Alternet has this post by Matthew Rothschild that I think is extremely important. He explains just what is going on between the White House and Amnesty International. But it’s not just Amnesty International: Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, the American Bar Association, and Human Rights First (formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) have joined in a call for a special prosecutor. But that decision is up to Gonzales and ultimately Bush. The article is very detailed on the charges that those groups are making against the administration. What they … Continue reading “Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity”

If you have a blog (and I know most of you do) go sign yourselves up in support of the Big Brass Alliance. A. Continue reading Impeachable Offenses

The wingnut meltdown over the filibuster compromise hasn’t ended, it’s just become more grammatically correct: Then there is John McCain, who is a party unto himself. Add to that John Warner, who decided to go against his party for what can only be called constitutional vanity. He sees himself as a lion of the Senate. He has been around so long that perhaps he feels ownership, if not authorship, of the Constitution itself, and he allowed himself to be convinced by Byrd, an even older lion, that together they were saving it. Had it remained at those five, the judicial … Continue reading Shorter Krauthammer: Republicans Who Disagree With Me, They Suck

And the children shall expose them: The premise was simple: McSwane would try to join the Army as a high school dropout with an insatiable fondness for marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms. No matter how stoned and stupid McSwane acted, a pair of recruiters wouldn’t wouldn’t let him go. McSwane insisted to the recruiters that he couldn’t lick his drug habit, but one recruiter told him to take some “stuff” that would “clean you out.” It turned out to be a detoxification kit the recruiter said had worked with other applicants. McSwane said the recruiter even offered to pay half the … Continue reading Note To Newspapers Everywhere: Hire This Kid

AP’s short list of potential Supreme Court justices being vetted. No mention of Abu Gonzales, not yet. But Ratzinger wasn’t on the early short list for his current job, either. A. Continue reading Ted Olson. Yeah, THAT Ted Olson.

Today’s Action comes from NOW: ************************************************************* The National Organization for Women proudly salutes the introduction of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005. Introduced in the House on Thursday, May 26, this is the first legislation to explicitly include transgender individuals in civil rights law. The bill is designed to help protect against bias crimes based on gender identity, sexual orientation, gender and disability and also adds gender and gender identity to the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. *** The chief sponsors of the House bill are Representatives John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Barney Frank, … Continue reading Action Alert – Hate Crimes Legislation

You know, my problem with Daniel Okrent was never that he was small-minded, petty, or wrong a lot. Though he was of course all those things. My problem with him is that he’s supposedly the watchdog for the most powerful newspaper in the country, and he seems to have spent most of the time holed up in his office with a magic mirror asking “Who’s the fairest of them all? You, that’s right, you sexy beast!” “I have a theory. Over the last few weeks, people were taking me out to lunch, being so gracious to me, I was beginning … Continue reading Okrent: Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

An installation I like to call The Progression of Presidential Constipation: What It Means To You: Stage one: Mild discomfort Stage two: Stoic Disregard of Extreme Pain Stage three: Walk Like An Egyptian A. who will fill you in in your daily delights as best she can in Holden’s absence Continue reading Tuesday Caption Contest: Your Preznit Goes To Arlington Edition

Steve: “I wouldn’t take Mark Foley all that seriously. He still denies having a boyfriend.” Hee. A. Continue reading Line of the Day

Jesus. A roadside bomb exploded in Kabul on Monday, wounding seven Afghans but missing its target — a vehicle carrying soldiers of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, police and officials said. In a separate incident, six civilians were killed and six wounded when their minibus hit a land mine on Sunday in the remote western province of Nimroz, which borders Iran and Pakistan. The Kabul bomb, fixed to a bicycle parked beside the main road going east from the city, exploded after the NATO vehicle had passed by but blasted a following taxi, wounding five people in the taxi and two … Continue reading All That Democracy Is Really Working Well

Perrspectives has provided an incredible resource for anyone who wants to support our troops. There is an entire page of links to organizations that will help you honor the fallen, help the wounded, make donations to the troops and their families, provide scholarships for the children of our military and just about anything else you can imagine. Continue reading Support our troops – links to organizations that do

Names. Places. Families, stories, from news reports, fathers and daughters and mothers and sisters and wives. Husbands. Read. The A’s alone take up six screens. There is a cure for love. It is absence. There is a cure for grief. (It is absence.) I cannot say you died, and I don’t want to live today. I fed my child. I learned to drive a car. I went to work. The baby is in bed. This is a formula I used before. (I ate a veal chop.) Word, word, word: the cure for hard nights. Somebody was always dead, but not, … Continue reading Memoriam

Try the Vatican. Free beer for everybody with the purchase of one rosary. You know, I really like Harp, if any of you want to send 185 gallons of that to my house just because you love me. Via The Pope’s Blog. A. Continue reading Looking for a place to party this fine Memorial Day?

I found a wonderful post up at Riverbend’s blog, Baghdad Burning: Someone (thank you N.C.) emailed me Thomas L. Friedman’s article in the New York Times 10 days ago about Quran desecration titled “Outrage and Silence”. In the article he talks about how people in the Muslim world went out and demonstrated against Quran desecration but are silent about the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis in the last few weeks due to bombings and suicide attacks. In one paragraph he says, “Yet these mass murders – this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims – have not prompted … Continue reading “Now, it is always amusing to see a Jewish American journalist speak in the nam

Now that I’m done catching my breath after laughing so hard I fell off my chair reading the entry on “O” magazine, I have to ask: Where has this blog been all my life? Section Three we didn’t do because the kids were around and all the simpering I was doing had the odd effect of making me not want to be a pricktease for half an hour before letting him fuck me, as per W. Cameron Bruce’s instructions. However, if you choose to go this route, it is important to be totally submissive in bed. W. Cameron Bruce is … Continue reading More Like Dozens Of Good Things

It has been a peculiarly fitting start to the Memorial Day weekend for me. A relative died last week, and it turns out I am his closest living relative. Even though my cousin is the deceased’s heir, and even has a Durable Power of Attorney, the mortuary insisted that I fax an affidavit authorizing them to cremate the remains and release them to her. While I was working on that situation, I got a telephone call from a woman I haven’t talked to in a very long time. A very very long time. We talked a lot about our parents’ … Continue reading Memento Mori

from Smirkingchimp, we find that McCain is the target of much anger from the religious right: Christian fundies vow revenge on Democrats and McCain for judicial compromise By Kevin Eckstrom & Adelle M. Banks, The Ledger WASHINGTON — Richard Land, James Dobson and Paul Weyrich are angry — angry at “activist” judges who they say are legislating from the bench, angry at Democrats who try to derail judicial nominations and angry at Republicans who are allowing the filibuster to survive. But these leaders of the Christian right reserve a special anger for Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who helped … Continue reading The SpongeDob Republicans and John McCain

One. The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk has dropped a popular syndicated car column that was the subject of complaints by local auto dealers. It’s “Click and Clack Talk Cars” by Tom and Ray Magliozzi, who appear in more than 300 newspapers via King Features Syndicate. After E&P was tipped off to the cancellation, a reporter called Alecia Swasy, a deputy managing editor at The Virginian-Pilot. She said “the newsroom wasn’t consulted” about the dropping of “Click and Clack,” and referred E&P Online to Dee Carpenter, the paper’s president and publisher. Carpenter confirmed the cancellation, and said several local auto dealers — … Continue reading Two more reasons bloggers need ethics guidelines NOW

John Cole. Downloading pirated software and movies is a crime, but it is not terrorism, and only the broadest and most misguided and deranged reading of their mission statement would lead someone to conclude that downloading pirated movies would be a concern of theirs. Sadly, deranged and misguided is what I have come to expect. You want to protect commerce- how about working on the shipping containers issues. So, remember. Don’t download movies, or the terrorists win. Un-friggin-believable. Or is it? And before you ask, yes, I am shrill. Just seeing the Department of Homeland Security even MENTIONED in that … Continue reading Conservatives I Could Have Drinks With

Here’s what the problem is with newspapers establishing blogs. They suck. Whining about traffic in the city? Check. Posting pictures of yourself as an urban poseur in Bono sunglasses? Check. Talking about “Friends,” reality TV, celebrity dating and other critically under-covered facets of American culture? Check. And yawn. Living in Chicago, there’s a lot of Chicago blogs I read. Gaper’s Block. Archpundit for local politics. The Redhead Papers. Truth Girl. And the Chicago Tribune has a couple that don’t completely make a funnel noise. I love Charlie Madigan, and Eric Zorn is much funnier and less willing to take crap … Continue reading Worst. Blog. Ever.

Oh, yeah. A. Continue reading Happy Democrat Photo: Conyers Edition II

From Holden: I’m taking a short vacation next week, and since I don’t normally blog on weekends you won’t see me here again until Monday, June 6 (although I might pop in and out on Memorial Day). I’m sure my blogmates will cherish the breathing room. See ya’ later. Continue reading Holden on Hiatus

From Holden: Does anyone watch PAX-TV? Apparently they have a reality show called “Lie Detector”. Check out their description for an upcoming show. Tuesday, May 31st, 8/7c Known for lobbing softball questions at current President George W. Bush, elite press core official “Jeff Gannon” came under scrutiny by democrats and fellow press core members, who discovered his real name is James Dale Guckert with a checkered past and possible agenda. Was “Jeff Ganon” fed questions by the Bush administration to use as talking points at White House briefings or just a man trying to overcome his past and pursue a … Continue reading 14 Minutes, 57 Seconds and Counting

From Holden: Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) offerred the following amendment to the House defense appropriation (H.AMDT.214 as an amendment to H.R.1815). “It is the sense of Congress that the president should— (1) develop a plan as soon as practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act to provide for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq; and (2) transmit to the congressional defense committees a report that contains the plan described in paragraph (1).” Pretty moderate, huh? No demand for an instant pullout, no call for a timetable even. Just a polite request for the president … Continue reading A Failure of Leadership

From Holden:

Now that Newsweek’s Koran abuse story has been corroborated by the Red Cross, the FBI, and the Pentagon Muslims all over the world are taking to the streets.

Madras (India)

REUTERS/Babu

Click the “Read More” button below for images from Pakistan, Israel, Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Bangladesh.

Continue reading “Now We’ve Done Gone And Pissed Off The Whole World”

From Holden: How did I miss this story from the April 16, 2005, Boston Globe about Condi Rice’s speech at a luncheon for the American Society of Newspaper Editors? But perhaps the most surprising news came from the editor who introduced Rice, saying the secretary of state once held the title of ”Disco Queen of South Bend, Indiana.” ”You’ve got quite a research department,” Rice responded in the opening sentences of her address. ”I want to assure everybody, it’s actually not that hard to be the disco queen of South Bend, Indiana,” Rice said. ”There’s not that much competition in … Continue reading Get Down With Your Bad Self

From Holden: Looks like the Assminstration’s losing streak will continue for a while. A federal judge in Oregon ruled Thursday that the Bush administration had arbitrarily limited and skewed its analysis of the harm that 14 federal dams cause to endangered Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead. As a result, Judge James A. Redden of Federal District Court ruled, the administration had shirked its duty to ensure that government actions were not likely to jeopardize the survival of the species. The ruling came in a challenge by environmentalists, fishing groups and Indian tribes to the administration’s determination that the … Continue reading Judge Cites Lies in Deciding Against Bush Assministration

From Holden: Scientists have recently discoverd the factors that contribute to the development of trolls. Baby boys are far more likely to have smaller, less developed genitals if their mothers had high levels of chemicals commonly found in cosmetics, detergents, medicines and plastics, a study released today said. Continue reading Scientific Breakthrough

From Holden: If the new bankruptcy law applied to the morals of the Bush assministration those assholes would never be able to get out of debt. As the United States is trying to secure new allies in its fight against terrorism, the study by the World Policy Institute – a research group based at the New School University – says that the nation has expanded the sales of weapons to countries that were once prohibited from receiving American-made goods because of their poor human rights records. Among the countries are Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as Algeria and Uzbekistan. Some … Continue reading Spreading Democracy By Arming The World’s Dictators

From Holden: The Pakistanis send us yet another entry for the International George W. Bush Effigy Burning Contest. REUTERS/Zahid Hussein Continue reading Enough Already, You Won