Circuit City Sucks

Circuit City needs to fluff up its stock price. Via Eschaton:

The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers. The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.

Too bad they can't just offshore all of the jobs to India. Assholes.

Today begins my Circuit City boycott.

UPDATE: Ok, so it occurs to me that boycotting CC doesn't actually help the workers. But who does our continued patronage help, exactly? Is the CEO taking a paycut to help, or are any of the execs? I'm guessing no. And that's the source of my anger -- the corporate mind really does believe that employees are only cost overhead that it should work toward eliminating. Whatever existed of a corporate mindset that believed employees had anything to do with their success is just long, long gone.

Piss on them all.

Vronzie, Here You Go

Perez Hilton

Around The Intertubes

• James Dobson, the King of Evangelicals, comments on the Christian creds of Fred Thompson and deliberates on who the Christianists will support for president in 2008. Hint re Dobson's candidate of choice: Leaving your first wife (who worked to put you through grad school) when she has cancer and then refusing to pay alimony or child support, and later cheating on your second wife with a staffer while pursuing impeachment of a sitting president for lying about receiving a presidential blowjob, are apparently important Christian values.

• Kerry and McCain? McCain and Kerry? Can't tell if this is a rehash of the wishful thinking in 2004 or if McCain has given up on the Christianist vote and is considering a new path to the presidency. A bi-partisan ticket would probably be good for America but I'm not sure if this one would win.

• The first quarter campaign fundraising milestone is nearly upon us. Will Obama beat Hillary? Inquiring minds want to know. I donated my first ever political contribution this week... $50 to Obama. I don't think I'll be invited to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom anytime soon but I felt like it was time to put my money where my mouth is.

• Is Obama about style over substance? A lie hits the beltway echo chamber and is on its way to becoming Conventional Wisdom. Don't be a sucker.

• Iran is so going to get it. Britain is being interestingly restrained and I'm kind of wondering if they aren't trying to figure out what's going on inside the Iranian government in order to finesse their response a bit. People tend to think of the Iranian government as this big dark monolith but I think it is, in fact, pretty weak. If I recall correctly, power is divided in a strange way between religious leaders and governmental figures, and then subdivided again with a 'reformed' structure overlaid on top of a more ancient "council" structure. It's hard to tell who's driving the bus, so to speak -- whether it's everyone at once or no one at all. Add to that a section of reformists in eternal opposition to the old guard and you've got a situation that should be easy to exploit (which is why I think it is retarded that we refuse to have any dialog with them). Tony Blair is not an idiot so I sort of have faith he'll read the situation correctly, whatever it is, and act accordingly.
  

• Is Gonzales still there? Actually, I hope Bush keeps him around for a while longer -- another albatross to hang around his neck (along with Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Miers, etc).

• It's about time we stood up to China on something, even if it is a small symbolic tariff on shiny paper.

• Wow. There will be a pundit feeding frenzy on this latest Pelosi Syria maneuver. Despite the fact that I think we should maintain some kind of relations with all countries for strategic reasons (see Iran, above), and as much as I think Bush is the biggest mother fucking moron who has ever stepped foot in the oval office, Pelosi is walking a very thin line here. On the one hand, Bush has undeniably created some strategic blunders that will continue to hurt us for years to come but, on the other hand, this is a bad time to weaken the authority of the presidency (see Iran, above). I understand the intent but I'm not sure if it's going to help us or hurt us. As we've seen, unintended consequences can be the most dangerous kind.

• This is why I feel so strongly about keeping our primary food sources in-country. Besides the fact that a country that can't feed itself is, as far as history is concerned, destined to become inconsequential, we have evolved to a level of civility that attaches importance to the safety and welfare of our citizen consumers. I am always thankful for that most evil of entities, Government Regulation, when it comes to the food I ingest. So what actions can be taken against a non-American food supplier that doesn't hold us in the same regard? Probably not much.
  

The Weakly Standard

Har! Get it?? :-)

I realize I can't match the brain power of neocon wonder twins Fred Kagel and Bill Kristol but there's something about their latest Iraq article that bugs me. They cite a few facts to refute strawman arguments about Iraq but their conclusions don't fit logically.

For starters, they claim that the capture/killing of members of the Madhi Army had the effect of "terrifying Sadr into fleeing to Iran." That doesn't make any sense to me. The Madhi Army hasn't disbanded... they are laying low. And that makes a world of sense to me -- why would they insist upon becoming the focus of the US right now when they can let the US focus on the Sunni insurgents instead? If the US can cripple the insurgency then there will be less work for the Madhi Army to do later on when they're ready to stake their claim. So what makes me think they're just laying low? Look at how fast they rebanded to carry out the Sunni reprisals this week -- with the full support of the Iraqi police.

Secondly, al-Qaeda in Iraq seems like a temporary problem. As I've said before, there is not really a compatible ideology between al-Qaeda and any group in Iraq. What they have at best is a relationship of convenience with the Sunni that is quickly becoming a waning tolerance. The recent clashes between the Anbar sheiks and al-Qaeda is probably because those al-Qaeda mother f*ers are crazy. Most certainly they're on a power trip and have overstepped. I maintain that there will be no place in Iraq for al-Qaeda after the civil war. They are opportunists looking for a stage and we've created a stage for them. We can't win against them because their organizational structure is decentralized... we kill one 'leader' and there are 50 others. We kill another leader and there are still 50 others. Every disaffected, suicidal, mentally defective person in the Middle East can now wander over to Iraq and become a finger of al-Qaeda. The only people who are going to be able to affect al-Qaeda are the Iraqi's and they aren't going to do that until 1) we're gone, and 2) they have settled their civil war. Al Qaeda can only exist in a chaotic Iraq.

The full surge (with all the troops in play for however long it can last) may quell the violence temporarily but, just like laying pretty vinyl flooring over rotting floorboards, it is only going to mask the underlying cultural issues. Which is, ironically, exactly what Saddam's iron rule did.

Keeping Them Honest

Whether or not the current flood of congressional investigations are a good idea seems to depend very much on one's political ideology.

Pity, that.

A simple test I use to determine if I'm falling sway to partisan spin on something is to ask myself, "How would I feel about [insert name of issue/scandal/event here] if it happened under President Obama?" For example, "How would I feel about illegal FBI spying if it occurred under Obama's administration?" Or, "How would I feel about the US Attorney firings if they occurred under Obama's administration?" If I feel the same about an issue under Bush as I would under Obama, then I'm probably being intellectually honest (assuming I've got the facts right).

I've had plenty of opportunity to test myself lately but let's face it -- after six years of absolute power and no oversight, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that there's a lot of bad shit going on. It's been the classic fox and hen house scenario.

The recent GSA scandal, the US Attorney scandal (which got more interesting today with Kyle Sampson's testimony and also includes umbrella scandals like the voter fraud lie and, of course, the subversion of the Patriot Act), and the illegal spying scandal, to name a few, and I'm pretty sure the hits will keep coming.

Can We Agree To Be Disgusted Yet (Part 2)

This whole Iraq spending bill drama is getting ridiculous.

1. Yes, people, it's a spending bill. It's kind of like the war spending bills that the Republicans have been passing for the past four years. You know, the great panacea of Republican proffered pork that Bush never once thought to veto. Except the Dem pork in this sinister bill is, well, mostly a bunch of aggie help (still porkish but God forbid we should try to feed ourselves instead of off shoring our food production to Mexico).

Here you go:
* $25 million for asbestos abatement at the Capitol Power Plant.
* $24 million for sugar beets.
* $3 million for sugar cane.
* $100 million for security at the Presidential Conventions in 2008.
* $20 million for insect infestation damage.
* $2.1 billion for crop production losses.
* $1.5 billion for livestock production losses.
* $100 million for Dairy Production Losses.
* $13 million for Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program.
* $31 million for one month extension of Milk Income Loss Contract program.
* $3.5 million for guided tours of the Capitol
* $2 million for the University of Vermont
* $32 million for Livestock Indemnity Program.
* $40 million for the Tree Assistance Program.
* $100 million for Small Agricultural Dependent Businesses.
* $6 million for North Dakota flooded crop land.
* $35 million for emergency conservation program.
* $50 million for the emergency watershed program.
* $115 million for the conservation security program.
* $18 million for drought assistance in upper Great Plains/South West.
* $165.9 million for fisheries disaster relief.
* $50 million for fisheries disaster mitigation fund.
* $12 million for forest service money.
* $640 million for LIHEAP.
* $388.9 million for road projects.
* $22.8 million for geothermal research and development.
* $500 million for wildland fire management.
* $13 million for mine safety technology research.

2. The withdrawal language in the bill is nonbinding. Maybe I'm missing something but are Democrats really claiming this as a great victory? And are Republicans really accusing the Democrats of legislating defeat with this nonbinding date? Good grief.

3. The Democrats gave the president every penny of supplemental funding he asked for and then some. It's beyond disingenuous for any Republican to insist that the Democrats are cutting funding for the war simply because Bush plans to veto the bill. Bush is only planning to veto because he doesn't like the verbiage around the the nonbinding date. If Bush vetoes the bill and then runs out of time to shuffle another bill through congress then HE has disrupted the funding, not the Democrats.

4. The minimum wage insertion was dirty. I support the wage increase but I would rather see it fought and won out in the open. This kind of subterfuge is bad for America and, no, the ends do not justify the means.

5. The surge is not working. The surge is not going to work. If we occupy Iraq for the next 50 years, it will dissolve 10 minutes after the last troops leave. The Shiite militias are only laying low because it's convenient to let the US do the dirty work of killing the insurgents (referred to by the Shia as "the future Sunni army"). And even so, look at how fast the Shiite militias (including the f*ing Iraqi police) emerged to retaliate with random Sunni executions after the latest bombicide. People in America are naive, myopic, and just painfully ignorant about the nature of the Iraq war. They continue to visualize victory in Iraq in very romantic, patriotic terms. Yoohooo, good citizens: The BEST outcome we can hope to achieve in Iraq is a Shia majority theocracy that is comfortably aligned with Iran. Is that really worth your kids dying for?

Can We Agree To Be Disgusted Yet?

In the news:

FBI Director Robert Mueller pleaded with senators Tuesday not to curtail the Patriot Act that empowers the federal government to secretly obtain personal records, although a Justice Department investigator discovered that the bureau had failed to obey its requirements.

The problem wasn't the law, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee; it was the FBI.

"The statute did not cause the errors," Mueller said. "The FBI's implementation of the statute did."

Well... duh.

People who have power will eventually try to abuse that power. It's such a simple and indisputable statement that only a retard would defend against it. The FBI cannot police itself... indeed, it is incapable of such a thing. That's why we have had a system of robust checks and balances in this country -- you know, little things like judicial warrants and congressional oversight.

But those of us who have done nothing 'wrong' have nothing to fear, right? That depends. Read this Washington Post article for info on how the FBI turned an ordinary citizen into a snitch and then used gag orders to keep him in line.

Ceding The Moral High Ground

Sully brings up a very good point with regard to the Brit soldiers being held by Iran:

They are being "interrogated" apparently. The news reports put that word in quotation marks. I wonder if it emerges that they are being subject to George W. Bush's preferred euphemism "coercive interrogations." And if that turns out to be the case, and we have to pray it isn't, then what will the United States and its ally Great Britain say in complaint? After all, Iran is only doing to Western soldiers in captivity what the U.S. has been doing to "enemy combatants" since the war began. Then there's a question of what kind of trial they might face. One in which their defense gets a chance to see all the evidence against them? Oh, wait ... we don't do that either.

Iraq And Its Neighbors

A look at the regional interests in Iraq.

The Saudi component is the most interesting. It would not be surprising to me if the country that spawned 13 of the 9/11 terrorists is harboring elements that are providing financial support to the insurgency. I wonder just how significant that support is. I would guess that it would have to be fairly significant -- where else does their money come from? The insurgents might be able to buy weaponry and supplies from smugglers but someone has to be funding those purchases. Unless we're to believe that four years later the insurgents are still living off the carcass of Saddam's ammo stash.

As for Iran, I can see where they'd be funding the Shiite militias to ensure a Shia majority but it makes zero sense that they'd fund their former Baathist enemies.

Faux News

This is an interesting statement about Fox News viewers:

An audience that decides for itself, based on “fair and balanced” coverage, ought not to reach monolithic conclusions. Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

Read the whole thing. (h/t Kos)

I think the real problem is that Fox News is more than just a conservative news source -- it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Machine. It's authentic journalism like I'm an authentic neurosurgeon. Remember this gem?

A study by a University of Maryland center concluded, “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions” about Iraq. For example, in 2003, 67 percent of those who relied primarily on Fox wrongly believed the U.S. “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization.” Only 40 percent of those who relied on print media harbored this illusion, debunked thoroughly by the 9/11 Commission.

Instead of providing “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox has created an audience ignorant of the facts, but fully supportive of management’s ideology.

Tell me again how this is helping America?

Shoes And Drugs

Maybe they do go together!

Happy Friday!

Come hither.

Politics And The Public Domain

The internet has done much to mobilize ordinary citizens into political activists. Anyone with a PC can publish a blog and bloviate like a pundit. We can do research like strategists and network like lobbyists. We can provide instant and overwhelming feedback to media outlets and elected officials. Add some graphics software and a common repository like Youtube and suddenly we're able to launch our own advertising campaign. It's an amazing phenomenon already and it's still in its infancy.

We saw a very clever ad for Obama this week, a makeover of an old Apple classic. The creator anonymously posted it on Youtube. While the impact of the ad is definitely at Hillary's expense, it's not really a specific attack on her so much as a statement about breaking out of politics as usual. The ad ends with an "O" that morphs into BarackObama.com. As of right now the ad has received almost 1,900,000 views.

Obama denied commissioning the ad but he didn't immediately denounce it. Why would he? It's a darn effective ad despite the fact that he's been working to craft an image that places him more above the political fray. He may wish he had denounced it, though, now that it turns out the mystery creator had some distant tie to his campaign. And that's the trouble, really -- candidates who accept such gestures of netroots support do so at their own risk. While the free, spontaneous publicity may be nice, they can quickly lose control of their message. They also risk guilt by association, depending on the character of their unsolicited campaign partners.

It is not beyond believable for me that a guy who makes his living in politics, Philip de Villas, would apply his craft to support his personal candidate choice (without the candidate's knowledge). I would, if I had the talent. De Villas explained his actions yesterday and I do believe that he acted without the knowledge of his company (they are contracted by Dem candidates other than just Obama). But the fact is, no candidate can afford to be naive about this new reality going forward. They can either embrace whatever assistance netizens want to provide and give their campaign over to the public domain OR they can denounce netizen activity in order to maintain control. It's going to have to be one or the other -- I don't see how they can have their cake and eat it, too.

p.s. Now that de Villas is no longer employed, maybe the Obama campaign should hire him. He does very good work!

The Attorney Purge Fallout

Watching Bush's angry little tirade against "the Democrats" yesterday was interesting.

• He kept insisting that all "the Democrats" needed to know was in the 3,000 emails released by the justice department if only they'd bother to read them. It was a brilliant WH idea, in my opinion, to dump the docs and run. Surely by the time anyone got through them the story would be all but dead, right? Except Josh Marshall at TPM rounded up an army of unpaid readers to slog through every last one of them and found -- coincidentally! -- an 18 day gap in the data. A pretty crucial gap, too, given the event timeline. Perhaps not so coincidentally after all...
  

• It's difficult to try to weigh the benefit of accountability against the benefit of advisor confidentiality. Bush argues that he can't have his trusted advisers subpoenaed for every trivial little question anyone might have. On the other hand, governmental accountability is only ensured by proper oversight. This administration has gotten a free pass on oversight for six years so I'm thinking I'd be willing to focus a little more on accountability right now. The Chicago Trib offers this amusing little nugget from Tony Snow oh so many years ago as he wrestled with the same dilemma and came to the same conclusion (h/t Kos):

"Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

"Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

"One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold the rule of law.''

Snow insists, as of this morning, that the current situation is different (I assume that's because it's not about super duper important stuff like blow jobs).

• I've written before that the aspect of this mess that least upsets me is the replacement of the attorneys, in general, since they're political appointees. What I overlooked is that they're political appointees in the same sense that the SCOTUS justices are... which is to say they're political appointees who are supposed to be behave apolitically once they're in office. A great deal has been said now on the possible attempt by Rove to use the U.S. Attorneys as a political tool to give Republicans an edge in 2008. Sadly, I didn't even suspect that particular abuse of power. My bad. One of the fired U.S. Attorneys speaks out in the NYT today, adding to my current feelings of stupidity.

The Insurgency

Andrew Sullivan has found an interesting commentary on how the insurgency works. I'm sure there is more than one dynamic at play in the insurgency, and I have no have no idea how to evaluate the description of this one --- but it sure sounds plausible.

As an aside, although Andrew Sullivan takes a lot of shit from both halves of the blogosphere for his conservative-but-not-really-Republican positions, I think his blog is among the most thoughtful out there. Not only does he have an eye for content, he seems to have grasped one of the fundamental elements of wisdom: the importance of asking questions usually far exceeds the importance of having answers.

How To Handle Your Frenemies

Hot damn! The senator from Illinois is more shrewd, cunning, and just plain dead-on right than any I've seen in my lifetime.

Obama read the Al Sharpton situation perfectly (I wrote about it yesterday), responded with utter brilliance, and, one day later, saw the giant-in-his-own-mind Sharpton crumble into a pile of ancient, irrelevant dust.

Sublime. I hope people understand the significance of what just happened because it's likely that Obama, in the course of one month, has changed the political dialogue on race forever.

Plame d'Affaire

Are people so focused on the minutiae of the Plame affair that they've forgotten the very big picture?

1. Plame was a covert operative in the CIA.

2. Wilson caught the administration flat.out.lying to the American people about the Niger yellow cake and he embarrassed them by calling it out.

3. Plame was 'outted' to the media in order to discredit Wilson with claims of nepotism.

It's so simple that a child could understand it and yet, over at Fox News, they remain committed to the idea that these simple facts don't exist, preferring instead to dwell in offshoot conjecture of little consequence. In the twisted logic of their beautiful minds, Plame and Wilson are simply mustache twirling, America-hating villains. More here.

John McCain... *Sigh

I used to like John McCain quite a lot... I don't understand what's happening to him. The once fiercely independent, common-sensical senator from Arizona seems to have forgotten who he is. I first noticed this when, a while back, the moderate conservative tried to recast himself as a Dobsian religious rightest in preparation for 2008 (and was, in short order, summarily dissed by Dobson). Now this.

Is this what it means to be in the GOP these days? Is it soooooo necessary to win over the Christianista that even the mighty John McCain is cowed?

Frightening.

Obama's AA Problem (Or Not)

AA, as in "African American."

Amidst all the St Patrick's festivities last night, my mom's neighbor noted my bright green O'Bama t-shirt and informed me, "He won't win, the blacks don't like him." I just smiled back.

I've heard this conventional wisdom repeated a lot lately by various TV news pundits and columnists. Anxious to jump on the "he's too good to be true" skeptic wagon, they pick at this aspect of the election like a nine year old picking at a scabbed elbow. What they really mean is that the self-proclaimed spokesman for black people, Al Sharpton, doesn't like Obama. I can't for the life of me imagine why that would be a problem... does anyone like Al Sharpton?

The fact is, Obama hasn't made a career out of playing the race card (like Al Sharpton) and therefore hasn't established his creds with the black leadership (a.k.a. Al Sharpton). Oh, how the mainstream media frets about this little factoid! He must pay homage to the great Al Sharpton, they say, so Sharpton will anoint him the Official Candidate of Black People Everywhere. Otherwise the black vote will go to Hillary.

In a move that I consider ballsy, brilliant, and probably highly effective, Barack Obama just answered them all with a great big FU.

Skipping the middleman (i.e. Al Sharpton), Obama has decided to state his case directly to black American voters. While other candidates are quietly focused on raising money, yesterday Obama did one of the rarest election moves ever -- he stopped in to say hi to Oakland, California, drawing a crowd of more than 10,000 enthusiastic listeners. That's right -- 10,000 enthusiastic, sign waving, cheering voters. In March of 2007! The presidential election is still 20 months away. That's unheard of! With just two days notice, 500 people showed up to volunteer for the event. If that doesn't send a shiver down Hillary's spine, I don't know what will.

Mark my words -- Obama will be successful with blacks exactly because he doesn't treat them with condescending sympathy. He'll address them in the same manner he addresses everyone else and they'll respond to it, just like everyone else.

That gasp you hear is Al Sharpton indignantly realizing that his days of influence are coming to an end.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Because I love you.

RIP Brad Delp

"J'ai une ame solitaire. I am a lonely soul."

On The Internets

• Nouriel Roubini has very ungood things to say about the impact of the sub-prime problem on the rest of the economy. Oy.
  

• Iraq seems to be progressing despite my bloggery inattention. Summits and surges and bombings and withdrawal plans and counter withdrawal plans and staying the course plans and interventions and hearings and scandals and playing hide-and-seek with the militias. Contrary to the old adage, ignoring it hasn't made it go away. Now that I'm trying to catch up I'm having a hard time sorting it all out... are things getting worse? Better? The same? What are the political dynamics inside Iraq? Have we forced the ouster of Maliki yet? Paging Professor Cole...

• Josh Marshall is lighting the way on the U.S. Attorney story -- he's miles ahead of everyone else. The Patriot Act angle still pisses me off the most so I don't know how I missed this (from The Daily Dish): "The Specter staffer who inserted the clause into the Patriot Act giving the president new power to by-pass the Senate in appointing U.S. Attorneys ... was rewarded by becoming a U.S Attorney!" How people continue to defend the indefensible and apologize for the unforgivable is beyond me. Politics aside, this should be disgusting to everyone. Period.
  

Halliburton Hates America

I always figured that Halliburton had been vilified more than it should have been merely because of its association to Cheney (although almost certainly it's benefited greatly from cronyism during this administration's reign).

Maybe I figured wrong.

Common sense says: If it looks like a dirty duck, walks like a dirty duck, and quacks like a dirty duck.... it's probably a dirty duck.

Hey -- I'm A Radical Fringe!

Fox News said it so it MUST be true! This midwestern, middle class, middle aged, married mother of three is a Radical Fringe because I signed a petition stating that my party should not allow the Republican water-carrying Fox News to host a Democratic caucus debate in Nevada.

C'mon Fox, quit trying to marginalize the Democratic party by insisting that it's being run by a 'fringe' element. If the likes of me is considered 'radical' then it's going to be a very short and unexciting revolution.

Drudge:
FOX NEWS OFFICIAL STATEMENT 9:15PM EST: 'News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus which appears to be controlled by radical fringe out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party. In the past, Moveon.org has said they ‘own’ the Democratic party — while most Democrats don’t agree with that, it’s clearly the case in Nevada' -- David Rhodes, VP...

Shorter Roger Ailes: "How dare you not let us kick you around!"

Roger Ailes and Fox News are whining because the Dems finally grew a pair. Oh puh-lease... cry me a river.

So those wild eyed radicals at Daily Kos and Move On remember what happened the last time Fox News hosted a caucus debate and somehow that makes them crazy, far left extremists? That's what Fox News would like you to believe.

Fortunately we don't have to rely on Fox News to remember the truth (or tell it). In this post, Digby gets it EXACTLY right. Read the transcript from 2003 and join me in telling Fox News to f*ck off.

(Hmmmm... just typing that last sentence made my Friday a little brighter!)

Happy Friday!

Looking back on my posts this week, it appears I have carried my cynical/negative/bitter February feelings into March. So here... enjoy some cute puppies.

And by the way... every day is Friday for Vronzie now! Happy first week of retirement, Mom!

Libby Libby Libby On The Label Label Label

Couldn't resist that title since it's what randomly runs through my head any time I hear his name.

So the big question now is whether or not Scooter Libby will be pardoned. I believe he probably took the fall for others who were desperately trying to cover their own asses but that was, in the end, his decision to make. Now he's going to have to live with the consequences. You can't obstruct justice, dude.

Bush may very well choose to pardon Libby on his way out of the White House -- that's his prerogative. What can the Dems say about that after Clinton inexplicably pardoned Marc Rich? IMO, not much.

Alberto's Sleight of Hand

This editorial by Alberto Gonzales makes it sound like the Federal Attorney scandal is all about the sackings. Obviously it's not... these are political appointments. So they come, so they go.

While there may have be some, er... inappropriate meddling, the the real cause for outrage is still what I wrote about here.

Fox Democratic Debate in Nevada

Thanks to John Edwards, it's almost dead.

What a bunch of mOrons!

Finally we've got Dem politicos with some balls instead of those who meekly respond to such forms of wankery with "Yes Sir, may I have another?"

A Conservative's Opinion Of Obama

He's a genuine class act.

WTF???

Fox News is hosting a Democratic debate in Nevada? Yougoddabekiddinme. What in the hell would cause the Democratic party to agree to this? They're contracting to allow that wanking smear & jeer machine to host one of their pre-caucus debates? Jesus H. Christ. Perhaps they'll sign up Rush Limboob to draft the questions. Maybe they can get the O'Lielly producers to rig a 'fair and balanced' post-debate discussion panel with three Republican attack dogs and a hapless token liberal.

Matt Stoller has an excellent post on Daily Kos (that scary bastion of wild-eyed radical liberals) with his take on the situation and info about where to go to voice your dissatisfaction with the decision. I would have thought we'd learned our lesson in 2004, which was the last time we tried to play nice with the wank machine.

It's no secret that Hillary Clinton and Rupert Murdock are BFFs, and I know Hillary is desperate to launch her Republican outreach program as a "moderate", but who's bright idea was this, anyway? Oh, and note to Hillary: Your typical Fox News viewer would happily see you tarred and feathered and dragged through town behind a mule. They would crack Hillary jokes and laugh and laugh and laugh.

So we still want to loves us some Fox News? Courtesy of Stoller's post, try this:

Supporting the Troops

Walter Reed. Disgraceful.

I've been following this story since the beginning but haven't felt much of a need to pile on, mostly because I dread seeing the suffering of the victims politicized. While it's very trendy for conservatives to blame bad news on the media that reports it, we should all be grateful for the work the Washington Post has done in forcing this issue on behalf of our wounded heroes.

One interesting aspect has emerged -- the impact of privatization on the level of care at Walter Reed. Read Raw Story (via Balloon Juice) for the details. I'm not sure that there weren't issues prior to last year but I do know you can't go from 300 employees to 50 and still provide the same level of service... no matter how alluring the profit margin.

Secretly Longing For An Emperor

The recent U.S. Attorney purge is textbook Bushco. The power grab is so blatant... so obvious... so odious that one can hardly decide on which egregious item to focus their outrage.

1. The secret, select-Republicans-only meeting where the legislation was crafted and slipped into a bill that had already been debated on the floor.
2. The betrayal of the American people by using the emotionally charged "Patriot Act" as the vehicle for the deed.
   
3. The executive power grab with yet another legislative/judicial check-and-balance removed.

It's all ugly but personally I'm leaning toward #2. Before its passage there were serious discussions about the Patriot Act and its potential for creating abuses of power. I remember Bush assuring the gullible sheeple that he would never abuse his power and that if the Patriot Act didn't pass we were all gonna die. The irony of his choosing the renewed Patriot Act to commit the purge atrocity is brilliant. F*ck O. Henry -- if I were a high school English teacher, I would put this scam in my lesson plan.

Strangely, except for the wonkiest of wonks, this drama has gotten no play. The liberal media elite have barely taken note, the TV pundits would rather obsess over Anna Nicole, and the conservative media machine has conveniently ignored or misrepresented it. Certainly I have sensed no outcry from the general public.

Which is why I think there are those among us who secretly long for an emperor. It's the only explanation I can think of for the people who still support Bush.

My theory is that there is a segment of the population -- about 30% -- that will forever applaud Bush's disregard for shared power. The hyperbolous "Big Government" (i.e. government bureaucracy) is so abhorrent to them that they'd prefer to forgo the intricate checks and balances in favor of consolidating governmental power into a form they can understand. They want an emperor -- a bold, imperious figure with the power to make them great.

And maybe that's the greatest irony of all. Our founding fathers recognized the danger of centralized power and intended their new government to be humble, to be subordinate to its people. The focus was not on how to bestow great power; it was on how to restrain it. I would defy anyone to read the constitution and tell me that is not true. And screw the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage -- the most moral statement ever made by any government, anywhere, was the declaration that democracy would not exist for the power of one man, but rather to empower all men.

But the thing about people-powered democracy is that it's hard work... you have to participate, you have to educate yourself, you have to stop and think about shit. A lot. Who has time for all that? It's much easier to give your power to someone else and let them figure it all out for you. And people are such optimists about it, too, assuming that they're deferring their power to someone who will use it wisely.

Too bad it doesn't always work out that way.

The day after the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to issue a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:

Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Denouncing opponents to his request, Hitler shouted, “Germany will be free, but not through you!” When the vote was taken, the result was 441 for and 84 against, giving Hitler the two-thirds majority he needed to suspend the German constitution. On March 23, 1933, what has gone down in German history as the “Enabling Act” made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and constitutional constraints.

Winter Blues

Could February have possibly lasted any longer? It seemed to drag on forever. (oh yeah... leap year... thanks)

My job has sucked out the last vestige of my soul, the weather has been depressing as hell, and reading the news has grated painfully on my very last, ultra-sensitive nerve. How does one cope with the knowledge that the only cure for all of this is the statistically improbable acquisition of a winning lottery ticket?

I've manage to survive by reading a lot of Perez Hilton's highly entertaining nonsense. Nothing dulls the senses like sensational celebrity gossip. Thank gawd Britney Spears freaked out and shaved her hair when she did or I might have ended up with my head in the oven.

I've also been in a totally dreamy state of future vacation planning. Verana awaits -- a lush, tropical paradise where the most stressful moment I'll have to endure is deciding what to drink with dinner. with lunch. with breakfast. all day.

Anyway, March is here now and I'm ready to rejoin the world. Sort of. I did buy a lottery ticket (just in case).