isn't this con-veeen-ient.

Pope Benedict XVI, the first German pontiff in 500 years, said "the insane, racist ideology" of Nazism gave rise to the Holocaust and pledged to improve relations between Catholics and Jews during a historic visit Thursday to a synagogue, becoming only the second pope to enter a Jewish house of worship.
...
Benedict, a one-time member of the Hitler Youth who deserted the German military during the waning days of World War II, ...

More Ratzi Piety hoping that everyone will look beyond the fact that he's every bit the Nazi he was the day he took his oath to Der Fuhrer as a young man. If he'd met John Paul II when they were both young men during the war, only 50% of them would have survived the meeting.

It's still a couple of weeks until the confirmation hearings begin for Judge French Fry, and the 1600 Crew is still hiding things about him. Maybe it's because some of the information that has been shown the light of day is already so putrid that rotten fish could take stinking lessons from it. For instance, at the end of the 70s, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment and it was sent on to the states for ratification. Dear Leader Reagan could have given it his blessing and it might have actually made it into law, but for advice from .... Judge French Fry.

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

It becomes more evident (to me) that every day the 1600 Crew refuses to allow the Senate to see every scrap of paper this jerk-off has been involved with is just another reason to say that stonewalling the Senate from performing it's Constitutionally Mandated Duties constitutes Exceptional Circumstances for a filibuster.

This guy gets confirmed, Miranda: Gone. Roe: Gone. Voting Rights Act: Gone. Rights not specifically delineated in the Constitution according to his interpretation: Gone.

Bob Taft, or Governor 17% of Ohio has just been charged with ethics violations in Frankin County Court this afternoon.

Gov. Bob Taft has been charged in Franklin County Municipal Court with four criminal misdemeanors for failing to disclose golf outings and possibly other favors.

The charges were outlined at a press conference Wednesday afternoon with Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien and Columbus City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr.

If convicted on the first-degree misdemeanor charges, Taft faces a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail on each count.
...
The Constitution says the governor, judges and any state officer can be impeached if they are charged with a misdemeanor, even if they are not convicted.

The Ohio House of Representatives has the sole power to initiate impeachment proceedings. A simple majority -- or 50 of 99 members -- would have to vote for impeachment.

Just another Family Values republican for the Grand Old Police blotter, Ohio Edition!

Over at Clownhall today, the Virgin Ben has an essay up telling us all why we should not call him and all the other Yellow Elephants "Chickenhawks". Because, according to VBen, it's UnAmerican. Before your cognitive dissonance engine (Dissent is UnPatriotic!) kicks in, let's give VBen the benefit of the doubt for a nanosecond and look at his argument. He says that to support a foreign policy of which includes Preemptive War, you really, really don't have to have served. And I'll grant him that. I'll also grant him that the perjorative Chickenhawk is an ad hominem attack of the highest order. And to that I have one thing to say: Tough Shit. So let's take Ben out of the "Chickenhawk" pool for a moment, shall we. There is a better place for him, the Dishonorable Society of Yellow Elephants.

All the components of the Army are falling behind on their recruiting goals this year, and it's not looking like the Army, which is carrying the brunt of operations in Iraq will be a viable force much longer if tours are extended again, and soldiers are sent back for a third vacation tour to Baghdad. That's just a cold hard fact. The soldiers are getting tired; even in the cases where the spirit is willing, the flesh can't stand the strain.

What to do? Encourage VBen and his colleagues to join up. Augment our forces so that men and women who have been there twice won't be forced to go back again. But VBen will deny his obligation to do even this task. He's in Law School. At Hahvahd, you see. Like so many of his twenty-something republican peers, there's more profit in encouraging someone else to fill their spot, there is little that they will get other than an open-ended contract and a sense of an obligation fulfilled to their country. But his personal gain, comfort and hectoring Americans about Michael Moore's waistline are much more important obligations than those to his fellow citizens carrying out a dangerous and lethally flawed foreign policy because they said they would. Largely without complaint their very existance in daily jeopardy, never knowing if they will see the sunset on the day they wake up and head off to do their duty.

For those young twenty-something peers of VBen every day is trial by fire. For VBen, every day is just another opportunity to prove why he's a Chickenhawk: he's allowing his peers to cover the checks his mouth writes with their blood. That's a Chickenhawk.

Right wing uber-slime master Cal Thomas is still conflating Iraq and 9/11:

This isn't Vietnam, as Sheehan claims. While Vietnam is communist, Vietnamese did not attack America on Sept. 11, nor are they infiltrating our country in an attempt to destroy us. To those who say Saddam didn't attack us on Sept. 11, the answer the president can give is that terror is all part of the same fanatical package.

All that tortuous reasoning for one thing: to continue the slime attack on Cindy Sheehan. Is there no lie that the Preznit Cognitively Impaired will not tell, no depth they will not plumb in their absolute slavish devotion to him?

It's getting Kim Jong-il creepy over in far wingnuttia now, maybe when the Pentagon Victory Parade for Iraq happens next month some of these wingnuts will be photgraphed with Dear Leader on the reviewing stand, and then we can start telling how much favor they have with the 1600 Crew by seeing who gets erased from the pictures as time goes on.

the irony is just delicious. Governor Golf Coupons (R-Exceptionally Corrupt) of OH-IO has said he will take the blame for his acceptance of illegal, unfiled gifts of greens fees (and who 'Noes' what else).

...Gov. Bob Taft said yesterday he's the one responsible for the "errors and omissions" of his ethics statements that have landed him on a collision course with prosecutors.

"I'm responsible for them, absolutely. It's my responsibility to file a correct report," Mr. Taft said yesterday after the annual livestock Sale of Champions at the Ohio State Fair.

The embattled governor, who returned during the weekend from a vacation to his family home in Quebec, is on the cusp of facing criminal charges for failing to report up to 60 golf outings on his state-required financial disclosure form. The Ohio Ethics Commission last week completed a report on Mr. Taft's case and is forwarding its findings to prosecutors.

17%.

From the family of one of the Ohio Marines killed when Preznit Cant B. Bothered went on vacation:

The day after burying their son, parents of a fallen Marine urged President Bush (website - news - bio) to either send more reinforcements to Iraq or withdraw U.S. troops altogether. "We feel you either have to fight this war right or get out," Rosemary Palmer, mother of Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder II, said Tuesday.

Schroeder, 23, died two weeks ago in a roadside explosion, one of 16 Ohio-based Marines killed recently in Iraq.

The soldier's father said his son and other Marines were being misused as a stabilizing force in Iraq.

"Our comments are not just those of grieving parents," Paul Schroeder said in front of the couple's home. "They are based on anger, Mr. President, not grief. Anger is an honest emotion when someone's family has been violated."

White House spokesman Allen Abney declined comment other than to refer to remarks Bush made last week.

At a news conference Thursday, the president said: "Pulling troops out prematurely will betray the Iraqis. Our mission in Iraq, as I said earlier, is to fight the terrorists, is to train the Iraqis."

"I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

The Ohio couple have long opposed the war and tried to dissuade their son from joining the Marines, but have made their views public only since his death. On Tuesday they urged Americans to voice their opposition to the war.

"We want to point out that 30 people have died since our son. Are people listening?" Palmer asked.
...
Their son went to Iraq filled with optimism about the mission but gradually became disillusioned with the war's progress, his parents said.

"He said the longer it went on the less and less worth it seemed," Palmer said. "They're not doing the job right now. It's not the fault of the troops. It's the fault of the plan."

I wonder how the right-wing slime machine will now begin to demonize him and his grieving family? After all, they have now spoken out against Infalliable Beloved Leader.

Awww, Wal-Mart has lower profits. Because of gas prices, they claim. And it could be true, certainly there is an intuitive leap to be made between the price of fuel for families who can't readily afford say, the drive to work and the the trip to Wal-Mart if they aren't both in the same direction.

"Wal-Mart Stores did miss their plan as our customer continues to be impacted by higher gas prices and it is difficult to improve our expense leverage in the current environment," Lee Scott, the company's chief executive, said in a statement.
...
Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's chief financial officer, said the company's utility expenses rose by $100 million, and its fuel costs were up $30 million, in the quarter.
...
With its customers having grown accustomed to such consistently low prices, Wal-Mart could have a particularly hard time passing on the higher energy costs at the checkout lines.

"Wal Mart made a living jamming costs down on everyone else," Mr. Naroff said. "Now," he added, "how much can they absorb on their own?"

Why? Because once upon a time Darth Cheney pooh-poohed the need for better fuel economy and told everyone to run out and buy an SUV, reinforcing years and years of governmental insistence that standards on paper were the same as standards in practice. Now that's coming back to bite them in the ass, as most Red State political decisions do, hey aren't the Red State republicans the ones who hate that "if it feels good, do it" shit?

Hoist meet Petard.

The 1600 Crew has Justice French Fry doing the happy talk walking tour of DC to meet and greet all the senators in the congress, most especially those who might wanna ask him questions that might make him cry like the whiny little pussy he is.

Now we come to find out that ol'French Fry thinks women are worth 60% of a man. Huh? Yup, he thinks paying women to do "comparable work", which I think is lawyer-speak for "I think women are inferior, but I'm gonna use fancy terms to make twist the truth", is wrong. So wrong that he basically accused three republican congresswomen of Red Communism (a concept that his alzheimers-ridden boss, Reagan could get around what was left of his calcified brain) in an opinion written while he was associte white house counsel in 1984.

The Democrats in the Senate see no reason to fight French Fry. Hey, I've got one for you stupid DLC-beholden fucktards: women who vote. That might be a constituency that all the roll-over pussies in the senate might want to think about when they consider facing voters in the years to come and some part of a decision French Fry writes echo his words from 1984:

In his memo to White House counsel Fred Fielding, Roberts said the women's letter "contends that more is required because women still earn only $0.60 for every $1 earned by men, ignoring the factors that explain that apparent disparity, such as seniority, the fact that many women frequently leave the work force for extended periods of time. ... I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistributive concept. Their slogan may as well be, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender.' "

Now, let's see if we can move from invertebrate to vertebrate in the Democratic Caucus. You know, what with the French Fry's attitude on things like the voting rights act, we might soon find out that there are other fractions he supports...like 3/5ths.

The sun came up this morning to the unmistakable smell of Victory Gin and Flopsweat...what could it be? Why it's Christopher Hitchens hacking away at his computer again, writing under that big '666' on the wall of his tenement somewhere near the corner of Cirrohsis St and Gluttony Ave, in some gated elite community of fellow travellers somewhere. Hitchens writing more than he should, about a subject he'll never understand:

...Then there is the question of civilian control over the military, which is an authority that one could indeed say should be absolute. The military and its relatives have no extra claim on the chief executive's ear. Indeed, it might be said that they have less claim than the rest of us, since they have voluntarily sworn an oath to obey and carry out orders. ...

So hey, here's a great idea Hitch. Sign up. They just raised the age and you don't even have to be a US citizen to enlist. What a good deal. I promise, that if you die over there, I'll come to your funeral and tell everyone: Don't Cry, he wanted to die for no reason.

It's an amazing thing how some republicans never seem to fade away, sort like a the memory of a bad meal, or a an ex who's a stalker. Newtie is no execption...he's trying to position himself to be the "go to guy" for the republicans as they try and dominate politics and continue their drive to dismantle the republic for their own profit.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich gave a PowerPoint presentation to an enthusiastic group of Republican staffers at the Capitol last week that he billed as a blueprint for turning the party's "present, temporary partisan majority" into a "21st century governing majority." Gingrich's handouts also provide an early peek at how he might pursue the Republican nomination for president.
...
"Speed, cleverness and shallowness are advantages for the Left," Gingrich, who stayed around to field a flurry of admiring questions, asserted on page 58 of his presentation. "They dominate the elite news media so they will always be able to launch new attacks, have their allies in the bureaucracy create new leaks and focus on analysis that hides their values."

"Our core pattern should be 'there is a BIG difference and it is a fact. . . .' We must then take such key facts to immediately illustrate a large vision; we cannot remain in arguments at the detail level."

So, bottom line: same republican strategy, just a different messenger. Once a liar, always a liar. And as for Newt for President? I think he forgets he had higher negatives than the Big Dog during impeachment...hey how about a Cheney/Gingrich ticket? Two draft-dodging Chickenhawk assholes for he price of one?

Preznit Ball Licker, we're here from the Iraqi Government, and we just wanted to let you know that about our Constitution, well, the dog ate it.

We know we were supposed to turn it in for grading today, but we've had some problems with the Sunni's and Chers' Kurds. See, it seems that they are not interested in your "deadlines" and we have been having a lot of that lately...dead lines of people here around Baghdad because of well, you. We thought you might be interested to know that, but no one was able to reach you since your new office hours seem to be exclusively dedicated to mountain-bike riding and fundraising at other 'ranches' near Rancho Claro del Arbusto.

We told the folks at the US Embassy, which is safely ensconsced in the Green Zone (known locally as FantasyLand) that we need a couple of more weeks to try and put the whole thing together but they told us to "fuck off" (is that the American expression?) and went back to drinking Martini's and eating bacon-wrapped weenies. Supposedly these delicacies are called "Rush in a Blanket" for some reason in FantasyLand.

We wanted to let you know that more and more of your people are getting killed over here, and while we are really sorry about it, from reading your newspapers you aren't, so our official position will soon change to "who gives a shit" too. We'd like to thank you for making that more clear, since we were at one point bothered by all the senseless carnage. But if it doesn't bother you, we're determined not to let it bother us either.

So, in conclusion, we'd like to let you know that we've obtained a back-up constitution from a hard-drive that was donated by a woman named Mary Rosh. There was all kind of mumbo-jumbo on it with numbers about guns and violins. What do they have to do with each other? Anyhow, there were Ten Amendments we could read. We included nine of them, and are submitting them tomorrow to the Ambassador along with some cans of Polish Sausages left over, from someone who was around here once, was it the Poles? The only Amendment we are not including from the list we got was Number Four, because Mary had crossed it out and written in below it, "see PATRIOT Act"; we don't know what that is, so we can't include it. Amendment Four seemed pretty good to us, but if you don't care for it, we'll leave it out if it will make you take your toys and go home that much faster.

Thank you for your patience,

Humbly,

(etc...etc...)

1. As the Church Lady would say...
   
2. More French Fry
   
3. Governor Golf Coupons charged
   
4. Virgin Ben, The Chickenhawk Series
   
5. Slime Machine
   
6. Sometimes...
   
7. More Parents
   
8. Economix for republicans
   
9. Don't Get It
   
10. Ooh Ooh That Smell...