God I love this man

Stephen Colbert is so fucking brilliant. I know I've said this before. I will say it again. And again. Over and over until every single last person on earth is walking around in a constant haze of Colbert-awe.
Godamnit he rocks the house down and comes back for the door.
Behold The Word from the 27th. You can see where it's going, but that doesn't make it any less effective.

Bwah ha ha ha!!

I swear to god, they are ALL PERVERTS!

This dude was the chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children Caucus!!

Oh, and that's one more House seat in play...

I don't have the energy

And the Times says it better anyway. This is a sad day.

Editorial
Rushing Off a Cliff

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Grumpy Old Men

Here's a hot tip: Jack Cafferty is totally awesome.
I'm not sure what his official role is within the 45 hour freak show that is CNN's Situation Room, but basically e gets on and looks a little rumpled and very crotchety and starts spewing the most hilarious yet right-on stuff. This cat just does not give a fuck.
Go and watch some clips from the collection at Crooks & Liars.
I heart you, angry old white dude.

New Veronica Mars Titles!

Whoa!!! Check it out! Sooo exciting! We love it!

I CALLED IT!

Take that, TSA!

Bwah ha ha ha!

Although this is only a partial victory - we shall not be satisfied until full sized cosmetics are free to roam once again!
(and that may be a while. Sure makes me glad that I've spent the last 10 years obsessively collecting travel sized toiletries!)

This is so hot

Seriously, when are the republicans going to learn not to fuck with the Big Dog?

Watch in awe, listen in wonder, as William Jefferson Clinton puts a hurting on Chris Wallace.

Part One (the tasty part)



Part Two

Let's (not) talk about torture

Because really, what could be more fun for a Saturday morning?

As I'm sure you've noticed, there's been a lot of news about the Bush Torture Bill and the "rebel" republican senators McCain and company. Surly little Chimpy said he won't keep smoking out terrorists if he's not allowed to violate the constitution and torture at will.

First, of course, that would be fine. It's not like I believe that whatever horrible things that they're doing in our name in their secret prisons (which, btw, always make me think of that oil brig that Nic Cage escapes from in Face Off) are really producing any reliable or pertinent information. It's not like their shitty, mean, illegal programs are doing anything but killing people and making us enemies. So, like, ok, pack up your instruments of torture and go home.

But moving on, that's clearly not a real option, and so we get this "debate" about the treatment of "terrorists." But they're not fucking terrorists. They're terror suspects. And that means that they're innocent until proven guilty, just like everyone else. Remember that. Every time they talk about whatever poor or bad or angry or extremist fuckers they've got such a hard-on to waterboard, remember that these are men that have been convicted of nothing. Bush is trying to erase that line for you - the same way he erases that line when he talks of his terrorist surveillance program (aka illegal wiretapping). They have created an environment where merely being suspected of something (suspected of something and then brought to a secret place and then tried using secret evidence and coerced testimony) is reason enough to strip someone of their human rights. So that's like... a problem.

Furthermore, however you may feel about what we can or can't do to people who may or may not be involved in terrorist activities, there was no fucking need for this debate. Who brought it up? Who "rebelled"? Who started talking about needing "clarity"? It was an entirely republican issue, conceived of and displayed by republicans. There was no precipitating event. There was no pressing need. It was just another distraction from war. Wars. Another way to push Iraq into the background. More then that, it was another way to keep terrorism in the headlines. Another week goes by that the republicans are controlling the news cycle. That is all they're doing, folks. Trying to control every news cycle until the election. Another week where all the news is about terror and Bush and strength and fear. They fucking told us they were going to run this election on terrorism, and that is exactly what they are doing. And it's working.

Lastly, the "compromise" is a load of fucking horse shit that guts any idea we may have had about living in a just society controlled by the rule of law. Bend over and kiss your habeas corpus goodbye.

Me v. the TSA, again

I'm sorry. I know there's some important anti-torture stuff (or pro-torture, really) going on and we should talk about that, but you'll have to bear with my airport screening vendetta a little longer.

Salon.com has a lovely feature called Ask the Pilot, wherein a very funny and articulate pilot named Patrick Smith answers all the questions you always wanted to know about airplanes. They're a good read, and if you were thinking that I was just barking at the moon and expounding my own crazy theories, well at least I'm not alone.

Recently, he has taken on the War on Toothpaste (tm) and I am gratified to see that he has essentially the same take that I have (i.e. this is bullshit). Check out this article regarding the feasability of actually building a bomb big enough to bring an plane down and tell me there is even one iota of sense in all of this. He also takes aim at the cargo hold, and agrees that it is a bigger threat.

As sexy sexy Stephen Colbert would say, I called it.

Thank you, Wonkette

As the astute (or at least conscious) reader will know, I fucking hate the new air travel rules and the war on toothpaste.

Also slated for hatred is the sheep-like quality of our great nation and its great press and great, great freedom loving people, who will seemingly endure and even promote any intrusion into their lives as long as it is couched in terms of stopping the terrorists. The same people, no doubt, who were talking on their cell phone handsets while driving to the airport. Why the (extremely slight) danger of terrorists is so fucking important and worth huge amounts of inconvenience and occasional abuse but the (much more) real danger of a car accident is apparently not worth thinking about is beyond me.

As predicted (by me), the constant repetition of how no liquids ever again was "the new normal" in the news has had the effect of making it...normal. As in, there ain't no going back. We've accepted this piece of nonsense.

Now, finally (finally! Because these days a month is a long-ass time) Wonkette is speaking out.

Preach, Wonkette. I cannot emphasize this enough; in a free society, people are free to use lipgloss wherever and whenever they like.

Hi!

Hey guys! Remember me?
Sorry I've been sort of spacing. Been busy at work, which snowballs into not enough time to read the paper/blogs, which means less awareness of the world at large, which inevitably results in less to rage about. Funny - I say that like it's a bad thing.

In the meantime, enjoy this clip from my boyfriend Stephen Colbert. Bush and torture. How can you go wrong?

Rainy Friday

Hi there. It's Friday, it's raining, I have nothing to say.

I no longer feel optimistic about regaining the House, although again there is no specific reason for this. Probably the rain. When I get out of my weather-induced torper, I'll try to post something interesting.

The Day After

Yesterday was the day for reflection and mourning. Yesterday is over and now we have to think about where that day led us.

For me the saddest part of September 11, 2001 is that I can't isolate that day and the tragedy of it. It was only the prologue. Because a tragedy a hundred, a thousand, an uncountable amount worse has happened in the days and years to come. I can't separate 9/11 from the things that have been done in the name of security and revenge. That day of smoke and fire and dust has been used to destroy this country more effectively than any airplane ever could.

When we speak longingly of returning to our happy pre-9/11 world, do we really speak of a world without the fear of terror? Is that all it is? Because I am not afraid. I am right here in the thick and I am not afraid. I am not afraid of airplane nor liquids thereupon, I am not afraid of Arab men nor sleeper cells. I am not afraid of tall buildings. I can still feel that same panic in me rising, given the right circumstances, but so what? How could that possibly be the guiding force of my life? No, the pre-9/11 world I long for is one in which our civil rights were taken for granted, one in which I could still believe, despite El Salvador and Nicaragua and Chile and Panama and on and on that we were generally more a force for good than not. I long for the country I thought I grew up in, the one that spoke of fearing nothing but fear itself. It is the entirely avoidable nightmare of manipulation and greed and destruction that is the tragedy of 9/11. For me, the colossal failure of leadership came afterwards, not before. It seems to me that you cannot stop everyone who hates and has access to a box cutter. All you can do is control your own reaction.

Keith Olbermann threw out a doozy of a commentary last night. Watch it. And the next time you see those two perfectly tall buildings with open black gashes in your mind and feel utterly helpless, snap out of it. You are not helpless -- that was only the prologue. The story is still being written.

Like the man said, don't mourn, organize.

Change Up

And now for something completely different...

I've noticed that from time to time people land here because they have searched for "chris garver gay." I'm not really sure why that points in this direction, and I didn't want to be all talking about Chris behind his back, but since it keeps happening I think I can be helpful. First off, here is his official website. Next, I've known Chris since we were kids and Chris? Not gay. Really, truly and seriously not gay. Chris is also one of the best people I know. He is amazingly talented, works his ass off and deserves all the fame and cash he gets. If you've seen him on TV and you're wondering what he's like, he really is that cool and humble. What doesn't come across is that he's also hilarious and scarcastic and likes to start trouble. Good people.
Today is also his birthday, so happy happy, Mr. G.

Autumn in New York

Happy Patriot's Day, everyone. Or whatever the hell we're supposed to call it. My feeling is that if you're going to make such a big freaking deal out of it, can we at least have the day off?

It's really nice out today (although not, as we say, "September 11th nice," because as I'm sure you know, that day 5 years ago was really, really nice) and I'd like to be anywhere but here at my desk. Especially because the late week work blitz means I'm curiously without anything to do right now. So I thought I'd talk a little about the thing that happened at that place downtown a while ago.

I've been having a little email back and forth with a friend for the last couple of days about this, and it's very interesting how people choose to approach these things. This was sparked by an article in the Times about the invisible dividing line between New Yorkers that were here and those that have moved here since. I think that you could have no end of dividing lines, all based on any number of measurements of proximity, and therefore it is somewhat moot. I am lucky in that the bulk of the impact for me was morphological and psychological and not personal. Which is to say that I was afforded a sort of distance, while still being very close. It sees to me that there is a strange sort of nostalgia or one-upmanship that we go through with this - who was deeper in the shit, you know? And so to a certain extent I refuse to play that, but of course get a couple of drinks in there and we all do because we all want to be validated.

And so. I've lived here most of my life, and I'm about the same age as those buildings were. There is a kind of companionship I feel with them, especially when I see pictures of the early days. We grew up in the City in the 70s, we did. Later, I went to work right by them for a few years (the last ones, as it turned out.) Every time I would walk past (which was a couple of times a day) it made me feel a little like I was in some movie. "In the shadow of the World Trade Center..." I would think, as the first line. Possibly written across the screen in 12 pt. Courier, or maybe in voiceover. That's how my movie would start. I often used the subway station on mornings when I was late. I would figure that if I was late anyway, might as well make it worth it and would go to the Krispy Kreme in the Trade Center and get a dozen glazed for my team. And we'd go to the mall all the time to go shopping, at the Gap, or the Banana, not to mention the J. Crew or the pretzel place (was it a Pretzel Time?) and the Borders. And in a way this is my way of honoring it still - the slow walk in my mind through the mall, beginning with the Sam Goody on the right and the Structure/Express situation on the left. Through that hallway, towards the center and the PATH station. I try to keep those pictures in my mind the way I try to keep the sense memory of what it felt like to fall asleep on my father's shoulder.

They were completely quotidian, but extraordinary too. They were very, very tall. And that may well have been their only purpose. Their tallness and boxiness meant to me, who likes excess in my architecture, a kind of why-the-fuck-notness that I really loved. And there was the boy that I kissed on a bench, and I can see the towers reflected in the dark glass of the Millennium Hilton across the street, and I can remember the feeling of exhilaration from the first delicious moments of discovering a new person, the two of us all alone in the twinkling night.

So I see that I divide my memories into what was, what they meant to me, and then what happened, and what the effects of that were. And the effects were predictable. Formerly good relationships strained because no one knew how the hell to act. Desperate attempts to reconnect with anyone, everyone (which is a euphemism for calling up old boyfriends). And the certain knowledge that nothing is as solid as it seems. In the end, I think that was the damage that was done to me - the belief that you cannot rely on anything, not really.

And so the day comes around again and the pictures are on TV, and the damn president shows up (and don't believe the hype - we hated him then and we hated his pathetic bullhorn grandstanding and we hate him now and it is an unbroken line of animosity) and the papers bust out the big type. And I just want people to remember that this is the greatest city in the world. This city is so big and so beautiful, a day like today with the crisp sun and Lever House so perfectly clean against the sky and the steady hum of millions, this city is life itself to me. And all I want, if I can't go back to that bench (and I can't. An even if I could?) is to feel the vibrations of city burst back into that lost, dead parking lot they call the pit. Screw your memorials and your footprints and your security perimeters and just give us a city. Let's have buildings that inspire and then go about living life.

But.

I may yet go down tonight and say hello, or goodbye, again. Because we're all, still, just a little bit broken.

btw

On further reflection, I call bullshit on the whole Armitage/Plame thing. Isn't it funny how there's like this leak that it was him, and then he comes out and admits it, and now it's all out there, and just before the election? Like, if it was that little of a deal...
And if it was a State Department thing, why was Scooter covering up? Or for that matter what was he covering up?
Armitage may have been the original leak, but he's also the fall guy.

From the Department of Thank God

A nice bit of good news, for a change of pace. (And not that Paris Hilton was arrested for DUI, although that's pretty nice too. Oh, ok, while we're on the subject, have you seen the pictures of her getting arrested? Check them out. There's something so sleazy about it. The 80s belt, her crack whore skinniness, the brick wall. When I'm sad I look at these pictures and then I am happy.) And I mean seriously good news.

Mr. Moustache, Mr. Least-Diplomatic-Person-Ever John Bolton, may not become our permanent representative to the UN after all. Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a sane republican, has made it clear that he is not ready to vote to confirm Bolton, and this throws it all off. In addition, Chris Dodd has threatened filibuster. Yay, filibuster! The immediate effect of this is sort of intangible - the asshole will still be stalking the halls of the UN yelling and making the world hate us (even more). But the lack of, you know, any kind of official support for him should undermine his authority a nice amount. There are also rumors that he will be totally ousted, which would be a-freaking-mazing. TPM Cafe does a regular "Bolton Watch" here, in case you want to read more about the man with the 'stache.

So a big shoutout to Chafee. I have a soft spot for these old time moderate New England republicans. Chafee, Shays, Jeffords (yeah I know, but he was). It's one of the big shames of the current political environment that people like them are the big losers. The Northeast is going blue and they are getting shut out from both sides. I don't necessarily agree with them, and I am very aware that even the most yankee patrician independent GOPer will still vote with the republican caucus most of the time and therefore must be voted out, and that this is a battle for the future of the country and all, but it does make me sad that it is the moderates who seem like they have a little bit of soul that will lose out amid all the yelling.

The Mouse Next Time

Next up, the Path to 9/11 brouhaha. I don't know if you know about this, but ABC is planning to air a 5 (6? 7?) hour miniseries on September 10th and 11th called The Path to 9/11. The internets are in an uproar over this. I mean a fucking uproar. As I write this, six of the top 10 recommended diaries on kos are about ABC's "mockumentary." I've never seen anything get so much attention there. Not even Ned Lamont. Why? Well, probably because it's a pack of goddamned wingnut lies. There are about 1,000 things about it that are completely fabricated, but I'm too lazy today to spell them out. The beauty of this blog thing is that I'll just link to someone who has. Here's a preliminary post, but every damn blog on the 'nets has a hundred. You can also try here or here or here and you get the idea.

Besides the factual outrages, there are heaps of corollary outrages. For example:
- The whole thing was made by some guy that Rush Limbaugh calls a personal friend. (In fact the whole thing is a big blow job for wingnuts - check this out)
- Advance screening copies were provided to something like 900 conservative media and bloggers but no progressives. Including Bill Clinton. That's right - the Big Dog asked for a screening copy (since it apparently blames him for not killing bin Laden when he allegedly had the chance which is another whole fabrication that we won't get into right now) and they would not give it to him. I mean, dude! He's the Big Dog and you do not cross him.
Meow meow meow.

Scholastic books is doing an educational study guide to go along with it. After a huge amount of pressure, Scholastic has dropped a lot of the material and has decided instead that the curriculum will be about critical media skills, which I think is kind of awesome, but nonetheless will have kids watching what amounts to propaganda. As we all know, people remember the pretty lies you show them, not the boring truths you correct with later. Still, props to Scholastic for realizing it was in shit and doing something about it. Although the wild-eyed talk of boycotting the next Harry Potter was a little retarded, if you ask me.

Anyway, the upshot is that a lot of people are calling and writing ABC and Disney demanding that the show be yanked and you should too. If you think that's unrealistic, remember that the other side got that docudrama about Reagan pulled and put on cable because it dared suggest that the sainted Gipper's shit stank or something. So it does happen.

This is pretty important because it's an election season - a REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT election season, and this little flick sends home the message that you can't trust Democrats to protect you from terrorists. For six hours, without commercials, on prime time network TV. Voice your outrage.

The Plame Game

OK friends, we have a lot to cover.



Dick Armitage was the CIA leaker. He says he's sorry. Fucker.
You might think that this is the end of it all. I don't know. I need to do some reading and figuring out. If you can wait, emptywheel from firedoglake.com is writing what promises to be THE definitive book on the subject. They're gathering contributions so they can print it themselves -- help them out if you can.

First things first

Hi! I'm back!

There's a lot going on (including, like, all this work I'm supposed to be doing) but I just want to get this off my chest: Suri Cruise is totally asian. Now I myself am of the asian persuasion, so I feel that I am speaking with some authority on this. You do not get chinky eyes unless you are part asian. Seriously.
I'm not linking to any pictures because you can google them yourself: there will be 1000 more scans by the time I post this. But I do want you to note that it appears that no money from these pictures went to charity (unlike ohIdunnoShiloh?). So you know, Tom Cruise sucks, etc.

DC to Paris: piss off

Today I am a proud Democrat. Got a letter *from* Barack Obama talking about the DSCC and everything about BushCo with which he's fed up. The first thing on the list, and by far the most specific instance of anything in the whole letter, is

I've had enough of being told that we can find the money to give hotel heiress Paris Hilton more tax cuts, but we can't find enough to protect our ports or our railroads or our chemical plants or our borders.

Good work guys: frame the debate. Bring her name into as much as possible. It can't possibly hurt. Paris Hilton hates America.