Froomkin Hired By HuffPo

Does he get privileges with MFBTGR*? Good news from Glenn Greenwald:

Huffington says that it is Froomkin's views on the media that, for her, is his primary appeal. The key to vibrant, successful journalism, she said, is "getting away from the notion that truth is found by splitting the difference between the two sides, that there is always truth to both sides." Huffington argues that establishment journalism is failing due to "the idea that good journalism is about presenting both sides without a voice -- without any passion." The outlets that continue to adhere to that "obsolete" model "are paying a price." Froomkin -- who has written extensively about how passion-free, "both-sides-are-equally-valid" journalism is the primary affliction of the profession -- echoes that view: "The key challenge is to present an alternative to the 'splitting the difference' culture that has infested traditional media."

The split is to the right, Dan. If it was in the center it wouldn't be a problem. The right wing would never be mentioned in the same sentence as 'truth'.

*My Favorite Big Titted Greek Redhead

Palin Not Fade Away

El Rude-o on Palin:

Hell, even if she had said, "Governoring is boring and I'm sick of people buggin' me for stuff. I'm headin' to L.A. to make shitloads of money, fuckers," it would have been more honest.

At this point, though, Michael Jackson's funeral has more dignity.

Thanks a great steaming pile for that reference, Rude One. Yeesh. Can't they just bury the poor bastard? Yeah, under the center ring at B&B.

[...] Reading Kristol's pathetic whine of a column is like taking pleasure in watching a man eat a shit sandwich and pretending it's fine ham.

In the Washington Times, Tony Blankley, a man who looks like he just ate a whole meatball sub, writes, "And though many a conventional politician might be seen as a quitter if he resigned from office -- I have a very strong hunch Mrs. Palin is constitutionally incapable of being seen as a quitter. Because she is not. She is constantly taking on the biggest challenge on her horizon." You got that logic? If anyone else quit, they'd be a quitter. But if Palin quits, she's not. Thus Tony Blankley finally achieved his goal of licking his own asshole.

Over on MSNBC's Morning Starbucks, Mika Brzezinski, who always looks like she's just aching for a spanking, said yesterday that if Palin were a man, we wouldn't be judging her so harshly for resigning. She's wrong on that account, but she's right that we'd treat a man differently. We'd call him a "pussy." (Bonus points: Brzezinski declared that she's not a feminist.)

Ever so much more...

Aw, shit...

After I read this article,

Rahm Emanuel Signals White House Is Willing To Compromise On Public Plan

I sent this e-mail:

Dear President Obama,

My wife and I voted for you and like you and want you to succeed, but...

If you do not get a 'public option', you have not 'reformed' health care and your Presidency will be a failure for the rest of your term. Period.

Pardon me for putting it this way, but screw the health 'insurance' industry and its Republican politicians. They're the ones who got us into this mess and they're not the ones who will get us out of it.

The time for 'health care for profit' is over. Unlike the dinosaurs of old, these dinosaurs see the end coming and are fighting it tooth and nail. The American people must win this one and enter the 21st century with health care for all like the civilized nations have.

Health care should be like a beer run: everybody kicks in, everybody gets it, nobody gets rich.

Please do the right thing.

Gordon

Not that it will do any good. I don't have $1.4M a day to spend. It just made me feel better.

The 'beer run' reference is from here.

Update:

I know the Repugs are not solely responsible. They have a lot of help from the Dems in holding us back from the correct path. I didn't mention that in my e-mail because I didn't want to further Obama's delusions about non-existent bipartisanship for any other reason than to keep the lobbyists' money flowing in like seawater into New Orleans.

Update II:

BuzzFlash headline:

President Obama Offers Weak Reassurance that He Will Back Government Option in the End.

Rahm's trying for the 'trigger' option. It won't work. Period. The big insurers will just co-opt it and nothing will change.

Note to Obama: Bitch slap that little fucker and get him pointed in the right direction. I like Emanuel, but not this time.

Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure

[Welcome to Crooks and Liars readers!]

Joseph L. Galloway at McClatchy

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Please read the rest. Mr. Galloway reminds us of David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest which was an insight into the flawed thought processes that got us into "McNamara's War".

If you don't think the Vietnam War is still important, kindly remember that, coming on the heels of Civil Rights and being the main cause of social upheaval when many people saw the light and many didn't, it brought us Richard Nixon and the Reagan/Bush era. We have had one President and one president who were Vietnam-era draft dodgers, but the country is still too afraid of crazed Vietnam Vets to have one of them for Prez and we probably won't. The wounds are below the surface now, but they're still festering.

Those of us who came of age during those days will never, I say again never, forget it for all our days on this Earth. It still matters.

There's also a description of a bizarre event involving McNamara and the Martha's Vineyard ferry. The moral of the story is: Eat your Wheaties so you can throw rather than push.

One down, one to go:

Click it

Социализированная медицина ...

According to Krugman and the CBO*, it works:

...

But last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news — which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis — was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care.

Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable.

...

We can afford 'socialized medicine', and no, I don't have a problem with the name:

...

After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.

And even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons.

...

The only thing standing in the way of a comprehensive health care overhaul are those in the pockets of Big HMO.

*Link thanks to Mr. Aravosis.

Quote of the Day

Our pal UL:

... I can see the end of Sarah Palin's political career from my house!

"...hotter than Satan's taint"

The Rude Pundit goes to a teabagging party, with pictures. His closing thoughts:

No, instead you sigh, thinking that it's too hot a day. You debate in your mind whether or not this is a real movement or just a bunch of people who too readily believe all the goddamn lies they're fed. You get a free sno-cone (sour apple flavor). You listen to the costumed kids sing, "God Bless America." You leave when the band starts to cover Lee Greenwood's fucking song. You go to see fireworks downtown after the local symphony plays. You hear that people around here don't put pro-choice or pro-Obama stickers on their cars because they'll get keyed. You know this is America, too, yes, and, unlike the tea partygoers, you recognize it because, even as they celebrate a so-called "revolution" and hope for another, some things never change.

Some things never change. Ya can't fix stupid.

What's wrong with this picture?

From a photo gallery of Operation Khanjar ("Strike of the Sword").


If this dumbass Jarhead thinks those bullets are diggin' into the base of his skull now, wait 'til an enemy bullet hits one of 'em.

Note to dumbass Jarhead: Flip the belts over so the hurty things are pointin' away from yer apparently unused brain housing group.

He probably hangs his grenades by their safety pins too. Yeesh. Dibs on his iPod. If we can find it.

Note to the Commandant: I know where you can get an Old Corps Marine as a highly paid civilian consultant who can explain very simple things to today's young Marines in terms they can understand. Things like if they're gonna do stupid shit, at least don't get photographed doing them. I'll bring my own 2x4. At cost plus, of course.

Robert McNamara, 1916-2009 -- and America's tragic memory loss

Attytood, links at site.

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara -- right up until today's news -- a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war -- and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.

Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn't prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter -- for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend -- of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. [...]

The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy -- because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into the 2003 -- with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."

I actually spoke, very briefly, on the phone with McNamara in early 2003 in an effort to interview him for the Daily News. Like a few other journalists in that critical hour, I was hoping some of his tragically acquired wisdom might infuse the tepid pre-war discussions, and like all other reporters in those pre-war months, he told me he was holding off on commenting (as noted in the link above, he had a lot to say in 2006 when it was too late). That was a damned shame -- even though I can't imagine it would have tipped the rigged scales.

It wouldn't have. The Vietnam War started as a response to supposed communist expansion during The Cold War, then lost its purpose and dragged on and on to no good end.

Bush's War was about ideological and personal selfishness, arrogance, and ego.

The big constants between them were corporate profits and hundreds of thousands of deaths to no good end.

So long, Mac. I hope you fuckin' fry for eternity.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

IRAQ: U.S. OCCUPIERS FINALLY DRIVEN OUT
Search begins for exiled tyrant Bush.

Percentage of Americans Covered by Private Health Insurance at 50-Year Low
But thank God we don’t have socialized medicine.

Many States on Brink of Financial Collapse
Residents of neighboring states advised to purchase firearms.

FBI: Saddam Told Interrogators He Bluffed Having WMD to Scare Off Iran
Worked like a charm.

Not again ...

The tea baggers are back.

The Republican Party of Duval County is backing away from their promotion of an event that featured numerous controversial comparisons of President Barack Obama with German Dictator Adolf Hitler. The event, a Tea Party held at the Jacksonville Landing on July 2, was organized by the First Coast Tea Party. However, the Duval County Republican Party promoted the event with e-mails that stated "Paid by Republican Party of Duval County" ...

Pics of Stupid Republican Tricks at the link. I'm running late this morning. Hope you all survived the 4th.

Great thanks to Digby for the link.

What they're not getting ...

More than one blogger has problems with what Vice President Biden told Little George this morning concerning Israel vis a vis Iran:

...

"Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

...

As I heard it, Joe is giving Israel enough rope to hang herself. It might be in Israel's interest to bomb the shit out of Natanz but it is Israel's greater interest to continue getting the level of subsidy it currently enjoys from us. I wouldn't presume for one second Biden is giving them carte blanche.

Update:

After sleeping on it, I'm inclined to think, should Israel bomb the shit out of Natanz, the protection of the U.S. veto at the U.N. might disappear, rather than American donations.

Same old, same old

[A big Brain welcome to Crooks and Liars readers.]

Just a great quote from Smedley Butler:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Some things never change. Sigh.

Sunday Glasharmonika Music Blogging

Fixer likes ta play that highfalutin' classical stuff. Well, two can play at that game!

Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. Music by Wolfgang A. Mozart. Played by French artist Thomas Bloch, exhibiting the glass harmonica in the Paris Music Museum, Nov. 29, 2007.

From elsewhere at YouTube:

The instrument, an invention of Benjamin Franklin, was quickly banned after its inception. It was said to provoke insanity. The unique harmonics have also been said to import therapeutic powers.

Yes, insanity is therapeutic...

Thanks to johntamaro.

Sunday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

Dated 15 Jan '09. Still waitin'...

Cledus T. Judd - Waitin' On Obama

Thanks to KOCHRECORDS.

Quote of the Day

Think Progress, with video:

During a townhall in Waukon, IA Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was asked by a constituent of his: “Why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so better than my insurance?” When Grassley struggled to explain the details of his own health care plan, the elderly man followed up, “Okay, so how come I can’t have the same thing you have?” Grassley said, “You can. Just go work for the federal government.” (my em)

How about you Iowans exercise yer 'public option' and send this clown back where he came from?

"When the going gets weird,...

...the weird turn pro" - Hunter S. Thompson

Paul Begala

[...] Sarah Palin makes Mark Foley, the congressman who sent filthy emails to pages look almost normal. She makes David Vitter, the senator who was hanging out with hookers, look almost boring. She makes Larry Craig, caught hitting on a cop in a men's room, look almost stable. She makes John Ensign, the senator who was having an affair with a staffer, look almost humdrum (and compared to the rest of the GOP whack-jobs, he is). And she makes Mark Sanford, the governor with the Latin lover, look positively predictable.

It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP.

Now that's an accomplishment!

[...] A lot of people thought that about George W. Bush. He couldn't be so block-headed, they said. He couldn't be as childish and churlish as he came off. Oh yes he could. And so, too, might Ms. Palin be as vapid and puerile as her inane statement suggests.

We will know. In the fullness of time (and I predict, not much time) we will know. Again and again in her statement, Gov. Palin returned to the nettlesome ethics inquiries that have been visited upon her since she signed on to be John McCain's running mate. No doubt they are annoying. But does anyone believe that's why she's resigning? No, there's more to this story. And Ms. Palin's resignation only increases the chances that we will all know the rest of the story soon. Or, as she might put it:

We will all KNOW the "rest of the Story" *((SOON!))*

Waiting with bated breath...

Dear Sarah,

Let me clue you in to something. Bloggers don't scare easily.

...

"I'll sue you for defamation!" is the toothless wonder of the legal world. The bluster is meant to scare people, intimidate them, and get them to be quiet. In this particular case, it's not going to work ...

It's time for you, and your attorney, to STFU and realize your fifteen minutes is up. The more you yell and threaten, the more dirt we're gonna dig up on your ass. If there's one thing we've learned after 8 years of Bush is how to play the Republican game if we have to. Only you know how many skeletons hang in your closet and it's up to you whether they stay there or not. Good luck.

Regards,

Fixer

Yer ass ...

Mr. Aravosis:

Liberal groups, such as MoveOn and SEIU, and liberal bloggers (such as Jane Hamsher and our own Joe Sudbay) have been pressuring Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu to support the public option in health care reform (i.e., some kind of public health insurance plan). Landrieu has been adamantly opposed to anything resembling a public option. So groups like MoveOn have been running ads against her.

Well, our president will have none of that, He want us all to stop trying to get Landrieu to support a public option. Specifically, he wants them to stop running this ad.

Yes, let's not pressure bad Democrats to support keep provisions of the most importance piece of legislation of Obama's presidency, let alone the next decade.

...

Look, Barry, if you don't want a public option, don't even bother. Without the public option, it Ain't. Fucking. Reform.

A Hot Night In Paris With Emmylou!

That would do it for me, as in "You may pat me in the face with a spade now. I are happy!"...

Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler ~ Michelangelo

Thanks to poupystar, France.

Let 'er buck, Private!

Me 'n Fixer finally get to crawl out from under them humvees and get to town!

Watch the gal Fixer's dancin' with from about 1:39. She musta known he was comin' and had a coupla extra joints installed! I make my entrance at about 2:05...

A scene from Buck Privates featuring The Andrews Sisters. Thanks to twobarbreak.

Well, I Do Declare...

You can hear some NPR folks read the Declaration Of Independence here. The text is there as well.

My favorite parts in the birth certificate of our nation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
...

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
...

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

So, how's all that workin' out?

Happy 4th Of July, Kimmy

Sky News

North Korea has test fired seven missiles off its eastern coast, according to South Korea.

Yo, NK - fire a few off yer west coast and see what happens! Heh.

The move is likely to be seen as another act of defiance against the US - coming as it does on Independence Day.

I think what we need, since it's Independence Day, is a little time-on-target exercise. Every U.S. base and sub that's got missiles should fire 'em so they explode above North Korea at the same time high enough that they can be seen from Tokyo to Beijing. The warheads should be loaded with fireworks that spell out, in Korean and English:

"Kim Jong-Il Sucks Wet Monkey Ass"

5 fucking years????!!!!

[A big welcome to Jim's readers @ Skippy's.]

Yep, Gord and I (and the rest of the bloggers who've graced our page) have been 'giving our opinions' on ... well ... everything for 5 years.

I am appreciative of all the readers and commenters who've come through this place over the past half-decade. You've made this so much more than the anger management class it started out as, a way to 'rage against the machine', and I thank you for your input, feedback, and friendship.

As I've said many times, without you guys, the Brain would be nothing more than graffiti - a couple old guys writing on the wall.

I wish you all a safe and happy 4th.

Independence Day

I've posted this song before and I like it so I'm doing it again. The song is about spousal abuse, but it hits on other levels as well. Check out some of the lyrics;

"Let the weak be strong"

Ya listenin', Dems?

"Let the Right be wrong"

Ain't they always?

"Let the guilty pay"

Bush/neocon/Repug reference. Fuckin' A.

"It's Independence Day"

Best one in years, too. Have a good one. My unsolicited, free advice on this day is translated from the Chinese - "Light fuse. Retire quickly."

Martina McBride ~ Independence Day

Thanks to icechick65.

And yes, Hannity plays this song. Click on the 'before' link above and read what the gal who wrote the song and I have to say about that. Also, click on the video after it starts and read the first few comments.

As The Moose Turd Turns

USA Today

A spokesman reports Sarah Palin is resigning as Alaska governor effective July 26.

Yeesh. Good for Alaska. The rest of us are fucked until she burns out on the national political scene. Sooner rather than later would be good.

Update:

Go see The Coming Scandal Behind the Resignation.

Thanks, Nancy.

Operation Khanjar

Photo gallery from the Marine operation in Afghanistan.

A U.S. Marine from 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, RCT 2nd Battalion 8th Marines Echo Co. runs to a new position on July 3, 2009 in Main Poshteh, Afghanistan. The Marines are part of Operation Khanjar which was launched to take areas in the Southern Helmand Province that Taliban fighters are using as a supply route and to help the local Afghan population prepare for the upcoming presidential elections. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

If I saw this, er, presidential election worker approaching my front door, I think I'd

a) Give up

b) Identify myself as a former member of 3rd Battalion 8th Marines and hope nobody in 3rd Battalion ever fucked this guy over, and

c) State loudly and clearly, "Your man's got my vote. Which one o' them sonsabitches is he?"

So far, the grunt outfits I can identify in this op are 1/5 ("Make Peace, Or Die" - you tell 'em they shouldn'ta used the comma!), and 2/8 ("America’s battalion").

Marines have tribal memories.

One-Five fought at places like Guadalcanal, the Chosin Reservoir, Hue City, and Fallujah.

Two-Eight fought at Tarawa, Saipan, Okinawa, and Grenada, and served in Lebanon in 1958 and mounted out for the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Marines are indoctrinated from birth not to let their forebears down. I'm sure these young Marines in Helmand Province will do 'em proud.

BTW, my old outfit's motto is "Fortuna Favet Fortibus", which I think translates as "Good Luck Not Pukin' On The Bus Back To Base".

Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure

Another good article by Robert Parry. Not too long and a 'recommended read', just to keep fresh in our minds the biggest crime of the 21st century so far which is still going on and will haunt our country for generations to come. Thanks, George.

President Barack Obama and Iraqi leaders may try to sugarcoat the bitter pill for the United States by talking up the achievements of the six-year occupation, but the public celebrations by Iraqis marking the American pullout from Iraq’s cities tell the painful story of a U.S. strategic failure.

The big news organizations also didn’t want to admit their own complicity in this crime since almost everyone in American journalism, who wanted to keep a comfortable seat at the Establishment’s table, either endorsed the enterprise or kept quiet.

So even today – more than five months after Bush left office – it’s still much easier to dismiss what happened as “unnecessary,” to cite the pre-war “intelligence failures,” and to criticize Bush primarily for his tactical misjudgments in planning an effective occupation -- not committing enough troops and not having a detailed enough post-invasion plan.

Accusing him of criminality is much trickier. After all, in the view of the mainstream news media, war crimes are something that “rogue states” commit, petty tyrants from Rwanda or Yugoslavia who can then be dragged off to The Hague and put on trial.

Such humiliations are not for the former “Leader of the Free World” and his subordinates (nor for an ex-British prime minister). [...]

At this point, chances of any serious accountability look slim to none. Though a vocal supporter of international law, President Obama has made it clear that he won’t tolerate any serious investigation of the Bush administration’s crimes. Obama says he wants “to look forward, not backward.”

As part of that ducking of the past, Obama also can be expected to avoid describing the war as a failure. That would only provoke Republicans and right-wing pundits to accuse him of defeatism and “apologizing for America.”

Instead, to protect the withdrawal’s political flanks, Obama will pretend that the sacrifice of American troops achieved great things in Iraq.

The irony was that Bush’s desire to use the SOFA to cement a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq had the opposite result.

Given broad Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation, Iraqi political factions decided to position themselves as defenders of the nation’s sovereignty, not as American puppets.

The likely outcome in Iraq now appears to be the departure of U.S. forces with Washington left with little to show for its investment in blood and treasure. As the Washington Post reported on June 30, “there is little talk among U.S. commanders and diplomats of engineering a victory in the 2½ years they expect to remain here.”

For the United States, memories of its military intervention in a country halfway around the world may fade gradually into history, swallowed by the shifting sands of the ancient land of Mesopotamia, another chapter of failed imperial overreach in that region, a long and bloody saga dating back to Biblical times.

Despite the terrible price in lives, money and prestige, little may remain of Bush’s macho adventure besides the eventual recognition of a painful strategic defeat for the United States.

It's what happens when you let a moral weakling get put in charge by neocon/corporate criminals. We haven't yet begun to see the damage Bush let them cause. Nor are any of us alive today likely to see the end of it.

FBI Ignored Bush-Hussein Ties

Just so we don't forget.

Robert Parry

The FBI has released reports on 20 interviews and five conversations conducted with Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein before he was put to death, but none of the disclosed Q and A deals with the role of the Reagan administration in delivering key components for Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s.

The gaps in the FBI reports also underscore the historical travesty that resulted from the Bush administration’s handling of Saddam Hussein after his capture on Dec. 13, 2003, near Tikrit, eight months after the U.S.-led invasion toppled his government.

Instead of being turned over to the international criminal court at The Hague, where he could have been thoroughly interrogated, Hussein was kept under tight U.S. control until he was handed over to his Iraqi enemies on Dec. 30, 2006, for a chaotic hanging.

While President George W. Bush and many of his supporters were thrilled with the execution – what the New York Times called Bush’s “triumphal bookend” to the Iraq invasion – the hanging was not just rough justice meted out to a harsh dictator. It also snuffed out a dangerous witness who could have implicated senior Republicans, including Bush’s father.

Important chapters of history died with Hussein on the gallows. Hussein was a unique witness with the broadest knowledge about who arranged and sold the precursor components for his unconventional weapons that were used to kill Iranian troops and Iraqi civilians.

In death, Hussein couldn’t disclose what George W. Bush’s first Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during that famous hand-shake meeting in 1983, nor whether he got an alleged message from Vice President George H.W. Bush in the mid-1980s about how best to deploy Iraq’s air force against Iran, nor if then-deputy CIA director Robert Gates was running interference for Iraq’s military supply line in the 1980s.

It was the elder George Bush, as Vice President, who allegedly oversaw the covert U.S. operation to assist Hussein’s war machine during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War; Rumsfeld, as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, held private chats with the Iraqi dictator about his war needs; and Gates, as a senior CIA official, reportedly rebuffed Israeli protests about U.S. tolerance for third-country military shipments to Iraq, including precursor chemicals.

All those important Republicans and more could breathe a little easier after the hangman’s noose choked the life out of Hussein. (Gates remains in government as President Barack Obama's defense secretary.)

Confirmed: God is slightly gay

Mark Morford

Behold, the ongoing, increasingly startling research: homosexual and bisexual behavior, it turns out, is rampant in the animal kingdom. And by rampant, I mean proving to be damn near universal, commonplace across all species everywhere, existing for myriad reasons ranging from pure survival and procreative influence, right on over to pure pleasure, co-parenting, giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm, even love, and a few dozen other potential explanations science hasn't quite figured out yet. Imagine.

Are you thinking, why sure, everyone knows about those sex-crazed dolphins and those superslut bonobo monkeys and the few other godless creatures like them, the sea turtles and the weird sheep and such, creatures who obviously haven't read Leviticus. But that's about it, right? Most animals are devoutly hetero and straight and damn happy about it, right?

Wrong.

"Giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm". Get that visual outta yer head. Heh.

We're goin' shopping. See yas later.

What the world needs now ...

Is a nuclear detonation. Athenae:

...

It's finally happened. They broke my brain.

...

The crap that's been coming out of conservatives lately is beyond crazy.

"... They're waiting for you at Bellevue
With their oxygen masks ..."

Apologies to the Boss.



And of course Bruce's record company won't let YouTube play his stuff so I stole this from zerobio who does a great job with the tune.

Update:

More scary crazy.

Yeah, let's see ...

If our spineless Dems actually grow a ball now that they have the 'Magic 60'. Mr. Aravosis (in toto):

Well, this should be interesting. We've been hearing for years that the only thing stopping the Democratic party from asserting itself, from following through on its promises, was the lack of that all-mighty 60-vote majority in the Senate. And now they have it. So, Senator Reid, and President Obama, bring it on.

Oops, never mind.

Ain't shit gonna change.

Wednesday Afternoon 'Hiking The Appalachian Trail' Music Blogging

This goes out to Mark from Jenny and everybody else in South Carolina.

Why Don't You Just Say Goodbye - Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike Featuring Becky Buller on vocal

Thanks to BlueGrassRootsTV.

"two-faced political ideology."

This article in the EssEffChron about one California county sums up Repug - and some Democratic - hypocrisy beautifully:

Sprawling across the northeastern corner of California, this huge, thickly forested county with more cows than people epitomizes the Western frontier - and what seems to be a two-faced political ideology.

Modoc has the highest Republican registration of any county in California, it unfailingly elects anti-tax Republicans to office, and the vote here against last month's ballot measure that would have raised a variety of taxes was one of the most lopsided in the state. And yet, per capita, Modoc County gets more state taxpayer dollars than all but one of California's 58 counties.

The prevailing attitude among the right-wing ranchers and modern hippies who define Modoc County is of fierce self-reliance - but more people here than just about anywhere else depend on welfare checks of some kind to get by.

So with state Republicans blocking new taxes and insisting on deep cuts in taxpayer-funded services, does that make this most solid of GOP bases politically conflicted? Or, worse, just plain ignorant?

Yes.

Shorter: Government should stay the fuck out of our lives. Except for sending us other people's money.

Much more in the article.

Sunk at the Dock

I've just finished reading "It Came From Wasilla" by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair. Here's the last paragraph of a very good and worth reading six-page article:

On a rare fine day in Juneau, not long ago, Palin was seen sitting in the sunshine in the broad plaza near the state capitol, alone with her thoughts and some reading material for more than an hour and a half. Down the hillside below her, the big cruise liners that ply Alaska’s Inside Passage in the summer months were beginning to call in the port. Only two years have elapsed since William Kristol and his colleagues disembarked from one of them and hearkened to her siren call. Sarah Palin might well have been wondering whether her own ship is going out, or just coming in.

I took two things away from the article:

First, I'm almost grateful to the far right whackos for getting her onto the McCain ticket. That act, perhaps more than any other single thing, absolutely, positively ensured that Obama would be elected President, and

Second, that Fixer gets advance copies of V.F. and/or has mad sardonic skillz of prophecy!



It was a simple matter for me to dive in with a paintbrush and change SS McCain to SS Moosebreath on her stern. Hmmmmmm. Perhaps I could have chosen better wording than 'dive in' and 'her stern' in the same sentence whilst referring to Palin. Nah, it's OK. She has people to do that.

Update:

In related news, the V.F. article has touched off yet more feuding deep within the diseased bowels of the Repugs. Good.

Here's a teaser. Swallow first. Heh.

“I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”

Loyalists to Palin, including Kristol, were outraged at Purdum’s piece, believing it to be another example of what they see as elite media contempt for the Wasilla native.

And yer point is...?

Total soap opera shit. Go see. Have some fun.

Update II:

You can get to the V.F. article all on one page from The Political Carnival, whose post title is:

Cue the shrieks-- It Came from Wasilla: Miss Personality...Disorder

And from a comment:

[...] Before, during, or after 2012 she's gonna make Blagojevich look like a paragon of mental health and reason.

Must see TV! I kinardly wait...

I think Olympia gets it

Snowe: Public Option Would Be Too Cheap For Consumers!

That says it all in a nutshell.

Color copying ...

It's about god damned time:

Xerox has named Ursula Burns as its new chief executive officer, making her the first African American woman to run a Fortune 500 company.

Burns will take over on July 1, 2009, replacing Anne Mulcahy.

The 50-year-old new boss worked her way up the corporate ladder from a summer internship in 1980 to the CEO position. She has also been a member of the board of directors since 2007.

...

Good luck and godspeed, ma'am.

To Hell with the lottery ...

Heh ...

Invent a time machine and go back to June 2005. Make bets with people that in four years’ time we’ll have a black Democratic president with the middle name “Hussein.” Then up the ante by predicting that the Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate. Then top if off by betting that one of those seats will belong to Al Franken.

I mean, four years ago, I would have been too ashamed to post such a prediction anywhere, even if I were anonymously trolling over at Red State. Times do indeed change.

...