Saturday, November 30, 2002

What can you even say?


The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say.

The elements of this new system are already familiar from President Bush's orders and his aides' policy statements and legal briefs: indefinite military detention for those designated "enemy combatants," liberal use of "material witness" warrants, counterintelligence-style wiretaps and searches led by law enforcement officials and, for noncitizens, trial by military commissions or deportation after strictly closed hearings.

Only now, however, is it becoming clear how these elements could ultimately interact.

For example, under authority it already has or is asserting in court cases, the administration, with approval of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, couldorder a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen's home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base. Courts would have very limited authority to second-guess the detention, to the extent that they were aware of


Well, I for one will pen yet another Tech Central Station column on the inconvenient infringements of post- 9/11 airline security. This civil libertarian isn't going to take this lying down.


In a recent legal brief, Olson argued that the detention of people such as Hamdi or Padilla as enemy combatants is "critical to gathering intelligence in connection with the overall war effort."

Nor is there any requirement that the executive branch spell out its criteria for determining who qualifies as an enemy combatant, Olson argues.

"There won't be 10 rules that trigger this or 10 rules that end this," Olson said in the interview. "There will be judgments and instincts and evaluations and implementations that have to be made by the executive that are probably going to be different from day to day, depending on the circumstances."

The federal courts have yet to deliver a definitive judgment on the question. A federal district judge in Virginia, Robert G. Doumar, was sharply critical of the administration, insisting that Hamdi be permitted to consult an attorney. But he was partially overruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond.


Hillary tried to warn ya..
Haha. S&M Iraq inspector. Some things don't even need a snarky comment...
Katha Pollitt kicks Hitchens in the knee caps and then proceeds to beat the crap out of him with his empty bottle of Old Crow.
Make sure to read Digby's comments here on the ongoing homocidal feminist controversy.
I'm back. Wonder what hellish nonsense I missed...


I have a new email address: Atrios@comcast.net .

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

Conservative commentator Snotglass gives us his Thanksgiving message:


Our elected President, George W. Bush is making great strides in fulfilling his solemn campaign promise to be the Education President. Despite the stubborn resistance of obstructionist Democrats and the powerful liberal teachers lobby, President Bush has enjoyed considerable success.

The failed liberal education policies of the Clinton regime have produced a generation of American children unable to function in the modern workplace. Social promotion of illiterate students and the feel-good, self-esteem curriculum forced on public schools by unqualified unionized teachers are a prescription for failure.

But exhaustive research conducted by the eminent Professor Richard Arkwright of the Family Freedom Foundation's Center for Public Education at Liberty University offers a solution to the mass-production education failure of the liberal welfare state. Addressing the problem of children who are often graduated with little real-life economic skills, public schools should be designed to not only give students a basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic, but also produce marketable skills that qualify individual students in the labor force.

Beginning in kindergarten, students should be trained under the close supervision of experts in Industrial Technology, giving them a proven hands-on education in valuable labor skills. This approach, enlightened educators agree, would not only utilize a tested learning device, but would also produce a viable product which could be sold to offset the cost of their education. Participating school districts and their supporting business partners can provide incentives to promising students through corporate sponsored scholastic achievement awards in the form of product placement in the school.

“It’s these kinds of common sense education reforms that have been subverted by a failed generation of liberal dominance in education,” said prominent educator and noted author Jonah Goldberg. “Students have been given copious helpings of useless Wood Shop and Metal Shop training while being denied the character-building discipline of Sweat Shop.”

You people are anti-family and unpatriotic.
Poor Hitchy-poo. His head IS exploding..
Get Your War On!

Damn, Judge Sullivan rejects Cheney appeal. Surprised.
HA HA HA HA

Happy Thanksgiving, all!
One less Nazi asshole.
Yep, Kissinger is the best man for the job.


CNN: So you are not willing to say U.S. intelligence has failed America?

KISSINGER: No. I think U.S. intelligence has been -- if you look at one investigation
after another, they have done as good a job as they could under the circumstances.


Why don't they just let me write the report. It'll go something like this:

Report of the Kissinger Commission

Muslims attacked us because they are bad and they hate our freedom. Our noble intelligence agencies did the best they could. Our recommendation is that we should curtail our freedoms, so that they won't hate us so much anymore.


Love,


Henry

Blogging may be slow for the rest of the day, then I'll be off for a couple for Thanksgiving. Please feel free to do your Black Friday shopping from the comfort of your chair, scotch in hand, by clicking through the amazon links to the left..
Kissinger to head 9/11 probe? This is the man who after the election oddly commented on national TV that the American people would rally behind Bush after a big crisis, such as a major terrorist attack. Well, maybe it'll make Hitchy-poo's brain explode when he tries to cope with the cognitive dissonance he experiences while he simultaneously tries shoving his tongue up W's ass and a hot poker up Henry's.
The Bush administration is trying to seal information from court cases over the potential vaccine/autism link. PLA has the details.

where is the outrage...

Tuesday, November 26, 2002


cover


read the Salon review here...


Heartwarming tales of unconventional families from Mr. and Mrs. Gore? Sounds like the snooze of the year -- but against all odds their new book is endearing and even inspiring.

Ampersand discovers that maybe, just maybe, feminists aren't calling for the eradication of men, despite claims to the contrary.
Calpundit corrects the Wall Street Journal.

(warning, one can waste a life doing this)
Ah, the joys of socializing insurance.
Drudge says:



Al Gore attacks FOX NEWS, Rush Limbaugh and the WASHINGTON TIMES in an interview set for release on Wednesday, DRUDGE has learned... MORE...
He calls them a 'fifth column' in the ranks of the media, and says that the RNC uses them to inject 'daily Republican talking points' into
mainstream media coverage as a whole. Reporter Josh Benson of the NEW YORK OBSERVER is preparing the exclusive, according to sources...


Well, duhh.
Mark Kleiman wonders why though various Righties are outraged by a snarky opinion piece about the Federalist Society party,

none of them mentioned the one assertion in the op-ed that I thought actually reflected serious discredit on the organization: to wit, that a satirical song sung at a black-tie banquet lambasted "Brennan, Marx, and Lenin."


Well, I don't wonder.

UPDATE: outrage was my word, and perhaps more than a bit of an exaggeration. What I get for doing the quick skim...my bad
You know, Andy, I'm usually up for defending the Tubesteak Messiah against its detractors, but even to this partisan Clintonite after Osama Bin Laden arranged to fly a few planes into a few buildings it is for some reason way down the list of things I need to get outraged about.

Via Roger Ailes, who wonders how Andy can work for a man who said this:


'America is the kingdom of extreme individualism, the kingdom of free sex. The country that represents Satan’s harvest is America. America doesn’t have anywhere to go now. [Homosexuals and] those who go after free sex [are] less than animals.'

Body and Soul tells us about DynCorp.
I didn't used to think that Little Green Footballs was a bigoted hate site. Sure, the people writing in the comments helped make it fit that description. And, sure, Charles had developed a potentially unhealthy obsession with unearthing any little negative tidbit from the pan-arab/muslim/etc... world. But, hey, it was also informative and we all have our interests. I won't make the argument, as some might in other circumstances, that Charles's failure to highlight the terrible things in the non-Muslim world made him a bigot simply by emphasis. However, over time Charles's tone changed to match that of his commentors, and rather being simply informative it became derisive. Each bit of nasty information is now seized upon with a kind of "see! I told you they were bad" kind of glee. And, increasingly any subtlety in distinguishing between Muslim/Arab/Pakistan/Persian/Muslim American/Arab American/etc... became lost as they would all be lumped together.

But, now apparently, we on the left have become insular because some of us don't want to link to a home for bigots and don't want to encourage others to do so either. This has been taken by some to be evidence of lefty "cocooning"


You know, I don't have a permanent link to Indymedia and I don't (as far as I know) link to sites that do. Is that cocooning too?



UPDATE: Via Hesiod I see that Steven deBeste has a novel view of free speech:


It is fortunate that RR's gesture is empty and meaningless because if it were actually effective it would be a serious threat to freedom of expression.

Indeed.

Anyway, this is the dumbest arugment to come down the pike in the 'ole blogosphere for at least a week or so. What Jim is doing is equivalent to boycotting the advertisers of a TV or radio show you don't like. For example, I don't buy balding products or magical vitamin cures, contact debt consolidation services, or purchase Bose speakers, which is my little way of putting pressure on the conservative media.

I seem to remember crazy Norah Vincent once had a column which argued that such boycotts were a serious threat to free speech and as such should be illegal, or something, but I couldn't track it down...

UPDATE 2: TBogg weighs in as only he can....as does Pandagon. The good news is that I've made Steven's list of "extremists!" which apparently includes:


Warblogger Watch, This Modern World, Ted Barlow, Tapped, Sullywatch, Shadow of the Hegemon, Smirking Chimp, Media Whores, Eschaton, and Counterspin Central.


Now if I can only get David Horowitz to call me a Marxist, my life will be complete...

(note to Avedon -- you're obviously doing something wrong!!!!)


UPDATE 3: AH, here's Norah's column:


Consequently, Schlessinger is a fascist because she thinks homosexuality is Mother Nature's boo-boo. What's more, she's lost her television program for exercising her 1st Amendment right to say so.


...

But thanks to the hard-driving agitprop of her enemies, she has been given far more credence than she deserves, and we've come one step closer to consigning the Constitution, along with the dictionary, to ye olde dustbin of history


UPDATE 4: Max weighs in as well...


Repetitively linking to a bunch of people who basically agree with me on a specific issue. Who do I remind me of...







Online polls from the liberal media:




The new U.S.
Department of
Homeland
Security has
wide powers to
collect
information on
potential
terrorists and
people deemed a
threat to
security. Are you
concerned this
power could be
abused?

No. The terrorism threat is
so real that the department will
focus on the job at hand.
Yes. I'm concerned that a
future politician will use the
power to spy on and harass his
opponents.

Reader b.b. draws this to my attention:


"If George W. Bush is renominated as the Republican Party's nominee for president in 2004, do you think you will probably vote for George W. Bush, or vote for the Democratic candidate, or don't you know yet?"

Bush Democrat Don't Know Yet Don't Know
% % % %
ALL 32 18 47 3



32% re-elect? wow.

Monday, November 25, 2002

Damn. I think the Eagles just brought in the Waterboy to play QB.
U.S. Wants to Eliminate Tariffs


Oops! Wait! Not so fast!... on manufactured goods...


The key elements of the US proposal, according to industry and congressional officials briefed on the plan, are: A rapid reduction in high tariffs on non-agricultural products, so that by 2010 there would be no tariffs above 8 per cent. All tariffs would then be reduced progressively to zero by 2015. The elimination, no later than 2010, of all duties that are currently below 5 per cent. A parallel initiative calling for faster elimination of tariffs in many industrial sectors such as chemicals, paper, wood and construction equipment.


I'm all for "free trade." I'm open to "fair trade" arguments, but I don't think we need to even bother with them until we we commit to reducing tariffs on agricultural goods and textiles. Until then, we're just rigging the game in a way which benefits narrow interests in our country at the expense of broad interests in theirs.
I have to say that Elvis Costello's most recent CD is the best I've heard in awhile. And I've never been an Elvis Costello fan.
Come back, horse, come back...

PLA says repeal the birth tax.

Letter to the Editor


Right-wing extremists on talk radio offer daily doses of vitriol and conspiracy-theory innuendo toward Democrats and hardly anyone bats an eye. But Garrison Keillor voices his non-sugar-coated opinion in a marginally obscure online forum and it's a national event. The right-wing media machinery is unleashed to spew its outrage and venom, Republican Party officials beat their chests in anguish, and Norm Coleman sits on his hands, playing his newly adopted role of the good cop.

Well, the strategy worked brilliantly with the Wellstone memorial, why not try it again?

Another fraud - deliberate or inadvertent -- James Stewart and Nightline!


For instance, when Stewart was promoting "Blood Sport," he suggested on ABC's "Nightline" and in Time magazine that Mrs. Clinton might be indicted for filing a fraudulent loan renewal form for Whitewater. As it turned out, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author had simply failed to notice that the loan document had two sides -- a back and a front –- and that Mrs. Clinton had completed the document without error, let alone fraudulent intent. Stewart's revelation was merely another of many, many ominous but ultimately phony insinuations that stoked public suspicion.
Another practitioner of deliberate fraud... Jeff Greenfield!

Even more damning was a "Nightline" report broadcast that same evening. The segment came very close to branding Hillary Clinton a perjurer. In his introduction, host Ted Koppel spoke pointedly about "the reluctance of the Clinton White House to be as forthcoming with documents as it promised to be." He then turned to correspondent Jeff Greenfield, who posed a rhetorical question: "Hillary Clinton did some legal work for Madison Guaranty at the Rose Law Firm, at a time when her husband was governor of Arkansas. How much work? Not much at all, she has said."

Up came a video clip from Hillary's April 22, 1994, Whitewater press conference. "The young attorney, the young bank officer, did all the work," she said. "It was not an area that I practiced in. It was not an area that I know anything, to speak of, about." Next the screen filled with handwritten notes taken by White House aide Susan Thomases during the 1992 campaign. "She [Hillary] did all the billing," the notes said. Greenfield quipped that it was no wonder "the White House was so worried about what was in Vince Foster's office when he killed himself."

What the audience didn't know was that the ABC videotape had been edited so as to create an inaccurate impression. At that press conference, Mrs. Clinton had been asked not how much work she had done for Madison Guaranty, but how her signature came to be on a letter dealing with Madison Guaranty's 1985 proposal to issue preferred stock. ABC News had seamlessly omitted thirty-nine words from her actual answer, as well as the cut, by interposing a cutaway shot of reporters taking notes. The press conference transcript shows that she actually answered as follows: "The young attorney [and] the young bank officer did all the work and the letter was sent. But because I was what we called the billing attorney -- in other words, I had to send the bill to get the payment sent -- my name was put on the bottom of the letter. It was not an area that I practiced in. It was not an area that I know anything, to speak of, about."

Check out Mike Signorile's two recent columns - one in the NYPress on the contemporary relevance of Far From Heaven and one about the controversy at Psychology Today over "gay conversion therapy." They're companion pieces, really.
Does anyone remember all these skeptical media voices about the Homeland Security Bill before it passed? Suddenly practically ever jaw flapper is against it.
Lisa Myers to run new NBC investigative unit.


Jeebus help us all. This alone should have her thrown out on her ass.



MYERS: At another point, Mrs. Hubbell talks about over-billing clients.

MRS. HUBBELL (on tape): That’s an area where Hillary would be vulnerable.

HUBBELL (on tape): No, you are talking and not listening. We are on a recorded phone.

And that is precisely the way the transcript was presented on the screen to NBC viewers as the tape rolls--with no ellipsis whatever to let viewers know that material has been left out. Not that this would have been an appropriate deletion even if an ellipsis had been used. Myers’ cut in the tape completely changes the meaning of the presentation by Mrs. Hubbell--changing it from a question about whether Mrs. Clinton would be vulnerable, to an assertion that she would be. The charade was even worse by that evening; in a tape played on MSNBC’s May 1 InterNight program (apparently taken from that evening’s NBC News), Myers doctors the conversation in a more egregious fashion:


MYERS: The Hubbells seem worried that Mrs. Clinton could be vulnerable on an issue that sent Hubbell to prison in the first place--overbilling clients.

MRS. HUBBELL: You didn’t actually do that, did you? Mark up time for the client? Did you?

HUBBELL: Yes, I did. So does every lawyer in the country.

MRS. HUBBELL: That’s an area that Hillary would be vulnerable.

HUBBELL: Suzy, you’re talking and you’re not listening. We are on a recorded phone, OK?


How do these people keep their jobs in the liberal media after such gross deliberate journalistic misconduct?
One of my genius commentors said this:


Alterman's facts may be correct, but their intent is clearly to obscure what really was happening.


Lordy.

Moonie Monday

The Reverend Moon is released from Prison.


Reverend Moon was released on August 20, 1985, having served thirteen months of his eighteen month sentence for tax evasion. He spent approximately twelve months at Danbury Federal Prison in the state of Connecticut and, immediately prior to his release, forty-five days at Phoenix House, a Brooklyn "half-way house" for those soon to be released.

Reverend Moon can be considered as representative of the suffering of the twentieth century. Mr. Eun-woo Kim, who authored a Christian White Paper, asked the question "Who could save the world today?" and wrote: "Look at the suffering Unification Church and Reverend Moon from a new angle. I testify, on my reputation, conscience, and academic knowledge, to my conviction that only he can save this world." Moreover, Senator Orrin Hatch said, on Reverend Moon's completing his one year prison sentence, that he had been the victim of a political conspiracy

...

Participating were seventeen hundred dignitaries including clergymen, scholars and media representatives from across the United States, transcending denomination and race. They included Reverend Donald Sills, president of the Coalition for Religious Freedom, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Reverend Joseph Lowery, Dr. Cleon Skousen, director of the National Center for Constitutional Studies in Washington DC and former chancellor of the University of Utah, Professor Richard Rubenstein, professor of religion at Florida State University, and Dr. Robert Grant, chairman of Christian Voice Inc. After welcoming remarks by several dignitaries, Reverend Moon was presented with a trophy and victory plaque. In his speech, The Will of God, Reverend Moon pointed out that the greatest problems facing America are racism, deterioration of social, ethical and moral values, the decline of religious life and the rise of materialism and communism. He further emphasized that all Christians should unite transcending denominational boundaries to "lead a supra-denominational, cultural revolution on a worldwide scale."


And check out this fun Frontline transcript.
Eric Alterman takes on the Stalinist George Will.
Freedom Corps has been budgeted 3.5 billion bucks? Oh Jeebus.



And this is just freakin' creepy.

And this is freakin' creepier:


The city has already identified 15 "hazard" areas that need to be hammered out to deal with emergencies. Such hazards include severe weather, transportation
breakdowns, urban floods and fires, explosions, radiological and hazardous materials incidents, demonstrations , terrorism, tornadoes and water supply failures."



Must read Howler. Grab a drink first, though, to prevent the inevitable rise in blood pressure. God I hate that Beinart guy.



BEINART: One of the reasons the [New Republic] supported Gore over the years was the sense that he was more of a sincere New Democrat than a lot of other people in the field. The noise that he’s been making most recently wouldn’t support that. It’s still very early—although it’s worth noting that he actually is, as far as I can tell, is one of the few Democrats who hasn’t now, still hasn’t called for the repeal of the Bush tax cut. So there’s a certain amount of ambiguity in the position he’s taking.



...

Apparently, he hadn’t read Dan Balz in Thursday’s Post. “Gore said he favors scrapping future installments of the Bush tax cuts aimed at top income earners,” Balz wrote, reporting his Wednesday interview with Gore. Nor had Beinart read Ron Brownstein in the same day’s Los Angeles Times. “Gore said he would cancel the further reductions in tax rates for affluent families scheduled for 2004 and 2006,” Brownstein reported. Nor had Beinart scanned the Washington Times. On Friday, Jeffrey Kuhner reported Gore’s Wednesday interview with Reuters: “Gore attacked President Bush’s economic stewardship, calling for the repeal of the administration’s tax cuts for the country’s top earners.” And Gore had told the AP the same thing. On Wednesday, the AP’s Will Lester reported his interview: “Gore has said the whole Bush economic plan and economic team should be thrown out, and the administration should start over with tax cuts aimed specifically at the middle class.” But even the AP got the news late. In last week’s Time, released last Sunday, Tumulty reported Gore’s view on the tax cut: “Gore now tells TIME that he would ‘scrap the whole thing and start over,’ with less dramatic cuts aimed at the middle class.” In Newsweek—released the same day—Eleanor Clift said that Gore “opposes President George W. Bush on Iraq; favors a single-payer, Canadian-style health system, and thinks the Bush tax cut should be repealed.” And others noticed what Gore had said; all the way back on Monday, November 18, Mara Liasson noted Gore’s stance on Special Report. “He said he actually would roll back some of the tax cuts and tilt them more to the middle class,” she said. Indeed, the news even had reached Canada. In Thursday’s National Post, Jan Cienski said “Mr. Gore now says he would be in favour of scrapping the cut and starting over.”
Rittenhouse Review justifies its position in the "E-zine" rather than "Blog" category over on the left, with a tremendous piece about the Alpha Girls.

Failing upwards...

Or, how to reward the ones you love.


TALLAHASSEE -- Confirming Palm Beach County's
rise from goat to hero, three local officials are playing
a prominent role in Gov. Jeb Bush's latest round of
election reforms.

Bush named Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore,
County Commission Chairman Warren Newell and
state Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein of Delray
Beach to the 15-member, 2002 Select Task Force on
Election Procedures.

Formed by executive order Nov. 18, the group will
conduct its first meeting on Dec. 9 and 10 in Orlando,
where panel members will discuss everything from the
permanent elimination of runoff elections to giving
elections officials more time to count absentee and
provisional ballots.
Interesting report on CNN about how mortgage forecloseures are way up, but unsurprisingly there are regional variations in this. In places where the housing markets are still 'hot' people can simply sell before the bank comes for the keys. This, to some degree, masks the number of people who are being forced into inferior housing arrangements due to their economic circumstances.
Sound Bitten has some fun with Michelle Malkin.
The Beagles Song!
Agenda Bender puzzles about the fact that Rod Dreher believes the media is suppressing a story about murder by a gay man. Oddly, Dreher finds the story in the gay press.

Note to Dreher: There are about 15,000 murders per year. That's an average of about 40 per day. The reasons why some get national attention and some don't is very complicated, but the fact every time a horrible crime is committed by a gay man the headlines don't scream "EVIL GAY MAN COMMITS EVIL GAY HATE CRIME" isn't evidence of the Overwheming Power of the Lavender Conspiracy.
Oh Lordy..
The Tubesteak Messiah made him do it!


A judge who sentenced a former Orlando sex-crimes detective to house arrest for having sexual encounters with a 14-year-old girl compared the officer's conduct to that of President Clinton and his own chief judge.

To the girl, who was upset with the lenient sentence, Orange Circuit Judge John H. Adams said: "You've been dealt a bad hand. But not the worst hand. You're not growing up in Afghanistan. You can rise above this."

Edwin "Ed" Mann, a former leader in Cops for Christ, could have been sentenced to 26 years in prison for having sex with the girl in his police car, hotels and her bedroom while her parents were away.


Florida rocks!
Whacking Pickles.

Sunday, November 24, 2002

Roger Ailes (not that one) says:


Rosenbaum saw a sign at a war protest saying "Bush Is A Devil." Rosenbaum extrapolates from that sighting that "the left" -- every last one of them -- believes Bush is Ol' Scratch or one of his imps. No one has actually said that, maybe, but every last lefty is thinking it. Ron just knows it. And that, my friends, crosses the line. Comparing one's ideological opponent to Satan, it's just not done.


Except, of course, when Crazy Davey says does it. Or Flush. Because, of course, they don't have the political clout and respectability of a guy with a piece of tagboard and a couple of fat markers. It's not like they hang out with the Vice President or the Assistant Secretary of Defense or anything.


See? Anonymous email or some 'guy with a sign' calling Bush Satan proof that the Left has been overpowered by its crazy fringe.

Rush "NBC Election Night Coverage" Limbaugh refers to Tom Daschle as Satan, and Daschle is trying to demonize him!

Oh the double standards!


And, yes, words to have consequences.
Them Federalist Society lawyers sure do know how to party...


Before one event, a graybeard in the audience tutored a wet-behind-the-ears Federalist on the horrors of Travelgate, in which the Clinton White House did — well, nothing much, really. At the black-tie banquet, a satirical song took aim at "Brennan, Marx and Lenin." William Brennan, the Supreme Court justice who was being gleefully branded a communist, died in 1997.

The search for fictive liberal enemies reached a loopy low on the convention's last day, when an archconservative federal appeals court judge, Laurence Silberman, accused William Rehnquist's archconservative Supreme Court of having a secret plan to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. In an opinion just last month, the court reiterated its view that capital punishment is constitutional even for 16-year-olds.

But the event that most captured the spirit of the week was Kenneth Starr's speech and his introduction by Barbara Comstock, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs. Between them, Ms. Comstock and Mr. Starr managed to rail against Bill Clinton, James Carville, Lanny Davis, James Jeffords, Alan Dershowitz, the Warren court, trial lawyers and Barbra Streisand.

Mr. Starr was particularly exercised about liberals' being result-oriented, abandoning their principles to reach the outcomes they favor. But he would have made a more compelling case if he had not proceeded to abandon his — and the Federalist Society's — own oft-repeated commitment to judicial restraint to praise the Supreme Court for striking down the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Violence Against Women Act in a burst of conservative activism.


Uggabugga on Kurtz, Media Fluffer.
Digby on why he isn't funny anymore:

I don't know, Susan. Ever since I "Saw the Light" and became a Republican after the election, I try and I try, but the only thing that makes me laugh anymore is watching those animal snuff films. All I want to do is lurk around left leaning gathering places and and call complete strangers gay and stupid. I pop Viagra like tic-tacs. I spit when I talk. I pray for a capital gains tax cut so the messiah will return.

I'm completely obsessed with Neil Cavuto's hairline. The minute I set foot in church I start speaking in tongues, but then I realize I'm actually reciting George W. Bush's only full press conference from memory. It's so wierd.

I'm constantly kicking myself for not flossing because my painful periodontal disease now keeps me from joining my brothers and sisters in taking out that rat bastard Saddam. Boy, if it weren't for my bleeding gums, I'd... well, lets just say they'll stay away from my trailer if they know what's good for 'em.

And, every waking minute I'm consumed with technicolor visions of Clinton's cock, which I have nicknamed The Old Serpent, for reasons I don't quite understand.

What's happened to me???

help...


Fact Checking George Will!


When the election ended with George Bush 537 votes ahead, Gore initiated litigation that placed the U.S. Supreme Court in this dilemma:


Hey, you adulterous little shit - it wasn't called Bush v. Gore for nothing.


It could either allow Florida's Supreme Court, composed entirely of Democratic appointees


bzzt! Wrong again, stolen debate-tape boy,

Keep going for more of Will's revisionism. It's time for a bloody mary.

They really do lie without shame.

UPDATE: Sorry, not a stolen debate tape, but a stolen briefing book. [sully] so sue me [/sully]


Thanks to Issues Guy for fact checking my pre-coffee ass.
Bye, Bye, Miranda. We hardly knew ya. Read Talk Left for some more atrocities du jour. But, Jeralyn points out that for the moment, at least, TIPS is dead.
Special forces in Afghanistan have been replaced by DynCorp mercs.


Karzai survived an assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar in September when a gunman opened fire on his car.

That attack, one of a number on his life, was foiled by his United States military bodyguards.

But now the special forces men who saved Karzai's life have been quietly replaced by security guards from one of America's most controversial private military corporations, DynCorp.

On Friday the State Department confirmed the use of a private security detail managed by officers of its Diplomatic Security Service.


DynCorp Flashback!

Haha, Kaus admits the truth.


He says that among bloggers there is a "Darwinian self-interest in being nice to each other and maintaining a civil discourse." He may disagree with Andrew Sullivan but he doesn't really want to piss him off; it's about links; it's about traffic; it's about -- gasp -- community.


...


Kaus confirmed this when he was asked why he cares about getting Drudge links and traffic (and thus dreads ever pissing him off); it's all about being read, it's about being popular.



It isn't about telling the truth, it's about being one of the Kool Kids!

(sent in by Jeff Hauser).