Reminder

http://sporkinthedrawer.typepad.com/blog/


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I've Moved!

My new home.

Be sure to update links and bookmarks accordingly.


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Pigs In Space

They never stop:

President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."

The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy.

[...]

Because of the political sensitivities, several analysts said, the Pentagon probably will not move forward quickly with space weapons but rather will work on dual-use technology that can serve military and civilian interests. But because many space initiatives are classified, Krepon and others said, it is difficult to know what is being developed and deployed.

We've seen over the last nearly six years how well militarism and crony capitalism has worked. Now the administration wants to extend it to the rest of the Solar System. (Hell, the rest of the Universe...these guys think big.)

Oh, joy...



When Our Glorious Leader™ dreams.


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A Timely Reminder

Greg Grandin has a good op-ed reminding us of the mistakes the Democrats made investigating the Iran-Contra scandal:

A REPUBLICAN PARTY on the ropes, bloodied by a mid-second-term scandal; a resurrected Democratic opposition, sure it can capitalize on public outrage.

But before Democrats start divvying up House committee assignments, they should consider that they've been here before. And things didn't turn out exactly as they'd hoped.

It was 20 years ago this Nov. 3 — the day after the Democrats regained control of the Senate in 1986 — that a Lebanese magazine revealed that the Reagan administration sold missiles to Iran. The sale (brokered by a National Security Council staffer named Oliver North) violated a U.S. arms embargo against Iran and contradicted President Reagan's personal pledge never to deal with governments that sponsored terrorism. Soon after, it was revealed that profits from the missile sale went to the Nicaraguan Contras, breaking yet another law, this one banning military aid to the anti-Sandinista guerrillas.

[...]

How did Democrats fail to inflict serious damage on an administration that sold sophisticated weaponry to a sworn enemy of the United States? How did they also fail to depict Iran-Contra as a sequel to Watergate — that earlier tutorial on the danger of unchecked executive power? One explanation is that their congressional hearings backfired. For months, they amassed evidence of what many observers believed amounted to treason by administration officials, if not Reagan himself.

But then in marched North: the crisp Marine with his hard-rock jaw and chest full of medals.

For six days, North fended off the questions of politicians, and many TV viewers viscerally connected with the loyalty and courage he so artfully displayed. "If the commander in chief tells this lieutenant colonel to go stand in the corner and stand on his head," North said, "I will do so."

I remember watching those hearings and I knew it was over when North appeared. Facts, logic, and the law went out of the window. From that moment image was all that mattered and a bunch of grumpy politicians didn't stand a chance.

Grandin continues:

Just last December, Vice President Dick Cheney pointed to the Republican "minority report" on Iran-Contra — written, not coincidentally, by Cheney's current chief of staff, David Addington — to justify the White House's insistence on the primacy of the executive branch in matters of national security. At the time, that report, which blamed the scandal on Congress for "legislative hostage-taking," was considered out of the mainstream. Today, it reads like a run-of-the-mill memo from the Justice Department outlining the legal basis for any of the Bush administration's wartime power grabs.

Cheney and Addington are not the only veterans of the scandal who have resurfaced to help President Bush fight the war on terror. So have Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Otto Reich, John Negroponte, John Poindexter, neoconservative Michael Ledeen and even Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer who brokered one of the first missile sales to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's regime.

Yep, the same bunch are running things today and worse, they are now virtually unchallenged.

The point of this isn't to engage in a trip down memory lane but to remind people of what is at stake on 7 November...and what the Democrats, in the majority, shouldn't do.

Procedure is important but John Conyers et al have to remember that that is meaningless against a massive PR machine. And this administration has proved unparalleled at image.


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Wednesday Boot

Smell the desperation:

Perhaps because this would force a shake-up in the U.S. armed forces, with officers having to be pulled out of plum staff billets and field assignments. That's a tough change to make, but it may be necessary. A country of 26 million can't be controlled by 140,000 troops. If we're not going to send a lot more soldiers, it might make sense to draw down to about 40,000 to 50,000 troops so that we could free up officers and NCOs for advisor duty. Iraq may be too far down the road to civil war for this step to make any difference, but we need to try something different to salvage a situation spinning out of control.

Max can see that his imperial ambitions are crumbling. At this point he's simply trying to salvage something of his reputation.

Good luck with that, Max.


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GOP Schism

Fundies vs. teh gays:

Some Christians, who are pivotal to the GOP's get-out-the-vote effort, are charging that gay Republican staffers in Congress may have thwarted their legislative agenda. There even are calls for what some have dubbed a "pink purge" of high-ranking gay Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the administration.

The long-simmering tension in the GOP between gays and the religious right has erupted into open conflict at a sensitive time, just weeks before a midterm election that may cost Republicans control of Congress.

"The big-tent strategy could ultimately spell doom for the Republican Party," said Tom McClusky, chief lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group. "All a big-tent strategy seems to be doing is attracting a bunch of clowns."

[...]

A recent incident that upset social conservatives involved remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week. With First Lady Laura Bush looking on, Rice swore in Mark R. Dybul as U.S. global AIDS coordinator while his partner, Jason Claire, held the Bible. Claire's mother was in the audience, and Rice referred to her as Dybul's "mother-in-law."

[...]

Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage, has a campaign manager who is gay. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who linked gay sex to bestiality, has a press secretary who is gay. Both senators are in perilous races for reelection, and neither staffer would comment.

The GOP has at times seemed a bit disjointed in its approach to gay issues. Political advisor Karl Rove ran Bush's reelection campaign in 2004 by mobilizing opposition to same-sex marriage, even as Vice President Dick Cheney said consenting adults of any orientation should be free to marry. Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian, and her partner was welcomed at presidential events.

The president recently reappointed Israel Hernandez, a gay man who had been a personal aide to Bush when he was Texas governor, to be assistant secretary of Commerce and head of an international trade office.

Buried in the article is this:

"We're not calling for what I've heard referred to as a pink purge," McClusky said. "We're asking that members [of Congress] might want to reflect on who's serving them: Are they representing their boss' interest?"

So there it is: The Fundies believe that they own the Republican Party outright. There not wrong, but I'd like to see this message spread further. Most people - Christians included - would be repelled by the views of Mullah Dobson and his cohorts.

Spread the message and pop the corn.


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PSA

There are going to be changes around here...Blogger has become intolerable. I'd like to wait until after the elections but it has been behaving so badly of late it might be sooner.

Just letting you know.


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Another

Rep. Don Young:

“A person can be the cleanest individual, but has a brother who likes to run with sheep,” Young said, adding that those who haven’t grown up on a farm might not know what that means.

Republicans cetainly have an odd fascination with screwing animals. It makes you wonder.

[Via Josh.]


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This Is Disturbing

Is Ohio Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Governor Ken Blackwell - he of suppressing the 2004 vote infamy - considering declaring his Democratic opponent ineligible to run?

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We’d like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

[...]

What is more interesting, and troubling, is the way the complaint is proceeding. The county board that heard it broke down 2 to 2, on party lines, about whether to hold a hearing. In the case of a tie vote at the county level, complaints like these get forwarded to the secretary of state’s office to be resolved. Mr. Blackwell says he has designated his assistant secretary to handle duties that could conflict with his candidacy. But passing these matters on to a subordinate who is a political ally and owes his job to the candidate hardly removes the conflict.

If - and I want to repeat: If - this were to happen then I would have no problem with armed rebellion.

[Via BruinKid's Diary.]


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I Feel So Much Better Now

Former A.G. John "Let the Eagle Soar" Ashcroft:

Earlier today, Bush signed into law the Military Commission Act, a bill giving him the legal power to declare any person a detainee. The law has been criticized for removing the right of habeas corpus and limiting the right to see evidence presented against the accused. The bill also gives the president new powers to declare anyone a detainee -- including American citizens -- and to detain that person without oversight or access to the U.S. court system.

Ashcroft argues that Presidents in the past have not abused Executive powers during times of war.

Golly, if Ashcroft says so then we have nothing to worry about.





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Losing His Mind

Li'l Ricky:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

“It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

In an interview with the Bucks County Courier Times editorial board late last week, the 12-year Republican senator from Pennsylvania said he's “a big "Lord of the Rings' fan.” He's read the first of the series, “The Hobbit” to his six children.

Uhhh, OK...

[Via The War Room.]


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With The Stroke Of A Pen...

...nearly nine centuries of law disappears.


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Question

Are there any Republicans who aren't corrupt?

Lester M. Crawford, who resigned mysteriously last fall just two months after being confirmed as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will plead guilty today to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated, his lawyer said.

Couldn't we save ourselves a bunch of time and just charge the GOP under the RICO Act?


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"Justice"

Explain this:

But I hit upon the best argument yet in the news recently: Andrew S. Fastow. Fastow, college graduate and former chief financial officer of Enron, was sentenced to six years in prison for his part in the high thievery at the company that ended with the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of investor dollars and pensions. Last month, former Enron executives (and college graduates) Timothy Despain and David W. Delainey were sentenced — Despain to four years of probation and a $10,000 fine, Delainey to 30 months in prison.

I know this doesn't sound, offhand, like a great advertisement. But consider this. In a nearby courtroom, Dale Stuart Sisson, who had never been to college, was convicted of robbing $400 from Spicy N Hot Liquor in Sealy, Texas. He was sentenced to 40 years in jail.

It's good to be rich and white.


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300,000,000

Too damn many people.


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This Is Good

Li'l Ricky is not only trailing in the polls but also in the money:

For months, as U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has trailed Democratic challenger Bob Casey in poll after poll, his supporters have been soothed by the incumbent's huge lead in campaign contributions. But now his monetary advantage has largely evaporated, at least in terms of cash-on-hand, the money at the candidates' disposal for the stretch run to Election Day.

[...]

Despite some variations among the different polls, Mr. Santorum's "positive" number -- the percentage of poll respondents who view the senator favorably -- can't escape the low 40s.

Those can't be encouraging signs for the Santorum campaign. But do they signal defeat?

"It's highly unlikely that the small number of undecided in this race is going to break in his favor," said veteran political analyst Al Neri, who authors a twice-monthly political capsule called The Insider. "If you're asking, am I predicting that Bob Casey is the next U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, the answer is 'Yes.'

21 days.


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A Bit Of Thomas Hart Benton

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Joe Lieberman Is A Republican

Would the Dems get that through their tiny heads?

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a lifelong Democrat and student of politics, blanked when asked if America would be better off with his party regaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

[...]

"Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer," Lieberman said, as though Democrats' strong prospects for recapturing the House hadn't been the fall's top political story.

Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer: Lieberman is so going to fuck you over. Wake up!


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Remember Iraq?

Fun day:

A rural Shiite town northwest of Baghdad, the capital, exploded in sectarian reprisals on Saturday as angry residents, many roving the streets in armed packs on the backs of pickup trucks, killed at least 26 people from a nearby Sunni village, provincial authorities said.

The killings in the town of Balad were in response to the slaughter of 14 Shiite construction workers whose beheaded bodies were found Friday in an orchard in Dhuluiya, a Sunni town, said Hamad al-Qaisi, governor of Salahuddin Province, which includes both towns.

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Oh. My. God.

I found this over at Blue Gal's place:




Satire is dead.


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She Gets Letters

Lindsay hears from a typical Bush supporter.

[Via Atrios.]


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It Boggles The Mind

The AP has a story on the ever-changing rationales for the war in Iraq. The most recent: It's a war between good and evil. This bit leaped out at me:

"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West," Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden.

So how the hell did Iraq get to a point where it might become a terrorist state? Our Glorious Leader™ doesn't have an answer for that, of course. At least not an answer he will offer in public.

I'll say what no politician will say: The United States, and the World, were better off with Saddam in power. And if the recent Johns Hopkins study is even in the ballpark then the Iraqis were better off with Saddam in power.

The only thing that could save us from an Iraqi terrorist state would be some sort of junta and/or strongman. In other words, another Baath Party and/or Saddam Hussein.

Some victory.


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I'm Going To Become An Alcoholic

Just in case I get into legal difficulties:

A few weeks ago, when Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) first acknowledged breaking the law, he blamed his alcoholism and skedaddled to a rehab facility.

[...]

So I checked the Bureau of Prisons Web site, and guess what? It looks like our readers were onto something.

"Non-violent inmates who are diagnosed with a substance use disorder may be eligible for up to a year off his/her sentence," the site says. And in certain prisons, inmates with substance abuse problems can be placed in a separate residential treatment program which keeps them apart from the general inmate population.

It's good to be a Republican.

Now if only he could do something about that animal that died on his head.





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God Hates The Minimum Wage

It's true!

Stop 42, the group opposed to the initiative, is taking a “biblical” approach in their campaign against a minimum wage increase. Their new ad depicts a “Moses” character speaking to the voice of God in the Rocky Mountains. “We need divine intervention,” Moses says. God responds: “We can’t let the people make this mistake. Go. Spread the word. Vote no on 42!”

[...]

Transcript:

MOSES: Hello!

GOD: Can you hear me now?

MOSES: We need divine intervention. They want to chisel Amendment 42 into Colorado’s constitution where it doesn’t belong.

GOD: What on earth are you talking about?

MOSES: An annual minimum wage increase in stone for eternity!

GOD: When inflation and recession come, it will be a catastrophe!

MOSES: It’s a plague we’ll face every year.

GOD: We can’t let the people make this mistake. Go. Spread the word. Vote no on 42!

The important part: This is NOT a parody. It's a real campaign.

Honestly, these people are ridiculous.

Video here if you can stand it.


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The Eye Of The Beholder

Beauty, of course:

The research is unambiguous that Ferrin is right: Attractive politicians have an edge over not-so-attractive ones. The phenomenon is resonating especially this year. By a combination of luck and design, Democrats seem to be fielding an uncommonly high number of uncommonly good-looking candidates.

Sadly, that looks matter a great deal is probably true. Some of our greatest politicians - Abraham Lincoln (plug-ugly) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (wheelchair) come to mind - couldn't be elected in today's mass-media environment. Think about how that obsession with looks would have affected history.


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Religious Bigotry

The Veteran's Administration hates Wiccans:

Pete Pathfinder Davis has been fighting for nearly a decade to have the emblem of his faith engraved on the headstones of veterans buried in federal cemeteries.

But the application he filed in 1997 with the Department of Veterans Affairs for use of the pentacle — a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle — is still pending.

[...]

The battle over grave markers gained a higher profile recently with a dispute over a Wiccan serviceman's headstone in Nevada and a lawsuit filed Sept. 29 on behalf of two churches and three Wiccans. The federal suit seeks to compel the VA to provide Wiccans the same recognition it affords 38 other groups, including atheists, who can have symbols of their beliefs sandblasted onto headstones.

[...]

Of particular concern to the plaintiffs was the VA's rapid processing of at least six similar headstone applications filed over the last nine years by other faiths, including the Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii, a Shinto sect, and the Buddhist group Soka Gakkai International USA.

"The VA doesn't perceive those groups as evil, just odd," said Davis, whose 22-year-old son recently returned from Navy medic duty in Iraq. "They see us as evil, which is ridiculous. Our religious services are just as boring as any other religion's."

[...]

The Wiccan case is being closely watched by supportive groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

"Anyone who serves their country honorably in uniform should have their religious symbol on their headstone, regardless of their religion," said VFW spokesman Joe Davis.

Good for the VFW.

Either the Feds recognize all legitimate religions (an admittedly slippery definition but no one can rationally argue that Wicca isn't legitimate) or they recognize none.

I may be an Atheist but I'm not so naive as to think Atheism is going to sweep the country anytime soon. Amendment One of the Constitution guarantees government neutrality on religious matters. Let's see that in action.


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Forgotten

Janitors:

Checo, a janitor, spent six months cleaning dust from office buildings around ground zero after the World Trade Center attack. Five years later, the lining of his lungs is pocked with scars and densities that do not belong there — possibly a sign of a disease that can cause lung tissue to become so stiff that it can no longer carry oxygen, wrote a radiologist who examined a scan of his lungs last year.

[...]

The dust around ground zero, we now know, contained caustic, finely pulverized concrete, trillions of microscopic fibers of glass, and particles of lead, mercury and arsenic, as well as carcinogens like asbestos and dioxin. Five years out, the "World Trade Center cough" has started to look like a persistent — and in some cases disabling — respiratory condition.

[...]

Less visible is the army of cleaning workers who were sent to the area to clean office buildings. Those were the cases that were shocking to Scottie Hill, a social worker, when the Mount Sinai Medical Center opened its WTC health clinic in 2002. The cleaners, mostly Polish and Latino immigrants, were already living close to the edge when the job began; by the following year, many were in crisis because of lost wages and poor health.

Three out of four lacked health insurance. Forget workers' compensation — many of them could not even contact their employers by phone. Hill frequently saw clients who were facing eviction or had lost their homes. Some couldn't afford the $4 it cost to ride the subway to the clinic and back.

Of course, it's not like the Aministration lied about the air quality:

Christie Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stressed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the air in lower Manhattan was safe, although she also said workers at the World Trade Center site needed to use protective breathing gear.

Whitman is being sued over her public assurances, and she was accused Friday of doing too little to protect workers.

If there is to be any justice we're going to need to build a special prison just for everyone associated with the Bush administration. A more corrupt, more dishonest, more murderous group you will not find in this nation's history.


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Bring On Da Snark!

P-G political writer Bill Toland reaches deep into the well o'snark this morning to write about an Arab-American colleague's recent brush with the FBI:

Mr. Ayad:

That's your problem right there. Ayad. Sounds too Middle Eastern. You can't get away with that without being a professional boxer. ("Ayad, bomaye!") And Moustafa? That's right out of The Lion King. You say that name, Moustafa Ayad, and people immediately think turban. Arabs? Sikhs? Whatever. All the same. Am I right?

[...]

It boils down to my opening observation: Your name, unfortunately, sounds funny. Very ethnic. Very Axis of Evil. Very hummus and tabouli. Did I mention the turban already? I think I did.

Can you reasonably expect a person to field a phone call from someone named Moustafa and not call the cops? It would be an abdication of his civic responsibility. This is a reality with which U.S. citizens of non-European, non-Latin, non-African, non-Asian, non-American Indian backgrounds will have to come to terms. Our people are responsible for Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Ayad.

Our people.

Well, maybe not my people. We're Catholic, like I said. But you get my point, I hope.

Meanwhile, some are unsympathetic:

What's the problem?

The PG's Moustafa Ayad is indignant that he was questioned by the FBI ("Me, Arab. You, Wholesome American Fearing for Your Life," Oct. 7 Saturday Diary).

He seems to know what the FBI should investigate. If it doesn't measure up to Mr. Ayad's standards, he'll just write about it in the paper. How unfortunate for the FBI agent that his name is in print, and everyone now knows he is a special agent.

What travesty exactly took place when Mr. Ayad was asked some questions in broad daylight, on a public street, and with witnesses?

How about not crying like a spoiled child and sucking it up? I'd bet that a burning individual jumping out of a World Trade Center tower would trade places with him in a minute. Or a soldier blown up in a roadside bomb might trade places with him, too

He always had the right to ask for a lawyer. How nice that he can joke and make light of the results from 9/11. The editor should have said to him prior to printing his piece, "Answer the questions without a trace of hostility, do not throw in a joke, and while in the land of milk and honey, everything can't and won't be used against you because you do have rights."

If the big, bad, mean FBI agent questions him again, he should let me know. I can purchase a one-way ticket to a better country for him, OK?


DIANNA MALITS
Baldwin Borough

We used to call such people "bigots"; now we call them "patriots."

I guess that's just life in Republican America.


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Republican Morality

Rep. Chris Shays:

U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays was under fire yesterday after saying in a debate earlier this week that the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison was not torture but rather a "sex ring" involving National Guard troops.

[...]

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture," Shays said according to a transcript provided by Democratic challenger Diane Farrell's campaign and confirmed by others who attended the debate. "It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked. And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."

It makes you wonder what these freaks do behind closed doors.




[Via Election Central.]


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Quote Of The Day

Bob Casey:

"Hey Rick, I know things are tough," he said. "Don't be a desperate campaigner."

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Unacceptable

Our Glorius Leader™:

President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

[...]

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

[...]

Moisés Naím, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, said there is a relationship between "how strident and extreme" the language of many leaders is and how limited their options are. For Bush, Naím said, "this comes at a time when the world is convinced he is weaker than ever."

Wounded, cornered animals strike out.

How does 22 October sound?


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The Clock's Ticking

Elections:

Faced with a deteriorating political climate, Republican Party officials are hoping to keep control of the House and Senate with a strategy aimed at shoring up enough endangered incumbents to preserve their majorities, while scaling back planned spending on races that now appear unwinnable.

In recent days, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has given back television time it had reserved in Democratic-held districts in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio -- apparently concluding that those races are beyond reach unless something dramatic changes the national political environment in the 25 days before the Nov. 7 election.

[...]

Democrats need to gain 15 seats next month to recapture the House. Strategists believe the goal is now attainable, because of high disapproval ratings for both the Republican-controlled Congress and for President Bush, as well as public dissatisfaction over Iraq and the fallout from the Mark Foley page scandal.

This is why Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy" is so important. Too many times in recent cycles have Democrats done surprisingly well with little or no party support. Now we have an election in which things are moving very quickly (Foley) and seats that were thought out of reach are now in play. Unfortunately, Dr. Dean has had to spend a great deal of time fighting off Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emmanuel who believe the way to victory is to play it safe.

Again I ask: How well has that been working?


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Cry Me A River

Abramoffed:

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.

[...]

The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build support among conservatives for legislation or government action sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.

Take 'em all down.


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Remember Iraq?

Last throes:

This latest sign that the Iraqi crisis is far from over came as a gang stormed the offices of Al-Shaabiya TV and slaughtered staff on Thursday, including the general manager Abdul-Rahim al-Nasrawi, a minor Shiite politician.

"We came in this morning and we saw the massacre. All were killed. We think gunmen broke into the house and killed them," said a journalist from the private satellite network, who asked not to be identified.

[...]

Coalition spokesman Major General William Caldwell confirmed that, as US officials predicted, there had been a "tremendous spike" in violence in Iraq since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan two weeks ago.

[...]

Meanwhile, police continued to collect the bodies of murder victims slain in Baghdad's dirty war between rival Sunni and Shiite death squads. A US military spokeswoman said 16 corpses had been found on Thursday.

The military also announced the death of another US soldier. That brought the number killed since the start of the month to 41 and since the US-led invasion of 2003 to 2,750, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

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Apparently They Have Nothing Better To Do

Investigating Sandy Berger again:

Ten House Republicans called for a Congressional investigation into the improper handling of classified documents by President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger. Mr. Berger admitted last year that he deliberately took classified documents out of the National Archives in 2003 and destroyed some of them. After his guilty plea, he was fined $50,000. The Republican lawmakers asked the House Government Reform Committee to determine whether any documents were missing from Clinton administration terrorism records, to review security measures for classified documents and to seek testimony from Mr. Berger. The group is led by Representatives Duncan Hunter, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., head of the Judiciary Committee.

These people have to be removed from power.


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Man On Dog

Over at HuffPo, Chris Durang reminds us of the interview that started it all:

AP: I mean, should we outlaw homosexuality?
SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that.... The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions....

AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?

SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. ....Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution.... Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.... In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. Would a President Santorum eliminate a right to privacy -- you don't agree with it?

SANTORUM: I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law[Griswald] that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that..... I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in.

Come 7 November remember to vote against the sick freak.


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