deadissue.com

I’ve been writing tonight over at a site I’d known about for a while, but for some reason hadn’t registered at (SternFanNetwork). Since I debate politics online 95% of the time or more, the connection hadn’t been made until now. Turns out there’s a politics message board over there, and thus far I’ve been motivated to really let it fly, just go on a topic until the trail ends, forget about whether or not I should censor the curse words that my brain thinks I should type, click ‘post’…blah. Came to realize that if a right-winger is a Stern fan, then I assume there’s hope. A hell of a lot more hope than I feel writing on all the GOP sites I’ve gone into battle on and been booted from over the years! And then I remember that Right Thinker was a Stern fan, with opinions that sounded like nails on a chalkboard some days, though at the end of whatever thread we were babbling on, I still considered him a friend and was glad he took the time to read and write on here. Anyways, the one I was responding to tonight was a right-winger named VacateTheWord, in a thread titled ‘Iraqis flock to city for anti-US protest‘: Read More

I’m sure there are betting lines out there for all this, but I’ve only got about 30 minutes until the first episode of this final season kicks off. One name I feel has a grave-bound destiny by the hands of that Chucky-looking, short maniac in the NY crew, and it’s Benny. Prior to landing this role, the actor was Doogie Houser’s neighbor and a member of Sgt. Bilko’s platoon, but his first significant contribution to the Sopranos storyline was in becoming the unlucky “somebody down there”, a makeshift amplifier and speakers carrying the tune of virtuoso Phil Leotardo’s lead pipe arrangement, a piece he chose not to title, but simply dedicate to Tony Blundetto.

Payback for Benny came when he was given the assignment of rigging up one of Leotardo’s joints with explosives, then setting them off remotely (IED anyone?) as Phil and the bimbo he was with were walking across the street towards it. The tit-for-tat scenario isn’t really important besides the fact that another one of Phil’s guys had been down to Jersey and never made it back on account of his smart mouth. Consensus being that Tony’s crew is still one up on NY. That’s supposed to be all straightened out now, but Phil’s a rage-driven, vindictive killer who’s liable to switch moods quicker than Frank Rizzo on a Wild Turkey bender. Taking out Chris Moltisanti is what he wants to do, but that’s over-the-top even for him I’d imagine. I mention Chris only because it was the first name that came to mind when I started thinking on this earlier today. Read More

I’m shooting for an entirely fact-based formated blog post, and here’s one on a casualty of the politicization of the Justice Department. The woman’s name is Georgia Thompson, and her life was ruined for the sake of a Republican’s campaign for Governor in Wisconsin in 2006.

1. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (D) was up for reelection in 2006
2. Mark Green (R) is recruited to run against him, secures nomination (3/27/06)
3. National Press cites ongoing investigations into Doyle’s fund raising practices (WaPo)
4. US Attorney Steven Biskupic brings charges against Georgia Thompson (a top Doyle administration official)
5. Thompson is convicted, sentenced to 18 months (9/22/06)
6. US Atty Biskupic insists she begin her sentence immediately
7. Rick Wiley, executive director state GOP: “efforts to portray Thompson as the lone gunman, the Lee Harvey Oswald of Travelgate, are ridiculous at best.“
8. 4 months into her sentence, the conviction is overturned by a three judge panel in Chicago

Judge Diane Wood: “I have to say, in comparison to some of the cases this court has seen, that’s a pretty thin set of facts to show some sort of tight political relationship. Am I missing something?”
Judge William Bauer: “Did you go after the governor or the Adelman people criminally? So the people you think were responsible for all this were Adelman and the governor, but she (Thompson) carries the sack?”
Governor Jim Doyle: “she was prosecuted for doing her job…an innocent woman who was used as a political football. Republican officials spent millions of dollars running ads that turned Thompson into a symbol of corruption.”
Attorney Stephen Hurley: “(Thompson) had lost her job, her life savings, her home and her liberty…At sentencing, the government urged a longer period of incarceration because Georgia did not accept responsibility.”

Local Blog Coverage:

Biskupic Wimps Out – Plaisted Writes / Pleasing the boss? – Garvey Blog / 10/20/05 GOP “Travelgate” enthusiast – Badger Blogger / Real Debate Wisconsin – Good Read / How Was Biskupic Rated? – Brew City Brawler
1/31/06 Talk Radio Host Jeff Wagner, WTMJ 620AM: “Frankly, having a political hack like Joe Wineke (Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin) accuse a dedicated public servant like Steve Biscupic of engaging in “partisan politics” is like Courtney Love calling Laura Bush “classless”.

Chuck Missler debunks that evolution is real: “If the theory of evolution is viable, then when I open this jar of peanut butter, not often, but on occasion new life will come out of there”. – This is otherwise known as the “Chewbacca Defense”

“Porn, Narratives, Causes and Women” by Apostate – Very smart, flowing prose on feminist topics I’m rarely exposed to. Much thought has taken place on many of the ideas expressed in this essay in the past day or two. If I’m to have a daughter some day, I suspect that she will benefit from those thoughts, and so might yours as well. The writer describes herself as, “I’m a Pakistani woman, raised as a Muslim in Saudi Arabia, and an atheist since the age of 17. I am now 24 — and fast approaching middle age”.

“What bin Laden and Bush Took Away” by Robert Stein – Six sentences that sum it up perfectly in my opinion

“The Permanent Conservative Movement” by Larry Hamelin, aka “The Barefoot Bum”

Senator Feingold on the Iraq War (VIDEO) – Courtesy of The Osterley Times (UK)

From tonypierce.com “the eharmony thing didnt work out so i went back to dating the old fashioned way, by hitting on waitresses at Dennys in the valley…” – It gets very ‘Ordinary Tales of Madness’ from this point on, so be prepared. That said, this cat can write!

“The ‘Pull Out of DC’ Email” – Jim gets agitated over people trivializing the war

75/1 – Odds on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series this year (Vegas)
12/1 – Odds on the Boston Red Sox
4/1 – Odds on the Evil Empire
7 – Months of state-side recovery time given to HQ 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas before the deployment to Iraq that begins now (1)
10.5 – Months of state-side recover time given to 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, NY before also deploying to Iraq
13 – Percentage rise in civilian deaths throughout all of Iraq according to their government’s own data (1a)
1,645 – Number of Iraqi civilian deaths in February
1,861 – Number of Iraqi civilian deaths in March
2002 – Year in which MZM founder Mitchell Wade, currently under indictment for corruption involving Duke Cunningham (R-CA), was awarded its first federal contract (2)
50 – Number of competing contracts MZM bid against
140,000 – Dollar amount of the contract for providing computers, office furniture, and specialized computer programming services to the office of the Vice President
3 – Number of years Mitchell Wade worked underneath (then Secretary of Defense) Cheney
12/4/2006 – On this date the New York Post publishes a column written by marine Corporal Matt Sanchez concerning harassment of the military on the campus of Columbia University (3)
2 – Number of times Sanchez subsequently appeared on Fox News (Hannity and Colmes – VIDEO) (The O’Reiley Factor – VIDEO)
3/2/2007 – On this date the American Conservative Union honored Matt Sanchez with the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the 34th annual CPAC (4)
200 – Dollar amount required for a man to pay Sanchez for sex (5)
3 – Number of gay porno films Sanchez is known to have starred in
12,000 – Amount of money the Marines have accused Sanchez of stealing from various donors to fund a fictional deployment to Iraq (6)
3 – Number of weeks it took to cure the former President of the National Association of Evangelicals (Reverend Ted Haggart) of his homosexuality (7)
202 – Number of appearances at the White House made by right wing non-journalist, gay prostitute Jeff Gannon (Guckert) during the Bush Jr. Presidency (8)
? – Number of sexual encounters between Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon in the Lincoln bedroom during that time
47 – Number of Republican Senators who voted in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in June 2006 (9)

John Ashcroft leaves government to become a lobbyist, and with the inherent credibility boost that comes with having once been the Attorney General, he aimed to score clients that were looking to cash in on the Homeland Security bonanza using through the corruption of his contacts within the government. On its face this was a move that most former AGs wouldn’t have made, for the sake of their reputation and the work they did while holding the post, but I’d bet that the sanctity of the Justice system they presided over would have played just as much of a role. Think of how our country would suffer if the Justice Department began to look like Congress and the Military in terms of the conflict of interest prevalent in many post-government occupations, where ability is meaningless compared to access and connections, the ability to grease certain wheels, the knowhow and more importantly the know-Who that comes with being a truly effective and well compensated agent of corruption.

The game Ashcroft chose to play after leaving government has been a part of government since time in memoriam. In developing countries like China, corruption is as much a part of the social order as the law itself, if not moreso. We in America are exposed to corruption in passing for the most part, as headlines on our newspaper once in a while. Most of us do not carry around cash in our pocket every day specifically for bribes that must be paid along the way just to earn a living and put food on the table. It is unlikely that any one of us could be arrested for a crime we did in fact commit, only to be let go after paying off the cops.

Some will say that lobbying the government is a legit expression of a business’s 1st Amendment rights, and that it cannot be compared to the type of corruption I’ve detailed above. For the most part they would be correct, but in the United States today it is more or less the same thing, because of who specifically is doing the lobbying for a business and what that person’s history does to stack the deck against the public and in favor of their client. And so it comes to a question of whether or not the individual changing hats is an honest person with a high amount of integrity. John Ashcroft may be an honest man when being asked questions that don’t require self-reflection, but it is a certainty that the man has zero integrity. While there are many stories out there to back up this assertion, I will stick with one that is playing out currently in Washington DC.

Satelite radio has experienced difficulty since the launch of XM and Sirius, as the market is clearly not ready for competing products at this time. The stock prices of both companies, along with their price to earnings ratios aren’t pretty to look at, and in spite of strong growth in subscribers month to month, the future does not look good if these companies were to remain as competitors in a media market that is as consolidated, unregulated and prepared to kill new competition than its has ever been. And so, the idea for a merger takes shape, and an announcement is made. In walks John Ashcroft.

He approached XM executives with an offer of his consulting and lobbying services, no doubt touting his ability to corrupt the appropriate players in government in getting the merger approved. XM turned him down on his offer. Fast forward to today and it turns out that Ashcroft whored himself out to the organization on the exact opposite side of the merger debate, the National Association of Broadcasters. He has conducted an analysis of why the merger would be bad for customers and has written a letter to current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urging him to block the merger in some way. His letters have also been distributed throughout Congress. And so we have the most recent “former” Attorney General simply selling his influence to the highest bidder, while the current one is stammering like an idiot every day about his poor father, protecting the children, amnesia, being a minority, how he can’t remember, etc. As a pair they’re far less sneaky than people give them credit for, as to get anywhere in today’s GOP, unprincipled behavior is a prerequisite.

The lesson for XM Satelite radio is obvious. In the United States of America, when a filthy whore like John Ashcroft stops by to visit and promises to corrupt the government just right for the sake of your pending deal…you’d better hire him! And with that said…Welcome to Moscow! (Source – WSJournalOnline, Radio Ink)

How’s THIS for a Sunday morning! I might even skip my coffee today…as a sacrifice to the Gods. From The Largest Minority:

WASHINGTON – The first article of impeachment against President George W. Bush was passed by the House Judiciary Committee in an emergency special session late Saturday. The article appears to have been prompted by new evidence that the FBI had abused its power under the direction of the president, who had blocked further investigations into the matter. Each of the thirty nine members of the committee seemingly voted along party lines on the measure, which passed by a vote of 22-17.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has issued a statement on the allegations being brought forth; though a full disclosure on the charges of “high crimes and misdemeanors” against the president will be made available to the public during a Monday press conference scheduled at 11AM EST.  Read More

Semester #7 out of 10 is in the books as of 3AM last night, and I’m feeling free-range at the moment because of it. The list of topics I wanted to post on, but simply ended up filing away over the past week or so, is rather large and at this very moment is burning a hole through my head, so I’m gonna drop it like it’s hot right now like Richard Jeni would if he were still alive (RIP):

Republicans and U.S. attorneys (quotes from 1993 and today) – by Glen Greenwald

Rich Keep getting Richer – A new high for the top 1% and a new low for everybody else. The Republican tax cuts are redistributing more wealth upwards than ever before.

George Bush’s Land Mine: If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon – by Richard Behan – A provision in the emergency funding bill for the war has thus far gon e undetected or ignored by Congress, that pertains to Iraq’s oil. This essay sheds some much needed light on what appears to be a trojan horse.

Pat Robertson has a college, and 150 graduates of that school work for the Bush Administration – including Monica Goodling (pleading the 5th rather than testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee)

Jim Cramer’s Guide to Market Manipulation – NYTimes Blog – I had a note written beside this one to search for the source article on TheStreet.com, but Cramer writes about 300 things a day on there, and I ain’t got no time for shuckin’ and jivin’.

Judge in Anna Nicole’s case found smoking marijuana – This guy was a real piece of work, with the way he played it up for the cameras during that hearing on Anna’s remains, crying at the end…I turned to Heather and pointed out the fact that he was a dead ringer for the Finklestein character on Dharma and Greg. So this headline made that observation worthy of another laugh or two, but his 15 minutes are now up. What they’ve got to do now, is somehow get Judge Ito to take a job in Florida and preside over Howard K. Stern’s murder trial.

And finally, some solid words pertaining to that champion of the transgender community, Ann Coulter from ‘The Coulterization of the American right‘ – by Gary Kamiya:

For this isn’t really about Coulter at all. This is about a pact the American right made with the devil, a pact the devil is now coming to collect on. American conservatism sold its soul to the Coulters and Limbaughs of the world to gain power, and now that its ideology has been exposed as empty and its leadership incompetent and corrupt, free-floating hatred is the only thing it has to offer. The problem, for the GOP, is that this isn’t a winning political strategy anymore — but they’re stuck with it. They’re trapped. They need the bigoted and reactionary base they helped create, but the very fanaticism that made the True Believers such potent shock troops will prevent the Republicans from achieving Karl Rove’s dream of long-term GOP domination.

F Jackie!