"Muslims of America"

As far as I can tell this was actually the name of the warrantless eavesdropping program that Bush authorized more than 30 times and resulted in thousands of instances.

I would really love some kind of confirmation of this because it seems incredible that even the Bush Administration would be that stupid (but then again they did expect it to stay secret).

Nevertheless, it does bring to mind the James Brown song from Rocky IV, a movie I have never seen. I understand, however, it is the most underrated of the Rocky movies. I believe it was about Rocky being kidnapped by Spock's Brother, Indiana Jones. Rocky, Indy, Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Harry Potter travel in the Batmobile to the center of Mordor where they find James Bond and Yoda in the presence of God, who actually looks a lot like Steve Guttenburg with the assistance of that sound effects guy.

But I digress:

Muslims of America:


Nine-eleven - made me king - Fourth Amendment is overthrown -
On the internets highway I can snoop

or just listen on the phone.
I never do wrong when there's no taken action that's too far

And somewhere on the way

you might find out Faisal leased a car.*

Muslims of America -
- listening in - station to station.
Muslims of America -
-my word's law - across the nation.
Muslims of America -

- got to have me some bacon -

rock my soul!

New Tack - Poll Smack - many lies I make about Eye-rack.
Right-Wing radio keep on stealin' what you've got for a soul.
Left-wing whiners don't keep me awake

on a cheap dude with a hard roll.
you might have to walk a fine line
you always
take a hard line


While you all work unpaid overtime.

Jostle the Squirrel

Sadly, Dear Leader forgot what Jimmy Jeff told him. The Squirrel goes up top, and the hamster goes down below.

(AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Stiff resistance

Via Sadly No!

Police whack giant snow penis

We truly live in a police state where one cannot make a giant penis out of snow in one's own yard. Public pressure will someday bring matters to a head.

It took a lot of (bad pun) to knock this impressive, yet intimidating, display down. I imagine the more they beat it, the harder it was. So they waited 10 minutes.

I understand the owners were not home at the time, as they were seeing "King Kong".

Addendum:

The nation's other giant penis, survives.

Dick Cheney World

Where everything is a lie and the color scheme varies from white all the way to off-white.

"Moran: Before the war you said Americans would be greeted as liberators here, and yet your own trip here today was undertaken in such secrecy that not even the prime minister of this country knew you were coming, and your movements around are in incredible secrecy and security. Do you ever think about how and why you got it wrong?

"Cheney: I don't think I got it wrong. I think the vast majority of the Iraqi people are grateful for what the U.S. did. I think they believe overwhelmingly that they're better off today than they were when Saddam Hussein ruled."

Intellectual Whoopie Cushion

Found via Froomkin.

It's always troubling

To see the Petulant Wonder snipe and harrangue at the press.

But even more troubling is the press's inability to actually ask obvious questions.

Neverless, the most troubling thing of yesterday's news conference is this exchange between ABC's Martha Raddatz and Bush:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You say you have an obligation to protect us. Then why not monitor those calls between Houston and L.A.? If the threat is so great, and you use the same logic, why not monitor those calls? Americans thought they weren't being spied on in calls overseas -- why not within the country, if the threat is so great?

THE PRESIDENT: We will, under current law, if we have to. We will monitor those calls. And that's why there is a FISA law. We will apply for the right to do so. And there's a difference -- let me finish -- there is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two.

Who will not be monitored, who decides?

Bush truly does believe that he is King.

Those FUCKING TRAITOROUS VEGANS!

Is there any level of idiocy and intrusiveness the cabal will not plunge to?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show...

...One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

It's not just the violations of the 1st and 4th Amendments that are so troubling, although they are quite troubling -- it is the sheer waste of time and resources devoted to this. Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers are about a damn site farther away from what happened on 9/11 than say, the REPUBLICAN PARTY!

For years now the Bush Administration has been trying to social protest they disagree with into "terrorism". Spiking trees, or invading labs to free lab rats are easily prosecuted under existing laws, nor are they hard to ward against and investigate when they occur. But it would be an amazingly ironic day when Greenpeace or PETA threatens somebody with "jet fuel" or an atomic bomb. What are vegans going to do, pelt you with lentils?

What incredible idiocy.

Bring on the Noize, Bring on the Fucks

Bush, a man who can manage to mispronounce and miss-define SHAME, tried to kill a NY Times story that had already been held for one year.

Was it to protect national security?

That would be a "NO".

It was to save his puny ass:

...Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

Attywood already discussed this as well, but the sound and fury from Bush and his pathetic right-wing enablers is so loud -- as always -- that it obscures the frightening truth, Bush is more than just a mere empty suit, he is a loathsome scofflaw, abusing the constitution and the long-held sacred institutions of a Constitutional Democracy.

The Republic falls in stuffed flight-suits and stuffed dolls.

What is this FISA she's talking about?

I hate soccer.


(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

What in the name of Tony Canodeo...

Happened to the Packers last night?

They gave Kyle Boller 48 points!!

Speaking of Shame...

How about our brave, brave, spineless press corps (espcially you "JOE" whoever the fuck you work for...) for managing NOT to ask a question sooooooooo obvious it was apparent a millisecond after Lord Dumbfuck said it...

"The leak of the program on monitoring conversations without going to FISA was SHAMEFUL because it harmed our national security."


NOT ONE reporter asked, "Okay, Mr. President, if leaking secrets is shameful, why is Karl Rove still working for you? Come to think of it, why does he still have a security clearance?"


NOT

ONE

FUCKING

REPORTER!

Respect mah Auth-or-rah-tah!

Abu Gonzales explains that Cartman the President can do what ever the fuck he wants because Congress gave him some magical grant of authority they (and I mean YOO) fabricated from Congress's authorization to use military force against the "evildoers".

Gonzales said he had begun meeting with members of Congress on the Bush administration's view that Congress' authorization of the use of military force after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ample authorization for the surveillance.

"Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority," Gonzales said.

This is the most outrageous powergrab by the Executive since James K. Polk's infamous "I want to eat a british baby, they's tasty! decree" of July 1846.

"54-40, mmmmmmph, basted -- or fight!"

Now Move Your Hands Mr. President

Preznit tongue-in-teeth and jaw-set was apparently told that his mouth is such a distraction during his speeches that the specialists want him to move his hands as a distraction. If he was smart enough to read a teleprompter and watch someone giving him physical cues I would have sworn that is exactly what was going on. As it is, he just looks like an automoton.

Oh, and an asshole.

Just Sayin'...

Feel free to choose different fingers in response.

Vaselined...

Bend over America, because that's what your press like to do.

Good thing so many of them have foot fetishes, because when the President speaks they sure end up fixating on them while taking it up the proverbial ass.

How is Bush coming within a mile of "candor" actually a story that gets positive spin?

Should not the story be the fact that the guy has been lying out of his ass about Iraq for three years, and continues to do so, while finally admitting the obvious?

It wasn't the critics that made the decision, it wasn't critics that implemented disastrous policy decisions, and it isn't the critics that will lose one fucking thing. It's the critics that have been right all along.

But we cannot mention that now can we?

We peaceniks can never be allowed to be right in the face of America militarism. It's always about being a "man" enough to blow de shit up isn't it? The person of peace, meanwhile tends to get a bullet in the face.

Nice system we've got here huh?

Digby has a few thoughts too.

Douchery Doo!

One gets the feeling that when early 2008 comes around there are going to be feelers put out that Bush/Cheney should just be in charge "for life".*

For Cheney, Inc. has all the respect for the Bill of Rights that your canary has for the New York Post.

...okay, bad example, your canary at least finds the NY Post useful...

Here is what the the Smirk behind the Smirk had to say:

WASHINGTON (AFX) - Vice President Richard Cheney said the September 11 attacks on the United States could have been averted, if the government had the power to monitor electronic communications inside the country.

'It's the kind of capability if we'd had before 9/11 might have led us to be able to prevent 9/11,' Cheney said in an interview with ABC's 'Nightline' program.

You know what may have prevented 9/11 Dick?

You and your nominal boss getting off your asses and paying attention to shit like the August 6, 2001 PDB!




*For one thing, that makes it easier to fight-off those criminal charges.

Koufaxeseses

Wampum has the Koufax nominations up.

I say this not because Attaturk expects (or deserves) to win anything; but bitterness makes me stronger...and bitterer-er. Plus it makes me write more in the third-person.

Feel free to give the Wampum folks some money for their awards -- which cost quite a bit to maintain -- so other people can be nominated for being humorous and writing humourous posts and get wider recognition. I'll just stay here and be angry. Oh, don't worry about me, I'll be fine.

That's all I'll say, before I go put on my hulk tie like Ted Stevens and start posting in resentment from not being nominated for anything.

"Gee Attaturk are you upset you didn't get nominated for anything?"

NO!!!!!!!!!!

But you? Oh you just go on with your lives. I don't mind.

Well there is one meme that is taking shape

Although its is ironically in shapeless blob form.

Over at Moron Junction, K-Lo has admitted she has a problem...

THE PRESIDENT TONIGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Many of the e-mails I'm getting tonight go something like this one:
Turn your vibrator off before you post next time.

Jesus.

Beep!

"Hey America"

"Smell my finger!"


You know its bizarre that Bush has the cast of "Santa Barbara" over his right shoulder. And he sure was "jazz-handy" last night wasn't he?

As opposed to some people, who listening to Bush speak were undoubtedly jizz-handy.

(AP Photo/APTN)

Mr. Flexible

This guy must sleep in his casket on the flight.

(REUTERS/Lawrence Jackson/Pool)

"I just threw up a little in my mouth"

Karzai clearly is "happy" to see magic Dick.

(AP Photo/Tomas Munita)

Dick is forced to eat

Some poor soldiers were ordered to sit with the undead.

Brave, Brave Dick Cheney

Finds that soldiers won't say anything bad (like "Hey, there's five-deferments Dick!")...when you bring a 3-STAR with you.

Once again, the cowardly warrior, like his nominal boss, has had himself festooned in a mock uniform.

Like they now admit to Domestic Spying, I see the White House has now admitted...

What we reported a few days ago. Dick Cheney has visited Iraq.

Toady

McCain on This Week today where he tip-toed around the domestic spying issue. What an asshole. Really.

Shorter McCain: We have new rules after 9-11; congress knew and didn't object. It was all he could do to admit that there ought to be hearings. Good lord what an asshole. Apparently he likes the idea of being king.

Instawankery

When last we checked in on Ernest T. Bass, ESQ he was proclaiming himself to be tired of the Iraq War before it even began. Which begs the question of whether he was tired because he had stayed up all evening one night in early March 2003 writing 30 months worth of "hehs" and "indeeds".

Now, Professor Chicken-in-a-Biskit, who found the Plame Affair too confusing has had to perform an extraordinary jujitsu of justifying actions that he, as a law professor has to know are blatently illegal. That Bush openly violated the law and undermined the 4th Amendment by by-passing even a rubber-stamp court.

Wankerus Prime on Friday:

I can't see any very compelling reason to bypass the courts here, especially given that warrants in these cases are almost always granted. Which makes me wonder what's up.

You see, concerned, but not too condemning. He knows he has to post something, but not yet able to vomit up an opinion.

And then a day later cometh the "bold" prediction that Bush repeatedly breaking the law is actually bad for Democrats:

My take: This story was bad for Bush on Friday, but it'll be bad for a lot of other people by next week. My earlier post on this topic is here.

There are going to be three kinds of conservatives on this issue.

Those, like a Bob Barr, that are disgusted at what Bush has done on principal.

Those, like Tom Davis of Virginia who express concern because they are worried about their political futures.

And those like Reynolds, who are so wedded to Bush's War and have so enabled it, they would simply rip the nation's underpinnings apart to find a way to support whatever Lord Bush does. No matter how petulant and unprincipled. Yes, Glenn it will be bad for others alright, but not who you think.

And no matter what, it will be bad for the Chimperor Disgustus.

File under "No Shit, Sherlock"!

Representative Tom Davis (R-Va):

"Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic administrations and underinvestigate their own," said Davis, who added that he has tried to pick up some of the slack with his committee. "I get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls both branches." Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents. Some experts on Congress say that the legislative branch has shed much of its oversight authority because of a combination of aggressive actions by the Bush administration, acquiescence by congressional leaders, and political demands that keep lawmakers out of Washington more than before. "I do not think you can argue today that Congress is a coequal branch of government; it is not," said Lee H. Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, told reporters this month: "It has basically lost the war-making power.

There is one reason the GOP Congress won't investigate the Bush Administration now and that is they are afraid of what they will find.

It is the press that has to step up here to "force" their hand to do so in the interest of saving their own skins.

Once the rock is looked under in this Administration there are two many cockroaches to hide.

vice_president@whitehouse.gov

Hey you old, bitter, grotesque, war mongering fuck!

I'm one of those allegedly traitorous left-wing bastards you whine about all the time. Every fucking chance you get to open your decrepit piehole!

For your benefit specifically, since you are essentially the actual KING O' AMERICA I thought I'd give you some numbers so it will be easier for you and your slack-jawed simian to monitor my movements and my cunning plans to destabilize the American way of life -- you know the life my constant borrowing, credit spending and taxes have helped to create.

My home phone is ***-***-****

My work phone is ***-***-****

My cell is ***-***-****


I wouldn't want to waste tax payer money making you work for it.

Sincerely,


Atta J. Turk



P.S. FUCK YOU!!!


P.P.S. Lynn sucks as a writer. But, I bet that's the only thing she sucks at. Which probably explains a lot about you.

Peeping Chimp

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night.

The list contains the following eavesdrops:

12 "the Streisand Compounds"
7 Carmen Electras
4 Pam Andersons
5 Bo Dereks
3 Ellen DeGeneres
2 Jeaneane Garofolos
1 Jennas
1 Not-Jennas (overlapping with 1 DeGeneres)

Morning Sedition, gone but not forgotten

If Air America accomplished anything, it gave Atta J. Turk a chance to enjoy some true comedic brilliance.

Fortunately a site called The Snot Green Sea has archived many brilliant bits including this rapturously brilliant riff on the Department of Defense's attempt to troll for teenagers.

Listen to it, it is a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-ly brilliant!

And my favorite (Jim Earl) character, Cardinal Milt Milfington of a variety of disgraced dioceses (diocesi?):

-- On Christmas:

-- The Cardinal Live from the City Bakery!



Thanks to n69n and Watertiger.

What $3 Million will buy you in blogging

An advertising campaign that judging by the "quality" can be summarized thusly.

"GO AHEAD WORLD, SMELL MY FINGER!"

Portrait of a Movement

I had a good breakfast.



And now...



Wait for it...


Wait for it...



Yesssssssss! Cracklin' Oat Bran you're doin' a heckuva job!!

Attention right wingers

In the desire of having seats available this weekend, I wish to alert you to something of which the advertising may not have made you aware.

"King Kong" (originally called "Silverback Mountain") is actually a movie about two giant male Silverback Gorillas who, while married to the same blond actress, have a secret love for each other that is expressed annually on top of the world's largest metaphor.

It is indeed, "a love that dare not roar its name". Granted the "CGI Love Scenes" are impressive but they are also, frankly, quite emasculating. You don't need that -- surely you don't need more of that than you already receive?

Feel free to go see "Narnia" again.

Think about it, won't you?

Sincerely,

Atta J. Turk

The Chimp is happy to meet his favorite "Monkee"

Now I'm a believer.

(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Death of another "Talking Point"

So did Congress see the same intelligence as the Bush Administration?

Answer:

Not just no...


But HELL NO!!!!

Knight-Ridder sums it up nicely:

President Bush and top administration officials have access to a much broader range of intelligence reports than members of Congress do, a nonpartisan congressional research agency said in a report Thursday, raising questions about recent assertions by the president.
...
The Congressional Research Service, by contrast, said: "The president, and a small number of presidentially designated Cabinet-level officials, including the vice president ... have access to a far greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods."
...
The CRS report identified nine key U.S. intelligence "products" that aren't generally shared with Congress. These include the President's Daily Brief, a compilation of analyses that's given only to the president and a handful of top aides, and a daily digest on terrorism-related matters.

This shit...again!

I'm guessing that Jean Schmidt will not be speaking this time.

Seeking political advantage, House Republicans want to put the chamber on record once again rejecting calls for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq just weeks after the chamber voted against an immediate pullout.

But how nice the House spends its valuable time before recess -- NOT -- passing bills for Katrina relief or some such, but constant empty bromides.

What's the over/under on 50 GOP House members coming to the office with Purple Fingers (and blue balls)?

So Freepi

How many of you are actual civil libertarians and how many of you are just Bush cheerleaders?

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials...

... Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications...

I'm guessing you are almost all cheerleaders.

Hides those Grade School Doodles

When I was younger I liked to doodle planes and space ships, think I am going to be investigated? I wonder if Jon Stewart is worried about his doodles?

In a letter sent today to the Elk Grove school board, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) and the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) criticized school officials for allowing FBI agents to interrogate 16-year-old Munir Rashed without first notifying his parents. The FBI interview concerned a doodle of the word “PLO” (referring to the Palestine Liberation Organization) that Munir had scribbled on a binder two years earlier.

Administrators at Calvine High School violated an Elk Grove school board policy that requires that a student’s parents be informed when a law enforcement officer requests an interview on school premises. Moreover, the boy’s family suspects that a teacher who had initially confronted Munir about the drawing reported him to the FBI, chilling his right to freedom of speech at school.

On September 27, 2005, Munir was pulled out of class and taken to a room where two men in suits were waiting to speak with him. After identifying themselves as FBI agents, the men asked Munir to recount an incident that had occurred two years earlier in a math class. Munir told the FBI agents that his teacher had chastised him for having scrawled the letters “PLO” on his binder. The teacher called the PLO a terrorist organization and said that anyone who supported them was a terrorist, and Munir defended the PLO as a legitimate political group that supported Palestinian rights.

The FBI then followed up with further questions, asking how Munir knew about the PLO, whether he was familiar with the investigation of several Muslims in Lodi, whether he had ever traveled to Palestine, even whether he had pictures of terrorists on his cell phone. (In fact, Munir has only a picture of a mosque as his phone’s background display.) The entire experience left Munir badly shaken, and he has since been hesitant about expressing his political views in any context.

“It’s outrageous that the FBI dragged this student out of class to interrogate him about a two-year-old doodle on a notebook,” said Shirin Sinnar, an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. “The FBI should not be interviewing kids about their political views, and schools should not be short-circuiting the involvement of parents in such a frightening situation.”

"The practice of interrogating minors, without their parents present, is totally unacceptable and stresses the importance of better training for agents," said CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra. “Unfortunately, this disturbing incident will only serve to undermine efforts to build better relations between law enforcement agencies and the Muslim community."

Elkarra asked that those responsible for the incident be disciplined.

Now, remember it is important that we do not collectively hold our breath.

K-Lo makes my job easy

An actual post at Moron Junction, only the hyperlink has been modified:

I WANT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
one of these!

Posted at 04:27 PM

Click the link, its quite appropriate, and you know she'd really, really like it.

Congratulations, you've just won National Review's "Soul Kiss" Kate O'Beirne contest!

(AFP/Joel Saget)

Ken Lay and Innocence?

In Bush's Amerika being guilty does not equal guilt. Take for example, the arguments of one Kenny boy Lay who recently has hit the media to defend their running of the lil Houston company of Enron. According to him and his supporters (does he really have supporters?), he is innocent. There is a campaign out to get him. To which we here at the Rising Hegemon can only say: HUH?!?!?!!

Ken Lay declared his innocence, demonized his accusers and asked ex-employee "truth sayers" to rally around him for his trial, in a Tuesday speech.

Damn. We have mountains of evidence, reluctant prosecutors, and hundreds if not thousands of employees have been devastated... and they are all evil and wrong?

Just a month before his Jan. 17 federal trial on seven conspiracy and fraud charges, the former Enron chairman drew polite applause with his luncheon address titled "Guilty, until proven innocent," in part a call to arms to Enron employees to defend the honor of the company and Lay himself.

Wha? Lay wants employees who lost their savings, livelihood, and pensions to defend him? Also, uh isn't it hard to defend the honor of a company that overcharged people to heat and light their homes?

Lay quoted Winston Churchill, saying, "Truth is the great rock," and in his case, prosecutors have submerged it in a "wave of terror."

Yeah, worse than the SS those damn prosecutors and SEC reguglators who just want companies to play by the rules and be honest in their dealings. The bastards!

Lay promised he'll testify and asked other Enron employees to join him in creating a "wave of truth."

Scene at the courtroom: "Ok, everyone ready? Everyone up with their hands and here comes... the TRUTH!"

"Enron employees really have only two choices. Either we stand up now — and prove that Enron was a real company, a substantial company, an honest company, a company that had a vision and values ... or we will leave this horrific legacy shaped by others," he said.

No, Mr. Lay they have another choice. They can watch you drown in your own lies, deceit, and legacy... though you are not going to like the legacy your going to get. And its not because anyone is out to get you. You run a company into the ground and it is right that you pay for it.

Why are we not screaming this to the Heavens?

Bush knew.
He knew damn it! Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't." "So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' "

So, Bush may have known and I have to agree with Robert Novak that the media should be hounding Mr. Bush on what he knows. I can handle the first one, but the second...

Be Careful What you Think

David Graeber was an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University until recently, and the author of Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams and Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, among many other academic articles, essays, and publications. Apparently he was a gifted teacher who was recognized by Yale as an accomplished teacher. However, in today's corporate run and big business financed ivory tower, conservative correctness determines who works in academia.

Last spring Professor Graeber was informed that his teaching contract at Yale would not be extended. It was not Graeber's writing and scholarship or teaching that was ever an issue; rather it was his political ideas that played a role in the Yale administration's unwarranted decision to remove him. Graeber, a renowned anarchist scholar, was terminated because of his politics AND his willingness to talk about them.

"One thing that I've learned in academia is no one much cares what your politics are as long as you don't do anything about them. You can espouse the most radical positions imaginable, as long as you're willing to be a hypocrite about them. The moment you give any signs that you might not be a hypocrite, that you might be capable of standing on principle even when it's not politically convenient, then everything's different..." --David Graeber

waronchristmas@johngibson.com

Dear Mr. Gibson,

I noticed when visiting the FoxNews Website, as I do every day, looking for inspirational words from Brian Kilmeade; that you have established a real, live, email address where good Americans can report, in your words, "Christmas outrages".

I work in a moderately sized midwestern city. I never thought I'd be writing you, but the other day a true outrage occurred. I was at "Romantix: The Erotic Video Store" looking to buy some festive Christmas Erotica, like Santa's Sluts and "I Saw Mommy Eating Santa Claus". As I paid my "browsing fee", I noticed above the till it wished shoppers, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS".

I asked the person behind the till, while still avoiding eye-contact, why they were not wishing their patrons a Merry Christmas?

"What", I asked him, "would Jesus do?"

His mouth opened slightly more, and I saw his non-patched eye open wider. It was clear that he was surprised. Yet he was non-responsive. Such was his shame that it took him several seconds to properly give me five-dollars in quarters.

I continued my perusing of the wares of the store with a noticeable harrumph. There were virtually no creches at all, except for one cardboard cut out of Jenna Jameson on her knees surrounded by three wise men standing around giving her their gifts but it wasn't gold, francesence or myrrh. Well, maybe myrrh. And the donkey seemed like it didn't want to be there.

The dildos were not even arranged with colorful green and red garland.

It was an outrage. Why are our nation's pornographers so cavalier about giving recognition to Christ while selling their material? Jesus is the reason for the season, the thrill of the holiday should arise in all manner of places, especially your pants.

I thought you would like to know so you can help end this outrage.

Merry Christmas,


Atta J. Turk

Bush in a nutshell

When interviewed by professional (as opposed to amateur Brian Williams) fellator Brit Hume, the Chimperor Disgustus gave the following responses:

HUME: You know a thing or two about Texas politics. What is your judgment of the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle?

BUSH: I'm not going to go there, simply because I want — I want this trial to be conducted as fairly as possible. And the more politics that are in it, the less likely it's going to be fair.

HUME: Do you just — do you believe he's innocent?

BUSH: Do I? Yes, I do.

Way to stay out of the politics.

Republican definition of just politics:

-- Whatever a non-Republican Does.

Stilettoette

(AFP/File/Mladen Antonov)


Or alternatively, "Alfred Bitchcock Presents"

The Prestine World of an Imbecile

Apparently the Chimperor Augustus is "really" learning how to give an endorsement to a subordinate:

President Bush said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has done "a heck of a good job" and there are no plans to replace him.

He also said he loves him some Tom DeLay.


"S-m-a-h-r-t"

The "Lowered" Bar

We live in a world where it is a big story that Bush admits this:

Bush: Iraq Invasion My Responsibility

Operation: No SHIT SHERLOCK! enabled.



In other words:

"President of the United States has firm grasp of the fuckin' obvious"


What's next?

"Bush: Sky is blue"

"Bush: Fire bad!"

A match made in Hell

From Freezerbox, White supremacists and radical islamacists coming together? What could be worse? Do we really want to think about that?

Religious Right Control Freaks

Ok, I am at my wits end with these religious fanatics! No, really I do not know if I can withstand the assault on rational thought from these guys much more.

I think it is high -- far past high time -- that we acknowledge that they want to control thought, belief, value, and practice. They want to control everything that we think and do. And that is not very democratic at all. Let's pause and think about this for a moment.

These folks on the extreme end of the religious right in the United States -- ok, someone is bound to ask the question: Are they really the extreme? Well, some of them are willing to kill or harbor people who kill and that strikes me as extreme. Remember Mr. Rudolph? Killing to stop killing? What the... Anyway, it does contradict that whole "culture of life" bumper sticker mentality, eh?

But for the sake of argument let's assume that they are on the far right fringes... even if it is a lovely little delusion that helps us sleep at night... they desire control, control, and more control. Think about what they want. They want to limit the movies we can see, the books we can read in or out of high school, the television that we watch, where companies like... I don't know, say the Ford Motor Company... can advertize. Add all of this together and what we have is a cultural movement that is totalitarian. Now while this is not news to the readers of this site, the fact that we are not treating them what they are by calling them out as totalitarian control freaks is the big problem.

We must begin to call these people what they are and what they represent. We must call their movement what it is, and let's hold politicians accountable who pander to these right wing religious wing nut control freaks.

Taken just seconds before a major XANAX moment...

(Lee Celano/Reuters)

How to be an even bigger pariah than George Bush

Behave like the President of Iran:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.

"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

The Iranian president previously expressed doubt that the Nazi destruction of six million European Jews during World War II had occurred. But Wednesday was the first time he publicly denied the Holocaust.

What an idiot.

It's a Michael Ledeen "wet dream" come to life. It is like he's on AIPACs fund raising committee.

Bastards

Lest there be any doubt about how much they LOVE the torture, the Bush Administration has gone to extraordinary lenghts to show us.
Will the media bother to notice?

With Congress on the verge of passing the sweeping McCain amendment, the Bush administration has taken its drive to permit torture to new depths.

The basis of the McCain amendment is establishing the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation as the uniform standard for interrogation. That manual explicitly prohibits the use of so-called “coercive interrogation techniques.”...

...Realizing this, the Pentagon has one-upped McCain, and simply rewritten the manual:

The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday.

The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said.

The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations.

Could they be any more conniving, vile, disgusting?

I'm George Allen, Proverbial Whore

Somebody wants to run for President ... and hopes only the (R)ight people find out about this...

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., after coming under fire from some social conservatives for a 2004 vote, plans to reverse course next time and oppose making hate crimes against gay people a federal offense.

"When it comes before the Senate again, he will vote against adding sexual orientation to federal hate-crimes statutes," Mike Thomas, Allen's state director, said yesterday. In 2004, Allen voted the opposite way on an amendment in the Senate. "I wouldn't define it as a flip-flop," Thomas added.

So he's taking the opposite position on the same piece of legislation a short time later and it's not a flip-flop?

Nicely colored sky in their world.

DUMBFUCK MOUNTAIN

Nelson Muntz gives John Harris his official "Ha Ha!"

Froomkin and the White House Briefing are not going anywhere no matter how much wankers like Harris and the WaPo's omsbudsman whine about it.

Washingtonpost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady said he does not plan to change the name, claiming it has not caused the misinterpretations that some believe it has. "The column has been on the site for two years and that is not something we have heard," Brady said about concerns. "The column is extremely popular and it is not going anywhere." When asked if a name change might occur in the future, Brady said it is possible, but "I have no odds on it."

Downie, who does not have oversight of the Web site, had said he would leave the decision up to Brady.

Well, that's one form of Undisclosed Location

If you're wondering where Dick Cheney's been -- he's apparently been undercover, stuffing ballot boxes over "there" so he can keep them stuffed over "here".


Picture originally from NY Times, via reader Javadog

Just Think Daryn -- Prison Sex

It'll be like sleeping with the condemned at a Hormel Processing Plant!

Judge OKs subpoenas of Limbaugh doctors

Prosecutors can subpoena Rush Limbaugh's doctors as part an investigation into whether the conservative radio commentator illegally bought painkillers, a judge ruled Monday.

Judge David F. Crow ruled that Florida laws do not prevent doctors from talking with prosecutors if the discussion is relevant to the prosecution of a crime.

The decision gave prosecutors permission to subpoena doctors and their staff, but it also protected confidential material in Limbaugh's medical records.

The judge noted that Florida law prohibits the discussion of a patient's medical condition and information disclosed by a patient during treatment.

But it won't prevent disclosure of how many times Big Pharma got himself a prescription to the Hillbilly Heroin.

It's not that I'm a racist, I'm just a moron

From the latest in staged flatulance being called a lovely smell of incense:

President Bush said Monday the federal government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina was appalling, but was not the result of racial indifference to blacks hard-hit by the storm. "You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a racist," Bush said.

Alright, how about we call you:

An Asshole?

A Warmonger?

A Coke-Addled Baffoon?

A Gin-Fizzed Ninny?

Stanky McCrappants?

Wankalicious?

Vodka-Chronic?

The Staggering Simpleton?

The Poorly-Read Fratboy?

Bush League Ballflopper?

Ignorant Jackass?

Cowardly Cretin?

Panty-Sniffin Pantywaste?

Small-handed Shitfaced Smirking Snackchoker?

Pant-Stuffer?

Slack-jawed Slopehead?

Elven-Earred Idiot?

Phyllis?

Or perhaps the one I'm most looking forward to, "The Defendant".

Feel free to add your own name.

"Fair and Balanced"

Well, the big-bloggers have jumped into the Froomkin matter and the whiners of the Washington Post -- who apparently find being urged to do their jobs -- APPALLING!

I don't have much to add to the debate, except to say that when reading those blogs I find it far too hard to think after seeing this...

I'm just a simple heterosexual man, I cannot just willy-nilly bump into representations of pornography. How else will you taunt MSNBC? What else will you do? And will you do it with that husky-voiced succubus Rita Crosby?

Oh, lovely, testosterone-laden Rita. It's as if Ray Davies wrote a song about you. Whenever I hear your voice, I think of two-things: frightening sex and three packs of Camels.

You know what would be great? If MSNBC not only sent Rita to an execution, but had her be an official witness -- and then advertised that fact every fucking 5 minutes! That would be a fantastic idea.

But surely we'll never see that. That could never happen!

It appears I may have digressed...

Excuse me for a couple of minutes.

Please feel free to comment amongst yourselves, while I am gone...

...One-minute, forty-five seconds later...

Anyhow, for those of you who follow a comedy premise, or who cannot, or those of you who follow a comedy premise, even if it doesn't deliver comedy, I thought Josh Marshall summed up the Froomkin matter with the Washington Post's high-horsed jackasses pretty well:

As for balancing Froomkin with a conservative blogger, can't we just match him with Jim Hoagland and it call it a draw? That would be pretty generous, I think. Has there ever been any accounting for all the misinformation Hoagland (presumably) unintentionally spread through his column? And what about all the stuff he's made up since then to cover for the earlier baloney? Who balances him? Who balances Howie Kurtz's sometimes myopic focus on 'liberal bias'? How about the fact that an editor at the Wapo.com recently intentionally tilted a scandal story to include more Democrats than the facts would bear so as to make the story appear more 'balanced'?

More to the point, with all that has happened to journalism and this country in the last three years -- or perhaps just the Post in the last few weeks -- is this really all the Post's ombudsman can think to concern herself with?

Now excuse me, as I try to figure out what the hell this means...

How FoxNews Works

From Think Progress:

November 6, 2005

"I love you Daddy. You're the smartest, bestest Daddy ever, and you are so smart and you're latest book is the bestest ever. You are a pillar of integrity."


Early December:

I would ask President Bush, "What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

"Your father impugned the integrity of Lord Bush"

Mid-December:

"Uh, My dad, he's lost it. He's gone cuckoo for cocoa-puffs; he's insane and clearly has no scruples whatsoever. Unlike me, I get my integrity from my Murdoch, I mean, my mother."

Die Motherfucker

Cuz we need human sacrifices to make ourselves feel better. You had your day in court so quit your crying. Commit the crime and you do the time. That's the way it works, see? You are a human sacrifice. God says it's ok. Just ask the fundies. So there you go Tookie. It doesn't matter that the system isn't perfect. It doesn't matter that you have fully reformed your life. It doesn't mean shit because all we want to do is to kill you.

Why the Music Industry is Dying

I saw this article the other day about how the music industry is beginning to target fan websites that post lyrics, guitar tabs, and discussions about how music is created. What is it that they want? They don't want to embrace downloading? They are now attacking fans for being, well... fans. I have to wonder if what we are seeing is an all out attack on music fans because the music industry refuses to accept that we have entered a new era.

Now we have a time where people can access music, information about bands and music, and get reviews, photos, and more about the music that they love. I believe, for one, that the people who run the music industry have completely forgotten what it feels like to completely fall in love with a song. To want to know everything that they can about a band, musician, song... have they made other great music... to be enraptured... listen to the guitar riff, the phrasing, the drums, the keyboards, the bass line, the lyric... whatever it is about the song that captures that you just have to find, feel, know. Yeah, the industry types must not remember at all what that feels like.

Lori McKenna - Bible Song

No strangers in this town
No one moves without making a sound
You live and die within the borders and (A)lines
No one dies without paying their fines

No lovers in this town
The moon's full but it sure ain't round
And just because you lie in his bed
Don't mean you meant the things you said

They marry young in these parts
They work the factories
So I ran as fast as I could
Through the tall grass and the midnight woods
So nobody would sing some bible song over me

My cousin died in his sleep
Forty pills, two kids to keep
And how will she explain to those kids
About the sorry thing daddy did

They marry young in these parts
They raise their kids and set them free
So I ran as fast as I could
Through the tall grass and the midnight woods
So nobody would sing some bible song over me

They buried him out in the cold
He was only twenty-four years old
How his mother came undone
When the choir sang hallelujah

I ran as fast as I could
Through the tall grass and and the midnight woods
I ran as fast as I could
Through the tall grass and and the midnight woods
Hallelujah hallelujah -- ahhh
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah

I'm still tellin' lies

Thissssssssssssssssss big!

I see he's accessorizing his bubble though.

(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Alcohol makes you sensitive to light

Doesn't it?


In any case, Bush shields his eyes from the oncoming freight train called Karma.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Eye For An Eye

I detest the culture built upon selected passages from the bible used by fundies that support the death penalty. I happen to believe the death penalty is morally wrong but that is an argument that does not work any more. Most people support the death penalty because they take false comfort in their ignorant belief that only guilty people are put to death. In every conversation I now have with people that support the death penalty I now simply ask: are you willing to kill innocent people? One has to be willing to kill innocent people to continue administration of death as punishment. Like George Bush, most idiots think because a jury found a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and that a person had a right to appeal, that they are "guilty". I'll save analysis on that point for a later post but I will say that assumption is not well-founded.

I don't know much about Tookie Williams but I do hope that his friends and supporters can ignite the important debate about what we gain as a society by killing our fellow citizens. The California Supreme Court has left this call in the able hands of The Terminator.

Freedom Toasters

They tried to harsh the Chimperor Disgustus's mellow about launching war against Purplefingerstan!

More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.

The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service and a former CIA official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.

The French conclusions were reached after extensive on-the-ground investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where the uranium mines are controlled by French companies, said Alain Chouet, the French former official. He said the French investigated at the CIA's request.

But the purple fingers and the, um, Saddam's pistol!

If France had her way, we wouldn't have those things.

benedictxvi@vatican

Mein Holier than Thouinator;

Being an avid reader and follower of yours from way back -- at least since this Spring -- I could not help but notice you made this statement yesterday:

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that Christmas festivities have been polluted by consumerism and suggested that assembling the Nativity scene in the home is an effective way of teaching the faith to children.

As a mere footsoldier in the war on converted pagan rituals into Christian fable dates (periodically adjusted thanks to one of your predecessors "Gregory the Regular") I must say that I agree.

In fact, I think it is true that Christmas has been overcommercialized. I thought this quite often as a child when I only got 8 instead of 14 presents; or when I received too many pairs of socks and new underwear. For me, not to receive everything I want was simply wrong. How dare my parents not express their love through material possessions. It made me feel so empty inside.

But I digress.

You are saying Christmas should be less commercial.

Does this mean that I should not buy these as Christmas Gifts?

The Benedict XVI Commemorative Coin, a 50 cent piece I can buy for 2,000% mark up?



The Benedict XVI commemorative plushy bear, available for a mere $300.


For that matter, the mini-Benedict doll. Guaranteed to cover up the pederasty of tiny priests everywhere.


Just curious as to what I can or cannot buy, if anything? Thanks.

Sincerely,


Atta J. Turk

Nog-Faced

(REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

"I've gotten my photo ops, what do I care?"

To say that the GOP and the Bush Administration are shafting those of the gulf coast is to defame the name of "shafting", to the Man born on 3rd base because God wanted him there. God has obviously decided that the gulf deserves to be fucked with -- do you really doubt he thinks that way?

Thousands of homeowners and South Mississippi's overall Katrina recovery face a do-or-die situation in Congress this week, in part because of partisan politics surrounding indicted Republican leader U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.

Passage of a $35 billion Katrina federal relief package, Gov. Haley Barbour and other state and local leaders lament, is overdue and crucial to Mississippi's recovery. They point particularly to a requested multi-billion dollar bailout of 35,000 homeowners who didn't have flood insurance. But the spending faces stiff opposition, primarily in the House, and lack of support from the White House.

If the relief is not passed this week, before Congress breaks for Christmas, it could be put on hold indefinitely. Talk on Capitol Hill last week was House Republican leaders would delay returning to Washington until at least Jan. 31, an effort to give DeLay a chance to clear himself in court next month of a money laundering indictment so he could be reinstated as House majority leader in the new year.

...

Despite promises he made after the storm, George W. Bush doesn't appear willing to add to that clout. In fact, Katrina recovery hasn't appeared to even be on his radar lately.

He hasn't returned here in about two months and has mentioned it only a handful of times, in passing, in speeches he's made. His office has said much of the relief spending Mississippi wants can wait and has insisted any additional Katrina spending be offset by cuts elsewhere, something that could spell its doom in Congress. He's appeared more focused on damage control on his falling approval ratings over the war in Iraq.

Why go somewhere he isn't fawned over?

Why now even, even White Southerners would deign to criticise him. God's own doesn't need that.

Depraved

Anthony Lewis calls the depraved motherfuckers to account.

Not one of the major actors in the torture story has been effectively called to account: not Rumsfeld, who loosened the rules on interrogation of prisoners; not Alberto Gonzales, now Attorney General, who as White House Counsel approved the torture memorandums; and not the Justice Department lawyers who wrote them.

Among those officials there is no sign of repentance. One of them has indeed become a kind of preacher of the legitimacy of using pressure on suspected terrorists. He is John Yoo, who was a lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003 and is now a professor at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. In frequent television appearances and public forums he argues a theme of those torture memos: that President Bush as Commander in Chief is empowered by the Constitution to order what treatment he wishes for detainees in the "war on terror." His constitutional argument, that the Framers of the Constitution intended to clothe the President with the war powers of a king, conflicts with the near universal understanding of the constitutional text, with its careful balancing of executive, legislative and judicial power.

A New York lawyer who has contributed greatly to exposure of the torture phenomenon, Scott Horton, has suggested that Yoo's views echo those of a German legal thinker of the period between the world wars, Carl Schmitt. Schmitt argued that when it came to degraded enemies like the Soviet Union, the idea of complying with international law was a romantic delusion. The enemy, rather, must be seen as absolute--stripped of all legal rights.

***

Americans are not immune from evil; no people are. We know now that American soldiers, improperly led, can beat to death prisoners they have in their minds dehumanized. What can we do to limit the evil?

Investigation is one idea, widely endorsed. An independent body like the one that carried out the 9/11 investigation could tell us much that we do not know: not just an authoritative account of the wrongs done but a timeline of the official opinions and actions that opened the way for them. But I think a more effective solution would be the appointment of a special prosecutor. He or she would have the power not just to find the facts but to prosecute the wrongdoers. For we must not forget that not only treaties but criminal laws forbid the torture, mistreatment and humiliation of those we take in conflict.

It is unimaginable that President Bush would agree to a special prosecutor for war crimes if ever the public and Congress grew exercised enough to demand one. But you never know about history. The other day, on the sixtieth anniversary of the Nuremberg prosecution of Nazi officials, Scott Horton recalled that Nuremberg established the principle of command responsibility for abuse--and punished those who wrote legal memorandums counseling German officials to ignore the conventions protecting prisoners.

The chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court, warned that "the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well."

Horton said the moment of historical reckoning for American officials may come. "A number of key Bush officials," he wrote, "are more likely to be the Pinochets of the next generation--blocked from international travel and forever fending off extradition warrants and prosecutors' questions."

For now we can only hope. It is depressing to think that all of this is a reflection on all of us, as Harold Pinter pointed out. But for now I'll hope that with enough pressure we can hold these people to account.

Compare & Contrast

How John Kerry respects America's war dead.

From December 2, 2004 when there were no political points to be made.


How does George Bush treat America's war dead?

Because speaking in front of stacked caskets is not as good as live soldiers.

Second Image from Watertiger.

Christmas Cancelled this year

Santa should have kept his mouth shut about opposing Bush's Iraq and Global Warming policies.

Facial Recognition

"O-Faced":

(AFP/File/Yoshikazu Tsuno)



"Two-Faced":

(AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)



"Shit-faced":

(AP Photo/Jean Pieri, Pool)