Fables of the reconstruction

After Weighing the Evidence Carefully, I'd Say You're Nuts

Gun nut Dave Kopel is becoming my fav Volokhian:

My view is that there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that our President is a jihadi.

Just his view, ya understand. Not saying it's not possible Obama is a jihadi bent on destroying the U.S.  Funny stuff then follows in comments: Some say jihadis are more respectable than Obama, the rest of us laugh.

Wake Me When It's Over

It's hard for me to care about events in the Senate when dumbass conservatives from my own party are the ones standing in the way of even a mild kind of reform. What should I do, call Blanche Lincoln's office and scream at her staffer?

Just think, if we had gone all-in on single payer, this never would have happened. All opposition would have been swept away by a tidal wave of public ... wait, why are you laughing?

This Protest Sponsored By Your Local Gigantic Health Insurance Company

I drove past the corner of 20th & Market in center city Philadelphia today, and on the southeast corner was a demonstration against the health care reform bill. There were at least six people, one of them had an American flag and another had a Gadsden flag ("Dont Tread on Me"), and there was some kind of sign about "freedom". I then noticed a young man who looked like he had taken his jacket and tie off who was handing out literature. It was then that I twigged to the fact that Blue Cross is on that block.  Subtle, guys.

I wish I had gotten a picture, but I was laughing too hard.

Edelweiss and Anthrax

Over at Volokh, professional gun nut David Kopel looks at a Newsweek cover ("How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?") and sees a strong likeness between Sarah Palin and -- wait for it - Maria from The Sound of Music:

[The Mother Superior] ships Maria off to a job outside the abbey–a job for which Maria is totally unprepared, and a job at which Maria’s predecessors have failed. After a rough start, Maria becomes a great success, due to her common sense, kind heart, wisdom, and readiness to defy convention. In the process, Maria also stands up to foreign totalitarian aggressors (winning the support of even her staunch critic Berthe), fortifies the nationalist sentiments of her country against those aggressors, and leads the people in her care to safety and freedom.

Ergo, the question “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?’ provides its own answer, at least to people who know the film from which the song comes: Make her the President of the United States.

Ergo, motherfucker! He then disavows actually wanting Palin to become President; he's just saying Newsweek hates her but is accidentally making her look really good.

This from one of the supposedly intellectual rightwing blogs.

Hilarity results in the comments including, among other things, that Kopel totally misunderstands the song.

Orly Taitz Refuses to Pay $20,000 Fine

Chief birther whackjob Orly Taitz was sanctioned $20,000 by a federal judge for filing repeated frivolous lawsuits against President Obama. Today was the deadline for her to pay, but:

“Absolutely not,” Taitz said Thursday afternoon when asked whether she would pay. “I have filed an appeal. It was a complete abuse of power.”

The original order says "if Taitz doesn’t pay by the deadline, the U.S. Attorney 'will be authorized to commence collection proceedings.' Taitz has appealed the sanction."

Pass the popcorn.

Catholic Church Attempting to Blackmail D.C. Over Gay Marriage

Typical of the hateful bigots:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Fortunately, D.C. City Council doesn't want to negotiate with terrorists:

[City council member David A.] Catania, who said he has been the biggest supporter of Catholic Charities on the council, said he is baffled by the church's stance. From 2006 through 2008, Catania said, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts, as well as several hundred thousand dollars' worth this year through his committee.

"If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes," Catania said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.

So, over $2 million per year for the past three years. If the international pedophile ring that calls itself a religion bails on D.C., I am sure other service providers would love to have that money.

Second-Most Senior RNC Member Resigns After Stalking Ex

Whoa:

Blake Hall, a leading figure in Idaho and national politics for 25 years, was fired Monday as a deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho and has resigned from the Republican National Committee. ...

Idaho Falls police reported that witnesses said Hall disposed of used condoms on the lawn of the woman's house. Nineteen condoms were turned over to police, collected on 10 different dates, according to a police report. Both Hall and his lawyer acknowledged the condoms belonged to him, according to a police report.

Wow. How crazy do you have to be?

Also, between March and August, Hall repeatedly followed the woman to restaurants, the movies and her home, and he ignored her repeated requests that he leave her alone, according to police and court records.

The victim testified Friday that Hall once followed her to a Walmart and took her car keys and would not return them until she agreed to "hear him out" concerning her marriage, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported.

"I was so tired of being victimized," the woman said. "It is unimaginable that a 56-year-old would be so deviant."

Hey, remember that Kentucky state official who shot his girlfriend to death in September? He was 56 years old. Good thing Hall was "just" obsessive, not violent.

Just like the attorney for that guy in Kentucky blaming the victim for her own death, some people in Idaho have some wacky ideas, too:

Hall, 56, will keep his $31,000-a-year job as the civil attorney in nearby Fremont County, according to Prosecutor Joette Lookabaugh, a Republican who hired Hall in January.

Lookabaugh said she told Hall he would keep his job "unless or until his ability to do an outstanding job for Fremont County citizens is compromised."

In a news release, Lookabaugh suggested Hall was singled out because of his notoriety.

"I understand that political figures are held to a higher standard," she said. "What is disturbing is the fact that often people who have devoted their lives to public service are not given the same benefits, or are treated more harshly, than the public at large. There seems to be a certain amount of political glee in striking down the well-known for any real or perceived foible."

Hall admits throwing used condoms on a woman's lawn. Does Prosecutor Lookabaugh really believe someone who does that should retain a position of trust?

Hall continues to accumulate pension benefits from Fremont County. Hall's law firm gets about $600,000 worth of business from the state, but that is being looked at.

Local Programming: SEPTA Strike Ends

Apparently.

Everything will be running in the morning. Not that people who need to know that will know, because once again, things happen in the middle of the night.

I have no idea who won or lost in this battle. Whatever.

Mortification

Regrets, now you have more than a few:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

I doubt this is intentional wordplay, but the original meaning of the root of "mortify" is "put to death." I believe both that Hasan was harassed and that he was deeply affected by the soldiers he had to treat. I understand not wanting to deploy, although "tough shit, they paid for your medical degree" is also an acceptable answer. But assuming you don't want to go to war, how do you get from there to shooting scores of people? Probably he was just flipped out and not thinking straight. But I can't rule out the possibility that he connected the dots between being harassed for being Muslim and what he was afraid of in Iraq and decided he needed to kill some soldiers, intending to go out guns blazing. In effect, he decided to take up arms against his country, albeit in a half-assed way. 

For these reasons, I think his commanding officer's remark that Hasan's "death is not imminent" is both a statement of fact and a prediction of mortification to come. The U.S. military has not had an execution for some time, but has several men on death row, including Sgt. Akbar - who also claimed harassment and then fragged his officers while in Kuwait. I think Maj. Hasan is destined to join them.

Can't Blame Black People For Gay-Rights Defeat This Time

Maine voters decisively rejected same-sex marriage yesterday, 53% to 47%. Last November, when California voters overturned gay marriage there, the exit polls indicated that out of the Obama constituencies, overwhelming opposition from African-American (and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic) voters helped tip the balance. This was controversial, to put it mildly. Well, Maine is 97% white, and Obama won it in a landslide, 58%-42%. 

Something else I hadn't realized: the Christie win in New Jersey means the gay marriage bill expected to have come out of the legislature soon is now dead.

Fear wins again.

Obama as Prof. Xavier

I perked up when I saw this headline over at the Heritage Foundation's blog:

Pelosi Plan Would Give Health Czar Super Powers

I'm thinking, "Telepathy, that's what that official needs! No, not telepathy -- a superhuman capacity to put up with bullshit." Because it turns out there are no mutant powers, it's just Heritage being total whackjobs again. Anyone who has even read the smallest part about what they're referring to will understand they're nuts. Or lying. Or both.

Another South Carolina Politician Resigns

Caught in a cemetery with a stripper, sex toys and Viagra:

[Police officer Mike Wines] stopped [state Assistant Attorney General Roland] Corning Monday after witnessing his car pull into a secluded spot in Elmwood Cemetery in downtown Columbia.

Corning was in the car with an 18-year-old employee of Platinum Plus Gentlemen’s Club, Wines reported. After receiving conflicting stories from Corning and the woman, Wines searched Corning’s car and found some sex toys and sex enhancement drug.

No laws were broken, so that's a plus. Corning resigned from the Attorney General's office anyway.

Prematurely Incorrect

I love it when John Cole is wound up:

Although I hear if you wish really hard and scream “Just words” at Obama, Lieberman might change his mind. That is how this shit works- I read it on the internet!

Scientist Arrested for Attempted Espionage

People are stupid:

In early September, [Stewart David] Nozette was contacted by phone by an individual purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who really was an FBI undercover agent, the document says.

They met in downtown Washington in front of a hotel, and over lunch, Nozette "demonstrated his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence," it says.

The undercover agent engaged in a series of meetings with Nozette, and eventually Nozette allegedly provided "secret" information in a "dead drop" post office box. Some of the information, the affidavit says, was classified as secret.

Selling secrets is just plain dumb. I mean, even if it had been the Israelis he was dealing with, turning over classified information puts you at their mercy. They can make you deliver more and more material, and if you refuse they'll just burn you to the Americans. 

So what was Nozette's problem?

The FBI document, signed by Special Agent Leslie G. Martell, says Nozette in January 2009 told a colleague "that if the United States government tried to put him in jail" on an unrelated matter, Nozette would move to Israel or another unidentified foreign country and "tell them everything" he knows.

What the hell is that about? Taxes? Drugs? Child porn? I have no idea. Whatever it was, telling someone with a clearance you're thinking of betraying your country if you get prosecuted for it is just stupid squared.

What did Nozette know?

Nozette had a "top secret" clearance, and served at the White House on the National Space Council for President George H.W. Bush, the affidavit says. Later, from early 2000 to early 2006, he did research and development for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, it says.

Lovely.

The Israelis are not accused of doing anything wrong here. However:

The document says Nozette also acted as a technical consultant from 1998 until early 2008 "for an aerospace company that was wholly owned by the government of the state of Israel." The company consulted with Nozette monthly, getting answers to questions, and he received regular payments of $225,000, Martell's affidavit says.

Well, if he was an independent contractor receiving "regular payments" of almost a quarter million dollars, I would guess the tax angle sounds likelier.

Urban Legends

How stupid do you have to be to believe this shit?

A drug dealer marks his spot by tying the shoe strings of sneakers together and hanging them over a line, he said: Look for those shoes. Near them is an alleged drug house his group is targeting.

Following Phillips’ directions, a reporter and photographer drive up 25th Avenue with a video camera aimed out the passenger’s side window.

Sure enough, shoes hang there on a line. Beyond them, men stand in a front yard. Noticing the camera, one yells, “What the f--k is goin’ on!”

That’s the kind of confrontation drug fighters like Phillips face regularly, in their marches, night watches and camp-outs, as they try to drive the dealers out.

People throw shoes over power lines for all sorts of stupid reasons. Who knows, maybe some drug dealers have heard the urban legend and did it. But most dealers don't hang up signs - their customers know where to find them.

But yeah, in any tough city neighborhood aiming a video camera out a car window will at least earn you "What the fuck is goin' on!" It could also get you killed, which would be your own foolish fault for brandishing something that could be mistaken for a gun out a window.

Fundamentally Dishonest

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway:

When anti-abortion activist James Pouillon was shot and killed in Michigan last month, the mainstream media response was significantly more muted [than when Dr. Tiller was assassinated]. While there could be different explanations or excuses for the insignificant coverage … .

To which I responded in comments:

Oh, I wish there had been more coverage of Mr. Pouillon and why he was outside that specific school:

It will be impossible for some to believe, but my dad really didn’t care about aborton.

He did this to stalk, harass, terrorize, scream at, threaten, frighten, and verbally abuse women. He had a pathologic hatred of women: his mom, my mom, everyone.

After my mom finally left him and he lost his favorite punching bag the violence and abuse that was always contained within our 4 walls was unleased on the people of Owosso. …

He was at the high shool because my niece was there, and female family members were always his favorite targets.

Of course, the fact that the murderer also killed a gravel company owner and was after a real estate broker when he was caught, neither of whom had anything to do with abortion, might be a fairly decent “excuse” for not giving the story more play.

Which she deleted. Because that's just how Get Religion rolls.

Rightwing Whackjobs Make News

Washington Post:

Carney-Nunes looked at the time stamp -- 6:47 a.m. -- and closed the file without replying. She knew Malkin had driven criticism of President Obama's back-to-school speech, streamed nationwide, as an attempt to indoctrinate students. Now Malkin was asking about a YouTube video of New Jersey public school children singing and enthusiastically chanting about Obama from a Black History Month presentation.

By nightfall, Carney-Nunes's name was playing on Fox News and voice mails on her home phone and cellphone were clogged with the furious voices of strangers. The e-mails kept pouring in, by the hundreds, crammed with words spam filters try to catch: She was a "nappy-headed" traitor; she would lose her job and go to jail; she was Leni Riefenstahl, the filmmaker who glorified Hitler. ...

Carney-Nunes, who writes children's books and was a year behind Obama at Harvard Law School, watched as strangers posted her personal information on the Internet. She read, "You're a dirtbag commie propagandist trying to infect children with your failed Marxist ideology." And "your Obama chant is right out of Africa." And "get ready for a massive attack!!!" And "my friend GLENN BECK will also shove this in your face until justice is served." She made copies (which she shared with The Washington Post) and then deleted the messages, hoping the tornado would set her back down.

"I was fearful," she said. "I was looking over my shoulder." The disrespect for the office of the presidency disturbed her. "I won a contest in college and President Reagan gave me an award, and that signed letter is still hanging in its frame in the foyer of my mother's home. We are very proud of that letter, even though my mother didn't vote for him." ...

An e-mail to Malkin Saturday seeking comment was not answered.

Carney-Nunes spends a lot of her free time teaching children how to bridge divides, but she has no idea how to build a dialogue with those who attacked her.

"How can I talk to those people?" she said. "These are people who persist in believing that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he isn't a citizen of this country. You tell me: Where is the beginning of that conversation?"

That's the meat of the story, the rest is false-equivalence and it's-always-been-bad history, which makes Father Coughlin sound like just some scamp nipping at FDR's heels. How colorful!

The nation's political discourse seems sour, angry, even dangerous; "uglier than it's ever been" is a phrase often volunteered -- as if President George W. Bush had never been depicted as Hitler, declared a dunce and heckled by Code Pink during his second inaugural address.

I swear, that MoveOn ad contest entry is getting to be for political vitriol what that woman who was burned by McDonald's coffee is for tort law. Tell me, though, which Congressional Democrats likened Bush to Hitler? Which major cable news network coordinated Code Pink's protests? I'm having trouble remembering, because it didn't happen. But yeah, Bush was a dunce.

Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry

Over at rightwing godshop Get Religion, frontpager E.E. Evans says:

It’s no secret that President Barack Obama has been viewed in quasi-Messianic terms by some on the left….

[T]he Messianic language comes from the left ….

To which I replied:

“It’s no secret” is one of those weasel phrases people use when they don’t have any evidence to cite.

She deleted the comment, but also responded to it! Which, I suppose, is novel. By way of providing evidence, she says:

Davis/Mithras, here’s a sampling of perspectives —

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7281.html

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=42227

http://www.foliomag.com/files/images/rolling_stone_obama.jpg

By the way “Mithras” if you want to make a point, try making it politely. Otherwise, the next time, your comment will surely as the sun comes out tomorrow be deleted again.

Ooooh, I'm in troubbbbllllle. E.E. Evans, professional religious person, thinks I am not polite. Oh well. But what I said was:

Evans-
Of your three links: It’s interesting that 2 of them are primarily about the comments of African-Americans (the third, Rolling Stone, has to be taken as a tongue-in-cheek Star Wars reference), but you identify these people as the left generally. (Also, citing Politico is a bit tendentious, don’t you think?) I believe there is a bit of a racial/religion ghost in your characterization.

Meaning, you're a fucking liar. Shockingly, she deleted that comment, too.

You know, I give the biblethumpers at GR credit for at least having comments, unlike most rightwing bloggers, but it's hard for them to maintain their mental rigidity and still let other people talk. So they make copious use of the spike. (That's journalism lingo, kids. Isn't the internet wonderful?) I don't do that, myself. I mean, if you allow opposing comments, then you have to read them but no one else probably will. But when you delete comments, then someone like me goes back to their own blog and calls you a fucking liar for everyone to see.

More Is Thy Due Than More Than All Can Pay

Some guy named Chiscolm sued Bank of America for $1.784 septillion dollars. That's $1,784,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  Or $1.784 trillion trillion. Any way you say it, he won't get it:

The gross domestic product of the entire world in 2008 was only $60 trillion, so even if Chiscolm won it might be a little hard to collect.

Also, or rather to reiterate, he's not going to win because he's nuts:

In a ruling issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called Chiscolm's claim "incomprehensible," having something to do with incomplete routing numbers and inconsistent information given to him over the phone by a "Spanish womn [sic]."  Chiscolm now has a month to come up with a better explanation of his claims, so we can all look forward to that.

Damn Spanish womn. Get you every time.

(Via via.)

Birther Suit Dismissed and Orly Taitz Threatened With Sanctions

This is nice:

[Middle District of Georgia] U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land today tossed out a complaint by an Army captain fighting deployment to Iraq by questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama.

Land also put attorney Orly Taitz, who represents Capt. Connie Rhodes and is a leader in the national “birther” movement, on notice by stating that she could face sanctions if she ever files a similar “frivolous” lawsuit in his court.

“(Rhodes) has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president of the United States,” Land states in his order. “Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’”

Orly Taitz, JD, DDS, and "frivolous" in the same sentence. I am glad some people are sane.

Update: The judge's order (pdf) will be included in an upper-level law seminar I will teach next year called Things You Don't Want a Judge to Say About You or Your Client:

The present action is the second such action filed in this Court in which counsel pursues her “birther claim.” Her modus operandi is to use military officers as parties and have them allege that they should not be required to follow deployment orders because President Obama is not constitutionally qualified to be President. Although counsel has managed to fuel this “birther movement” with her litigation and press conferences, she does not appear to have prevailed on a single claim. In fact, Plaintiff previously filed the present action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. That Court summarily dismissed her complaint upon finding that Plaintiff “has no substantial likelihood of success on the merits.” [Cite omitted.] Counsel then re-filed the same action in this Court.

Subtle practice point here: As an attorney, you know you're in trouble when the judge writes that you have a modus operandi. Also, it's bad form to shop your case around to every District Court you think might give you a sympathetic hearing just because it's located in a red state.

Captain Rhodes entered the Army in March of 2005 and presently serves as a medical doctor.  The American taxpayers paid for her third and fourth years of medical school and financially supported her during her subsequent medical internship and residency program. In exchange for this valuable free medical education, Captain Rhodes agreed to serve two years in active service in the Army. She began that term of active service in July of 2008 and had no concerns about fulfilling her military obligation until she received orders notifying her that she would be deployed to Iraq in September of 2009.

Captain Rhodes does not seek a discharge from the Army; nor does she wish to be relieved entirely from her two year active service obligation. She has not previously made any official complaints regarding any orders or assignments that she has received, including orders that have been issued since President Obama became Commander in Chief. But she does not want to go to Iraq (or to any other destination where she may be in harm’s way, for that matter). Her “conscientious objections” to  serving under the current Commander in Chief apparently can be accommodated as long as she is permitted to remain on American soil.

Captain, you've just been called a coward by a United States District Judge. Now how do you feel?

Plaintiff’s challenge to her deployment order is frivolous. She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the President is “an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.” ... She continues with bare, conclusory allegations that the President is “an alien, possibly even an unnaturalized or even an unadmitted illegal alien . . . without so much as lawful residency in the United States.” ... Then, implying that the President is either a wandering nomad or a prolific identity fraud crook, she alleges that the President “might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 social security numbers prior to assuming the office of President.” ... (emphasis added).) Acknowledging the existence of a document that shows the President was born in Hawaii, Plaintiff alleges that the document “cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent.” (... (emphasis added).) In further support of her claim, Plaintiff relies upon “the general opinion in the rest of the world” that “Barack Hussein Obama has, in essence, slipped through the guardrails to become President.” ... Moreover, as though the “general opinion in the rest of the world” were not enough, Plaintiff alleges in her Complaint that according to an “AOL poll 85% of Americans believe that Obama was not vetted, needs to be vetted and his vital records need to be produced.” ...

Cites omitted, but I'll note that some of them refer to page 148 of the complaint. That's not a brief, that's a book. I would sanction Taitz on that basis alone, which is one of many reasons I am not a judge.

Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that Defendant has the burden to prove his “natural born” status. ... Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to “prove his innocence” to “charges” that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order to purportedly “protect and preserve” those very principles.

In three sentences, Judge Land proves why Article III rocks. Do you think the rightwingers are going to go after him? Guess who appointed him: George W.  (This is the first time that I can recall ever wanting to post a smiley emoticon on this blog.)

On to Footnote 5:

One piece of “evidence” Plaintiff’s counsel relies upon deserves further discussion. Counsel has produced a document that she claims shows the President was born in Kenya, yet she has not authenticated that document. She has produced an affidavit from someone who allegedly obtained the document from a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya by paying “a cash ‘consideration’ to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while [he] obtained the copy” of the document. ... Counsel has not, however, produced an original certificate of authentication from the government agency that supposedly has official custody of the document. Therefore, the Court finds that the alleged document is unreliable due to counsel’s failure to properly authenticate the document.

Taitz failed to produce Obama's official Kenyan birth certificate! I can hear 60,000 wingnuts, or a million, give or take, sputtering in confusion.

One more thing: The judge went out of his way to not just dismiss the complaint, but to demonstrate that the plaintiff's allegations didn't survive any of the different legal tests that it would have to satisfy if she hoped to prevail. He didn't need to do that, but I suppose he didn't want to repeat the District Court in Texas' mistake of issuing just a summary order. After it failed one standard, he could have dismissed it on that basis alone, but he chose to show that the complaint lacked any merit, which provides the justification for the best part of the order:

Plaintiff’s counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c).

Rule 11 provides, among other things:

A sanction imposed under this rule must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated. The sanction may include nonmonetary directives; an order to pay a penalty into court; or, if imposed on motion and warranted for effective deterrence, an order directing payment to the movant of part or all of the reasonable attorney's fees and other expenses directly resulting from the violation.

One thing I want to know is: Is Taitz admitted to practice in the Middle District of Georgia, or did she waive in pro hac vice? If the latter, then there is also some local counsel who vouched for her who is also going to suffer for inflicting this nonsense on the court. Good.

Quote of the Day

Is this post title from Nate Silver:

Baucus Compromise Bill Draws Enthusiastic Support of Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

Good Thing They Don't Remember Clinton Had a "Czar Czar"

Eugene Volokh is worried about Obama's "czars", saying

[Czars] were ultimately authoritarians who left their country far poorer than their more democratic counterparts, lost a world war, and of course paved the way for an even worse system of government.

This is only a problem when a Democrat is in the White House, since Bush had 36 "czar" jobs. They'd probably cream themselves if CZAR were an acronym coined by the military, though. They love those.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

The White House releases a video rebutting the Drudge attack that public option will destroy private insurance (I wish!):

And the comments to the video are a wingnut playground:

Avarice176 (4 minutes ago)  UGH ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA! QUIT LYING TO US! This country's government is BROKEN. Wake the fuck up people.

nancyparton (5 minutes ago) redbeakman--what you said is right on target.

Tobias2012 (5 minutes ago) Pelosi and the lefty libs are lying through their teeth! This propaganda piece is is reminiscent of a the Hugo Chavez media! Is this America or what?

ungreatness (6 minutes ago) The facts? From someone who suckles at the proverbial teat of the president? Pffffft.

VirginianAmerican (7 minutes ago) WE THE PEOPLE SAY BULL SHIT!!! .

psychientology (7 minutes ago) But he has lied about everything. He says one thing and does the opposite and then says he didn't do it. We are not stupid. We have been but wed are wide awake now.

AI4QT (8 minutes ago) What a slick video. Nice try. How many takes did it take to get this done. Everything is perfect-- lighting, audio, upturn collar. Slick, no doubt. Only problem, I'm not buying what this Administration is saying to us about health care.

tlewis7777 (8 minutes ago) FreeEnterpriseBMX you're right on. Fix it to where those that don't currently have insurance have more viable options but don't change the whole system when a large majority of people like what they have.

FreeEnterpriseBMX (8 minutes ago) Lets look at some FACTS, instead of rhetoric, from the actual "health care" bill; REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals must have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers. The penalty is 2.5 percent of income. REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers must provide insurance to their employees or pay a penalty of 8 percent of payroll. Wow, more costs on the back of small business. Further increasing unemployment and raising costs on all goods, and services...

redbeakman (9 minutes ago) It also doen't change the fact that he said what he said. People can edit video. There was no vieo editing in his past comments about nationalization. She's impying something with no basis to back it up and no effort to discredit the film/"out of context statements" in question.

I figure a quarter are real wingnuts and the rest insurance industry astroturfers. Just a guess.

What Digby Said

In comments to this post, on the fecklessness of people who think the public option is a sellout and that we could have had single payer if only, well, something:

I wish I shared your optimism that if we could crash and burn this health care legislation we'd come back all fresh and new in the new year and single payer would be the only logical answer. I have seen no evidence that politics works that way nor in any history I've ever read, but maybe this time it will be different. I think it's an awful risk to take, however. I honestly can't see that it's riskier to get something less than single payer that could evolve into a working decent system than to possibly have to wait another decade for the single payer movement that never seems to materialize.

This economy is shit and if the Democrats are perceived to be weak and unable to pass anything, voters are going to punish them for it. I'm sorry that's how people think, but it is. They do not like losers. And if you think we have a better chance of health reform under Republicans you are living in a dream world.

I wish it were different. But contrary to a lot of the silly commentary I read on this, I don't actually have the kind of influence that can change the debate --- I only observe it and analyse it. So, I'm not quite sure why the so-called "a-list" bloggers are considered to be the heavy in this. I think perhaps all this anger is just a tad misplaced considering the array of forces that are against any kind of health reform, much less single payer.

The Democratic electoral victories in 2006 and 2008 revealed that a goodly number of liberal political bloggers don't have the first clue about how politics works. First and foremost, you get what you work for, not what you think you deserve. And the whiners Digby is talking about seem to have an allergy to doing anything more strenuous than banging their sippy cups on the keyboard.

(Via Kevin K.)

That's All It Takes

Under the headline "Analysis: Obama Must Regain Momentum After Gates", this:

Obama's impromptu comments about the incident could become a defining moment. Nearly immediately after Obama's remark that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, his approval rating plummeted among whites, dropping over two days from 53 percent to 46 percent in a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

It took the deaths of hundreds of African-Americans and the drowning of a fabled American city for white America to begin to question the leadership of George W. Bush. It took Obama questioning the actions of a single white cop for his approval rating to fall farther than Bush's did after Katrina.

Mad Bitch Beer

In a non-insane world, these people would lose their jobs immediately:

In a bit about which beers would go to which political players if invited to the White House, we heard a variety of rather predictable jokes. David Vitter could enjoy "a nice cold Happy Ending." Dennis Kucinich would have a bottle of "Insanely Bad Elf." The French delegation could be served "Frosty Frog." You get the idea.

At the 2:35 mark, Milbank tells the viewer, "And we won't tell you who's getting a bottle of Mad Bitch." At that point, a photo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears briefly on screen.

Just Like How They Believed the Hijackers Were Iraqi

Fifty-eight percent of Republicans either do not believe Obama is an American citizen or are not sure. This is compared to seven percent of Democrats (wonder who they voted for) and seventeen percent of independents. The overwhelming majority of the Republican birthers are in the South.

Hmm, southern white conservatives don't believe the first black President is legitimate. I am so surprised.

When There is a National Conversation on Race, Black People Get it in the Neck

So, right now, the President of the United States, who happens to be half black, and the preeminent African-American scholar, who also happens to be half black, are sitting down for a beer with a police sergeant. The police officer is the person who will decide how the meeting goes, and the tenor of the resulting media coverage, because he is white, and that gives him the privilege of saying whether the black President and professor were sufficiently deferential and respectful of the authority inherent in the color of his skin.

I hope I am wrong, but I don't think this is going to end well.

Triple Word Score

So, I was playing Scrabble with a friend the other night when she put down the word "ago" in a place that opened up the corner spot to me. I added a D to make "dago" and "dey" in the other direction: 35 points. She challenged, not the somewhat obscure "dey", but "dago" because she knew something I didn't: Sure enough, "dago" is not in the official Scrabble dictionary.

There must be some mistake, I thought. "Dago" is a word, it's not new slang, it has been around for a long time, it's not a proper noun. Turns out that in the 90s Scrabble removed a number of words that are offensive or considered offensive from its dictionary, including "dago". I'm not surprised there are some people (there always are) of a certain age who find such things scandalous. What shocked me was that offensive words were removed from a game the point of which was your knowledge of all the words in English.

Apparently, this is how it happened:

While reading [the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary 2nd. Ed.], Judith Grad found several words she considered to be offensive, including "jew", listed as a verb with the definition "To bargain with - an offensive term". Her initial letters to Merriam-Webster and Milton Bradley requesting removal of the words resulted in politely negative responses. Grad wrote to the National Council of Jewish Women, who began a letter-writing campaign in support of her cause. Publicity in Jewish media led to the Anti-Defamation League writing to Hasbro chairman Alan Hassenfeld, who announced that a third edition would be published with the "offensive" words removed.

How did I miss this cultural landmark? Well, most of my good friends are poor but well-educated. When playing Scrabble in the past, we would use whatever dictionary was handy, usually a well-worn unabridged single volume thing. All of the words are in there, even the naughty ones. But now with the magic of the internet, the official dictionary is online, so we were using it this time.

I wondered which forbidden words were on the list and which weren't. It turns out, there is a lot for me to learn when it comes to offending people. I didn't know a good percentage of these terms. I would have expected all of Carlin's Seven Dirty Words to be on there, but of course "tits" has a perfectly innocuous meaning, so that stays in. If "jew" is out, so are the other antisemitic slurs (kike, hebe, yid, sheenie - that one was new on me), as well as their counterparts (goy, shiksa). I also learned "shegetz", which makes my world so much culturally richer. "Popish" is on there, which conjures up images of 19th-Century Know-Nothing riots. And "jesuitic"? Really, that's an insult?

On race and national origin, we've mainly got you covered. So covered, in fact, that I now know a lot more racial slurs than I did before. Ofay and buckra sound like ingredients on a French bistro menu, but in fact they are both disparaging terms for white person. (I shit you not - of course, "shit" is also on the list, so I really shit you not when Scrabbling.) Nigger, wop, mick, tomming, whitie, darkie, gringo, dago, spic, jigaboo, redskin, honkey, squaw, wetback, of course. "Haole" I only knew because of reading about Hawaii when Obama started his campaign. "Abo" I knew they say in Australia, but I didn't think it was a slur. "Chink" didn't make it, understandably given it's commonly used in an inoffensive way, but where is "gook"? "Coloreds" but not colored is on the list, although the plural also refers to laundry. (Too slangy, I guess.)  Did you know "hunkie" is a disparaging term for a person of Slavic or Hungarian descent? Now you do! I was appalled that "greaser" isn't on there, though; I guess they're thinking it's "a person or thing that greases" instead of a Mexican. I was also distressed to see that neither "towelhead" nor "raghead" made the list - perhaps they're too new. "Haji" is clearly too new in its insulting sense, but I look forward to seeing it on the list as it gets updated. But it turns out that "nitchie" is chiefly Canadian slang for a Native American person. Who knew? And I was pleased as a student of history that "pommy" was on the list - I am sure there are some elderly British immigrants who remember when it was last used in conversation. The list also includes "skimo", but I can't find any reference to it online or in any other dictionary - perhaps it's an insult from another planet?

I was a bit let down on sexual orientation insults. Fag and faggot aren't on the list, I guess because they have innocent meanings, but who ever uses them in those senses? "Faggotry" is on there, which makes my day. Dyke is not on the list, being an acceptable alternative form of the word meaning levee, but "dykey" is. Lesbo isn't on there, but "lez" and "lezzy" are. "Poofs" and "nancy" made it, which is sweet - I love anachronisms. And where are "homo" and "het"?

I was surprised to find cultural and political insults on the list, although I guess "redneck" and "fatso" were predictable if it had ever occurred to me to give this topic more than five seconds' thought. "Comsymp", though, th' fuck?

Other, more serious players reacted the way I did:

The news was generally not well received by members of the National Scrabble Association, which was not consulted in the decision. After receiving mostly negative feedback from players, including threats to boycott events, NSA president John D. Williams announced a compromise, the result of which was the publication of the unexpurgated Official Tournament and Club Word List.

This comprehensive list is such a well-guarded secret it retails for about $500. Used. For a game that involves knowing things, this doesn't seem like the optimal result.

This situation made me think of this Penny Arcade comic, which is based on the fact that Xbox Live not only bans dirty words, but preemptively bans words that are likely to become dirty:

A year ago, we saw a quiz thing that asked you to determine which of four odd phrases were euphemisms for sexual acts. By the time we had discovered this question, every item on the list had developed a carnal reputation. That is to say, every item. We are fast approaching a point where ordering a sandwich at a deli will land you in prison. While I'm intrigued by the dystopian undertones of this scenario, I don't necessarily want to live under its strictures, not least of which because I tend to frequent delis.

Also, I'm pretty sure that "Dystopian Undertones" is guttermouth for the male testes. Make a note.

Anyhoo, now that I have studied the list, this dago is ready to compete no matter which dictionary we use.

Also, ham doctor.

If Speaking English Was Good Enough for Jesus, It's Good Enough for Me

"We Get It"

Jason330 at Delaware Liberal:

If you want to comment here, do me a favor and think about what you are about to type. There is no need to repeat basic GOP talking points. For example, don’t tell us that Bill Clinton got a blow job and that Clinton’s infidelity exculpates every Republican adulterer forever. We know. We get it.

If your only point is that [you] don’t like unions or jews, we get it. If you are about to say that everything having to do with gays is a slippery slope that will lead to homosexual indoctrination classes in elementary schools [sic]. Don’t bother. We get it.

There is no need to comment here if you think Obama is not going to be popular in the future and that through the reflexive property of political algebra that conservatism is awesome. We get it.

If you are tempted to comment here that you want to keep your guns in spite of the fact that nobody wants your guns. There is no need. We get it. If you think every tax dollar not spent on the military or paving the street in front of your house is sickeningly wasted, you probably don’t need to note that in the comments section. We get it.

You feel strongly about all of that nutty shit. We get it. If your comment boils down to ticking off some wingnut bullshit that does not address the point of the post or offer some actual and original insights into your thoughts, aspirations or fears – don’t bother.

Thanks.

Funny and helpful.

The War to Keep Women Second-Class Citizens

Re the terrorist assassination of Dr. George Tiller:

Abortion opponents are bracing for a drop in support, especially from those in the murky middle ground of the debate. Worse yet, after years of persuading supporters to work within the law, they say they have already lost credibility among the most ardent abortion opponents who cannot help pointing out that one gunman achieved what all their protests and prayers could not.

“The credit is going to go to him,” Mark S. Gietzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life, said of Mr. Roeder. “There are people who are agreeing with him.”

No shit, Sherlock. You encouraged Roeder and the other freaks like him to kill abortion clinic workers. When they do, then you officially disclaim responsibility while your followers gloat but it's the shooter who gets all the glory. So you're conflicted.

Such lovely people:

Every vendor who showed up at the clinic was warned that if they continued to do business with Dr. Tiller they would be boycotted. Those who ignored the threat were listed on anti-abortion Web sites. “We had nobody in town that would deliver pizza,” said an employee, Linda Joslin.

Protesters confronted his employees, demanding that they quit. If they refused, activists passed out fliers in their neighborhood accusing them of working for a baby killer.

Patients would encounter a gantlet of protest.

They would see a “Truth Truck,” its side panels displaying large color photographs of dismembered fetuses. Over the clinic gate, strung between two poles, they might see a banner, “Please Do Not Kill Your Baby.” Planted in the grass by the sidewalk were 167 white crosses, representing the average number of abortions that protesters said were performed there each month.

Protesters approached patients’ cars, offering them baby blankets and urging them to visit an anti-abortion pregnancy clinic they had set up next door. Sometimes they followed patients to their hotels and slipped pamphlets under their doors. A few years ago anti-abortion campaigners spent weeks in a hotel room with a view of the Tiller clinic entrance. Using a powerful telephoto lens, they took photographs of patients, which were posted on a Web site with their faces blurred.

Much of this activity was methodically tracked by Mr. Gietzen, who said he presides over a network of 600 volunteers, some of whom drove hundreds of miles for a protest “shift.” Protesters counted cars entering the clinic gate, and they tracked “saves” — patients who changed their minds. According to Mr. Gietzen’s data, over the last five years they had 395 “saves” for an “overall save rate” of 3.77 percent.

They also kept detailed “incident reports” of unusual activity. It was a bonanza if an ambulance was summoned; photographs were quickly posted as evidence of another “botched” abortion.

There seemed an endless supply of fresh accusations.

“Wichita shoppers unknowingly sprinkled with the burnt ash of fetal remains,” declared one news release, referring to the clinic’s crematorium.

“If I can’t document it, I don’t say it,” Mr. Newman of Operation Rescue said, moments before suggesting without any proof that Dr. Tiller had bought off the local district attorney, Nola T. Foulston, by giving her a baby for adoption.

Fucking despicable.

In 2001, protesters began appearing at Dr. Tiller’s church with Truth Trucks and a demand that the church ex-communicate the Tiller family.

“They were abusively shouting at people not to take their children into the church because there was a murderer there,” recalled the Rev. Sally C. Fahrenthold, then the interim pastor at the church, Reformation Lutheran.

For at least two years, protesters showed up each Sunday, sometimes disrupting services from the pews. Protesters obtained a copy of the membership address book and sent all members postcards showing aborted fetuses.

Assholes.

Not a single Kansas politician of statewide prominence showed up the next morning for Dr. Tiller’s funeral, which drew 1,200 mourners. Nor were any at Reformation Lutheran the next day, the first Sunday service after his death. ...

In his sermon, Pastor Michelson openly acknowledged his own apprehensions. “Our sanctuary has been violated,” he said. He urged his congregation to rise above fear and anger, and took note of the supportive letters and e-mail messages from churches all over the country.

Only later, during an interview, did he mention all the hate mail.

It's Concise, You Have to Give Them That

Seen on the bumper of a Dodge driven by a somewhat overweight white man on a highway in the upper part of what they call "slower Delaware":

The Socialist Republic of
Obama Bin Biden
May God Prevail

And there you have it, folks.

Why?

They are all running wall-to-wall MJ funeral coverage commercial-free because they know some people regard it as a landmark cultural event.  You can't not run coverage of it, because people will be irate, and you can't interrupt it with commericals, for the same reason.

Sexual Orientation Discrimination Outlawed in Delaware

The first state, coming in near the back of the pack:

Anyone who loses a job, a housing opportunity, an insurance policy, a public contract or a spot in a public facility because of sexual orientation now has legal remedy. For the first time, that kind of discrimination is no longer legal in Delaware.

Finally. What took you so long? Next: marriage and other privileges granted other people.

Via Fred Clark.

Dodged a Bullet

I remember when John Edwards was supposedly the great progressive was going to sweep into the White House and make everything right with the world:

A man who was one of former Senator John Edwards’s closest aides has a deal to write a book claiming that Mr. Edwards said he “would be taken care of for life” in return for falsely claiming he was the father of the baby carried by Mr. Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter.

The aide, Andrew Young, sold his book proposal to St. Martin’s Press for an undisclosed price late last week. In his proposal, Mr. Young quotes Mr. Edwards, a Democrat who was his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004 and ran for president last year, as begging him to confess to fathering Ms. Hunter’s baby.

“ ‘You know how much I love you,’ Edwards said. ‘You know I’d walk off a cliff for you, and I know you’d walk off a cliff for me,’ ” Mr. Young wrote in the book proposal. “ ‘I will never forget this. And I will always be there for you.’ ” ...

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether any of Mr. Edwards’s campaign money was improperly used with regard to his affair or efforts to keep it from becoming public. Mr. Young wrote that he had been questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and had been subpoenaed to speak before a grand jury.

I gotta agree with Laura Rozen: "What an old-time slime bucket."

It's Just a Strategy

I agree with this:

The thing that people haven't figured out about President Obama's conduct of foreign policy is that it's the same as his conduct of domestic policy. Obama believes in the power of negotiation and public dialogue to split his adversaries--Republicans at home, Islamists abroad--and strengthen his own position. Obama's speech in Cairo to the Muslim world was simply the foreign analogue of his dealings with the GOP.

Of course, this is how he won the primary and the presidency, too.

Obama began his presidency by elaborately courting the opposition party. Republicans in Congress believed that, by flamboyantly withholding cooperation, they could deny Obama his stated goal of bipartisan harmony and thus render him a failure. Instead, they wound up handing Obama the alternative victory of appearing to be the reasonable party. Polls showed that the public, by overwhelming margins, believed that Obama was trying to work with Republicans and that Republicans were not reciprocating.

I referred to Obama's strategy during the election as the "kumbaya shtick", but I have a lot more respect for it now. It's an impressive counter to the Republican strategy of divide and rule. Call it unite and rule: Say you and your opponent are on the same page about certain fundamental things, while in reality the opponent really isn't. This puts the opponent in an untenable position of having to cede an argument over premises, leaving only an argument on the merits that the opponent will almost certainly lose because he never intended to have it in the first place. Politics is carried on behind an armor of hypocrisy. Obama's strategy is to use the way hypocrisy works as a method to defeat the armor.

On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In reality it's all the same thing. Obama's defining political trait is the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.

That doesn't make Obama honest, not a hypocrite, but it does make him an effective politician. Which is why I voted for him. It's not that I see him as a man with certain unshakable principles, although it's possible that he is. I see him at least as a politician who has presented a certain face to the world, and he has to live up to that image or have his owned hypocrisy revealed. He understands that allowing your contradictions to show makes you vulnerable, and he likes to win. Therefore, he will do at least some of what he says he will, in order to win. Since I like the things he says he wants to do, and he's good at defeating his opponents, I found it worthwhile to support him. I have no idea if he's morally pure, an idealist, or a cynical opportunist. I have my impression, but that's not evidence. Whatever the truth is, it's irrelevant. Whether he's a hypocrite or not, he will try to do what he says he will do, and that's all I can require.

Of course, this is not good enough for the fools and the professional cynics. They don't want to talk about results, about what is possible. They want to talk about principles, as if principles alone ever amounted to a pile of shit when they ran up against a political buzzsaw. They want to talk about will, in an exact parallel to the neocons' Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics. These people don't want half a loaf rather than none, they'd prefer no loaf and the continued opportunity to complain about not getting the whole loaf. About not having it handed to them on a plate, with a nice presentation, by people who will tell them they were correct from the start, that their preferred perfect result was their right to receive all along. Without any work or compromise on their part, because the fools believe that they don't need to do any political work to achieve what they want. If they did, they'd learn the limits of power and the value of compromise pretty fucking quick.

That's why when fools do venture into real-life politics they usually get immediately swallowed up by the hypocrisy machine, because being fools they lack all defenses. The rest avoid real-life politics at all costs: All they really want to do is complain about the moral failings of others. They disdainfully refer to Obama's strategy as "eleven dimensional chess" - inspired unfortunately by some Obama supporter who referred to it as "three dimensional chess", the game Spock plays in Star Trek - because they either can't or won't understand a kind of politics that isn't Manichean. These people are playing one-dimensional chess, an imaginary game of tug of war in which they are alone on the rope, heros in their own minds who are happiest to lose because that confirms their heroism. They're our equivalent of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Their view of the world is just a mirror image of the wingnuts. They're worse than useless, but fortunately they just stay at their keyboards and type, where they can do the least harm.

QOTD: Block That Image!

Alex Pareene at Gawker:

If K-Lo's boyfriend Mitt Romney was caught on video nailing an underaged Thai sex slave she'd probably find a way to make it Keith Olbermann's fault.

(Via Silver.)

QOTD: Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun.

Wichita:

“You can’t be pro-life and go around killing people, but some people are really mad at me for saying that,” he said.

Police On My Back

The followup on the post yesterday:

Lower Merion police caught two suspected bank robbers who attempted a getaway via SEPTA yesterday afternoon.

A man who claimed he had a gun robbed the TD Bank at 401 W. Lancaster Ave., Haverford, at 12:54 p.m. and escaped on foot, police said. Pursuing police found paint from the bank money's exploded dye pack on the steps of the Haverford train station and arrested a man walking by himself about two blocks away, on Montgomery Avenue near Woodside Road, who had "traces of dye on his arm," a police news release said.

A witness at the train station told police the arrested man had been with another person who got on the eastbound R5. SEPTA held that train at the Ardmore station, and police arrested a woman passenger found with the bank's money, police said. Police did not release the names of the suspected robbers.

Via the reliable source, this is how it went on the train:

A young African-American woman gets on at Haverford, carrying a drawstring sack. She sits down in front of a middle-aged black woman who is on her way home from work in Bryn Mawr. The older woman sees the young one looking around nervously, "talking with her eyes".

"Are you okay?", she asks.

"We just robbed a bank," she says confidingly. A beat to absorb this information. "We do it all the time out here. They don't have security in the banks."

A moment passes while the young woman continues to look agitated. A young white man notices and asks her what's wrong.

"Nothing," the young woman says.

The train is stopped in Ardmore and the police take her off. Later, the older African-American woman says, "Just because I'm black, she thinks it's okay to tell me she just robbed a bank?"

Department of Really Bad Ideas: Forging Homeland Security "Photography License"

I appreciate the impulse, but this was a fucking stupid thing to do.

See? The Suburbs Are the Real Hellhole

Via a reliable source, a woman got on the R5 train in Bryn Mawr or Haverford and told the person she was sitting next to, "I just robbed a bank." She was met by the cops at Ardmore station and arrested with a bag full of cash.

Seriously, What Did You Expect?

So, Joe Torsella is not going to primary Specter. That leaves Congressman Joe Sestak, who is just as conservative as Specter but the nitwit "progressives" don't hate. Yet.

Can They Both Lose? Please?

The Great Grandstander, Mike Nutter, calls for the resignation of the members of the Board of Revisions of Taxes. They refuse. Nutter gets to look like a populist as he hikes tries to hike property taxes and, even if he were successful in ousting the board, nothing would change in the corrupt way taxes are assessed and collected in this city - it would just be corruption that is more under Nutter's control.

Blogfight!

I'm not going to buy the book, but I hope someone else does so I can see what Eric Boehlert says about sexist, Obamaholic "progressive" bloggers. It's good to know that some things never change: liberals fighting liberals.

Update: David Sirota takes the gold medal in the Giant Prick competition:

I note this as an example of deliberately dishonest and slanderous content that I will request a user get banned for, whether that user displays that dishonesty and slander in Quick Hits, in a comment or in a diary. This is a site that respects facts and integrity - when users soil this site with lies that they know are lies, they are hurting the entire community by hurting the community's general credibility.

This is from a front page post at a major liberal blog about a diarist.

Great Business Models, Exhibit A

I mean, why didn't I think of that?
(Via.)

Laugh and Point

I really think there are some gay Republican creative types who are punking the idiot social warriors with these marketing ideas.

Not an April Fool's Joke: A Rapping Jihadi

A Somali jihadi who apparently lived in the States at some point, Abu Mansour drops beats such as:

"The American dream has fallen, Bush is going down like Stalin, the economy is crawlin', the widows are bawlin', you dead you be haulin', while our takbeers (chants of Allah is Great) keep callin'."

There is a link to the audio here. Go ahead, savor.

Dear Person Who Vandalized My Car

You were probably coming out of the bars on South Street last night and, in your intoxicated state, thought it would be fun to kick my passenger side view mirror off. Well done! I now have to take time off to get it repaired. I hope you grow up to be a responsible adult and some idiot like you comes along and does the same to you.

Witchhunters in My Blog

I'm off to Drink Liberally in West Philly amid the hurricane, but in the meantime, yahoo! news or someone has a link to the vaccine/autism post and I am getting the invasion of the anti-intellectual troll brigade. Can't wait to get back drunk and read all that crap.