Saturday, August 04, 2007

The Republican YouTube Debate

It looks like that stellar cast of GOP presidential hopefuls isn't warming to the idea of their own YouTube debate. You know those questions from...ummm...people?

Well, I want them to be comfortable in the format, so I have suggested some questions that would put them at ease:

1) Should we kill all the brown people or just the A-rabs?

2) How would you help Jesus to stop boys from kissing?

3) Which one of you is the most Reagan-y?

4) On global warming, is the earth warmer than when the Lord God created Adam in Eden 6000 years ago? And if it is, doesn't God want it that way?

Please add your own...

Thursday, August 02, 2007

He knows where the bodies are buried...

Alberto Gonzalez will never voluntarily give up his position, and Chimpy will never ask him to step down. There are two inter-related reasons (actually hundreds, but two I'll write about):

1) Fredo knows WAAY too much about the inner workings/dark side of GWB (remember DUIs and jury duty?), and knows that he himself is a parasitic little worm that has no value other than where he sits. Gonzalez doesn't want to go out in at least official disgrace, and he knows that Chimpy has his back.

2) Der Chimpenfuhrer cannot risk appointing a new AG. He couldn't get another crony confirmed, and the Senate would demand someone with at least a modicum of integrity. Those pesky types tend to investigate, you know, impeachable offenses?

AG for Life Fredo. All hail.

Wut?

So, we here at The Thinker just got an entirely unsolicited email from some guy who runs a political blog, asking us to vote for his blog for some award, and offering to trade links. On his blog, he interviews some woman who admires James Inhofe.

Thanks, but no.

Stupid quotes from stupid people

From Salon's War Room: Asked today about a new Congressional Budget Office report that puts the price tag of the war on Iraq at more than $1 trillion, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said: "Well, if you take a look at what happened on September 11th, 2001, it's estimated that the aftershocks of that could have cost up to $1 trillion."

First of all, what "aftershocks"? Secondly, your boss still hasn't gotten around to do anything with the whole in the ground, so we have no idea what it will cost. Third, and I can't stress this enough - the response to an attack that cost us a vast amount of money was to spend a vast amount of money on a totally irrelevant and illegal war? There wasn't anything better that could have been done with that money?

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

While on that topic...

Ah, the Wall Street Journal editorial page...

Not long ago they brought back one of their favorites, law professor, authoritarian, author of the Bush administration's torture memo (and as Glenn Greenwald accurately states, "the most partisan and intellectually dishonest lawyer in the country"--think about that...) John Yoo. They needed to dredge up SOMEONE who would defend the ridiculous administration claims of "executive privilege," so who? John Yoo.

The afore-mentioned Glenn Greenwald is all over the shocking hypocrisy of John Yoo. He was against executive privilege (insert "Bill Clinton"here) before he was for it, saying that Clinton could fairly be impeached for refusing subpoenas and then lo and behold in 2007, secrecy is the key to the survival of the republic.

Let's look at what Yoo wrote on the law, though. He shamelessly cites Barenblatt v. U.S. (a House Un-American Activities Committee case, by the way) and says that "The Supreme Court held in 1959 that, `Since Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate, it cannot inquire into matters which are within the exclusive province of one or the other branches of the Government.'"

Excuse me, they didn't HOLD that. The opinion said that IN DICTA. It's not a HOLDING. Beyond that, Congress may certainly "legislate" on voter caging matters, and WELL beyond legislating, they certainly are constitutionally empowered to ACT--on impeachment.

RIP Wall Street Journal

Sorry, been one poor correspondent....

It looks like Rupert Murdoch has squared away control of the Wall Street Journal. It has always been a bizarre paper, with rock-solid business reporting on one side, and bat-crazy editorial page screed writers on the other. It was always my theory that the news group never even told editorial where the Christmas party was. Now, that the paper will be Fox-ified, what do you think stays..rock-solid business reporting or bat-crazy editorial page screed writers? The Murdoch virus can't help but infect the newsroom, and the paper is history.