Repugnant in the News: Karl Rove Interrogated by Feds

Karl Rove reportedly squealed: "DON'T WATERBOARD ME!!! PLEASE ... PLEEEAAASE." (Copious SOBS)
Fed interrogator: "Sir, CALM DOWN. We don't do this any longer. Would you like a Valium?"
KR: "Yes, please ..." (Whimper)

KARL ROVE TO BE QUESTIONED BY PROSECUTOR

The aim: to determine if officials obstructed justice in the dismissals of U.S. attorneys.
Washington Post
May 15, 2009

Washington -- Karl Rove will be interviewed today as part of a criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys under President George W. Bush, two sources say.

Rove, a former senior aide to Bush, will be questioned by Connecticut prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who in September was named to examine whether former Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006.

Re: You Read it Here First (Peter's Prophecy)

Note: Peter once hit a $20 straight exacta at the Kentucky Derby for $1,000 and change, so his gift for prophecy in the Sport of Kings is established. The rest, by comparison, is gravy.

Let it be written--let it be done

And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls--and sometimes in blogs:

Miss California on Cable News: Fox & Friends Gives Carrie Prejean Her Chance
May 14, 2009 03:24 PM ET Paul Bedard Permanent Link Print
by Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Miss California and Miss USA runner-up, Carrie Prejean, tossed around in the battle over gay marriage, will be a one-day guest host for Fox News Channel's popular morning show Fox & Friends, Whispers learns. She will host the 6 a.m.-to-7 a.m. slot on May 27, filling in for Gretchen Carlson—the 1989 Miss America—who will be off that day.

The party of Lincoln

Is now a petulant 3rd-grader (from Politico, courtesy of my pal Ms. Em):

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.” When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

I understand that "Democrat Socialist Party" narrowly edged out "Stinky Poo Poo Heads," and that the RNC further stated "na na na na na you can't get me" and emphasized that girls have "cooties."

A concise statement of the obvious

From former law prof, current federal appeals judge and interesting crank Richard Posner:

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

I would argue that the judge might be overstating the intellectual power of conservatism even BEFORE its Limbaugh-ization, but that is another story for another time. His analysis of the party and what passes for "conservatism" hits fairly close to the mark.

Hurray for Miss California!

Now go away. Now. Away. Go.

I think I know where she's headed though. She's blond, dumb as multiple bags of hammers, with a fake tan, fake boobs, hell, everything about her is fake. You know what that means?

FUTURE FOX NEWS ANCHOR!!!!!!!!

The Right Just Keeps Lying and Lying and Lying

The chattering right wing chihuahuas LIE with almost complete impunity. It’s nearly impossible to catch these bloviators in real time because they keep throwing out the lies quicker than anyone can correct them. Sure, there’s YouTube, KO, Rachel Maddow, Huff Post, and the blogs. The problem is the lag time and a captive audience that has already drunk the Kool Aid.

On the bright side, the right is losing audience as fast as the left is gaining it, so the country is becoming less stupid as a result. Those of us who tuned in to Keith Olbermann last night were treated to a fist-pumping point-by-point destruction of Bill-Oh Really’s historical revisionism that President Obama was wrong when he said Winston Churchill never tortured.

Yes, Bill-Oh, you are WRONG, you fool; ignorant lying sophist.


Sunday, on This Week with Georgie Boy, the unctuous George F. Swill declared imperiously that “more than 80% of Americans are more than satisfied with their health care plans.”

WRONG again, Swill, and YOU KNOW IT. The FCC ought to have a voluntary truth-in-commentary rule that would place the political chattering class on time delay so that every time they utter an untruth the viewer would see a freeze frame with a rolling text box at the bottom displaying the factual information. I propose that it be called WINGERFAX.



As soon as Swill makes the statement, “more than 80% of Americans are more than satisfied with their health care plans,” the screen would be frozen and the following rolling text displayed at the bottom:

According to the respected Gallup Poll (12/4/08) on Americans’ attitudes toward U.S. healthcare:

“The net result of these observations about the way U.S. healthcare works is that Americans generally believe the system is highly troubled: 14% say it is "in a state of crisis" and 59% think it has "major problems." Only 26% believe it has minor problems and a slight 1% say it does not have any problems.”

What’s most galling about this smug little jerk with a bow tie is that as the father of a special needs child who was never denied the best healthcare available, one would expect him to have some empathy for the uninsured, or at least, to accurately and honestly discuss the state of healthcare. 

But this is by no means the one and only time Swill has lied: as with all right wingers it's a consistent pattern with him.

- In 1980, Swill helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his presidential debate while posing as a neutral or objective journalist. There were similar conflicts of interest involving his associations with Conrad Black and Bob Dole.

- More recently, in a 2008 column Swill claimed China and Cuba had partnered to drill for oil off the Florida coast. That statement was false, and Swill published a retraction, but not before Dick Cheney and John Boehner repeated it.

- In 2009 Swill disseminated false information about the effects of global warming by claiming that, "[a]ccording to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea levels now equal those of 1979." The Arctic Climate Research website of U of I fired back: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979."

And so, Swill's off-the-cuff "80%" remark is simply the first salvo as he (and I'm sure, Bill-Oh) aim to destroy President Obama's efforts to provide healthcare for all Americans. Their campaign will be one of lies, misinformation, and slander to swiftboat healthcare. (Yes, it's true; the swiftboaters are baaack and they're the anti-healthcare storm troopers.) Anything for a buck. It's in their DNA.

Senator Edward Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer and whose son lost a leg to cancer, dedicated his entire career to giving Americans universal healthcare, precisely because of these experiences. He said he and his son are alive today because they were privileged to get the very best healthcare available. But millions of our citizens are not so fortunate, and that’s wrong.

For Senator Kennedy, healthcare is a right, NOT a privilege.

Therein lies the difference between liberals and conservatives. Let's roll.

We live in the world's dumbest country

You probably heard this one:

Teen Suspended for Going to Prom--Baptist School Forbids Dancing, Rock Music and Hand-Holding

FINDLAY, Ohio - An Ohio teenager has been suspended by his Christian school that bans dancing because he attended another high school's prom.

Officials at Heritage Christian School in Findlay had warned 17-year-old Tyler Frost that he would be suspended and prohibited from attending graduation if he went to the public school dance over the weekend with his girlfriend, according to The Courier.

Frost danced and held hands [Editor's Note: OMIGOD!! WE'RE DOOMED!!!] with his girlfriend, Rebecca Smooty, at the Findlay High School prom, attended by about 800 students, officials told the newspaper.

OK, boys and girls, this raises SOOOO many issues.

First of all, what sort of mutant parent sends their child to such a school?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that 44% of Americans believe in this:



Well, if the school won't allow hand-holding, we know who can't enroll:


People far wiser than me have called faith the belief in things not seen. I don't think faith requires the rejection of those things that are patently obvious.

CHENEY'S CHILLING MOTHER'S DAY MESSAGE

With apologies to all the wonderful moms for this slightly twisted post:

To the relief of all those present, Darth Cheney did not attend the WH Correspondents Dinner. President Obama joked the Dark Lord was busy working on his memoir "tentatively titled, How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.” Then, he reportedly added: “The FORCE is with us.”

But Darth Cheney wasn’t too busy to make it onto one of the Sunday talk shows:

A Tale of Two Joes: Baseball Musings

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

One of the most famous opening lines in literary history could well describe Joe Torre’s passage through the Bronx as manager of the storied New York Yankees. From 1996 to 2007, Torre managed the Yankees to consecutive postseason play, winning ten American League East Division titles, six American League pennants, and four World Series titles, while earning a .605 winning percentage.

All of this got tossed overboard after Torre published his kiss-and-tell book, mildly titled “The Yankee Years,” ripping into his former employer and certain players, whom he called “prima donnas.” But Torre reserved some of his most acid remarks for A-Rod, according to the NY Post:

Alex Rodriguez, was called "A-Fraud" by his teammates after he developed a "Single White Female"-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him.

Weird.

And that’s not all. Torre headed for the sunny climes of California to manage that other team that had fled NY for LA, the Dodgers. In doing so, he made sure to torch any and all bridges to the Yankees. As Yogi Berra said, “when you get to a fork in the road, take it.”

Today, another Joe is managing the Yankees: Joe Girardi. He’s well known to Cubs fans as a capable defensive catcher and game caller. When he was a Cubs player, I met his parents once in a bar on Milwaukee Ave. Or so they said (I had no reason to disbelieve them.) They were nice folks, proud of their son.

Joe Girardi is a nice guy, some would say a player’s manager. But managing the Yankees and all those prima donnas Torre blasted may be too much for Girardi. I get the impression that Girardi is as tightly wound as Willie Randolph was when managing that other NY team, the Mets, in a slow, painful, downward spiral, till he was abruptly and summarily fired.

By the numbers, the two Joes are a study in contrasts:














Which of these Joes would Yankees fans want to see managing the team?

- Joe Torre
- Joe Girardi
- Neither Joe

Question for Cubs fans: Is Lou Piniella overrated as a manager? I’ve never understood his penchant for yanking starters after six innings, no matter how well they’re doing on the mound. I saw two blown Cubs games in which the starters were stellar and the floodgates opened up once Lou decided to yank them after six.

PS - The Dodgers' red-hot record is imperiled now that Manny Ramirez is out for 50 games after testing positive for steroids.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo, Hermanos y Hermanas!

On May 5, 1862 an outnumbered and ill-equipped Mexican army defeated the occupying French Army in the Battle of Puebla. This event was the cornerstone of Mexican resistance to foreign occupation. Today, the date is observed voluntarily in the U.S. to commemorate the cultural experiences and great contributions of Americans of Mexican ancestry to our society. The Battle of Puebla, pictured below:



Viva Mexico y Estados Unidos!

So Much for "Rebranding."

The GOP has picked Jeff Sessions from Alabama to replace Arlen Spector as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The selection of Sessions, pictured below:

clearly shows the direction of the so-called "new" GOP. The direction is to retrench and intensify their ties to their ever-shrinking base.

Sessions (JEFFERSON BEAUREGARD SESSIONS) is a bigot, by his own words. He called a black U.S. attorney a "boy" and admonished him about how he spoke to "white folks." He had good things to say about the Klan until he found out some of them smoked pot. When Reagan appointed him to the federal bench, even the senator from Alabama (although a "Democrat," Howell Heflin was a Democrat from a WAAAY different time) voted against him. Senators just did not do that then, to vote against someone from their state.

So it looks like the GOP has taken yet another step to solidifying their position as the majority party of the Confederate States of America.

Condi Rice: 'Waterboarding Diplomacy'

Former GWB Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made this mind-boggling, and PROBABLY CRIMINAL, statement to a Stanford student because, AS ALWAYS, the mainstream media was asleep at the switch:

“BY DEFINITION, IF IT WAS AUTHORIZED BY THE PRESIDENT IT DID NOT VIOLATE OUR OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE.” -- Condoleeza Rice

WHAAAT?? Condi Rice has the AUDACITY and INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY to invoke not only the “I was just following orders” but the “emperor’s clothes” defense?

We should not be surprised by this unguarded statement -- only that the buttoned-up, controlled, and anal Ms. Rice was sufficiently goaded by an insistent student demanding an answer into letting her guard down and incriminating herself.

Well, we had 'Ping-Pong Diplomacy' and 'Shuttle Diplomacy' under Nixon/Ford, so 'Waterboarding Diplomacy' seems like the appropriate term to describe Condoleeza Rice's legacy. After all, Condi Rice, who served a corrupt imperial president, was simply channeling the role model of ALL corrupt imperial presidents: Richard Nixon.





And here is Condi Rice's eery channeling of Richard Nixon. (Really, any other interpretation would be far-fetched.)



Lady, if the Attorney General gets serious about investigating this, you’re not going to be a poli sci professor at Stanford, you're headed straight for that other BIG HOUSE!

Hmm … I wonder what course she’ll be teaching; here’s a thought:

WATERBOARDING DIPLOMACY: WAR AND TORTURE AS A FOREIGN RELATIONS TOOL. (Course requirements: Must pass Stanford test revealing a totalitarian anti-democratic mindset.)

UPDATE: After her initial faux pas, Condi Rice yesterday was GRILLED by a 4th grader, and had to try to defend the legality of "all methods" of interrogation used by the Bush regime. "This is NOT (pleasepleaseplease) a Frost v. Nixon moment," she insisted plaintively.

Right. Nailed by a 4th grader. Which raises more questions about the state of our mainstream media, but that's another topic. For now, KUDOS to Misha Lerner, a student at the Jewish Primary Day School in our nation's capital, who asked the tough question the "pros" were too reticent or scared to ask.

Days we should remember

They seem like distant and unrelated memories. First, May 1886:

and May 1970:

The bloodshed on these distant May 4ths though evolved from common threads. The protesters rallied for things that we should no longer consider to be controversial--an eight-hour workday in Chicago and in Ohio, the end of America's unholy war in Vietnam. What had begun as peaceful demonstrations turned into violent confrontations in both cases from an unfortunate combination of arrogance and incompetence. Those in power used similar phrases to refer to the labor activists and the antiwar protesters. Both were dirty, un-American anarchists viewed as somehow less than human. The results, tragically but predictably, are Haymarket and Kent State.

A.A. Milne in the Swine Flu Era

Thanks Nick!

Who Would Jesus Torture?

From CNN.com:

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

Explain to me again why religion is a prerequisite for morality. I can't stand that argument.

Alex, may I have "Blowholes" for $1000?

I was listening for just a minute to the drug-addled gasbag while out at lunch. He was ripping into the president's Churchill reference last night about how the Brits didn't torture. The blowhole pulled out a National Geographic story about how the British gave captured German spies an option--hanging or helping. Rush proceeded to tell his dimwitted followers, and I paraphrase, "See! They threatened to HANG them! That's surely worse than anything we did that they are calling torture!"

Good Lord.

Rush, the operative word here is captured SPIES. Not "detainees," not POWs but SPIES. Doesn't EVERYONE know that spying during wartime is a capital offense? This wasn't "torture"--it was a plea bargain.

Now I don't know if the British tortured or not, not my field. Since I DON'T know I won't comment on the underlying accuracy. However, whether Obama's statement is factually accurate or not is irrelevant as to Limbaugh's shallow and ridiculous attempt to mislead his room-temp IQ band of believers.

Does cheese glow?

Bill Nye the Science Guy goes to Waco:

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

But, apparently, not a God who could invent an object that reflects the light of another.

Sure don't need that money...

In a remarkable bit of irony, given that they called it "pork" amidst swine flu, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) led the fight AGAINST funding for flu pandemics in the stimulus bill. "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not," she argued.

Nice work, Sue.

And Chuck Schumer gets no points either for caving and calling the flu money by its porcine nickname.

Newsflash: Sen. Arlen Specter Sees the Light!

This hot from the Washington Post: Senator Arlen Specter has decided to SWITCH PARTIES from that R-word to the Democratic Party.

Wow. This is a HUGE political story. With Senator Franken, this will give the Dems that 60-vote filibuster-proof majority.