Bang-head-on-keyboard Headline of the Day

New Poll Shows Louisiana Republicans Blame Obama For How Bush Handled Hurricane Katrina

The stoopid, it burns...

DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War

War Is A Crime.org

In court papers filed today (PDF), the United States Department of Justice requested that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz be granted procedural immunity in a case alleging that they planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law.

Plaintiff Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a complaint in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a “crime of aggression” against Iraq, a legal theory that was used by the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II.

"The DOJ claims that in planning and waging the Iraq War, ex-President Bush and key members of his Administration were acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit,” chief counsel Inder Comar of Comar Law said.

The “Westfall Act certification,” submitted pursuant to the Westfall Act of 1988, permits the Attorney General, at his or her discretion, to substitute the United States as the defendant and essentially grant absolute immunity to government employees for actions taken within the scope of their employment.

In her lawsuit, Saleh alleges that:

-- Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz began planning the Iraq War in 1998 through their involvement with the “Project for the New American Century,” a Washington DC non-profit that advocated for the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

-- Once they came to power, Saleh alleges that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convinced other Bush officials to invade Iraq by using 9/11 as an excuse to mislead and scare the American public into supporting a war.

-- Finally, she claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval prior to the invasion, rendering the invasion illegal and an act of impermissible aggression.

“The good news is that while we were disappointed with the certification, we were prepared for it,” Comar stated. “We do not see how a Westfall Act certification is appropriate given that Ms. Saleh alleges that the conduct at issue began prior to these defendants even entering into office. I think the Nuremberg prosecutors, particularly American Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, would be surprised to learn that planning a war of aggression at a private non-profit, misleading a fearful public, and foregoing proper legal authorization somehow constitute lawful employment duties for the American president and his or her cabinet.”

Best of luck to Ms. Saleh and her attorneys but I think the fix is in on this one.

Pyongyang Ice

Sounds like North Korea has more in common with the U.S. than we knew. Heh.

WSJ

The 25-year-old North Korean man knew there would be no turning back once he escaped from North Korea across to the Chinese side of the frozen Tumen River. It was February 2009 and he knew he’d need to be swift to avoid detection by the armed North Korean and Chinese border guards.

He says only one thing could give him that clarity—the narcotic crystal meth, or methamphetamine.

“I inhaled about ten hits before I went to the river,” said the man, who now lives in Seoul and asked for his name not to be used. “I felt really focused, all I could think was go, go, go. I didn’t sleep for two days after that.”

Before his defection to South Korea, he says he used the drug, known as “bingdu” or “ice” in the North, off and on for about three years. He says it was easy to score, dealers worked the streets of his hometown of Hamhung, South Hamgyung Province.

I wonder if they get Breaking Bad on state-controlled TV?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

AREA 51 DECLASSIFIED
All extraterrestrial artifacts, remains, ongoing research transferred to still-classified Area 52.

GOP Votes to Bar CNN, NBC From Hosting '16 Debates
In talks with SyFy, Cartoon Network

They coulda left out the comma...

Shift Seen in Federal Policy On Crime, Drugs
Justice Department hints it might start going after actual criminals.

Actual crime-fighting as opposed to busting stoners at the Sara Lee display?!

Gen X Slackers Reach Middle Age
Time to take stock and think seriously about moving out of parents' house.

Aw, Mom 'n Dad dudes...

Headlines of the Day

Reince Priebus Admits the CNN and NBC Ban Is a Scam Because Republicans Fear Debates

Can't say as I blame him. He must have watched the Repugs' clown show last time. Heh.

The Republican Party is scared of Hillary Clinton, scared of the nation’s changing demographics, and most of all they are terrified that you will find out what they really stand for.

We are.

GOP: "Blatant Attempt by Obama to Provide Hi Speed Internet Has Founding Fathers Turning in Graves"
...

Another day, another laugh out loud headline, courtesy of today's Republican Party. Call it The Revenge of The Toobz. Of all the things for Republicans to pick on this is a really pretty weird one.
...

Rep. Grimm knows what Americans want (even though he refuses to hold a Town Hall during his 5 week summer recess). They want to use tin cans tied with string!

You have to stretch the string pretty tight to get those to work. I don't think the Repugs have that good a grip on anything. Heh.

Why an Iraqi Single Mom Is Suing George W. Bush for War Crimes

Why an Iraqi single mom and a tech lawyer think they can prove the Iraq War was a “crime of aggression” under U.S. law.

Doh - because it was?

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

An old favorite and one of her signature tunes.

Published on Aug 13, 2013
Click here for complete concert - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
***
Arena di Verona, Verona, Italy
3rd June 2006

Thanks to Best KNOPFLER channel.

Headline of the Day

GOP Congressman Gets Fact Checked By His Own Constituents On Obamacare: ‘Stop Lying!’

Even the wingers are catching on to the horseshit they've been force-fed. The end is in sight.

Republicans’ big problem with crazy

From The Guardian via Raw Story. You'll never guess whose picture they use to illustrate "crazy". Heh.

After three and a half years of legislative hostage-taking and policy nihilism and unceasing, uncompromising obstructionism of President Obama’s agenda, the message from the Tea Party is a simple one: we want more crazy.

So what’s going on here? Quite simply, Republicans are being destroyed by the rightwing monster they created.

And rightly so!

Any hope that the defeat of Mitt Romney in November 2012 would begin to drain the GOP’s fever swamp has gone by the wayside – and Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. In nurturing and radicalizing its extremist fringe – in pursuit of short-term gain – the Republican establishment created a political Frankenstein. Increasingly, however, it looks as though the monster’s first victim is going to be them.

The sooner the better.

'We're building a domestic army'

Kos

A Marine Corp Colonel spoke out at a August 12, 2013 Concord, NH council meeting after the Concord Police Department requested armored vehicles. This video needs to be shared far and wide. The militarization of our local police departments is something we should all be concerned with:

More from the Huffington Post on the militarization of police:

Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year -- a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today's deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes. But the use of SWAT tactics to enforce regulatory law also appears to be rising. This month, for example, a SWAT team raided the Garden of Eden, a sustainable growth farm in Arlington, Texas, supposedly to look for marijuana. The police found no pot, however, and the real intent of the raid appears to have been for code enforcement, as the officers came armed with an inspection notice for nuisance abatement.

Where these teams were once used only in emergency situations, they're used today mostly as an investigative tool against people merely suspected of crimes. In many police agencies, paramilitary tactics have become the first option, where they once were the last.

“It’s really about a lack of imagination and a lack of creativity,” says Norm Stamper, a retired cop who served as police chief of Seattle from 1994 to 2000. “When your answer to every problem is more force, it shows that you haven’t been taught and trained to consider other options."

Old Russian Army proverb: "When your only tool is a hammer, treat everything like a nail". We do not need, nor should we tolerate, jackbooted thugs with the power of the state, i.e. they can kill you legally, roaming our streets disguised as Officer Friendly.

We need to get rid of the Patriot Act and prevent the Department of Homeland (I hate that word) Security from funding this crap.

We have a new Chief Of Police in my town who says he learned a lot about police work while serving in Iraq. I haven't met him, but I did tell one of our Barney Fifes to remind him that our little mountain town ain't Fallujah.

Gov't Hypocrisy On Weed

Raw Story, with video.

CNN contributor Dr. Sanjay Gupta followed up on his reversal of course regarding medical marijuana in an interview with Anderson Cooper on Tuesday by slamming federal policy regarding medical marijuana.

“The U.S. holds a patent [on marijuana] on one hand, and on the other hand, same government says it has no medical applications,” Gupta told Cooper. “Journalists are trained to hate hypocrisy. This is hypocrisy. I’ve never seen it quite like this.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, Gupta explained, holds a patent on medical marijuana as “a protectant for the brain, giving voice to an argument made by medical marijuana proponents. The pro-marijuana site Weedist reported in May 2013 that the patent states that, “cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”

There's too much money in the War On Some Drugs, the Prison-Industrial Complex, Big Pharma, and Big Booze for them to quit being hypocrites. Facts, perhaps even Truth, be damned.

Who’s afraid of a little sodomy?

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about Da Cooch of Virginia, the most sexually repressed AG in the country. By far too much so to be in charge of anything involving the law.

“The Cuccinelli.” Now available at participating Virginia Walmarts*

*That is called a "masturbation device". If you know how to masturbate with that, you best keep it to yourself. Heh.

There is something a little sad, if not enormously disturbing, about people like Ken Cuccinelli, the intensely troubled AG of Virginia and one-man Tea Party sideshow who is currently running for governor and who, if he has his way, will hereby outlaw sodomy and oral sex. For everyone. Forevermore.

Something desperate. Something lost. Something demented and strange, like rolling around on broken glass, like slapping yourself in the face with a furious eel, like openly molesting a bunch of baby asparagus. That’s Ken for you.

Have you heard? Virginia’s deepest embarrassment is making national news, again, for out-Rick Santoruming the legend himself.

Ooh! Make my mixture double frothy please!

In short, Ken Cuccinelli detests and fears pretty much everything you and I stand for, and we are hereby grateful he is lives so far from the Left Coast, and offer heartfelt sympathies to anyone left in Virginia with an active mind, heart or vagina.

Let us waste no more energy pointing up the absurdity of Ken’s agenda. Let us, instead, ponder widely to the heavens: What happened to him, growing up? How do people like Ken turn out this way? How does a single human accumulate so much shame and fear, to the point where they wish so much oppressive ill on the rest of the human race?

My theory is the other kids called him "Coochie, Coochie, Coochie!" until he went crazy.

It is, or course, a timeless and not at all insignificant question. It goes beyond simply wondering just how many women, homosexuals, playground pals and household pets rejected Ken and his awkward sexual advances when he was younger. It’s beyond pondering just how terrible were his parents, or if he was addicted to huffing glue as a teen, or if his father whipped him with a belt for enjoying “The Little Mermaid” a little too… vigorously.

That all might or might not be true. I am not a trained psychologist. I do not have professional insights into the cracked Wiffle Ball that is the Tea Party soul.
...

We must also remember that America remains a broken and uneven sidewalk. There are still 13 states with anti-sodomy laws on the books, despite the unconstitutionality, and it will take another 10 years, minimum, before these backwater hateswamps catch up to the basic human rights enjoyed by the rest of us, and another decade on top of that before they come anywhere near what, say, California already enjoys in terms of sexual education and fearless, albeit imperfect, play.

By then, Ken Cuccinelli and the rickety clown car that is the Tea Party will be long gone. Will new versions step up to take their place? Will wanton human sexuality still be under ridiculous duress? Does a pope sin in the woods?

Yes, young Mark, there will always be anti-fun people.

Do yourself a favor and puh-leeze read the rest of this!

Open letter to Donald Trump -

- America’s Premier Racist Blowhard Capitalist Pig

The Political Garbage Chute

You’re fired.

To enhance that phrase:

You’re fuckin’ fired;. now shut the fuck up and go the fuck away forever.
...

You’re an opportunistic slug who lucked into his fortune by way of whose biological detritus from whence you came. Had you been born into the working class I have no doubt you’d be just another weird, bitter old white guy. You know how I know this? You won’t drop the Birther bullshit. Put that down as one more huge clue about life you still haven’t gotten. You’re awfully good at self-promotion, but other than that you are clearly as clueless as any of the ridiculous cast of morons the GOP trotted out last year. Oh wait, that’s right, you were one of them for a brief moment. Did you not learn the lesson the first time you were embarrassingly drummed out of the election once people realized, “Oh yeah, he’s just a toupee’d, loud-mouthed, racist, Plutocrat”?
...

Believe it not, you actually do have to be somewhat likable to win a presidential election. Contrary to what some on the right may be saying right now, the problem hasn’t been that Republicans haven’t nominated a true conservative in a long time, it’s that they haven’t nominated someone that the electorate really likes. They’ve been counting on the hatred of the Democratic president or nominee to carry them, but as it turns out the electorate isn’t falling for it. Sure, there are any number of complaints you could make about the Democrats in Congress. They are after all one-half of the most useless gaggle of dipshits in a long, long time to sit on the Hill. But for the last twenty years, America’s demographics have been shifting in such a way that the policies the GOP stands for just make them look old, angry, bitter and scared.

Or to put it another way: Like you, Donald.

I miss the old Donald Trump. The one that was an annoying, loud-mouthed, misogynistic asshole that at least knew his place in society. You should be really embarrassed for yourself. Deep-down you know you’re not serious about any of this stuff. The truly sad part is that I don’t know if you’re really a racist or are just embracing all the racist birther stuff to keep a toe-hold on all the bitter, old, white voters. I don’t know what’s better for my opinion of you — that you’re a real racist or that you cynically play one on TV. Oh, I can’t decide, so let’s just say there’s literally nothing you could do short of sewing up your mouth and having your vocal chords removed to improve my view of you.
...

Now go marry another woman who’d much rather lick the back of a stamp made of dog shit than spend five minutes for you if it weren’t for the size of your…bank account.

Note to Mr. Schlarmann: Try and come outta yer shell and say what you really mean, dude. Heh.

Sounds like a good opportunity for some drone practice...

The Political Carnival

“Post-racial America”: KKK to host cross burning in Kentucky; “tons of food, fun” and of course kids welcome!
...

But come on, America, it’s not really all that bad, because the KKK calls it a “cross lighting” now, not a cross burning, and their members are “nice” because they donated an arena on which their family valuesy family members are invited to join the KKKlub.

And hey kids! There will be tons of food and fun! But because they’re such a wholesome bunch, NO DRUGS!

Oy gevult.

Texas struggles to defend discriminatory voting policies

Pretty blatant, and it's the same story in every other Repug-controlled state: If ya can't beat 'em, cheat 'em.

Maddowblog

As Kevin Drum explained, Texas' first argument, as pushed by state Attorney General Greg Abbott, "is that, sure, Texas has tried to discriminate as recently as 2011, but their efforts were overturned by a court. So that means there are no current violations, and thus no reason to grant any kind of 'equitable relief.'"

The second argument is the half-glass-full tack. As Serwer put it, "[T]he state claims, even if Texas did discriminate, and the state stresses that it did not, it was nothing as bad as 'the 'pervasive,' 'flagrant,' 'widespread,' and 'rampant' discrimination that originally justified preclearance in 1965.' So as long as Texas skies aren't alight with flames from burning crosses, what's the big whoop?"

But it's the third argument that's truly amazing.

From the brief filed by the state:

DOJ's accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party's electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats....The redistricting decisions of which DOJ complains were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations, and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary.

Got that? Texas wasn't trying to discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities; Texas was simply trying to discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities who vote for Democrats.

In other words, Texas' defense is that state policymakers were trying to crush the Democratic vote, and this led to inadvertent discrimination against African Americans and Latinos. As such, the argument goes, Texas was motivated by crass partisanship, and not racism, so the discrimination doesn't really count.

Any chance this might be persuasive in court? Brenda Wright, a voting law expert with the liberal think tank Demos, told Serwer, "I don't think it's going to work, frankly. The mere desire to achieve partisan advantage does not give Texas a free hand to engage in racial discrimination. If the only way you can protect white incumbents is by diluting the voting strength of Hispanic citizens, you are engaging in intentional racial discrimination, and the courts will see that."

First, "inadvertent" my ass and second, SCOTUS willfully didn't see it when they overturned parts of the VRA.

It's 15 months 'til the '14 elections. I hope that's time to get everybody IDs because that's probably not enough time for this to work its way through the courts in these red states. I hope this pisses folks off enough that they take special pains to jump through all the flaming hoops and vote these shitepokes outta office.

I'm not trying to piss off all you anarchists and third-party advocates, but our only hope in the near term is to get Democratic control of the House and Senate and Democratic controlled state legislatures.

More than nuts. Anti-democracy criminals.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times showed up late today.

Terror Threat Continues, Say Intelligence Agencies
Won't end until legislation to limit power of intelligence agencies goes away.

Sounds about right.

Childhood Obesity Rates Decreasing in Some Areas
Fast food industry spokesman calls findings “troubling.”

That sounds about right too.

Sun About to Reverse Its Magnetic Field, Effect on Radio Transmissions Uncertain
Could turn some hip-hop stations to country and western.

Cool! Both kinds of music - country and western! I'm down!

Oppressive Heat Waves the New Normal,
Say Meteorologists
So get used to it.

Related:

Longer Breast Feeding Boosts Intelligence
Claim Ph.D candidates still nursing.

Wait'll I'm done with lunch and just call me "Doc". :-)

Quote of the Day

From Why Hillary Terrifies the GOP:

“Hillary Clinton—the name alone strikes dread in the heart of freedom loving Americans.”

Bwahahahaha!


Bonus QotD:

From A pathetic day for the Republican Party:

Mitch McConnell is humiliated by a staffer, but can't fire him -- because the Tea Party has more power than he does

A second Bwahahahaha! of the Day too. Man, I'm lovin' this!

Holy Crap! Another one!

Santorum: Liberals ‘make it uncomfortable’ to shower at the YMCA

He must be afraid to find out the truth about "frothy mixture".

My sides, they hurt...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Barbara Allen from the Songcatcher soundtrack.

Thanks to Jim Parris.

Kochstarter!

HuffPo

"Citizen Koch," a highly regarded documentary about the billionaire Koch brothers and the growing influence of money in politics after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, suffered a major setback earlier this year when PBS pulled the film and the $150,000 in funding that had been promised. Scrambling to find a way to distribute their film, Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin turned to Kickstarter in a highly successful move that recently surpassed the funds they had previously expected to receive from public television.
...

“Thanks to thousands of small donors, the public will be able to see this film," Deal said in a release. “We hope public television executives get the message that when they allow private interests to dictate their programming and funding decisions, the public will take notice and take action.”

Reports at the time of PBS' decision to pull the film from its stations suggested that executives had bowed to pressure from David Koch, a major donor to powerful PBS affiliates. Deal and Lessin's work focuses heavily on the election of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and his subsequent push to curtail union rights in the state, a push that led to massive backlash in Madison in 2011. Some reviews have suggested that much of the material is partisan and unkind to the Kochs, who are at one point described on screen as "TWO BILLIONAIRE EXTREMISTS."

That's about right.

I've kicked down to Kickstarter for a coupla projects, but I feel a little guilty for not knowing about this one. This is an important film and needs to be be seen far and wide. The Kochsuckers have pretty much funded the Teabaggers and bought our political process lock, stock, and barrel. They're not alone of course, but they need to be made an example of if we want democracy back.

A thought on the embassy closings

What if the al Qaeda bigwigs, knowing full well the western world is listening in on them, did their 20-something person conference call to make plans for a big attack without actually planning to do it? What if the phone conference was enough? What if it was the whole plan all along?

If so, al Qaeda must be laffin' their asses off at the reaction.

Tinfoil Hat Brigade Rides Again!

Jonathan Chait, links (if you must) at site.

The new right-wing book of the moment is American Betrayal, by Diana West, which offers the thesis that American foreign policy under presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower was secretly controlled by the Soviet Union. If this sounds like the sort of tract that would be written by somebody who thinks Joe McCarthy was absolutely right about everything, well, that’s exactly what Diana West does believe. She’s also quite the birther.

But her book has managed to attract quite a bit of support from respectable and semi-respectable outlets on the right. The Heritage Foundation feted West, Amity Shlaes blurbed it, the American Spectator and Daily Caller issued raves, and Breitbart is actually serializing the book.

That pretty much tells you all you need to know.

Blaming the U.S. for provoking Pearl Harbor is the sort of claim that might offend modern conservatives, except that West further argues that America was controlled by the Soviets all along. Likewise, she tells us, the U.S. could have supported anti-Hitler Nazis and ended the war, but didn’t, because its goal was to help the Soviets occupy Eastern Europe. (“The war had to last long enough for the Soviet Army to roll into the heart of Europe on those fleets of Lend-Lease Dodge and Studebaker trucks Uncle Sam had generously provided.”)
...

Our readers may not grasp just what it takes to be called a right-wing kook in Front Page Magazine by Ron Radosh. The bar is high. Radosh himself is quite conservative (he’s called President Obama a socialist). FrontPageMag is … well, suffice to say, its official motto is “Inside Every Liberal Is A Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out” — which is surely more evocative, if less credibility-rendering, than "All the news that’s fit to print." It currently features stories with such headlines as “Islamic Group in America: We’ll Impose Sharia on Christians” and “Seven More Reasons to Impeach Eric Holder.”

Indeed! Being called crazy by the certifiably insane makes you the Bull Goose Loony!