No one in the Bush administration can recall a thing, but Keith Richards is writing a memoir.
Wednesday Morning Conchords
Another fab episode fashioned from a gazillion little bits of hilarious goodness stitched together with golden strands of awesomeness, all wrapped up in a big bow of brilliance and topped with a cherry of jocose absurdity.
Jemaine and Bret learn how to "flip the bird" after they experience prejudice against New Zealanders, and Murray writes a love song for the "leggy blonde" in tech support.
Part Three
I Detect a Pattern
It's almost like the Bushies have contempt for the law or something: "Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will not testify at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the friendly fire death of Army Specialist Patrick Tillman, RAW STORY has learned. The former Pentagon head 'has a conflict' that will prevent him from appearing, but will not face a subpoena."
Huh.
The Great Not-Gonna-Testify-a-Thon of 2007 marches on...
Today in Great Ideas
In yesterday's LA Times, Jonah Goldberg had an op-ed arguing that since a " very high percentage of the U.S. electorate isn't very well qualified to vote, if by 'qualified' you mean having a basic understanding of our government, its functions and its challenges," perhaps we ought to start restricting voting only to the well-informed.
Amusingly, he presents this idea as if it's new (see Mustang Bobby at his place and David Neiwert for the history lesson you probably don't need but Jonah evidently does about Jim Crow laws, which included such things as "literacy tests" to disenfranchise "undesirable" voters) and wraps his argument around this pithy puzzler: "Immigrants have to pass a test to vote; why not all citizens?" Of course, immigrants don't have to pass a test to vote; they have to pass a test to become citizens, at which time they are granted the right to vote irrespective of their grasp of the issues, which is what really makes one a truly "qualified" voter; knowing there are two Senators given each state is great, but understanding Senatorial candidates' positions is even better.
Nevertheless, Jonah states as if it's fact immigrants must pass a test to vote, either signaling his own ignorance of how our government works, or, more likely, depending on the ignorance of readers to nod their heads at his sagacity—by gum, he's right; we should make people pass a test to vote!—convincing the ignorant via their ignorance to rescind voting rights from the ignorant. And there, in a nutshell, is how conservatives get people to vote against their own best interests.
I could probably spend an inordinate amount of time fisking the rest of the prattling twaddle he submitted to the Times and they inexplicably printed, and point out all the ways he is a racist, xenophobic, classist gobshite, but I shant. Instead, I will simply respond to his chief recommendation: "Instead of making it easier to vote, maybe we should be making it harder. Why not test people about the basic functions of government?"
Clearly, Jonah wouldn't suggest a voting test if he weren't convinced it would help the Republicans—and, on its face, it might seem like it would, given that access to education generally correlates with an informed citizenry. Surely, the wealthy and powerful and privately educated, who are disproportionately Republican, would score off the charts!
Yeah, well, maybe they would. But those folks aren't called the One-Percenters for nothing.
So let's go ahead and put voting to a test across the land. Let's see how the Republican base—the Fox News watchers, the Bush supporters, the Saddam-Did-So-Have-WMDs-and-Was-Behind-9/11-Believers—stacks up against the Democratic base, against The Daily Show viewers (who "know more about election issues than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey"), PBS watchers, NPR listeners. Let's see how those can't-spell, can't-string-a-coherent-sentence-together, can't-form-a-logical-thought conservatives that troll in my comments do on a voting test next to the Shakers. Let's go.
I'm all a-twitter to see how it turns out.
Warrantless Wiretapping Was the Tip of the Iceberg
Hardly surprising; totally infuriating: The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, in an effort to clear up inconsistencies in Alberto Gonzales' testimony, has confirmed in a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee member Arlen Specter (R-PA) that "President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001. The disclosure makes clear that a controversial National Security Agency program was part of a much broader operation than the president previously described."
Last week, Gonzo's latest round of testimony left only two options—that he had lied under oath, or that the Bush administration had "a second secret, internally controversial intelligence program of dubious legality." I'm not sure I quite expected it would be the latter. And yet so it is.
The disclosure by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, appears to be the first time that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005.So possibly Gonzo did not perjure himself (at least on this issue), but the specter of yet another secret administration program, over which there was internal dissent and presumably no Congressional oversight, now haunts us. Kate Martin, executive director of the Center for National Security Studies, notes, quite rightly, "They have repeatedly tried to give the false impression that the surveillance was narrow and justified," and wonders why it took "accusations of perjury before the DNI disclosed that there is indeed other, presumably broader and more questionable, surveillance."
In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), McConnell wrote that the executive order following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks included "a number of . . . intelligence activities" and that a name routinely used by the administration -- the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- applied only to "one particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more."
"This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged," McConnell said.
Utter madness, this. A coup by a thousand cuts. And now we're suddenly turning our attention back to secret domestic spying in the middle of Attorneygate, and I can't help but get the feeling that the next 16 months are going to be a game of whack-a-mole as the investigation of one administration misdeed leads to another, and another, until their time just runs out.
And that's probably the best case scenario, provided we don't all drop dead where we stand from chronic outrage fatigue first.
[More at Think Progress.]
Question of the Day
As promised last night*, today's QotD is: What movie, if forced to watch over and over on a loop, would constitute your personal Hell? Pretending, naturally, that Hell exists, we're all going there (duh), and it's comprised of a screening room with a single uncomfortable chair to which you're strapped for eternity.
I'm sticking with the abysmal Barry Lyndon.
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* That was, btw, one of my favorite QotDs evah! Good one, Mama Shakes!
The Unique Creature Can't Recall
Highly shocking! The Douchicorn "can't recall" whether he dispatched Gonzo and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004 to cajole Ashcroft into signing off on the administration's domestic spying program.
Today on CNN, in a preview of his interview with the Vice President tonight, Larry King said he asked Cheney about the allegation. "I asked the Vice President about that and the story that he was the one that asked him to go," said King. "And he said he had no recollection."Cheney's exact response to King's question is: "I don’t recall—first of all, I haven’t seen the story. And I don’t recall that I gave instructions to that effect. … I don’t recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital."
"He did not want to deal with specifics, which tells me, they’re looking at trouble," King added. "If you don't want to deal with specifics…I think you’re looking at trouble and you're looking the other way if you're denying it."
In other words, he totally was. Wev.
Impeach them. Impeach them all now.
News from Shakes Manor
Nerd if By Land, Geek if By Email: Why We're Married Edition
Shakes: Check this out. [Warning: Elements of the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are revealed at the link.] Really interesting, and I think spot-on, especially the bit about sci-fi v. fantasy. It makes sense, when you think about it, because fantasy is rooted in tradition and sci-fi is rooted in progress, literally anti-tradition. Which makes the bar scene in Star Wars a possibility in a way that it would never have been in LotR. And sees Leia a princess and Padme a senator/queen, but Eowyn a Shield Maiden of Rohan." Etc.
Mr. Shakes: That is interesting, and like you say, spot on. Thanks for forwarding it. How cool are you, btw, that you know the term Shield Maiden of Rohan?
This is the Best We Can Do
So, I see the headline House Approves Funding to Combat Abuse, Rape of Indigenous Women, and I get all excited, since an April Amnesty International report found that "indigenous women are at least twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as other women in the US. One in every three indigenous women will be raped or sexually abused in their lifetime." And then I read what the funding to "combat" rape actually funds:
In response to a recent Amnesty International report detailing the disproportionately high levels of rape and other forms of sexual abuse committed against Native American women, the US House of Representatives has authorized $2 million in funding to protect Native women from sexual assault. Passed by a 412-18 vote, the budget amendment calls for the allocation of $1 million to create a tribal sex offender registry and for an additional $1 million to fund a baseline study on violence against Native women.Not to state the obvious or anything, but a sex offender registry doesn't actually protect women from rape. In theory, it identifies convicted rapists so that women can avoid them, but in reality, that's just another way of handing the responsibility of rape prevention to women, which, as we know, doesn't stop rape.
Meanwhile, a baseline study on violence against Native women may, in the long term, help with the development of practical violence prevention strategies, but is not in the here and now going to do anything to immediately begin to combat that violence.
And if I sound cynical about its potential to manifest as superb rape prevention strategies, well, there's a good reason for that—it's because I am cynical. It's not like there have never been studies on what works and doesn't work as regards combating violence against women; over and over we see that educating men and promoting egalitarianism is what works. But was a fucking dime of that $2 million earmarked for educating men about rape? Nope.
Nor was there any funding or legislation that would immediately solve some already-identified problems:
At least 86 percent of these assaults are committed by non-Native men, yet these non-Native perpetrators are rarely prosecuted or punished, Amnesty found, due to a complex maze of tribal, state, and federal jurisdictions. A still-standing 1978 Supreme Court ruling renders tribal governments unable to prosecute non-Indian criminal defendants, even if the alleged crime took place on tribal land. The authority of tribal justice systems has been further undermined by chronic under-funding and a lack of adequate resources like rape kits and nurses. As a result, many crimes go unreported by victims who are frustrated by the untimely response of understaffed tribal authorities and the lack of successful prosecutions.Now I'm not sure why, if it takes $1 million to set up a sex offender registry and $1 million to do a study, more funding was not provided to address these issues. (Maybe that $85 billion tax break Bush gave the top 1% wasn't such a good idea after all, huh?) But let's say there was only $2 million to spare—might it have been wiser to prioritize the things that will actually help convict rapists? That sex offender registry doesn't do very much damn good if there's no one on it because of unreported rapes and unsuccessful prosecutions. Ahem.
And, call me crazy, but it seems to me that getting known rapists off the street might help curb rape, too. In the fucking short term.
Ultimately, all of this horseshit can be explained by returning to the first paragraph of the post, which notes that "indigenous women are at least twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as other women in the US. One in every three indigenous women will be raped or sexually abused in their lifetime."
One in every three.
Instead of the usual, acceptable, unremarkable one in every six.
One in three gets you $2 million in funding.
To label rapists and do a study.
One in three.
And this is the best we can do.
Clap for Alaska!
You know, usually Louisiana takes first prize in any competition for most corrupt state, followed closely by Illinois. But Alaska has certainly established itself as a major player, hasn't it?
Alaska has 3 members of Congress, all Republicans, 2 senators and an at-large House member. Judging by the news, neither the House member, Don Young, nor the senior senator, Ted Stevens, is likely to be at large for very long-- and the other senator, Lisa Murkowski, from one of the most corrupt political families in the history of the state, was just caught in some financial and real estate improprieties which aren't likely to be swept under the rug too quickly either.
That's impressive! A lot of states would accidentally elect one honest congressperson or senator, but not Alaska! No, sir, that state's 100 percent corrupt, and proud of it! So be proud, Alaskans. No longer are you just known as a state that, in the words of the Simpsons movie, pays its citizens to let the oil companies despoil its natural beauty. No, you're also the most corrupt state in all the Union. And overwhelmingly Republican -- though I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
House Passes Lily Ledbetter Act
The House has started to undo some of the damage that the Roberts court wrought last year, passing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Play Act, which undoes the incomprehensibly stupid SCOTUS ruling that if you only find out two years after the fact that you've been discriminated against, well, tough. Speaker Pelosi sez:
Of course, I'm sure the SCOTUS will find a way to make the new law not say what it plainly says too. After all, how are businesses supposed to keep the women and minorities down if they can't actively discriminate against them?The New Direction Congress achieved a crucial victory today for justice and equality with the passage of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This legislation corrects a recent Supreme Court decision that severely restricted the right of workers to have their day in court when their employers have engaged in pay discrimination.
The Supreme Court’s decision ignored the reality that most workers do not discuss their paychecks with their colleagues, which makes it extremely difficult for employees to know if they have been the victim of pay discrimination. By rectifying the Court’s decision, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act restores balance in the law and allows victims of wage discrimination to seek justice in the courts.
Are You Sitting Down?
Star Jones admits she had gastric by-pass surgery.
You mean, she didn't just lay off the cheeseburgers and join a walking club? Who'da thunk?
And get the smelling salts ready for this bit:
It was a success, she says, though she found she was "still consumed with the same anger, shame and insecurity as before."
BEING THIN DOESN'T TAKE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS AWAY? MY GOD, I HAVE BEEN WOEFULLY MISINFORMED!
The more interesting confession, if you ask me, is that she gained so much weight through compulsive overeating. Rachel's posted about why weight loss surgery is a terrible idea for compulsive overeaters, and I couldn't agree more:
If one is mentally unable to stop themselves from assuaging their feelings with food, why would they then undergo weight loss surgery in which they risk irreparable physical harm and even death should they not be able to withstand the impulse to binge again?
Star Jones didn’t need weight loss surgery; she needed therapy.
No kidding. As I've said before, compulsive overeating is not well understood and very difficult to treat. But having your guts rearranged so that you get violently ill if you overeat is probably not the way to go. When a big part of your problem is fetishizing "bad" foods, making yourself physically unable to consume them without serious pain and misery is pretty unlikely to take away their power, wouldn't you think?
Also a bad idea? Lying through your teeth about how you lost the weight, when people see you as a role model. Grrrrr.
Honestly, I feel bad for Star Jones after reading all this. She has an eating disorder, a chopped-up stomach that rejects a whole lot of food, a questionable husband, and she was in her forties before she figured out you "can't control what other people think." It's not a bloody wonder being thin hasn't made her feel any better. But I still reserve the right to hate her for spending the last few years indirectly promoting the myth that a little willpower can make you drop 160 lbs.
House Passes Ethics Reform
And passes it big time: 411 to 8—proving the GOP really didn't care about ethics when they were in charge but sure do now that the Dems are running the show.
Wev. As long as it passed.
Some self-described watchdog groups called the measure, which now goes to the Senate, the most significant congressional reform in years.Kind of amazing they had to pass rules against some of this stuff. Yeesh.
...The House-passed bill would:
— Prohibit lobbyists and their clients from giving gifts, including meals and tickets, to senators and their staffs. The House adopted a gift ban in January.
— Require senators and candidates for the Senate or White House to pay charter rates for trips on private planes. House candidates would be barred from accepting trips on private planes.
— Require lobbyists to disclose payments they make to presidential libraries, inaugural committees or organizations controlled by or named for members of Congress.
— Bar lawmakers from attending large parties given in their honor by lobbyists at national political conventions.
— Bar lawmakers and their aides from trying to influence hiring decisions by lobbying firms and others in exchange for political access.
— Deny retirement benefits to members of Congress convicted of bribery, perjury or similar crimes.
Dick Cheney, the Unique Creature
I can't let Melissa have all the fun with magical creatures...
According to an interview on CBS, Vice President Dick Cheney is a "unique creature" with a foot in both the legislative and executive branches.
Q: There was an aide in your office who said that one of the reasons you weren’t abiding by that executive order was that you’re really not part of the executive branch. Do you have — are you part of the executive branch, sir?A unique creature, huh? But what kind?
CHENEY: Well, the job of the Vice President is an interesting one, because you’ve got a foot in both the executive and the legislative branch. Obviously, I’ve got an office in the West Wing of the White House, I’m an adviser of the President, I sit as a member of the National Security Council. At the same time, under the Constitution, I have legislative responsibilities. I’m actually paid by the Senate, not by the executive. I sit as the President of the Senate, as the presiding officer in the Senate. I cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate. So the Vice President is kind of a unique creature, if you will, in that you’ve got a foot in both branches.
Maybe he's hippogriff...
Well, I don't know. A hippogriff is a noble beast: "In the few medieval legends when this fantastic creature makes an appearance, it is usually the pet of either a knight or a sorcerer. It makes an excellent steed, being able to fly as fast as lightning. The hippogriff is said to be an omnivore, eating either plants or meat." Describing Mr. Cheney as the pet of a knight or a sorcerer rules that out; he's certainly not the president's pet, and the president is no knight or sorcerer, unless you're thinking of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. So, Dick Cheney being a hippogriff is unlikely.
How about a centaur...
It's possible; a centaur is half-man, half-horse, and you can see what part of the horse they used to make it, and Mr. Cheney certainly has those qualities.
More than likely, though, he is a chimera:
This creature is, according to Homer, "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".
Yeah, I think that pretty well nails it.
HT to The Carpetbagger Report.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
It's Bred for Its Skills in Magic
Cheney Says He is a 'Unique Creature': "Now that the political tempest over Cheney's exemption of his office has subsided a bit, the Vice President is back to claiming he is a branch of government all to himself — or as he says it, 'a unique creature' in constitutional government."
Behold the Douchicorn.
When All Else Fails, Change the Rules
Republicans must be *really* worried about their prospects of retaining the White House in 2008: California Electoral Vote Split Proposed
In a nutshell, instead of all of California's votes going to the statewide winner, the proposal would change things such that the statewide winner gets awarded two votes, and the other votes would each be determined by the candidate receiving the most votes within each congressional district. Given the way California's districts are assigned, that probably guarantees Republicans an additional 19 or 20 electoral votes that they have very little chance of winning under the statewide system.
The motive is obvious. It's calculated move on the part of Republicans to alter the electoral math in their favor. It's an appalling powergrab, dressed up in 'power-to-the-people' clothing.
However, I am compelled to examine the principles at stake... not merely in terms of its immediate practical political impact, but also more generally speaking, as a matter of principle... Might such an approach actually be better for democracy, in general? Should electoral votes be assigned on the district level, rather than on the state level? What are the implications of some states going that way and others going winner-take-all?
Well, if applied equally, across the board... such that states of every size, red and blue alike, were required to split their votes by district... Republicans that live in 'blue' states and Democrats that live in 'red' states might feel less disenfranchised if they had some chance of altering the outcome of the election based on their vote. However, it should be noted that many voters still live in congressional districts dominated by the other party, and for those people, the disenfranchisement either remains the same (if the district is dominated by the same party that dominates the state) or else is simply reversed (if the district is dominated by the party that is the minority of the state as a whole.) It should be apparent that moving the locus of disenfranchisement to smaller and smaller geographical units does not inherently solve the problem.
Moreover, a blanket nationwide switch is not likely to happen all at once. Since states get to decide the dispensation of their own votes, a blanket solution isn't going to emerge overnight. And the prospect of a situation in which big 'blue' states are forced to hand out their votes piecemeal whereas big 'red' states continue to give their votes in a monolithic block to their favored candidate isn't a fair solution at all. It's gaming the system for partisan advantage.
Furthermore, even if every state simultaneously implemented the new vote-allocation-per-district system... that still wouldn't guarantee fairness. It might even be *worse*, inasmuch as state boundaries exist for largely historic reasons whereas voting districts are drawn expressly for reasons of representation (in principle) and vote allocation (in practice). Anyone who honestly believes that such considerations will be always handled in a fair and nonpartisan method hasn't been paying attention. If we think politics are ugly and partisan now, think how much worse it could get if the lines start getting redrawn any time there's an election at stake.
I am guessing (and very much hoping, of course) that this won't gain much traction in California, but as the article mentions, the mere possibility of it going to ballot means that Democrats might have to spend valuable resources campaigning against such a move. Not encouraging at all.
Eat A Peach
I've clearly had enough of Gonzogate to last quite some time. But at least one ray of light begins to shine through:
Inslee (D-WA) is introducing legislation that would require the House Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives to begin an impeachment investigation into Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in the wake of his damaging testimony last week. The legislation reads:Be still, beating heart. No, really. Someone actually wants to do something about him? Well, tweak my nips and call me Nicky! That's not to say that this whole Gonzo thing won't keep me cranky, but it's a step.Resolved: That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Alberto Gonzales for high crimes and misdemeanors.
RIP Tom Snyder
"Tom Snyder, who pioneered an in-depth, conversational interviewing style on late-night television, died Sunday at his home in San Francisco. He was 71."
Part One
Part Two
Women Are Silly-Brained Dum-Dums
In Newsweek's August 6 issue, Anna Quindlen's column references a YouTube video in which anti-choice activists demonstrating outside a clinic in Libertyville, IL are asked what punishment should be meted out against women who have abortions if abortion is criminalized.
You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them." ... [H]e can't get a single person to be decisive about the crux of a matter they have been approaching with absolute certainty.Which is precisely what many of the interviewees do in the short film mentioned:
..."They never connect the dots," says Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. ... "How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?" June says.
Perhaps by ignoring or infantilizing women, turning them into "victims" of their own free will.
"I would hope," says one demonstrator, "that they would, in time, come to see what they've done and be sorry for it, but I think that we need to treat them with love." Not a hint of recognition, mind you, that forcing another autonomous adult to bend to your will, even if you cloak your dominion in religion, isn't love. It just isn't. Love is contingent upon respect, and presuming that women who seek abortions don't know "what they've done" is profoundly disrespectful. It's frankly difficult to imagine a more condescending posture than a person standing on a street, trying to criminalize a procedure passing women are seeking and telling those women they don't know what they're doing, despite themselves having no idea why those women are seeking abortions or how they arrived at their decisions to abort. The hubris of asserting that a woman—who (for example) has long deliberated about her choice to terminate her pregnancy because she can't afford another child and risks the well-being of her living, breathing children—doesn't know what she's doing is absolutely staggering.
Another interviewee, who thinks that "possibly" women will still have abortions if the procedure is criminalized, demonstrating a stunning ignorance about the topic she's dedicated her life to protesting, argues that the punishment should depend on "the state of mind the woman was in" when she got the abortion: "You have to take a lot of things into consideration... It depends. If she knew she was killing her child, um, the same punishment that anybody would get for killing anybody else, but if she didn't know..." Breathtaking. How many women do you think there are who seek abortions for other reasons than terminating a pregnancy? "Well, gee, I had gained a few pounds, and someone suggested that I try an abortion to see if that would work, and—sure enough!—a week later, I was back in my skinny jeans!" Women know what they're doing.
But the only way to continue to argue that abortion is murder, ergo should be criminalized, but not come attached with a criminal punishment like, ya know, murder, is to pretend that women don't know what they doing. And that's dependent upon treating women like intellectual and emotional cripples.
Except, of course, the ones who are busily deciding that other women can't possibly understand what they're doing or why they're doing it.
But, by the looks of that video, they're the ones spending lots of time blindly going along without asking the most basic questions about their actions.
Not the rest of us.
[H/T SAP.]
