During a marathon Trivial Pursuit session this evening, I unexpectedly tapped into a heretofore undiscovered talent: I can talk like a cattle auctioneer—and, unaccountably, reading everything superfast and in the flat, nearly-robotic monotone of an auctioneer totally circumvents my usual propensity to stutter like a gormless douchenozzle; instead, every word comes out with otherwise elusive crystal clarity.
I began reading all the questions that way, which sent Mr. Shakes into an absolute fit of hysterics. He was laughing so hard he was coughing and sputtering and alternatingly begging me to stop and declaring it the funniest thing he's "ever fooking heard!"
There's pretty much nothing in the world that satisfies me more than making him weep with laughter, so this is definitely a skill that I will call upon in future, even if I never stumble upon a corral full of adoptable calves and eager livestock consumers looking for someone to make their collective dreams come true.
News from Shakes Manor
Huckabee on AIDS Victims: Lock Them Away
From the AP:
Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."And of course, who's to blame for it? The queers, of course.
As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.
"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."
Also in the wide-ranging AP questionnaire in 1992, Huckabee said, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."So much for the "likable" and "funny" and "self-deprecating" candidate. He was a cold-hearted and ignorant bigot in 1992 and there's very little evidence he's changed his mind except to soften it up to make it palatable for the mass media.
Mr. Huckabee and his apologists can't hide behind the veil of ignorance that AIDS was a mysterious plague that few people understood. That might have worked in 1984, but this survey came out in 1992, long after it was determined that AIDS was not transmitted through casual conduct, and long after the gay community had begun to work to stop the spread of it among themselves and every other community. As a matter of record, the gay community was out in front of fighting this disease, pleading for help from the government and anyone else who would listen to work with them to find a cure and treatment. Most of the responses they got, however, were little more than lip service, while the "compassionate" preachers and right-wing bloviators were clucking with faux concern and claiming that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality, some going so far as to say that it was "killing all the right people." It wasn't until Magic Johnson announced that he was infected with HIV that even the nutjobs started to realize it wasn't just a "gay disease".
When John Kerry ran in 2004, we had to fight the Vietnam war all over again. If Mike Huckabee wants to run on his record of AIDS and how to treat it -- a battle we began over twenty years ago -- then so be it. This is a fight worth having, and it will be a real victory if we can wipe out both disease and the ignorance and hatred it causes at the same time. Making sure that Mike Huckabee never takes the presidential oath of office would be a great step forward in that effort.
Among Newt Gingrich's Many Other Unappealing Traits...
...is his inability to acknowledge that nobody wants him at the party anymore. Go play some golf or something.
So sayeth Citizen Asshole.
Color Me Unconvinced
As Mustang Bobby noted yesterday, the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of suspected terrorists, during which interrogators used "severe interrogation techniques." Today, the NY Times reports that the White House, Justice Dept. officials, and then-majority GOP Congressional leaders claim they urged the CIA to keep the tapes. The decision to destroy the tapes was allegedly made by one guy, Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., then the chief of the agency's clandestine service, without, supposedly, the knowledge of any of the departments who warned against such a maneuver.
As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2003, Porter J. Goss, then a Republican congressman from Florida, was among Congressional leaders who warned the C.I.A. against destroying the tapes, the former intelligence officials said. Mr. Goss became C.I.A. director in 2004 and was serving in the post when the tapes were destroyed, but was not informed in advance about Mr. Rodriguez's decision, the former officials said.Does anyone else smell a scapegoat? I find it simply amazing that no one else was aware of this decision—especially when the now-destroyed tapes evidently stood to discredit the administration's torture policy from every conceivable angle. Drum:
So here's what the tapes would have shown: not just that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative, but that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative who was (a) unimportant and low-ranking, (b) mentally unstable, (c) had no useful information, and (d) eventually spewed out an endless series of worthless, fantastical "confessions" under duress. This was all prompted by the president of the United States, implemented by the director of the CIA, and the end result was thousands of wasted man hours by intelligence and and law enforcement personnel.Superb.
As dissenters of the administration's "controversial interrogation methods" policy have been saying for ages, torture, aside from humanitarian concerns, simply doesn't work. It's conceivably useful only in the very specific circumstance that a person with unknown information about an imminent event (e.g. the exact location of where a bomb is about to go off) is detained for questioning at precisely the right moment—and even that circumstance is contingent upon the distinctly unlikely occurrence that the suspect will provide accurate information in response to torture in time to stop the event, despite little incentive to do so, given that the torture will presumably stop the moment even bad information is given, and freedom will not be forthcoming even if good information is.
When a suspect is tortured in order to extract any random information they may have, torture becomes an even less useful tool. Someone who knows something also knows that some rubbish info will stop the torture just the same as real, good info, and someone who legitimately knows nothing will either be tortured to death before yielding viable info or will just say something knowingly false to get the torture to stop.
Torture, dissenters have been repeatedly saying, begets goose chases, not actionable intelligence. These tapes couldn't have been clearer evidence of that—which is why I find it hard to believe that no one else besides Mr. Rodriguez took any active interest in seeing them destroyed.
And I see I'm not alone. Steve Benen notes:
[T]he White House emphasized yesterday that Bush has "no recollection" of being made aware of the tapes' destruction before Thursday, when CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden briefed the president.If you're not cynical at this point, you're not paying attention.
Given the quality and reliability of White House denials of late, I'm inclined to assume this means the president keeps a DVD copy of the video in his desk drawer and has held multiple screenings of the interrogations in the White House screening room.
Or maybe I'm just cynical.
Legal Limbo
Yet another example of why we need federally guaranteed marriage equality now has presented itself in Rhode Island, where a lesbian couple who were married in Massachusetts are now being denied a divorce.
The lesbian couple lives in Rhode Island, and was married in Massachusetts, which allowed them to marry because no law specifically bans same-sex marriage in Rhode Island. However, "The Rhode Island Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, said the family court lacks the authority to grant a divorce because state lawmakers have not defined marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman."The tide of legalized same-sex marriage won't be turned back. Everyone needs to resolve themselves to that reality and get with the program, because it's stupid to waste another decade fighting about something when the outcome is inevitable. Let's just do it right now and be done with it.
So they're currently stuck with each other, according to the AP: "Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers wed in Massachusetts in 2004 after that state became the first to legalize same-sex marriages. The couple filed for divorce last year in Rhode Island, where they both live, citing irreconcilable differences. Nancy Palmisciano, Ormiston's lawyer, said couples married in other states and other countries are routinely granted divorces in Rhode Island, and the same freedom should apply to this couple. Now Ormiston is stuck in a marriage she doesn't want to be in, Palmisciano said. The women's lawyers have said at least one would have to move to Massachusetts to get a divorce, but Palmisciano said Friday that was not a viable option for her client."
And, btw, there are enough examples of what a clusterfuck "leaving same-sex marriage to the states" will be, especially with DOMA ensuring none of them have to recognize each other's laws, that any politician who tries to use that pathetic punt at this point is effectively saying s/he is not in support of marriage equality at all. End of story.
Projectile Vomiting
Whenever you hear a Republican strategist proclaim that "the Democrats are going to have a real problem with the voters over the issue of ____" (fill in the blank with the topic du jour: immigration, health care, the war, the deficit, religion, the heartbreak of psoriasis) you can bet that the Republicans know well and good that they are the ones with the problem of immigration, health care, the war, and so on.
This is a pathology of theirs: projecting their problems onto their opponents. It was Karl "You Touched Me!" Rove's best ability, reflecting his own fucked-up sense that everyone has to be as paranoid and cynical as he is, and he turned it into a campaign tactic.
So when you hear them spew that one forth, it's a very good clue as to what's got them really worried. Plan accordingly.
PS: Along with Melissa's post from 2005, Space Cowboy tipped me off to a great article by David Neiwert on this same topic.
Newsflash: Willard Romney is Hostile to Atheists
I'm getting so tired of writing about these stupid douchehounds and their fundy fucknuttery. How many bloody posts have I written about GOP presidential candidates and religion this week—like three nonillion?! Shit. Someone more cynical than I might suggest that these dipsticks' policies have fallen so appallingly short of anything America needs that a Battle of Who Loves the Baby Jesus Most is all they've got left. Ahem.
Anyway, over at TPM, Eric Kleefeld reports that Willard's spokesperson won't say if atheists have a place in America. Not in Willard's administration, but in all of America:
A spokesman for the Mitt Romney campaign is thus far refusing to say whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers, after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday.Even Peggy Noonan, who was, in general, gushingly complimentary about Willard's "Come to Jesus (Christ of Latter Day Saints)" speech, noted that his "one significant mistake" was his failure to "include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. … Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote."
It's a sign that Romney may be seeking to submerge evangelical distaste for Mormonism by uniting the two groups together in a wider culture war. Romney's speech has come under some criticism, even from conservatives like David Brooks and Ramesh Ponnuru, for positively mentioning many prominent religions but failing to include anything positive about atheists and agnostics.
Indeed, the only mentions of non-believers were very much negative. "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They're wrong," Romney said, being met by applause from the audience.
And, as Ahab notes at If I Ran the Zoo, "if Peg knows anything, it's that a Republican's gonna need the idiot vote."
So, basically, the presumption is that Willard's being hostile to atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers, and/or wev in an attempt to create a bond with conservative evangelicals forged in the shadow of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and also to retain the votes of the Idiot Brigade who won't vote for anyone if they accidentally give the appearance of regarding the Soulless Sodomites of the Secular Left as human beings deserving of their citizenship.
Last I checked, according to the GOP playbook, that's just called "good politics."
The War on Chanukah
O'Reilly can scream all he wants about his "war on Christmas." The fact of the matter is that the real war is against Chanukah, that 8-day holiday celebrated by Jews far and wide at around the same time as that farshtunkeneh Christmas. And as Shakesville's Heeb Laureate, I can confidently tell you that the following story makes my point:
This was REALLY not kosher. A grocery store in Manhattan made a food faux pas, advertising hams as "Delicious for Chanukah."Don't believe it? Well take a gander at the evidence.
Chanukah, an alternate spelling for Hanukkah, is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening, and hams as well as pork and other products from pigs can't be eaten under Jewish dietary laws.
War on Christmas, my arse.
I'm Mad at You Just Because I Know Who You Are
The coke snot doesn't drip far from the nose:
"There was one rock of cocaine left, and it rolled off the table," he said. "They just didn't even bother bringing it back up to a hard surface - they just crushed it into the carpet and snorted it off that."That's hot.
[Picture via. H/T Petulant. Previous Targets of My Arbitrary Ire: Carrot Top, Jared Fogle, Baby Luv, The Federlines (wah wah wah!), TomKat, Carrot Top (again), and "Dog" Chapman.]
A Tale of Two Stories
Wednesday: Mike Huckabee gets his panties all in a wad because people have the unmitigated temerity to keep asking him about his religious beliefs all the time.
Today: Huckabee Plays the Religion Card
[P]art of his rise in Iowa is attributable to something rather less appealing: playing the religion card. The other major candidates -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson -- either never figured out how to use it or had the decency to refuse to deploy it.I don't know what Krauthammer was smoking when he penned the phrase "egregious subtlety," but wev.
Huckabee has exploited Romney's Mormonism with an egregious subtlety. Huckabee is running a very effective ad in Iowa about religion. "Faith doesn't just influence me," he says on camera, "it really defines me." The ad then hails him as a "Christian leader."
Huckabee wants it both ways—he wants to run ads saying his faith defines him and call himself a Christian leader (!!!) and publicly attribute his surge in popularity to a miracle, but doesn't want anyone asking him about the issues intimately associated with politically active conservative Christians, like creationism being taught in schools. Tough shit on a platter, buddy. I frankly can't believe he's got the gall to whinge about it—or maybe it's just blind stupidity, given that the complaint merely serves to highlight his hypocrisy.
Considering that the other big story percolating about Huckabee is his having paroled a serial rapist who moved on to murder, one would think he'd be happy if the press stuck to asking him whether Jesus rode dinosaurs.
[H/T to Holly in Cincinnati.]
Dirt in the Nappies
I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is Free about how Hillary was really onto something when she quoted Obama's kindergarten essay to get a glimpse into his soul.
Everyone keeps accusing Clinton of taking the low road and playing dirty and being gob-smacking inane with her not one but two press releases about Obama's primary school essays, but in her usual wickedly clever, trailblazing way, she's obviously on to something.The whole thing is here.
Of course we need to know if Obama was keen on presidenting when he was six years old. George Bush was playing with toy soldiers in a sandbox when he was six - and see what happened?
My Vagina Tells Me to Vote for Hillary!
I literally hate every sentence of this article in the LA Times, which spends I don't know many words rehashing the same tired astonishment that Vagina-Americans aren't inalterably drawn by their uteri to a female candidate.
The ubiquity of these stories makes me wonder if it has truly never occurred to any of the people writing, editing, and publishing/broadcasting them that women have, ya know, been voting for decades now, despite the dearth of female candidates, and they've obviously managed to develop a system for choosing a candidate irrespective of sex, given that they had no women for whom to vote. Why being offered, at long last, a serious female contender should spontaneously render obsolete our methodology for assessing candidates on the merits of their positions, I have no idea. But note to the media: It hasn't.
The ubiquity of these stories makes me wonder if it has truly never occurred to any of the people writing, editing, and publishing/broadcasting them that women have, ya know, been voting for decades now, despite the dearth of female candidates, and they've obviously managed to develop a system for choosing a candidate irrespective of sex, given that they had no women for whom to vote. Why being offered, at long last, a serious female contender should spontaneously render obsolete our methodology for assessing candidates on the merits of their positions, I have no idea. But note to the media: It hasn't.
Georgie Sends a Letter
CNN: "In a rare move, U.S. President George W. Bush has reached out, by letter, to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, whom Bush has labeled a tyrant and part of what he called 'the axis of evil.' The letter urged North Korea to follow through on an agreement to declare and dismantle its nuclear programs."
As you know, I've got the best sources in the blogging biz, so naturally I've already gotten my hands on a copy of the letter to share with you, Shakers—because Shakesville is always first in bringing you top-secret leaks.
[Credits: Bill Wolfrum, concept and text. Liss, graphic and doodles.]
Destruction of Evidence
From the New York Times:
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.But remember, President Bush says we don't torture, so there should be no evidence that we did in the first place, right? So why did they destroy the tapes? Did they find out that the tapes weren't documenting "severe interrogation" of Al-Qaeda suspects but were really bootleg copies of the Star Wars Holiday Special guest-starring Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur?
The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.
The article goes on to say that this may reignite the debate in Congress over the interrogation methods used on "enemy combatants" and whether or not the CIA withheld information from the 9/11 Commission and Congress. One can only hope.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
McConnell = McDufus
During a campaign stop, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made an interesting distinction when it comes to military deaths in Iraq:
Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.What kind of ass-backward statement is that? It's "better" if full-time professional soldiers get killed instead of draftees? Perhaps from McConnell's perspective it's better, because if there was a draft, the war would cease to exist.
