tdog

That statement was famously attributed to Richard Nixon; his ideological heir in executive abuse (and abuse of so-called “executive privilege”) and the “L’Etat c’est moi” sentiment, President George Walker Bush, has taken the statement to the next level, perhaps if possible even out-doing Vice-President Richard Bruce Cheney’s assertion that the Office of the Vice-President isn’t in the executive branch when it comes to following security clearance and document protection protocols, though it is when it is time for the Vice-President to claim “executive” privilege: the White House has announced that where the President invokes executive privilege on anything, the Justice...

I have said (well, I think I have, anyway) that the actual on-the-ground definition of the President’s so-called “compassionate conservatism” is simple mean-spiritedness (arguably with a patina of racism thrown in). Case in point: the veto threat of a bill that would expand health coverage for uninsured children that has strong bipartisan support. The President’s rationale? It will “encourage people to switch out of [holy and sacred] private insurance”. Let’s think about that: providing health insurance (administered through popular state programs, btw) to uninsured children would encourage people not to insure those children who they are already not insuring. Got...

On behalf of my (non-talking) canine brethren, let me say that I am duly horrified at allegations of dog-fighting, including the execution (by hanging, electroctuion, or slamming down) of “underperforming” dogs, mostly pit-bulls, for which Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick and others were indicted on federal charges of animal cruelty and crossing state lines to do it. The National Football League seems to have more than its share of miscreants; in large part, this is because our national game engenders much that is wrong with our culture: violence, performance enhancing drugs, arrogance, frequent commercial breaks, and so forth… and of...

I’m not sure what to make of the Senate’s “reverse filibuster” (where the majority does all the talking and suffering, in a very strange bit of political theater) over the Iraq war… but I’m quite sure that WaPo gets it right in this analysis of the recent National Intelligence Assessment which indicates that Al Qaeda appears stronger than at any point since 9-11 to tell us that this is the case precisely because we invaded Iraq and bungled efforts at dealing with Qaeda directly, allowing its leadership to regroup and form a new safe-haven in a new failed state (North...

Care of Julia, we get this Nebraska version of The Handmaid’s Tale not from some fictional world, but from the United States, circa 2007 (the same year when a Supreme Court justice finds the need to tell you little ladies that because you might regret some of your decisions, we won’t let you make them). Anyway, submitted for your approval (or disapproval) is a case of a 24-year old woman contending she met a man at a party, and seemed to lose consciousness only to find herself waking up, apparently having had sex that she clearly doesn’t remember consenting to,...

Not much to say about the emergence of a new al-Qaeda video, featuring apparently spliced in old clips of OBL himself for about a minute. Coming as it does on the heels of a new American Intelligence Estimate to the effect that al-Qaeda is stronger than it has been at any time since September 11th, and the Administration’s sudden determination to call “our enemy” in Iraq not “insurgents” or even “terrorists”… but all al Qaeda all the time… and of course Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s “hunch” that something bad was in the offing (replacing, I suppose, a chartreuse alert...

The Grey Lady takes a break from its usual round of Imperial StenographyTM (or does it?) to give us this look back at a platform and memo sent by good old Karl Rove to a senior White House aide in 1973 (the aide was one Anne Armstrong, who, as set forth here in “Meet the cast of When Harry Met Birdshot“, owned the ranch where Vice President Cheney shot Harry Whittington last year; Ms. Armstrong eventually went on to be U.S. Ambassador to Britain, and was considered as Ford’s Vice-Presidential running mate)… It’s nothing Earth shattering– just general broad-brush strategies...

WaPo treats us to this story on the alamring (to some… i.e., those not brain-dead) trend to “outsource” key intelligence functions to “green-badges”, i.e. private contractors, rather than “blue-badges”, i.e., official governmental employees. This is the essence of privatization, boys and girls. The premise sold to the rubes is that the private sector is cheaper, more efficient and accountable than the bloated, non-responsive government. Of course, in the areas where the two have competed head to head, such as in education, we found this to be nonsense… the disastrous “Edison project” went nowhere, because it turns out, while the private...

After having done all it could to pour combustible fuel on the national bonfire and amplification to the pre-Iraq drumbeat for war… the Grey Lady insists that it now has religion, and hence, gives us this long jeremiad on why the United States should immediately get out of Iraq. Well well. The esteemed “news” institution that employed Saddam-WMD-confabulator Judith Miller and still employs court stenographer Michael Gordon, and who deliberately understated the extent of opposition to the Iraq War in order to hype that war with the twin goals of (1) getting a seat at the tough guys’ table and,...

Such was at one time an advertising slogan for AT&T… it seems an encouragement from a party-line ruling in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (i.e. 2 Republican appointed judges outvoting 1 Democratic appointed judge) in the NSA warrantless eavesdropping case, reversing the Michigan District Court’s ruling that the program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). [In some sense, though I am not a plaintiff, perhaps I should take this personally, given who I have called from time to time to interview… but I digress…] On grounds eerily similar to the bogus reason used by the Supreme Court to...