Ready for extinction?

Jersey boys: like white on rice

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?

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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.