|
Current (Archived: March
2008 | February
2008 | January
2008 | December
2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September
2007 | August
2007 | July
2007 | June
2007 | May
2007 | April 2007 | March
2007 | February 2007 | January
2007 | December 2006 | November
2006 | October 2006 | September
2006 | August 2006 | July
2006 | June 2006 | May
2006 | April
2006 | March 2006 | January-February
2006 | November-December 2005 | August-October
2005 | June-July 2005 | January-May
2005 | 2004)
A
LOTT OF FUSS ABOUT NOTHING?
November
28, 2007
Did
Trent Lott fuck a male prostitute? And, if so, could
this be the only honest business transaction
he's ever been involved
with?

"I
just said 'what's up George?' it's a figure of speech...
oh, never mind..."
You
might say "who gives a shit why Trent Lott is resigning?" And,
of course, you'd be right. It's good enough just to know
that one more cuntservative parasite is out of office,
even though his rat-like survival skills will guarantee
him an even more lucrative post-retirement career as a
lobbyist.
But the rumors are getting many-layered and interesting.
The
most sordid theory is that the great Larry Flynt was
all set to expose Lott as a gay hooker fucker, but he's letting
the story slide in lieu of Lott's resignation. "Senator
Lott has been the target of an ongoing Hustler investigation
for some time now, due to confidential information that we
have received," said Hustler. But why the hell would
Flynt play the gentleman, let Lott slither away and waste whatever high-caliber
karmic ammo he has stockpiled?
And then there's Benjamin
Nicholas, male escort, who is vehemently
denying having fucked Trent Lott (well wouldn't you?) while
the whole unappetizing scandal continues to swirl around
him like flies round shit. According
to Nicholas' blog "There
are falsely pieced-together quotes that serve no purpose
other than to sensationalize a completely fabricated scoop." Fair
enough. But why does he then add "I will continue to
offer a great sense of confidentiality to the people I see" if
doesn't want to stoke up the self-publicizing gossip and
direct more implied suspicion in Lott's direction?
This story is so fascinatingly sordid it makes your pubic
hair itch... We have the KKK-friendly scumbag senator resigning
with his "good" name entirely reliant on the discretion
of America's most famous hardcore pornographer and his reputation
saved by the male prostitute 'code of ethics.' Yeuch.
But the biggest reason for Lott's sudden retirement
is way more prosaic and even less savory. According
to Bloomberg:
"Lott
sparked controversy with his announcement this week that
he will retire by Dec. 31, one day before the application
of new rules requiring senators to refrain from lobbying
their former colleagues for two years after leaving office."
SUCKS
TO BE THAT GUY
November
28, 2007
Today's
grossest and most unfortunate news story? You got it.
A
surgery meant to reverse a colostomy on a Dover man went
horribly wrong last year, resulting in fecal mater being
discharged from his penis and urine passing through his
colon, according to a lawsuit filed in Superior Court.
During the procedure, the suit alleges doctors at Kent
General Hospital improperly stapled the colon to the bladder
instead of the rectal stump. This left the patient with
diarrhea, as well as gas and liquid stool passing from
his penis. (And, in 'rectal stump' a great name for a punk
rock combo should he ever decide to start a band.)
"These structures are very close to one another," said
Dr. Scott D. Goldstein, director of colon and rectal surgery
at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. "But
it shouldn't happen. I can't say more than that." (Link
to this)
FAITH-BASED
DOUBLE STANDARDS
November
27, 2007
The
Christian wingnuterati are all aquiver over Islam again.
There's nothing they love more than a good "isn't
Islam intolerant?" story. But what about their tolerance
for tolerance?
Today
it's fuss over the plight of a British teacher in Sudan
who unwisely chose to call a teddy bear Muhammad. I'm not
an
expert on Islamic theology and/or Shariah law, but this
seems like a particularly dumb thing to do. Shariah
law is
barbaric. So isn't that reason enough to tread carefully
when living within its jurisdiction? This story says way
more about the teacher being a dumbass than
it does about
the flaws of Islam.
And before our Jeezuzlanders start sucking each other's
dicks about how tolerant our "persecuted" Christians
are, they might want to ignore
this story:
"A
Christian activist sought on Tuesday to use blasphemy laws
to prosecute a top BBC executive over the broadcaster's
decision to screen "Jerry Springer-The Opera," a
musical many Christians found offensive...The show depicts
Jesus being referred to as "a little bit gay" and
features Eve attempting to fondle his genitals."
For
those Christians still laboring under the delusion that
Islam is inherently more intolerant than Christianity,
perhaps it might be a good thing to remember that the laws
so rigorously applied by Shariah courts are based on the
exact same rules set out in the OT. The only difference
being that Christians choose to ignore the parts that seem
too cruel and unusual given 4,000 years hindsight.
But if the Bible were to be taken literally as the unalterable
word of God and those Abrahamic rules as strictly applied
as they are under Shariah, we'd be cutting off shoplifters'
hands, whipping beer drinkers and stoning gays with the
best/worst of them. And arresting dumbasses for calling
their teddy
bears Jesus? It would definitely be happening.
What's my point? Secular legal systems good. Faith-based
legal systems (as advocated by every evangelical wingnut
in America) horrible. (Link to
this)
TRAITORS
November
27, 2007
The
truth will out. Usually later than sooner.
"The
most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to
speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost
amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium
in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better
part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most
aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly
passed along false information. And five of the highest
ranking officials in the administration were involved in
my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President's
chief of staff, and the President himself."
Excerpt
from Scott McClellan's forthcoming book "What
Happened"
(Public Affairs Books, due out in April 2008)
"With
that one little statement, released on the Public Affairs
Books website this week, all excuses for not impeaching
President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention
indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution
while in office), have evaporated... There is no way that
American democracy can continue to survive, even in its
current truncated form, if the Congress continues to duck
this issue and pretend that it has "more important
things to do."
HAPPY
TURKEY DAY!
November
22, 2007

(Link
to this)
RON
PAUL: THE PIMP'S CHOICE
November
21, 2007
Ron
Paul gets the hooker vote in Nevada, the MSM finally
acknowledges his existence.

Implying
at a glance that Tucker Carlson is a brothel owner, the
layout above is somewhat insulting. Actually, scrub that,
it would be a
massive
step up.
Tucker
was in Nevada posing with a hooker (overstating his otherwise
dubious hetero cred?) as part of a story he's doing about
Ron Paul. Story? Ron Paul?? Yup.
So the media will do a story on Paul if
he's getting backing from a pimp. Otherwise it's news blackout as usual for the
only Republican most of the country can still stomach?
(Link to this)
RAISING
THAT AWKWARD ISSUE OF ISSUES
November
21, 2007
New
Zogby poll reveals surprising truth about Republican
voters and less surprising truth about the sad state
of our democracy.
If
all the careerism, corporate influence and showbiz bullshit
could somehow be magically purged from our election process,
we would be left with a straight race between Ron Paul
and John Edwards in 2008. They are the only two candidates
who still give a flying fuck about what used to be important
in politics and, more importantly, what used to be important
to the American people. But both are marginalized
by the MSM and we're left with the prospect of an election
that will suck more than a Christian Conservative in a
Gay Pride parade portapotty. Who needs issues? Check out
that
hair...
shut
up and vote for
whoever we bestow most airtime and fewest grunts from Hannity
upon.
Don't believe me? Ask those men of science at Zogby. They
just got done conducting a blind poll asking respondents
which unnamed Republican candidate they'd vote for based
only on their background information and policies. Ron
Paul came out top with nearly double Ghouliani's support. As "Candidate
A" his description read:
"Candidate A is a 10-term US Congressman from a large
Southern state who is an advocate for a smaller government
and individual
liberty. This candidate believes in strictly following the
Constitution and has never voted to raise taxes. He has never
voted in favor of the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act, and
wants to bring troops home as soon as possible. As a former
doctor, this candidate has delivered more than 4,000 babies.
One of this candidate’s goals is to return America
to the gold standard, and he believes that the current monetary
policy needs to be drastically overhauled because of the
dollar’s decline."
So
what does that tell you? Even hardline Republicans favor
immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Even hardline Republicans
favor Ron Paul and his ideas more than they do Ghouliani,
Thompson or Romney and their polished turds masquerading
as policy. If only Paul could get them thinking on election
day too...
The Zogby blind poll also confirms the depressing truth about
our electoral process: it has nothing to do with
issues. Our news media have striven so diligently to make
elections devoid of substance that it doesn't even occur
to potential voters that
they should
be choosing candidates based on the traditional determinants
of what their policies are. Now pollsters have to conduct
'novelty polls' to explore what the candidates stand for
while the news media gets on with the important job of wowing
over
Romney's hair
or Ghouliani's bellicose vigor instead.
Now, for Republican voters, elections are just
a homoerotic popularity contest based on media-friendliness
and carefully accentuated manliness. And with Clinton still
heading the Democrat
field, the same seems
to apply for Dems too. (Link
to this)

LOOK
OUT REALITY, CHUCK'S GONNA ROUNDHOUSE-KICK YOUR PANSY ASS!
November
20, 2007
Ever
wondered how wingnuts square reality with their own wacked-out
assumptions? Easy...

The
trick is to draw parallels between different things that
are totally unrelated, then draw slam-dunk conclusions
that make perfect logical sense within the skewed reality
of your own context. Don't talk apples for
apples. Hell, don't even talk apples for oranges. The perfect
wingnut analogy is more like apples for 1985 Buick LeSabres.
It's a 2+2=5 phony logic that makes less sense when deconstructed
than Gilbert Gottfried speaking in tongues. But what better
way could there be to defend otherwise indefensible positions
than by dragging the frame of debate away into your own
world where you decide what constitutes sense?
Currently, the biggest fake-reality is The War
on Terror which frames every debate about anything. From
its evil womb squirt such mutant memes
as: The
9-11
terrorists
were Muslims,
therefore Muslims
are
terrorists (or two plus two equals five); the president is
the head of state, therefore people who disagree with the
head of state are traitors (or two plus two equals Dennis
Kucinich), etc. These conclusions make perfect logical sense.
If you're three years old and/or a cretin.
But the most bizarro example yet of wingnut reality synthesis
gone batshit crazy has got to be yesterday's WorldNetDaily
op-ed by none other than Chuck Norris. Says
Reverend Bowflex:
"I
was saddened this past week to read how our media will
defend and honor 22,000 turkeys who "make the ultimate
sacrifice" and yet hardly mention and even glibly
glance over the true sacrifices of recent service men and
women – "at least 3,866 members of the U.S.
military [who] had died since the beginning of the Iraq
war in March 2003."
What
the fuck are you talking about, Chuck??? The "liberal
press" is laughing down its sleeve every time another
soldier dies, but their traitorous hearts can't help
bleeding for the plight of the turkey? Chuck's thesis
is at once hilarious and mind-blowingly offensive to
common sense and decency... a bit like watching him
in Delta Force 2 without being
high on glue.
(Link to this)
BLAMING
IT ON THE BOOZE
November
19, 2007
Sure,
blame booze when you wake up next to a Kathy Bates look-alike
on a Sunday morning... but a bike? Or a stuffed dog..?
51-year-old
Robert Stewart has been put on probation for three years
and placed on the sex offenders' register after being caught
having sex with a bicycle in a Scottish hotel room.
His lawyer described his client as a "sad little man" who
was trying to tackle his drink problem (spectacularly unsuccessfully
he might have added). I'm no doctor, but if booze makes
you want to fuck a bicycle then, yup, you got a problem...
Unless we're talking Steel
Reserve in which case it's only one of a raft of common side
effects.
In other inanimate object fucking news, a Canadian burglar
was recently found by police in a neighbors garage enjoying
a post-coital nap after screwing
a stuffed dog. "He was lying there with his genitalia exposed next
to the stuffed dog," said Crown attorney John Peden. "While
the police report doesn't describe it this way, the dog might
be appropriately characterized as now being anatomically
correct, as opposed to its condition before he removed it."
And, speaking of unnatural sex acts with bikes, news also
reaches us that Paris
Hilton's latest sex tape is now loose on the
Web.
Personally, I'd prefer to rip a makeshift vagina in a plush
toy or find an obliging 10-speed and have at it. (Link
to this)

PORTENTS
OF DOOM, THE DOLLAR DEFUNCT
November
16, 2007
No
more "all
about the Benjamins", it's "all
about whatever the hell that thing is..."

While
wingnuts try to convince us all is well,
common sense tells us that the American "empire" is
in political and economic freefall. Under the auspices
of the Bushco™ money
burners, the dollar is weaker than it's ever been since
the days of the gold
standard. And our prosperity, pegged as it is to the failing
international strength and popularity of our currency,
is all set for a stellar-scale implosion.
Freemarket lobotomites may argue that you can't blame Bush
and that the "invisible hand of the market" is
really to blame for the slump. But the truth is that the
hand is not so invisible and governments do steer economies.
Unfortunately, this particular government has steered ours
like a blind epileptic in a demolition derby
and we are now suffering the consequences.
When the mighty Clenis bequeathed the
biggest budget surplus in American history, it was
not really a surplus, more an intelligently managed deficit.
But Bush has done every boneheaded thing
possible in the intervening
6 years to piss away whatever pretensions
of economic security that 'surplus' may have presented.
We've had multi-billion tax cuts for the wealthy, the Iraq/Afghanistan
blood and money pits, the real estate meltdown, the pawning
of our
economy to third world lenders, the failure to
respond to the ascendancy of the euro...
Bush, as the Decider,
has always been a screw-the-consequences kind of dick who
could well go down in history as the guy who killed our
prosperity. Perhaps an anti-Eisenhower or a reverse JFK
if you will.
But, of course it's easy to argue with reality - wingnuts
do it all the time - so let's ignore the facts and consider
the zeitgeist... Even the most closed-minded Bushbot must
shudder to behold this
portent of American doom:
"In
a video for the movie "American Gangster," hip-hop
maestro Jay-Z thumbs through a wad of 500-euro notes
on a night of cruising through the concrete canyons of
New
York, a city where the euro isn't legal tender. The euro
gained against the dollar today as European economic
growth in the third quarter accelerated more than forecast."
So
there you have it. The dollar is officially dumped.
(Link to this)
(UN)FAIR
AND (UN)BALANCED
November
13, 2007
Just
when you think they couldn't get crappier, here comes
a black guy doing a "Ching Chong Chinaman" routine.
Way to go, Fox!

Rod
Wheeler is a F(oxymoron) News contributor and a consultant
to the "food and agricultural industry on matters
of homeland security"(??) He's also an idiot with
a penchant for grade-school racial humor according to recent
evidence.
Wheeler was on Hannity & Colmes Sunday helpfully demonstrating
for the Fox watchers what a Chinese person looks like. The
saddest part is that he actually looked more like he was
doing an impersonation of Colmes.
(Link to this)
KARL
ROVE: THE ANTIBLOGGER
November
12, 2007
Lefty
bloggers make him mad with all that swearing and vitriol.
Does he hate us for our freedoms?

It
almost felt like Karl was talking about me when he mounted
his
high horse to take a tilt at "blogs
written by angry kooks" on the left side of the
political divide.
"People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe
of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have
now been given
an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog," Rove
said during a speech about politics and the Web. "I'm
a fan of many blogs. I visit them frequently and I learn
a lot from them, but there also blogs written by angry kooks...
[they] often argue from anger rather than reason, and too
often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion."
Rove doesn't explain how anyone with half a brain is supposed
to live through 7 years of Bushco™ bullshit without
resorting to vitriol. But at least it's refreshingly honest
to hear a rethuglican come right out and express his contempt
for free speech.
Rove also took a swipe at the liberal propensity to swear.
Really? Ironically, one of Fried Wire's pet peeves is the
conservative propensity not to swear and
endlessly criticize those of us who do. It's just another
example of compliant authority
fags being happy to restrict their own freedoms and then
getting pissy because not everyone else wants to follow suite.
Barret Smith, an angry wingnut visitor to Friedwire (who
probably landed here by accident looking for chicks-with-dicks
porn), once emailed me saying "Does your vocabulary
have something other that four letter words? Were you ever
education
at
any kind of school?" This, to me, is a perfect example
of wingnut swear-o-phobia. While they think you're stupid
because you swear, they often can't help betraying their
own sub-par intellects via bad grammar and typos while attacking
you. Of course, being a smug prick, I replied to Mr Smith
saying "'Were you ever education at any kind of school?'
Err... enough to know not to use a noun in place of a past
participle."
Writing without swearing is like composing music using only
harmonious chords. We should love the music of language,
discordant or not, and respect 'bad' words just as much as
'good' words. Be a proud swearer... use your freedom. To
the paraphrase the gun nut mantra, they'll have to pry my
bad language from my cold, dead mouth. Motherfuckers. (Link
to this)

THE
TRUTH IS LIKE ROSIE O'DONNELL: IT AIN'T PRETTY BUT IT'S
TOO LOUD TO IGNORE
November
10, 2007
Welcome
to my Twilight Zone. Only
Rod Serling could envision a world where
Fried Wire, Andrew Sullivan and... gulp... Karl Rove
agree.
Contrary
to the unimaginative assumptions of the wingnut clones
who troll my inbox, Fried Wire is no Democrat cheerleader.
Just because I hate everything the Republican
party stands for bends over for these days, doesn't
mean I'm a fully-lobotomized member of anyone's glee club.
Far
from
it. I suffer from
that painful affliction I like to call 'thought syndrome.'
And those wingnuts, who find it impossible to imagine thinking
outside the boundaries of the two party constraint, should
be damn glad they'll never know its rigors firsthand.
Like many TS sufferers, I find unconditional
acquiescence to any party line anathematic. Sure,
I cheered on the Dems when they
won the midterms and was relieved to see the Bush Putsch
hit a speed bump on the road to absolute power... But I couldn't
really give a shit about the Democrats per se. My conditional
support for them was defined only
by their opposition to the Republicans and by the theoretical
notion that they care less about the wealthy elite and
more about the rest of us. So now, after a year of Bushco-enabling
inaction, I can see absolutely no use for them.
So why are the Dems so determined to suck? What's their malfunction?
Andrew
Sullivan summarizes their miserable malaise in words
so wise it's hard to believe he once voted for
Bush:
"[T]he
Democratic party's problem: They don't trust Americans
to agree with them. And so they never say what they believe.
They always say what they think they can get away with...
They do not even trust the American people to reject torture.
If they cannot stand up against that, what can they stand
up against? And in a world full of cowards, the bullies
smell their opportunity. Cheney, Hannity, Giuliani, Limbaugh:
they are all in some respects a function of the Democratic
Party's deep, deep failure of nerve."
"The
list of Congress's failures grows each month. No energy
bill. No action on health care. No action on the mortgage
crisis. No immigration reform. No progress on renewing
No Child Left Behind. Precious little action on judges
and not enough on reducing trade barriers. Congress has
not done its work. And these failures will have consequences."
God
help me. Short of ritual suicide or a stiff regime of antipsychotic
drugs, is there any cure for a liberal libertarian with
socialistic sympathies such as myself, who suddenly finds
himself agreeing with Karl Rove? Is this the depth of
horror we've sunk to? A Democratic party so shitty that
Karl Rove
doesn't
even have to lie to make them look bad?
2008 promises to be the most negative, most pathetic and
most pointless exercise in democracy America has ever endured.
It's a double negative, race-to-the-bottom election with
the Dems defining themselves in reference to the failures
of the GOP while the GOP does a flanking maneuver and defines
itself in reference to the failures of the fucking useless
Democratic party. Man, I'd rather shoot myself in the balls
than waste a vote on either set of clueless losers. (Link
to this)
TUCKER
CARLSON: THE CHUCK NORRIS OF TV NEWS
November
8, 2007
Why?
I don't know. But it made me laugh and
that's all that counts, bitches.
I
like Tucker Carlson because he makes the sadist in me rejoice.
I look at his chipmunk-like face with its quivery
top lip, rerun the memory of those fucking ridiculous
bow ties he used to wear and I laugh my ass right off.
And the Chuck Norris of news TV has not failed to entertain
this week...
First, he let's fly with the most schizophrenic tirade this
side of Newsbusters.org when
he said he was "outraged" by a statement from Rep.
Charlie Rangel critical of Rudy Giuliani's "personal
life," adding, "I
don't think you should attack Giuliani for philandering." This
comes hot on the heels of his earlier pronouncement that
Hillary Clinton's marriage
is "[o]f course" an issue in the 2008 presidential
election and made reference to Bill Clinton's "philander[ing]" and "famous
appetites." Thanks for the laugh, Tucker.
This week, Tucker also decided there were not enough women
hating him so he acted decisively. When Feminist Majority
Foundation president Eleanor Smeal remarked to him that we
should be
embarrassed
that
the U.S. is so far behind in terms of representation of women
in politics, Carlson replied, "I'm actually not embarrassed
by it at all. I don't know why that's embarrassing. You
could make the counter case that most women are so sensible,
they don't want to get involved in something as stupid as
politics.
...They've got real things to do."
Is he on Aqua
Dots or what? (Link
to this)

FAKE
CHRISTIAN CIRCLE JERK
November
8, 2007
Pat
Robertson pledges support for Ghouliani. How low can
they go?

"Thanks, scumbag." "You're
welcome sleazeball..."
Evidently,
Pat Robertson would rather back a styrofoam wig shop head
in preference to having his flock herd stray toward
La Clinton.
I would have thought it impossible for either Ghouliani
or Robertson to sink any lower in my estimation before
today. But now the God Squad's own feuhrer is giving fake-catholic,
thrice-married abortion-supporting Giuliani a pudgy thumbs
up? WTF? It's a sad day for money-grubbing bigots with religious
delusions everywhere. (Link
to this)
SUPPORT
OUR TROOPS (AND THEIR RIGHT TO MASTURBATE)
November
7, 2007
Christian
Conservatives want to ban Penthouse from military bases.
"Christian" conservatives
love the troops. And there's nothing contradictory about
them expressing that love while simultaneously endorsing
ever greater numbers of them dying in miserable, flyblown
shitholes overseas. Because Christian conservative love
(unlike that limp-wristed simplistic stuff Christ espoused)
is a complex thing that us secularist wastrels could never
hope to understand.
But Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md) and his God-bothering brethren
at the American Family Association have now gone too far.
They're urging the Pentagon to ban
the sale of mild-mannered tit mags such as Penthouse and
Playboy on military bases. "If
soldiers want to read that stuff, they can walk down the
street and buy it somewhere else," Bartlett says. "I
don't want (the military) to help."
I'd suggest to Bartlett that there might be certain logistical
hurdles involved in walking off-base to score a copy of Penthouse
in, say, Kabul or Baghdad. And I'd also suggest it's a tad
ironic for him to be trampling on the First Amendment rights
of the very people who have sworn to defend said constitution
with their own lives...
But most of all, I'd like to ask where the hell this dickhead
gets off wanting to deprive our troops of the right to cathartically
crack one off to Penthouse at the end of a hard day dodging
IEDs at his behest? What the fuck is wrong with "Christian" conservatives
and their bizarrely skewed priorities??? (Link
to this)

LET'S
PLAY MORAL RELATIVISM!
November
5, 2007
The
Fun New Game For All The Family...

Michelle
Malkin is screeching unoriginally about a conservative
boogeyman of years gone by. So what's new? This time
she's not railing about
the venerable Clenis as if it's still 1995. Today she's
bitching
about Che Guevara as if it's still 1965.
Err... yup,
Che killed some folks but he's been dead close to 40 years...
What burning issues next? Joe Stalin not nice? Attila
The Hun and why the liberals love him?
If, like Malkin, nothing enrages you more than a trendy
student or a sweaty migrant sporting a Che t-shirt,
perhaps you might also want to consider taking Andrew
Jackson off the twenty-dollar bill for similar reasons? (Bonus
point: he was a card-carrying Democrat just like Bill Clinton!)
After reading Malkin's posting on Che, I
couldn't resist indulging in a bit of smart-ass liberal
moral relativism
so chin-strokingly smug I almost got mad with myself...
Over at Cubanet.org, there's a rundown of facts about the
state that Che built that shows how antithetic the authoritarian
system in Havana is to Bush's America... or is it? I chuckle
knowingly as I adjust my beret and preen my Che t-shirt:
Legal and Institutional Failings: Cuba
"Although in theory the different branches of government
have separate and defined areas of authority, in practice
the executive retains clear control over all levers of
power."
Legal and Institutional Failings: USA
"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more
than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that [the executive branch]
has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress."
Political Imprisonment: Cuba
"Of seventy-five political dissidents, independent journalists, and human
rights
advocates who were summarily tried in April 2003, sixty-one remain imprisoned."
Political
Imprisonment: USA
"It's time to drop the fiction that "there are no political prisoners
in the United States." After the arrest of Steve Kubby, after the feds'
murder of Peter McWilliams, after the indictment of hundreds of demonstrators
on trumped-up conspiracy charges, after Waco, one must face reality: the United
States government prosecutes people for political purposes."
"Thousands
of detainees continued to be held in US custody without charge or
trial
in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Travel
Restrictions: Cuba
"The Cuban government forbids the country's citizens from leaving or returning
to Cuba without first obtaining official permission."
Travel
Restrictions: USA
"Beginning February 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will
implement their "Advance Passenger Information System (APIS)," the
gist of which is that you will need permission from the United States Government
to travel on any air or sea vessel that goes to, from or through the U.S. The
travel companies will not be able to issue a boarding pass until you are cleared
by DHS. This applies to ALL passengers, US citizens and visitors alike."
Freedom
of Assembly:
Cuba
"Freedom of assembly is severely restricted in Cuba, and political dissidents
are generally prohibited from meeting in large groups."
Freedom
of Assembly:
USA
"The USA PATRIOT Act section 802 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that
it could apply to an individual exercising his or her freedom of speech, expression,
and assembly through acts of civil disobedience."
Prison
Conditions:
Cuba
"Prisoners are generally kept in poor and abusive conditions, often in overcrowded
cells."
Prison
Conditions: USA
"The US prison system is exacting an increasingly heavy toll, both financial
and human. Surging numbers of prisons hold more than 2 million inmates, giving
the United States the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over the past
few decades, the dominant criminal justice philosophy dropped rehabilitation
in favor of sequestration and retribution. Opportunities for education, job training
and drug treatment have fallen out of fashion. "Three strikes" and
minimum sentencing laws have led to excessive punishments for millions of nonviolent
offenders."
Death
Penalty: Cuba
"Under Cuban law the death penalty exists for a broad range of crimes. Because
Cuba does not release information regarding its use of the penalty, it is difficult
to ascertain the frequency with which it is employed. As far as is known, however,
no executions have been carried out since April 2003."
Death
Penalty: USA
"279 people have been executed in the US since 2003. A total of 1,099 have
been killed since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976."
...and let's not even
mention this. (Link to this)

BUSH
TAKES A TIME TRAVELING SHIT ON THE CONSTITUTION
November
4, 2007
Taxation
without representation? You got it. Or, more precisely,
your grandkids will.

Smirk
'em if you got 'em... how much more damage can one unrestrained
idiot do in a year?
Not
content with screwing over currently extant generations,
King George is busily
screwing over those yet to be born according to David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the
United States.
Seems Our Dear Leader has found a neat way to avoid going
down in history as a tax hiker (the worst possible fate
for a
Republican, just ask his dad) and still get the national
debt payed off. With US debt hemorrhaging past $9 trillion,
it will
be down to future generations, not us, to pick up the bill
and face the tax hikes.
As Walker points out, this is just one more way Bush is showing
his contempt for the constitution. What could be more antithetic
to the spirit in which this nation was founded than subjecting
Americans to taxation without representation? Nice one, George.
(Link to this)
ONLY
IN FLORIDA
November
4, 2007
New
drug craze warning...
Seems
the cops in Collier County, Florida, are concerned that
American school kids could soon succumb to the temptation
of doing "Jenkem" - a drug for the very poor
and very desperate that's popular with African street kids
- and have issued
a warning to parents.
"Basically, the new drug is a mixture of solid human
waste and urine, turned into a gas that can be huffed." Says
Wink News. So far, Snopes.com is
undetermined on whether or not Floridians have really taken
to getting high on (very
literally)
their own supply, but we are talking Florida here... so all
bets are definitely off. (Link to this)
YOU
BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT
November
3, 2007
Republicans
broke the media, now they're bitching about how it doesn't
work. Cry me a river, bitches.
There's
a story at Investor's Business Daily titled "Even
Harvard Finds The Media Biased." How those
words must give boners to all those wingnut bloggers still
pushing the liberal-biased media cliche in the face of
so
much plain
evidence to the contrary.
But the joint report by Harvard University and the Project
for Excellence in Journalism is really only about how the
MSM spends
more time talking about Obama and Clinton in a "favorable
light" than the Republicans in the
run up to 2008. So it's not really proof of wholesale
liberal media bias.
And, instead of showing political bias per se,
doesn't the MSM's
favoring of the Dems with more air time
really just show a natural bias toward more interesting program
content? Think about it... Irrespective of political
leanings, isn't the prospect of a black guy and/or a woman
running for president for the first time in history
infinitely
more
interesting
than discussing those tired hacks vying for the Republican
candidacy? Would you really rather watch an analysis of Fred
Thompson's latest Alzheimer's-addled prattlings about the
Soviet Union? Or maybe count how many more times "9-11" can
be squeezed into a Ghouliani stump speech before it dissolves
into numeric gibberish?
Then, of course, the more Machiavellian M.O. also exists:
it's actually very much in a conservatively biased media's
interests to
talk
up the Dem candidates and their likely chances of success.
Why? In order to scare the conservative base into actually
getting off their fat, Jeezuz-loving asses to mobilize against
them. It's not that much a far-fetched notion. So are we
supposed to believe Roger Ailes is too dumb to have had it
occur to him?
And lest we forget, dear wingnuts, if you're pissed
about the MSM not favoring your side with equal attention,
blame your precious Saint Gipper for trashing
the media Fairness Doctrine back in the 80s. Seems like
a bit of a "having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too" scenario
for you to dump something called a "Fairness Doctrine" then
complain when you perceive yourself to be treated unfairly. (Link
to this)

GAY
NOT FUNNY
November
2, 2007
Hear
ye, hear ye, Gays:
straight people do not think you're funny because of
your sexual orientation. But
if you wear fake boobs and dress as a woman, whether
gay or straight, that's an entirely different proposition.
Here
comes another family-values Christian busted in drag soliciting
gay sex:
"A
Bardstown Catholic high school principal was cited for
loitering for the purpose of prostitution while he was
dressed as a woman.
Louisville police allegedly spotted Paul A. Schum dressed
like a woman in an alley. Officer Phil Russell, a police
spokesman, said officers routinely patrol the area because
a high level of drug trafficking and prostitution is
known to take place there. Police records indicate Schum
was wearing
an all-black leather outfit with fishnet stockings and
a pair of fake women's breasts."
At
least he wasn't wearing real women's breasts... But, laugh
not. The normally frisky Pam
at Pam's House Blend has a serious
point to make which kinda bums one out:
"If
*you* enjoy reading those salacious cross-dressing tidbits
about those hypocritical, closeted gay and transgender
people -- such as caring whether the offenders were wearing
leather corsets or women's lingerie -- have *you* thought
about how *your* curiosity (mirrored by larger society)
is impacting *our* push for civil rights?
I'd venture that *you* probably haven't, and I'd hazard that
*you* probably should."
I
can see the point and I would be first to admit I find
all these scandals hilarious. But I don't agree
that there's anything anti-gay about poking fun at these
closeted conservative freaks and I don't believe that it
aids the conservative anti-gay
agenda
or
reinforces
the mainstream stereotype of the ridiculous "funny
gay."
Would Pam suggest that people like Schum
and Larry Craig are really staunchly heterosexual gay-haters
who are volunteering
to take
one for the team and get themselves arrested on purpose
just to make gays look silly and thereby make the general
public less sympathetic towards treating them equally
under the law? I know Republicans are sneaky bastards,
but somehow it doesn't seem likely that they'd be shooting
down so many of their own side when there must be some
cross-dressing Dems around they
could pick on. And most importantly, speaking for the
average non-gay, I don't think
there's anything funny about
being gay
anyway.
Just to back up my point, let's contrast two famous gays:
Gay A), Mr Richard Simmons, is hilarious. Gay B), SA founder
Ernst Ernst Roehm, not so much. I'd confidently posit that
Richard Simmons would be just as funny if he was straight
so his team affiliation is really not the issue.

Sorry
Pam, us
straight folk don't laugh at the conservative crazies
getting busted because we think gay = funny. We laugh
because it's amusing to see hypocrisy
come home to roost and because there is no way anyone can
picture a mustachioed school principle hookered-up in drag
and fake knockers without at
least succumbing to a smirk. Sexual
orientation is not the funny part.
(Link
to this)

IS
GATEWAY PUNDIT STUPID OR AM I?
November
2, 2007
It
seems the commenters at Gateway Pundit are for real,
but I still can't figure out if the blog is a parody
or not. Is the joke on me?
How
confident wingnut bloggers always seem to be of their own
intelligence. So isn't it sad that most of what they say
betrays evidence of borderline retardation?
These witless
fucks nibble at leftiness with their hamster-like jaws
of intellect and regurgitate bilious garbage that they
then mistake for insight... They present woefully flawed
arguments to the world with all the smug superciliousness
of morons who actually think they know what they're talking
about... and the mouth-reading authority fags, Jeezuzlanders
and wingnuts lap it up. It doesn't matter if it's true
or not, it doesn't matter if it's fucking stupid or not...
just slap a pro-Bush, anti-Clinton "Fact" on
your blog and, presto, you're a conservative pundit.
Today's example of conservative thought comes from GatewayPundit:

Let's
ignore the fact that they're cheating on methods for determining
the unemployment rate
in order
to make it seem lower than it really is... and they still show
a rise. Let us instead consider how impressive it is
that the guy who drew that insane graph (has a difference
of 3 ever been more dramatically portrayed?) can't even
spell 'unemployment'? And that
the
dumb bastards at Gateway Pundit faithfully re-typed the
typo in their post title? Oh my, such mighty intellects
at work... (Link to this)

ANOTHER
'BLOW' FOR FAMILY VALUES
November
1, 2007
Almost
a week has gone by without a Republican sex scandal... I
was worried.

Former
Washington state Rep. Richard Curtis, in his first public
pronouncement
in more than two days,
repeated that he has done nothing wrong.
"I've done a lot of God damn good for this community," Curtis
said in a brief phone interview with Columbian Editor
Lou Brancaccio Thursday morning. "I am not the
criminal here."
True, a "Family Values" Republican lawmaker
putting
on lingerie and offering a gay porn model $1,000 for
unprotected sex in a porn store isn't technically
a crime but... call the police: my powers of visualization
have been brutally assaulted! (Link
to this)
MEAT
PUPPETS ON PARADE
November
1, 2007
All
hail our
comatose, fascist-enabling MSM!
To
accuse the Bush misadministration of flirting with fascism
has now moved far away from the province of subjective
rhetoricism and left-wing cliche. It's embarrassingly obvious
for anyone who's paying attention that it's a fact of life,
as is the creepily enabling MSM silence on the ongoing
strapping down of America.
This weekend, for example, their were coordinated
antiwar protests in at least 11 American cities. Even
though only 26 percent of us approve of the war, they were
sparsely
attended. Why the poor turnout? Could it have had something
to do with the virtual MSM news blackout both before and
after the marches?
To deliberately ignore these expressions
of popular democracy and indulge in self-censorship in support
of a powerbase obsessed with eliminating dissent is not a
sign of us living in a fascist state, then what exactly would
be? (Link to this)
TAX
BREAKS AND PENURY: OUR AMERICAN DREAM
November
1,
2007
Corporate
welfare, tax breaks for billionaires and three jobs for your
mom.
During
an interview with NBC television, Warren Buffett (current
worth: $52bn) brandished an informal survey of 15 of
his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire.
The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and
income tax, compared with an average in the office
of 32.9%.
"There wasn't anyone in the office, from the receptionist
up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning;
I don't have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just
follow what the US Congress tells me to do," he said.
Nice to see that year-old Democrat majority sticking it
to the man. (Link
to this)
Back
Pages
Fried
Wire Policy and Disclaimer | Hatemail | Hmm... | Fanmail |