right off.

"Well," you say, trying to evoke Clint Eastwood, "I loosened it up for ya."

For the sake of political metaphor, you are Harriet Miers.

It would take month of water drip torture to convince me otherwise, and I do not think it is tin-foil-beanie thinking to believe it. I am certain that it was Miers' job to loosen the jar, and now the neocons are drenching you and me in scrumptuous, Planned Parenthood v. Casey-dissenting, to-the-right-of-Renquist-and-Pinochet, Sam Alito.

Eat up, Bush voters. Eat up, all ya'll. Soon, you'll need a permission slip to masturbate. Nice going!

Canaries

On Dec. 30, 1986, BBC News reported that the basis in reality for one of my favorite analogous adages was disappearing. No longer would coal miners rely on little yellow birds to act as poison tasters of air for them. The canaries would soon be phased out by machines. The phrase itself is still useful, though, because the powerful imagery is still firmly planted on our collective conciousness.

I heard a news story today that I consider to be a canary story. The story should explain where we are and how much traction we've lost in the process of moving the American aesthetic of life upward and forward.

You see, the United States Department of Labor found 85 child labor law violations at Wal-Mart stores in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Arkansas. Child labor laws of course are supposed to frown on children operating cardboard balers and chainsaws, like kids were found doing as Wal-Mart employees.

So, Wal-Mart sat down and wrote its own settlement agreement. And the Labor Department accepted it. Would it surprise you to know that the terms of the agreement don't cause Wal-Mart to have to cop to any wrongdoing? That it incurred a penalty of $135,540? And that it allows those stores a 15-day notice before inspectors visit again?

Child labor is an issue that the United States began visiting at the turn of the last century. It should be one of the most well-settled issues of our time. The notion that children should be relieved from the tasks of earning a living, should be relieved from the risk of job-related injuries, that the job of a child is to become educated and whole, solving quadratic equations instead of mining coal, these notions seemed foreign as America phased out the agrarian economy for its industrial economy, but that was a century ago, and these notions should be hard-fused into us by now. But this government, currently rife with people who allegedly champion "family values" and who all seem to have hard-ons for the medical procedure of abortion because it's "baby-killin'," this government fines $135,540 to a company that reported profits this year of $2.04 billion for something as egregious as allowing kids to operate the big toys?

This is a canary story. Your federal government is falling down on the job when it comes to something as peremptory as enforcing child labor laws, and it is doing that because of the larger, more poisonous atmosphere of pro-corporate, anti-labor fascism that has full-nelsoned the American government. And I continue to wonder how much more it will take before this reality slaps 95 percent or more of the American public in the face.

Chicken Soup for the Indicted Chief of Staff to the Vice President's Soul

George Stephanopoulos' "This Week" presented some words from Laura Bush with surprisingly little irony. Mrs. Bush was speaking at something called the "Conference for America's Youth."

"Children whose parents show them love and support and stay active in their lives have an enormous advantage growing up," she said. "Yet too many children grow up in homes where one parent is absent--most often, their father."

Hey, Pickles! How many American families do you reckon have been left fatherless by the Stupid War your hubbie started?

Just curious.

In other news, the Sunday talking heads are of course all about the indictments. Tim Russert has gathered three former presidential chiefs of staff and has asked them what, exactly, President Bush needs to do to repair his presidency. Of course, only the Clinton guy, Leon Panetta, gave even close to the correct answer, saying that the president needs to address the American people on this issue head-on.

I think the only way George can salvage his presidency right now is to RIF a couple of dozen people immediately, starting with the one and only Karl K. Rove. Not that this will actually happen, of course, but I think it's the only way Bush can thrash aside his incredibly early status as a lame duck. Heads need to roll. Now.

Anyway, you can claim disappointment in the indictment or try to sell it short, but it accomplishes a number of things. It directly connects on paper the leak and the White House. It places VP Cheney closer to the investigation than before. It establishes certain facts that right-wing talking heads cherished obsfucating. Most important, it requires a trial with an A-List witness list.

This indictment is just the beginning. Yee-haw.

P.S. KIAV predicts that Bush's next nominee for associate Supreme Court Justice of the United States will be:

John Cornyn.

Over There

This is a real live letter from "Dear Abbey." As Dr. Maddow would say: Life during wartime.

DEAR ABBY: I'm an American soldier serving in Iraq. When I went on leave for two weeks to see my family, I found out that my wife had posted a profile in a chat room on a public Web site. When I asked her about it, she denied it. When I showed her what I had found, she confessed.

I wouldn't have been upset, but she lied to me -- besides, the profile presented her as single. It included a picture and information about how she looks and what she's "looking for." This has really put a dent in our marriage. I can't trust her, particularly from over here. She claims it was a one-time thing because she was bored.

I don't want to leave her and my three daughters, but now I have no trust in her whatsoever. It's tearing me up inside. Everything she does I question, and it's wrecking our marriage. I want to trust her, but what should I do? Please help me. -- SSG HURTING IN IRAQ

DEAR SSG HURTING: Until your tour of duty is over, your most important priority must be your own safety. That means you must develop tunnel vision for a while and think of nothing but yourself and your mission. For now, accept what your wife says. Time and distance can do strange things to people's relationships, and there is nothing more stressful than what both of you are experiencing right now.

If your daughters are being well taken care of, accept that for the time being. When your tour of duty is over, there will be time to deal with this -- through marriage counseling or spiritual counseling. So listen up: Please trust me and stay strong.

Dare to Dream

(Stolen from Fark)

I don't understand why, but I felt like at the time I was the only person who was outraged by the pictures.

It was July 2003, and the news was reporting that Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay--who had always been bitter little assholes because their father named them in Pig Latin--died in a firefight and my government decided to patch up the bodies real nice and show them on television.

It was disgusting. It was sick. Sicko. Gross. It was vomitous. It was the "culture of life" hard at work.

So every time a new charge comes out, I am always amazed at the outrage and the surprise that seems to come up. What are you so surprised about to learn that U.S. soldiers burned two dead bodies and then used the event to taunt the enemy? Your president didn't seem to see anything wrong with using two corpses to prove a point.

"This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs," said Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, the top U.S. tactical commander in Afghanistan. "This alleged action is repugnant to our common values, is contrary to our command's approved tactical operating procedures, and is not sanctioned by this command."

Oh, really? That's why on July 23, 2003, we all had to spend the day looking at a couple of mummified corpses?

Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?

I drifted off to sleep listening to Mike Malloy last night. Malloy is on via rebroadcast at 1 a.m. on XM, so yes, I was up late. But I had just seen MSNBC's "Countdown" at midnight and had just become aware of the unfathomably awkward "spontaneous" press event held with 11 American troops from Tikrit.

Malloy had the wrong take on the whole thing altogether. He was angry (surprise, surprise). Which puzzles me. These days, the Bush administration barely needs our opposition to be defeated because it is working so tirelessly to defeat itself, and you're angry? Dude. Get a grip. This stuff is FUNNY.

Malloy was going on and on about how the troops were used and how this was a terrible, terrible thing. I'm sure the troops don't think they were used. I'm sure the troops genuinely believe in the mission and are honored to speak to the CIC, even if the event is such obviously staged bullshit. I'm sure the troops are bewildered by those of us who disagree with this White House's policies and are pleased to have an opportunity to talk to the American public about all the spiffy things they're doing in Iraq.

But, I wonder: Who, exactly, designed this fiasco, and when do they get a Presidential Medal of Freedom? Who imagined that such tele-masturbation was going to be useful? Whose minds did they believe such transparent stagecraft was going to change? To wit: How does dabbling in bullshit help when the core problem for this administration is that it is drowning in bullshit?

Witness America's own little Baghdad Bob, Puffy McMoonface, also known as White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Here is a KIAV Horrible Reenactment of yesterday's press briefing:

Reporter: Is it possible that Harriet Miers might withdraw her own nomination?

McMoonface: No, I think she's very qualified to be on the Supreme Court. You should look into that.

Reporter: Yes, but do you think she might withdraw her nomination?

McMoonface: I sure do wish you reporters would stop sidestepping the real issues and just report that Harriet Miers is the most qualified human being ever in the history of the universe to sit on the Supreme Court. Just stop making this all about her religion already.

Reporter: It sounds like you don't want to say that she is tenacious.

McMoonface: Of course she's fair-minded! Stop trying to suggest that she's not fair-minded! Just look at her qualifications and her record. She thinks the president is cool. And he is. So there. Thank you, no more questions.

End scene.

Bullshit has a tendency to rot things out from the inside, to break down any opacity that might be covering it up, and to eventually seek the glorious antiseptic of sunshine. That's what you're seeing these days with this administration, although for the life of me I'll never understand why most people in this country didn't start seeing the bullshit a long, long time ago.

From This Day Hence, KIAV Is In Memory Of Theodore R. Heller

Theodore Roosevelt Heller
Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.

Donkey Honkeys

I spend a lot of time on this little soapbox talking about how annoyed I am with the Republicans that I forget to mention that I'm annoyed with my homies in the Democratic party, too.

Like the bizarre little pineapple we find ourselves in regarding the Miers nomination. We overwhelmingly opposed Roberts on solely political grounds despite that the man was smarter than the whole Judiciary Committee and Carl Sagan with one foot strapped to his head whilst bowling. So, as it happens, Bush's second choice is a very nice lady who considered him to be the "best governor ever," which makes her a braindamaged sycophant, besides being someone with no intellectual or professional background in constitutional law. But we opposed Roberts despite his outstanding qualifications. How can we now oppose this lady by claiming that she's not qualified?

And, like, how can we run anyone in 2008 who has voted for the war? And why did those Democrats vote for the war, anyhow? Upon more reflection, I'm convinced that this is what did Kerry in. He voted for the war but ran opposing it, and that contradiction made him look really, really silly. So, he lost.

If only there were a senator who had the sense to vote for a qualified Supreme Court nominee when he's sittin' there who ALSO voted against the Iraq resolution. If only, if only, if only.

Desperate Presidents

I didn't know that the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was a vacuum, or that it was drenched in pixie dust. Did you?

President Bush thinks it is.

Bush Thursday delivered a blistering, sometimes correct, and even damned interesting speech there. It was a landmark speech in this presidency, there is no doubt about it, one that delivered a few dramatic shifts.

Rather than addressing America's stateless enemies with the vague, broad classification of "terrorists," Bush flat-out put his finger on it: America's greatest enemy in the world is Islamic fundamentalism. We've not tended to name our enemy so clearly since Bush was chided for referring to this effort as a "crusade." Also, the speech directly addressed the dynamic that actually drives their hatred of the United States: Global Jew-hating.

Oddly enough, Bush resorted to drawing fierce parallels between Islamic fundamentalism and, of all groups, communists. That was weird.

Not so weird but more completely expected was Bush's continued effort to disucuss the Stupid War in terms of September The Eleventh.

--Bush claimed that the United States has thwarted ten terrorist attacks since The September The Eleventh.

--Bush certainly does seem interested in UBL again, doesn't he?

--Finally, in a more predictible vein: When will these people stop insisting that Saddam was in one of those aeroplanes? Holy cow.

...or whatever it's called...

Dear Dr./Gov. Dean,

I am a proud Democrat but I cannot help but laugh nonstop regarding your use of a certain colloquialism on "Hardball" last evening. I wanted to help you with the following advice.

First off, I imagine that Mrs./Dr. Dean is getting pretty darned tired of you grabbing her by the elbow and saying, hey, baby, let's you and me go and exercise our executive privilege, and then making that wink-wink noise. No, Doc, that's not what the kids are calling it these days. So stop it. Just stop it.

Further bits of advice for you, with all due respect:

• You probably should not refer to President Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security with private investment accounts as the "horizontal rumba."



• Please stop referring to the 2000 presidential primary as a "Mongolian clusterfuck." While this phrase is a completely accurate characterization of that primary, it is entirely inappropriate to say it in front of cameras.



• Calling the Bush administration's domestic policy a "Cleveland steamer" is perfectly acceptable, anytime, anywhere.



• Under no circumstances, I repeat, under no circumstances, should you refer to the Title IX Education Amendments of 1972 as "reverse cowgirl."

I hope you have found this information helpful.

There Is A God After All

And, as it turns out, He is a kind, gentle, loving, and, most important, fair God.

Tom DeLay has been indicted.

Praise the Lord.

Congress, I Did A Heck of a Job.

I have not been writing here at KIAV for a bit. My apologies if you are rabidly missing my brilliant analyses of the world in which we live. Where to start?

• Former FEMA chief Brownie told Congress today that he did a heck of a job. In fact, here's what he actually said: ""I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job at it." What a shameless dillhole.



• John Roberts will be Chief Justice of the United States soon, and he ought to be. The man is so obviously brilliant and qualified for the post that the only thing the Democrats have at their disposal is partisan stick-poking. We were right to oppose Bork, the man who made Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre possible. We were right to raise our eyebrows at Clarence Thomas when charges were leveled that he was kind of creepy. I am convinced, though, that Roberts is the real deal, and that he will be an excellent Chief Justice. This was a good pick.


Surprised?


• Meanwhile, this site recently praised George W. Bush for the happy announcement regarding North Korea's capitulation. That was before I'd read this analysis by Lai I-chung of Taipei Times. According to this writer, the United States just didn't play the fourth round of talks very well.



• No, I did not venture into downtown D.C. last weekend. I have many excuses, mainly that I have just recently turned 37 years old and figured I would leave it to the kids. However, I cannot help but join the rest of my lefty kindred with a schadenfreudeish guffaw at the turnout for ours and the turnout for theirs. 400? 400? I know people who have married more people than that. Suffice it to say that I am happy to see that the task of supporting the Dirty Big War is becoming a more lonely job every day.



• And, now we get to today's primary example of why credibility is such an important commodity to a president of the United States. President Bush addressed the issue of energy yesterday. "We can all pitch in by using—by being better conservers of energy," he stammered. "I mean, people just need to recognize that the storms have caused disruption and that if they're able to maybe not drive when they—on a trip that's not essential, that would be helpful."


This is a nice thought and all. But hasn't energy been a problem for the United States since I was eight years old? At least? This administration has nodded its head at energy conservation, but I'm frankly with columnist Thomas Friedman, who wrote that if Bush wants to make anything of the rest of his presidency, he'll make energy independence "the moon shot of our generation."


• Christ, it doesn't stop, does it? Bush has just certified that Saudi Arabia is cooperating in the "'war' on 'terrorism'". Feh.



• Finally: I am having second thoughts about my enthusiasm about a Hillary run. Russ Feingold is looking like a better candidate to me these days. He might be the only Democrat who can successfully run opposing the war in Iraq, since he actually voted against the resolution. None of that "I voted against it before I voted for it" crap.

Duh.

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (11% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Failure

http://www.google.com/search?q=failure

Quagmire

I won't even be so condescending as to start today's entry by saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day. That is just an expression of sour grapes, and I have none of those regarding President Bush's foreign affairs triumph.

Make no mistake, North Korea's capitulation on nuclear programs is a significant victory for Bush and a vindication of his tenacity in keeping with the six-party talks. I will not go so far as to say that it proves that John Kerry was wrong regarding North Korea (Kerry's criticised in the debates that Bush insisted on the six-party process of engagement or none at all instead of entertaining bilateral talks). Nonetheless, today's announcement marks an excellent development for the United States and the world that seems to have been arrived at by persistent engagement and continued diplomacy.

It's just too bad this White House hasn't put those tactics to use more vigorously, more often. On the heels of this foreign policy triumph, the weird, weird news continues to come out of Iraq, where the president spoke a lot about speaking softly then used the big stick. Did you hear where British servicemen are clashing with Iraqi police in Basra? Our own allies, and they're giving the business to the police units we've struggled to establish there. It's a madhouse.

Also: More and more, the United States military insists on approaching Iraq as a war of attrition (see today's Post). Recent history sez that, when the military starts crowing about body count, it's because concrete objectives and mission focii have dried up. I think Webster's should consider an update, such as this (writer's embellishment in italics):

quag·mire. Pronunciation: 'kwag-"mIr, 'kwäg- Function: noun. 1 : soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot 2 : a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position : PREDICAMENT 3: a war of attrition

We're all very exercised about Hurricane Katrina and all, but I hope the nation's blahblahblah will get back to the war soon. Mebee after this weekend it will. We'll see.

Why This Is Hilarious

During the UN meetings yesterday, Reuters apparently snapped this picture. The hand holding the pencil belongs to President Bush. Its intended audience is not the American public, but Condi Rice, the Secretary of State. The note says: "I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible..."

D.C. Blogger Wizbang said of this photo: "You can be sure that the moonbats will be barking tonight..." (From Wikipedia: "Moonbat is a political epithet coined in 2002 by Perry de Havilland of 'The Libertarian Samizdata,' a libertarian weblog. It was originally a play on the last name of George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian, but now the term enjoys great currency in the conservative and libertarian blogosphere as an all-purpose insult for modern liberals, peace protestors, and other ideological opponents. It is similar to the epithets Feminazi or Idiotarian.")

Anyway, regarding the picture. Bark. Bark. Bark.

This picture is hilarious. It's hilarious because it resonates so soundly. It resonates because the United States of America somehow put into office an ineffectual, bumbling manchild, who, especially of late, has done everything in his power to remind us that he is an ineffectual, bumbling manchild. Heh-heh. Hey, Condi, can I go to the potty?

It is one weirdly personal glimpse of the President of the United States, his relationship with his closest staff, and yet another telegraph from George W. Bush that indicates that he, frankly, doesn't want the friggin' job anymore. He takes five weeks of vacation. He motors by a protestors camp. He comments that it is important for him to get on with his life. He bikes with Lance Armstrong and continues clearing the brush. What is it with brush and Texas, anyway?

Then, Katrina hits, and he keeps his normal schedule. His staff is reportedly reluctant to tell him that he will have cut his vacation because an entire region has been drowned. His reaction is painfully sluggish and punctuated with unfortunate photo-ops: The little boy looking out the plane window. The kiss-ass gift of a guitar from a country star.

Then there is the next stage, when Bush finally realizes that it is a crisis, but reacts not to the gushing walls of water, but to the poopoo hitting the fan. His first words are completely tone-deaf, as are his second and third. He talks of rebuilding when the thousands of baby-bird convention center strandees are still fresh in American minds. He talks of looking forward to sippin' mint juleps on Trent Lott's new deck, then offers the backslap heard 'round the world: Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. But the backslap wouldn't do. He'd have to take to the newly formed canals of New Orleans and hug black women, women whose only concern seems to be that they want desperately to stop feeling so lost. The adage is overused these days, but it is apt: George Bush, the naked emporer, and, at last, the little child is piping up from out of the crowd.

So, the picture of this note passed, it is hilarious. The President of the United States had to go to the bathroom during a high-level diplomatic meeting, and so he scribbles a note to his secretary of state, and the photographer at long last pays for his fancy zoom lens. That on its face is funny enough. What's hilarious somehow is the outrageous symbolism it seems to offer. Yes, Mr. President, I think a bathroom break is possible. In fact, I think it is a fine idea. Perhaps you should lock the door for a couple of years or so.

Just turn on the fan, please.

Responsibility

As I noted yesterday, George W. Bush has stepped up and accepted responsibility for the federal government's failures in response to Katrina. It's a historic event in this presidency. But it won't mean beans unless Bush backs it up.

If Bush truly means to accept responsibility, he must vigorously spearhead the effort to conduct a thorough, independent investigation. He must dispense with the ridiculous notion that the White House is going to conduct said investigation. It must be a truly independent body with qualified, intelligent, integrity-laden men, as was the 9/11 Commission.

I would suggest asking former FEMA Director James Lee Witt to at least be on the commission, if not to lead it. Such a move would lend the commission instant credibility and would readily show that Bush intends this to be more than a posh kangaroo court.

Bush must testify. Live. Under oath. On camera. Alone. (And yes, so should the mayor and the governor.)

Then and only then should the American public fully accept the president's claim of responsibility.

A Question For John Roberts

Judge Roberts, how would you have applied the infield fly rule to Lawrence V. Texas?

This Just In: GWB Does Something Right!

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," he said.

Q: What is George W. Bush's position on Roe Vs. Wade?

A: He doesn't really care how people get out of New Orleans.

Now We Know How Badly You Have To Fuck Up To Resign In Disgrace From The Bush Administration

Michael Brown has resigned.

Is This A Dot?

Large Portion of Los Angeles Loses Power

By LAURA WIDES
Associated Press Writer
Published September 12, 2005, 3:20 PM CDT

LOS ANGELES -- A large portion of Los Angeles was blacked out Monday when electrical power was lost. The power got knocked out shortly before 1 p.m. after two power surges.

Traffic lights throughout downtown and the San Fernando Valley were not working, causing major traffic problems, according to video from helicopter news crews.

Downtown highrises also were darkened.

The city's department of water and power said it was investigating the cause and extent of the outage.

Has Anybody Seen My Mandate?

George W. Bush was a busy boy yesterday.

He oversaw the swearing in of his new Undersecretary and Ambassador for Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes. (I think her job is meant to use public relations skillz to improve the American image in the Arab Street. Good luck.) Then, he awarded medals of valor to emergency workers who perished on September Eleventh, or as he is fond of calling it, The September The Eleventh. I find it ironic that nearly four years to the day that President Bush shined as bright as he could as a leader, he's a leadership black hole.

One moment he had. One moment of brilliance that defined him and his presidency and made us all feel better. "I can hear you. The rest of the world can hear you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." One brilliant ad-lib and anyone with any doubt about the president's legitimacy as an elected leader and as a leader in general became flurries.

And today, he stands with a 39 percent approval rating. Perhaps it will finally occur to him that he no longer has a mandate.

Timeline

I've been seeking a decent timeline regarding Hurricane Katrina. Here's a good one. It's a fascinating read. You seriously get the impression that Bush didn't have any friggin' idea that the country was in a state of crisis last week, that he was somehow lost in a fog through the entire thing.

This MSNBC story sort of seconds that emotion...

P.S. Doesn't the report that the federal government plans to hand out $2,000 debit cards to the evacuees have kind of a "40 acres and a mule" ring to it?

2. San Francisco

You have seen and will continue to see a persistent effort by politically-motivated right-wingers to discredit Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin. Part of that effort unfortunately was broadcast on Air America Radio the other day, as Rachel Maddow filled in for Al and Katherine and got kind of sideswiped by a bad guest.

One of the charges I've read today is that Gov. Blanco was more concerned with how the bureaucracy was going to work than how to keep people safe, that she refused help from the federal government because she didn't want to relinquish control. I haven't researched the charge's validity because it doesn't matter.

In December 2001, Houston Chronicle science writer Eric Berger reported that FEMA had warned that the top three crises the United States faced were: Earthquake in San Francisco, hurricane and subsequent flooding in New Orleans, and terrorist attack in New York. This report is now getting a lot of play, from Sid Blumenthal on down. Unfortunately, I can't find documentation of it beyond Berger's piece, and Berger himself on his blog says he doesn't have anything right now to back it up. Funny, FEMA doesn't seem to want to address it.

I believe Berger, but even without the FEMA report in hand, there's other evidence that we had a good ideer that this was gonna happen. The Post reports that national emergency workers were concerned about FEMA's tooth extraction under the new DHS. And, hey, President Bush should take in my favorite indy weekly, Durham's Independent. They took a look at FEMA nearly a year ago.

Regardless: Imagine you're the president, and your emergency management agency says that the top three potential crises your country faces are THESE. And then, shortly thereafter, one of THESE actually happens.

If you possess one scintilla of competence, you start working pretty hard on the other two, don't you?

You might, say, develop a strong working relationship with the governors of California and Louisiana and with the mayors of New Orleans and San Francisco. You might fly those people to Washington, D.C. once in awhile and have a meeting with them, and say, by the way, if one of THESE happens in your state, do you mind if the federales come on in and help you?

For that matter: If I'm President of the United States, and the United States has just been hit by one of the Most Disasterous Things To Ever Happen To Any Country Ever, I might consider the notion of trying to identify some OTHER possible disasters and to work on plans for those, too.

I'd especially want to do that if I was elected to office partially due to promises that I would keep the United States of America safe and the other guy wouldn't.

I admit fully that I am writing about these issues on a weblog that is politically driven. But this isn't about politics, and it hasn't always been about politics for me. I was proud of George W. Bush when he found his voice and threw it into the bullhorn in New York after September Eleventh. I felt profoundly the urgency of the French media's expression that now we were all Americans. Not Democrats, not Republicans. Americans. And I feel the same way now, but today, it is in a much different context.

I have recently been accused in this forum of offering a lot of whining and not a lot of solutions. For one, this is a load of crap. I offered my solution last year: Vote for John Kerry. Not enough heeded it, and now, here we are. So go out and vote Democrat in 2006 and in 2008. That's my first solution.

My second solution: Let us start pressing harder for a more proactive government. Write to and call your president and your congressmen and insist that they start laying down plans for an all-out evacuation of San Francisco during a level 8 earthquake. Insist to them that, after the ongoing hurricane relief, a plan for San Francisco is this nation's top priority. Suggest that the White House should retain a small staff of seismologists and other experts to plan hard for The Big One. If that list of three did actually exist, let's push our government to at least not screw up the third one when it comes.

While you're at it, you might ask them what's been done about the power grid. Remember the power grid?

The holders of power in the United States of America do not understand that we want them to be our eyes and ears and our goalies, first and foremost and no matter what the threat or the nature of the threat. They do not somehow grasp that Americans do not want to be beset by television images of crying, screaming, hungry, thirsty and dying old people, babies, and people in general, going on within driving distance, and that we consider this level of service from our government so essential that we did not previously think we had to tell them that it's what we wanted.

Apparently, we do. Look around. Think outside the box. Get downright paranoid for a minute. Think about what manmade or natural disasters await you and your community. Write down what you come up with. Then call your government and tell them that you want it fixed. I'm starting tomorrow.

I Didn't Even Know Who Kanye West Was Before Tonight

But now he's my new hero.

You got it half right, Kanye. I don't think he cares about a lot of white people, either.

But in this situation, it's pretty clear to me that regentrification plans are afoot.

Thanks, Kanye. You made me laugh and jump up and down in victory. You rule.

Duh

Just now in my little abode:

Randi Rhodes: ...and guess what I just found out. Do you know who the Navy has hired to restore the electrical power, to repair the rooves, and remove the debris?

(Pause)

Me: Haliburton?

Randi Rhodes: Haliburton.

Connect the Dots

It seems to be a chronic pattern with the Bush administration, doesn't it? The president is warned in quite specific terms of a pending disaster, and he ignores the warning—in fact, he cuts funding meant to address the threat. Then, when the disaster actually occurs, the president makes a speech or something.

Here's the thing: As Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered a list of the most likely disasters the United States faced. The top three were: Earthquake in San Francisco, terrorist attack in New York City, and hurricane and floods in New Orleans.

Dr. Maddow, guest-hosting for Al and Katherine, broke it down excellently yesterday, if you can, I heartily recommend getting over to Air America Place and downloading it. What happened in New Orleans was two disasters, not one. The first, the hurricane, was unavoidable. The second, the flooding, did not have to be nearly as devastating as it was.

But to help fund the Iraq war and his tax cuts, the president cut a federal program that was helping to fortify the levees. Further, this administration started reversing efforts to protect wetlands, turning them over for development.

See the pattern? President gets memo titled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack," does nothing, cuts counterterrorism money. Planes run into buildings.

President is warned that the nation's power grid is antiquated and that we're probably going to have rolling blackouts, does nothing—in fact, president supports deregulation, which allows power companies to export power, which causes grids to be overtaxed. By the way, Southern California just had a blackout THIS WEEK.

I hope beyond all hope that the right Democrat stands up to lead in 2008. I still have my fingers crossed for Mrs. Clinton, but whomever it is, I hope they're a leader and not a reactive wussbag like the cowboy who's in there now. We need a leader.

And now, enjoy Imagine.

Atlas Had Scoliosis

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 15, and I'm okay.

I think I was 15. Might have been younger. I was with a bunch of friends, older fellas, you know, and one of them shoved an old, dog-earred copy of it into my hands. "C'mon, man," he said. "Everyone's doing it."

So, I read it, okay? I experimented with an Ayn Rand novel. But I didn't inhale. In fact, as I recall, I skipped the manifesto in the middle.

But I am a rare case. Ayn Rand novels are a nothing but a gateway. They lead poor, impressionable youngsters to become libertarians and generally to vote Republican, little Robbie Goulds with their notes in the margins, socking these overweight monstrosities away in their pockets, well-thumbed diatribes chronicling mythic characters, meant to persuade people to a "philosophy" of "objectivism." The holy grail of these books is pure self-interest, which Rand argued was the only true ethical path.

These are the ideas that are driving today's political economy. And, like the Communist Manifesto, the stuff might look good on paper if you hold it at an angle, but put into practice is a freaking nightmare.

I saw one of them today, an impressionable young lad, not yet 20 pages into it on the subway. I wanted to go to him and say, stop, you don't have to go through with it. You don't have to read Ayn Rand to be "cool." It will only be harder to stop once you start. And I am just on the edge of suggesting that Ayn Rand novels be kept behind the counter, only to be sold to those 35 years old and up, but I am a liberal and therefore believe that even Ayn Rand novels are protected by the First Amendment.

But be careful with that stuff, kids. Look around, and you can see how dangerous it is.

The War Is Stupid

I think what bothers me most about our imbroglio in Iraq is that it is stupid.

Every week, every day, and nearly every hour, news erupts from our war in Iraq that is stupid. Today's Post reports that President Bush has been on the telephone with a Shiite leader, urging him to include the Sunnis in the constitutional process. The process has gotten so screwed up that we've been forced to go to bat for the Sunnis. You know. Saddam's people. The former elite minority of Iraq. The ones what had the rest of the joint securely under thumb. Freedom is on the march. Indeed.

(For an excellent primer on the current state of the Iraqi constitution, see Juan Cole's article in today's Salon.)

It's stupid that the United States invaded Iraq in the first place, stupid like if we'd invaded Mexico to avenge Pearl Harbor, like Richard Clarke said. It's stupid that the United States disbanded the Iraqi army, allowed porous borders, permitted looting, didn't start with enough boots on the ground, turned over Abu Ghraib prison to military intelligence, didn't find WMD, didn't capture or kill UBL, signed off on proportional elections and otherwise alienated the Sunnis, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. It's stupid that nobody, including the president of the United States, can tell you why we're at war in one honest sentence. It's stupid that one of the war's MOST ENDURING images is a lady with a cigarette in her mouth POINTING AT A PENIS.

And the reasons get more and more stupid. In a previous post, I lambasted the "flypaper" theory as being the worst war rationale yet. "Yet." Just this week, the president topped it by telling us that the United States has already lost about 1,800 American soldiers, so we might as well keep at it.

It's even stupid that it took somebody's MOTHER to give voice to the opposition, but even more stupid that the only thing that people who LIKE the war can think to do is to attack HER. It sort of reminds me of when the Starr Brigade was witch-hunting Bill Clinton. They kept telling me, "But he lied. He lied about sex," to which I kept saying, "I DON'T CARE." I don't care if Cindy Sheehan is in the middle of a divorce. I don't care if she has allied herself with moveon.org. I don't care if she had Fruit Loops for breakfast. None of it affects my admiration for a woman who has simply taken a stand and in doing so has energized debate and focused opposition. Cindy Sheehan is awesome and no amount of right-wing stick-poking at her is going to alter that.

And as Wesley Clark (sort of) wrote in the Post today, no amount of trying to rally the resolve of Americans is going to account for the execution of a war that is stupid. And it is. And you know it is, too.

So there.

Douchebag Of The Year

It's only August, and I believe we've already seen the prime candidate for this coveted award. And, believe it or not, it's not George Bush.

It's Pat Robertson.

It's rather hillarious to listen to my lineup of liberal talk radio hosts this week. Every last one of them seems to get a rise out of playing his first quote, when he said that the United States should assassinate Chavez. You know, this one:

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Back-to-back with the quote where he denies saying that the United States should assassinate Chavez. You know, this one:

“I didn’t say ‘assassination’. I said our special forces should ‘take him out’. And ‘take him out can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him.”

I see. So, 1) Robertson is a bald-faced liar, and, 2) Robertson thinks that endorsing kidnappng over outright murder is an acceptable way to backtrack. Nice.

Unfortunately, it's not very profound to just compare the quotes and go, wow, what a douchebag. His comments made me curious. What does Pat Robertson have against Chavez? Let's take a look.

Last year, Chavez called President Bush an asshole. In Spanish. In public. Heh-heh. He's a communist who embraces Cuba and Iran, and he sits on top of a whole lot of oil. One could argue that he wields more political legitimacy than President Bush: He is a rather authoritarian leader, but he survived a recall vote last year that was given the thumbs-up by international observers. All this cribbed from Time.

CBN has an entire, um, "news story" about why Chavez is such a terrible guy. I'm not linking to it. Google it if you want to read it. But here's a quoth: "Internally, Chavez has already rewritten the constitution, stacked the courts and begun throwing political opponents into jail. And some say he is now looking beyond Venezuela's borders. With billions of dollars in oil profits, Chavez is buying advanced Russian fighter planes and helicopters, dramatically increasing the size of his armed forces and integrating it with Cuba's."

Essentially, I think Robertson's dislike of Chavez boils down to one little fact previously mentioned: He's a commie. And, goodness knows, we can't have commies in Central America. Such a thing might cause a president to illegally sell arms to a militantly Islamic nation, to launder the profits, and then to deliver the laundered dough to an ongoing illegal war to fight the commies.

Wouldn't it be fascinating if our foreign policy grew another leg, one that returned to the good ol' Cold War days, and then we'd be fighting a "War on Terrah" at the SAME TIME we're fighting the commies? Wouldn't that be great?

Now, watch as the United States government does nothing about Robertson, a former and unexplainably successful presidential candidate who has said we should assassinate a democratically elected leader. They won't do anything, but I will: Pat Robertson, I do hereby declare you as the inaugural nominee for the first annual Ketchup Is A Vegetable Douchebag of the Year. Please put on your funny hat and go sit in the corner. Thank you. Douchebag.

CNN Presents

I heartily recommend that everyone find time to watch the latest "CNN Presents." It is about the intelligence failures that led to this stupid war. It is called "Dead Wrong: Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." Here is the schedule for future showings, according to Tivo:

8/27: 6 a.m., 3 p.m., 8 p.m., 11 p.m.

8/28: 2 a.m., 6 a.m.

This is an excellent look at the intelligence snafus and an amazing journalistic admission by a cable network that was a damned cheerleader in the early days of this stupid war. It's very good.

A Noble Cause

My Grandma G is fond of telling this here story, though I'm sure she'll write me later and provide some more details:

She and her Dad, that's my Great-Grandpa Flip, were attending a board meeting at the little resort town that was one of my childhood summer spots, and they were debating the future of the lake there and how to get something-or-other done with it. So Flip stood up and nominated his daughter to be on the case because, by god, you need a woman to get anything done at all.

I really wish I had more of that story. But Flip did have a point.

Check out my girl Cindy Sheehan. All she did was say fuggit and set up camp, and now all of a sudden we've got a focal point. She's amazing, and I, for one, am rooting for her. But let me make one thing clear: Cindy Sheehan doesn't want to ask Bush for an immediate pullout, like the media's trying to have you believe. According to Sheehan, she went to Texas because she heard Bush refer to troop deaths in terms of service to a "noble cause." Her mission is simply to ask him to define, exactly, what the noble cause IS. And you can bet dollars to doughnuts that he's ducking because he's, uh, got nothin'.

Because if there is a noble cause, why is the Post reporting that the administration is lowering its expectations? Quoth, Post, 8/14/05: "The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say." The story anonymously quotes another U.S. official as saying that they started out hoping to establish a democracy, but are slowly realizing they'll have an Islamic republic.

What I extrapolate from this is that the only success we've drawn from our incursion into Iraq has been to upset the apple cart, and we did that in the first six weeks with 137 American casualties. Since that point, the United States has suffered persistently trashed justifications for war, mounting American casualties, additional terrorist attacks for our allies, occassional videotaped nose-thumbing from UBL and his crew, and, just recently, reportedly lowered expectations of mission and a constitutional process mired over, among other issues, the most basic question of whether to have a strong central government or instituted factionalism.

If you can macrame me a noble cause out of that, I'll give you a nickel.

Freedom's On The March March!

So I got a little caught up in wishing that guardsman poster well and neglected to call attention to my original point. When I consider it now, I think it was downright weird of Mr. Trevor to accuse me of being nothing but a naysayer when alls I did was point out a little tiny truth there.

I mean, is it naysaying for the sake of naysaying to point out that the utopian vision of our great leaders can't even hold up to support a stable municipal government in the capital? Is it naysaying for the sake of naysaying to observe the irony that a coup d'etat just happened in a place where we're supposed to be establishing democracy? Furthermore, is it just pissing on somebody's parade to imply that, perhaps, the Shiite incursion at Baghdad City Hall might just possibly be the canary in the mineshaft (though, quite honestly, aren't we just about to drown in little yellow dead birds?)?

I don't make the fiasco by saying it's a fiasco. George W. Bush and his team of utopians are the ones who made the fiasco. I didn't let UBL go at Tora Bora. I didn't insert those 16 words into the State of the Union. I didn't refer to the case for war as a "slam dunk." I didn't withhold orders to stop the looting. Yada. Yada. Yada.

I'm still shocked that the coup in Baghdad hasn't received more press. There are so many aspects to this story that scream "fiasco." The coup of a municipal government in the midst of the U.S. effort to build a democracy. The coup, motivated by the municipal government's failure to provide Baghdad with adequate power and water. How long have we been in Baghdad, now? The promise of American power's incredible capacity to rebuild infrastructure has been clearly broken. The coup, upsetting an instituted power that was to have been a shining example of how to do it.

The bottom line of this story, to me, is that if we aren't even providing stability for Baghdad's municipal government, then we're not even close to providing security and stability for the nation as a whole. We are five days from the day that the new Iraq is supposed to have drafted a constitution, and the adage of the day in Baghdad is still "don't drink the water."

Anyway, enough of that. There're other things going on. Like:

• Salon has an excellent Sidney Blumenthal piece on Novak that includes an excellent explanation of Novak's explosion—Ed Henry was taunting him with on-set a "Who's Who," where Novak had said anyone could have found Valerie Plame's name...
• Can you say "indictment," boys and girls? Knew ya could...

Trevor

Since I've moved my engine to Blogger, comments here at KIAV have been less spammy but also less frequent. I mean, I understand that, to a large extent, I am masturbating into the wind here. And limiting the pool of commenters to members of Blogger, it doesn't help. I know. I know. That's blogging for you, especially, I think, when you blog from this side of the dais. But, at least I've limited advertising resources for online poker.

So I was pleasantly surprised to get a comment that wasn't spam and wasn't from my Mom. It was from a man named "Trevor." Trevor wrote: "No worries. It'll work out despite people like you who have nothing to contribute but negativity. Or am I wrong?"

I of course stood up from my handy dandy Briggs and Stratton computer device and began to argue with Trevor. Hey, man, I said to the wall, I got positivity. I got yer positivity right here. I was gearing up and ready to let this right-wing whacko have it. Yeah, bitch.

So before I sat back down again to write, I looked up Trevor's profile and checked out his blog. It's called "will to exist."

Trevor is a National Guardsman getting ready to go to Iraq. To quote a dead ex-friend of mine: "Not so fucking funny now, are we?"

So, Trevor, my man, I have a few things to say to you. First of all, thank you for posting a comment here at KIAV, and thank you for that comment not being some milquetoast "Yes, I Agree With You Completely" sort of comment. Your comment, not for what it said but for what you are, has been the most interesting thing to ever happen to this project since its inception. Because with what you've laid at my feet, it no longer feels like shadowboxing. From my visit to your site, I can see your face, man. In cammos, no less. And how do I answer you directly without telling you that the sense of purpose you clearly feel in this mission is worthless? How do I tell you where I'm coming from without making you feel that my opinions are specifically meant to render your sacrifice as "in vain?" Could I look you in the face while you're wearing those cammos and tell you that I believe this war is bullshit and sleep all right that night?

All right, fine. "...nothing to contribute but negativity..." Listen. I was in downtown Washington, D.C. on September Eleventh. I had to walk home to Arlington with several thousand of my closest friends. I saw the smoke. I fussed for a whole evening over a friend who was in New York. I lived it and had stomachaches over it and cried it out just like everybody else. And on the other side of the grieving, I supported our president. And, at the time, I was willing to suck up my obviously
partisan proclivities and support George W. Bush in whatever endeavors he attempted. I was positive, my man. Like most of my American brothers and sisters, conservative or liberal, I positively wanted two things: I wanted justice, and I wanted measures taken to insure that this wouldn't happen again.

Gary Schroen reported to Tim Russert that Bush wanted UBL's head in a box on dry ice. Tim Russert's initial question upon hearing this was about where you'd find dry ice in Afghanistan. I think I might have asked something like, "His head? Really? His fucking head? You're shitting me. He wanted his HEAD? No fucking way. You're shitting me. No, really. His HEAD?"

But, if that were to have come to pass, I can't say that even my happy capital-punishment-hating liberal ass would have been disappointed. But it did not come to pass, and nor did the routing out of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or so a little home movie featuring Ayman al-Zawahri released just last week tells me. So, no justice. And, certainly, we've enjoyed a cessation of attacks here at home, but the recent London bombings indicate to me that there's no peace, either. And every line of relevance that these folks have tried to draw from September Eleventh to Iraq has been broken. This administration and its policies have made it diffcult for me to just give our president any attaboys.

Regardless, Trevor, of whatever disagreements you and I might have about the path our country has taken, the most important thing I have to tell you is this: Please come home. Please come home safe and with all of your arms and legs and fingers and toes and with your sanity intact. Come home to your country and your family and your hometown, preferably to a tickertape parade and a fat happy beautiful American life. Godspeed to you, but please, come home.

How's that for positive?

I have linked to your blog and will check it often, though I will understand if spinning the blogwheel isn't your first priority. But please try to keep us updated when you can.

Thank you.
Aaron

Freedom's On The March!

I'm not sure which is more disturbing, the fact that the mayor of the capital city of the country the United States overran to install democracy was forced out of office yesterday by a Shiite militia-man, or the "in other news" treatment this story seems to be getting.

Alaa Mahmood Tamimi wasn't exactly elected to office. He was approved, first by the city council, and then by then viceroy (yes, he was actually called viceroy) J. Paul Bremer.

Here's an interesting quote from a news article from April 2004, when the new mayor was installed.

"One year after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the government of former president Saddam Hussein, the American-led occupation authority has promoted the new Baghdad city government as a symbol of Iraq's democratic potential."

How's that workin' out for ya?

No, We Won't Shut Up

A stark difference between conservatives and liberals: Liberals genuinely believe in Voltaire's most quoteable quoth, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Conservatives don't.

You know it if you've ever heard Bill O'Reilly's masterful interviewing technique. You know it if you've ever tried to attend a Bush rally with a "No Blood For Oil" bumpersticker on your car. And, you know it if you've been paying any attention at all to the conservative blogorama lately.

Michelle Malkin and her lot have been making a bunch of hay over a nonstory and the media's "failure" to cover it. You see, it seems that Evan Cohen, the former CEO of Air America Radio, was, how shall we put it, "shady." This is obviously a big story that the liberal media is ignoring completely. Right?

Waitaminute. Didn't HBO have this entire documentary called Left of the Dial? And wasn't the thesis of said movie pretty much that Evan Cohen was a shady dealer? That he was talking out of his ass when he said he had enough venture capital to float AAR for as long as three years? That after three weeks, AAR was defaulting on payroll and health insurance, and that shortly thereafter, Cohen got out of dodge and was divorced from the company two months after the first broadcast?

So, here's the "scoop": The New York Department of Investigation is looking into whether hundreds of thousands of dollars were illegally transferred from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, a nonprofit organization in the Bronx, to Air America Radio during Cohen's ever-so-brief tenure there. Bloggers and even Tony Blankley's editorial page are painting it as the network preying on children, a ridiculous characterization on its face. Cohen was a shady dealer and a bad businessman who apparently made more than one horrible business decision. Air America Radio is not the White House, however, and instead of promoting Cohen for his incompetence, he was summarily drummed out.

No, the maelstrom the conservatives are attempting to create over this nonissue isn't about conservatives' overreaching concern for respect of the law, nor is it out of heartfelt compassion for the children. They're making hay out of this simply because they cannot stand the fact that Air America Radio is on the air at all.

From Franken's first broadcast, they've been predicting its failure. And, true, it almost failed, but not because there's no market for it. It almost failed because the guy running the business was a douchebag. But the network is growing, now with 67 terrestrial affiliates and an exclusive deal with XM Radio that should cement its survival.

To conservatives, though, there is no room for other ideas. You're either a blind, unquestioning adherent to the, um, "philosophy" of Ayn Rand, or SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Air America Radio did not partake in thievery from children; that assertion is ridiculous, mean-spirited, and meant to hush a voice that's been needed for years. The Gloria Wise mess will certainly be moderated adequately, and these fine liberal voices will continue to be heard.

America Drinks & Goes Home

So, you go out in Las Vegas to buy beer. Why not take your assault rifle with ya?

That's what 20-year-old Matthew Sepi did. He ended up using it, too. He killed a woman and injured a man. He later said he "reacted in keeping with military training: engage targets and retreat," according to the AP story.

Sepi's mom said her boy has been trying to get help for PTSD ever since he's been discharged.

This story couldn't be more ironic in light of the Democrats' radio address last weekend, in which Sen. Daniel Inouye chided Senate Republicans for putting off work on a $491 billion defense bill to work instead on the NRA's gun manufacturer liability shield law.

Kind of on the nose, don't you think?

Anyway, I kind of reckon that when you send home some 40,000 troops who can't fight anymore because they've lost limbs and had their brains shook around in their heads, stuff like this is bound to happen. I've been saying for months that I didn't envy this country the debilitating aftereffects this war was bound to produce. Right now, in Lost Wages, there's a lady who is just as much a casualty as any poor sucker "over there" who died from taking shrapnel. And the most telling part of the story is Mrs. Sepi's comment that he was "trying to get help." Trying to get help? A team of counselors should be descending upon every one of these people the minute their Keds squish on American soil. They shouldn't have to "try" to get help. "Help" should be trying to get them.

No Comment

(This is now available as a T-Shirt at cost at CafePress.)

The First Real Victory In The War On Terrorism

Eric Rudolph was sentenced today to two life sentences without parole.

And the sentencing isn't even done yet.

Worst. War Rationale. Evar.

It is my personal opinion that, of all of the rationales we've been given for this war, "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is the worst one of all.

Next, Bush will be telling us that we went to war in Iraq because "Sadaam Hussein was a sissyhead boogerface."

Right On

"We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

George H.W. Bush
April 16, 1999

Shenanigans! Shenanigans!

I hereby declare shenanigans on this story that Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of those responsible for taking 52 of our folks hostage in 1979.

Think about it, people. Which country is next on George W. Bush's war list? Which country do you most often hear mentioned as the next one to invade?

Wouldn't it help make the case to the American people if we're suspicious that they just elected a hostage-taker as president?

Shenanigans! Shenanigans!

Red Rover

I am beginning to believe that Republicans are force-fed some sort of strange herbal hallucinogen that inspires them to lie big and, beyond and within that, to do and say some of the truly most bizarre, unexplainable things. Well, actually, I don't think it's force-FED. I imagine that it's probably more along the lines of a suppository.

Witness one Karl Rove, who made headlines recently with the following quote: Liberals saw the savagery of the nine-eleven attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of nine-eleven and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on nine-eleven and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.

I don't know where this freak was immediately following September Eleventh, but it was certainly nowhere near here, and by "here," I mean "the planet Earth." I do not believe there were many Americans, nor many Earthlings, for that matter, who would have blamed President Bush at the time had he opted to exercise a limited nucyoolar option in Afghanistan to smoke that lanky bastard out. I do not believe there were many American liberals who would disagree with me that, had President Bush appeared on our television sets two months to the day of September Eleventh with Osama Bin Laden's head in a bowl on his desk, and had he said, "My fellow Americans" as he started pouring milk over the bowl's contents, and had he begun to chow down on his delicious crispy Osama Bin Laden head cereal while offering us every disgusting detail regarding Bin Laden's slow, painful demise, it would have made most of us liberals very, very happy. Such a scene on my television set two months to the day following September Eleventh would almost have been enought to persuade me to vote for President Bush.

That didn't happen, did it? I mean, Bush set out at first to achieve this mission, even telling Gary Schroen to go in there and put Osama's head on a pike for him. And I believed strongly at the time that the United States was going to raid Afghanistan, bring back Osama's head, kick the Taliban's ass and come home. Unfortunately, we suffered from a little bit o' mission creep.

Here's where the suppositories kick in: It has been long and legitimately established that Iraq was not involved in the September Eleventh attacks. It's been well-documented and is at last permeating public opinion that Saddam's Iraq wasn't involved. So, Rove's attempt to continue sneaking that association in on the American people is downright laughable.

More laughable, though, is Rove's assertion that American liberals wanted to just roll over after the attacks. I was here, you dumbass. I saw the smoke. I walked Roosevelt bridge to get home because I didn't trust the Metro. I saw the snipers pacing on top of the White House. I was here and lived through it and you bet your combover I wanted answers. And if the answers included Osama's head, I would have been happy with that, too. But you assholes have given us more questions than answers, and your act is wearing increasingly thin. What you gave us was a quagmire that has done nothing to exact justice for what happened or to even convince me that something just as bad can't happen again. It's not that we didn't want some blood for that, you dick, but we've got the wrong blood on our hands now.

Keep flapping your mouth about your fancy suit, fellas. They're starting to see you ain't actually got no clothes on. (Just don't ferget to take your medicine.)

Garp Bit Bonkie

It just occurred to me that the people who sat in front of Terri Schiavo's hospice remind me a little of the Ellen Jamesians. The difference, of course, being that I don't see any of these folks self-lobotomizing in sympathy.

It does appear that their leader Randall Terry is going halfway, anyway. He's running for Senate.

I Hope The New Amendment Will Cover A Case Like This

Seriously. If that shirt isn't desecration of the American flag, I don't know what is.

Because It's A Piece Of Shit, That's Why

Edward Klein, author of that nasty, nasty "book" about the Next President of the United States, responded to assertions by conservatives that his "book" might create sympathy for Mrs. Clinton by saying that, if it were true, "...why have her people attacked the book?"

Does the Bow Tie Ever Spin Around?

Have been watching Tucker Carlson's The Situation on MSNBC, primarily because it features left wing radio's smoothest coolest sexiest lesbian, Rachel Maddow. It's not a bad show, perhaps an attempt by Carlson to answer to charges garnered from his participation in the yellfest that was Crossfire, but it often loses me, especially with that dingbat Tucker has employed as his "devil's advocate" on the "Outsider" segment. Wow. I could argue more effectively exerting my diaphragm to squeeze air through my sphincter muscles. And, I often do.

The "Outsider" segment is pretty contrived: Carlson introduces news stories from around the country, and this fella who looks like your RA your second year in undergrad, he's supposed to play devil's advocate and "defend" it. So, tonight Carlson mentions the fact that Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa is set to restore voting rights to ex-felons who have completed their sentences.

"Aw, c'mon, Tucker dude," says the Outsider guy. "You know, dude, awwww, those dudes like, already served their sentences, dude." You know, this "Outsider" segment for some reason reminds me of a rumor I hear tell that Tom Cruise likes to work with actors who are very very short because, well, it makes him look tall.

Carlson counters by arguing that ex-cons don't have very good judgement and therefore should not be allowed to vote. He also notes that Alzheimer's patients generally do not make their ways to the polls, and that sex offenders often must fulfill certain requirements after incarceration.

First, a little background. There are five states in the nation that fully deny voting rights to ex-cons. They are Iowa, Kentucky, Alabama, Florida, and Virginia. Other states have varying policies, 14 states automatically restore voting rights; four states restore rights after parole; and 18 do so after prison sentence, parole and probation. Therefore, it should be understood that withholding of the voting right altogether is the exception, not the rule.

Second, to compare the cases of ex-convicts and people not in stable states of mind is directly and nearly moronically contradictory. A person has to be found competent before standing trial, you numbnuts. The state cannot first find a person competent for the purpose of standing trial and then incompetent for the civil privelege of voting. And Tucker, mah man, you cannot compare the general population of convicts to the recidivist-like-clockwork population of sex offenders. Just can't do it.

Denying ex-convicts the right to vote amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, extending a convict's sentence into his entire life. More important, though, it dillutes the effectiveness of the penal systems that prescribe it (as does, I often argue, the death penalty). The true cost to the convicted criminal is supposed to be his loss of liberty, something that's supposed to mean more to the inhabitants of this country than life. Restoration of that liberty should act like a carrot, but without the right to vote included, you might as well be waving a can of beets in front of 'em. I hope those other states, including my own, follow suit.

Teri Was a Vegetable-dot-com

I think the largest point to be drawn from today's release of Teri Shiavo's autopsy report today is how awesomely powerful the superstitious little gremlins who have pirated the Republican party have become and how incredibly effective they are at obscuring truth.

The autopsy report evicerates claims that Schiavo could have been rehabilitated. It fortifies claims doctors had been making before judges for years, that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, and that her revival was but a dream. The report states for the record that Schiavo was what court records said she was, a woman with half a brain and a head full the rest with fluid. Moreover, the report said she was probably blind, adding a nearly burlesque absurdity to the notion that this woman was reacting or making eyepaths.

And yet, these little gnomes held up the business of the nation for weeks, even rustled the president away from his vacation. They led masses of poor, deluded idiots to protest and to make overt jackasses of themselves, trying to "rescue" a woman who had actually died 14 years ago. One of these leaders, himself somehow licensed as a medical doctor, led the charge based on diagnoses he arrived at by watching it on television, high and mighty in denial of the most basic medical truths before him regarding this poor woman's condition, all in the name of establishing phony esteem points in the, um, "fight" against, um, "activist judges."

When Kansas says it intends to, um, "redefine" science, BELIEVE THEM. They can, and they will. Before you know it, your doctors will eschew the traditional means of treating that grade IV astrocytoma that's been bothering you and will instead jam a cross into your forehead and chant in Latin until Satan must cower from your body. Before you know it, the globes in our classrooms will be shaped more like Monopoly boards than volleyballs, and all of us who want to avoid procreating unintentionally are going to have to get really handy with Saran™ wrap and masking tape.

These are the dark ages, my Republican friends. You voted for them. Have a good time.

I Find The Last Sentence In This Story Very Interesting

Even though the writer seems to have no use for grammar...

*

Boy, 4, Dies After Going on Disney Ride By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - A 4-year-old boy died after a spin on a Walt Disney World spaceship ride so intense that some riders have been taken to the hospital with chest pain.

Daudi Bamuwamye lost consciousness Monday aboard "Mission: Space," which spins riders in a giant centrifuge that subjects them to twice the normal force of gravity. The boy's mother carried him off the ride, and paramedics and a theme park worker tried to revive him, but he died at a hospital.

An autopsy was scheduled Tuesday to determine the cause of death.

The sheriff's office said the boy met the minimum 44-inch height requirement for the ride.

The $100 million ride, one of Disney World's most popular, was closed after the death but reopened Tuesday after company engineers concluded that it was operating normally.

Disney officials said in a statement that they were "providing support to the family and are doing everything we can to help them during this difficult time."

The ride recreates a rocket launch and a trip to Mars. A clock counts down before a simulated blastoff that includes smoke and flame and the sound of roaring rocket engines. The G-forces twist and distort riders' faces.

An audio recording and a video warn of the risks. Signs advise pregnant women not to go on the ride. Motion sickness bags are offered to riders. One warning sign posted last year read: "For safety you should be in good health, and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness or other conditions that can be aggravated by this adventure."

Since the attraction opened in 2003, seven people have been taken to the hospital for chest pains, fainting or nausea. That is the most hospital visits for a single ride since Florida's major theme parks agreed in 2001 to report any serious incidents to the state. The most recent case was last summer, when a 40-year-old woman was taken to a hospital after fainting.

"Two Gs is not that big a deal," said Houston-based theme park consultant Randy King, a former safety director at Six Flags, which operates 30 amusement parks.

The boy from Sellersville, Pa., was on the ride with his mother and a sister. During the ride, the mother noticed that Daudi's body was rigid and his legs were stretched straight out. She told detectives that she thought he was frightened, so she took his hand. When the ride was over, he had gone limp.

One other death was reported at Disney World this year. A 77-year-old woman who was in poor health from diabetes and several ministrokes died in February after going on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. A medical examiner's report said her death "was not unexpected."

Florida's major theme parks not (sic) directly regulated by the state, and instead have their own inspectors.

Ashcroft and who?

Loggins and Messina. Hall and Oates. England Dan and John Ford Coley. Ashcroft and Bacon.

"Both Ashcroft and Bacon feel that their ministry is important in demonstrating that 'government and God'—Christianity and politics—are compatible."

Help, I'm Iraq

This week looks like it's going to be pivotal for those of us who have said all along that the United States had and has no business screwing around with Iraq. A new poll says nearly 6 out of 10 Americans think we should draw down or withdraw. One could nearly infer that Dennis Kucinich is officially no longer a wack-job but a moderate voice for a majority of Americans. Sadder statistics are haunting the whole thing, though: We have passed another morbid milestone of 1,700 U.S. deaths. Remember, folks, that's 1,700 of our troops sacrificed in a war that the president told us was being fought to rid a nation of weapons it didn't have, to liberate a people that we've quickly driven to resent and detest us, to fight terrorism in a region in which we've actually innoculated it. And more Americans are coming around to the gruesome reality that this administration is steering the boat with its ass.

Some of those Americans, incidentally, include Repbublican lawmakers. Rep. Walter Jones, the North Carolina Republican responsible for the incredible marketing ecumen that changed "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" on the Hill, said he will offer legislation demanding a timetable for withdrawl. Many other in the president's own party are beginning to clamor for a policy change.

I hope these little epiphanies have been augmented by the press' slow realization that the Downing Street Memo actually is news. On Thursday, Rep. John Conyers will be taking a letter signed by well more than 250,000 of us to the prez asking questions about the memo, following a forum on the issue. This will happen in the wake of a newly leaked British memo that fortifies the position that British intelligence feared that the United States did not have a closing strategy for this war.

Anyway, the tide is turning, kids. Hold on.

In other crrrap:

• Salon reports that some guy will soon release a new book detailing new very nasty things to be said about Hillary Clinton and her husband, Mr. Bill Clinton. I am not linking to it, nor am I going to regurgitate the garbage, but let it be said that it makes me very sad.

Hillary Clinton for President

I tend to jump on presidential bandwagons early. I was talking about Howard Dean a year before anyone else had ever heard of him. Of course, I jumped off the bandwagon about primary time to vote for John Kerry, a decision I especially regret today in light of the revelation that Kerry did not truly do everything in his power to win. Release of his records could have shut down the yappy "swift vote beterans" in one fell swoop. It is unexplainable. And, I'm not the only amateur wonk who thinks so. I wish now that I'd voted my conscience despite the "I have a scream" speech and despite my concern that Dean couldn't get the job done. Kerry, it seems, did not do everything in his power to get the job done that I tried to send him to do. I very much now wish I had voted Dean.

With that in mind, I have decided that it is time to jump onto the bandwagon of one Hillary Clinton.

One could say (or rather, I am saying) that Hillary Clinton started her Washington career tilting against White House criminality. Papers she wrote as she served on the Watergate Committee led to three articles of impeachment against Nixon. I often wonder if this fact helped stoke the fires that led conservatives to lust for Bill Clinton's impeachment. Vengeful little fucks.

I also like the idea of Hillary Clinton for President because she was the face of healthcare reform. Somewhat unfortunate, of course, since that attempt fell flat on its ass due to politics. But the Clintons were the only ones who ever tried to do anything meaningful about this stupid, stupid problem.

I also like the idea of Hillary Clinton for President because the Clintons' record is, as of now, EXPUNGED. They've been exonerated of all but the most idiotic charge, and I think that one's been pretty well paid for. Let's run the Clintons with a fresh new record--no Whitewater, no beef futures, no more bullshit. Just good, common sense leading the way. Hillary for President, 2008.

Cribbed Directly From R. Maddow

I got this directly from this morning's Rachel Maddow Show, so forgive the outright theft. This, however, is so incredible that I had to steel it.

As many of you probably read yesterday, John Kerry has allowed some of his records to be released. And, they show that Kerry probably was not that much better of a student than was George W. Bush at Yale. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha! What a great story! Hee hee!

Yes, it's a funny story, and the right-wangers are certain to really zing us with it. Ha-ha!

The problem is that the real story went underreported. The real story, what else was in them records? Could it be...letters of commendation? Letters of commendation from some of the same fellas who were impugning Kerry in 2004 as the "Swift Boat Veterans?" Yep.

The question remains, why weren't these released when they could have done us some good? Only John Kerry knows.

Otra Crappa

• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Stem Cell Debate, by Salon

Me Too

The first thing I really heard on Air America Radio was the voice of Randi Rhodes. I'd been listening for days, but her voice made me turn up the volume. It's a voice coated with cigarette smoke, snarling and volatile. She sounds rude, like she has ruined countless dinner parties. I once heard her say to a male, conservative caller something like this: "You are probably one of those idiot guys who goes to backyard barbecues and talks to dumb women in their short shorts." At that point I started to fall in love with her.

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