Sunday Funnies

By a nose, at the wire

Calvin Borel, riding Street Sense (right) looks at Robby Albarado, aboard Curlin, as the two horses cross the finish line at the Preakness Stakes today. Curlin caught the Kentucky Derby winner at the wire to win.

In the end it was just two riders from Cajun country barreling down the stretch. Stride after stride, from the sixteenth pole, the two horses traded the lead, and when they hit the line together, Curlin bobbed his head in front when it counted most.

The day couldn't have been any more dramatic for Albarado, 33, of Lafayette, La., who won the first Triple Crown race of his career.

Two races before the Preakness, he fell off his mount, Einstein, in the Dixie turf stakes after stumbling over a fallen horse in front of him. The fallen horse, Mending Fences, suffered a broken ankle and was euthanized on the track.

Albarado walked away uninjured from the accident, but when the gate opened for the Preakness, he almost had another mishap.

Curlin stumbled briefly before Albarado righted him and worked hard to get involved in the race. Asked if his heart sank when he saw Curlin's front knees buckle at the start, winning trainer Steve Asmussen said, "Probably a little bit more than a little." ...

Borel, who grew up in St. Martin Parish, La., turned to Albarado just as they crossed the finish line and told his rival, "You got me," Albarado said.

"I had no idea where [Street Sense] was, but I thought he'd be coming," Albarado said. "Street Sense flew right on by me, but I got [Curlin] off his left lead and went and got him."

"I thought it was all over when I got by Hard Spun turning for home," Borel said. "I thought he was just going to gallop, but things happen. He just got to gawking 40 yards from home and he just got outrun."

Moore v. Thompson (and TIME vs. the Right)

TIME is really pissing off the Right lately (or at least this little guy, anyway).

A lengthy interview with Al Gore and an excerpt from his new book, and now this Q&A with Michael Moore about his new film SiCKO, on the health care and pharmaceutical ripoff industries:

TIME: With Sicko, do you think you picked an easy target? After all, you can’t find a whole lot of people who are happy with their HMO.

Michael Moore: This film does cut across party lines. Everybody gets sick; everybody has had a problem with insurance or the prescription drugs they’re supposed to be taking or an elderly parent who needs care. On the surface, it does seem that the only people who are going to be upset are the executives of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

TIME: So if there’s no argument that the system is broken, why use your energies to start one?

Michael Moore: Because what’s even more broken is the fact that our Congress and White House are bought and paid for by these two industries, which rival the oil industry in terms of money and influence. They have a vested interest in maintaining their control. But they’re not dumb. They know which way the wind is blowing and that this is the No. 1 domestic issue with Americans. Their job now is to try to control it so that universal health care is run through them, so that they can still skim the money, make the obscene profits and keep their investors happy.

TIME: Of the declared presidential candidates, down to the Dennis Kucinich level, say, who do you think has the best health-care plan? Including Kucinich? We could include him.

Michael Moore: Then Kucinich, but he doesn’t go far enough. He supports what he’s calling a single- payer nonprofit plan, but from my read, it would still allow [private] entities to control things, as opposed to the government. What’s wrong with the government? The right wing and the G.O.P. have done a wonderful job brainwashing people that government doesn’t work, and then, as Al Franken says, they get elected and proceed to prove the point. [Laughs.]

TIME: So you think Washington could handle a program this big?

Michael Moore: Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork. And it comes through the so-called dilapidated U.S. mail. My dad’s check literally will come on the same day every month. The government has been quite good and efficient at creating a number of systems. If I tell people the administrative costs for a private health plan —advertising, p.r., executive pay —are 20% and ask them what Medicare’s administrative costs are, they’ll guess 50%, 60%. The fact is, for Medicare/ Medicaid, it’s 3%. The last figure I read for Canada’s [government] system is 1.7%.

TIME: Your movie paints an almost utopian picture of the Canadian system. You do show some American critics arguing that there can be long waits for treatments north of the border, and you refute them simply by interviewing a handful of happy, satisfied Canadians. Pretty unscientific, no?

Michael Moore: Canadians as a whole are pretty happy with their system. Yes, it’s a flawed system, and the main flaw is that it’s underfunded. The [in-depth] answers exist in articles and essays, and I’ll have them up on my website.

TIME: You also speak rhapsodically about the French and Cuban systems and travel to Cuba, where you interview Che Guevara’s daughter. France, Cuba, Che. Are you going out of your way to annoy the right?

Michael Moore: I give people more credit than the media and the political machine running this country do. The story line is: France, bad; France, cowards. What crime did France commit? We wouldn’t have had this country without their support in the Revolution. They gave us that statue that sits out in New York Harbor. They responded immediately after 9/11. And they remain eternally grateful for what we did during World War II.

As for Cuba, yes, when I’ve got a film crew there, they’re going to show us their best. But there’s a reason the World Health Organization ranks their health-care system [among] the best in the Third World and that people from Latin America come there for their health care. There’s also a reason Cubans live on average a month longer than we do. I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans, “C’mon, we’re the United States! If they can do this, we can do it.”

TIME: What was the hardest thing about making this movie?

Michael Moore: Getting insurance. How do you convince an insurance company to insure a film about insurance? I finally found this guy who’s got a little company out in Kansas City. I think he’s the only Democrat who owns an insurance company.

TIME: Do you think people will accuse the movie of inaccuracy?

Michael Moore: I offered $10,000 to anybody who could find a single fact in Fahrenheit 9/11 that was wrong.

TIME: Have you had to pay anything?

Michael Moore: No, of course not. Every fact in my films is true. And yet how often do I have to read over and over again about supposed falsehoods? The opinions in the film are mine. They may not be true, but I think they are.

After Moore challenged GOP presidential wannabe Fred "Law and Order" Thompson to a debate, Thompson responded with a YouTube video that had the conservative blogosphere in an orgasmic frenzy.

Moore's response was a straight one-liner: "Why would a potential presidential candidate provide photographic evidence of himself committing a felony?"

That's a law-and-order Republican for you.

McCain still won't get my vote

... even though he apparently speaks for me:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn't spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.

During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

"[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn't be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.

Me to you too, Senator Box Turtle. With all the love in the world.

Ashcroft as Brando, Bush as Sollozzo

The story James Comey recounted is scary enough as it is, but this, via Prairie Weather, is just too much:

So the next evening, the White House -- probably the President himself, by Comey's account -- calls Mrs. Ashcroft, and implores her to allow Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to come to GW Hospital to persuade John Ashcroft, in his weakened and drug-induced post-operative state, to sign off on the program, i.e., to overrule Comey even though Comey is the Acting AG. Comey gets wind of the impending meeting at the hospital, and he rushes to a waiting vehicle to get to the hospital -- using emergency equipment! -- before the White House Chief of Staff and Counsel get there. Comey (literally) runs up the hospital stairs to Ashcroft's room. While Comey is waiting for the two high-ranking White House officials to arrive, he calls the Director of the FBI for support, and then the FBI Director speaks to the AG's security detail and -- this is the best part -- "instructed the FBI agents present not to allow me [Comey] to be removed from the room under any circumstances"!

Yes, if you think this sounds familiar, it is -- it eerily resembles the scene in which Michael Corleone "protects" his father at the hospital in The Godfather. With Jack Goldsmith as Enzo the Baker, and Alberto Gonzales as McCluskey the crooked cop. The President, of course, is Sollozzo. Comey would be Michael, except that he's a good 14 inches taller than Al Pacino . . . . Oh, and then there's the bit about how Comey refuses to meet with Andy Card -- the President's Chief of Staff! -- at the White House without an unbiased third party witness (SG Ted Olson -- aka Tom Hagen/Robert Duvall).

And this is how the law is settled these days in the executive branch of the greatest democracy in the world.

P.S. It's probably safe to say this is the first time in history that anyone has ever drawn a parallel between John Ashcroft and Marlon Brando.

Is it too much to hope that McCluskey and Sollozzo get whacked in an Italian restaurant again?

Texas Lege shenanigans continue

The House may throw out the Speaker -- or not, and the Senate will probably kill democracy at the ballot box, before the 80th ends but almost certainly in a special to be named later.

Craddick's woes:

Burka, Kuffner, Leibowitz, Eye on Williamson. And The Observer.

Dewhurst's folly:

BOR, NTL, STC, and TK.

And many others. The MSM blogs -- Postcards and TP -- have been good on the topics as well.

I am never embarrassed to be a Texan, except when the Legislature is in session.

Hillary outpolls "Other" but trails "No Freakin' Clue"

Who is currently your favorite 2008 candidate?

	No Freakin' Clue
7%	1247 votes
	Other
6%	1035 votes
	Hillary Clinton
6%	1051 votes
	Barack Obama
24%	4223 votes
	John Edwards
39%	6878 votes
	Bill Richardson
8%	1484 votes
	Dennis Kucinich
2%	510 votes
	Joe Biden
0%	134 votes
	Chris Dodd
0%	135 votes
	Mike Gravel
3%	531 votes

Similar results at MyDD, though Richardson and Obama trade places for second and third.

John Edwards	1,992	(48.4%)
Bill Richardson	1,086	(26.4%)
Barack Obama	686	(16.7%)
Other	105	(2.6%)
Hillary Clinton	92	(2.2%)
Mike Gravel	48	(1.2%)
Chris Dodd	37	(0.9%)
Unsure	28	(0.7%)
Dennis Kucinich	23	(0.6%)
Joe Biden	17	(0.4%)

In all of the terrestrial polling -- which matters more than the results shown above -- Hillary is the leader, and is strengthening her lead. Sheila J-L just announced her endorsement, which I consider significant (in that she called it so early and not for Obama).

So while the Repubs continue to flail and flog each other, the offline Democrats appear to be coalescing around their front-runner.

This is a depressing and disconcerting prospect.

I will find it difficult to impossible to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton for president, as much as I respect and admire her (and believe she would be an excellent commander-in-chief). I find the Senator from New York too conservative for my taste, as I did her husband, and I further believe she is toxic to our down-ballot races in Texas, which would probably prevent Democratic candidates from unseating undesirables like John Cornyn, John Culberson, and many others.

She wouldn't campaign here except to fly in and out of Austin and probably someone's home in River Oaks, leaving with several million dollars to spend anywhere but Texas.

Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket sets Texas Democrats back another generation. I cannot support her candidacy -- even if she is the nominee -- on that basis alone.

GOP Debate: Jack Bauer '08

A summary of others' live-blogging:

MCCAIN: Good lord, how often is he going to tell that drunken sailor joke?

GILMORE: Oooh, sneaky. In translation: "To hear which other candidates I'm talking smack about, you're going to have to visit my website."

We have entered the 'run to the right' part of the evening - any evidence of a liberal position will be posed as an accusation to be refuted.

GIULIANI: If he thinks he's going to get anywhere by talking about reducing abortion, his candidacy should be disqualified on account of he's delusional.

ROMNEY: "Being governor of Massachusetts proves that I am a true conservative because I've had to stand up to the horrible liberals there." Never mind that he only stood up after running and winning as a liberal.

QUESTIONS: Abortion abortion stem cells.

THOMPSON: Deep in the weeds of stem cells. Conclusion: There are already enough stem cell lines for promising research.

GIULIANI: "Legal abortion is about keeping the government out of people's lives so it's really conservative." Again, good luck with that.

HUCKABEE: At least Giuliani is honest about his position (slam at Romney?), but I'm better because "I value life" and that's "what separates us from the Islamic jihadist."

BROWNBACK: No abortions even for rape victims.

ROMNEY: My change of position on abortion is sincere. I swear. Really. Honest.

TANCREDO: He's seeing a lot of conversions among other candidates. His rehearsed laugh line of the night: Supports conversions on the road to Damascus, not on the road to Des Moines.

MCCAIN: We have to be bipartisan on immigration. Because of the planned Fort Dix attack.

ROMNEY: McCain is soft on immigration. "If you're here illegally, you should not have a special pathway" to become a permanent resident. Says "special pathway" about three more times. Then hits McCain on campaign finance reform.

MCCAIN: At least I'm consistent on campaign finance reform rather than changing position according to what office I'm running for. Because it's not like his positions have shifted at all since, oh, say, 2000. (Jerry Falwell, anyone?)

PAUL: When we go to war in haste, the wars don't end. (Is that like marry in haste, repent at leisure?) Keeps invoking Ronald Reagan to support his anti-Iraq war stance. Are they going to ask him about anything but Iraq?

GIULIANI: 9/11 gives me my moral authority and I will hammer that. Demands that Paul take back saying that US foreign policy had something to do with 9/11.

PAUL: "They don't attack us because we're rich and we're free, they attack us because we're over there."

Major crosstalk.

MCCAIN: Asked about Confederate flag. "Almost all parties involved" believe it's a good compromise to have it not flying on the state capitol but somewhere else on the grounds. And now can we please please please stop talking about this?

TANCREDO: "For every single scientist" who says people are responsible for global warming, there's another who says it's not. Oy.

And following up on the global warming question, he goes back to... Ron Paul's views on 9/11. Now we come to the "don't you just love torture?" segment.

McCAIN: No. (No applause)

RUDY: Fuckin 'a! Of course! (Much applause)

MITT: Hmm. Not so much on the torture -- but how 'bout this? Double the size of Guantanamo!! (Even more applause!)

BROWNBACK: Not going to involve UN in preemptive intervention if US lives are involved. (Not gonna involve UN in reproductive rights questions, either, one would presume.)

McCAIN: You know, it's these chickenhawk dipshits who support torture. Those of us who served see the big picture. (Tepid applause)

(I forgot that Gilmore was still running.)

GILMORE: I'll go to the UN -- and tell them what they're gonna let us do.

PAUL: In case of a terrorist attack... cut taxes! And spending! Because Keynes was a punk.

TANCREDO!!! GIVE ME JACK BAUER! Ethics and law "go out the window" when terrorism strikes.

GILMORE: Sure, there aren't any minorities in the race, but there will be some day. Don't sweat it.

MITT: Sure, I'm willing to change positions that might anger the Republican base -- for example, I like NCLB, because it fights teachers unions!

HUNTER: China. US on trade. Chinese military. Dissidents.

And that's it. Tom Tancredo is without a doubt the most lunatic fringe player I've ever seen run for president whose party actually let him on stage for a debate.

Of course you could go read Big Jolly post 60 times that somebody kicked somebody's ass, or this moron's view that Ron Paul represents the Democrat (sic) position. But it wouldn't be as hilarious, because they aren't kidding.

Update: Beldar Conehead and The Pink Lady also have pretty funny takes, again from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Rev. Jerry Falwell 1933-2007

Obituary at the Times. Steve Benen has the chronology:

March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals” on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.” When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened, Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,” but rather an “honest portrayal” of Carter’s position.

August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.” After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “God hears the prayers of all persons…. God hears everything.”

July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.” When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did so, Falwell refused to pay and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.

October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.

February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell for “emotional distress” he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v. Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech. The original trial which was appealed to the USSC was satirized -- sort of -- in the film The People vs. Larry Flynt.

February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s "Old Time Gospel Hour" program were illegally funneled to a political action committee. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s tax-exempt status for 1986-87.

March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a “Christian nation,” Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”

1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”

November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes.

April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.

January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”

February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay.

September 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

November 2005: Falwell spearheads campaign to resist “war on Christmas.”

February 2007: Falwell describes global warming as a conspiracy orchestrated by Satan, liberals, and The Weather Channel.

Let's hope this man finds the peace, love, and tolerance in the afterlife that eluded him on Earth.

Paul Wolfowitz as Christopher Moltosanti

The difference is that I don't think Dick Cheney is going to be forced to put him out of his misery. Oh, and I really like the Guardian because they don't censor the curse words:

An angry and bitter Paul Wolfowitz poured abuse and threatened retaliations on senior World Bank staff if his orders for pay rises and promotions for his partner were revealed, according to new details published last night.

Under fire for the lavish package given to Shaha Riza, a World Bank employee and Mr Wolfowitz's girlfriend when he became president, an official investigation into the controversy has found that Mr Wolfowitz broke bank rules and violated his own contract – setting off a struggle between US and European governments over Mr Wolfowitz's future.

Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too."

Don't get on any small airplanes, Wolfie. And don't go hunting with Big Dick, either ...

The remarks were published in a report detailing the controversy that erupted last month after the size of Ms Riza's pay rises was revealed. The report slates Mr Wolfowitz for his "questionable judgment and a preoccupation with self-interest", saying: "Mr Wolfowitz saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply."

The report brushed off Mr Wolfowitz's defence that he thought he had been asked to arrange Ms Riza's pay package, observing that "the interpretation given by Mr Wolfowitz ... simply turns logic on its head".

Evidently he forgot to use the Gonzales defense.

Speaking of dead men walking, this is the reason Abu G is still hanging on: he's Karl Rove's human shield ...

Rove, with his obsession with creating a permanent Republican majority by whatever means, found a most willing ally in the form of the lackey Gonzales. What better position than the Attorney General's office to put a thumb on the electoral scale, and what better lackey to put in that office than Bush's Fredo, the unimaginative, incompetent, real-estate lawyer lackey Gonzales?

Even with the resignation of the #2 guy at Justice -- that makes three, with Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, who has now been granted immunity from prosecution -- I believe "That's a question I hadn't considered" Gonzales is sticking around for a little while longer.

Human shield, human pinata, what's the difference.