Ahhh, Ross, They're Hacks Too!

It's nice to see our Ignorant Dolts working, pushing, going at it with vigor, to maintain their dubious status.

Case-in-point this week is the Little-Billy-Kristol-Replacement-Model over at the New York Times, Ross Douthat.



Ross weighed in lamenting about the travails, and sinking ratings of CNN, offering some of his sterling advice.

In it, he stated this;

But not the “Crossfire” of 2004. CNN overreacted to Jon Stewart’s jeremiad, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. The show was years removed from its Michael Kinsley/Pat Buchanan glory days, and its liberal hosts at the time, Begala and James Carville, really were Democratic Party hacks. (The conservatives, Carlson and Robert Novak, were much more independent-minded, but the constant need to rebut partisan talking points took its toll on them as well.)

Whoa, hold the phone!



The liberals are hacks, but the conservatives, Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak, are not?

We're talking about 50% of the old "Errors and No Facts" writing team, the guy who had his head up the Bush Grindhouse's ass, helping them out Valerie Plame, not to mention, his mowing down pedestrians on the streets of Washington.

And the little bow-tied He-Man, he consistently threw partisan hand grenades, even going to the point of his "Right Wing" verision of Huffington Post.

You're just playing the old, "IOKIYAR" card there, Ross.

And, The Garlic wasn't the only one to have a little trouble with his column.

Glenn Greenwald took Douthat to school, for erroneously trying to label Rachel Maddow as a hack (which, to his credit, he tried to pull that one back).

Wonkette slapped him around, as well.

Keep at it Ross ...

We knew, early on, putting you on our Ignorant Dolt roster, you wouldn't let us down.

Jesus, That Was Fast! ... New Taser Incident

Holy Cow!

We just posted, yesterday, the pointer to Digby's "Let's talk about tasers", and bing-bang-boom, there's a new, hideous taser incident in the news.

Mom in minivan tasered twice in Salina traffic stop; camera captures deputy's rough roadside arrest (VIDEO)

In January, an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy pulled over Audra Harmon, who had two of her kids with her in her minivan. A routine traffic stop escalated quickly.

The deputy, Sean Andrews, accused her of talking on her cell phone. She said she could prove him wrong.

He said she was speeding. She denied it and got out of the van. He told her to get back in. She did, then he ordered her back out.

He yanked her out by the arm, knocked her down with two Taser shots and charged her with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His rationale on the disorderly conduct charge: She obstructed traffic when she got out of the van. The speeding accusation: going 50 mph in a 45-mph zone.

The scene along Hopkins Road in Salina on the afternoon of Jan. 31 was captured by a camera on the dashboard of Andrews' patrol car. Harmon, 38, says the video is proof of police brutality.

A mother, with her two children in the car, has to have the unfortunate fate of this asshole macho cop cross her path.

Yes, the video is proof of police brutality, so click the story link above, and watch the it.

There's no sound, however, you can clearly see that Ms. Harmon was, hardly, presenting herself as a threat to this cretin cop.

There is nothing visible that indicates the use of a taser gun was needed.

I suppose, Ms. Harmon is lucky, in that, if he didn't have a taser, he may have shot her death, all over a bullshit traffic stop (which the local DA dropped the charges), and a citizen expressing her rights.

Madness ...

Don't Laugh, The Next Time, It Could Be You

While he is on vacation this week, Glenn Greenwald has various writers filling in for him, and yesterday, Digby was in the seat, posting about a tremendously under-publicized, and extremely troubling issue.



The growing use of tasers by law enforcement.

Let's talk about tasers

I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.

Tasers aren't benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don't know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:

[snip]

Representatives of the government torture innocent citizens into unconsciousness, on camera, in United States courtrooms with tasers. They use them on prisoners and on motorists and on political protesters and bicycle riders, on mentally ill and handicapped people and on children And it's happening with nary a peep of protest.

America's torture problem is much bigger than Gitmo or the CIA or the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The government is torturing people every day and killing some of them. Then videos of the torture wind up on Youtube where sadists laugh and jeer at the victims. It's the sign of profound cultural illness.

Included in her post, is the tale of a case in Utah (as well as a handful of other abuses), where a mentally-handicapped person, inside a United States courtroom, was tasered by bailiffs, not for threatening behavior, but more related to his handicap and not understanding something in the procedure he was involved in.

It is absolutely harrowing.

Go Google "police use of tasers" and you get over 2-million results

I suppose, Skip Gates can consider himself lucky.

As you will read in the post, just mouthing off to the police is reason enough, seemingly, for them to whip out the electronic weapon, and charge you with about 50,000 volts.

Double lucky, if it doesn't kill you.

Go read Let's talk about tasers, and think about calling, or writing, your Congressmen, to start the ball rolling in getting this weapon eliminated.

I'll Never Love This Way Again

Or, in Jeffrey Rosen's case, he won't lie, distort, and smear, via blogging, again.

Rosen, writing for the The New Republic, posted a diatribe ("The Case Against Sotomayor") on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, oh, about two-weeks before President Obama actually named her as the nominee.

Glenn Greenwald, at Salon, Brad DeLong, on his Brad Blog, and Brian Beutler, on TPMDC, immediately jumped all over Rosen, for using anonymous smears against Sotomayor, while freely admitting, that he hadn't actually studied any of her cases.

Darren Lenard Hutchinson, in his "Hatchet Job: Jeffrey Rosen's Utterly Bankrupt Analysis of Judge Sonia Sotomayor", delivered the haymaker.

But wait!



Jeffrey Rosen responded to his critics, weakly, to which Greenwald picked apart the non-apology apology.

So, for the fact that he wrote a sloppy, lazy, shoddy post, Mr. Jeffery Rosen disparages blogging, and is throwing in the towel on it;

The article was used to bash the judge's prospects even before her formal nomination. But its author, the noted legal writer Jeffrey Rosen, says he's been burned by the episode, too — enough that he's swearing off blogging for good.

"It was a short Web piece," Rosen says now, sounding a little shellshocked. "I basically thought of it as a blog entry."

[snip]

Above all, Rosen says he's drawn a lesson from how his initial essay was treated by people of both ideological stripes. He won't be blogging any more. He wants to spend more time with the material before hitting "send."

Greenwald, again;

In that grand accountability-free tradition, Rosen blames everyone but himself for what he did, but then melodramatically announces that he will no longer "blog" -- as though it's the medium, rather than his own standards and choices, that are to blame for what he did ,,,

[snip]

Moreover, the excuse that Rosen was merely "blogging" is, just as a factual matter, so obviously false: his Sotomayor piece wasn't on any of the TNR "blogs" (as happens when Rosen is actually "blogging") but instead was presented as a stand-alone article; it was, as NPR notes, "more than 1,000 words"; and TNR touted it as "the first in a series of reports by TNR legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen about the strengths and weaknesses of the leading candidates." Does that remotely sound as though they intended it to be a "mere blog post"?

[snip]

Rosen can give up blogging and every other perceived vice all he wants. But until he renounces the defining practices of what Sullivan calls "standard Washington reporting" -- indiscriminately granting anonymity and thus producing accountability-free claims -- he'll still be the same Jeffrey Rosen producing the same sorts of reckless pieces. The effort to depict Sonia Sotomayor as "dumb and obnoxious" was notable only because of how extreme it was. Otherwise, there was nothing unusual about it. To the contrary, as Sullivan says, the unreliable, misleading methods it used were perfectly common for blogging Washington "reporting."

Well, as we have done, so many times, for those in distress, Jeffery Rosen needs a song to drown his tears of blogging in ...

Hit it, Dionne!

Dionne Warwick - I'll never love this way again

Jon Meacham, Phone Home

This goes, far, far beyond merely Jon Meacham's head stuffed up, deep, in his butt.

Nor, is it drinking gallons-and-gallons of the Freak Show Kool Aid.

The jig is up ...



He is an intergalactic alien, so benighted in the ways and customs of our country, that he, in his "Editor's Desk' column, in 'Newsweek', he blows his cover;

So we do not want that. Nor, I think, do we want to open criminal investigations into those who participated in brutal interrogation methods. And to pursue criminal charges against officials at the highest levels—including the former president and the former vice president—would set a terrible precedent. (The presidential historian Michael Beschloss suggests that the closest parallel to a president authorizing a probe of his predecessor can be found in the 1920s, when Calvin Coolidge appointed special prosecutors to investigate Warren Harding's role in the Teapot Dome scandal.) That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.

[snip]

The idea that our only options are to move on completely or to prosecute is a classic false choice.

Dig that?

"That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case."

No, the "false choice" here, the false meme here is that, "based on what we know", based on lies, and fabricated legal advice to package those lies, that The Bush Grindhouse "kept us safe"

That the policy of torture "kept us safe"

Just the other day (and who thunk that Meacham would top this), we had Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain advocating that, like Watergate, the Bush Grindhouse should get a pass.

Glenn Greenwald tears Meacham a new one, in Jon Meacham's subservient defense of monarchical power

And, the other day, his editor, Joan Walsh, of Salon, attempted to bang heads together, perhaps, hopefully, to dislodge that meme of "torture is okay".

I don't know what planet you are from Jon Meacham, but when you go back there, you can tell your people that, here, on Earth, torture is a crime and those responsible for it must be held accountable.

Either that, or pull your head out of your ass.

Jesus ....


Bonus Riffs

For The Want Of A Lie ...

Krugman: Reclaiming America’s Soul

The Narrative Continues To Build!

Day Care Update!

Yikes! ... 

Not only should I have advocated you read Frank Rich today, but now, you should go over to Glenn Greenwald, as well.

Fox News "war games" the coming civil war

But it's now inflamed by declining imperial power, genuine economic crises, an exotic Other occupying the White House, and potent technology harnessed by right-wing corporations such as Fox News to broadcast and disseminate it widely and continuously. At the very least, it's worth taking note of. And I wonder what would happen if MSNBC broadcast a similar discussion of leftists plotting and planning the imminent, violent Socialist Revolution against the U.S. Government.

FISA Update #4 - Don't Let the Fat Lady - Or The Fat Corporate Cats - Sing!

SIGN THIS PETITION!

We did two posts yesterday (that you can see here and here) on the collapse of our democracy, with the U.S. Senate caving in to give the Bush Grindhouse their Stay Out of Jail Card, passing the Protect American Act, which included immunity for the telecommunication companies that bought the "It's legal" bullshit.

Scarecrow, from Firedoglake, gets our spotlight today;

"The Fourth Amendment has been handed down to us unchanged for over two centuries:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Almost none of that is left if today's bill stands. In an age in which "bipartisan" has come to mean weak Democrats joining unanimous Republicans to vote against the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment would be eviscerated by a bill that provides a virtual blank check for the executive to invade the privacy of Americans ..."

In the post, Scarecrow offers a link to a petition that Firedoglake has started, to urge the House of Representatives to reverse this action by their cowardly brothers, when the two houses meet in conference to bang it out.

Tell House Members to Stand Firm Behind the RESTORE Act!

The FISA bill passed by the Senate is a disgrace. By legalizing warrantless spying on Americans and granting retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, the Senate seeks to ensure that the Bush administration's illegal spying programs are never investigated or subjected to the rule of law. The Senate bill is a profound betrayal of the votes of millions of Americans who voted in 2006 to put Democrats in control of Congress in order to increase, not eliminate, checks and oversight on this administration, and to restore the rule of law to our country.

The House's RESTORE Act is an infinitely superior bill. It provides real safeguards on the President's spying powers while providing him with the surveillance powers he needs to protect the country. It enables the issue of the legality of the President's spying programs to be decided where it belongs -- in a court of law. And it preserves the crucial balance that has existed for decades between enabling necessary surveillance on Americans and ensuring that our political leaders do not abuse that power.

In the wake of the discovery of the Watergate crimes and decades of surveillance abuses, the Congress of the mid-1970s acted on a bipartisan basis to put into place safeguards to ensure that even our highest political officials must adhere to the law and can only exercise eavesdropping powers with real safeguards. The RESTORE Act continues that tradition, while the Senate bill eviscerates it. We urge Democratic House members to stand firm behind the bill they passed and not capitulate once again to the bullying, manipulative demands of the Bush administration for ever-greater unchecked power, as embodied by the warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity provisions of the Senate bill.

Go here, to Firedoglake, and sign the petition and take part in, hopefully, getting this thing straight.

SIGN THIS PETITION!

FISA Update #2 - Who Are These Men That Sold Out Our Democracy Today!

Rather than add a rather long "Update #2", to Today's Must Read - Glenn Greenwald's "Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms" posted earlier today, a separate post is warranted.

As you can imagine, an avalanche of reaction, to this dark, dark day our elected U.S. Senate has put upon this country.

Who Are These Men That Sold Out Our Democracy Today!

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress - 2nd Session; Question: On the Amendment (Dodd Amdt. No. 3907 ); Statement of Purpose: To strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.


Paul Kiel, from TPMmuckraker

"Let there be no doubt: a majority of senators, and a large number of Democrats, think the telecoms should not suffer the hazard of accountability for cooperating with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) took to the floor last night to give a speech asking, "This is our defining question, the question that confronts every generation: The rule of law, or the rule of men?" The resounding answer: the rule of men."

Steve Benen, from The Carpetbagger Report

"For the 18 Dems who went along with this nonsense, I’d love to hear an explanation. For the Republicans, not even one GOP senator was willing to take a stand for the rule of law. Not one ...

And what arguments were presented by the other side? Not much — a few lies about the cooperation coming in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and a basic understanding that Republicans had to go along with the wishes of Mr. 28% at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue."

Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) were present for the vote – voting nay and yea, respectively ... Hillary Clinton and Lindsey Graham did not vote."

Taylor Marsh

"What a shell Congress is from its former greatness ... Bush gets away with illegal wiretapping and so do the companies that helped him do it ... Bush gets away with the Iraq war, all without any consequences whatsoever ... No wonder more and more people are registering as Independents"

Kagro X, on Daily Kos - "US Senate commits suicide on national television"


Update #3

"The Senate had "just sanctioned" the "single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country,"

Paul Kiel from TPMmuckraker - Dodd: It's up to The House

"The Senate had "just sanctioned" the "single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country," he said. When asked why he thought so many Dem senators had crossed over, he replied: "Unfortunately, those who are advocating this notion that you have to give up liberties in order to be more secure are apparently prevailing. They seem to be convincing people that you're at risk politically or we're at risk as a nation if we don't give up rights."

Today's Must Read - Glenn Greenwald's "Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms"

What if Spartacus was voting in the Senate today, on the Protect America Act, the FISA bill update?

We suspect that Spartacus wouldn't bend over the American people, and violently sodomize them, the way our elected U.S. Senate is about to do today.

We believe Spartacus would rise to the occasion (no pun intended) to protect, not persecute, to do what is right, to follow and protect the Constitution and, lastly, he would buck and revolt against the Emperor, for attempting this hijacking of the laws of the country.

When the sun sets today, it may well install a permanent darkness on the U.S. Senate, marking it, for decades to come, as the august chamber's saddest day.

Glenn Greenwald, of Salon, has a most sobering, depressing account of the whole sordid affair, in "Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms";

"All sorts of "controversy" erupted from that story. Democrats everywhere expressed dramatic, unbridled outrage, vowing that this would not stand. James Risen and Eric Lichtblau were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for exposing this serious lawbreaking. All sorts of Committees were formed, papers written, speeches given, conferences convened, and editorials published to denounce this extreme abuse of presidential power. This was illegality and corruption at the highest level of government, on the grandest scale, and of the most transparent strain."

And Greenwald than asks, rhetorically, "What was the outcome of all of that sturm und drang? What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently?"

"Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President's illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. In other words, the only steps taken by our political class upon exposure by the NYT of this profound lawbreaking is to endorse it all and then suppress any and all efforts to investigate it and subject it to the rule of law."

And this, as Greenwald notes, is happening in a Democrat-led, Democrat-majority Senate!

Maybe I missed the MoveOn.Org memo, that the 2006 elections, of having the Democrats take back the Congress, was all about greenlighting, aiding and abetting the Bush Grindhouse, and their executive power-grab.

And we have Harry "Give'em What They Want" Reid, the Senate Majority Leader (now there's a deafening oxymoron) to thank for this.

Greenwald closes with this;

"From Frank Church and the bipartisan oversight protections of the post-Watergate abuses in the mid-1970s to Jay Rockefeller, Dick Cheney, legalized warrantless eavesdropping and retroactive telecom amnesty in 2008 -- that vivid collapse into the sewer illustrates as potently as anything could what has happened to this country over the last eight years."

Update! Update!

Just as I am posting this, news is breaking on the voting

From Jane Hamsher, over on Firedoglake;

"Update: Woo hoo! You lose. Dodd's amendment to strip retroactive immunity fails spectacularly, 31-67. I have to say that what constantly amazes me is just how damn little it costs corporate America to buy our elected officials. Pennies on the dollar, really, for what they get."

From KBusch on BlueMassGroup;

The following Democratic Senators just voted for telecom immunity.

Jay Rockefeller WV
Evan Bayh IA
Daniel Inouye HI
Tim Johnson SD
Herb Kohl WI
Mary Landrieu LA
Claire McCaskill MO
Mark Pryor AR
Blanche Lincoln AR
Dianne Feinstein CA
Ken Salazar CO
Tom Carper DE
Barbara Mikulski MD
Jim Webb VA

Read the Greenwald piece anyway, it's very good ... And, it's playing out, pretty much, as he foresaw

As we stated above, a very, very dark day!

And, just late last month, The Garlic gave the Senate all the advise they would need in this fight

Hey, Dems, Let'em Veto It! ... Here's All The Ammunition You Need!

There is a small, but fascinating. drama that is to play out in the nation's capital today.

Before sunset, the Senate resumes its' debate, and possible vote, on the Protect America Act, the FISA Bill that the Bush Grindhouse wants, the one that will give immunity to the telecommunications companies that went along with them in breaking the law.

After sunset, the Lame Duck Commander Guy will take to the podium, before a joint session of Congress, and deliver his final (Thank God!) State of the Union address.

Whether he crows, or carps, all depends on what happens in the Senate.

No doubt the Stepford Republicans will continue to block, and otherwise attempt to bully through what the Bush Grindhouse wants.

They, along with the Bush Grindhouse will be laying down the vibe - as they have all along - of fearmongering, claiming the Democrats will get us killed while they, thumping their chests, are the protectors.

Trust us, we'll take care of you ...

Fat chance.

So, Harry Reid, and all you other Democrats, here's your ammunition.

Bush Lied!

Over 935 times (and that's just a couple of years) on the threats to the country, to justify his preemptive, colossal mistake, in taking us into Iraq.

While we have all known this, it was documented last week... And with a searchable database, in case you want to cherry pick some of the juicy lies.

But wait, there's more bullets.

Why not force the Stepford Republican to explain, and justify, The Commander Guy's giving up on capturing Osama bin Laden?

Have them explain the need to continue this illegal wiretapping program, and the need to give immunity, because, if the bill isn't passed, the terrorists are going to come and get us.

Have him explain how his illegal wiretapping is only capturing the conversation of terrorists, and not American citizens.

Point out, that their fearless leader has already given up ... That he's content to pass it along to the next president, the justice due Osama bin Laden.

So much for the Republican being our protectors.

The Commander Guy has indicated he will veto the bill, if it is not exactly how it wants it.

Fine.

Let'em veto it! ... Let'em go out, and continue his lying, for he is the Emperor with no clothes! ...

Perhaps, someone, like Senator Feingold, or Senator Whitehouse, can read into the record the Bush Lying Report.

Let's have Senator Kennedy, or Senator Boxer read into the record the interview in which The Commander Guy says he's passing Osama bin Laden onto the next administration.

Let's hear from Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, on how he was wiretapped, and threatened.

The New England Patriots landed in Arizona last night, to fight for the Super Bowl.

It long past due that few patriots stand up and fight in Congress.

For all you Senators, vote against the bill, deny the immunity and let The Commander Guy piss-and-moan his way out the door in less than a year!

Protect America ... Yes, indeed ... Protect us, please!


Bonus Must Reads

Glenn Greenwald: What's at stake today in the Senate's FISA filibuster vote

Paul Kiel/TPMmuckracker: Today's Must Read

Boppin' Around The Christmas Blogs (Herb Caen-Dot-Dot-Dot Style) ...

Well, coming off the, seemingly, long holiday break (and being freed from cooking and baking for nearly two-straight days), it's back to posting ... But, we go gently this day, warming up the engine and defrosting the windows, so to speak ... Think of it like stretching before a run or workout ...

While you were unwrapping gifts, downing the eggnog, and otherwise kickin' back, The Garlic was on-duty, taking a stroll through the blogosphere, checking up on who was naughty and who was nice ...

Carol Gee, on her own South by Southwest, as well as The Reaction, offered a wistful (and pragmatic) look at the Christmas holiday .... And Libby Spencer, also crossposting on The Reaction and The Impolitic tells of her own mini Christmas miracle ...

Joe Gandelman, over on his The Moderate Voice doesn't let us forget Brenda Lee... While Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (she of the great Burma posts earlier this Fall), also on TMV, details her emotional Christmas Eve...

Dennis Perrin checks in with a post on how Christmas touched him this year ...

The ever-digging Glenn Greenwald, on Salon, posts about the Christmas Political wishes... Digby gives us her A Sec-Prog Christmas Redux, while Spencer Ackerman, on TPMmuckraker, presents A Special Christmas Message from Blackwater...

Think Progress shoots out their Year In Review: The 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2007...

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher lays out the Mike Huckabee-Rush Limbaugh dust-up... While Larisa Alexandrovna, on her at-Largely (crossposted at Huffpo) fills Jonah Goldberg's Christmas stocking will a well-deserved pile of coal ...

But The Winners Are ....

Plural, as is two, rip-roaring, well-written, hysterical posts ...

James Wolcott's, on his Vanity Fair blog, Distinguished Poet Confronts the Ghost of Christmas Pus, is a fall-on-the-floor laughing dissection of an NYT Op-Ed of Christmas Day (and after you read it, after reading Wolcott, Wolcott's take is even funnier, so pad your floor for the second fall) ...

The op-ed page of The New York Times dropped quite a meatball into the Christmas stocking this morning--a poem by Paul Muldoon titled Myrrh that syrrh was awful. If I didn't have a touching faith in human nature, I'd suspect a put-on, and yet I fear the poem and poet are sincere. It begins:

And our good friend Barry Crimmins rings up Sir! Bah Humbug! Sir! in his ever-brilliant style;

At CNN they even squeezed in their Chief Pentagon Apologist Barbara Starr (you know her, she 's the one with a face that warns: don't lie or you'll end up looking like this) filing her annual report concerning NORAD's heartwarming 'tracking' of Santa's Christmas Eve journey. (He's currently over Australia!). What a charming way for the military to endear itself to impressionable children it can't start openly recruiting until junior high school.

Starr told us the military was tracking the "intruder" but she assured us that Santa's movements would only be monitored. How magnanimous of Pentagon brass not to scramble jets to shoot down St. Nick! Do we ever stop benefiting from a strong military? God bless us, every one!

And to all, a good night ...

"I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right." ... Joe Klein and Time (Stood Still) Magazine Follow-Up

Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls

Senator Roark, from “Sin City - That Yellow Bastard”

Yes, we have to employ one of our favorite lying quotes again, only to begin to capture the conflagration raging over Joe Klein and Time Magazine's obtuse behavior in intentionally misrepresenting - lying - about the FISA Debate and pending legislation.

We weighed in on it yesterday with "Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Time Magazine Hasn't Corrected Joe Klein's Egregiously Error-Filled FISA Articles", but that wasn't even a thimble-full of scorn that is being flung around;

Jane Hamsher/Firedoglake: Shorter Time Magazine: Equal Time For GOP Propaganda

emptywheel/The Last Hurrah: Time Gives Up on the Truth

Crooks and Liars: Joe Klein: Accuracy??? We don’t need no stinkin’ accuracy!

Klein, along with editors Priscilla Painton, Josh Tyrangiel and Rick Stengel don't have their heads buried in the sand, their walking around with sandboxes encasing their alleged brains.

Here's Stengel, taking the helm, adding "the correction" to Klein's original smear piece;

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.

This is after Klein himself offered "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right."

Ohhh Boy! ...

While Glenn Greenwald has been all over this, as well as numerous other writers and bloggers, just in case the folks at Time Magazine are confused - by their own work and writing - U.S. Representative Rush Holt, writing on The Huffington Post, offers them "What's Really in the RESTORE Act", even though Editor Stengel and Klein appear completely disinterested in getting the facts straight.


We'll cue up Que Sera Sera, while you peruse Part II of the Joe Kleinpalooza


Glenn Greenwald: Everything that is rancid and corrupt with modern journalism: The Nutshell

Marty Lederman/Balkinization: All You Need to (Not) Know About the Proposed FISA Fix

Think Progress: Time’s false balancing act.

Kagro X/Daily Kos: More on the Time idiocy

Glenn Greenwald: Demand answers from Time magazine; (Updated below - Update II, Update III: "Response" from Rick Stengel Update IV, Update V)

Digby: Time After Time

Joe Klein and Rick Stengel seem to be taking the greatest of pleasure in burning the truth

Was The Mukasy Vote Part Of That Rovian New Math?

When throwing someone out of the room can often be called giving them the "bum's rush", what kind of bum or rush is it when they're rammed through the door?

Many a Senate Democrat called for giving New Attorney Crony Michael Mukasey the bum's rush, but, as has been their habit, they caved (thank you again Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein), while their Republican colleagues rammed him home - and without their pet 60-vote rule;

Senate Confirms Mukasey By 53-40

Salon's Glenn Greenwald showed up the MSM, with his post today "What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?"

"The so-called "60-vote requirement" applies only when it is time to do something to limit the Bush administration. It is merely the excuse Senate Democrats use to explain away their chronic failure/unwillingness to limit the President, and it is what the media uses to depict the GOP filibuster as something normal and benign. There obviously is no "60-vote requirement" when it comes to having the Senate comply with the President's demands, as the 53-vote confirmation of Michael Mukasey amply demonstrates. But as Mukasey is sworn in as the highest law enforcement officer in America, the Democrats want you to know that they most certainly did stand firm and "registered their displeasure."

And Greenwald uses a great quote from Steve Benen, of The Carpetbagger Report, in his post "The GOP — Grand Obstructionist Party".

I won't spoil it for you here, but there's another great line from it;

"In April, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said, “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail … and so far it’s working for us.”

So much for those great Republican leadership qualities.

It's a good read, and it nails the caving Democratic Congress to a cross.












The Cavingcrats

If The Telecoms Get Amnesty, Will Reporters or Photographers Be Jailed For Reporting It?

Think, for a moment, if your favorite journalist, be it Frank Rich, Juan Cole, Sidney Blumenthal, Dana Priest, Thomas Ricks, Murray Waas (and, okay, if you're in the Freakshow, or a Dittohead, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, William Kristol, and the drug-taking cheeseburger himself, Rush Limbaugh), or a hard-working, risk-taking American photographer, was taken into custody by a foreign government, under the "suspicion" of being a terrorist, or aiding the terrorists, imprisoned, without formal charges being made, denied due process, access to a lawyer and their day in court.

Think about the explosion of outrage, and the marshaling of thousands, to right this horrible, unjust, wrong.

The country would come to a near stand-still, and there'd be wall-to-wall, Baby-Jessica-in-the-well, media coverage

Well, this is exactly what our government is doing - jailing foreign journalists in the name of the War on Terror - perhaps, mostly for they don't like what they are writing, or the photographs they are taking.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post today, detailing two such instances (and, in the process, the smearing of an elected member of the U.S. Congress), with;

Only America-hating traitors believe in due process for journalists












And, what we could have done as one of The Garlic's "Degrees of Separation", as we have our former, warbling Attorney General penning a New York Times Op-Ed, calling for letting the telecommunications companies off the hook of the lawsuits for their illegal spying and wiretapping, because ...

That Bush Grindhouse classic - People will die!

Seems that John Ashcroft, with his "Uncle Sam on the Line" wants to extend his placing of sheets beyond naked statues, and start draping them over the U.S. Constitution and our Congress.

I suppose, first off, Ashcroft doesn't see the comic irony of calling his essay "Uncle Sam on the Line", because, for millions of Americans, over the past six-years, we have had "Uncle Sam on our phone lines" and, of all the treasonous things, some want to hold the telecommunication companies, and the Bush Grindhouse, accountable for their conducting illegal surveillance.

Ashcroft paints a picture of doom if persons illegally wiretapped are allowed to sue the telecoms.

And he argues it with this gem;

"Longstanding principles of law hold that an American corporation is entitled to rely on assurances of legality from officials responsible for government activities. The public officials in question might be right or wrong about the advisability or legality of what they are doing, but it is their responsibility, not the company’s, to deal with the consequences if they are wrong."

The old "Trust Us" is to be applied here.

Wasn't that knocked down, when Harry Truman, under different circumstances, tried to nationalize the steel industry under the umbrella of "national emergency"?

Or maybe Ashcroft is simply thanking AT&T, Verizon and others "for their lovely Christmas gift - a solid gold telephone."

And it's pretty daunting what the Singing Attorney General glosses over in this "patriotic" call for Congress to do the proper duty.

Empty Wheel, over on The Last Hurrah, nails it;

And of course, Ashcroft makes no mention of the period when the program was not authorized by the AG, but was instead authorized by the White House Counsel. Such authorization is not legal, not under the law as written. While the telecoms may not be in the position to assess the honesty of the Bush Administration representations, they surely knew in March 2004 that Alberto Gonzales was not the AG, and that any authorization given by him was not worth the paper it was written on."

If we had, instead of an eagle, a National Canary, as the symbol of our country, the icon of our democracy, the poor, little thing would be lying, feet-up, at the bottom of it's cage by now, probably fragged, by the likes of patriots like John Ashcroft.

And that leaves us all, deep in the mine of democracy, with these type of patriots telling us to follow their light.

Bonus Freedom and Democracy Links

Let the Eagle Soar - Music and Lyrics by John Ashcroft

Rachel Morris: Prisoner 345 - What happened to Al Jazeera’s Sami al-Haj

Kevin/LeanLeft: Someone Else Bin Laden Has Beaten

Good Post Alert - Glenn Greenwald's 'A nation of Rich Lowrys'

They're trying to pass around the Kool-Aid again.

Glenn Greenwald takes note today of those cheerleading, flag-waving, dwarfs-finks-phonies-frauds-band of neocons telling us, once again, how rosy everything is over in Iraq.

This time, it's the lost, "My Three Sons" wannabe, National Review Editor Rich Lowry (who must have missed the "Smear The Frosts" email).

It's a great, well-linked and documented push back on the Neoncon's through-the-looking glass boasts.

Check out "A nation of Rich Lowrys"

Bonus Links

Rich Lowry on Media Matters

It Takes A Neocon To Raise A Legacy ... They're Drinking The Kool-Aid Again ...

Where's Ernest Borgnine when you need him?

Top Ten Cloves: Ad Campaigns U.S. Can Use To Win Over Iraqi People

News Item: The Pentagon Gets a Lesson From Madison Avenue; U.S. Needs to Devise a Different 'Brand' to Win Over the Iraqi People, Study Advises

10. Humor: Montage of Dick Cheney speeches, talking about being liberators, insurgency in final throes, not part of Executive branch

9. Saturation Campaign: "U.S. Democracy ... A Little Dab'll Do Ya!

8. Tough Love: "A Democracy tastes good like an occupation should"

7. In a PSA effort to get Iraqi's to rally around a new Constitution, will have a little old lady look into camera and bark "Where's The Beef!"

6. Retro (Optimistic): You've got a lot to live ... And the U.S. has alot to give ...

5. Ambassador Ryan Crocker descending down into a moving, shiny convertible car, with voiceover "Let America Put You In The Driver's Seat"

4. Have Miller Lite produce campaign; Clerics, politicians and celebrities around a square table for "Imam Law"

3. Subtle: In variation of Volkswagen campaign, black screen with only "Good Citizens Wanted"

2. Retro (Tough): The U.S. Military ... Takes A Licking But Keeps On Ticking ...

1. A good jingle: "The U.S. Occupation is that heavenly democracy, heavenly democracy, heavenly democracy ... The U.S. Occupation is that heavenly democracy, Better democracy a millionaire's money can't buy

Bonus Link

Glenn Greenwald: Further politicization of the U.S. military's public statements

Retro Garlic: I'm Surprised It Wasn't Headlined As "Mormon Candidate Ties To Cosmetic Industry Exposed"

If a Democrat running for President spent $300 on makeup, you can bet your Ann Coulter eye-patch that The Politico, Fox Noise and all the gang over at the Freak Show would have been all over it, knee-deep and calling for more shovels.

Headlines and chyrons screaming "Mormon Candidate Ties To Cosmetic Industry Exposed" and "Makeup Mitt" the title of one of those "I Feel Pretty" YouTube videos.

There'd be Fox Noise satellite trucks criss-crossing Utah, 24/7 on this.

And the money quote;

"He's already tan," she said. "We basically put a drop of foundation on him … and we powdered him a little bit."

Oh man, if it were a Dem, they'd be going to town on that.

And that, more or less, is what the inexhaustible Glenn Greenwald points out today, in his "The Politico sewer", as the Drudge-Wannabe had the Mitt makeup story front-and-center.

But with Mitt being a Republican, no echo chamber on the piece. The second gallery has been deafening silent.

As to the Retro part, go back to May, when Greenwald wrote, more so, exposed, who and what is behind The Politico;

The Politico's DNA ... The Other Iraq ... And He's a Bible-Thumper Now ... Around The Garlic Patch

Weigh in, but only after your nails are dry.

Makeup Mitt