the megaphones, handed out with tea towels from the swag bags of volunteers, mixed with backpacks and folding chairs. earnest signs read "i'm not afraid of muslims, tea parties, gays." irreverent ones read "support the right to arm bears." obama inauguration gear made it back out of the closet. on many posters reading "hope," the visage of stewart, not obama, stared out.
the city's infrastructure appeared to have a hard time coping with the influx. green and yellow line metrorail trains were so packed as to be unboardable, and many rally-goers chose to walk to the mall. some attendees chose a more unusual mode of transportation: a 70-foot-long, 30-foot-tall copper-colored dragon on wheels. the vehicle, favored by anti-nuclear-weapon activists from the counterculture festival burning man, echoed down irving street. along 14th street nw, people held signs reading, "free the gays," "the sky is falling" and "i am holding a sign." scores of people dressed in wigs and costumes. one man dressed as abe lincoln. another as a tea party activist (tea bags dangled from his hat's brim).
of course, the beltway pundits are looking down their noses @ stewart & colbert's enterprise today, as if it meant something other than a big comedy show that celebrates being in america.
something happened along the way. journalists were invited into the corridors of power and decided they liked it there. sally quinn, who married washington post editor ben bradlee, held parties that were the toast of washington, and she decided early on that the clintons weren't her kind of people, so the press did her bidding. david gregory danced with karl rove at a washington dinner and later on became the moderator of the once-venerable meet the press. but it wasn't just wapo or television networks owned by defense contractors, or even rupert murdoch's news corp. the new york times ran a story about how the clintons lost money in a land deal, and next thing you know, the paper is at the forefront of what will go down in history as the biggest partisan witch hunt ever perpetrated on a president. judith miller schmoozed with scooter libby, and soon the front page of the new york times was carrying the bush administration's water on the false claims of weapons of mass destruction in iraq. howard dean dares to run for president, and times reporter jodi wilgoren makes it her business to bring him down.
if journalism hadn't completely blown its credibility on stories like whitewater and gary condit and shark attacks, while carrying the bush junta's water on iraq, a bunch of people in bathrobes making use of this new technology called the internet couldn't have replaced the increasing triviality and utter horseshit dished up by so-called news outlets.
For anyone who didn't catch President Obama's recent appearance on The Daily Show, here it is:
We're all voting in a few days, and the way it looks now, the Democrats are going to take a beating -- the question is how bad of a beating it'll be. One way of figuring that out could be to get people's reactions to what Obama had to say to Jon Stewart and the rest of us.
Of course, another way would be to follow Chris Bowers' daily obsession with poll results over at the Great Orange Satan's place. Most likely, that might be the better way. But Bowers lost me permanently when he wrote... this.* And since then, his addiction to that brand of idealism that he likes to call progressivism has obviously gotten much worse. The hell with that, let's go with Jon Stewart this time -- he still has his sense of humor.
I'm interested in hearing what skippy's readers have to say about Obama's remarks. In the meantime, I'm withholding my own...**
(*: It still hurts my spirit to read that post three years later. It's not about Bowers, though, it's about me. To be what's called a progressive these days, you have to have a dose of fanaticism in you. I tried progressivism for a little while, but it turns out I don't have a single fanatical cell in my body. I'm oil and Bowers is water, I guess...)
what can brown explode for you; or, when you absolutely, positively need to blow it up overnight
the overnight package delivery industry came to a virtual standstill today as several "suspicious" packages were discovered aboard various cargo planes. washpost:
president obama said friday that packages mailed from yemen and intercepted in the last 24 hours contained explosive material and represented a "credible terrorist threat." ...
the two packages were intercepted at different locations, one on a ups plane at the east midlands airport near nottingham, england, and the other at a fedex facility in dubai. officials provided no detail on the kind of explosives found.
one suspicious package, found in the united kingdom, contained a "manipulated" toner cartridge and had white powder on it as well as wires and a circuit board, a law enforcement source said.
"the size and shape of the printed circuit board are typical to a handset cell-phone-type device," said olivier clerc, the head of application engineering for a wireless phone parts manufacturer, who provided an analysis of the circuit board shown in a photograph obtained by cnn.
a similar package was discovered in dubai, in the united arab emirates, the law enforcement source said. sources in the uae described the package as an explosive device with "sophisticated" wiring. it is believed to be a printer, the sources said. the uae general authority of civil aviation issued a statement saying the package was to be shipped on a fedex cargo plane.
both packages were bound for the united states, "specifically two places of jewish worship in chicago," obama said.
"initial examination of those packages has determined they do apparently contain explosive material," he said...
a u.s. official said it is likely that the material used was petn -- a highly explosive organic compound belonging to the same chemical family as nitroglycerin -- but said testing is ongoing to reach a definitive conclusion.
there is various speculation as to whether this was an actual terrorist attack or a "dry" run, testing the boundaries of security parameters around the world.
let's set the waybak machine for the 1980's to revisit one of our favorite sci-fi movie trilogies.
no, we're not talking about star trek ii, iii and iv (the wrath of kahn, the search for spock, and the voyage home, respectively), three really great films which involve a contiguous time line for three different, yet compelling, adventures.
we are instead thinking about the great back to the future franchise. the 25th anniversary of bttf is this year, and universal has released a special blu-ray disc box set of the movies to celebrate.
of course, several cable channels are re-running all three films to acknowledge the watershed mark of this ingenious story. and you can't peruse any sci-fi blogs without running across an essay about marty, doc, biff and jennifer jason leigh.
one of the most amusing, however, is found on gawker, where kristina lucarelli muses about 14 things that back to the future part 2 got right about living in the 21st century (and 5 that haven't).
kristina points out that when marty mcfly travels from 1985 to see his future self in 2015, steven spielberg and bob zemeckis correctly predicted such culture and scientific phenomenae as flat screen tvs, handheld electronic computer devices, obsession w/3d sequels, video conferencing and self-lacing sneakers. she also mentions that real flying cars and real hoverboards are actually in the works as you read this.
one of our favorite future faux-pas, however, is also mentioned: everybody faxes everything all the time. as soon as the 1990's rolled around w/the internet, we found this prediction of bttf ii to be quaint. also, unfortunately, the prospect of queen diana of england was sadly never realized, but who could blame zemeckis for getting that one wrong?
but hey, it's still a rousing great film, and the trilogy is one of the funniest every made. skippy had the pleasure of seeing all three back-to-back-to-back at the los angeles premiere of bttf iii at the (now defunct) cinerama dome.
in our clever, snarky way, we recently mentioned that ratings for both fox news and nascar were down double digits, and we labeled the post "is america getting smarter?"
several of our readers and friends pointed out that it was a false equivalency. personally, we just thought it was a joke, but our critics were absolutely correct, there is no reason or justification for assuming that nascar fans are a priori fox news watchers and visa versa.
we apologize for assuming, because when we assume, we make an ass out of us. or something.
so sean, kulkuri and jack k, you are absolutely right. (they also presented some cogent theories on why espn lost viewers for nascar.)
I got home from work last night, did this and that around the apartment, then went online. And that was when I first heard of that cowardly asshole of a Rand Paul supporter, Tim Profitt, stomping on Lauren Valle's head and giving her a concussion. I started to write a post about that, but these days, whenever I start to get so pissed off that I can't think straight, I stop whatever I'm doing.*
That's why I'm not going to bother with the story about Profitt wanting Valle to apologize to him for attacking his foot with her head. I'm not going to bother with the ridiculous Big Journalism reader who likened Valle to Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, the Manson family woman who tried to assassinate Gerald Ford, either. And I'm definitely not going to paint Lauren Valle as some sort of martyr. I've seen the video of her holding that sign up a few feet away from Rand Paul -- by now, everyone has -- and as far as I'm concerned, she's a complete fucking idiot for doing that.
This is about what pissed me off so bad that I couldn't think straight last night, and that was seeing the video of Profitt stomping on Valle's head. And the way that footage looks to me, if it wasn't for that guy who was holding Valle down raising his hand and going "No, no, no" after Profitt did that, I'm almost positive he would have stomped her a second time, maybe even a third. Ooooo, what a BIG MANhe is.
Plain and simple: You, don't, do, that, here. EVER! Politics has nothing to do with this shit -- if it had been a male MoveOn activist stomping on the head of a female Tea Partier, I would have been just as blindly pissed off. This isn't Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or Stalin's Russia. This is the United States of America. YOU, DON'T, DO, THAT, HERE. EVER!
That's all I have to say. I'm starting to go blind again...
{*: That, by the way, is also one big reason why I no longer really want to blog over at skippy's place -- the last few posts I wrote over here, before deleting a whole slew of posts I'd written for him, contained some of the ugliest shit in them that I've ever written. I have no wish to repeat that behavior, but all the same, this is the biggest venue I have where I can speak my mind. So I did...}
probably not. but a couple of indicators might suggest that they're getting bored w/the "real murika" stuff, apparently:
fox news dominated the cable news landscape in third quarter of 2010 and had the top 11 programs in cable news for the month of september, though the network was down -21% in total viewers and down -26% in younger viewers compared to sept. 2009 (total day, mon-sun) - tvnewser
but wait, there's more!
nascar's chase for the sprint cup moved from abc to espn this year, but tv viewers haven't followed.
ratings for the first four chase races in 2010 were down 27 percent compared with last year. the decline is enough of a concern that top espn and nascar executives met in charlotte last weekend to come up with ways to reverse the trend.
it's a drop-off that has caught network and property executives off guard, and it has led them to analyze viewership patterns to pinpoint reasons for the decline.
as of last week, no one had a clear answer.
"the simple fact is that people just are not tuning in," said julie sobieski, espn's vice president of programming and acquisitions. "we're looking at everything to find out why." - nascar.com
tonight we pay homage to a remarkable little guy...who touched hearts worldwide...who left the sporting world far too early. goodbye, paul. we love you.
as we mentioned earlier today in miscellany (below), a moveon.org member was beated and stomped on @ the kentucky senatorial debate yesterday. there has been much movement on the story since then:
greg sargent reports that the stomper has been identified as rand paul bourbon county coordinator tim profitt. the lexington police have released this statement:
today, october 26, 2010, detectives identified the suspect, involved in the assault, as tim profitt. mr. profitt is currently being served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear before a fayette county district court judge.
the washpost update reports that the paul campaign has fired profitt, even tho profitt has "apologized" for the incident.
tim profitt w/rand paul, in happier times
the moveon member, lauren valle, was hospitalized briefly, and released with diagnosis of a concussion and sprained arm.
meanwhile, barefoot and progressive points out that a full-page ad supporting rand paul in the herald leader contains (among others) the endorsement of tim profitt, the man identified as the stomper.
those darn teabaggers! w/joe miller's "security squad" unlawfully detaining a reporter (w/handcuffs!), and christine o'donnell's staff pushing a reporter down into a chair, it's becoming more clear just exactly what the baggers stand for (and what color their shirts are)!
(thx and a tip o'the kangaroo tail to memeorandum for the majority of the links!)
the advocate finds that the white house wants to make nice w/teh gays, if by "making nice," we mean "shut up and smile if you know what's good for you" --
the advocate has obtained a copy of an email sent from brian bond, deputy director of the white house office of public engagement and the de facto lgbt liaison, to the meeting’s participants, who include: allison herwitt and joe solmonese of the human rights campaign; shane larson of the stonewall democrats; winnie stachelberg of the center for american progress; aubrey sarvis of the servicemembers legal defense network; r. clarke cooper of the log cabin republicans; alex nicholson and jarrod chlapowski of servicemembers united; nathaniel frank, dadt expert formerly of the palm center; jim kessler of the third way.
the email notes that the meeting has been moved from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and then warns participants to stick strictly to a discussion about legislative repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and to steer clear of any mention of the current courts cases now being litigated.
bond writes:
“obviously this meeting has gotten out. we are expecting the content of the conversation today to be off the record and to help us figure out how to move forward with the lame duck session.
also as previously mentioned, there can be no discussion of current court cases or legal strategy or counsel’s office will end the meeting. the focus is repeal and the lame duck session. this is also a non-partisan meeting where we want everyone’s help.”
ask anything you want, as long as you don't ask anything we don't want.
for those stories the corporate owned media might not have mentioned this morning...
new jellyfish tells tale of global warming. - a new species of jellyfish found off israel’s coast the summer poses no threat to bathers but should serve warning to the countries bordering the mediterranean sea about the dangers posed by global warming and damage to the environment - media line
can the military go green with jet fuel? the f-15 eagle is the latest jet fighter to receive the alternative fuels treatment, flying october 22 on a 50-50 blend of conventional jet fuel and an alternative—in this case made from specially processed animal fat: beef tallow bio-jet fuel - scientific american
water champion. - maude barlow, longtime chairwoman of the council of canadians, is a hero to the left, a tireless campaigner for social justice, environmental causes and globalization issues - edmonton journal
cruise ships cutting fumes. - black smoke trails from the carnival fantasy as the crew fires its diesels to set out of charleston harbor. the smoke and its stink are a focus of neighborhood and environmentalist concerns about pollution from cruise ships - charleston post and courier
apple snails are slowly creeping our way. - dumping specimens from an aquarium, whether it's the apple snail or the northern snakehead, is a reckless act that can have serious consequences - nola picayune
ensure what you buy doesn't harm the lives of others. - british retailers are increasingly aware of the hidden costs of cruel and unsustainable practices in food and clothing industries. conscientious shoppers have driven those changes. the same pressure must be applied to wood and paper products - london guardian
jane goodall on hope, inspiration and oilsands. - we have to find answers to three problems that seem insoluble. one is the sheer growth of human populations. two is crippling poverty where people destroy the environment and cut down trees to grow a bit more food. and thirdly, our unsustainable lifestyle. all of us in this room have more than we need - calgary herald
cop10: a meet to save life on earth? - the next time someone asks you what biodiversity is, try this: "it's about your life, life on this planet, and about what we're doing to this planet with our eyes open." - japan times
conservationist warns next big extinction will be man's fault. - richard leakey, one of the world's most famous paleoanthropologists and a conservationist, will speak in houston on thursday at the progressive forum, to discuss the possibility that human proliferation will cause the next great extinction - houston chronicle
severe drought afflicts brazilian amazon. - the brazilian government has announced $13.5m in emergency aid for amazon regions hit by the worst drought in decades. environmental groups say severe droughts are likely to become more frequent in the amazon as a result of global warming, putting further strain on the rainforest - bbc
what’s eating lake erie? - by surface area, the great lakes comprise the largest body of fresh water in the world. but for the past few years a green toxic algae has been blooming in one of the great lakes - lake erie. scientists now say it's just one of a number of toxic algae threatening the lake - living on earth
altered shoreline raises future risk. - a sea wall to hold back the rising waters of puget sound could be the next major alteration in the long history of olympia’s changing downtown shoreline. - olympia olympian
call for scotland to ditch its 'addiction' to oil and coal. - jonathon porritt, a former high-level government adviser and a star of the environment world, has condemned the scottish government for backing new oil and coal developments which will produce huge amounts of climate pollution - glasgow herald
'overpopulation of tehran will cause ecological ruin.' - tehran’s population is several times higher than its ecological capacity, resulting in ailments to residents from pollution, an environmental consultant warned. tehran has an ecological capacity for three million residents but now about ten million people are living in the metropolis, he warned - tehran times
syncrude to pay $3m in penalties for dead ducks. - syncrude canada will have to pay a total of $3 million in penalties for causing the deaths of 1,600 ducks in a tailings pond at its northern alberta oilsands mine - canadian press
cost of drinking water going up. - central 0hio residents will pay more for their cities to remove pollutants from their drinking water. new health standards from the u.s. environmental protection agency that take effect in 2012 and 2013 call for tighter limits on two types of water contaminants that build up in water mains and pipes - columbus dispatch
"as i went through security, who should i see but the dalai lama being frisked by a tsa employee," he said. "now that's what i call misguided concern." - larry gerston
as for me, since everybody seems to be asking each other this, no, i wouldn't have fired juan williams, because i would never have hired juan williams in the first place. he makes alan colmes look like alexander fucking cockburn.
and if you've ever had fucking cockburn you know how painful that can be.
among various countries, especially in the middle east. just imagine these actions taken on americans...why are iraqi lives any different? they are humans too?
what have we become? why are we turning a blind eye to the horrifying reality?
a grim picture of the us and britain's legacy in iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of american military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
almost 400,000 secret us army field reports have been passed to the guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website wikileaks.
....the new logs detail how:
• us authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• a us helicopter gunship involved in a notorious baghdad incident had previously killed iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• more than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. us and uk officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities. - the guardian
a 19-year old ucsb student was killed today off the coast near vandenberg air force base by what is reported to be a great white.
based on the initial investigation, lucas mckaine ransom (dob 12/05/90) of romoland, ca was boogie boarding on the break line about 100 yards off the beach with his friend when a shark suddenly pulled ransom under the water. ransom suffered a massive wound to his left leg and appeared to die shortly thereafter. - edhat
horrifying end to a bright life just beginning. our condolences to lucas' friends and family.
oddly enough, we are agreeing w/ted olson, of all people. he's the guy who lead the legal charge against prop. 8 in california (also he's the former bush admin. solicitor general).
ted thinks the obama admin. doesn't have to appeal the injunction against don't ask, don't tell:
the administration's handling of the case has angered critics on both sides of the issue. gay rights advocates, infuriated by what they see as hypocrisy, and some legal scholars, insist the "duty to defend" has already been fulfilled and that there is ample precedent for the administration to let judge phillips' decision stand. meanwhile, supporters of the law say the administration's invocation of their "duty" is a smokescreen for a halfhearted defense.
"it happens every once in awhile at the federal level when the solicitor general, on behalf of the u.s., will confess error or decline to defend a law," said former george w. bush administration solicitor general ted olson, who is leading the legal challenge of california's ban on same-sex marriage. gov. arnold schwarzenegger and the state attorney general have both declined to defend the law in court.
"i don't know what is going through the [obama] administration's thought process on 'don't ask, don't tell,'" olson said. "it would be appropriate for them to say 'the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that.'"
other legal experts agree:
"it is true the optimal situation would be for congress to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' and not rely on courts," conceded aaron belkin, director of the university of california'spalm center, a research institute which supports repeal. "but there is so much pressure to let this [court ruling] stand because congress is going to have a difficult time" enacting a repeal…
[district court judge virginia] phillips' ruling in "don't ask, don't tell" follows a decision by federal district judge joseph tauro who separately ruled this year that the defense of marriage act "plainly encroaches" on the right of the state to determine marriage." the administration has also appealed the decision in that case.
"they are not obligated to defend," said belkin of the cases. "they already defended and failed."
we still as confused as ever by obama's namby-pamby waffling on this subject (as well as, oh, we don't know, every other policy that has come across his desk).
taking a one-a-day vitamin with minerals won't help us...because we're running out of a certain mineral essential to life.
a mineral not only essential to farming, but also to life on earth is running out, and scientists currently are at a loss as to what to do about it.
the mineral is phosphorus, which, as the london times reported two years ago, is being “mined, used and wasted as never before.”
to say that phosphorus is critical both to farming and life in general is no understatement. phosphorus serves a critical metabolic function in plants and animals, helping organisms store and use energy for growth and reproduction. without it, food production would be impossible.
phosphorus is equally as critical to humans, aiding both our metabolism, respiration and building strong bones.
“plants take it up, we ingest the plants or we ingest animals that ingest other plants,” says charles mitchell, an alabama cooperative extension system agronomist and auburn university professor of agronomy and soils who has followed the growing crisis for several years.
how serious is the phosphorus shortfall?
“there are estimates we have as little as 50 years left in the current phosphate mines,” says mitchell. - western farm press
don't let the door hit your bigoted a** on the way out.
npr has terminated its contract with juan williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about muslims on the fox news channel. - nytimes
repubbb candidate for wisconsin gov, scott walker, gets admonished for malfeasance as executive overseeing the county's mental health hospital in a letter from a employee therapist under his "leadership"
more on the koch bros. funding the right wing movement
thanx & a tip o'the kangaroo tail to susie madrak for this story about the circus owner who gave his wallabies ecstasy (not funny, one died! poor baby!)
betsy markey's opponent in the colorado rep. race puts up an ad that devastates her voting record...unfortunately, it's the record of the wrong person, rep. ed markey from massachusettes --
that's the new ad up from cd-4 gop candidate cory gardner, attacking incumbent betsy markey--one little, well actually not so little problem, is likely to see it pulled pretty quickly. betsy markey voted against the obama administration's 2010 budget along with a number of other "blue dogs," rep. ed markey (d-mass.) is the markey in congress who voted for the budget. rep. markey's (that is, betsy markey of colorado) release follows, says spokesman ben marter, "rep. gardner's new attack ad is lousy with the same already-debunked lies and misleading claims, but if there were degrees of 'false', this one takes the cake." and our favorite quote from the release: "colorado deserves better than gardner's half-baked hit jobs," added marter. "frankly, massachusetts deserves better too."
gee, mr. gardner, we looked under "m" for markey, whaddaya want fercryininthesink?
on the campaign trail, many republicans are calling for a repeal of the health care law, a step that would actually increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over 10 years, according to the congressional budget office, by eliminating some cost-saving provisions — a fact that typically goes unmentioned. republicans counter that the full cost of the health care law will only kick in later, so that repeal would save money in the long run.
“it’s very easy in the course of a campaign to run against deficit spending as this abstract monster, but when you are actually in power, you have to propose actual policies and follow through on them and that’s something they are much less willing to do,” said john irons, an economist at the economic policy institute, a liberal-leaning washington research group.
“everyone is saying there’s hard choices, there are tough decisions to be made, but not one is actually telling the voters how they would make those tradeoffs,” mr. irons said. “no one is saying, ‘here’s what i would cut.’ the boehner plan is clearly in that vein.” - nytimes
the joe "arrest the press" miller fiasco gets murkier: two of his "security guards" are active duty military, acting against regulations
sure, the chattering classes clutched their pearls and got the vapors over senate candidate jack conway's "aqua buddha" ad denigrating opponent rand paul, but strangely enough, it's working
granted, the public policy polling firm is affiliated w/the great orange satan, and by extension, professional lefties, but their latest poll in pennsylvania shows sleestak climbing to within the margin of error against pat toomey:
you can put pennsylvania senate back in the toss up category. joe sleestak leads pat toomey 46-45 in our newest poll of the race, erasing the 9 point deficit he had in an august ppp survey.
toomey's support has remained stagnant over the last 2 months while sleestak's has gone up 10 points from 36% to 46%.
suddenly the race is competitive. ppp offers some reasons, but most telling to us, is the hemorrhaging of support for toomey amongst women, once toomey's affiliation w/palin (ie, they're both nutjobs) was made clear.
even america's veterans think foreign money in us campaigns is a bad idea:
on monday, the veterans' alliance for security and democracy (vetpac) filed an fec complaint against the u.s. chamber of commerce to the fec, alleging that the organization's potential use of foreign funds for political purposes represents a "clear and present danger to our democracy." from the letter to the fec, obtained by the huffington post:
we understand that organizations may have "a reasonable accounting method" to separate funds into their general operations budget. however, the prohibition on foreign nationals indirectly contributing to u.s. elections should require additional scrutiny in the case of organizations such as the u.s. chamber of commerce, where even segregated funds within their general operating budget could be said to indirectly finance their campaign work, given the volume of such activity as a percentage of their overall expenditures. [...]
given the unseemly amounts of funds being poured into campaigns, we ask that you move expeditiously to require full disclosure of the funding sources of the u.s. chamer of commerce. their actions present a clear and present danger to our democracy by shielding the electorate from the identities of foreign influences that are lurking behind the u.s. chamber of commerce's massive campaign spending.
"our military veterans, who served to protect the constitution of the united states, are concerned that foreign money could be used to influence our policies and buy seats in the house and senate," said lorin walker, vetpac vice president and treasurer. "the chamber's actions compromise the very rights for which our military men and women put their lives on the line.
the advocate is reporting that the federal judge ruling on the obama administration's appeal to stay the overturning of dadt might be considering a denial of same:
during the 25-minute hearing, u.s. district judge virginia a. phillips issued a tentative ruling denying the government’s request for a stay of the injunction against dadt, but she will issue a final ruling on the matter by tuesday morning.
phillips, who ruled dadt unconstitutional in september, wasted no time in rejecting the government's position that ending the policy immediately would be an undue burden on the military, calling the arguments "vague" and "insufficient."
assistant u.s attorney paul freeborne asked the court for a five-day administrative stay so the government can pursue an appeal of phillips's injunction with the u.s. court of appeals for the ninth circuit. he argued that a "precipitous implementation" of an injunction against the 17-year-old policy will have a significant negative impact on military readiness.
but phillips said there were "significant failings" in the evidence submitted by the justice department after she issued the injunction last week. though the government declined to enter any of the evidence it had submitted in fighting the log cabin republicans' suit against "don't ask, don't tell" in court last july — instead relying solely on the legislative history of the statute — justice department attorneys submitted a declaration to the court last week from a top pentagon personnel official who warned against any abrupt change in the policy.
the alaska daily news has some post-arrest video up of joe miller's brown shirts security detail trying to keep other alaskan media from documenting tony hopfinger's detention yesterday:
pam leavy of the dem daily points out that former surgeon general joycelyn elders recommends the legalization of marijuana. rememeber, she also recommended that teens masturbate to release tension, so ms. elders sounds like someone we'd like to party with!
local virginia gop chair david bartholomew sent around a pretty racist email joke, which basically is "my dog is black, lazy and don't know who his daddy is, so he's getting welfare." funny, huh? apparently gop house candidate scott rigell didn't think so and is now calling for bartholomew's resignation
the trial in the unprovoked racially-motivated attack at a cracker barrel restaurant is about to begin. atjourcon:
troy dale west jr., 48, was indicted last year on charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, first-degree cruelty to children, two counts of battery and two counts of disorderly conduct.
superior court judge geronda v. carter said the opening statements could begin as early as tuesday.
west is charged with beating and kicking tashawnea hill as she walked out of the morrow restaurant on sept. 9, 2009. hill's 7-year-old daughter watched as west assaulted her mother while yelling racial slurs, police said…
if convicted, west could face a decade in prison. at one point monday morning, west was escorted from the courtroom to another part of the courthouse under heavy police protection.
the attack occurred as hill and her daughter were leaving the restaurant and west was walking inside. hill told west to be careful after the door almost hit her child, police said.
west became enraged and then attacked the woman, morrow police capt. james callaway said.
tho it doesn't need to be said, west is white and hill is black.
speaking of joe "arrest the press" miller, apparently the fairbanks mayor (at the time) was about to fire miller over miller's use of borough computers for personal campaigning
a few weeks after he started working at ameriquest mortgage, mark glover looked up from his cubicle and saw a coworker do something odd. the guy stood at his desk on the twenty-third floor of downtown los angeles's union bank building. he placed two sheets of paper against the window. then he used the light streaming through the window to trace something from one piece of paper to another. somebody's signature.
glover was new to the mortgage business. he was twenty-nine and hadn't held a steady job in years. but he wasn't stupid. he knew about financial sleight of hand—at that time, he had a check-fraud charge hanging over his head in the l.a. courthouse a few blocks away. watching his coworker, glover's first thought was: how can i get away with that? as a loan officer at ameriquest, glover worked on commission. he knew the only way to earn the six-figure income ameriquest had promised him was to come up with tricks for pushing deals through the mortgage-financing pipeline that began with ameriquest and extended through wall street's most respected investment houses. …
the wayward behavior didn't stop with drugs. glover learned that his colleague's art work wasn't a matter of saving a borrower the hassle of coming in to supply a missed signature. the guy was forging borrowers' signatures on government-required disclosure forms, the ones that were supposed to help consumers understand how much cash they'd be getting out of the loan and how much they'd be paying in interest and fees. ameriquest's deals were so overpriced and loaded with nasty surprises that getting customers to sign often required an elaborate web of psychological ploys, outright lies, and falsified papers. "every closing that we had really was a bait and switch," a loan officer who worked for ameriquest in tampa, florida, recalled. " 'cause you could never get them to the table if you were honest." at companywide gatherings, ameriquest's managers and sales reps loosened up with free alcohol and swapped tips for fooling borrowers and cooking up phony paperwork. what if a customer insisted he wanted a fixed-rate loan, but you could make more money by selling him an adjustable-rate one? no problem. many ameriquest salespeople learned to position a few fixed-rate loan documents at the top of the stack of paperwork to be signed by the borrower. they buried the real documents—the ones indicating the loan had an adjustable rate that would rocket upward in two or three years—near the bottom of the pile. then, after the borrower had flipped from signature line to signature line, scribbling his consent across the entire stack, and gone home, it was easy enough to peel the fixed-rate documents off the top and throw them in the trash.
at the downtown l.a. branch, some of glover's coworkers had a flair for creative documentation. they used scissors, tape, wite-out, and a photocopier to fabricate w-2s, the tax forms that indicate how much a wage earner makes each year. it was easy: paste the name of a low-earning borrower onto a w-2 belonging to a higher-earning borrower and, like magic, a bad loan prospect suddenly looked much better. workers in the branch equipped the office's break room with all the tools they needed to manufacture and manipulate official documents. they dubbed it the "art department."
the news about the nation's foreclosure scandal has been coming fast and furious, fueled by tales of backdated documents, false affidavits and "rocket dockets" that push families into the street.
a former employee with one of the nation's largest lenders testifies that he signed off on 400 foreclosure documents a day without reading them or verifying the information in them was correct.
shocking stuff. but surprising? not for anyone who's been tracking the recent history of the mortgage machine. just about every corner of america's mortgage industry has been blemished by significant levels of fraud over the past decade.
if the introduction and the huffpost piece are any indication, hudson's book will prove to be a fascinating and easily-digested foray into the scams and cheating that drove the mortgage bubble of last decade into the depression of today.
the editor of the alaska dispatch was handcuffed sunday afternoon at a joe miller event. tony hopfinger says he approached miller to ask some questions at a central middle school town hall, but miller’s security guards said he was under arrest.
according to hopfinger, miller’s security team pushed him and he pushed back because he felt his personal space was being invaded. he says guards detained him and accused him of trespassing, although the town hall was a public event held at a public building.
miller security guard william fulton said in a statement sunday that he was responding to hopfinger’s actions.
“the dispatch reporter repeatedly pushed a camera into the face of mr. miller,” fulton said. “he continued to aggressively pursue him. i told the reporter several times that he needed to stop and that he was trespassing, he ignored me. he then proceeded to stalk mr. miller and even shoved an individual into a locker. based upon this trespass and his assault, we detained him and escorted him from the premises.”…
hopfinger says he waited for about half an hour in handcuffs for police to show up. no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.
why is joe miller so riled up? well, the security guard maintains that hopfinger was "stalking" miller, and had shoved someone. hopfinger insists someone else shoved him first.
but it probably goes beyond that. probably to the lawsuit hopfinger and others in the alaskan press have filed:
the alaska dispatch is one of several news organizations suing for access to miller's employment records at the fairbanks north star borough. miller worked at the fnsb as a part-time attorney from 2002 to 2009.
the anchorage daily news filed papers in fairbanks superior court friday to join a lawsuit filed by the fairbanks daily news-miner last week. the alaska dispatch has filed a separate suit asking for miller's employment records.
the news organizations are interested in documents that contain the details of miller’s departure or allegations of misuse of borough property.
miller called the request a violation of his privacy. but the alaska dispatch’s attorney says that the requests relate to miller's performance as a government employee, not his private life.
refusing to answer questions? that's the current repubbblican m.o. these days: when the going gets tough, the gop gets gone!
for those pesky little stories that the corporate media wasn't talking about this morning on the bleach blonded bobble headed shows....
the colorado river runs dry. - dams, irrigation and now climate change have drastically reduced the once-mighty river. is it a sign of things to come? the river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped the southwest. could climate change reduce the flow another 20%? - smithsonian magazine
amazon drought emergency widens. - brazil has adopted emergency measures to deal with one of the amazon region's worst droughts in decades. a state of emergency has been declared in 25 towns as key waterways and rivers are left completely parched, the amazonas state government said on saturday - al jazeera
asia facing worsening water crisis: adb. - asia is facing a worsening water crisis that threatens to curtail food production while taking an increasingly heavy toll on the region's economies, the asian development bank said tuesday - afp
poison in the water. - bowen in north queensland is still in shock over the destruction of millions of dollars worth of contaminated tomatoes. a single criminal act has raised concerns about food security and higher prices for consumers - australia abc
epa faulted for not disclosing coal ash's recycling risks. - the environmental protection agency's inspector general reported this week that the epa had improperly used an official website to promote ways of recycling the waste that's left over when power plants burn coal, commonly known as coal ash - mcclatchy
synthetic chemicals pose growing threat to global water supply. - synthetic chemicals that damage the human reproductive system are creeping into the world's water supply. scientists say the chemicals, once waterborne, can quickly spread throughout the globe - deutsche welle
big oil u. - it's no secret that big oil wields a lot of power in washington. but oil giants are also spending big on campus, too—to the tune of $880 million. in the past decade, oil companies gave millions to support energy research at ten of the top american universities—producing "potentially compromised" research, the center for american progress argues - mother jones
canada declares bpa toxic. is the us next? - bisphenol-a has become a litmus test for how people view environmental health and the risks of common household chemicals. canada has already banned bpa in baby bottles, and this new listing will likely bring an end to food-related uses for bpa, in bottles and possibly cans as well - time magazine
newsweek on how the tea baggers get the constitution wrong:
over the years critics have lodged dozens of objections to originalism—the disagreements among the founders; the preservation of slavery in the final product; the inclusion of an amendment process—and they apply to the tea party’s interpretation of the constitution, too. but at least originalism is a rational, consistent philosophy. the real problem with the tea party’s brand of constitution worship isn’t that it’s too dogmatic. it’s that it isn’t dogmatic enough. in recent months, tea party candidates have behaved in ways that belie their public commitment to combating progressivism. they’ve backed measures that blatantly contradict their originalist mission. and they’ve frequently misunderstood or misrepresented the constitution itself. in may, for example, paul told a russian television station that america “should stop” automatically granting citizenship to the native-born children of illegal immigrants. turns out his suggestion would be unconstitutional, at least according to the 14th amendment (1868) and a pair of subsequent supreme court decisions. a few weeks later, paul said he’d like to prevent federal contractors from lobbying congress—a likely violation of their first amendment right to redress. in july, alaska’s miller told abc news that unemployment benefits are not “constitutionally authorized.” reports later revealed that his wife claimed unemployment in 2002.
the list goes on. most tea partiers claim that the 10th amendment, which says “the powers not delegated” to the federal government are “reserved to the states,” is proof that the framers would’ve balked at today’s bureaucracy. what they don’t mention is that james madison refused a motion to add the word “expressly” before “delegated” because “there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication.” in last week’s delaware senate debate, o’donnell was asked to name a recent supreme court case she disagreed with. “oh, gosh,” she stammered, unable to cite a single piece of evidence to support her constitution in exile talking points. “i know that there are a lot, but, uh, i’ll put it up on my web site, i promise you.” angle has said that “government isn’t what our founding fathers put into the constitution”—even though establishing a federal government with the “power to lay and collect taxes” to “provide for the common defence and general welfare” is one of the main reasons the founders created a constitution to replace the weak, decentralized articles of confederation. in 2008 palin told katie couric that the constitution does, in fact, guarantee “an inherent right to privacy,” à la roe v. wade, but added that “individual states…can handle an issue like that.” unfortunately, palin’s hypothesis would only be viable in a world without the fourteenth amendment, which gave washington sole responsibility for safeguarding all constitutional rights. then there are the proposed amendments. in the current congress, conservatives like michele bachmann have suggested more than 40 additions to the constitution: a flag-desecration amendment; a balanced-budget amendment; a “parental rights” amendment; a supermajority-to-raise-taxes amendment; anti-abortion amendment; an anti-gay-marriage amendment; and so on. none of these revisions has anything to do with the document’s original meaning.
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