What is Tom DeLay doing now?

He's posing with Elvis at a nursing home -- err, campaigning in his district.

Go read this absolutely hilarious post at In the Pink Texas.





Their snark, and that of their commenters, is the best ever of late.

Update (8/28) : Charles Kuffner has a more polite take.

Last night's Daily Show interview

with Christopher Hitchens is now available for your viewing at Crooks and Liars.

You've heard it about it, you've read about it, now you can see it for yourself.

Prairie Weather links to the Texas Observer's in-depth expose' of the tangled web of connections binding the GOP together -- that's a must-click, by the way -- and adds this:

This is a big article about a big mess and these are only the opening paragraphs.

Bottom line: a real investigation, which McCain and the Indian Affairs Committee is supposed to hold, would pull down too many "key" figures in the Republican Party and (worse?) cut off big funding sources.

Now are we motivated to change the color of the Senate and House in 2006?

Well, if we are, we shouldn't count on any help from the SCLM; Editor and Publisher points to the Los Angeles Times piece that shows how the editors of TIME magazine sat on the Plame-Rove-Matthew Cooper disclosures because they did not want to influence the 2004 election:

The article details conversations involving Karl Rove, "Scooter" Libby, Matt Cooper and Robert Novak. But near its conclusion it raises an emerging issue, promoted by Michael Wolff of Vanity Fair, among others: If Time magazine had gone public about Rove's conversations with Cooper, it might have had some impact on the Bush - Kerry race for the White House last year.

Not until this summer did Cooper ask Rove for a waiver to talk to the grand jury, and ultimately the public, about their conversation. The L.A. Times article today notes that he did not do this before “because his lawyer advised against it.” But the reporters add that in addition, “Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.”

The story concludes: "The result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection."

That worked out well for everyone, didn't it?

Billmon is yelling

...is anybody listening?

Some stories are so obvious that I fool myself into thinking the facts will speak for themselves. I forget that we don't live in that kind of world any more (if we ever did) and that amensia is no longer just a chronic condition for the corporate media but also a willful one.

So, to drive the point of my last post home a little harder, let me summarize:

The White House propaganda maestros used an Iraqi women's rights activist as a living prop at Shrub's state of the union address earlier this year, whipping wingnut war hawks and media dingdongs alike into a frenzy of teary-eyed patriotism. They also arranged for her to stand immediately in front of the mother of a Marine killed in action in Iraq -- setting the scene for a "spontaneous" hug that reduced a national television audience to quivering lumps of sentimental jello and left Joe Klein spitting phlegm-coated bile at the Democratic Party.

Now, that very same activist is telling the world the Americans just sold her, and her Iraqi sisters, down the river to a bunch of medieval mullahs with Made-in-Tehran labels on the insides of their turbans.

Will her betrayal simply be pushed down the media memory hole with yesterday's garbage? Are we really that far gone?

Camp Casey Day 6

brainshrub has another report:

As usual, I am writing from the back of the tent at "Camp Casey II" on a borrowed laptop via wi-fi connection. I don't know if I'll ever want to blog indoors again. Something about being outside while surfing the internet makes blogging seem like a miracle.

I have just been handed a half-melted ice cream sandwich; I'm typing with one hand and munching cold vanilla bliss with the other. Ice cream at the end of a hot, Texas day is the most glorious food in the world.

###

People who have been here awhile will mark the number of days they have been here on their nametags. It's the closest thing to rank that anyone has around here.

Ann Wright, the closest thing to a "leader" here, can be seen walking around with her head still wet from a shower, helping to do dishes and giving administrative advice to the Peace House.

###

I've sweat so hard today that there are wide salt-marks on my shirt. Most of the day has been spent the day running around as an assistant to Rebecca Mac Neice.

Rebecca is a joy to work with. She is the only professional videographer here who has camped out full-time and developed a good relationship with both sides of the Iraqi War. The raw footage is so damn good, I'll be amazed if she doesn't win awards for it.

###

I'm a bit surprised about how few liberal media organizations are represented here. Considering how much they are praising the activities of Cindy Sheehan, you'd think they'd bankroll a few reporters to write from here. DemocracyNow left days ago, AAR is nowhere to be seen and the only person still broadcasting live with any regularity is Brad's radio show.

My regular site has gotten so many hits, that people are staring to sent me emails thanking me for blogging and helping give the Peace Movement a vehicle. IMHO bloggers are getting too much credit for covering the event. The only hard-core bloggers I've meet here so far are myself, TruthOut and BradBlog. There are rumors that Markos Moulitsas from the Daily Kos is here, but I haven't seen him.

The real force behind the media coverage are the common citizens here who are writing letters, urging friends to contact their congresspeople, and taking telephone calls from media organizations too lazy to send a reporter to do it in person.

Case in point: The only major publication I've meet in the six days I've been here is Eric Pfeiffer, a columnist for the National Review. Let me repeat what I just wrote just in case you think I'm kidding: A columnist for The National Review.

What this means is that resistance to the Iraq war is not being driven by progressive media or by bloggers. It's organic and much more mainstream than anyone cares to admit.

There is no attempt to coordinate the message by IVAW, Gold Star Mothers for Peace, MoveOn, Not In Our Name or Code Pink. It's all being done organically by common citizens. Bloggers and indie-media bloggers are spreading the information fast, but we aren't driving it.

More, including comments, here.

I'll be heading that way to spend a day this weekend.

Two of ours come out swinging

As the situation in Iraq deteriorates almost as quickly as the price of gas rises and the President's poll numbers fall, two of the Texas Democratic candidates yesterday broadsided their GOP incumbent opponents for their respective failings.

David Van Os writes under the headline "Yearning to Breathe Free"(emphasis mine):

An August 22 story in the Austin American-Statesman describes the plight of immigrant workers who perform some of the most laborious jobs in our economy yet have difficulty obtaining the pay they have earned for their work. (“The power of shame pays off; public vigil helps migrants claim money owed to them,” Austin American-Statesman, Asher Price, 8-22-05; link above req. reg.)

Under state law the Texas Attorney General has the power to come down hard against unscrupulous employers who exploit low-wage immigrant workers by refusing to pay such workers for work they have performed. Suits by the Attorney General to obtain injunctions and to assess the stiff monetary penalties provided by Texas payday laws would quickly get the attention of employers who unlawfully refuse to pay their workers and would deter other employers from similar conduct.

The immortal words on our Statue of Liberty proclaim, “Give me your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” We are mostly a nation of immigrants who came and whose ancestors came to this land fleeing injustice and seeking the breath of liberty. The exceptions, such as those who are descended from victims of the African slave trade and those whose ancestors were incorporated into the nation under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nevertheless often take lead positions in our nation’s pursuit of freedom and justice for all. No human being can “breathe free” if unable to purchase the necessities of life as a result of laboring without just compensation. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is uncompromising in its permanent prohibition of involuntary servitude as a fundamental value of the American social covenant.

The Texas Legislature meant what it said when it enacted laws against non-payment of wages with stern penalties assessable through suit by the Attorney General. While the current Republican Attorney General politically grandstands over a Ten Commandments monument on the State Capitol Grounds, he ignores the biblical injunction that "You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers.” The Republican Attorney General should move quickly on this issue, but he will not do so because it would interfere with the immigrant-bashing philosophy of his radical political base. It is a terrible shame that enforcement of the laws of Texas on behalf of the working poor will have to wait until I am sworn in as Attorney General in January 2007; but when that time comes, enforcement will arrive swiftly and aggressively on behalf of not only immigrants but all Texas workers, regardless of background or status, who are victimized by such unjust and unscrupulous labor practices.

And then Barbara Radnofsky smacks down KBH with this:

Recent news reports showed that Senator Hutchison has abandoned the issues on which she based her announcement to seek re-election, choosing to focus on three issues our campaign identified: veterans? affairs, education, and health care. She has crawfished on a variety of issues our campaign raised.

* She has flip-flopped on veterans affairs after a series of speeches and press releases from our campaign, and has finally called for a VA Hospital south of San Antonio, after months of my campaigning for such a facility.

* She has flip-flopped after her abandonment of her Constitutional obligation of Advise and Consent, and is now calling for Senate vetting of Supreme Court appointees, after her prompt rubberstamping of the President's nomination and her immediate call on her colleagues to ensure the nomination.

* She wrongly claims to be supportive of health care when in fact she voted against the bipartisan Bingaman-Smith amendment that restored Medicaid funding cut from Texas. After the last eleven years of rubberstamping and failed leadership, Texas now leads the nation in percentage of uninsured children and adults. She now parrots our campaigns call for insurance reform. We call on her to echo our call for prompt pay and preventive care.

* She wrongly claims to support education, while on her watch Texas has achieved the lowest high school graduation rate in the U.S. We call on her to echo our recommendations for mediation and full funding for grants for higher education.

* She has proudly touted her role in passage of the transportation bill. We call on her to concede that the transportation formulas in the bill that she rubberstamped have harmed Texans, sending our hard-earned Texas dollars out of state so that we can build needless construction projects in Alaska.

It sure will be nice to have real leaders in Austin and Washington for a change, won't it?

We ALL need two

Conservatives going buckwild

Pat Robertson thinks it's time for the United States to assassinate the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

He went on at length about it:

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Keith Olbermann caught Rush Limbaugh denying and trying to cover up only his most recent smearjob -- the one he performed last week on Cindy Sheehan. It would be funny if it weren't so wretched:

On his daily radio soap opera, on August 15, Limbaugh said “Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real…” The complete transcript of the 860 words that surround those quotes can be found at the bottom of this entry.

Yet, apparently there was something so unpopular, so subversive, and so crazy about those remarks that he has found it necessary to deny he said them - even when there are recordings and transcripts of them - and to brand those who’ve claimed he said them as crackpots and distorters. More over, that amazing temple to himself, his website, has been scrubbed clean of all evidence of these particular remarks, and to ‘prove’ his claim that he never made the remarks in question on August 15, he has misdirected visitors to that site to transcripts and recordings of remarks he made on August 12.

Limbaugh is terrified. And he has reason to be.

And even our local right-wing freaks are jumping on the crazy train. From Tom DeLay's suburban outpost in Sugar Land, here's Safety for Dummies (hat tip to BOR):

The Governor (of Texas, Rick Perry) will be in Houston on Monday (August 22) at 2:30 for a Press Conference on Education Issues. We need to build a good crowd for the event. Please join us and invite 5-10 people to come along.

Let’s try not to blast this around but attempt to build a friendly crowd. We want to avoid Strayhorn people.

As Marcus noted:

On an issue as big as education, I would have hoped the governor would have asked his friends to bring more than 5 to 10 people to hear what he has to say. Safety for Dummies stresses the point that the email says they "need" a friendly crowd. It is a good thing then that they are avoiding the "Strayhorn people". I hear them people hate education... or, wait, is it the fact that they hate the way Perry has failed the state's education system?

I may just make "Conservatives Gone Wild" a regular feature of this online magazine.

Three views of Camp Casey

One from the damned liberal media:

However, Cindy Sheehan's gone but the camp up here is even bigger. More and more people are coming from around the country. They now have this enormous setup, Camp Casey. Used to be a couple pup tents, now it's this enormous--we call it the Cirque du Soleil tent with eight spikes, catered meals, a Cindy shuttle, a peace shuttle that takes people up and down the mountain. Right now it's PETA, hippies, Naderites. The question is, if it becomes the Little League dads, Pop Warner moms, then the White House has a big problem.

-- Mike Allen, on Face the Nation yesterday

There were several shuttles carrying people between the camps and the house. The line moved quickly, and people were practically competing for the chance to give up their seats for anyone they thought might need it more. We boarded a van and headed out. A hundred or so bikers were parked at some businesses, and we were told they were there in "support of the troops," though from another viewpoint from ours. The van proceeded to Camp Casey 1, the original. Thinking that it was moving day anyway, we stayed on board and went on to Camp Casey 2. I caught a glimpse of Dylan Garcia, in a floppy hat and glasses as the van rolled by. Cars were parked along the street as far as we could see. Cindy's original tent was there, and probably 50 more along the roadside. The crosses that had been run down lined the road perpendicular to the rest of the camp, starting at Cindy's tent. Driving past those crosses for the first time is a moment I'll always remember. About 6 or 8 counter protesters sat across the triangle.

-- Lisa, my friend who was there this past weekend (dial-up warning: pic-heavy)

We were there about 20 minutes when Stan Merriman (Chair Emeritus of the PPC) and Jim Rine (San Jacinto Democratic Veterans Brigade) and Charisse Hines appeared. They brought the flags of the Texas fallen that were originally assembled for Memorial Day by Jim's group, along with the flags representing the unit that lost their lives with Casey Sheehan. After a while, the folks that set up Arlington West brought 800 of the crosses for Camp 2. Several Houstonians pitched in to set up the flags around the new Arlington West. In no time, the crosses and flags were positioned into an amazing memorial. We were almost finished placing the flags when there was a flutter of excitement. There was Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistle blower who is running for Representative from Minnesota and Becky Lourey, a Minnesota state senator who lost her own son in Iraq filming a documentary.

-- My friend Lyn, who was also at Camp Casey this past weekend (pic-heavy)

Sounds like Bush is in trouble, Mr. Allen.

A foamy-mouthed rant

from the editor of this cycling enthusiasts' magazine:

A few irate letter-writers have suggested that we keep politics out of cycling here at VeloNews.com, and we can see their points, once they've removed their Bush-Cheney 2004 caps. After all, the liars, cheaters and dopers infesting politics might teach cycling's liars, cheaters and dopers a few new tricks, and God knows it's already tough enough to tell who's on the up and up these days, no matter how much blood gets drawn or spilled.

Still, if the daily papers are going to cover the Recreationist-in-Chief's mountain-bike rides as though they were actually news, it's only right that cycling publications occasionally take note of his political shenanigans. Fair is fair.

And besides, if you snip the politics out of the much-ballyhooed weekend mountain-bike outing involving Bush and Lance Armstrong, you have no story at all, beyond two public figures scratching each others' backs, which is only notable if both are naked except for a little chocolate sauce.

Armstrong may be retired from racing, but he's still on the clock as an anti-cancer spokesman, and it's important to have the ear of the president on such matters, assuming he can keep it out of the dirt long enough to hear what Lance has to say on the topic.

Dubya is not retired, though he often acts like it. Especially this weekend, when he will spend a little time on our dime basking in the reflected glow of a Texan who is still popular with many Americans who are still alive. You can't buy publicity like that, though the White House has certainly tried. Hell, if I were Dubya, I would captain for stoker Barney Frank on a pink tandem, during a Gay Pride Ride, in prime time during sweeps week, if I thought it would draw the nation's eyeballs away from my misadventure in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan's slightly less stylish sojourn in the buzzworm-infested ditches outside my Crawford getaway.

So let's not kid ourselves here. This isn't about one good-ol' boy inviting another to drop by the ranch for a friendly ride. This isn't a case of two guys who may disagree on political issues burying their differences in the name of velo-sport. This is a photo op', what we in the news business call "a grip-and-grin," and it has as much to do with bicycling as the war in Iraq does with bringing an end to global terrorism. Armstrong is using Dubya for his cancer crusade, and Dubya is using Lance to make himself look like less of a heartless prick. End of story.

There's more after "end of story" and it's a spicy as a habanero ...

Rumsfeld's Ray Gun

A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you.

A tough-talking Texan named Edward Hammond has to be a key element of any accurate study of the spooky history of what the military calls the "Active Denial System."

The head of The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group opposing biological weapons, Hammond shows his disdain for military excesses through swear words and federal disclosure suits that seek to lift a window on military science projects. Two times now, he says, Marine Corp staff handling his Freedom of Information Act claims have mailed him the wrong envelope, mistakenly sending him materials meant for another military office, envelopes that contained classified information.

One of those times, he says, was in May when he received 112 pages of files on the Active Denial System, or ADS, a crowd control weapon built by Raytheon Corporation and slated for military deployment in Iraq in 2006. The documents included descriptions of tests conducted on volunteer subjects at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. Hammond, who had requested the documents, noticed something odd. "I saw some of the documents that were marked classified should have been redacted," he said in a telephone interview.

The Active Denial System is a Pentagon-funded, $51 million crowd control device that rides atop a Humvee, looks like a TV dish, and shoots energy waves 1/64 of an inch deep into human skin. It dispenses brief but intolerable bursts of pain, sending bad guys fleeing but supposedly leaving no lasting damage. (During a Pentagon press briefing in 2001, this reporter felt a zap from an ADS prototype on his fingertip and can attest to the brief but fleeting sensation that a hot light bulb was pressing against the skin). ADS works outside the range of small arms fire.

After a decade-long development cycle, the ADS is field ready but not free of controversy. Military leaders, as noted in a recent USA Today article, say it will save lives by helping U.S. troops avoid bombs and bullets in urban zones where insurgents mix with civilians. Temporary pain beats bullets and bombs, but Edward Hammond's files have rekindled scientific questions about how the classified system works, what it does to the body and how it will be used in the streets of Basra or Baghdad or, one day, Boston.

As key scientific questions go unanswered, a version of the Active Denial System is being developed by the Justice Department for use by U.S. police departments. The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, has issued a half-million dollar grant to Raytheon Corporation for a "Solid-State Active Denial System Demonstration Program," according to the NIJ website. Alan Fischer, a Raytheon spokesperson, said the company is "working on a number of active denial projects, with various ranges. ADS may some day be miniaturized down to a hand-held device that could be carried in a purse or pocket and used for personal protection instead of something like Mace. The potential for this technology is huge."

The DOJ isn't the only one excited. The Department of Energy is experimenting with ADS as a security device that would "deny access" to nuclear facilities.

For most Americans, zapping Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad with a potentially unsafe weapon is one thing; cooking political protestors in Boston or Biloxi will surely be another. Against this backdrop, observers say, Hammond's files become particularly important. "Right now the press really isn't on this," says Hammond. "But that will change when the first videos are released showing this thing being used on people."

More here.

MsQotW and more

When I was in Ohio last week, I met up with a handful of evilDUers, and we talked about Paul Hackett and "Mean Jean" Schmidt and Coingate and their (now-indicted) governor's 13% approval rating and a few other things.

But the most interesting thing -- really! Out of all of that Midwestern Republican madness! -- was the rumor (already vehemently denied) that Congresswoman-elect Schmidt's first order of business was going to be the Blogger's Reform Act of 2006, which would hold blog publishers criminally liable for the truth and accuracy of that which they post.

I can't wait to see the denizens of FreeRepublic.com's reaction to this news.

Americans are Dumb ( I have to check it every day since I found it):

1. Rush Limbaugh says that humans can't be responsible for holes in the ozone layer (from Media Matters)


2. They seem afraid to create the .xxx suffix lest someone put porn on the internet (from Wired)


3. Some SUV drivers think they can clear their conscience for $274 (from Slate)

And the Moneyshot Quote of the Week comes from another local right-wing hyena:

"I love these (gasoline) prices. The higher, the better," said Frank Gafke, of Galveston, a senior service leader for Halliburton on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Gafke said Halliburton's profits - and his savings account - had increased markedly since fuel prices began rising. He predicted that prices soon will reach $3 per gallon for automobile drivers, as well as for recreational boaters.

And, he said, relief at the pump probably won't come anytime soon.

Well, who ought to know better than Frank?

A lot for me to catch up on

I'm going to be keeping my P, for starters.

Some goon ran over the wooden crosses alongside the road in Crawford. He was arrested when they found one of them stuck in his truck tire.

A cousin of the Keystone beer fan who was "getting ready for dove season" earlier in the week offered an acre of his ranch to relocate Camp Casey. So it will be moved out of the ditches beside the road to a spot closer to Bush's dirt farm. Now that's poetic justice.

Chris Bell's launch was widely covered by various blogging compadres while I was gone.

When I was in Austin last week about this time, I asked someone who would know about Walter Umphrey's contribution to Carole Keeton StrayWhore'n, and he said that it was payback to Rick Perry for the legislation limiting lawyer's fees in tort litigation (presumably tobacco and asbestos and implant surgery, since that's where Walt made his millions) .

I think that's pretty funny.

I'm really the last to know: the Democrats now have two candidates for Lieutenant Governor.