On Our Radar

Hot diggity dog

2012-01-23T00:56:00.001-05:00

Laugh till you cry

2010-04-11T22:25:00.001-05:00

Rahm Emanuel

2010-02-07T18:14:00.001-05:00

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Love it

2010-01-30T08:50:00.001-05:00

The un-American
Needs a personal Jesus
Private insurance
An obedient wife
The un-American
Should really stop complaining
He oughta take a trip to Disney
Get his head on right
Buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new
It’ll be alright
Buy a new buy a new buy a new
That should fix the un-American
A threat to security
Feeding on literature
From a socialist state
The un-American
It really breaks my heart
To see a promising citizen deviate
Buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new
It’ll be alright
Buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new buy
That should fix the un-American
Oh
Oh
Oh
Oh oh
The un-American
Could be your own neighbor
He could be talking to your children
Sleeping with your wife
Oh what if you’re the un-American
Oh what if you’re the un-American
Oh what if you’re the un-American
Oh if you’re the un-American
Oh
Buy a new buy a new buy a new buy a new
It’ll be alright
Buy a new buy a new
And it’ll be alright
Be alright

Novel daily editorials

2009-03-30T12:43:00.006-05:00

Songwriter Jonathan Mann of Berkeley, Calif., has come up with a unique format to express his editorial opinion. Huffington Post or some other online newspaper would be smart to hire the Rock Cookie Bottom guy to post his song-a-day exclusively at that site to drive hits.

Irony aside, listen to Saving Newspapers, The Musical (DEMO).

Click here for Mann's entire playlist. Most-viewed: Hey Paul Krugman (A song, A plea), seen more than 151,000 times.

Website find of the day

2009-03-11T10:52:00.005-05:00

News and Verse blog's motto is "light verse, ripped from headlines."

Clever stuff. Today's entry:

NEWSWIRE--Accused investment scam artist Bernie Madoff is expected to plead guilty today and could face life in prison.

A pink slip means your laid off,
A furlough means you're day'd off
A buyout means you're paid off,
All, better off than Madoff.

Simple and to the point

2009-02-25T08:38:00.004-05:00

The new "COALergy: Smudge" ad that ran on CNN should win awards. It does what a great ad should do: entertain and make a simple point.

Bravo, Reality Coalition, and hat tip to TPM.

"First, you have to get mad."

2009-02-07T15:59:00.008-05:00

Peter Finch's achorman character in the classic movie, Network, seems more precient today than he was in 1976. We should be thinking about a better ending for today's real world, though.

A word on words

2009-01-05T12:06:00.004-05:00

The Sunlight Foundation reports Sen. Robert Menendez is, by far, the most outspoken member of New Jersey's delegation in Washington. His statements on the floor and in the Congressional Record outpace fellow Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg almost 3-to-1.

The list at the foundation's website, CapitolWords.org, left me wondering why we see so little about what Menendez says in any media at the Jersey Shore.

Of the words New Jersey's delegation speaks most often on the record, the word "billion" comes up more quite a bit often than the word "women." Sad.

(Hat tip: Herb Jackson's blog, Capital Games)

Ultimate woman bosses

2008-11-17T08:08:00.007-05:00

A few days ago, Anne Dunwoody became America's first woman four-star U.S. Army general. Today, we met Maria Falca-Dodson, the first woman commander of the New Jersey National Air Guard:

Falca-Dodson, who had served as Deputy Adjutant General of New Jersey since March 2002, ... replaces Brig. Gen. Lawrence Thomas III. ...

For Maj. Gen. Glenn Rieth, there was little doubt that Falca-Dodson was qualified for her new position.

“I had the opportunity to work with her the last six years directly,” Rieth said. “Make no mistake; she's a soldier and an airman first. During her time as a deputy, she didn't always get the glorious jobs. But every issue she took and every project that was handed to her was carried out. And there were a lot of things that needed to be carried out during that time.”

Thomas said he is fully confident in Falca-Dodson.

“Changing command is like dropping kids off at school for the first time and you want to make sure they succeed,” he said. “I know she is ready to assume this command. She has my full support.”

I'm not following Rieth's little analogy, but still, the glass -- and brass -- ceilings have a couple more cracks.

The Beatles were bad boys

2008-11-17T07:24:00.004-05:00

Curvature plays the 5 most anti-feminist Beatles songs:

1. Run For Your Life
2. You Can't Do That
3. You Like Me Too Much
4. Martha, My Dear
5. You Won't See Me

You can vote however you like

2008-11-01T16:10:00.001-05:00

Go Mayberry!

2008-10-24T07:04:00.001-05:00

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Aaack!

2008-10-21T06:35:00.006-05:00

I'm still not convinced this wasn't PhotoShopped, but every source I see says this is the real McCain after he and Barack Obama finished up the last debate:

Nailing Gov. Palin, er, or something like that

2008-09-28T19:22:00.001-05:00

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did it again this week on Saturday Night Live!

Introducing Caribou Barbie

2008-09-14T11:23:00.007-05:00

It's a sad day when the Republicans create more relevant ads for the Democrats than do the Democrats.

And is this Sarah Palin or the real Tina Fey? It's hard to tell the difference, but if it's Fey, she has nailed Palin to a T. Bravo!:

Best lines:

Gov. Palin: "And to think, just two years ago I was just a former small-town mayor of the crystal meth capital of Alaska."

Sen. Clinton: "I invite the media to grow a pair, and if they can't, I'll lend them mine."

Who wouldn't want to pay their fair share?

2008-07-19T11:51:00.007-05:00

Former N.J. Rep. Jim Courter (right), it seems.

Lucy Komisar reports that the Federal Communications Commission has fined Courter's New Jersey telecom company, IDT, $1.3 million for failing to file a contract for telephone service to Haiti in 2004.

Seems the man who's John McCain's biggest presidential campaign fundraiser in New Jersey found a novel way to conspire with a dictator and avoid paying due taxes at the same time.

Its work with Haiti has been put under scrutiny since a former employee, Michael Jewett, then IDT’s manager for the Caribbean, sued the company. His suit claims he was fired when he balked at negotiating a scheme that routed a portion of the company’s long distance revenue from Haiti calls to a shell company owned by then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Jewett’s suit alleges that the deal cut IDT’s long-distance payments to Haiti to 8.75 cents a minute, from 23 cents, the legal tariff, which mainline U.S. carriers such as AT&T were paying.

Payments went to an offshore shell company, Mount Salem in the Turks & Caicos, which sent 3 cents to Aristide and the rest to the Haiti telecommunications company.

Courter, a former New Jersey Republican congressman, is one of 20 McCain national finance co-chairs, and joined the campaign in February 2007. He’s a “Trailblazer” for McCain, meaning he raised at least $100,000. The IDT PAC has contributed $84,850 in 2008.

So, this is the kind of economy a McCain administration would endorse? He who can better outsmart the tax system is rewarded, while a bigger portion of the burden falls on the shoulders of us common wage earners?

Read Komisar's full report here.

(Getty picture cropped from Komisar's blog.)

Welcome to the Jersey Shore

2008-07-18T08:04:00.004-05:00

This is funny, but seriously, most of us here do welcome any visitors to come enjoy our beaches and restaurants, while the rest of us jealous suckers work our butts off.

Happy Indie Day

2008-07-05T00:11:00.002-05:00

Flash back to 1982 (thanks, Crooks and Liars blog)

Memory failing or a flip-flopper?

2008-06-15T16:11:00.002-05:00

Could be either, but it's not presidential material.

And here, with hat tip to John Aravosis at Americablog, is one of his flip-flops on one of the most critical aspects of this election: court appointments.

McCain in a Town Hall today "I will not impose a litmus test on any nominee."

McCain in 2000: "Somewhat surprisingly, McCain had the support of Gary Bauer, the social conservative, who had dropped out of the race by that time. 'I wanted a commitment from either George Bush or John McCain that if elected he would appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court,' Bauer told me. 'Bush said he had no litmus test, and his judges would be strict constructionists. But McCain, in private, assured me he would appoint pro-life judges.'" [New Yorker, 5/30/05]

McCain 2007. McCain said, "I do not support Roe v. Wade. I think it should be overturned." [New York Times, 2/24/07]

Broken hearts in Brick

2008-05-15T19:12:00.013-05:00

None of the kids wanted to tell me their names.

The half dozen or so young adults who stopped around 7:30 tonight to put flowers on the natural grave where Brick Township boys Joe Sendzik, 27, and Greg Brown, 29, died yesterday in a burning car said they didn't know the victims well enough to be identified as mourners.

Yet, they mourned. They cried. They shared what they heard and how sad they are that this tragedy happened.

And they shared stories about how their paths had crossed with Joe and Greg, to various degrees. Pop Warner. Brick Memorial High School. A sister's fiance's friend or whatever.

I've watched them come in a steady stream all evening, even though Herbertsville Road there has no shoulders and they, themselves, were at some risk stopping. Traffic is pretty fast and heavy there as people who live in Brick and Point Pleasant travel home from points west. Most folks on the road are locals who've driven it thousands, hundreds of thousands, of times.

The kids, well, young adults, also shared how most of us, when we're heading east, often speed up just before that bump there -- right there at the skid marks -- the biggest of three that make what my kids always called the "wee road," because the descent from the bump makes your stomach jump like amusement rides do, except for free.

But if you go too fast on the "wee" bumps, it's possible to lose control of the car. And by the skid marks and tire tracks etched through the scub pine border screening the sports field at Pine Grove Day Camp in Wall, it's possible that's what happened just before the 2000 BMW chopped down one of the bigger pines and burned up with the boys in it.

Everyone agrees that no one ever will know exactly what caused the crash.

Today, the fragrant scent of pine is strong from tearful sap of the broken trees. The earth is charred.

And people have been laying all kinds of flowers, silk and fresh. One glass candle reads, "Joe," and the other, "Greg."

One young woman brought fresh-cut lilacs, now at the high of their bloom and ever-so-fragrant. I think the boys' souls can smell the aromas.

For those of us grieving with the families -- Joe's mother, Maria, is a popular English teacher at Brick Memorial High School -- the site is a little disturbing though. There's still charred pieces of the 2000 BMW and ashes of clothing and a book of some sort, now unrecognizable except for the clump of margins now bleeding sepia.

Our hearts are heavy. The students and staff at Brick Memorial are taking donations to help the Sendziks with funeral costs and to buy food to serve the huge number of mourners sure to pay respects to the two friends.

These still are days of shock. The worst pain is yet to come.

Joe and Greg and their families will be in our prayers tonight as we seek comfort for them at this time of deep sorrow.

(Photos by Abby Petterchak)

RIP Eight Belles but ...

2008-05-08T05:47:00.014-05:00

... is there a karma going on here? CubbyChaser at Comedy Central posts what I think a lot of us, heads cocked, were musing after presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asked supporters to put money on Eight Belles for her, then ...

On Saturday, the Kentucky Derby -- which is essentially the Kentucky Derby of horse races -- was held in, I think, Tennessee, and Hillary Clinton put her money on Eight Belles, the one female horse, running against a bunch of male chauvinist horses to win. ...

Unfortunately, Eight Belles came in second place to (I'm not making this up) a horse named Big Brown, suffered a fatal injury and had to be euthanized immediately following the race.

Girl, feel the cosmic karma ...

Tuesday was the latest in a string of Super Duper Tuesdays that should decide the Democratic primary. Sen. Barack Obama creamed Sen. Clinton in North Carolina and lost by a dubious 51-49%, far better than the double-digit loss expected, in red state Indiana.

I say dubious because 1 in 10 voters in exit polls reported they are Republicans who crossed over to sabatoge the race for the candidate they think McCreepy can beat, in compliance with radio god Rush Hussein Limbaugh's Operation Chaos instructing them to vote for Clinton. The voting poll games already have begun.

Then there's the untimeliness of a massive voter registration purge and nuns who were prevented from having a voice in the Indiana elction. A dubious win, but along with an infusion of another $6.5 million from the Clinton's personal bank account, will keep her going.

Women as second-class citizens

2008-04-22T10:33:00.006-05:00

For the first time since 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women, according to this Washington Post report.

In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.

The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine. It is not limited to one race or ethnicity but it is more common in rural and low-income areas. ...

The phenomenon appears to be not only new but distinctly American.

"If you look in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, we don't see this," Murray said.

I think all those countries have government-guaranteed health care.

(Flickr photo by plagueoftruth)

Accurate vote counts shouldn't be so hard

2008-04-21T09:33:00.009-05:00

People have voted on slips of paper -- or rocks or some other tangible, countable resource -- since the beginning of civilization.

So, in 2008, why is it so daunting for public officials who can't get their acts together on electronic machines to print up some ballots and have us all vote by putting our hand to pen to paper? Have you ever seen anyone other than for-profit newspapers and broadcast stations say they care whether the results are announced an hour after the polls close or a day afterward?

Today's Asbury Park Press has this must-read editorial: "Will the winner be the winner?"

Who is this Nina Mitchell Wells and how did she become the all-powerful N.J. secretary of state that gets to pull the levers behind the curtain in Oz?

Down the rabbit hole

2008-04-21T09:31:00.003-05:00

If you thought American "elections" couldn't get more surreal than that absurd flag-pin interrogation last week that ABC called a Democratic "debate," get a load of this Hillary Clinton ad running today in Pennsy.

Earth Day is tomorrow

2008-04-21T09:30:00.003-05:00

Plant a tree. Pick up some litter. Carpool, if just for one day.

But do something, please.

Enjoy Jay Leno's Earth Day clips. I like the kids' letters about global warming:

My kind of guy

2008-04-18T23:58:00.006-05:00

Father Mike Pfleger makes me want to turn Catholic, were they all so straight talking:

"It doesn't make it right just because that's what you (Bill O'Reilly's Fox Snooze ambush "reporter")say about him." Exactly.

Why doesn't the media ask whether candidates and clergy think it's moral that more children in the U.S. live in poverty than children in any other country in the industrialized world.

Now we're talking

2008-04-08T23:21:00.005-05:00

Superior Court of New Jersey issued subpoenas a few hours ago for Sequoia's voting machine testing records, including in our own Ocean County.

Election officials in Bergen, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex, Ocean and Union counties were instructed to turn over the machines by April 15. Activists trying to persuade Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg that electronic voting machines should be discarded succeeded in convincing her that examining these counties' machines is critical to their case.

"In order to succeed in our case and show Sequoia machines are insecure and can be hacked into, we need to look at these machines," Venetis argued. Clerks in the six counties uncovered discrepancies in 60 machines when they doubled check the vote tallies after the Feb. 5 presidential primary.

The Star-Ledger is planning a full story in the morning, so we'll keep you posted.

Ed Felton on Friday posted on his blog that the discrepancies were worse than originally thought.

This week we obtained six new summary tapes, from machines in Bergen and Gloucester counties. Two of these new tapes contradict Sequoia’s explanation and show more serious discrepancies that we saw before.

Can't make this stuff up

2008-03-26T22:39:00.017-05:00

Last week we learned Princeton experts aren't good enough to look at the software Sequoia uses to count my vote in Ocean County. Sequoia threatened to sue Princeton if they touch it.

Bradblog now is reporting Sequoia has the solution.

This guy Mike Gibbons of Kwaidan Consulting, whose quest in life is to find a "well endowed blonde nymphomaniac ... that likes to be under the influence of Jim Beam whiskey in a dimly lit room at least 3 times a week" and shares his curiosity about the fundamental differences between Kierkegaard and Right Guard (or maybe InfraGard?), is the one and only trustworthy "expert" the voting machine company will trust to look at its product -- independently, of course. Here he shows himself in an undated grip-and-grin with Poppy Bush.

He and his friend Starbuck (his only Myspace friend, so sad) are surely more trustworthy than those clowns at Princeton University. Geez! That's Starbuck in the photo. Hotter than Gibbons, no?

Because, after all, Gibbons hails from Sugar Land, Texas, the same Houston suburban where disgraced former Rep. "Hot Tub" Tom Delay made a name for himself as a pest exterminator, literally.

Kwaidan Consulting's address, 2510 Stephens Grant Drive in Sugar Land, is the address Raymond Michael Gibbons signed on a Securities Exchange Commission filing for Suntron Corp. in 2001 as an employee of K*TEC Electronics Corp. of Sugar Land and Kent Electronics Corp. of Houston. Gibbons is listed as Suntron's executive vice president for new business development.

Gibbons created Kwaidan in March 2005 and listed Sanjuro Corp. of Dallas as its general partner. Texas Secretary of State records show Sanjuro ceased to exist as part of a tax forfeiture in February 2007. Now, what enterprise seems more stable for the public to expect accountability for its report on our county voting machines: Princeton University or Kwaidan Consulting, LLC, LLP? (cough cough)

I have to say, his interest in Schroedinger’s cat, referring to the quantum physics genius who won the Nobel, seemed kind of creepy because of 1) the analogy between him inspecting these black boxes and the Schroedinger’s cat paradox and 2) the woman who filed a lawsuit claiming George W. Bush raped her was Margie Schoedinger (all but one ‘r’) of (cue the “Twighlight Zone” music) of Sugar Land, Texas.

The peace symbol is 50 years old

2008-03-23T23:33:00.005-05:00

Sadly, the peace sign hasn't yet brought us 50 years of peace.

Fifty years ago on a cold, grim Easter holiday, a protest was meant to be a watershed: a global call to ban the bomb.

... Gerald Holtom was the artist and textile designer who created it.

A conscientious objector during World War II, he was driven to the nuclear disarmament campaign, he said, by a feeling of despair.

Holtom's daughter Anna Scott, also an artist, remembers the image of her father's despair, in the paintings of Goya.

"He used the Goya painting of the despairing image of the person who was being shot, in Spain - I don't know whether the despair was to do with his personal situation or whether it was to do with the world situation, and sometimes these can be muddled up, can't they?"

Working in his West London studio, Holtom sought to transform that muddled despair into something tidy and neat: a symbol for the campaign for nuclear disarmament, based on the Naval sign language of semaphore.

Michael Randle was there in 1958 when Holtom explained his idea: matching the 'N' for nuclear & a straight up-and-down 'D' for 'Disarmament,' with a circle around it. "That's the symbol, very simple and straightforward," Randle recalled. "It was that explanation coupled with his vision of what the march would be like, his sketch of what the march would be like, that really sold it to us and we said, 'Right, we will adopt that.'"

Not without controversy. It was inevitable that Holtom's simple three lines and a circle would bewilder at least one of the anti-nuclear campaigners.

"He looked at it and he said, 'What on earth were you three thinking about when you adopted that symbol? It doesn't mean a thing and it will never catch on.' Of course, he was thinking of the traditional things of a broken rifle, or a dove or something that would be immediately associated in people's minds with peace, and if you're looking at it now it's impossible to separate it from all the history that has gone on since."

(Flickr pict'r by Jeff Wignall)

Feministing's Friday Feminist Fuck You

2008-03-23T22:31:00.004-05:00

And the F this week goes to -- who else? -- Fox and other race-ignorant media outlets.

Where was McCain's anti-bigotry speech?

2008-03-18T22:28:00.009-05:00

Ladies and gents, here's the fab choir that sang at the Values Voters Debate in Ohio last September for all the Republican candidates, including the now presidential nominee John McCain. Where's the outrage like that on TV this week against Democratic candidate Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

Here's the hit hymn, to the tune of "God Bless America":

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should god bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

Was the Rev. Fred Phelps and his God Hates Fags congregation in the audience? Not unlikely. The homophobic perennial Republican black candidate Alan Keyes (bigotry is a value, right?) and this choir got equally rave reviews from RenewAmerica:

The proceedings began with a church choir singing of one of our national songs, and included was the addition of a couple of lines of their own, with lyrics about a straying nation that needs to be brought back to God and healed. I was truly touched by the choir's presentation.

It's not obscure. A Google search of "Why Should God Bless America" comes up with 3,310 online posts about it.

How could all those 24-hour cable TV "news" networks have not expressed their best punditry outrage about that un-American prostitution of a national patriotic song?

We get Rupert Murdoch's Faux News by now, but CNN, c'mon!

Aargh, it's Monday

2008-01-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

These guys are having a bad day.

But this is worse.

The Rush is on

2008-01-13T00:59:00.000-05:00

Rep. Rush D. Holt's election reform bill HR 811 is stalled despite bipartisan support. So, this coming week he's posting a new version of it to provide federal reimbursement to state and local election officials willing and ready to convert their computerized voting machines to include verifiable paper ballots for every vote in time for the November presidential election.

It also could provide roughly $500 million to replace controversial all-electronic voting systems, which have taken much heat for irregularities that decided close races including the 2000 and 2004 presidency. We desperately need that in New Jersey.

Unlike the mandatory HR 811 that's stuck in gridlock without hope of getting posted for full House vote anytime soon, this bill would reimburse states that voluntarily require election polls to use paper ballots marked by hand or on paper by computers voters use to make their choices. Polls that do not hand count paper ballots could use electronic scanners, like those used in standardized education tests, but not the voting booth computer alone. Another $100 million is set aside in the bill for public audits that would hand count at least 3 percent of the paper ballots and would pay for emergency paper ballots to be used as backup for any paperless voting machine still in use by November's general election.

State election officials reluctant to relinquish any control have been one impediment at the center of the disappointing gridlock. Holt's simplified bill allowing them to opt out while Congress goes forward with the carrot on the
stick could end up solving the problem of unverifiable election results by itself. And -- who knows? -- some state might just build that ""better mousetrap'' than HR 811 along the way.

It's to Holt's credit that he kept the eye on the prize: A presidential election result that Americans may be able to trust for the first time this millenium.

Now that's harsh

2008-01-08T07:36:00.001-05:00

The sophistication of this Rudy Giuliani attack video from Heada'State leaves me wondering about the money trail: Ed Rollins for the Mike Huckabee camp or Mitt Romney and his Encyclopedia Mittanica dirt farmers? Animators need to eat, right?

It hits just about every vulnerability of the ex-mayor of New York City running for the GOP presidential nod.

Now that's funny

2008-01-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Remember old Ed Rollins, the Republican campaign manager that swung ex-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's surprise election in 1993 by using $500,000 of campaign money to bribe Democratic GOTV workers and black pastors to persuade their congregations to say home from the polls?

Now off the bus -- again -- from managing the 2006 Senate bid of wackjob Katherine Harris of stop-counting-Florida-votes fame, Rollins is managing presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the great theology pretender.

Old Ed is one leopard who doesn't change his spots. He has been plotting dirty tricks to KO fellow GOP contender Mitt Romney, the magic pants Morman. It just doesn't get much funnier than this. Rollins told the Washington Post that he relishes the underbelly of politics.

"To me, hitting somebody, knocking somebody down, is a great feeling," he said. "Firing out a negative ad just feels amazing."

Speaking on Fox Thursday night, just after networks declared Huckabee had won Iowa, Rollins said he was "happy to confirm" another piece of his overheard conversation -- that Rudy Giuliani's campaign was "done" and that the former New York mayor was "hurt terribly by those police cruises with his girlfriends," referring to reports that Giuliani's third wife received NYPD security details before their affair even became public.

So that's how the word probably got out to media about how generous New York City taxpayers were in entertaining Giuliani's then-mistress, even before he surprised his wife and kids by bringing the secret lover home for Christmas. After all, Encyclopedia Mittanica hangs out a different basket of Giuliani's dirty laundry.

Update:Ewastud rightly points out I buried the original link that's the basis for this post. It's this post Thursday by Town Hall's Amanda Carpenter. Then, Fox News interviewed Rollins about it, and, boy, is Rollins steamed!

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T18:21:00.001-05:00

Chris Christie: A gift that keeps on giving

2007-12-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, R-N.J., loves to give New Jersey bloggers somethin' to talk about.

This time, it's because he may be getting gifts -- tickets to Bruce Springsteen concerts in London and in Paris, and plane fares and hotels for six, count 'em six. The Star-Ledger's Auditor column says Christie "scored the tickets courtesy of Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg, whose late father was an assistant U.S. attorney before Christie took over the office in 2002."

Christie, the federal prosecutor who earned the seal of approval from disgraced ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, told The Auditor the source of funds for his vacations is none of our damned business:

"Your readers should not be concerned about who paid for the concerts or my vacation."

Take that, constituents!

But, wuh? Since when is a federal political appointee not required to report gifts? Apparently all this wasn't on Christie's personal tab, or he would have just said that a week ago and averted speculation.

I guess since George Bush started making the laws in his kingdom of America, the "unitary executive theory" now extends to every Republican who can get away with similar arrogance.

Thank you, Blue Jersey, for being the only media in New Jersey to care about the news rather than the fiction about crusading corruption-buster (only Democrats need worry) Christie. Another fine job by huntsu:

" ... We now have, in just a month, Christie twice responding to media inquiries with the equivalent of a slimy used car salesman saying, 'Trust me.'

"So I am pretty sure this is more of Christie's arrogant, egotistical indignancy, the same personality trait that caused him to lose his Freeholder seat in a Republican primary.

"But the other reading, that there is something a little off happening here, is also a reasonable one. Christie opened the door himself by admitting he received a personal favor from the son of a former assistant US Attorney and then hiding the source of funding for his trip. ..."

Catching up on sleep for New Year's

2007-12-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

Have you ever heard a snoring cat?

Enemy combatants not all that's "disappearing"

2007-12-30T12:49:00.000-05:00

Birds are disappearing across North America, which could spell bigger environmental devastation than the climate crisis caused by greenhouse gasses.

See the CBC News video here.

It's a devastation that could be harder to reverse, too, especially because no one seems to know why birds have gone missing. It's not unreasonable to wonder if the climate crisis is a cause.

And don't forget recent news accounts equally disturbing about disappearing bees and disappearing butterflies." In fact, Korean scientists link the loss of butterflies to global warming. If you Copernic search on disappearing birds, bees and butterflies, you'll read concerns around the world.

Look to Brattleboro for some balls

2007-12-30T01:08:00.000-05:00

Finally, some common sense and a bit of spunk.

Brattleboro, Vt., may consider a petition for the town to make President Bush and Veep Cheney subject to arrest and indictment for "crimes against our Constitution" if they step foot in town, which Bush never has as president, anyway.

"This petition is as radical as the Declaration of Independence, and it draws on that tradition in claiming a universal jurisdiction when governments fail to do what they're supposed to do," said Kurt Daims, 54, a retired machinist leading the drive.

... Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, a Democrat whose office has repeatedly sued the Bush administration over environmental issues, called the move "of very dubious legality."

"Dubious legality"?

The Boston tea party and the Declaration of Independence were of "dubious legality."

The fundamental promise of the Declaration of Independence is the right of the people to redress grievances. The U.S. Constitution lays the groundwork for redress. Nothing in it prohibits radical avenues to achieve the promise when the Constitution fails.

The very point of the measure is the Constitution has been perverted and is failing to serve its purpose. Isn't it better a town uses judicial means to protect its people from virtual dictators rather than taking up arms, as the Second Amendment provides?

If that shocks anyone, consider changes in our "laws" under the Bush administration and Bush's extralegal adaptations of it allow him to pluck any or all Brattleboroans off the street and imprison them secretly, without allowing them to speak to anyone -- even a lawyer or their family, to tell loved ones where they are -- simply if he and he alone were to decide they are "enemy combatants." He and his corporate buddies can and do spy on their communications, "papers and property," without the warrant required by the Fourth Amendment.

And, so far, the offices of POTUS and VPOTUS are getting away with their perverted notions they don't have to explain what they do to anyone, ever. When challenged in the now-impotent federal judicial and legislative branches, they simply tell judges and Congress, "National security"; case closed. Or lose those public records in mysterious office fires and seven-layer computer wipes.

Radical times call for radical solutions.

(Flickr pictr by Professor Bop)

Hitting the nail on the head

2007-12-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

Or is it the hammer being hit on the head?

Politicker's Year in Review describes Boss of the Year U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, R-N.J.

"Christie's ability to deliver no-bid contracts worth huge amounts of money to his friends and former colleges -- like a deal worth up to $50 million for John Aschcroft, and mega million dollar contracts for Herbert Stern and John Inglesino at UMDNJ, GOP ex-N.J. Attorney General David Samson and David Kelley, a former U.S. Attorney in New York -- might make party leaders like George Norcross, Glenn Paulsen, Charlotte DeFilippo and Joseph Ferriero envious. It's possible that Christie gives out more contracts than several of the party bosses.

"Like an effective boss, Christie has been able to avert public criticism -- maybe because his name doesn't actually appear on a ballot (although that may change in 2009.)"

Politicker forgot to give a kudo to brother Todd Christie for moving the Christie money into the right (pun intended) coffers to keep Chris' clandestine gubernatorial campaign going without revealing the appearance of violating quid pro quo and the same anti-corruption laws Chris Christie is using to get powerful Democrats out of his way.

Indeed, Chris Christie may be the new Norcross and beyond, because Christie holds the powerful tools of a potential coming autocracy that'll sell New Jersey to his party's benefactor contractors.

Hat tip and good discussion going on over at Blue Jersey. And congratulations to its editor, Juan Melli, for making No. 17 on Politicker's N.J. Power List and Asbury Park Press editor William "Skip" Hidlay, No. 39. Well earned.

There's also an interesting comparison of Gov. Corzine to former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley on page 25 of the Year in Review.

"No Muslim can attack a woman."

2007-12-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

Update Dec. 30: Fox News, of all sources (credit where credit is due), is showing a video still of the gunman or woman shooting at assassinated one-time elected prime minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. The trumped-up official account that Bhutto died merely after hitting her head on the car casts suspicion on dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government. UK Channel 4 TV ran fuller video:

Benazir Bhutto, the world's first elected Muslim woman head of state, was assassinated today at an election rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

In an interview with Sir David Frost on Nov. 2, Bhutto mentioned "anti-democratic forces" including someone who "had dealings with Omar Shiekh, the man who murdered Osama bin Laden." Could the Omar Shiekh she referred to be the British MI6 agent convicted of killing Princeton-born Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl?

I wonder why this hasn't been on network TV in America:

The "man who murdered Osama bin Laden" is at minute 6:10. Some say she must have misspoken. That's almost impossible to imagine, first because she was an expert on the radical Islamic militant underground, and second, neither she nor Frost appear to have attempted to retract, correct or clarify the statement.

Blue Jersey has New Jersey leaders' words about the assassination and what it says about the Bush administration's post 9/11 failure. Are Bush and his crew perpetrating a hoax on the American public with frequent "new videotapes" they say are bin Laden to create a perpetual boogie man to terrorize us, so we'll continue to relinquish our civil liberties and let him operate as a dictator, himself?

And with Pakistan's political turmoil spiraling, the prospect of a nuclear war becomes more foreboding as radicals come closer to having control of nuclear weapons.

Bhutto preached what it means to be Muslim after a failed assassination attempt:

Defensive Voting 101

2007-12-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

If we ever get secondary schools to renew teaching civics, they should include "How to Avoid being Duped as Voters" in the curriculum.

Allen Raymond, one of the Republicans who went to jail for phone jamming on election night 2002 in New Hampshire to block the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort, while the Republicans conducted their GOTV, is publishing a confession book, "How to Rig an Election."

Figures Raymond would be proud of smacking democracy in the face. He's miffed the GOP "threw me under the bus," but, really, when you sleep with snakes you have to figure you're going to get bit, no? So, Raymond seems to be dishing some dirt that includes duping New Jersey voters, too. Jamestown Associates employed Raymond to use phone dirty tricks in the barely failed attempt to get Dick Zimmer into the House seat Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., won.

"Back in 2002," he writes, "just about every Republican operative was so dizzy with power that if you could find two of us who could still tell the difference between politics and crime, you could probably have rubbed us together for fire as well."

It has hit my radar a time or two that former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's daughter, Kate, who now has put her hat in the political ring, was the communications director for the N.H. GOP at the time the phone-jamming crime took place. And I remember Mamma's campaign director Ed Rollins paid black ministers to supress minority voters who typically vote for Democrats to win her squeaker '93 election.

Paul Kiel put pieces together in a 2006 post at TPMcafe. It's time to revisit some of that, particularly how the matrix moves around Raymond's work for the convicted U.S. Senate candidate James Treffinger, the only big GOP kill wannabe caped crusader U.S. Attorney Chris Christie wants to give himself credit for even though it most likely was a done deal before he and brother Todd bought Christie's job to boost his own political career.

(Flickr photo, right, by kelldar)

Ending ignorance of historical wrongs

2007-12-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

The Lakota tribe has withdrawn from all U.S. treaties, calling them the worthless pieces of papers they are. Long overdue. I'd love to see all native American tribes follow suit, quickly.

I predict you won't see this news in prime time, though, unless it's to put the tribe up for ridicule and to villify Venezuala President Hugu Chavez and other South American leaders not exhalted by our CIA.

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means (right, Flickr photo by Allan Vogue) said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Ready for a third battle of Wounded Knee?

Don't forget Leonard Peltier remains unjustly imprisoned.

Just in time for Christmas

2007-12-17T23:43:00.000-05:00

This is interesting. Abotex Enterprises of Michigan has come up with a do-it-yourself Lead Inspector Test Kit. It probably would be a good investment for parents who couldn't wean themselves from cheap and colorful Chinese merchandise again this year. Sigh.

National Public Radio interviewed the inventor last week.

Questioning the questioners

2007-12-17T08:39:00.000-05:00

Back in August, On Our Radar linked to reporting on what seems to be the U.S. Justice Department's atrocious political prosecution of Alabama's ex-Gov. Don Siegelman, a rare popular Democrat there. Corporate media apparently has decided its news teams can't compete with Raw Story in reporting this news. The funny thing is, it's not even "investigative reporting," because the facts are all right there, so it's hard to digest why MSM has such a hard time ferreting out this remarkable news.

Now, a reader of Joe Cannon's Cannonfire blog anonymously posted he or she has inside knowledge of the case and made two claims that raised my eyebrows.

... (T)he three largest newspapers in his own state have been a big part of this conspiracy. The newspapers are owned by the media giant, Advance Publications Inc. Whose writers have (specific) orders on how to write news articles that involve Democrats. These newspapers are feeding this same false information to the AP Associated Press and the TV and radio media. ... I have requested that the FBI conduct an investigation of Advance Publications Inc.

The Newark Star-Ledger is an Advance company. I don't see any attributed source for the above claim, but at a minimum it raises a separate issue on media consolidation. If one company owns all the biggest news outlets in the state, only one corporate voice is making it to the outside traditional media via Associated Press wire service, which itself operates today without viable competition. The FCC will vote tomorrow on another disastrous foregone move to relax limits on corporations owning both newspapers and broadcast outlets with the same audiences.

Then this:

2002 election night. All the polls had reported in and Siegelman won by over 6,000 votes. Dan Gans, who had programming, computer system administration training and trained to work on the Diebold Election Systems Inc and the ES&S central voting tabulator, was about to be fired by Bob Riley when he decide to get online with Bay Minette located in Baldwin County, Al. He made several attempts to take votes from Siegelman’s total vote count and switch them to Riley’s; however, there was a third candidate that was running for governor that he forgot about. Gans had trouble making the total votes equal the number of voters that had voted.

Aren't Ocean County's voting machines counted on ES&S tabulators? I wonder if New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, who is now scrutinizing voting machine company equipment to comply with a new law requiring paper proofs of each vote, is aware of this alleged vulnerability. I wonder if she has looked into how much of those companies' proprietary information might ever have been available to New Jersey election law experts, such as Angelo Genova and John Carbone. Carbone is the Republican lawyer Brick's GOP-controlled council hired to ensure Ocean County GOP boss George Gilmore would remain township attorney, and that town's political control flunks any smell test.

Just pondering food for thought. What do you think?

Good Christmas list

2007-12-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

But her support of this was uncalled for, I think. I don't see anyone persecuting Christians in America. If anything, it's the other way around.

A tribute to Michael Vick

2007-12-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

Why is it American soldiers and mercenaries in Iraq can amuse themselves killing dogs, but Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick goes to jail for almost 2 years in America for deadly dog fights? Is it that Vick is a black man who had the audacity to get rich?

Vick's sentencing reminded me of Dr. Demento, thanks to Mike Malloy's background music on the Vick news. Thank God for YouTube.

A word on feeding the hungry

2007-12-09T19:41:00.000-05:00

A group, Poverty.com, has put together this nifty vocabulary quiz that lets you send 20 grains of rice where it's needed through the United Nations. The advertisers on each quiz answer page pays for the rice.

You may have seen it already, because it seems to be a hit in the blogosphere. I acquired more than 6,000 grains of rice in about 15 minutes. I suppose that's only a couple of cups, actually, but the quiz is fun and educational -- and endless.

Too little, too late

2007-12-07T07:47:00.000-05:00

The Record's Herb Jackson, formerly of the Asbury Park Press, gives the best rundown on Thursday's 235-181 energy bill vote in the House that would move a little -- not enough -- money from oil subsidies to renewable fuel incentives. Senate gamesmanship on Friday seemed pretty clear it won't get through there unless Big Oil gets its payday, so it's anyone's guess this where it will stand now. I'm not optimistic.

Also will update what whistleblowing FBI translator Sibel Edmonds knows and why it matters to New Jersey.

Ah, the flashbacks

2007-11-29T23:40:00.001-05:00

Thank you, Mike Gravel, for keeping this presidential campaign interesting.

Power to the people, and give peace a chance.

More on Gravel's candidacy and background here.

Christian Girls Gone Wild

2007-11-29T07:45:00.000-05:00

The next video ad for late-night TV, perhaps?

This sermon clip is poor quality, but it gives a hint where the CIA may be selling the good drugs these days.

"...a holy ghost enema right up your rear end, because God won't tolerate anything else."

Chris Christie as media magician

2007-11-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

Debbie Holtz at Politicker NJ put together a nice timeline on the fortuitous "leaks" -- again -- from U.S. attorney Chris Christie's office this week that bumped his class-action scandal to lesser news holes.

On Monday, 11/19, a spokesman for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft responds to the Star Ledger's questions about the no-bid federal monitoring deal. By Monday evening, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie provides comments to the Ledger.

Monday, 11/19, Star Ledger, Internet, 10:01pm: $52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss

Tuesday, 11/20, Star Ledger, Print Edition: 52M-plus payday for Christie's old boss

Sometime before 9:00 am on Tuesday, an exclusive leak to The Record reveals an ongoing search being conducted at both the office and home of state Senator Joseph Coniglio. The Record arrives at both locations with a reporter, photographers and videographer to capture live footage of the raid.

Tuesday, 11/20, The Record: Federal agents search Coniglio's home

Tuesday, The Record, Live Video Feed of the event on 11/20: Feds seize documents from Coniglio's home and office

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T12:04:00.001-05:00

Can you say "dollar store"?

I like the "dapper-dressed rabbits" and Bush as the ironically saluting squirrel.

And, "John Madden, how would your parents feel if they knew they gave birth to such an ass?"

Give thanks today to Bric-a-Brac Theatre.

Vying for the annals of stupid laws

2007-11-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Two of our legislators want to outlaw plastic shopping bags at stores larger than 10,000 square feet. It may rate only a 7 on the runny-egg scale -- so named for the outlaw of lightly fried eggs that made New Jersey a laughingstock on late-night TV during the 1992 salmonella scare -- but it's yet another surrealistic demonstration that our Legislature just doesn't "get it." We, the people, want them to work to protect us from real bad guys, not from ourselves.

Their effort to reduce unnecessary plastic in the waste stream is admirable. It's just that making availability illegal is not only unnecessary, because most big retailers already encourage shoppers to recycle the bags, but it's not a permanent solution to anything. A law should be a last resort and should create a permanent solution to an otherwise hopeless social ill. Taking away plastic doesn't replace it with an acceptable alternative.

Have the bill sponsors, Assemblymen Herb Conaway Jr., D-Burlington, and Jack Conners, D-Camden, thought this through? Did they think at all? The obvious substitute is paper. Trees, which are cut down to make paper, clean carbons from the air. Diverting retailers to paper bags is contrary to wide recognition that hydrocarbons and other gasses are leading us to climate destruction that some drastically predict will destroy civilization itself.

It's right to publicize the importance of shoppers investing in their own reusable canvas bags or, at least, recycling their plastic bags either in secondary uses as garbage sacks or for their next shopping trip, or returning to the store's recycling bin. But there are nonprofit groups that do that promotion. Retailers promote that; it saves them money when shoppers conserve plastic. People who have "seen the light" promote it by example.

Then there's the political reality that big retailers have big lobbyists being paid big money. Who can think this bill is getting out of committee? Why are these people wasting public employee time and effort? Then again, it took public humiliation in 1992 to send that set of red-faced clowns scrambling to recind that fried egg law.

Smooth move, future guv'na

2007-11-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

I can't get over how starved people are for a political rock star that most of the public and the media don't see U.S. Attorney Chris Christie for the ever-so-partisan politician he is. He's smart, sure enough, but deceptive.

Last night, the Star-Ledger broke a peek at reality by reporting how Christie is using the $311 million settlement he got against the four biggest companies in the knee/hip replacement industry to kick back a record $52 million to his old boss, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who could go on the campaign trail himself again in his home state of Missouri just as Christie is expected to be the Republican savior for the 2009 gubernatorial ticket here.

And Ashcroft's is one of several law firms the settlement is employing, which seems to leave little of that $311 left to compensate the actual victims.

The complexity of how this money gets laundered (my opinion, not a legal judgment) from the corporations to Ashcroft's bank account -- $750,000 of it literally -- is quite fascinating. I can't help but imagine this might have been a point of discussion in Christie's legal negotiations. Because of confidentiality of lawyers and investigators, I'm guessing we'll never know exactly how this deal went down, even though it was our tax money.

Watch for these companies and their top dogs as contributors to Ashcroft's or Christie's political campaigns down the road: Stryker Orthopedics of Mahwah; the Biomet division of Johnson & Johnson; Zimmer Holdings of Indiana; and Smith & Nephew, a British company operating here from Memphis, Tenn.

Oh, the irony of this settlement being to end "a probe into kickbacks" by these companies. The best place to hide something really is right under someone's nose.

Let's see how much each actual victim receives in the end. If it's like consumers in many class-action "settlements," it'll be pennies -- and will be paid only after the victim signs a convoluted indemnity contracts promising never to get wise and sue the companies on their own.

Hat tip and discussion over at Blue Jersey. Flickr photo by Steve Lubetkin.

Another fine first lady candidate

2007-11-17T14:23:00.000-05:00

Awesome first lady in waiting

2007-11-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

Michelle Obama has struck me in every interview as being smart and unpretentious. She hit the nail on the head again in this interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski

When Brzezinski related a personal anecdote about an African American flight attendant who had said Sen. Obama couldn't win "because he's black," the candidate's wife sympathized.

"That's right. That's the psychology that's going on in our heads, in our souls, and I understand it," she said. "I know where it comes from. You know, and I think that is one of the horrible legacies of racism and discrimination and oppression."

But she's confident husband Barack will overtake frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though Clinton polls higher in African American communities.

"Black Americans will wake up and get it," Obama said. "But what we're dealing with in the black community is just the natural fear of possibility. When I look at my life, the stuff that we're seeing in these polls is played out my whole life: always been told by somebody that I'm not ready, you know, I can't do something, my scores weren't high enough."

(Flickr pictr by lynnereneephoto)

Did you ever wonder ...?

2007-11-01T06:54:00.000-05:00

Who makes up digital amusements like "Tater People" and why?

Why don't they sign it and get credit for their work? Maybe they create these things goofing around on company time. What do you think?

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T07:08:00.000-05:00

Purrfect explanation of the immigration debate

2007-10-28T10:32:00.001-05:00

XXX sermon

2007-10-24T06:26:00.000-05:00

Ah, this classic Oral Roberts tape is growing legs in the blogosphere. I guess they don't call his movement charismatic for nothing. Talk dirty to me, Big Boy:

My favorite part is his denouncement of "INSANE" hOmoooosexxxuals who "D-I-E die":

"I go to church too, but it didn't, you know, make me queer. Well, I wouldn't buy that 100%. Please erase that from the tape. Let's edit that part out, OK?"

Too close for comfort

2007-10-22T06:54:00.000-05:00

Philadelphia has a judge who thinks it's just fine for men to gang rape a working girl at gunpoint. Because the 20-year-old single mom agreed to certain sexual acts for money, it's only "theft of service" when the home she agreed to go to turned out to be an abandoned building where she was held at gunpoint and raped by 4 men, says Judge Teresa Carr Deni. Deni dropped, for no legal reason, all the sexual and assault charges, including assault with a deadly weapon. Feministe has the story.

When some of the same guys did the same thing a few days later in a completely separate case with another woman, prosecutor Rich DeSipio didn't even bring the case because he "wouldn’t demean her that way,” calling the earlier case "a farce." And did he try to prosecute any of them on prostitution charges? Apparently, Philadelphia officially condones that.

Shame on both of them. It's open season on women in Philadelphia.

Merry War-mass

2007-10-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

The War on Christmas comes earlier every year -- now as soon as we're done worshiping Chris Columbus.

And what would Jesus, prince of peace and preacher on the Mount, love more than this bumper sticker?

"This is America! And I'm going to say it: 'Merry Christmas!'"

In the words of Eddie Murphy, "I'm Gumby, dammit."

Blog of the week

2007-10-19T07:40:00.000-05:00

Interesting blog of artists and poets, Exterminating Angel Press, has this Floyd Webster Rudmin editorial.

Conspiracy theory is "deconstructive history" because it is in rebellion against official explanations and against orthodox journalism and orthodox history. Conspiracy theorists cast out demography, market forces, technological development, social evolution, and other abstract, constructed categories of explanation. Conspiracy theory is radically empirical: tangible facts are the focus, especially facts that orthodox doctrine tries to make disappear. There is a ruthless reduction down to what is without doubt real, namely, persons. Conspiracy theory presumes that human events are caused by people acting as people do, including cooperating, planning, cheating, deceiving, and pursuing power.

Quote of the week

2007-10-19T06:44:00.000-05:00

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.”

Was she really just talking about Russia in this New York Times piece?

Flickr photo: Buddy Stone

Let's see them call him a fibber now

2007-10-12T07:09:00.000-05:00

The right-wing propagandists managed to twist Vice President Al Gore's rightful statements that he had a role in initiating the Internet as we know it and that his friendship with Erich Segal was one of the inspirations for the author's tear-jerker, "Love Story."

The Nobel committee has awarded its annual Peace Prize to Al Gore, and that's about as clear and absolute as claims to fame get.

Can't be a little bit pregnant

2007-10-11T06:06:00.000-05:00

And New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, a Bush Pioneer eyeing Drumthwacket, can't be a little bit partisan.

His office issued three press releases yesterday about indictments against Democrats around the state but failed to mention the FBI caught a pretty big Republican fish.

Frank Barbera, the former Treasurer of the Atlantic County Republican Party and a political ally of County Executive Dennis Levinson, was arrested by FBI agents this week on bribery charges ... Barbera is accused of offering a $5,000 bribe to Craig Callaway in 2005, while Callaway was serving as the Atlantic City Council President. Callaway is now serving a 40-month sentence following his own bribery conviction.

Where's Rudy?

2007-09-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald comes through again.

And Pallone makes a trifecta for man week here

2007-09-28T20:17:00.000-05:00

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth, did a terrific job speaking for me, complete with snark (you go, Frank!) at the end of his speech asking for Rush Limbaugh to be held to the same standards as MoveOn.org. (I'd actually have had him add Ann "poison Justice Stevens' creme broule" Coulter to that speech.)

Blue Jersey has more of the story and links to Media Matters' as-ever fabulous work in speaking truth to power.

So our Jersey Boy is a "bear"?

2007-09-27T18:21:00.000-05:00

I can't top Steven Hart's post at BlueJersey and cross-posted at Opinion Mill:

In today's news from the socio-cultural front, New Jersey-bred auteur Kevin Smith is slated to become a magazine-cover sex symbol.
The creator of Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl is going to be featured on the cover of A Bear's Life, a magazine for broad-beamed hirsute fellas and the men who dig them. As Smith explains:
Within that community there are bears - guys who look like me - and dudes who are really into them, who are called cubs. And, apparently, I'm the focus of a lot of admiration in this community. I'd be considered something of a coup, a score for a cub - the ultimate bear to get.
And they called and said, "Do you want to be on the cover of a magazine?" I was like, "Are you telling me there's someone out there who sexualizes me? I'll be on that magazine, totally."

More at Queerty.com.

I (heart) Evo Morales

2007-09-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

Isn't Bolivia's first indigenous president adorable? I want to bring him home so he can nationalize our oil industry and give the land back to the people to use productively, instead of industry polluting it.

She's right, you know

2007-09-20T19:40:00.001-05:00

If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any more goddamn wars. Go Gidget.

The 9/11 memory hole

2007-09-11T07:34:00.000-05:00

Poignant is the talking point of the day, but factual reality is what's on our radar.

That's why this piece today in Raw Story by Peter Lance, author of "1000 Years for Revenge," is a fascinating read. It's a narrative, so open the link when you have time to read it in entirety.

I didn't know Lance was gagged. Did you? I've been wondering why a top investigative reporter on al Qaeda would participate in the made-for-TV propaganda, "Path to 9/11," and never explain why.

Our former N.J. Gov. Thomas H. Kean's role in this narrative is significant, and Lance leaves me thinking there's more to the Kean story than he tells us here. We should be more curious about these things.

Cyrus failed to underscore the significance of the two fighters being scrambled out of Otis Air National Guard (ANG) base on Cape Cod, 188 miles from Ground Zero; arriving too late to interdict UA #175 which had hit the South Tower.

By the time he’d written the script, Nowrasteh had read my second 9/11 book Cover Up and he knew – per a Dec. 5, 2003 Bergent (sic) Record story quoting his advisor Gov. Tom Kean - that there were two F-16’s from an identical ANG base in Atlantic City which could have reached Manhattan in under eight minutes that day.

But they were never scrambled by NEADS or NORAD; a glaring omission left out of Kean’s 9/11 Commission Report that any desk assistant for ABC News could have uncovered with a simple search on Google.

The video I'm recommending for those who want to remember the truth, not the "1984"ed version of Sept. 11, 2001, is a documentary DVD featuring our own 9/11 widows dubbed the Jersey Girls, "9/11: Press for the Truth."

Ready for extinction?

2007-08-29T22:24:00.000-05:00

Jersey boys: like white on rice

2007-08-28T18:28:00.000-05:00

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., better known as A&P supermarket, is suing a pair of college students who shot this clever gansta rap parody in their off hours at the A&P in Califon, where they (cough) used to work. From the sounds of the updates on their website, brothers Mark and Mike D'Avella from Glen Gardner are taking in stride that they were relieved of duty earlier than expected this summer.

It's A&P's $1 million minimum lawsuit against them for the floundering company's self-proclaimed defamation (I thought only live people could be defamed) and loss of business. The lawsuit, itself, must be a parody, because at the time the company filed it, only 200 people had hit "Produce Paradise" on YouTube. And, let's face it: Two college students' pockets aren't deep enough to buy A&P's lawyers coffee.

Now, many thousands have viewed the Fresh Beets video and are saying they won't shop at A&P because of the lawsuit. Ooops, big ooops, perhaps, A&P?

He can pick his friends, he can pick his nose, but can he find a friend to pick his nose?

2007-08-16T22:59:00.001-05:00

So, 58% of New Jerseyans wouldn't even want to have a cup of coffee with George W. Bush. Go figure.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and ex-President Bill Clinton came out on top as folks we'd most like to meet. No surprise, both personable intellectuals.

That was an unrelated question in a Zogby poll commissioned by Garden State Equality that found 63% of us support gay marriage. That would surprise only people who listen to the right-wing noise machine.

This is must-see TV

2007-08-16T22:59:00.000-05:00

Dan Rather seems to be starting his new journalism road hitting the ground running.

One of his first reports on HDNet television is "The Trouble with Touch Screens," and the venerable journalist doesn't disappoint.

Buh bye, KKKarl

2007-08-15T23:32:00.000-05:00

The thing is, I think we haven't seen the worst of him yet. He's just going to San Antonio County, Texas, to plot the theft of the '08 elections in unobstructed peace and obscurity, and for an excuse not to answer Congress' subpoenas.

Mail bag

2007-08-14T07:49:00.000-05:00

The New Jersey NOW is marching Saturday, Aug. 25, in Newark as part of this year's People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is scheduled to speak there.

The march commemorates the 44th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led in Washington, D.C., the 40th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion and the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Details here.

Censorship sure is a "mistake"

2007-08-09T05:53:00.000-05:00

Pearl Jam isn't taking this sitting down. Good.

AT&T Blue Room, which apparently had the contract for live webcast from the Lollapalooza concert, scrubbed two lines from Pearl Jam's song, "Daughter," because they were anti-George W. Bush ("George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home").

After questioning AT&T about the incident, Lollapalooza was informed that material was indeed missing from the webcast, and that it was mistakenly cut by AT&T's content monitor. Tiffany Nels of ATT told CMJ that they are working the matter out with the band. "We regret the mistake," she explains. "This was not intended and was an unfortunate mistake made by a webcast editor." She went on to explain that AT&T has a policy for any excessive language, and that it was set up because of its all-ages audience.

Can you say, "Third Reich"? Or rather, "Fourth Reich"?

And, a clue for AT&T: Senior citizens hate Bush, too. Remember Bush's bungled Medicare prescription plan and his attempt to pull the rug out from Social Security forever (he already stole the trust fund baby boomers paid to pay for a couple of days of this Iraq invasion)? He's quantifiably the worst president of all time, having the lowest sustained favorability polling of any in modern history.

We need to speak loudly about Part 2 of the outrageous crush-FISA legislation coming quickly down the pike next month. From Balkinization:

From the President's Message on signing the FISA fix: "When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001."

Note the key item on this wish list: legal immunity for having participated in the illegal NSA program.

That would be our own Verizon and AT&T, among other Big Telecoms.

Was this just cocky overreach by a big lobbying corporation, or a corporation that already believes it controls the people's government and gets to call the laws and contracts to suit it? I think the latter, and the latter = fascism, Italian style, by its very definition.

I'm not trying to be alarmist, but I'm going to say so when the emporer has no clothes.

Save the Internet reminds us:

AT&T routinely rails against Net Neutrality as a “solution without a problem.” They say Net Neutrality regulations aren’t necessary because they wouldn’t dare interfere with online content. At the same time they tout plans to become gatekeepers to the Web with public relations bromides about “shaping” Web traffic to better serve the needs of an evolving Internet.

Such spin needs to be held up to the light of experience. AT&T’s history of breaking trust with their customers includes handing over private phone records to the government, promising to deliver services to underserved communities and then skipping town, pledging never to interfere with the free flow of information online while hatching plans with the likes of Cisco, Viacom, RIAA and MPA to build and deploy technology that will spy on user traffic.

The moral of this story is never trust AT&T at their word.

And, in another censorship outrage, the Michigan Senate majority leader blocked the blog Blogging for Michigan from all Senate computers because he didn't like the constituent's opinion and deemed no one there would read it. Imagine, a state Senate majority leader thought this was reasonable. Has the slow and methodical erosion of the civil liberties embodied (literally with blood of our original, REAL patriots) in our U.S. Consitution brought us to a point where anyone can think for a moment -- let alone a whole week -- that such a thing is acceptable in America?

Think about that.

It's about time

2007-08-08T07:50:00.000-05:00

On the "more later" front:

Ocean County Republican Reps. Jim Saxton and Chris Smith are both feeling the heat on their pitiful support of the Iraq war and may be prepared to switch their votes to withdrawal, along with Reps. Frank Lobiondo and Mike Ferguson next time the pullout vote comes around.

And yet, women still get screwed

2007-08-07T20:04:00.001-05:00

Cara, a New York feminist blogger who runs Curvature, cross-posted a diary at Feminsting that cuts through the military spin to figure out what's what with Airman Cassandra Hernandez' rape case.

It's stomach-turning outrageous.

Trifecta: Yet another clever girl -- two more, in fact

2007-08-07T18:18:00.000-05:00

Maybe we're a bigger force for leadership than the mainstream mindset imagines.

Even I am warming up to Sen. Hillary Clinton, even though it still is irrationally distasteful to me to have another family dynasty designated to resume White House duties. But how prescient was she in May in an interview including Robert Murray, the owner of a Utah coal mine where six trapped miners are missing, to say it's time for a president (her) who is "pro-labor and will appoint people who actually care about workers' rights and workers' safety"?

Murray's bungling banter is truly mind-boggling, but it probably seemed normal to most viewers because this exchange was on Fox not-News.

"Bob, do you view this rhetoric as pro-labor, anti-business, what?" (Neil) Cavuto asked Murray.

...Murray responded, "I view it as anti-American. These people should -- are misleading the American worker then they talk about jobs. These are the people advocating draconian global warming conditions that are going to drive American jobs to foreign countries and raise electric rates for everybody on fixed incomes."

... Murray also testified before Congress two months ago that his safety record with all of his mines "is one of the best in the coal industry anywhere."

In a testy exchange with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Murray said a story reporting two of his Ohio mines showed injury rates a fourth higher than the national average was "propaganda" by a mine union.

"You are flat out wrong," Murray told Boxer when she raised the story in the Columbus Dispatch saying Murray's mines have the biggest fines against him versus any other mine in Ohio.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has cited Murray's mine in central Utah with more than 300 violations since January 2004, including 118 "significant and substantial" violations that are considered serious enough to cause injury or death.

Murray, who testified against regulation of the energy industry as part of effort to combat global warming, said the changes to the coal industry would cause losses of high-paying mining jobs and would be "extremely destructive" to the nation.

Yeah, I'm sure right now those six fated miners and their families are so thankful for their "high-paying" mine jobs. They might clear a whole $1,500 a month after taxes. Must be grateful.

Another clever girl

2007-08-07T08:18:00.000-05:00

Rudy Giuliani's daughter, Caroline, is -- or was -- supporting Barack Obama for president. She seems to have been compelled to removed Obama's campaign from her "friends" list as of Aug. 6, but she still calls herself "liberal," unlike the dear old dad she reportedly doesn't speak to.

Click on the picture to read the screen.

What a clever girl

2007-08-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in U.S. history, and yet, she manages to find a way around it:

"I assumed the enemy was foreign."

"I had taken the oath to protect my new country, against all enemies, and this was my chance to serve my country. I assumed the enemy was foreign. ...

Within a few months, I came across some serious issues. Wrongdoing. Some of those would be considered criminal, within the FBI. Some of those involved security breaches, 911 related coverups, and sabotaged intelligence operations. In one case, due to the pressure of the State Department and Pentagon, the FBI was prevented from criminally investigating certain U.S. officials who were engaged in actions against our national security, having loyalties to other governments."

Among the things she knows is the names of four sitting members of Congress who are being bribed by the Turks. Much, more more at Monosyllabic Fish.

Very creative

2007-08-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

I found this at Delilah's blog, but I dunno where it is or who to credit.

Wow

2007-08-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

George W. Bush wasted no time throwing his weight around with his new warrantless spying power. What the hell were those Blue Dogs thinking, by God!?

Within a day or so of getting the power he claimed to need to secretly eavesdrop on international phone calls, Bush had the FBI use a secret warrant to raid the home of an American, former Justice Department lawyer Thomas M. Tamm. Looks like he just wants revenge on an honest civil service professional who may have told the truth about Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping before Congress legalized it for him last Friday. Bush will have to go after former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, too, I guess, because they were critical of the Bush administration about this at the same time as Tamm.

Yo, Krankor

2007-08-02T23:05:00.000-05:00

The fabulous Mystery Science Theater 3000 is back with a DVD!

Melevision has more fan trivia:

The series ran from 1988-1999 featuring a man and his robots who were trapped on a satellite in space and forced to watch really bad movies, especially (but not limited to) those of the science fiction. The man and his robots make a running commentary on the film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking their way through the film in the style of a peanut gallery. During its eleven years and 198 episodes, MST3K attained a fiercely loyal fan base, and much critical acclaim. The show was nominated for a writing Emmy in 1994 and 1995.

If you like MST3000, you'll love What To Do In A Zombie Attack, from movie archives.

If only we knew what Sibel knows

2007-08-02T06:48:00.000-05:00

Monosyllabic Fish puts together some big pieces of the illegal spying/Gonzales puzzle with the help of whistleblowing translater Sibel Edmonds, speaking here:

More Sibel:

Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
Call Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Demand public open hearings:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 651-1040
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498

Who knew Alabama was so intriquing?

2007-08-01T06:53:00.000-05:00

Yankee news scrubbed this, but I find it interesting that, after Alabama attorney Jill Simpson last month told all about how Karl Rove manipulated the U.S. Department of Justice prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, Simpson's house burned clean to the ground. Alabama blogger Robby Scott Hill, in a take off Eugene Debs' famous speech, gives his courageous take on it.

Until Jill Simpon's (sic) house is rebuilt, I am homeless. So long as my attorney colleagues are made into political prisoners and placed in the criminal element, I am in it and as long as Don Siegelman, Larry Sutley and Steve Russo remain in prison, I am not free.

Who would want to be a member of a Bar Association that allows prosecutors to tread upon The Bill of Rights, inflict these injustices and go unpunished? We fought a war against Great Britain to be free from such tyranny. National Security is the age old cry of the tyrant and is just another way of depriving us of our liberties. These men have been framed like my mother.

New York lawyer Scott Horton wrote a good recap on the whole Siegelman case this month at Harper's magazine, but you have to subscribe to read it all.

And speaking of fascism, Scott Horton also wrote a fascinating piece July 16 about philosopher Leo Strauss and the media for Balkinization, a legal blog I like a lot.

And speaking of Leo Strauss, the guru of fascism was the impetus for the hysterically funny play, "Embedded," that Oscar winner Tim Robbins wrote, directed and acted in on off-Broadway a few years back. "Embedded" now is on DVD -- not as crisp as the real thing on stage, but very well worth the $18.

Over the buttoned-down top

2007-07-29T20:09:00.001-05:00

This is George W. Bush on vacation. ----->

And this is George W. Bush during his leisure time while on a recent business trip.

He thinks he can dress as he wants when he travels to our home turfs, but when we visit our White House, where he resides temporarily, we now must dress by his dress code -- no jeans, no sneakers, no T-shirts and no flip-flops. After all, if he is expected to dress up on duty there, we all should have to. That's the childish behavior we've come to expect of Bush.

But, that means we should behave as he and his family do when we're there, right?

Decorum in this White House. Absolutely.

N.J. joins the Resistance

2007-07-24T07:19:00.000-05:00

Former N.J. Attorney General Robert Del Tufo is among a bipartisan group of 44 former AGs who asked the Senate and House Judiciary Committees July 13 to investigate the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for its "potential inappropriate political interference in the offices of United States Attorneys," Wayne Madsen (subscription only) is reporting. Our radar honed in on Siegelman June 1 and also here.

The evidence that Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, used the U.S. Department of Justice to orchestrate the prosecution from the White House for the National Republican Committee so Siegelman would lose the election, even though it seems as if he actually won, is growing. Madsen reports it turns out a "dinner party" at Rove's D.C. home March 7 and his Florida vacation home on another date actually included others on the Siegelman prosecution team. It's not a stretch to assume these were partisan strategy sessions.

Madsen further reports:

We have also learned that a number of FBI field agents have been deterred in investigating the interference by the White House in the Siegelman case. That has resulted in a schism between FBI field offices and politically-motivated U.S. Attorneys offices, particularly federal prosecutors who are considered "loyal Bushies." The interference is reportedly being directed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove.

Upon sentencing, Republican federal judge Mark Fuller denied Siegelman bail pending appeal and did not even grant the ex-governor the cusromary 45-day window to report to jail�in order to put his affairs in order. Furthermore, Siegelman was ordered handcuffed and shackled in leg irons as he was immediately taken to prison after his sentencing.

Yet, Bush deigned jail too harsh for poor little I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to spend even a day there on his conviction of perjury and obstruction of justice in the conspiracy to leak the name and cover company of highly classified CIA NOC Valerie Plame Wilson and Brewster-Jennings Co. Siegelman's crime must be terrible if Bush didn't also commute his sentence, right? His crime was that as governor, he reappointed a hospital executive to an unpaid state health care panel, as did the three governors before him, coincidentally to the executive giving money to a charity so loosely tied to Siegelman that I can't remember how. What a danger to our national security, right?

It must never happen again

2007-07-21T18:05:00.000-05:00

It's bad enough unknown Bushies secretly wrote an unrequested document on how an undemocratic America would operate ... in emergency, right.

Quickly we now learn there's a classfied portion someone in the White House forbids even the House Homeland Security Committee to know.

Bush administration spokesman Trey Bohn declined to say why DeFazio was denied access: "We do not comment through the press on the process that this access entails.[WTF?!] It is important to keep in mind that much of the information related to the continuity of government is highly sensitive."

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he "cannot think of one good reason" to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House," Ornstein said.

This is the first time DeFazio has been denied access to documents. ... "Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio said.

This White House is an anarchy that has to go, ASAP. It has operated for years in violation of the Constitution, so there's no reason as far as I can see why the people should wait for validation of constitutional grounds to evict them.

Meanwhile, the White House is telling the Washington Post the Department of Justice we all pay for works only for "the commander guy" already. The DoJ can't investigate suspicions if "the decider" George W. Bush has decided it's not a crime.

Back in the box

2007-07-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

Rep. Rush Holt's, D-N.J., flawed voter integrity bill is back to committee for rewrite. Let's hope it comes out fixed this time.

Update July 21: The Star-Ledger is reporting NJIT found 33 flaws in three printer models expected to be used next time around under a new state law designed to ensure accuracy of electronic voting machines across New Jersey. The experts say these flaws could compromise voter privacy and election security.

Meanwhile, Bradblog found out the disabilities "advocate" who's a big proponent of the corruptable DRE-only machines was paid $26,000 last year by the DRE companies that want us to just shut up and let them tell us how we voted ... and we'll be expected to believe them, for no good reason.

Don't feed the troll

2007-07-18T06:47:00.000-05:00

Find them and out them:

If you click on the magazine ad, you can see it a little bigger. One headline on Alan Locke's site, www.winningcampaigns.org: "House parties must become $$$ makers."

Did she or didn't she?

2007-07-17T07:30:00.000-05:00

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., spoke briefly at a press conference yesterday about his infidelity with cheap hookers but didn't answer questions. He let his wife do is talking -- the same wife that around 2000 said she'd Lorena Bobbitt him if he cheated on her, unlike the pansy forgiver Hillary Clinton when her husband had a consensual relationship with an intern (not committing the crime of prostitution). In fairness, he denied doing cheap hookers, only admitted to the expensive ones. Family values indeed.

Well, whad'ya know?

2007-07-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is the favorite of military Republicans in the GOP pack for president.

Paul has received 23,465 donations, compared with traditional favorite Sen. John McCain's 15,825 military supporters. Of military donations, Paul takes almost 53% to McCain's 34%. Crikey, mate!

As I recall, the MSNBC.com poll showed Paul won both GOP debates by a landslide in its polls, too.

Karl Rove may have misunderestimated Paul when he ordained the actor-with-loose-britches Fred Thompson the yet undeclared king of the hill.

Selling out

2007-07-15T08:38:00.001-05:00

David Sirota has an interesting new piece in In These Times about how the Democrats are selling us out. Even when the people put them in, they seem to be easily flattered by the money the corporate lobbyists spend wining and dining them.