This Tacitus post is a must read.
Archives for 2004
Stupid Court cases
This court case was all about Henry Wasman and company having an opportunity to have the words “Cheney Sued” in print for several years, so this is no surprise:
The Supreme Court refused Thursday to order the Bush administration to make public secret details of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, but kept the case alive by sending it back to a lower court.
Justices said 7-2 that a lower court should consider whether a federal open government law could be used to get documents of the task force.
rather than look at the energy bill and decide what is objectionable about it that way, the Democrats have upped the ante, and are trying to set a precedent- it doesn’t matter what is in the legisltion, it is only important who talked to the Vice-President before legislation was constructed. Weird, hunh? Not when slander and attack-dog politics is your forte. This shit just has to end, too:
The issues in the case have been overshadowed by conflict-of-interest questions about Justice Antonin Scalia.
Scalia had defiantly refused to step down from hearing the case involving Cheney, despite criticism that his impartiality has been brought into question because of a hunting vacation that he took with Cheney while the court was considering the vice president’s appeal.
A.) He didn’t take the trip “with” Cheney. Cheney happened to be there.
B.) Withouth Scalia, the vote is 6-2.
I am so tired of these antics from the Democrats.
If you thought this was anything but an opportunity to smear and a fishing expedition, check out the Washington Monthly:
The Supreme Court has ruled that Dick Cheney doesn’t have to turn over the records of his energy task force meetings. Bummer. For an unvarnished look at what Republican administrations care about and what they don’t, this probably would have been unbeatable.
And just what is it about energy policy that the White House thinks ought to be kept secret, anyway? After all, it’s not like national security or military policy was part of the discussion, right?
It doesn’t matter what ‘they’ really care about. It is what they did- or tried to do. Go read the damned Energy bill, because that IS THE ENERGY POLICY.
Jack Ryan
If the reports are true, this guy is a little off base:
Jeri Ryan said her then-husband took her on three “surprise trips” in the spring of 1998 to New Orleans, New York and Paris, during which he took her to sex clubs. She said she refused to go in the first and went into the second at his insistence.
“It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,” she said in the court document, adding that her husband “wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused.”
Of course, it is mildly amusing to see certain people commenting about this. Apparently it is not Senatorial to have sex with your wife in public, but it is Presidential to stick cigars in interns, and the only time you shold be on your hands and knees in Paris is when you are getting it politically from Chirac and the Eurotrash.
The Media and The Words They Use
I have a real problem with the way the media is reporting the beheading of Nick Berg and the most recent victim, Kim Sun-il.
According to this AP report:
An Iraqi militant group has beheaded its South Korean hostage, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday.
The pan-Arab station said it had received a videotape showing that Kim Sun-il had been executed.
The Beeb reports it as such (looks like a slightly modified AP filing):
Islamic militants in Iraq have beheaded a South Korean man they were holding hostage, al-Jazeera television reports.
The Arabic satellite channel said it had received a video tape saying Kim Sun-il, 33, had been executed.
Kim Sun-il was not executed. He was murdered. This is not a stupid nitpicking like the ‘suicide-bombing’ v. ‘homicide bombing’ nonsense. When the term execute is used, it brings with it the implication that the sentence waslawful.
This was not- this was cold-blooded murder by a bunch of cretinous thugs. Hell- this wasn’t even in accordance to any version of Islamic law.
So stop using the term executed in these cases. They were murdered, and they are victims.
*** Update ***
BTW- The Back Country Conservative reminds us that these savages may have ten other captives.
Birthday
It’s my birthday- so probably not much more blogging from me.
You might like to check out these lovely gift items.
Ante Up
Congrats, Mr. Affleck:
If his movie career fizzles, Ben Affleck may have a fallback that pays pretty well.
He’s won more than 356-thousand dollars playing poker in California.
The actor outlasted a field of 90 players at the three-day tournament in Commerce that ended Sunday. Fellow actor Tobey Maguire went out on the first day.
Affleck’s win also earns him a 25-thousand dollar seat at the World Poker Tour Championship next April in Las Vegas.
If poker is your thing, make sureyou hit the Fat Guy’s and check out his long list of Poker Bloggers.
The Krugman Lies Keep Rolling
And we needn’t imagine that Mr. Ashcroft was deeply concerned about protecting the public’s privacy. After all, a few months ago he took the unprecedented step of subpoenaing the hospital records of women who have had late-term abortions.
Otherwise, Krugman had valid points- and why wasn’t the Noonday plot bigger news. But then he goes and shits the bed with this out and out lie.