Scooter's Law

If PatRoW had a legal expert, we would ask him to weigh in on a surprising defense mounted by Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame leak case, a defense that, if successful, could change our legal system's definition of fact and fiction, lies and the truth.

If PatRoW had a legal expert, we would ask him to comment on how one man could give a statement contested by three unaffiliated witnesses, yet claim he had not committed perjury.

If PatRoW had a legal expert, we would ask him to expand on the acceptance into evidence of a paradigm-shifting theory – that is, Libby's lawyers' contention that "memory does not function like a tape recorder, with memories recorded, stored and played back verbatim."

That's right; Libby's team has proposed that the defendant may have been mistaken in his sworn statement about the nature of his role in leaking Valerie Plame's identity, but he wasn't lying:

The crux of Libby's defense will be that he was too preoccupied with national security "matters of life and death" and that he could have easily confused "snippets of conversations" he had with reporters from Time magazine, NBC and the New York Times.

To paraphrase, Libby's defense team contends that Scooter was too busy a guy to be expected to remember things as they actually happened, and too important to be held accountable to something as irrelevant as the truth.

Not only is such a defense a self-important/last-ditch effort to avoid criminal charges, but it is a despicable and enthusiastic middle finger at the American justice system. TV has taught me that witnesses must swear to "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God." If successful with their horseshit premise, Libby's attorneys will have set a precedent that allows any criminal/witness to lie about his activities and not be held accountable to charges of perjury.

If PatRoW had a legal expert, we would expect him to rail about how such a precedent could destroy the court's power to elicit the truth and reach a fair and just decision. That such a precedent opens avenues for deceit; that such a precedent eliminates the motivation for anyone to testify about unpleasant or inconvenient truths (ones that revolve around a crime, not Al Gore).

Of course, PatRoW doesn't have a legal expert, so you're stuck with my opinion. Here's a hint – it rhymes with "Scooter Libby and his lawyers are all pooch bags".

I'm super...thanks for asking

I had planned on leaving the whole "Ann Coulter calls Bill Clinton gay" thing alone, mostly because giving her additional attention plays into her devious, cuntish mind. But she just won't let it go…and I can't keep quite any longer.

Earlier this week, Coulter appeared on Donny Deutsch's show and made his dozens of viewers wonder if women's suffrage should be rethought. Salon provides this commentary:

Under prodding from Deutsch, Coulter repeated on the air something she had told him just before the cameras went on: She thinks Bill Clinton is at least a little bit gay. Her evidence? Well, all those sexual relations he's had with women, of course. "I think that sort of rampant promiscuity does show some level of latent homosexuality," Coulter explained.

Coulter, who said she was "glued" to the Kenneth Starr report about the president, claimed that Clinton didn't know Monica Lewinsky's name "until their sixth sexual encounter," and she finds something "of the bathhouse about that." "It's reminiscent of a bathhouse," she said. "It's just this obsession with your own -- with your own essence."

Deutsch -- the reasonable one in this particular conversation -- asked whether it's possible that Clinton might be "narcissistic" or a "nymphomaniac" without being gay. "Well," Coulter responded, "there is something narcissistic about homosexuality, right? Because you're in love with someone who looks like you. I'm not breaking new territory here. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Ah, Annie – we're looking at you like that because it's rare to see someone so stupid taken so seriously by other stupid people. You're like an eclipse; we know we shouldn't watch, but we can't draw our eyes away and end up scarring our souls retinas.

Anyway, not satisfied by the collective ambivalence of her critics, Coulter promoted the "gay Clinton" agenda on Hardball (the lessons learned – if you want attention, you must: a) call 9/11 widows "whores"; or b) realize that no one watches Donny Deutsch). When asked by Chris Matthews if her opinion on Clinton was based on her own private life, Coulter responded no, that it was "a manifestly obvious fact…I mean, why would a promiscuous heterosexual man have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about him?"

Uh, what?

Matthews tried again. You're joking, right?

"It's not only not a joke, it's not even surprising," Coulter insisted. "…[ Clinton's] wild promiscuity shows a fear and hostility [toward] women."

Right, Ann. Bill hates women and is so gay that he has no other choice than to bang any heifer who throws herself at him…and you're such a good American and Christian that you have no other choice but to spew hate and ignorance at anyone who focuses a TV camera on your anorexic mug.

Viral Video of the Day

So I'm usually way behind on the latest, greatest video circling the world wide web, blogosphere or information superhighway, but I think I may have gotten in on the ground floor on this one. It seems that Fox 5 New York reporter Jody Applegate was doing a stand-up on how easy it is for bicycle thieves to cut through chains. She had two Jeff Spicoli-like assistants to help demonstrate…and if Jody didn't know these boys were trouble when they said Word One in stoner speak, she deserved to be punked.

Anyway, watch the video and enjoy lines like these:

Oh, this is just tomato ketchup.

It's OK. We were just doing a ruse.

Folks – that's ketchup. Do not be upset. There are children watching!

That's right. Fox – the network that has won more Emmys for violence, vulgarity, lies and deception than all other networks combined – is worried about kids getting scared by a bad prank and fake blood. Luckily, a quick-thinking director cut away from the horrific and emotionally-scarring clip to go to a live feed from Lebanon.

Millions of divorces are fine, but two guys kissing will destroy American families!

I briefly touched on this issue the other day, but I think I'm ready to go a bit more into the issue now that the State of Washington Supreme Court yesterday upheld a law banning same-sex marriages. For those of you keeping score at home, this means that…

Massachusetts remains the only state that sanctions same-sex marriages. New York's highest court, by a vote of 4 to 2 earlier this month, upheld state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. The New Jersey Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the legality of same-sex marriages there.

I know that this is discouraging news to anyone without a conservative nutjob agenda, but you can choose to view the glass as half full. You see, Washington's judiciary last addressed the issue of gay marriage in 1974. At that time an appeals court unanimously voted against the issue (yesterday's vote was 4-3) and the state Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

"You've gone in 32 years from something that was more or less a slam dunk to where the court is almost evenly and very bitterly divided," said William B. Rubenstein, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Sexual Orientation and the Law. "The issue is in play."

Of course, don't get too optimistic. It's hard to feel hopeful when douchebags like this are gleefully celebrating:

"Today is a great day for marriage and the family," said Mathew D. Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a group that opposes the legal recognition of same-sex marriages. "We are pleased that this latest attempt by the homosexual agenda to radically redefine our culture has been stopped dead in its tracks."

The "homosexual agenda" is "radically redefining" our country? Guess again, asscunt. The radical change in our country – and the most viscous assault on the institutions of family and marriage – is coming from the tens of millions of heterosexual divorces. Go ahead – I dare you to tell me I'm wrong.

And how, pray tell, did the Washington Court reach its decision? "Limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Justice Barbara A. Madsen wrote in the [majority] opinion, "furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race…" Thank God Justice Madsen is looking out for the human race. I mean, we'd be on the brink of extinction without her, right?

Madsen continued her ill-informed and inflammatory opinion by claiming that a gay marriage ban "furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents." Does it? Because I could have sworn that there are tens of millions of American children being raised by non-biological heterosexual parents. If this were really the point, wouldn't Madsen and her slack-jawed yokel cronies have to also ban adoption, re-marriage and foster families?

Honestly, all Americans should be embarrassed that this civil rights issue is still on the table. Our legal system is supporting Jim Crow laws that discriminate against 10% of the population, yet we still take two steps backwards every time we make one step toward progress. Why aren't more of us outraged?

Glub Glub Glub, Five Yates in a Tub

Fourth trimester abortion advocate Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity in her retrial for the bathtub drownings of her five young children. I don't have much to say about this; I was simply looking for an excuse to write "fourth trimester abortion advocate".

Quick Hits: Salon Selective

I subscribe to daily e-mail updates from Salon, which often serve as fodder for my brilliant posts. What happens, however, when I go away and the links pile up in my inbox? That's right – you get an oversized collection of stories and comments…and I have the nerve to call this shit "Quick Hits".

They can't all be douchebags, right? A Washington Post reporter had a very public, yet off-the-record lunch with a blue state GOP candidate (public in that teen heartthrob Bill Frist stopped by to say hello; private in that the reporter was not allowed to name his dining companion). Perhaps the political hopeful asked for anonymity because he had this to say:

Iraq : The war "didn't work" because "we didn't prepare for the peace."

Katrina: "A monumental failure of government."

Republicans in Congress: "We've lost our way, we've gone to the well and we drank the water, and we shouldn't have. You don't go to Congress to become the party that you've been fighting for 40 years."

The president: "In 2001, we were attacked and the president is on the ground, on a mound with his arm around the fireman, symbol of America. In Katrina, the president is at 30,000 feet in an airplane looking down at people dying, living on a bridge. And that disconnect, I think, sums up, for me at least, the frustration that Americans feel."

The president's refusal to admit failure in Iraq: "I don't know why the people around him don't see that. It is a frustration, to say the least. I think it is a lost opportunity to bring the American people along on a mission that is incredibly important."

The outlook: Being a Republican now is "an impediment ... a hurdle I have to overcome. I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter ... If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose."

This guy's a Republican? He makes Joe Lieberman look like Dick Cheney! Actually, Joe does a pretty good job of that himself… Joementum my ass.

Mother knows best – my mom first told me about Josh Bolten's transcendent appearance on Meet the Press. But mom – what do you really think?

The latest outrage is that the interloper in the White House (Are you listening, Dick?) vetoed the stem cell bill and had the colossal nerve to say it was not political, but moral for him. I think that man (and most of his administration) is amoral. That was a blatant political move – having those "snowflake" babies and their families on TV. He has no moral fiber in my eyes… I though Tim Russert made mincemeat of the Chief of Staff, Josh Bolton, on this issue. I actually felt (a little) bad for this guy. I mused to dad that they can't possibly pay him enough for him to go on national TV and lie. But I guess they do.

Did I mention that my mom can't call George W. Bush "the president"? For a while, she was referring to him as "the man in the White House". Now, she's all about "the interloper". I think this one may have some legs…

Reading is Fundamental – on some level, you have to respect Karl Rove. No, not on any human levels, but on the way he can mold those around him into saying and doing stupid things (kind of like a balder, fatter, more evil version of Satan). His influence was apparent again last week when his attorney uttered this brilliant quip about the Valerie Plame lawsuit: " The allegations are without merit. We may comment further when we have an opportunity to review the complaint."

The quote truly sums up the Bush administration – a group of douchebags who came to power after recognizing that genuine knowledge is overrated, and reading is for pussy, commie liberals.

A sanctified solution – whenever someone opines that "homosexuals threaten the institution of marriage", I counter by saying that the sanctity of what my marriage is less threatened by gay relationships than by the 50% of straight couples who get divorced. Now, Representative Lincoln Davis (D-TN) has come up with an interesting – albeit tongue-in-cheek – solution:

If the sanctity of marriage is to be preserved, Davis deadpanned, Congress should "outlaw divorce" and make adultery "a felony." In addition, Davis said, "We should prevent those who commit adultery or get a divorce from running an office. Mr. Speaker, this House must lead by example. If we want those watching on C-SPAN to actually believe that we're serious about protecting marriage, then we should go after the other major threats to the institution."

Shit, its logic like this that's going to give Congress a good name again. Someone needs to stop this Davis character.

Better late than never? Representative Gil Gutknecht (R-MN), once one of the House's staunches supporters of Dubya's Folly (ooh, I like that one. Can I trademark it?), now is expressing doubts.

Gutknecht learned during his visit to Iraq that Baghdad is a "serious problem" and "worse today than it was three years ago." Another of Gutknecht's breaking-news discoveries: "We learned it's not safe to go anywhere outside of the Green Zone any part of the day."

It shouldn't take a trip to Baghdad to learn these things; anyone reading any reputable newspaper over the past year would have already known everything that Gutknecht just found out. So why didn't he? Gutknecht says he has been at the receiving end of faulty "spin" from the Bush administration, including claims that the violence in Iraq was being caused by just a few hundred insurgents. "All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn't always true," he says.

…Gutknecht says that if conditions don't improve quickly in Iraq, "Americans are going to start to losing faith in this thing."

I tell you, if Gutknecht ever loses his seat in the House, I will be the first to nominate him for the largely ceremonial position of Captain Obvious. What's next, Gil? "Yellow snow tastes like pee"? Thanks for the insight, dickwad.

Reason for hope – instead of being Peter Pessimism all the time, here's some reason for hope that our county – and lives – may be better after the November elections. This story includes news that PatRoW's favorite Land of the Lost-turned admiral-turned congressional candidate may actually unseat a GOP incumbent. Good times.

No PatRoW, No Cry

Bless me PatRoW for I have sinned; it has been 12 days since my last post.

Where have I been, you ask? No, I was not blacked out in my former 'hood (though a colleague of mine was) – actually I was out of the county attending to important matters (re: my tan).

So what will my first post back in the States be about? Let's see…there's the outbreak of WWIII, a stem cell bill in congress or Miss Puerto Rico winning the title of Miss Universe? No, as important as those stories are – and I will likely touch on all of them in the near future – today's inspiration comes from a much more important source.

That's right, folks: we have a new addition to The List.

So here's the deal: after a brief respite in Jamaica (which was lovely by the way. If you've never vacationed in 95 degree heat with 95% humidity, I whole-heartedly recommend it) I was booked on an Air Jamaica non-stop flight back to Chicago. The flight was scheduled to depart at 4:45 and arrive at O'Hare at 8:40 pm.

Sounds fine…but then a douchebag airline's douchebag policies stepped in.

You see, Air Jamaica likes to cancel its half-booked flights without regard to its passengers' schedules or preferences. I suppose they know that no one would intentionally travel with them a second time anyway, what with their hand-me-down planes and seats containing more support bars than a fold-out sofa bed. Also, what passenger is going to enjoy using blankets thinner than in-flight cocktail napkins? Couldn't you at least give out two-ply toilet paper you cheap, dreadlocked bastards?

Anyway, I arrived at the Montego Bay airport at 2:15 Thursday afternoon for my flight and got in line, only to learn that the flight was no longer leaving at 4:45, nor would it be going nonstop to Chicago. You see, Air Jamaica had cancelled its previous day's flight to Atlanta, stranding 50 passengers who, no doubt, had nothing important waiting for them at home. Rather than wheel out a plane for the stranded Atlanta passengers, Air Jamaica threw them on my re-routed Chicago plane. And just because they hadn't screwed us enough, the airline pushed back departure to 7:30.

That's fantastic. Instead of landing in Chicago at 8:40, I was 30,000 feet above Cuba. The clusterfuck came when we touched ground in Atlanta and were told that US Immigration policy dictated we deplane, clear customs, claim our baggage, re-check our baggage, pass through security, and get back on the same goddamn airplane !

We finally got into O'Hare at 1:15 am and a taxi brought me home at 2:30. Boy, I sure am happy I paid $50 extra for that direct flight.

Listen, I know that as far as travel horror stores go, mine was fairly mild. However, my experience had nothing to do with faulty equipment, dangerous weather, or God forbid, terrorist activity. No, my experience was completely preventable and caused by one airline's greed and shoddy policies. Listen, just because George Bush correctly assesses one-in-a-hundred delicate situations, he's still an idiot…and just because an airline plays reggae music and promotes Rastafarianism, it can still be on my list of douchebags.

McBillboard

This has nothing to do with douchebags or cunts or any of my other favorite topics, but it seems that McDonalds has recently put up a new billboard in my neighborhood…and it's one of the cooler billboards I've ever seen. Take a look. I don't know if it is enough to make me crave a McGriddle, but at least I will always check out the billboard when I'm passing by.

Hoosier Terrorist

Today's New York Times reports on a Department of Homeland Security list audit that implies terrorists plan to cripple the United States by attacking the home state of America's (or at least, Boston's) beloved Basketball Jesus. Salon bluntly explains the ramifications:

DHS's National Asset Database lists possible targets of terrorist attacks, and… Indiana appears in the database more often than any other state. We're talking one and a half times more often than New York. Twice as often as California. About 21 times as often as the District of Columbia.

Guess which of these "assets" was not named in the Times article: Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market, the New York Stock Exchange, Nix's Check Cashing or Bean Fest?

OK, maybe that was too easy (besides, the audit only released the names of some of the more dubiously-named targets. Let's give DHS the benefit of the doubt – even if they don't deserve it – on some obvious selections). However, shouldn't the department be humiliated by the release of this information?

"We don't find it embarrassing," said the department's deputy press secretary, Jarrod Agen. "The list is a valuable tool."

Right…a "valuable tool" in protecting petting zoos in rural Alabama and animal parades an hour away from the third-largest city in Tennessee . Yeah, that seems about par for the course for this administration. But hey, at least the owners, operators, employees and patrons of the targets named are grateful for the government's attention, right?

"Seems like someone has gone overboard," said Larry Buss, who helps organize the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Ill. "Their time could be spent better doing other things, like providing security for the country."

Angela McNabb, manager of the Sweetwater Flea Market, which is 50 miles from Knoxville, Tenn., said: "I don't know where they get their information. We are talking about a flea market here."

Hey Jarrod – will you let us know when you *do* find this embarrassing? We're starting an office pool and I'd appreciate any inside information.

Isn’t it Joe-ronic, don’t you think?

I recently posted about Joe Lieberman's eerily similar verbiage to a certain Pennsylvania Avenue douchebag, but now get this – Lieberman is running a TV ad criticizing his primary opponent for having a platform "short on ideas and long on anti-Lieberman sentiment" . What's wrong with that, you ask? Nothing, except that his proof is a lie more transparent than a Tahitian lagoon:

Lieberman's new TV ad's... evidence [is] a bumper sticker that says "No More Joe." The problem? As Factcheck.org reports, the Lamont campaign hasn't distributed any such bumper sticker, nor does it own the inactive Web site -- nomorejoe.com -- shown on the sticker in Lieberman's ad. "Overall, the Lieberman campaign is well within its rights to argue that Lamont's campaign lacks a positive message and is simply 'anti-Lieberman,'" Factcheck says. "But creating false campaign material and passing it off as authentic? That seems at odds with the ad's praise of Lieberman's 'principles.'"

George W. Lieberman still leads in Connecticut's senatorial polls, but the numbers can (and hopefully will) soon change unless Joe hires himself some fact-checkers. Really, most college students will work for less than the diminutive minimum wage your GOP butt buddies refuse to raise.

Asphincter sayswhat?

Apparently, I'm not the only one who likes to use the president's words against him to illustrate the man's idiocy. Salon has a nice timeline of Dubya's quotes (and the corresponding links from whence they came) to show a solid stretch of hypocrisy.

My favorite? When he claimed that he " learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner", then admitted that he expressed regret for some of his less sophisticated Bush-isms only because "my wife got on me for talking that way".

I swear, one of these days I may run out of ways to call this guy a douche. Not today…but one of these days.

Highway to the Douchebag Zone

"Democratic" Senator Joe Lieberman debated his primary opponent last night at the same time CNN aired an interview Dubya and the missus did with Larry King. Salon asks an important question – can anyone tell the two douchebags apart? Let's look at some of their quotes:

1. "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision and I'm absolutely convinced it was."

2. "And I believe it was the right thing for us to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

3. "Things don't happen quickly when it comes to helping a nation go from a tyranny to a democracy. But the Iraqi people were given a chance to vote and they did overwhelmingly. And now we're working with a new unity government, to help succeed.

4. "The situation in Iraq is a lot better, different than it was a year ago. The Iraqis held three elections. They formed a unity government. They are on the way to building a free and independent Iraq. Their military -- two-thirds of their military is now ready, on their own, to lead the fight with some logistical backing from the U.S. or stand up on their own totally. That's progress."

5. "I'd rather be judged as solving problems and being correct, rather than being popular."

6. "And I have asked [the people] to respect me for having the guts to take an unpopular political position."

7. "We will succeed in Iraq, unless we decide to quit."

8. " . . . we have a choice. And that choice is between helping the Iraqis achieve a free and independent Iraq or abandoning them and letting the terrorists take over."

So which one is George Bush, and which one is the one who proclaims himself "not George Bush"? The Republican president is responsible for statements 1, 3, 5 and 7. The Democrat senator -- for now -- can take credit for 2, 4, 6 and 8.

At least Lieberman didn't come out for the debate dressed in a flight suit and declaring "mission accomplished"…but why do I still get the feeling that he fashions himself Iceman to Dubya's Maverick?

Lieberman: You can be my wingman anytime, Georgie.

Bush: Bullshit! You can be mine, Joey.

Lieberman: Let's make out.

Bush: OK. Want a reach-around?

What? Am I the only one who saw Brokeback Squadron?

How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

Finally, we have a definitive answer about why the Bush administration seems intent on smokescreens instead of addressing issues close to the hearts and minds of the American public: somebody stole his PB&J.

Monday's New York Times reports a disturbing tale of a senator who didn't keep his word…and the president who can't think about anything important because he wants him some deep fried turkey:

The jelling of the McCain-Bush relationship has included a series of gestures, some odd, on both sides. When Mr. McCain visited Mr. Bush at his ranch in Texas during the 2004 presidential campaign, he suggested to the president that he try cooking turkey with a turkey fryer, promising to rustle one up for him. Mr. McCain apparently forgot the promise until White House aides started calling Mr. McCain's office, saying the president was still waiting for his turkey fryer.

This would not have been such an egregious slight, if not for another McCain culinary insult originally reported by Newsweek in November 2000:

Aboard Bush's plane, [John] McCain's chief strategist, John Weaver, had--without thinking--pulled a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich off the snack cart and eaten it. Bush came aboard the plane and asked the flight attendant for his PB&J. She had to tell him it was gone. "It's gone?" Bush said, disbelieving and suddenly angry. "Who ate my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich?" After a minute Weaver impishly raised his hand. "I did," he said. "Fine," said Bush. "Don't eat any more of his food," McCain cracked, sotto voce. A few people chuckled, and Bush returned to his seat to pout.

Jeez, McCain – why don't you just steal the guy's juice box too, you big bully. Who knew that the senator had so much in common with a P.S . 54 OD (that's "original douchebag")? And will the theft of his favorite, peanut buttery lunch doom Dubya's presidency the way it fractured the reign of a certain 1987 Sharing Club chief executive?

And yes, only one person in the world knows what I'm talking about. What can I say? I play to a very limited constituency.

I’d settle for Addams Family Values

In a move designed to be a smokescreen on issues they can't hope to win in November's elections, House Republicans released this week their "American Values Agenda" – also known as Operation Stop Looking at Iraq: Nothing to See Here, Move Along, Move Along.

Oh, the logic behind the AVA *sounds* peachy keen. "Through this agenda, we will work to protect the faith of our people, the sanctity of life and freedoms outlined by our founding fathers," House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) said in a statement released by his office.

But what is this American Values Agenda really all about, you ask? Here's a list of legislation the GOP is readying for the campaign stretch run:

The Pledge Protection Act. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act. The Public Expression of Religion Act. The Marriage Amendment. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. The Human Cloning Prohibition Act. Reform of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A ban on Internet gambling. Permanent tax relief for families. And the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act.

That last one sounds pretty reasonable, but you want to know what it really is? According to the Library of Congress, the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act is a bill that would "amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to prohibit the confiscation of firearms during certain national emergencies."

(You know, because post-Katrina New Orleans was a much safer place with all them redneck wackos – and Sean Penn – running around with shotguns.)

I sure am glad that we have the GOP looking after our most pressing concerns. Now that they're making me aware about how painful it is being an unborn child (???) and protecting my freedom to display the American flag (as long as its not burning), I don't have to worry about all that depressing stuff in the news like government corruption, falling educational standards, shaky national security, spiraling debt and thousands of dead American soldiers. By focusing attention on meaningless legislation and avoiding actual governance, the Republicans are telling us that there are no real worries in our world.

I'd thank God for these douchebags our fearless congressional leaders, but don't want to get into trouble until the Public Expression of Religion Act gets passed into law.

Big fat heads and little blue pills

I wasn't going to touch on the Rush Limbaugh-Viagra story. Really. I just didn't think it was a big deal…and then the douchebag had to open up his yapper and start joking about it.

On his syndicated radio show Tuesday, Rush spoke about his detainment by customs officials when returning from a two-day jaunt in the Dominican Republic :

Customs officials were incredibly nice to me. They just didn't believe me when I said I got the pills at the Clinton Library.

Give me those ribs…LOL.

Does Rush actually think he has the moral high ground here to diffuse the situation (and yes, detainment by US customs officials is – at best – a "situation") by taking a shot at his favorite target? I know a joke loses its humor when it has to be deconstructed, but what the hell does that line even mean?

"Joking" about what happened in customs only opens up Rush to more criticism about the "get out of jail free card" he received earlier this year, when prosecutors let him off the hook for a painkiller addiction and " illegal deception of multiple doctors to get overlapping painkiller prescriptions". I can believe Limbaugh's lawyer's explanation that the pills had been "labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes." But still, being honest doesn't make your actions legal…or your dumb jokes funny.

Hell, I'd be happy if I never had to think about where Rush stuck his mini-me, or what he has to do to get his member into game shape. And I won't, as some have done, make a bad pun about a "limp" argument (or even "speculate about why Limbaugh might arm himself with a bottle of Viagra for a two-day trip to the Dominican Republic"). Alls I'm saying is this:

When you break a federal law, perhaps it's not best to poke fun at a former President of the United States, who as memory serves, needed no erectile dysfunction aid to get it up for a fatty in a blue dress. Now there was a real man.

How much for that global profiteering in the window?

With its foolish tax cuts and massive, conspiratorial campaigns against the American public, one would think the Bush administration had no real expenditures to worry about. Yeah…uh…not exactly.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service released a new report that says costs of fighting the "global war on terror" may be escalating out of control:

... the military is spending about $8 billion a month on Operation Iraqi Freedom and about $1.5 billion on Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. That is about $2 billion more per month than in fiscal 2005 and about $4 billion more than in fiscal 2004.

It was previously believed that the military's operating costs would sharply drop when major combat operations ended. But the continued pace of anti-insurgency operations, higher fuel costs and continued improvements in force protection gear and body armor in an effort to protect troops against increasingly powerful roadside bomb attacks have altered that mind-set. Wear and tear on military equipment that must be repaired or replaced and costs to train Iraq and Afghanistan security forces are other factors in the increase, the report says.

As usual, Salon puts the mess in proper perspective:

Before the Iraq war began, then White House budget director Mitch Daniels suggested that the total cost would be between $50 billion and $60 billion, and he dismissed an estimate of $200 billion as being at the "upper end of a hypothetical." To his credit, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said before the war that the ultimate cost was "not knowable." That's still a pretty accurate description, especially with the president clinging to a timeline-free, stand-up, stand-down policy. But the CRS says that even assuming substantial troop drawdowns in the near future, the cost of the two wars could exceed $800 billion by 2016.

That's right – EIGHT HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS! But hey, at least no one is profiting from this clusterfuck, right?

Quick Hits – a ‘new republic’ or the same old shit?

Prime Choice – TNR suggests that Al Gore is the Democrats' best bet to take back the White House in 2008. I realize that The New Republic is liberal in the Lieberman sense of the word, but when exactly did it become a shill for the GOP? Seriously, the only thing that would give Karl Rove a bigger hard on than a Gore nomination (and by "bigger" I mean 4 inches instead of 3 ½) would be a Gore-Hillary ticket.

Trash Talk: Why Ann Coulter really is the most hated woman in America – didn't we answer this already? (hint, Pig Latinos call her untkay)

Tony Award – billed as "How one of the Iraq war's most tragic figures got it right", the piece should really have been described as "Tony Blair really isn't Bush's whipping boy – I promise". Really? Let's take a look:

Blair…is articulating a coherent, desperately needed vision for the post-cold-war, post-September 11 world. It is a vision deeply rooted in the liberal tradition--and fundamentally different from that of George W. Bush.

…From America's preaching about human rights while it operates Guantánamo Bay to its demand for tougher nonproliferation rules while it builds a whole new class of nukes (not for deterrence but for potential battlefield use)--this is the basic contradiction at the heart of Bush's foreign policy. And Blair, as gently as he can, has been pointing it out. "There is a hopeless mismatch," he declared last month at Georgetown University, "between the global challenges we face and the global institutions to confront them. After the Second World War, people realized that there needed to be a new international institutional architecture. In this new era, in the early twenty-first century, we need to renew it."

To build that new architecture, Blair proposed empowering the U.N. secretary-general to respond rapidly to emerging humanitarian crises, before the next Bosnia or Darfur spins out of control. He proposed revamping the Security Council to include India, Germany, and Japan--so it better reflects the power realities of today. He urged fundamental reform of the International Monetary Fund. He proposed an international uranium bank that makes peaceful nuclear power easier and nuclear proliferation harder. And he called for a powerful U.N. environmental organization to coordinate dramatic action on global warming.

And then Blair turned the knife. "What's the obstacle" to such efforts, he asked? "It is that, in creating more effective multilateral institutions, individual nations yield up some of their own independence. This is a hard thing to swallow.... But the [alternative is] ... ad hoc coalitions for action that stir massive controversy about legitimacy or paralysis in the face of crisis. No amount of institutional change will ever work unless the most powerful make it work."

That line about illegitimate "ad hoc coalitions": that's Iraq. "Paralysis in the face of crisis": Darfur. And the "most powerful" without whom such efforts will never work: He's talking about the USA.

Hmm…does this mean Blair needs to come off the list? And why the hell was a 5-paragraph, 350-word passage included in a post named "Quick Hits"? Like the number of licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, I'm afraid the world may never know.

No Taxation with Ass-Licking Representation

Here's an interesting tidbit to store in your overflowing "Republicans-suck-rich-guys'-cocks" file: the House of Representatives voted on Thursday to exempt multimillion dollar estates from taxation. Yeah, that sounds about par for the course.

What's the debate here? I'm glad you asked:

President Bush and Republicans in Congress have long pressed to abolish the estate tax, contending it is unfair to tax businesses and farms left to the next generation.

"Americans are being taxed almost every moment of their lives. My goodness, when they are dead, do we have to tax them again?" said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Democrats argued that it is more unfair to give millionaires a tax cut while denying thousands of poor workers a higher minimum wage.

"This is the ultimate values debate," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "It is morally wrong to do this, especially when we are turning down, rejecting, an increase in the minimum wage."

(She's right you know. Last week, Congress rejected an increase in minimum wage for the seventh time since 1997. You know, because the cost of living hasn't gone up at all since 1997, when $5.15/hour wasn't even enough to survive.)

Salon makes a nice point about the estate tax break afforded to the wealthiest Americans: " If the bill gets through the Senate, it's expected to reduce federal revenues by $283 billion between 2006 and 2016. That's roughly the same as the cost of the Iraq war to date." Ugh. Anyone else just throw up?

The House bill was actually a compromise on a proposal that could have seen the total elimination of the estate tax (funny how the rich benefit on the "compromise" while the rest of us get the business-as-usual routine). The truth is that the John Boehner's of the world don't care about you being taxed when you're dead; they simply want the votes – and more importantly, the contributions – of your now wealthy beneficiaries.

Hey douchebags – if you really want your butt buddies to avoid paying vast estate taxes, encourage them to make a planned gift to one of the thousands of charities in this countries (thankfully, Congress does not yet allow tax-free estate gifts to political/lobbyist nonprofits, only 501(c)3 public charities). You can make the gift and see the value of your generosity while you're still alive. How great is that? Your heirs don't pay tax on the funds AND you get to buy some penance for all the back-stabbing you did to accumulate your fortune. Don't know of a worthy charity? Go to Guidestar, Charity Navigator or support PatRoW's favorite fund.

Of course, John Boehner's approach lets Ri¢hie Ri¢h avoid paying taxes on grandpa's inheritance without subtracting a dime for people in need. God bless America.

Quick Hits: cancer, rape and genocide – Happy Friday everyone!

It's Friday, it's 10:30, it's time to party. Party on, Quick Hits. Party on, Garth.

Condoms Found to Block a Virus Harmful to Women – And it's not AIDS, the clap, herpes or anything sexy like that. Let me get this straight: as long as I can't catch cervical cancer – and I'm fairly confident I carry a life-long invulnerability – does that mean I wasted my oats-sowing years by wearing a bag? Stupid paranoid 1990s…

Cut 'n' run vs. lie 'n' die – it's headlines like this that get me hungry for Shake 'n' Bake. Or Steak 'n' Shake. Or Cheetos…I'm always hungry for Cheetos.

The facts are bad in Iraq. Karl Rove knows that. Dan Bartlett knows that. President Bush knows that. The American people know that. But as the New York Times is reporting this morning, that is not something anyone should admit in an election year:

"People who attended a series of high-level meetings this month between White House and Congressional officials say President Bush's aides argued that it could be a politically fatal mistake for Republicans to walk away from the war in an election year."

A "politically fatal" mistake? What about the actual human fatalities? The loss of human life is collateral damage, but the loss of power is the real tragedy, right?

Joking about rape to lighten the mood – call me old fashioned, but if you're going to allude to a tasteless and offensive joke, isn't it your journalistic duty to report said joke? Not that I find anything particularly engaging about the premise of raping a convent full of nuns, but still, I choose to reserve judgment until I hear the punch line.

Or I get petitioned by NOW. Those bitches dames ladies can work a picket line.

"President O'Reilly" would run Iraq "just like Saddam ran it" – I'll give you a second to clean up the mess you regurgitated after reading the words "President O'Reilly".

Better now? Good.

It seems that Bill O'Reilly is an unlikely fan of the management style of a certain deposed dictator. On his June 19 radio show, O'Reilly declared that if he were the president of Iraq, his constituents would find his approach to be a familiar one:

So because -- what you have here now is a tipping point in history. A tipping point in history. So you have to win the Iraq situation. Now, to me, they're not fighting it hard enough. See, if I'm president, I've got probably another 50-60,000 with orders to shoot on sight anybody violating curfews. Shoot 'em on sight. That's me. President O'Reilly, curfew in Ramadi, 7 o'clock at night. You're on the street, you're dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. OK?

That's how I'd run that country -- just like Saddam ran it. Saddam didn't have explosions. He didn't have bombers, did he? Because if you got out of line, you're dead.

I tried a bunch of comments here, but nothing captured the arrogance, stupidity and irrelevance that is Bill O'Reilly. Well done, douche – you made my point for me.