Some git by the name of Abraham Sofaer is holding a $9.11 For Rudy” Fundraiser for the Guiliani campaign.
Allow me to say ewwwww!
Category: Politics
We Now Know Karl Rove’s New Client
It’s Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who yesterday said that, Civil war has been averted in Iraq and Iranian intervention there has ceased to exist.
Ari Fleischer would be proud of him.
Unfortunate Headlines
Or maybe just too truthful: What Catherine the Great can teach CEOs.
They’ve already done to the shareholders and workers what she did to her horse*.
FWIW, Jay Winik, the author of this book, also does not have a good handle on what Catherine the Great was as a ruler. Look up Potemkin villiages.
*Yes, I know that the story is false. She died of a stroke while sitting on the chamber pot.
Whiskey Foxtrot Tango: Bush Calls Obama Intellectually Lazy?
No really. An anonymous senior Bush administration official has called Barack Obama “intellectually lazy”.
The author of the article is right wing hack Bill Sammon, but still, the idea that someone working for George W. Bush would call anyone intellectually lazy is un f$%#ing believable.
George W. Bush has Terri Schiavo beat in the intellectual laziness department.
Illegal Political Prosecutionsin Bush DoJ Started in 2001
This is an impeachable offense, pure and simple:
In the last two weeks, two sources, one of them inside of the Justice Department, have told me that a scheme was hatched in the upper echelons of the Bush Administration shortly after it took office in 2001 or early in 2002. The project identified John Edwards and Hillary Clinton as likely Democratic challengers to President Bush, and identified prominent trial lawyers around the United States as the likely financial vehicle for Edward’s rise. It directed that their campaign finance records be fly-specked, and that offenses not be treated as administrative matters but rather as serious criminal offenses.
…
The deliberate use of the state security apparatus to target opponents and their supporters is illegal, and was the sort of circumstance that was specifically envisioned by the founding fathers as a reason for impeachment now.
More Belgian Breakup Issues
Basically, this is about nationalist and ethnic tensions between the Flemish (Dutch speaking) and Wallooon (Francophone) seem to be increasing, and currently the winners of the most recent elections on June 10 have been unable to form a government.
It will be interesting to see how the EU will handle this if these disputes in Belgium end up with a dissolution of the nation, particularly with regards to Brussels, which is nominally multi-ethnic and bi-lingual, but is more of a French speaking island in Dutch speaking Flanders.
As an aside, this sort of increased ethnic division and governance problems are a direct result of proportional representation, which encourages people to self identify along narrow sectarian lines.
Fujimori is Going Down
This dictatorial murderous rat bastard will see justice, because the Chilean supreme court has unanimously supported his extradition to Peru.
One hopes that more world leaders are held to account for their misdeeds, including our own.
Burma’s angry monks ‘excommunicate’ junta by refusing donations – Independent Online Edition > Asia
I have to say that refusing alms as a protest is rather beyond my cultural experience, but it appears that this is a rather powerful protest in the context of Burmese Buddhism. This is both perplexing and interesting.
On the other hand, this statement from the monks is quite clear to my Western eyes, “The violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings – the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury – have killed a monk at Pakokku and also arrested reverend clergymen by trussing them up with rope. They beat and tortured, verbally abused and threatened them.“
One hopes that the junta is overthrown sooner rather than later.
My Thoughts on Jena
I haven’t really commented on this, but I’ve gotten a couple of comments to the effect of, “Isn’t this a tempest in a teapot.”
The Answer is Hell No!!!
Let’s roll tape:
- Some black kids hang out under a “white” tree, and nooses are hung on it the next day.
- The principal wants to expel the f$#@s who did this, but the school board makes it a two f$#@ing day suspension.
- The black students decide to sit quietly under the tree as a non-violent protest.
- The police are called in, and the DA threatens the black kids (and it’s clear that is what he did) at a school assembly.
- Tensions are inflamed with at least two instances of groups of white kids beating down a black kid, no prosecutions.
- The same school board that allowed the noose hanging perps to walk refused to allow black students and parents to testify before them.
- In the fight in question, the kid who was beaten up, but is not even kept over night.
- The students involved in the fight are charged by the same DA who threatened them with attempted murder.
- The one student who has made it to trial maintains that he wasn’t even there, but his public defender refuses to call any witness and the all white jury convicts him of aggravated assault.
- That conviction has been overturned because an appellate judge basically said, “are you out of your f$#@ing mind charging this kid as an adult.”
You’re right, it’s just some uppity n***ers, no discrimination here.
The Investigation Against Tom Delay is not Over
By way of Tom Delay’s chief of staff, Ed Buckham, who has been hit with a Federal grand jury subpoena for his payroll records.
One hopes that this will eventually lead to the Bugman getting rolled up in all of this.
Braking: FBI Taped Ted Stevens In Anti-Corruption Sting
Ted Stevens, perhaps the most odious Senator in the history of the body, is going down.
FBI Agents Taped Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens As Part of Corruption Sting
MATT APUZZO
AP NewsSep 20, 2007 19:15 EDT
The FBI, working with an Alaska oil contractor, secretly taped telephone calls with Sen. Ted Stevens as part of a public corruption sting, according to people close to the investigation.
The secret recordings suggest the Justice Department was eyeing Stevens long before June, when the Republican senator first publicly acknowledged he was under scrutiny. At that time, it appeared Stevens was a new focus in a case that had already ensnared several state lawmakers.
More as it comes, but right now, pass the popcorn.
Henry Wasman and the Case of the Inspector General Who Didn’t
Henry Waxman has founc another winner in the Bush Administration, this tiem, it’s the Inspector General for the State Department.
Case in point, When asked to investigate allegations of slave labor in the construction of the Iraqi Embassy, he interviewed only those employees that the contractor hand picked for him to interview.
At the rate this guy is going, he’ll soon be Cheney’s chief of staff.
Another GOP Retirement
GOP Congressman Jerry Weller. If you’ve heard the name before, it’s because he is married to the daughter of Guatamalan dictator (and brutal butcher) Efraín Ríos Montt, and he has engaged in some very dodgy land deals Latin America.
Harry Reid: Defeat Of Webb Bill Proves GOP Cares More About Bush Than Troops
I like the way that the Majority leader of the Senate puts that:
“In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the President than protecting our troops. They have shown they will allow President Bush’s flawed war strategy to continue to strain our military rather than allow the availability of troops to dictate our operations. And they believe it is in our national security interest to push our brave troops and their families beyond their breaking point.
“Democrats disagree. We care deeply about rebuilding our badly overextended military and ensuring our troops have the time to properly train, prepare for and recover from battle. And Democrats remain committed to repaying in some small measure the sacrifices our brave troops are making every day.”
Schadenfreude: Scaife’s Divorce Edition
It’s nice to see the rat-bastard who spent somewhere on the order of a hundred million dollars chasing Clinton’s penis getting his:
Scaife’s Wife Gets Giant Settlement After Messy Divorce — Claims Newspaper is ‘Hobby’
PITTSBURGH The estranged wife of billionaire and newspaper owner Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh banking heir turned media mogul, was awarded $725,000 a month in temporary support during their acrimonious divorce, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.Scaife, 75, and his second wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife, are battling on several fronts, from how to assess and divide his wealth to custody of a yellow Labrador retriever named Beauregard, the newspaper said.
Piece of advice, dude: there isn’t a dog out there worth 725 grand a month. LET HER HAVE IT.
The funny part is this dispute about assets:
A judge may also have to decide whether the $20 million to $30 million a year she claims he spends to support the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review constitutes a business loss, as he contends, or spending on a hobby, as she sees it. Scaife owns the newspaper – a rival to the Post-Gazette – along with the Tribune-Review of Greensburg and several smaller dailies and weeklies.
…..
Records filed in the case suggest Scaife has spent $140 million to $244 million, depending on whom you believe, to subsidize the Tribune-Review since its inception in 1992. Scaife’s other papers are generally profitable, the divorce papers state.
….
Margaret Scaife’s alimony could grow higher depending on how Judge Alan Hertzberg views his income. He has asked for briefs due Thursday before making a final decision on the temporary award, which was set on a preliminary basis by a hearing officer last year.
Calling the Tribune-Review a hobby may be reasonable, depending on the legal fine points, but I would never call it a newspaper.
UC Irvine Reverses Stupid Move and Rehires Chemerinsky as Dean of Law School
University of California, Irvine, is starting a law school, and they got a bit of a feather in their cap when they got Erwin Chemerinsky as their first dean.
He is a highly respected legal scholar and lawyer, and he was tapped as dean, but the offer was rescinded by the Chancellor, Michael Drake about a week ago.
Since then, this has gotten a lot of publicity and a lot of outrages even from the right wing side of the legal community, and now the decision has been reversed.
According to Chemerinsky, Drake had said he was pulling back the job offer because of pressure from conservatives over his outspoken liberal politics. The chancellor denied it.
In a conference call with reporters, the chancellor and new dean agreed that Chemerinsky would enjoy absolute academic freedom and would continue to write opinion articles on a wide range of issues, not just legal education as Drake suggested last week.
“Chancellor Drake reaffirmed in the strongest possible way the academic freedom that I would have, as all deans and faculty members do,” Chemerinsky said. He later noted that he was aware that his role as dean also would require him to build a broad base of support. Before he was ousted, the dean had sought conservatives for some slots on his board of advisors.
Drake declined to discuss his decision to drop Chemerinsky, and he was vague on the reasons behind his turnaround. “Circumstances change; knowledge comes in,” Drake said.
I’m fairly sure that when we get to the bottom of this, that we will discover that some of the Governator’s conservative appointments to the UC Regents had a hand in this.
Krugman Rips Greenspan a New One
Yep, for the first time in a couple of years, I’m able to read his stuff right off the NY Times web site, so I give you Sad Alan’s Lament, in which Paul “When does this man get his much deserved Nobel Prize” Krugman completely owns Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan.
The Fred Thompson Clown Show Continues
This time, our good Freddie Dalton Thompson* is calling for oil drilling in the Everglades.
In response to a question about drilling there, he said, “Gosh, no one has told me there is any major reserves in the Everglades,” and “No one prefers to drill at all anywhere”.
Way to go Freddie. The clown show continues.
That being said, this is in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, who spent an awful lot of time claiming that trees cause pollution.
*Yes, his birth certificate says “Freddie”, not Fred or Fredrick”.
John Warner is an Ass
John Warner has been telling Jim Webb that he supports his troop relief bill, which requires that soldiers stand down for at least as long as they are deployed to a combat zone.
Today, he introduced a Warner Introduced a non-binding “Sense of the Senat” Version of Jim Webb’s amendment to the military authorization bill.
Not only that, but he did not tell Senator Webb about his intentions.
Wanker.
Jesse Jackson, Please STFU
What is happening to the Jena Six in Louisiana is a racist bigoted miscarriage of justice. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
The Democratic party should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
The presidential candidates should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
That being said, when Jesse Jackson critics Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” , he’s jumped the shark.
I’m not in a position to discuss whether or not Senator Obama has a special obligation to address this issue, but I am saying that ALL the presidential candidates should address this, and come out against the bigoted, vindictive, and (conveniently) Republican political establishment in Jena, Louisiana.
This isn’t “acting white”. This is simply being timid, and it can be addressed to all the presidential candidates, and to the Democratic party establishment in Louisiana too.