Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

We still have time to mess this up!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

Bill Quick Is Shrill

by | 4 Comments

This post is in: ,

Bill Quick reacts to the following story:

Conservatives reacted cautiously to the news this week that federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. helped a group of homosexual rights activists win a seminal victory 10 years ago before the Supreme Court.

“Judge Roberts was an attorney with a large firm where helping colleagues when called upon was expected,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said yesterday after researching the matter. “I have verified that his involvement was limited to about five hours of participation in a moot court as he played the role of one of the high court’s conservative members asking tough hypothetical questions of the attorneys who actually prepared and argued the case.”

Mr. Perkins said his initial reaction to the news was concern that Judge Roberts had been “aiding and abetting” the groups. But after discussions with the White House and surrogates, Mr. Perkins urged caution in reaching that conclusion.

Click here to read Bill being shrill, and, in my estimation, spot on. At some point, the knee-jerk homophobia and other antics of these folks is going to turn off everyone.

Aiding and abetting? Cripes.

Bill Quick Is ShrillPost + Comments (4)

Daily Plame Flame Thread

by | 8 Comments

This post is in: ,

Murry Waas:

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby’s account.

The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame’s identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.

The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., six days before columnist Robert Novak wrote his now-infamous column unmasking Plame as a “CIA operative.” Although little noticed at the time, Novak’s column would cause the appointment of a special prosecutor, ultimately place in potential legal jeopardy senior advisers to the president of the United States, and lead to the jailing of a New York Times reporter.

The meeting between Libby and Miller also occurred during a week of intense activity by Libby and White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove aimed at discrediting Plame’s husband, Wilson, who on July 6, 2003, had gone public in a New York Times opinion piece with allegations that the Bush administration was misrepresenting intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.

Have at it.

Daily Plame Flame ThreadPost + Comments (8)

E-Qaeda

by | 4 Comments

This post is in: ,

Big piece in the WaPo on the war on cyber-terrorism:

…al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.

Al Qaeda suicide bombers and ambush units in Iraq routinely depend on the Web for training and tactical support, relying on the Internet’s anonymity and flexibility to operate with near impunity in cyberspace. In Qatar, Egypt and Europe, cells affiliated with al Qaeda that have recently carried out or seriously planned bombings have relied heavily on the Internet.

Such cases have led Western intelligence agencies and outside terrorism specialists to conclude that the “global jihad movement,” sometimes led by al Qaeda fugitives but increasingly made up of diverse “groups and ad hoc cells,” has become a “Web-directed” phenomenon, as a presentation for U.S. government terrorism analysts by longtime State Department expert Dennis Pluchinsky put it. Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence.

Read the whole thing. Oddly enough, unless I missed it, there was no mention of the Patriot Act and how it might play a role in this new battlefront.

E-QaedaPost + Comments (4)

Democratic Financiers ‘ACTing’ Up Again

by | 11 Comments

This post is in: 

I guess now that ACT is dead, the money has to go somewhere:

At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades.

The money will be channeled through a new partnership called the Democracy Alliance, which was founded last spring — the latest in a series of liberal initiatives as the Democratic Party and its allies continue to struggle with the loss of the House and the Senate in 1994 and the presidency in 2000. Many influential Democratic contributors were left angry and despairing over the party’s poor showing in last year’s elections, and are looking for what they hope will be more effective ways to invest their support.

Financial commitments totaling at least $80 million over the next five years generated by the Democracy Alliance in recent months — at a time when some liberal groups, such as the George Soros-backed America Coming Together, are floundering — suggest that the group is becoming a player in the long-term effort to reinvigorate the left. The group has a goal of raising $200 million — a sum that would inevitably come in part at the expense of more traditional Democratic groups, although alliance officials say donors have committed to maintaining past contribution levels.

Alliance chairman Steven Gluckstern, a retired investment banker, said that President Bush’s victory over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) last year after millions of dollars had been poured into pro-Democratic “527” groups caused many contributors to think that a dramatically new approach is needed.

“It wasn’t only the failure to win, it was the question ‘What does it take to win?’ ” Gluckstern said. “Among the lessons learned was that to bring back the progressive majority in this country is not just a periodic election investment strategy.”

This might help, but if we learned anything from 2004, when the Democrats raised as much money as the GOP, it isn’t only cash that gets candidates elected. It sure doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t the only thing.

Democratic Financiers ‘ACTing’ Up AgainPost + Comments (11)

Technically Guilty?

by | 6 Comments

This post is in: ,

Troubling story in the Times about the conviction of Lynne Stewart’s translator:

After working for nearly a decade as a translator for Lynne F. Stewart, a New York defense lawyer, Mr. Yousry, 49, was convicted along with her on Feb. 10 in Manhattan federal court of providing material aid to terrorism and conspiring to deceive the government. Now free on bail and awaiting sentencing, which is set for Sept. 30, he faces as much as 20 years behind bars.

Although months have passed since the verdict, Mr. Yousry remains shocked and baffled by it. Throughout the grueling nine-month trial, Mr. Yousry and his lawyers were convinced that he had a strong chance of acquittal.

The charges hinged on Ms. Stewart’s provocative legal strategy on behalf of a convicted terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which she defied a prison rule that restricted communications by releasing messages from him to the international press and to his militant followers in Egypt.

Mr. Yousry’s lawyers, David Ruhnke and David Stern, showed in court that he took no actions on his own to help the sheik politically and did his translation work based on instructions he received from Ms. Stewart and other lawyers for Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Muslim cleric who is serving a life sentence in federal prison for conspiring to bomb landmarks in New York City.

Mr. Yousry’s case seemed particularly solid, because unlike Ms. Stewart, he never signed documents pledging to abide by prison regulations. Mr. Yousry’s lawyers specified that it was up to Ms. Stewart, as the lawyer, to see that her staff complied with the rules…

“I still don’t know what it is that I did that was even wrong, much less illegal,” said Mr. Yousry, alternately indignant and mournful, in an interview in the Manhattan office of one of his lawyers, Mr. Stern. “I followed a process that was designed by the lawyers. They said this is what we’re going to do, and I followed that. That’s what lawyers do: They tell you what’s right and what’s wrong legally.

“The fact that I now know that these lawyers were following a strategy that the government didn’t like, that makes me a criminal?” he asked.

What Mr. Yousry finds most confounding is that he was convicted of aiding Mr. Abdel Rahman’s fundamentalist Islamic cause even though the prosecutors acknowledged that he was nonviolent, did not support the sheik’s politics and was not a practicing Muslim.

Putting aside the semantic war, it is clear he is guilty of the charges- the jury returned a guilty verdict. But has he done anything wrong?

I say the report is troubling, because the tone of the story seems to lean towards one of guiltless accomplice. Granted, the prosecutor in the case disagrees. I want more info on this.

*** Update ***

Jeralynn Meritt has more information on the case, and Captain Ed says the guy knew what he was doing and is guilty. I am going to read the transcript of the trial when I get a chance.

I should add- I think Lynne Stewart is guilty as sin. But this Yousry case doesn’t seem as clear cut to me, and I will reserve judgement for now.

Technically Guilty?Post + Comments (6)

The Domestic State of Affairs

by | 17 Comments

This post is in: 

David Brooks takes a look around and see that things are looking up for America:

The decline in domestic violence is of a piece with the decline in violent crime over all. Violent crime over all is down by 55 percent since 1993 and violence by teenagers has dropped an astonishing 71 percent, according to the Department of Justice.

The number of drunken driving fatalities has declined by 38 percent since 1982, according to the Department of Transportation, even though the number of vehicle miles traveled is up 81 percent. The total consumption of hard liquor by Americans over that time has declined by over 30 percent.

Teenage pregnancy has declined by 28 percent since its peak in 1990. Teenage births are down significantly and, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions performed in the country has also been declining since the early 1990’s.

Fewer children are living in poverty, even allowing for an uptick during the last recession. There’s even evidence that divorce rates are declining, albeit at a much more gradual pace. People with college degrees are seeing a sharp decline in divorce, especially if they were born after 1955.

I could go on. Teenage suicide is down. Elementary school test scores are rising (a sign than more kids are living in homes conducive to learning). Teenagers are losing their virginity later in life and having fewer sex partners. In short, many of the indicators of social breakdown, which shot upward in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, and which plateaued at high levels in the 1980’s, have been declining since the early 1990’s.

I predict an immediate uptick in rhetorical violence, as political apparatchiks on both sides of the political aisle attempt to claim credit for these events.

The Domestic State of AffairsPost + Comments (17)

Iraq News

by | 8 Comments

This post is in: ,

Lots of news about Iraq in the NY Times today, starting with this:

In a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce American forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring if conditions on the ground permitted, three senior military officers and Defense Department officials said this week.

The assessment by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the military’s Central Command, tracks with a statement made last week by the top American general in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the Pentagon could make “some fairly substantial reductions” in troops by next spring and summer if the political process in Iraq remained on track and Iraqi forces assumed more responsibility for securing the country.

Together, the generals’ appraisals offer some of the most concrete indications yet that the Pentagon is moving toward reducing American forces in Iraq. They also reflect the Bush administration’s growing concerns over how the country’s involvement in Iraq is influencing domestic considerations.

But in his assessment, given as part of a larger regional analysis, General Abizaid also warned that it is possible that the Pentagon might have to keep the current levels of about 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq throughout 2006 if security and political trends are unfavorable for a withdrawal. The number of troops will temporarily increase this December to provide security for Iraqi elections. And some troops leaving Iraq could be held in Kuwait as a reserve force.

Senior administration and Pentagon officials, as well as political leaders in both parties, say there is mounting anxiety over the $5 billion-a-month cost of the war, an overtaxed military, dismal recruiting in the Army and National Guard, dwindling public support for the operation, and a steadily growing number of casualties, punctuated this week by the death of 20 marines in two separate attacks in western Iraq.

Any troop drawdown will not occur until after the drafting and implementation of the new Iraqi constitution, which is also in the news:

On the eve of a national political summit meeting to hammer out terms of a draft Iraqi constitution, a top Kurdish representative warned Saturday that the Kurds would withdraw from the government if negotiators did not meet their “basic demands.”

Azhar Ramadan Abdul Raheem, a member of the National Assembly and the committee writing the constitution, said that at a special meeting of the Kurdish parliament on Saturday, delegates agreed that the Kurdish bloc should make no concessions in the negotiations. Among the Kurdish demands is a constitutional guarantee of regional autonomy.

Some of the country’s top political leaders are set to gather Sunday to try to move the talks ahead.

“This is a last resort,” Ms. Raheem said in a telephone interview. “Iraq is on the edge of a volcano, and we hope that we can reach a settlement in the meeting tomorrow.”

The Kurds, at least publicly, have adopted a hard line in the negotiations, and with her comments, Ms. Raheem appeared to be trying to establish a bargaining position.

The Kurdish demand for autonomy has support from some Shiite leaders, but is strongly opposed by Sunni Arabs, who fear they would be left with territory that produces little or no oil.

Finally, in the Week in Review, Damien Cave asks where all the heroes have gone (the Instapundit has a blogger link round-up):

Many in the military are disheartened by the absence of an instantly recognizable war hero today, a deficiency with a complex cause: public opinion on the Iraq war is split, and drawing attention to it risks fueling opposition; the military is more reluctant than it was in the last century to promote the individual over the group; and the war itself is different, with fewer big battles and more and messier engagements involving smaller units of Americans. Then, too, there is a celebrity culture that seems skewed more to the victim than to the hero.

Collectively, say military historians, war correspondents and retired senior officers, the country seems to have concluded that war heroes pack a political punch that requires caution. They have become not just symbols of bravery but also reminders of the war’s thorniest questions. “No one wants to call the attention of the public to bloodletting and heroism and the horrifying character of combat,” said Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina. “What situation can be imagined that would promote the war and not remind people of its ambivalence?”

Lots to chew on today.

Iraq NewsPost + Comments (8)