Oh Hell— Let's Just Light This Muthafucker Off On The Front Page

Elevated from one of my own comments to a previous post, and edited slightly for content and scansion... allow me to present Dr. Strychnine's Improved First Verse of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Yo. Can you muthafuckin see? By the goddamn dawn's early light? What so muthafuckin proudly we hailed at the goddamn twilight's last— muthafuckin— gleaming? What broad goddamn stripes and bright muthafuckin stars, through the goddamn perilous muthafuckin fight, over the goddamn ramparts we watched, were so goddamn muthafuckin— gallantly— streaming. Yeah. And the muthafuckin rockets' goddamn red glare, and the muthafuckin bombs muthafuckin bursting in the muthafuckin air, gave— fuck, proof!— muthafucker, i said proof, god damn you!— that our muthafuckin goddamn flag was... Still. Fuckin. There. So, yeah bitch. Now, answer me. Does that goddamn, punkass, piece-of-shit, star-spangled banner yet fuckin wave over the land of the muthafuckin free and the home of the god damn brave? Does it? Uh, huh, that's what I muthafuckin thought. Now, goddamn it— play muthfuckin ball!

Be thankful I wrote it in English, muthafuckers. I shudder to think how you'd react if I had written it en Español.

Your Daily Moment of Surreality

Once again, those propellerheads in East Blogistan have had a stroke of genius. Alternatively, and this is a more disturbing thought, they're all just having strokes— probably of pathogenic origin.

Assume the position, convict!

AAAHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *breathe* HA HA HA HA HA AAHHHH HA HA HA HA

Of course the real comedy here is that our favorite corpulent walking afterbirth of a radio host is continually bloviating on the evils of the "liberal" courts that "coddle criminals" is now benefiting from exactly that kind of "judicial activism" in the form of "deferred adjudication" that allowed Rush to walk in, pay his grotesquely low bail and then walk out, confident that if doesn't get caught any time in the next 18 months ripped to the gills on oxycontin or selling it to kids in the park, then his record is expunged...

Wonder if he'll change his tune... [/holding_breath]

mojo sends

Paging Mr. Guthrie:

A few posts down, S9 laments the quality of our national anthem. In comments he says:

Personally, I've always thought the United States would do well to come to agreement on an unofficial national anthem, like the Australians did with Waltzing Mathilda. Unfortunately— at least, unfortunately for me— it would appear that the unofficial national anthem of the United States is... God Bless America. Which has a better tune, but the lyrics are sheer banality if you ask me.

S9, I have a suggestion that you may not have considered, Woody Guthrie's "This land is your Land". A song written specifically as an answer to "God Bless America". Personally, I think of "This Land" as the real national anthem of this country. Springsteen does a nice version on his live album, and there should be plenty on ITunes. Give it a try..

Your Brief Moment of Surreality

Tom Lehrer yet lives!

Finally, Your Daily Moment Of Surreality

Michele Malkin discovers that productions of worse covers, of already bad popular music, written at the spur of the moment by large groups of artists trying to raise awareness of a political issue are just as likely to happen in languages other than English.

p.s. for the slow-witted among our readers, yes— I'm bagging on The Star-Spangled Banner. I realize it's the official national anthem of the United States, but that doesn't change the fact it's a lousy filk of a bad English drinking song called Anachreon In Heaven, and there's a fscking reason nobody ever sings more than the first verse. Our national anthem sucks, and I'm not ashamed to say it. If this were a civilized country, then you wouldn't be afraid to admit it either.

Talk about an interesting day...

Well... this has been one hell of a day.

First, referencing below posts we learn from the good offices of Digby and others that the military I/T structure is preventing the troops from accessing liberal or progressive websites, while refusing to block LittleGreenShitheads and other cranks.

We also learn that the CIA and NSA could quite possibly soon be transformed into KGB/NVD Praetorian guards under the direct control of Sparky Gonzales, vesting them with unprecedented domestic police powers and nearly no accountability or transparency.

Finally, we learned late this afternoon that Congress voted to take the Internet out behind the woodshed and put a bullet in its head. Better for everyone that way, donchya know...

On the plus side of the ledger... We learned that FoxNews'Tony Snow is going to replace the hapless Scotty McClellan as chief press wrangler. Yeah... call on Helen Thomas. I dare you, I double dog dare you motherfscker!

Karl Rove may have worn out his welcome with W and may in fact get indicted for bilging the name of an undercover CIA operative. If he's indicted, I wonder if the CIA protective service is going to want to "question" him ... or perhaps have some friends in Uzbekistan do it for them...

mojo sends

Update 1.0 [s9]: Oh let's just round out the day with the story about the pending Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006, said to make the DMCA seem tame by comparison, which will put the final nail in the coffin of your Right To Read.

The Sound of One Hack Clapping

Apparently wishes do come true...

I do believe in fairies... I do believe in fairies...

mojo sends

WHAT THE FSCK?!

In reference to s9's post below, please read the following from Project on Government Oversight.

They are complaining about provisions of the House Intelligence Authorization bill for FY2007. Check out this gem:

Section 423 – Additional Functions And Authorities For Protective Personnel Of The Central Intelligence Agency

We are particularly concerned with the language in Sections 423, “Additional Functions and Authorities for the Protective Personnel of the Central Intelligence Agency,” and Section 432, “Codification of Authorities of National Security Agency Protective Personnel.” As currently written, Section 423 proposes that:

(a) The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency may issue regulations to allow personnel designated to carry out executive protection functions for the Central Intelligence Agency under section 5(a)(4) of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 USC 403f) to, while engaged in such protective functions, make arrests without a warrant for any offense against the United States committed in the presence of such personnel, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States, if such personnel have probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing that felony offense.

(b) The powers granted under subsection (a) may be exercised only in accordance with guidelines approved by the Attorney General.

There is a section just like it for creating a secret national police agency for the NSA as well...

So let's be very clear on what these sections of law will do. They will grant nearly unlimited power to uniformed and plainclothes members of the "protective service" of both the NSA and CIA to enforce the law anywhere in the United States as long as it is justified under their "protective" functions, including arresting any person for any felony. This could include everything from espionage to possession of pot.

Moreover, both of these sections also transfer direct control through approval opinions from CIA and NSA and place them Sparky Gonzalez' office. The guy who says torture is legal and the President is a law unto himself, will get legal control over the new secret national police forces.

And again I ask: are we there, yet?

mojo sends

The Ministry of Information Retrieval

Digby speaks. You listen!

Oh yeah, and there's this over at DailyKos, too.

Attention Shoppers: put down the Escalade keys.

Some intersesting points have been made in the comments of the previous post. Mojo rightly revs up about the whining of American drivers about gas prices while they continue to drive unsafe, gas guzzling behemoths. The irony is apparently lost on them, sliding off their sloped foreheads like a greasy stain on a lunch counter. I am encouraged though by the shift in the market from SUV's as the prime selection for conspicuous consumers to other products, best reflected in the rising market share of Toyota, Honda and Nissan, who diversified their product line and worked hard to brand themselves as the main stop for anyone looking for a nice car with decent mileage.

I'm more charitable than the other editors here about SUV's. In part because my wife drives a four cylinder version of a 4 runner that gets reasonable mileage compared to the standard V8 SUV. I agitate often to replace it, even going so far last weekend to try to calculate how much we would save by getting a new car with better mileage now that gas is getting nasty expensive. Our SUV however, isn't bad enough on the mileage, and my wife lives 15 minute from her job, so total gas consumption is relatively low. That aside, the truth is the damn thing is useful and convenient, and when we moved twice in the last 3 years, gone on numerous camping excursions including one across the country, or just went on regular road trips I was thankful to have it( and felt guilty as well). So I have some sympathy for people who get attached to them, particularly if they have a brood of offspring they cart around with all the requisite gear that goes with that. S9 rightly points out no one really needs these things, there are saner, more economical cars that cost the same or less that could do the job. And lets face it, the freakin things have an awful safety record overall, and automakers should be forced to make them safer.

Mojo really hits on the right note when he talks about how gas prices are subsidized in various ways. In the same vein, SUV ownership is as well. The rest of the insurance risk pool subsidizes them by having to pay for the rash of deaths and accidents they have caused, needlessly in many cases since they could be made safer if forced to comply with the same standards regular cars are. Not to mention that since gas prices don't reflec the true total costs assoicated with the process of getting that shit to market, SUV owners don't have to pay the real penatly for driving the worst offenders in mileage and emissions. Gas prices are starting to make that point to the share of the market that is capable of reason. The rest will cling to their V12 ASSMUNCHER until the steering wheel is pried from their cold dead fingers.

Idiots!

Okay... I am now officially past tired of hearing Americans bitch about gas prices.

You wanna convince me you are really serious about taking a bite out of the evil oil companies?

STOP BUYING LUXURY ROAD-WARRIOR-MOBILES WITH ENGINES LARGE ENOUGH TO DRIVE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS!

Then, and only then will I be convinced that we are serious about our issues with petroleum, and not just a nation full of sollopsistic, self-obsessed me-monkeys in search of our next excuse to whinge and be excused from anything resembling civil responsibility.

You know how I know Americans want high gas prices? They are subsidizing them! Willfully! Look at the stickers on the windows of that next big American LandChastener SUV. Those numbers aren't lies. You don't magically get better mileage once you buy the damn thing!

Until I no longer read terrible, craptacular things like:

"Despite all the concern about rising prices of gasoline, sport utility vehicles are among the hottest sellers so far this year for General Motors Corp.

GM said strong sales of its Hummer H3 midsize SUV have helped the Hummer brand increase its total sales by 185 percent during the past year in the United States. The full-size Chevrolet Tahoe and the new HHR "retro wagon," described as a smaller brother of the Chevrolet Suburban, have exceeded sales expectations this year so far, GM said.

David Healy, an auto industry analyst with Burnham Securities Inc., said he isn't surprised the cars are selling well as new or remodeled additions to GM's product line, even with gas prices approaching $3 per gallon."

...will I believe that, as a nation, we are going to do anything more than simply bend over and take it.

The fscking piece of shite H2's gets less than 20 miles per gallon. And the full size Hummer gets less than 10 mpg, you got that?! But these things are flying off the shelf. And other American motor companies are still busy attempting to crank out not only SUVs but more ultra-heavy, V8 and V10 lead-sleds that correspond to some mythical American past of rebels in their liberty-mobiles, tear-assing down gloriously open roads with freedom for sale at 25 cents a gallon.

And people are buying these things! So until you decide you want to stop being the suckers and rubes in this particular scam, I don't want to hear it. Yeah, I know, I'm not talking about all Americans, sit down, Woody Harrelson.

As for the rest of you making things tougher on the rest of us, though: shut yer collective pie hole until you decide to walk the walk America...

mojo sends

The Great Firewall Of China

The peasantry of Left Blogovia is in open revolt over the issue of "net neutrality" as Congress is considering lifting restrictions on Internet service providers against content discrimination. Read more about the issue at SaveTheInternet.Com. Readers of this blog may be interested to know what I think about this effort, particularly since it has the endorsement of one of my personal heroes, Vint Cerf.

I think— to put it simply— that Congress would be making a terrible mistake giving such network power to the big telecom companies, and I fully expect them to do it with nothing more than a whimper from the voting public. The resulting deterioration in the quality of American intellectual life will take centuries to undo, and I do not exaggerate.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving nation of losers and fools on the planet.

Nevertheless, it's not like the overregulation of big telecom networks isn't a huge problem worldwide. Some governments are better than others. Some are really bad, c.f. China. If I wanted to live in Shanghai, I'd move there. On the other hand, the climate in the EU Zone is generally better. Sad to see the U.S. becoming more like China.

If the Congress does this, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the idea that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. This aphorism was never really about censorship in the core of the network. It was always about censorship at the edges. As the example of the Great Firewall of China shows, when the Internet itself is built to be a censorship engine, it can do things that even broadcast media is unable to do, e.g. effective astroturfing.

America is getting ready to unravel itself completely. Cyberprogressives need to refamiliarize themselves with the NNTP protocol immediamente. We desperately need a revision of RFC 977. Yesterday.

It's begining to look alot like Christmas..!

From Jason Leopold at Truthout.org:

Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.

The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.

Now, all of his sources are anonymous, so take this with a grain of salt. And also remember that the Grand Jury may decide not to indict. So, now that I'm sufficiently hedged, I now officially declare:



It's on...

Papers And Effects

Via Cursor.Org, we discover the extent to which the U.S. government thinks it's important to go in reclassifying information leaked to the press. I, for one, look forward to the glorious day coming soon when any library, archive or private store of data can be scrubbed by the FBI for information that maybe should be reclassified after the fact of its leak to the public.

I didn't think they could find anyone worse...

But they apparently went deep on the bench to get someone to replace Komrade Karl as chief policy muck...

So now the guy who is going to drive the policy agenda for the White House and their minions in Congress is the same guy who staged a phony riot to intimidate people who were trying to conduct a democratic election in Florida in 2000.

How do you parody this? My irony meter just spontaneously imploded and plowed straight down into the earth like big ol' glowing gopher...

Yeah, s9... I remember what you said about replacing Field Marshal Von Rummy... but can they really bring Heinrich Himmler or Benjamin Disraeli back from the dead?

mojo sends

Your Daily Moment of Surreality

Ah, science...

I refuse to believe I'm the first one to think of this...

But I can't help but thinking now, if the whole "nuke Iran" story isn't some sort of canard; a deliberate attempt to stampede the left into believing that we are preparing to turn Persia into a glassy parking lot.

The ostensible purpose of such a put up job would be an idiotic form brinksmanship. The sort of heads-up poker where you want you opponent to believe your just a little crazy, by making it look like you accidentally gave away a tell when you actually wanted to send that message.

I, of course, have absolutely no proof of any of this; I am just thinking that our response to this has been pretty predictable... If it was my job to get inside the head of Tehran's strategic thinking with the mission of convincing them that we are ready to end the world if they try to make a bomb, this is exactly how I'd go about it...

Which, in retrospect is probably why its a good thing I am not in charge of doing this task. Because the outcome is almost certainly going to be disastrous. It assumes that the Islamo-fascists have more fear of the bomb than we do.

I'm not sure that's a good bet...

mojo sends

You can almost see the dried spittle...

Boy... if there's one thing that makes Freeperville angrier than an enfranchised Latino, it's "homosexuals playin' house," especially if it's the "White House."

Check out a sampling of the breathless end-time hysterics over at Free Salt Lick regarding the Bush family's latest treason against American values, namely allowing homosexuals to promote their agenda at an event meant for the children...

... for the children, for God's sakes! Will no one think of the children!?

mojo sends

Request For Comments (RFC 1)

We here at The MojoWire are proud to announce our first "open thread" opportunity. Post to the comments whatever heinous screed is rattling around in your brain. Blogwhoring enthusiastically welcomed!

General Dreedle Wants You To Like Him

In light of the recent parade of shiny brass stars coming forward from their well-deserved retirement to call for the resignation of Field Marshall Donald Von Rumsfeld, I'd like to bring to your attention an old news article about a general who lost his career when he publically contradicted the Defense Secretary by saying the Army was stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan and needed more troops.

This was from almost one whole year ago, i.e. from back in those halcyon days when it still looked like Rummy might still be a military genius and Iraq might soon become a Jeffersonian democracy, complete with atheists, objectivists and snake oil salesmen.

My favorite part of this article follows:

He was given 24 hours to leave the Army. He had no parade in review, no rousing martial music, no speeches or official proclamations praising his decades in uniform, the trappings that normally herald a high-level military retirement.

Instead, Riggs went to a basement room at Fort Myer, Va., and signed some mandatory forms. Then a young sergeant mechanically presented him with a flag and a form letter of thanks from President Bush.

"That's the coldest way in the world to leave," Riggs, 58, said in a drawl that betrays his rural roots in southeast Missouri. "It's like being buried and no one attends your funeral."

I point this out so you know just what it was all those generals whom you're hearing from now were avoiding by not speaking up about their lack of confidence sooner.

Your Daily Moment Of Surreality

Via TPMMuckraker.Com, we learn of yet another plot to sabotage America— if the fax machine runs out of ink, it means the terrorists have won.

Your Daily Moment Of Zen

Andrew Laperriere writes in The Weekly Standard about the current risks of economic recession. He concludes:

But even a gradual reversal of the housing boom could result in sluggish economic growth and painful adjustments for those in the bubble areas who incurred too much debt during the run-up in house prices. Conservatives ought to seriously consider these risks so they won't be surprised or caught flat-footed if a housing correction occurs.

Why worry, Andrew? Conservatives are, well, conservative. Surely, they must have locked in their fixed-rate mortgages a long time ago, when the rates were still low, right? Only brainless liberals will find themselves upside-down on their mortgages with nowhere to turn to escape foreclosure and eviction. And who cares about them?

The Immigration Policy Debate

Since I first noticed him when he was at FCC, I've known that Reed Hundt is smarter most people think. He writes today on Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe about his predictions for the future of the immigration policy debate.

The ship of state will be in irons, as the sailors say, because the White House will be focused on Iran bombing plans and the Libby trial; besides, the White House's base won't welcome the Democratic push for worker's rights and family values -- which is what the immigration cause can fairly be described as being.

Go read. It's not long.

Democrats should be planning to win this issue now, so they're ready to capitalize on their success when it arrives. Otherwise, we will just keep playing whack-a-mole for the next three plus years at least.

This is really priceless...

You might have noticed on the Media Matters sidebar a tid bit recently posted as of the time of this writing about ... oh God, I can barely make myself type the words this is so precious:

Mothers Against Illegal Aliens or MAIA sans link love

Is it too much to hope that this is some brilliantly conceived piece of social satire mindfuckery?

But no... it is not to be.

The leader of this delightful little assemblage of den moms is one Michelle Dallacroce. Is it me, or does this sound like someone out of a William Faulkner story or Tennesee Williams play?

Here's yer money graf: "The group claims that illegal entrants bring diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy into the country, negatively impact public schools and endanger U.S. children." Like the little monkey children, they are...

At first I thought she was yet another shill sent out to stir the pot, but after some searching it really does appear that in the middle of last year, this home grown brownshirt just up and decided that she was going to do her part to keep the Brown Menace from her children...

Much of it is just the same general hysterical mendacity we have been seeing lately about the reconquista Armada Scare, diseased feriners coming to infect our lilly White children with their dread grease spores...

Beyond being the face of the scared White pioneer in the face of the savage onslaught of the demi-human Mexican hordes for FOX News, she doesn't seem to be doing much more than harrassing her local Home Depot and pimping for White Supremecists in the Minutemen, American Border Patrol, et al...

One particularly nice piece is her exhortation to visit a site called We Hate Gringos in order to "understand what is really happening in America and how this threat has been below the radar for the last 30-40 years."

When in fact, WHG is simply another White Power Patriot, "Death to Foreign Brown Invader Man" website...

Oh... but what about the children... will no one think of the children?!

mojo sends

Update 1.0: After a little cursory poking around, it appears as if "WeHateGringos" is a side project from Pat Buchanan's old web hacks from Virginia during his mid-90s Presidential aspirations. It is also deeply infused with the whole White-Supremacist neo-Confederacy, Council of Conservative Citizens thuggery...

Your Daily Moment Of Zen

...is this Freeperville thread (note the rel='nofollow' tag so that I don't give them any link karma).

America's Pastime

Let me count the ways this is saddening.

1. The VP couldn't even throw the ball from the mound.
2. The VP was met by "thunderous boos and catcalls" from the stands.
3. The VP was protected from embarrassment by Fox News, who muted the audio on the telecast.
4. The VP was playing for a home team audience when this happened.

Hmmm... this seems familiar

It starts with "leaked" war plans that get everyone in an uproar... but at the same time get everyone comfortable with the idea of a war against Iran.

Then within days, the usual suspects, Townhall.org, World Tribune, and other start revealing that "U.S. Intel sources have been detailing the ties between Al Qaeda and Iran.

Soon it will become "The New Meme:" Iranian flying saucer fleet armed with Al Qaeda Ebola lasers, being smuggled across the border by "Mes'c'n" drug lords...

And before you know it, the United States will have no option but to go to war against Iran...

Just never forget... We told you so!

mojo sends

Flash Drives...

I probably think this is much funnier than it really is...

Here's yer lede:

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar.

So, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson weren't writing Science Fiction, per se, it turns out...

I want to know how long large multi-national corporations have had private agents scouring the back alleys of Karachi and Bagdad buying USB flash memory and drives with sensitive American industrial and miliary information on them...

mojo sends

The Department of Classified Disclosures

According to The New Pravda, the President ordered the leak secret declassification of selected portions of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate in the "public interest" of rebutting critics of the administration, but— get this— it was for undisclosed purposes other than directing Lewis Libby to secretly disclose the secretly declassified portions to undisclosed reporters at The New Pravda.

I'm going to die laughing at this comedy.

Not to Reiterate...

I am just a sign-post: get thee to James Wolcott and either click through the link or come back to get to FireDogLake for Dave Neiwert's excellent takes on the dangerous nature of the current anti-immigration bloviating.

These two posts are excellent primers on why we need to be concerned about rapidly encroaching extremism in mainstream Republican thought.

Why are you still here, go, now, read, tremble...

mojo sends

p.s. I hate to say it, but Dr. Strychine told us so...

Barbara Ann

Once again, Seymour Hersh has the scoop. They are MAD for Iran.

Mojo keeps asking us, "Are we there yet?" I keep answering, "Nope. Not yet. Soon. Very soon. Patience."

Update 1.0: Buried in the Hersh article is this interesting paragraph (emphasis mine):

“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”

There's your proverbial writing on the wall, Mojo.

An Obvious Question...

In this morning's gaggle, Scotty went to bat saying that the President's leak of information was simply a release for the good of America, to, you know, get the information out to counter the negative press.

If that's the case, why didn't the President just schedule a prime-time news conference to discuss the declassified information, instead of anonymously leaking it to their shill/agent at the New York Times?

I'm just sayin'...

Amusing side note: Normally the gaggle transcript gets updated at WhiteHouse.gov pretty quickly... not today. They are going to have to do some mighty scrubbing to get that thing clean enough to post.

Update 1.0: They got around to posting the gaggle transcript. It's moments like this that probably has Scotty drinking doubles and thinking about ritual suicide:

Rude Press Slug: So what about if it's a political [leak]? And if it's in political -- if there's a political purpose to it, then it's fine?

Scotty: If it's in the public interest, it's another matter. And the National Intelligence Estimate was declassified because it was in the public interest to provide portions of that National Intelligence Estimate to the American people. As I said, there were people that were out there making irresponsible accusations that intelligence was manipulated or that intelligence was misused. There has been no evidence to back that up whatsoever. And if you look at the National Intelligence Estimate, Jim -- you weren't here at the time, but some others in this room were -- it shows the collective judgment of the intelligence community.

Except, Scotty, that as Huckleberry Graham points out that the NIE contained serious doubters from CIA and the Department of Energy about the validity of those WMD stories, and had the evidence in the NIE, just not the parts that were bilged to Miller.

mojo sends

Comrade Joshua Finally On Board!

Well, it's finally happened. Someone in the Bush Administration has finally managed to scare even middle of the road Dems such as Comrade Joshua.

Over at his Talking Points Memo, he glitches pretty hard about the "Bush Administration's creeping monarchism."

Yesterday, Sparky Gonzalez went up to the House Judiciary Committee and dropped some bombs, most notably that the President is not only authorized by AUMF to tap potential extra-territorial Al Qaeda conversations, but that he's pretty sure, the Prez is generally authorized by virtue of being President of the United states to tap the phones of anyone he wants, any time he wants...

Welcome to the shrill, Mr. Marshall... here's yer elder sign... please read and initial the safety handout about certain books...

mojo sends

Cold, Vicious Mockery

Once again, Jesus's General responds to the bedwetting over waving the Mexican flag at rallies for legal immigration reform in the only sensible way possible— with vicious mockery.

How will you respond when some French-loving traitor asks you why you don't also condemn our Confederate patriots who proudly wave the Stars and Bars at rallies and parades? You can't just simply say that it's OK because they're white--not in public, anyway.

Click through the link and marvel at the visuals.

Two Long Pieces That Require Your Immediate Attention

p1. Al Franken's opening statement in his recent debate with Ann Coulter at the University of Judaism.

p2. Scott Ritter explaining why the anti-war movement in America is losing so badly, and what can be done about it. Once again, the man is right and nobody will listen to him. I'm going to start calling him Cassandra now.

Small Plame Item

Greg Sargent in the American Prospect points out something I missed in my Plame story on Saturday:

Thanks to Waas, for the first time, we may now know for a fact that Rove and other Bush advisers viewed the truth about the run-up to war as something that could destroy his re-election prospects. It is entirely plausible that Bush advisers calculated that if it came out that they’d outed Plame, Congress would have been forced by the resulting firestorm to run a far more aggressive investigation of Bush’s pre-war deceptions – and possibly uncover the smoking gun Waas reports on, among other things. Remember, Libby and Rove testified in early 2004, during the heat of a presidential campaign which Rove himself had apparently concluded was at risk if existing hard evidence of Bush’s deceptions surfaced.

So it seems plausible that Libby and Rove sought to minimize the chance of the aggressive congressional oversight that might have resulted if it became known that they’d outed Plame. In short, misleading the grand jury about Plame may simply have been a key piece of a broader effort to get past the election before the truth about the run-up to the war surfaced to sink his campaign.

The timing of their testimony is critical here. I have wondered right from the very start why Libby, an experienced Washington player and a lawyer to boot, would lie so transparently and overtly to a Grand Jury. Rove was less overt, he had "memory" lapses, and omitted anything he could to avoid drawing the attention of Pat FitzGerald. They made a calculation that the reelection of their prospective masters outweigned the risk of perjury, relying on the aversion of reporters in revealing their sources, and, I believe, underestimated the Special Prosectors tenacity and legal skill in forcing Cooper and Miller to testify. Notice how both Libby and Rove were unwilling to clearly release Miller and Cooper from their pledge of confidentiality without being pressured.

We should also draw our attention to the Jason Leopold piece in Raw Stort that claims that, despite all of Rove maneuverings in front of the Grand Jury, and the strategems of he and his lawyer after the Libby indictment, Patrick FitzGerald is moving for an indictment of Rove. And that my friends, is whole new kettle of Fish. As Mojo likes to point out, neither of these guys is Gordon Liddy, they are not going to do any time in Prison just to take one for the team. They might hold out for a pardon, but that is quite a bet to make on the Presidents loyalty to you personally. No one else has confirmed the Leopold story, so take it with a grain of salt, but I tend to believe Fitz would not be visiting the Grand Jury so much if he didn't have something cooking.

Good Times....

Treat the Symptom... Disease Marches Merrily Along...

So it's official, Tom DeLay is punkéd.

So long Hammer, don't drop the soap. I see him possibly trying to institute an emergency "True Love Waits" program for the Aryan Brothers in cell block H.

So we get rid of one, but the GOP's got a deep bench when it comes to corruption. Recently coronated House Majority Leader John Boehner has his own Abramoff troubles, and is every bit the vile demagougic dirtbag that his predecessor was. The only difference is that he is not particularly in fealty to W. I am not sure if that makes him less dangerous or more...

And what is the reaction out in the hinterlands... well, this is a pretty typical response from the gang over at FreeRepublic:

Gun owners and Second Amendment believers have lost a great friend.

Can we please now start the next Civil War. I would just love to see the Anti-American Dems get theirs.
8 posted on 04/04/2006 2:45:55 AM PDT by MaDuce (Do it to them, before they do it to you! (MaDuce = M2HB .50 BMG))

Yeah... the typical response. Still think these fuckers aren't serious about running us into the sea? It would appear that the only thing this has done has been to really piss off the other team. So again I ask: are we there yet?

mojo sends

Update 1.0 Link fixed... continue to share and enjoy...

Why Oh Why Are We Represented By These Clowns?

Steve Soto at The Left Coaster explains what the Democratic Congressional Leadership would be doing if they weren't utterly, totally incompetent.

[...]
Democrats now have a chance to turn the tables on the GOP, and do serious damage to Republicans for the midterm elections. Bill Frist and James Sensenbrenner say that the top priority for any immigration reform is to deal with the millions of illegals here now, before we do anything about a new guest worker program or talk about earned citizenship. House GOP conservatives go even further, saying that before anything is done on immigration, America should immediately deport the 11-12 million illegal immigrants, even though the Department of Homeland Security says this would be nearly impossible.

Fine. Two can play that game. In the spirit of what Frist and Hastert have done to Reid and Pelosi previously, Democrats should force a straight up-or-down vote by Republicans on a simple deportation measure. Make the GOP vote on this issue for its base, in full view of the Catholic Church and Hispanic voters in time for the midterm elections. Let’s see if the GOP has the courage of its alleged convictions.
[...]

Click through and read the whole argument. He's absolutely correct— leaving me to wonder why Democrats are so slow-witted that they still haven't figured out how to play this game.