So, the thing with Harry Reid’s land deal really does seem much ado about nothing. The ownership of the property became an LLC, and, in regard to the way the IRS requires reporting of LLC-owned property, it may genuinely have been a good-faith error in reporting.
But the thing with using campaign funds for Christmas bonuses for staff at his residence doesn’t sit as well. Reid says his lawyers erroneously okayed the payments, and he’s paying back the campaign out of his own pocket. Okay, fine. But here’s where my problem is: Even if it were legally allowable to use campaign funds to pay the doorman et. al. at your private residence, why would you do it?
According to Reid, the donations “were made to thank the men and women who work in the building for the extra work they do as a result of my political activities, and for helping the security officers assigned to me because of my Senate position.” Then out of the nearly $200,000 we pay you a year, you should certainly be able to find some money to thank those people. I mean, if we start making exceptions like this, then every member of Congress with a personal chef, who works harder because they entertain more, ought to be able to reward that chef with campaign contributions, too, no? How about a dog-walker, who only has to walk the dog because its owner is a busy Congress member? Hell, let’s use campaign contributions to pay for babysitters while Moms and Dads attend the White House Picnic every year!
I contribute to political campaigns, sometimes when I can barely afford it. When I give a few bucks to someone, I expect it to be used for the campaign. Call me crazy. That Reid doesn’t seem to have considered, irrespective of its legality, using campaign funds to tip people in his personal life isn’t the most judicious use of the hard-earned money of people who want to see him reelected, strikes me as incredible.
How out of touch are these people? (The Democratic Senate Minority Leader, no less!) Get a clue. I don’t give a good shit about keeping you in the lifestyle to which you’re accustomed; I don’t think you deserve raises unless you’re willing to give them to the American people making minimum wage; and I certainly don’t want my donations used as a personal slush fund. Clear?
Reid
Speaking of Ghouls...
Shorter Melanie Morgan:
"Since Cindy Sheehan 'made herself a public figure,' it's okay for us to write a sleazy book accusing her of being addicted to internet porn."
And if that's not enough:
Shorter Mary Katharine Ham:It's truly astounding how low conservatives will sink when they have nothing to hold onto. Their president has failed them, their party has failed them... it's a good time to attack Cindy Sheehan.
To Cindy Sheehan: Fuck yeah we killed your child and if we had a chance, we’d kill another.
Monsters.
And Michael Moore is fat.
(Earth below us, twisting, cross-posting...)
Voter ID law struck down in Missouri
So much for the new poll tax. Looks like it's back to the drawing board for the Missouri GOP and its effort to supress the vote: The state supreme court just tossed the recently-passed voter ID law. From Kelly Weise of the P-D:
The Missouri Supreme Court on Monday struck down a new law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls, upholding a lower judge's decision.A lower judge ruled last month that the ID requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental right to vote. The Supreme Court agreed in a 6-1 unsigned opinion. [...]
The court found the requirement violated several provisions in the state constitution. The court said requiring otherwise legitimate voters to obtain an appropriate ID imposed too big a burden on their voting rights.
Steve Gilliard had just written today on the insidious application of voter ID legislation by Republicans across the country, a clearer and more present danger to voting rights than anything Diebold might come up with:
While millions of words have been pissed away on Diebold, the GOP has conducted an ongoing stealth campaign to deny millions of poor and elderly the right to vote, Florida 2000 writ large. And the silence on the blogs has been deafening. Diebold is easy to be scared of, but Voter ID laws are the real deal in voter suppression and targeted at the most dedicated voters, the elderly and minorities. [...]The fact is that you won't need Diebold if you scare people away from voting.
Now the Missouri GOP has been stripped of that tool for scaring voters.
(Meant to cross-post this yesterday, but life got in the way. Sorry!)
Happy National Character Counts Week!
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 15 through October 21, 2006, as National Character Counts Week. I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, parents, students, and all Americans to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs.Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — gasp! — ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.
No wonder he waited until this week to sign the torture bill! He just wanted to celebrate National Character Counts Week!
If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the fetal position in the corner, with bursts of maniacal laughter occasionally interrupting my mournful sobs.
(Via.)
A gay guy, a black guy, and a Jew walk into Congress…
Dick Cheney, old school comic:
He offers his standard homage to tax cuts, a warning about how terrorists are still trying desperately "to cause mass death here in the United States" and a derisive cataloging of the various "Dean Democrats," congressmen including Charles B. Rangel of New York, Henry A. Waxman of California and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, whose influence would grow if the apocalypse came and Democrats took over Congress.As Steve says, “Yeah, a gay guy, a black guy, and a Jew. Nice to know the classic right-wing material still knocks 'em dead in Topeka.”
The crowd boos.
"Don't hold back," Mr. Cheney urges.
The crowd laughs.
Wait until he breaks out the props. Now that shit is hilarious.
Cheap Shots
That's the thing about blogging... and pretty much all of us are guilty of it. Sometimes the cheap shot is easier than actually being thoughtful.
The other question I'd just love to have somebody ask is: "How many Iraqis have died to deliberately write bloody headlines for the New York Times …?"Distasteful as that comment may be, I recommend that you follow the link and read some of the comments... if you're not familiar with statistical analysis, and are curious about why the Lancet study should be taken very seriously, there's some excellent information in there.
The comment thread is also amazingly low on name calling, which makes it tolerable. Though after that New York Times comment, only just barely.
Energy dome tip to Crooks & Liars; they point to this post:
Of course, that assumes that America, and American media, are willing to face the truth, fully and completely. But, as we have seen repeatedly demonstrated in recent years, that is the one thing we resolutely refuse to do under any circumstances, most especially when it calls our precious, and false, self-image into profound question.Also worth a look.
(Believe it or not, I'm cross-posting on air...)
Who says fighting bigotry isn’t cool?
Stan Lee rules.
For lots of reasons. Okay, lots and lots of reasons.
And one of the most important ones is that he’s kind of a superhero himself—a man who looked at a world full of bigotry and decided to take it on, bitchez.
If comic book characters like the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man seem a tad different, their creator Stan Lee says that's the point.Hot damn, I love that man.
"The thing I had in mind was to make it a story against bigotry of all sorts, because here were people who were certainly different than everybody else, but they were good, they were trying to do the right thing," Lee tells the San Francisco Chronicle in Sunday's editions.
"But as so often happens in real life, if you have a different religion, a different country, a different sexual orientation, whatever the difference is, people — not all people, but it happens — are going to dislike you, distrust you, fear you."
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I believe The X-Men is one of the most important pieces of work ever created about fighting bigotry, and I will always be grateful to him for it.
Ghoul Bill Signed
Just in time for Halloween.
Bush Signs Law on Terror Suspects
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions, calling it a "vital tool" in a time of war.Rah, rah, rah.
Bush's plan for treatment of the terror suspects became law just six weeks after he acknowledged that the CIA had been secretly interrogating suspected terrorists overseas and pressed Congress to quickly give authority to try them in military commissions.
"With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice," Bush said.
Oh, did you know? America tortures. Your civil liberties are gone. Have a nice day.
Update: This part made me puke.
Bush signed the bill in the White House East Room, at a table with a sign positioned on the front that said "Protecting America." He said he signed it in memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
I can't wait for the photo. The perfect example of an oxymoron.
More Update: And here it is.
I can't begin to describe how much this picture infuriates me. The defiant, "I'm signing the fuck outta this bill!" look on his face is just perfect.
News from Shakes Manor
I hear the thunk thunk of the dining room chairs clunking into one another and the cats scrabbling about making strange noises. I already know what I’m going to find when I walk out there, and, sure enough, running frantically back and forth between Matilda and Olivia, who keep repositioning themselves to prevent escape, is a tiny, gray, shivering mouse.
It’s probably the same mouse Mr. Shakes saw in our garage the other day. It’s starting to get cold, so they’re seeking refuge indoors—but woe is the poor wee creature who moves into the lair of two hunters who like nothing better than dropping a carcass at Mama’s feet with proud grins. It was time to put Operation Mouse Rescue into effect.
“Girls, step away from the mouse,” I said, as I opened the door to the garage. I reached for the nearest mouse-wrangling device on which I could put my hands, which happened to be a large manila envelope, then got in between the two cats, trying to scoop up the mouse, who seemed even more scared of the envelope and ran directly into Matilda’s chest. She looked disgusted at the mouse’s clear lack of strategy and wandered away. Olivia, however, thought this was a fun new game, and as I managed to start directing the mouse toward the open door, she was scurrying along in front, trying to direct the mouse away from the door.
After about five minutes of this, I finally managed to get the mouse to the safety of the garage. Olivia ran out after it, but the mouse immediately disappeared among stack of boxes—giant plastic boxes we got to dissuade just such invaders from chewing their way into making permanent homes in our stuff. Olivia looked around dejectedly. “Come on in,” I said. She walked back up the stairs and into the kitchen. I closed the door.
Matilda came over and the two of them looked at me with sad faces. “Maybe he’ll come in again,” I said, trying to sound optimistic, but hoping for all the world its stupid pea brain has enough room to hold a lesson: There are scary monsters beyond the big white door. Don’t go there.
Dangerous Ignorance
Jeff Stein makes an alarming revelation in the New York Times: most counterterrorism officials and Congress members to whom he's spoken don't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
For the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: "Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?"As Stein correctly notes, it would have been incredible for British counterterrorism officials dealing with Northern Ireland not to know the difference between Catholics and Protestants. And yet one of the fundamental differences driving the civil war in Iraq, and delineating disparate interests between, for example, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, are not understood by many of our counterterrorism officials—and members of Congress in key positions relating to intelligence and defense.
A "gotcha" question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it's out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I'm not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who's on what side today, and what does each want?
...But so far, most American officials I've interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?
Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.Gee, ya think?
"Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" I asked him a few weeks ago.
Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: "One's in one location, another's in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don't know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something."
To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. "Now that you’ve explained it to me," he replied, "what occurs to me is that it makes what we're doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area."
As Tristero at Hullabaloo notes: "Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when the sound of the military airplanes patrolling the skies of Manhattan were still traumatizing everyone, I picked up some books on bin Laden, the Middle East, and Islam. I also peppered with questions the few people I knew back then who had some expertise on the subjects. In fact, lots of people I knew were doing the same thing; we were passing around books, articles, and clippings, emailing links to each other. This strikes me as totally unremarkable behavior." It strikes me the same way. And, beyond what one would expect in terms of self-education in such a situation, I'm frankly amazed that there was apparently no instruction provided (no less made compulsory) for officials and members of Congress tasked with making decisions predicated on this very basic knowledge. No one's heard of Power Point in D.C.?
It's astounding. And I daresay it confirms many of the worst fears about Americans that even our leadership seems to be operating from a place of such arrogance that they don't feel obliged to understand the people we fight, nor the people we purport to help.
(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)
Weldon Plays the Blame Game
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who's being investigated for allegedly using his position as the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to help a company owned by his daughter and his close friend secure $1 million in lobbying contracts, has been calling dirty tricks—calling the investigation "politically motivated" and the timing "suspect."
But in an interview with a Pennsylvania blog, he goes hogwild with the accusations, outlining a left-wing conspiracy that includes: "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and its head, Melanie Sloan (who filed a complaint against Weldon with the FBI—in 2004) ... former President Bill Clinton; former CIA official Mary McCarthy; former senior Justice Department official/9-11 Commission panelist Jamie Gorelick; former national security adviser Sandy Berger ('I know what he stole—I know why he stole it!'); and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."
Who knew the left was so organized?
(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK)
Question of the Day
Per the little fanorama over Bruce Campbell this morning, who’s your favorite B-movie actor? Or, as an alternative, who’s your favorite B-list/character actor*?
Bruce Campbell is definitely top of my list for B-movie megastars. As for the B-list, it’s got to be Joan Cusack. Tied with Alfre Woodard.
Sean Bean would make the list, too, except he still might move onto the A-list in the near future. I don't think his career is done ascending yet.
* Remember—this isn’t a commentary on talent. It’s just a function of whether they’re competing for the same leading roles in big films as folks like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
It’s Officially Scandal Day
Add another dot to the Big Red Beast:
Former FDA chief Lester Crawford was charged Monday with lying about his ownership of stock in companies regulated by his agency.Crawford allegedly failed to disclose income from stock options in Embrex Inc., a biotech company on whose board of directors he used to sit, which is regulated by the FDA. Also problematic were his stock holdings with Pepsico Inc. and food group Sysco Corp. while he chaired the FDA’s Obesity Working Group, which made decisions affecting food and drink manufacturers.
The Justice Department accused the former head of the Food and Drug Administration with falsely reporting that he had sold stock in companies when he continued holding onto shares in the firms governed by FDA rules.
Crawford was nominated in February 2005 by President Bush to head the FDA, but abruptly resigned in September of last year. He previously served as Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service for the USDA under Daddy Bush.
Scalia’s a Douche
Hey—for some of us, sodomy is an integral component of the Pursuit of Happiness, okay, shitferbrains?
Btw, I like how he always specifies “homosexual” sodomy, so he can claim Constitutional coverage when the pictures of him fucking Phyllis Schlafly up the ass finally surface.
(Hat tip Pam.)
Caption This Photo
TweedleDum and TweedleRum
President Bush listens to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the United States Air Force Memorial dedication in Arlington, October 14, 2006. (Jim Young/Reuters)
Dirty Tricks! Dirty Tricks!
The FBI raided the homes of Rep. Curt Weldon R-PA)'s daughter and a close friend Monday as it investigates whether the congressman improperly helped the pair win lobbying and consulting contracts.But that’s not what Weldon thinks. Weldon thinks it’s all Democratic dirty tricks! “What I find ironic, if there is an investigation, is that no one would tell me until three weeks before the election. This incident was 2 1/2 years ago.” Okay, first of all, that’s a misuse of the word ironic, Alanis Weldon. Secondly, sometimes investigations take a long time. Does Weldon seriously believe that “the investigation [is] politically motivated and … the timing suspect”? Wouldn’t that require also believing that the FBI is conducting investigations on a timeframe dictated by the out-of-power Democrats? Conceivably, it was a Democrat who leaked news of the investigation, which forced the FBI to move up the searches, but they had to be planning to do them already anyway. So, tough titties.
…Federal investigators are looking into whether Weldon used his influence to help the company secure lobbying contracts worth $1 million from foreign clients, two people familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press.
…The search warrants were executed, in part, because of news reports over the weekend exposing the federal investigation, according to the Washington official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry. Typically, such searches are sped up to prevent any evidence from being destroyed.
