Dear Nancy Pelosi: We get it, you’re powerful

While on The View yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had this to say while trying to finesse her way out of a talk about why she won’t consider impeaching George W. Bush or Dick Cheney.

Well, I think that it—I think it was important, when I became Speaker—and it’s, by the way, a very important position—President, Vice President, Speaker of the House—I saw it as my responsibility to try to bring a much divided country together to the extent that we could. I thought that impeachment would be divisive for the country.

Pelosi was on The Daily Show a couple days ago and made the same type of comment, as though she was trying to make everyone aware that she is, in fact, an important member of the government.

I think we get that, Madam Speaker. We understand you are powerful. That’s why it bothers us when someone of such great power says this:

“If somebody had a crime that the President had committed, that would be a different story.”

I suppose that’s the type of attitude we should expect from someone two separate heart beats away from the Presidency. But for God’ sake, even his most avid supporters believe Bush has broken the law. But his most avid supporters think Republican Presidents are above the law. What’s Pelosi’s excuse for not even managing to notice one of the multitudes of laws Bush has broken or bent?

-WKW

McCain advisor Karl Rove at the WSJ: Yeah, letting a foreign fascist create a media conglomerate was a fantastic idea

That the Wall Street Journal continues its Rupert Murdoch-led journey to become the N.Y. Post, is not surprising. One need only look to Fox News and its partnership with the Republican party to see how little journalism means to Murdoch and friends.

But when Fox the WSJ can use McCain and Bush adviser Karl Rove as a commentator and no one in the mainstream media says anything about it, it’s hard to avoid seeing that the media is halfway down it ride on the slippery slope that will eventually lead to a fully state-run media.

From Rove in Today’s Wall Street Journal, in an opinion piece shockingly called “Obama’s Iraq Fumble.”

In a race …

Ok, that’s all of Rove’s words I feel like cutting and pasting. It’s enough that Murdoch has attained enough power over the U.S. media that millions of people are getting their political information from Rove.

More than that though, it’s pathetic how little scrutiny Murdoch gets and how quickly other networks will copy him if the ratings are high enough. When the final obituary for the U.S. mainstream media is written, it will be noted that it eagerly followed a foreign fascist into the grave.

-WKW

Decriminalizing marijuana will make America great again

Sure, there are more pressing issues out there, but Barney Frank and Ron Paul’s proposal to decriminalize marijuana possession is still worthy of applause. Sadly, common sense has no shot and theres no way in hell this will pass, especially with an election on the horizon. Still nice to see Frank and Paul put it out there, though.

Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use

(CNN) — The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance.

Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, said Frank, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups.

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”

The Massachusetts Democrat and his supporters emphasized that only the use — and not the abuse — of marijuana would be decriminalized if the resolution resulted in legislation.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says people charged with simple possession are rarely incarcerated. The agency and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have long opposed marijuana legalization, for medical purposes or otherwise.

“Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers.”

Interestingly, alcohol, which creates dependency and treatment issues, and opens the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers, is still cool.

-WKW

Ted Stevens: Guilty as fuck

If there’s one thing Republican Senator Ted Stevens is, it’s guilty. Whether of the indictments handed down against him today or any of, say, 27,000 other different things, Stevens is guilty.

I don’t, of course, have any actual proof of his guilt on hand, but if you doubt me, try this - ask an Alaskan.

-WKW

Becoming John Obama

Last Month:

(T)he McCain campaign hit Obama for statements he made to ABC News arguing that the United States was able to arrest and put on trial those responsible for the first World Trade Center attack and could do the same for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Such logic, McCain’s aides asserted, demonstrated a “stunning and alarming misunderstanding of the threat we face from radical Islamic extremism.” Obama, they concluded, represented “the 9/10 Candidate.”

Today:

Study questions US strategy against al-Qaida

WASHINGTON - The United States can defeat al-Qaida if it relies less on force and more on policing and intelligence to root out the terror group’s leaders, a new study contends.

“Keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight,” said the study by the federally funded Rand research center, an organization that counsels the Pentagon.

Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term “war on terror” and replace it with “counterterrorism.”

July 7:

“Sen. Obama will raise your taxes,” McCain said. “I won’t.”

Yesterday:

“There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table,” McCain said. “I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.”

May 16:

For him [Obama] to talk about dates for withdrawal, which basically is surrender in Iraq after we’re succeeding so well is, I think, really inexcusable.

Yesterday:

Sen. John McCain could support a 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, he told CNN’s Larry King Monday night.

But the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said he would only do that if military chiefs deemed the “conditions on the ground” safe enough.

Last Week:

“The surge has succeeded and we are winning,” he said. He said that “four of the five brigades” have been withdrawn and military leaders have said that more withdrawals are possible.

“Senator Obama said the surge would fail and still fails to acknowledge its success. Everybody knows it has succeeded,” McCain said.

Feb. 8, 2007:

I’m very nervous about this new strategy, I’m not sure if we have enough troops.

-WKW

NRO catches ObamaMania

File this under “All PR is Good PR:”

Currently on the front page of the National Review Online, the name “Obama” appears 24 times. The name “McCain” appears three times.

-WKW

John McCain hires lobbyist to fight pro-lobbyist reputation

For years, John McCain was viewed as a “straight talking maverick” who railed against the influence of lobbyists in Washington. He is the McCain in the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, after all.

As the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign takes shape, however, the extra scrutiny placed on the presumptive Republican nominee has shown that McCain is neck deep in lobbyists. As this issue threatens to become something that derails the entire campaign, McCain has once again shown a willingness to act when times are tough.

Monday, the McCain campaign announced that it was hiring Fleckstein, Flick and Elmore, a Chicago-based lobbying firm to try and turn around McCain’s lobbying problems.

“There’s a misconception here about lobbyists, at least in the way that we are currently using the term,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. “Lobbyists are people who want something and get it. Now it’s time for them to get the message across that they are truly heroes. Also, let me add that Barack Obama’s outlandish campaign trip was an insult to all veterans and Americans.”

In a press release, FFE announced that it was excited about the challenge and that the company planned a 50-state advertising attack that would consist of television and print ads.

” … John McCain has again stood up when he senses an issue could develop into a problem. His dealings with lobbyists throughout the years have been honorable and have saved taxpayers 75% or more in many cases. Also, from here forward, “Lobbyists” will be known only as “Soldiers” … ”

McCain, without whom it would only have been known as the “Keating Four,” has lobbyists working at all levels of his Presidential campaign, and has appeared comfortable with those that say lobbyists have too much influence on him.

“Someone has to have influence on you, right? ” said Bounds. “Why not ‘Soldiers?’ Do you know that every time we use a Soldier in a government deal, we’re supporting the troops?”

Bounds added that the McCain campaign believed that the media was again favoring Obama, choosing to look instead at “invented controversies” surrounding McCain.

“You want a lobbyist? How about Tony Rekzo? There’s a lobbyist,” said Bounds. “And he’s in jail the same way Senator Obama should be for the way he avoided visiting those troops on his trip. It was criminal. No more questions.”

-WKW

CNN scores exclusive interview with Ben Stein

Having spent his winter and spring promoting his movie on creation and being punk’d by PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins, economist/actor/Nixon speech writer/lawyer Ben Stein did as he always has done - he went into deep seclusion.

But that didn’t stop CNN Political Editor Mark Preston from fighting to interview the notoriously publicity-shy Stein. Following myriad phone calls, e-mails and text messages, Preston scored perhaps the most exclusive interview of the 2008 Presidential campaign. Long ignored by the liberal media, Stein agreed to speak with Preston, provided that the interview only covered politics, Hollywood, and the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Stein, who has stood by his original opinion that the subprime mortgage crisis was a media creation with no basis in reality, dazzled in the interview, shining a new light on the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and offering brilliant insights that quickly helped millions of Americans understand the issues better.

Among Stein’s meanderings:

The economy: “We are in a psychological recession.”

Karl Rove: “He is one of the nicest, straightest-shooting, most heads-up, kindest guys I have ever met. He is a close friend, and I love him.”

Congratulations to Preston for scoring this vital interview. To see the entire interview with the reclusive Stein, click here.

-WKW

Following murder-suicide, tech writer dances on spammer’s grave

Having escaped from a Colorado prison on Sunday, Edward Davidson was found dead after what appears to be a murder-suicide. Davidson apparently killed his wife and 3-year-old daughter before killing himself.

Davidson had been sentenced in April to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion and criminal forfeiture.

But looking at Davidson’s murder-suicide as some type of victory over spam as opposed the murder of a woman and her child is a sign of innate sickness. Still, Charlie Demerjian of The Inquirer - a British technology tabloid - couldn’t resist putting his humanity aside to gloat over three dead bodies.

Not all stories have a happy ending, but the tale of escaped spam king Edward “Eddie” Davidson sure does. After walking away from prison, he got a gun, killed his family, then killed himself.

While it is hard not to feel bad for his brutally murdered wife and child, not to mention his wounded daughter, Eddie’s suicide itself is the stuff of happy thoughts. Every deceased spammer is a million fewer in-box-clogging, malware-infested mails a day, so lets tip one back for liberal gun laws.

Keep in mind that a 7-month child involved (unharmed) and a teenage girl was shot in the neck during the carnage. And keep in mind that Davidson had been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder prior to his original sentencing. All told, this comes off as a horrifying act of violence against women that appears like it could and should have been prevented.

And while mainstream news sources have been mostly unable to get the headline of “Spam King Kills” out of their mind while reporting on this story, at very least most have reported it as a horrifying crime.

But not Demerjian. No, see he writes for a technology Web site, so apparently the tenants of humanity don’t apply. No, for him and the Inquirer, the real story is that some rotten spammer killed himself and that he deserved much worse for clogging their e-mail inboxes.

Imagine how excited Demerjian must have been to write that commentary. How witty he believed himself. How “hardcore techie” he felt as he triumphantly declared victory over a spammer who took the lives of those that trusted him. But whether it was a grisly attempt to score more readers or a true disconnect from humanity, the end result was simply heinous.

Technology is no replacement for humanity. And writing for a technology magazine doesn’t give one a free pass to push aside the dead mother and child in order to dance over the dead body of the killer because he was a a convicted spammer.

-WKW

Bush or Batman?

From the minds of the Secret Pants Sketch Comedy team, you make the call:who said it, George W. Bush or Adam West’s Batman?

HT Dvorak Uncensored

-WKW

Dow Jones drops 500 points on news of little Timmy Johnson’s grounding

The parents of little Timmy Johnson, 8, thought he knew better. But they had caught him, red-handed as it were, when he came out of his bedroom crying due to burning his fingers while playing with matches.

Though kind-hearted people, Bob and Sandy Johnson of Seattle had dedicated themselves to being strict with their child when situations such as these occurred. So when little Timmy stopped crying and pulled himself together, his parents told him he’d have to spend the weekend with no television or video games. He had been bad, they told him, and he was being grounded.

Wall Street reacted immediately to the news as stocks fell across the board. Overall, the Dow Jones lost more than 500 points as the news of tension in the Middle East and little Timmy Johnson’s grounding led to a groundswell of sellers.

“There’s still a lot of confusion as to where the current battle with Iran will take the market,” said Dennis Hagerfield, a trader originally from Des Moines, Iowa. “And this situation with little Timmy Johnson just pushed everything right over the edge. He deserved much more fair treatment.”

Despite the drop in the stock market, Sandy Johnson said she has no regrets over the grounding of her precocious son.

“I won’t have the stock market tell me how to raise my child,” said Sandy Johnson. “Timmy’s a good boy, but his curiosity can get the best of him.”

Disney was the biggest loser on the day, seeing its stock shares drop 2.3 percent on the day to close at $198,7243.32 per share. An official for Disney said the grounding of Timmy Johnson was an obvious problem.

“When children like little Timmy Johnson are removed from the Disney media blitz for even a weekend, problems arise,” said Myron Taylor, head of the Disney Media Blitz Department. “We believe we will cut this problem off, however, with the release of our informative and helpful straight-to-video release titled ‘The Pickle People Save Little Timmy Johnson.’ ”

Mainly, however, most experts pointed to the little Timmy Johnson Grounding episode as just another sign of how volatile the market is these days.

“Fuck, the market is really volatile,” said Dr. Gordon T. Mack of the Harvard School of Business.

Investors will be looking at little Timmy Johnson’s situation throughout the week. As of Wednesday afternoon, PST, the grounding was still in effect. Experts believe that if the grounding is at least cut in half the market will respond with one of its best days of the year.

-WKW

Crossposted at Shakesville

Ask the people who die in Iraq today if the surge is working

Hearing John McCain talk of the glorious “surge” that escalated the Occupation of Iraq, you’d quickly come away convinced that it was the greatest military maneuver in the history of man.

Luckily, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune listens to people other than McCain, as well:

The troop escalation has not been the complete failure Obama suggested it would be, but it has fallen far short of the triumph claimed by Republicans. The level of violence, though down from the very worst months of the war, remains at levels comparable with 2005, which were considered awful at the time.

Iraqi civilians died at a higher rate in the first four months of this year than in the same period of 2005. The number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces is about the same. Here is McCain’s definition of success: returning to a pace of bloodshed that was once regarded as intolerable.

Even the progress made in the last 18 months is only partly attributable to the additional American forces. Equally important was the decision of Sunni militias to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

McCain insists this shift was only made possible by the surge—when, in fact, it happened several months before. Does he not know what really happened? Or does he not care?

Also contributing to the decline in sectarian violence was that by 2007, it already had achieved its main goal: driving Sunnis out of Shiite neighborhoods and vice versa. Of the 5 million Iraqis who fled their homes in the last five years, only 30,000 have returned.

The refugee crisis is just one of the results of a war that McCain has supported all along.

The surge didn’t provide a remedy to that or the many other afflictions that plague Iraq.

For good or ill, though, we have probably achieved about all we can with the means available.

That’s obvious to most Americans and most Iraqis. Once in a while, the realization even dawns on John McCain. But he lies down until it passes.

The results of the “Surge” and the other clever war-winning efforts by the Bush-McCain war party: No political improvement. Civilians, U.S. Troops, Iraqi politicians and others keep dying at a steady rate. Iraq is a step away from a massive civil war regardless of what the U.S. does now. Afghanistan is a chaotic narco-state where violence is rising.

Whether or not the Takeover of Iraq will be successful in the long run remains to be seen. Remember, victory in Iraq has nothing to do with dead troops, civilians or whether or not Iraq becomes a freedom-loving democracy. It has to do with how much profit and oil the U.S. can drain from the former sovereign nation. And thus far, they appear on their way to a victory.

Because the Big Business types who took over Iraq have a different mindset about war than the rest of humanity, which is why they’ve already marked down the “Surge” as a great victory for America. The death that the Occupation brings is nothing to them, provided contracts are signed.

But to the rest of us, the charade that is the “War on Terror” has never been more obvious, and U.S. goals in Iraq have never been less transparent. So ask the relatives of those who will die in Iraq today whether the glorious “surge” has been a success. Or just ask anyone who doesn’t believe that ethnic cleansing plus escalation equals a fantastic military success.

-WKW

Environmentalists must stop fretting over spilled oil

If there’s one thing that current gas prices have taught us, it’s this - environmentalists hate America.

It’s been explained over an over again in right-wing circles. Why are so many people so concerned with the environment when we have gas underneath some caribou somewhere? Or offshore? Don’t they understand that by drilling in conserved areas the U.S. would see prices at the pump drop by a nickel or so? In the next decade or so? Don’t they know that company oil executives believe that drilling everywhere and anywhere they want is the true secret to energy independence? Heck, even John McCain understands that.

“My friends, we have to drill off shore. We have to do it. It’s out there and we can do it. And we can do that. The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?” said McCain.

So remember, people, there’s oil out there. Billions and trillions of barrels, just waiting for brave oil companies to go and get it. Yet environmentalists stop them, because they hate America, and the liberal media bails them out. How else would you explain the news coverage given to minor oil spills?

Spill could close part of Mississippi River for days

(CNN) — The U.S. Coast Guard closed 98 miles of the Mississippi River from New Orleans, Louisiana, southward after a fuel barge and a tanker collided early Wednesday, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil.

The closure — on what is a major shipping route between the Midwest and the Gulf of Mexico — could last days, and the cleanup could take weeks, said Capt. Lincoln Stroh, the Coast Guard chief in New Orleans.

The collision between the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker Tintomara and the barge pushed by the tug Mel Oliver happened about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, splitting the barge nearly in half and dumping more than 419,000 gallons of oil into the river, the Coast Guard said.

The accident happened just north of the massive bridges connecting downtown New Orleans to the west bank of the Mississippi, the Coast Guard said. The tanker was undamaged. …

… The accident left a sheen of oil over much of the river and its banks. Booms were deployed to contain the oil, and skimmers are being used to suck it off the surface, said Petty Officer Thomas Blue, a Coast Guard spokesman.

The spill is much smaller than the ones that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Mississippi and nearby waterways.

Do you people realize how small 400,000 gallons of oil actually is? That’s one year of flying for Al Gore. Leonardo DiCaprio uses that much annually just going out and cruising with his pals. And it’s not like most of you live in that area, anyway.

So remember, not a drop of oil was spilled due to Hurricane Katrina - seven million gallons were spilled. And no one was bothered in the least. So while CNN trumpets news of oil spills, think about how it affects you and your pocketbook. Because oil spills will come and go. Getting a nickel off a gallon of gas in seven years or so, that’s priceless.

-WKW

Hurricane Katrina caused 124 oil spills

The list of outright lies that Republican Bush followers are willing to spew has always been quite impressive. From gloating that the U.S. hasn’t had a terrorist attack since 9/11 to the relentless lies about warrantless eavesdropping, Bush’s attack crew has made it clear that even truthiness is too much of a challenge and that blatant lying is more effective. And their hyper-fringe base loves it.

These days, with gasoline prices on everyone’s mind, Republicans have pulled out at least two lies that they will repeat regardless how often they are called on them - that China is drilling for oil offshore of Cuba (they’re not) and that Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause any oil spills.

The second one is really the most egregious. Because Hurricane Katrina caused oil spills. More than 100 of them. Here’s a satellite picture of the Gulf Of Mexico after Katrina hit, courtesy of SkyTruth.org. See if you can see the oil.

Or here:

Are things better for you now than they were eight years ago? Is the Earth in better shape? Is the U.S. in better shape?

Radical Republican policies have made you poorer, less secure and less free> They have left the economy in shambles. They have destroyed the environment. They have made the United States a nation to be feared rather than respected.

And they will lie cheat and swindle to do whatever they can to avoid taking a speck of responsibility for any of it, and they will do all they can to rewrite recent history.

Don’t let them. Hurricane Katrina, and Rita before it caused oil spills. To say otherwise is a blatant lie. And real Americans just can’t afford to let those lies become public perception.

-WKW

Nero tortured while Rome burned

The most heinous act of terrorism was committed 1,944 years, today. It was July 18, 64. Little Romans were comfortably sleeping as their parents chatted amiably about current events. But everything was about to change.

Nero told all around him that history would judge him fondly.

Rome was on fire. A fire started by Christian terrorists. Thousands would perish and hundreds of homes would be lost. The fire blazed for nearly a week.

And no, Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. Such an instrument wasn’t even available and Nero wasn’t in Rome. But he rushed to the damaged areas, consoling those heroic Romans who had been wounded and vowing revenge on the Christianists who had tried to destroy the city and Roman will.

Nero wasted little time, torturing confessions out of them, crucifying them, feeding them to dogs and using them as candles. The Christians were savages who hated freedom and demanded that all worship their God. They only understood force, and that’s what Nero showed them. The Christianists had been destroyed.

And all was well again in Rome and patriotic Romans danced and sang for the next couple of hundred years, until the Christians eventually took over and the whole Roman Empire collapsed.

June 18, 64. Never Forget.

-WKW

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