The Smoking Gun documents Paris Hilton’s lie to Larry King with What Was Paris Smoking?
Via Crooks and Liars, on The Daily Show Lewis Black Exposes Right Wing Media Paranoia. “You know what a ‘fake news’ show on Fox News should give you? Real news!”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has a place for the new guy.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Thirsty San Francisco city workers will no longer have bottled water to drink under an order by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who says it costs too much, worsens pollution and is no better than tap water.
Newsom’s executive order bars city departments, agencies and contractors from using city funds to serve water in plastic bottles and in larger dispensers when tap water is available.
“In San Francisco, for the price of one 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of bottled water, local residents can purchase 1,000 gallons of tap water,” according to the mayor’s order.
Once while rushing to a New York meeting, there were no cabs available, so Rogers and one of his colleagues hopped on the subway. Esquire reported that the car was filled with people, and they assumed they wouldn’t be noticed. But when the crowd spotted Rogers, they all simultaneously burst into song, chanting “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” The result made Rogers smile wide.
[Actually the lyric is, “It’s a beautiful day in the the neighborhood.”]
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
NewMexiKen was invited to an Impeach Dick Cheney rally this evening but I told the supporters I couldn’t attend.
What, and miss Paris Hilton on Larry King?!
CARNAC: The Jack Abramoff scandal, or a 72 at Augusta.
ED McMAHON: The Jack Abramoff scandal, or a 72 at Augusta?
(Carnac opens the envelope and pulls out the card.)
CARNAC: Par for the course.
Having persuaded a majority of Americans that creationism is correct, lets get rid of some of the other “myths.”
The “wall of separation” is a metaphor deeply embedded in the American consciousness. Most Americans assume that the First Amendment prevents the mixing of politics and religion. The freedom of religion clauses protect individuals from the entanglement of religion with government and secure the right to freely exercise religious faith. America is a religiously pluralistic culture guided by a secular government.
But is this conventional wisdom of “secularized” government exactly what our Founding Fathers intended when they established our nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Some scholars think so. Other scholars claim that a contextualization of Colonial American culture and politics reveals a radically different definition of religious establishment and church/state relations than we have today. Some even claim it is the exact opposite of what the Founders intended.
That’s right. It’s a press release for a PBS distributed film, Wall of Separation. More of that liberal media. (Now there’s a real myth!)
I think Annette has written an excellent brief review of Al Gore’s book — and made the case that you should read it.
A good summary from Talking Points Memo:
The background details are surprisingly straightforward. In 1995, the Clinton White House issued an executive order establishing uniform rules for protecting classified information. In 2003, the Bush White House revised it. The order plainly includes any executive-branch agency, any military department, and “any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” The entire branch of government, the order said, is subject to oversight.
. . .Look, I can appreciate the fact that the White House is in a jam here. Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the gang repeatedly mishandled classified materials during a time of war, got caught, ignored their own rules, and is now struggling to rationalize their conduct. When the federal agency responsible for oversight tried to do its job, the Vice President reportedly tried to abolish the agency. This isn’t a fact-pattern that’s easy to spin.
But the explanations thus far have been transparently ridiculous, up to and including the notion that the Vice President, as defined in Article II of the Constitution, isn’t actually part of the executive branch of government.
The Executive Orders go back well before Clinton. NewMexiKen was first hired by the National Archives more than 30 years ago as a result of the Nixon classified materials order (E.O. 11652). (It frightens the hell out of me that I remembered that number without looking it up.)
Richard Cheney does not believe in the American system of government despite the oath that he has taken many times (as did I, as does every federal employee except the president, whose oath is in the Constitution):
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Well and faithfully. The least we can ask is “faithfully.”
Update: Rep. Rahm Emanuel has introduced an amendment to an Executive branch appropriations bill which would omit funding for the Office of the Vice President. Either the Vice President is part of the Executive branch — and subject to its regulations — or not.
Since the start of the Iraq war, more than half the states have decided to lower their flags for 24 hours or more when a local soldier dies in combat.
Opponents of lowering the flag see it as a subtle antiwar gesture that may run counter to federal guidelines, which reserve the action for “officials,” not soldiers.
Others say that governors have the authority to order such tributes and that fallen soldiers are at least as deserving as politicians.
…Last week, federal lawmakers passed a measure that would give governors the authority to order all officials in their states, including federal authorities, to lower the flag. President Bush has until next week to sign or veto the measure.
Although Congressional staff members involved with the measure say Mr. Bush may want to sign it for patriotic reasons, he may also be reluctant to appear to be ceding power over federal officials to the states.
…
In states where flags are lowered, the extent of the governors’ orders varies.
Each time a soldier from California is killed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, orders American and state flags lowered at the Capitol. In Wisconsin, Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat, lowers the flag at all state buildings in such cases. Virginia and New Mexico, both with Democratic governors, lower just state flags.
In Michigan, Ms. Granholm has ordered the lowering of all flags at all state buildings, and urged the same for rest of the state, each time a soldier from the state was killed, or 127 times since December 2003, when she began the practice.
Although its ultimate resolution is complicated, the question raised by Al-Marri is a clear and simple one: Does the President have the power — and/or should he have it — to arrest individuals on U.S. soil and keep them imprisoned for years and years, indefinitely, without charging them with a crime, allowing them access to lawyers or the outside world, and/or providing a meaningful opportunity to contest the validity of the charges?
How can that question not answer itself? Who would possibly believe that an American President has such powers, and more to the point, what kind of a person would want a President to have such powers? That is one of a handful of powers which this country was founded to prevent.
To repeat: That is one of a handful of powers which this country was founded to prevent.
More Greenwald:
Anyone who believes that the President should have the power to order individuals inside the U.S. imprisoned forever with no charges and no process is someone who, by definition, simply does not believe in the political system of the United States.
“People like Joe Lieberman and the increasing ‘Bomb Iran’ chorus of which he is a part are the precise opposite of ‘serious’ and ‘tough.’ They are irresponsible and dangerous extremists…”
I really recommend reading (at least) the first 11 pages of the court’s decision, where the court sets forth in very stark and clear terms exactly what we have done to al-Marri. I recall the sensation, back in law school, of reading legal opinions from various periods of time throughout our country’s history which began by recounting the government’s behavior and finding it difficult to believe that any government could engage in such conduct without provoking a massive backlash (and sometimes it did).
That is the reaction which this opinion provokes (even though the facts are familiar). No matter how many times one thinks about it, reads or writes about it, it never ceases to amaze — literally — that our government has asserted the power to imprison people, including those on U.S. soil, and keep them locked up for years and years, indefinitely, without so much as charging them with any crime or even allowing them access to lawyers. And that is to say nothing of what is done to them while being held completely incommunicado. That was just a line that one thought the American Government could not cross without enormous backlash.
Here’s the decision. [pdf]
The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.
Sen. Joe Lieberman told Face The Nation the U.S. should bomb Iran because they continue to aid anti-American forces in Iraq. What do you think?
“If I didn’t know that was solid foreign policy, I’d swear it was incoherent mumbling!”
“Wow, my uneducated 12-year-old son said the same thing!”
In terms of the deadline, there needs to be one.
President Bush Saturday regarding Kosovo.
First of all, I don’t think I called for a deadline. I thought I said, time — I did? What exactly did I say? I said, “deadline”? Okay, yes, then I meant what I said.
President Bush Sunday regarding Kosovo.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran’s involvement in Iraq.
NewMexiKen suggests we bomb Connecticut instead for reelecting the stupid son-of-a-bitch.
In a previous post I mentioned Timothy Henderson’s A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States
At the American Heritage Blog Henderson was interviewed. Here is the beginning of his answer to the last question, one concerning the Mexican War and today’s immigration issue. I urge you to read all of his answer, but here is the beginning of that answer.
I’m struck by how similar the debate on immigration is to the debates that preceded the U.S.–Mexican War. The debate tends to treat Mexico as if it were at best irrelevant to the issue, or at worst an agent of evil. It seems that the debaters seldom take into account that the problem now is identical to the problem then, namely the vast disparity in wealth and power between the two countries. Many of the migrants who come here have to abandon their families and endure tremendous hardship. It’s not as if they want to do that; they’re merely behaving as perfectly rational economic actors, going where the jobs are. So it’s offensive when people portray them as an evil brown-skinned horde intent on subverting our nationality and sapping our prosperity. Obviously, if Mexico were to become a prosperous and stable country, then the flow of illegal immigrants would slow to a trickle. Problem solved.
Once again, I urge you to read his entire response to the question, but here’s another money quote:
People who want to defend immigration happily point out that Mexicans are willing to do nasty, low-paid jobs that are just too hard or disgusting for Americans to do—and they say it as if this is a good thing. I have a hard time seeing that as a positive. Do we really want to encourage the formation of a permanent underclass of ethnically distinct people doing disagreeable menial labor? Isn’t that kind of what slavery was all about?
“In 19 months [Bush] will be a private citizen, giving speeches to insurance executives. America, however, will have to move on and restore its place in the world.”
At Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria writes on How to Restore America’s Place in the World. It’s an excellent, and I think correct, review of American foreign policy.
On the campaign trail, Giuliani plays a man exasperated by the inability of Americans to see the danger staring them in the face. “This is reality, ma’am,” he told a startled woman at Oglethorpe. “You’ve got to clear your head.”
The notion that the United States today is in grave danger of sitting back and going on the defensive is bizarre. In the last five and a half years, with bipartisan support, Washington has invaded two countries and sent troops around the world from Somalia to the Philippines to fight Islamic militants. It has ramped up defense spending by $187 billion—more than the combined military budgets of China, Russia, India and Britain. It has created a Department of Homeland Security that now spends more than $40 billion a year. It has set up secret prisons in Europe and a legal black hole in Guantánamo, to hold, interrogate and—by some definitions—torture prisoners. How would Giuliani really go on the offensive? Invade a couple of more countries?
Thanks again to Tom at Functional Ambivalent for the pointer.
“Yes, yes…it’s great that the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act yesterday. But to think there are eight idiots on the committee—Kyl, Brownback, Sessions, Grassley, Cornyn, Graham, Coburn and Hatch—who think our system of government functions just fine without it is scary. There’s a word for people like them…and it ain’t ‘American.'”
FYI Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
Thanks to the suggestion from Tom at Functional Ambivalent, NewMexiKen just finished reading the Remarks of former U.S. President Bill Clinton at Harvard.
Go read them. You will be amused, informed and moved.
Completed Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason
Still, compelling in making the case that we live in perilous times and that Bush is the worst and most dangerous president ever. That alone should make it required reading for concerned citizens.
Should we amend all of the textbooks in America to explain to schoolchildren that what has been taught for more than two centuries about checks and balances is no longer valid? Should we teach them instead that the United States Congress and the courts are merely advisory groups that make suggestions to the president on what the law should be, but that the president is all-powerful and now has the final say on everything? Should we teach them that we are a government of men, not laws? Should we teach them that we used to be a democracy but now we only pretend to be?
MR. HALL: I know a business owner in northern New Hampshire who was on vacation in Spain last year for about three weeks. While he was there he had to buy refills for prescription drugs — brand-name drugs. And he discovered in buying those drugs that he could buy his refills there for $600 less than he could by them here in New Hampshire. So since then, he’s said he is going to take a trip over to Spain and get his vacation paid for to buy his drugs[.]
If only all those uninsured folks would just buy their prescriptions while on holiday in Spain.
Jonathan Stein suggests the immigration bill’s points system will change the American dream.
Whatever happened to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door”?
. . .We’ll have to change the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. I propose, “Give me your educated, your credentialed, your cubicle jockeys yearning to cash checks, the fluent doctors abandoning your teeming shores. Send these, the smart, the intelligent, to me: I lift my lamp beside the door of privilege.”
Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show today [May 31st] on National Public Radio.
One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: “Don’t go sell it on eBay.”
From a review of The Assault on Reason
In “The Assault on Reason” Al Gore excoriates George W. Bush, asserting that the president is “out of touch with reality,” that his administration is so incompetent that it “can’t manage its own way out of a horse show,” that it ignored “clear warnings” about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by “stirring up a hornets’ nest in Iraq,” while using “the language and politics of fear” to try to “drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest.”
. . .And yet for all its sharply voiced opinions, “The Assault on Reason” turns out to be less a partisan, election-cycle harangue than a fiercely argued brief about the current Bush White House that is grounded in copiously footnoted citations from newspaper articles, Congressional testimony and commission reports — a brief that is as powerful in making its points about the implications of this administration’s policies as the author’s 2006 book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was in making its points about the fallout of global warming.