If the 1600 Crew pulls out the Miers nomination, is that SCOTUS Interruptus?

Here's the Casual Observers guide to Beltway Terminology...for your weekend enjoyment.

Rove Rage: The act of being pissed off before you can be pissed on.

Miller-Culpa: Lying about lying to make previous lying seem less substantial.

Scootering: Taking a grudge as far as constitutionally possible, and then just a little farther.

Floundering: Finding as many ways as possible not to answer a direct question, without actually saying anything.

Darthism: Expressing an unnatural interest in eating small children or pets as a deterrant to being asked inconvenient questions by the media.

Kellerism: Claiming to have been blindsided by an event only a blind man could not have seen. See also: Miller-Culpa.

Pinching: To steadfastly and tenaciously support a bullshitter, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence.

Boltonism: The act of intemperate destruction, no matter what the cost.

Fristianity: Making a religion of deliberate analytical errors, induced by presidential aspirations and a desire to be Dobsoned.

Dobsoned: To intentionally seek lobotomization to prove that existence without intellect and free will are possible.

Delayed: Just fucked.

Sessionism: Dunce-like state induced by auto-erotic self-asphyxiation.

Exspecterate: To orally reject an unqualified Supreme Court nominee by a president of your own party.

Cornynism: to take both sides of the same argument and punish yourself for being wrong.

Tancredoed: Campaigning against guest workers, just for demagoguery, causing cascading economic problems for millions. Use: "We would have had a great harvest, but it was tancreoed".

Duking: Ensuring the welfare of the richest of your constituents, especially Defense Contractors, at any cost. Even your own self-respect.

Hastertized: The new unwritten rules of the House of Representatives since 2000, allowing changes to made "at will". Just because.

Condying: Never being held responsible for anything. And making sure your husband isn't either.

Feel free to add your own...

Well, this can't be good news for anyone living in RealityLand. You know, that little corner of the world where those of us live who wince everytime there's a story that seems to indicate that Condi and Mr. Rice haven't gotten it yet...the world is not their sandbox and the military are not their private army to play with like a video game.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called today for the Security Council to take urgent action in response to a United Nations report implicating high-ranking members of the Syrian government in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.
...
Ms. Rice said that "accountability is going to be very important for the international community." The Security Council, she said, "is going to have to be the focal point."

The comments indicated that the United States was determined to capitalize on the United Nations report to further its campaign to isolate Syria, which it holds responsible for financing anti-Israel guerrilla groups and encouraging insurgents crossing its border into Iraq.
...
John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said the report required a "strong follow-up" from the council members.

He suggested the focus ought to be on pressing Syria to end its noncooperation with the investigators which he called "diplo-speak for obstruction of justice."

The only thing that deserves "strong follow-up" is Bolton's appointment to the UN on a recess basis. I doubt that if the Senate were to impeach him, or whatever you do to "Ambassadors", there would be much political fallout right now from within the 1600 Crew. Impending indictments seem to put the day planner into laser-sharp perspective, and defending Bolton probably wouldn't make it even as a C-list "to do" item. OTOH, he might be an ancillary Fitzmas present, in which case, he'd be too shackled to "other priorities" involving obstruction of justice to do much agitation at the UN.

Hey, a fish can dream, right?

What was supposed to be the one actual working plan implmented by Preznit C-Plus Augustus, No Child Left Behind, is just like everything else he's done in his life: a miserable failure.

The first nationwide test to permit an appraisal of President Bush's signature education law rendered mixed results on Wednesday, with even some supporters of the law expressing disappointment.
...
"The absence of really bad news isn't the same as good news, and if you're concerned about education and closing achievement gaps, there's simply not enough good news in these national results," said Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust, a group that seeks to bring attention to the needs of poor and minority students and has consistently supported the federal law.
...
"We have more non-native speakers, there are lots of so-called at-risk, hard-to-educate students, and in spite of that, steady progress is being made," she said. "We're on the right track with No Child Left Behind."

So, let me see if I understand this: we're handing a massive amount of federal debt, a trashed economy and world-wide reputation as a nation of self-centered assholes off to a bunch of functionally illiterate children who will learn the earth was created in seven days 6,000 years ago as part of the 1600 Crew educational agenda?

Damn, I'm glad the children is our future. Is this a great country, or what?

America's Worst Legislator is trying a new tack, since his smears of DA Ronnie Earle have been largely unsuccessful. He's trying to smear the judge. Who'd a thinked it?

The judge in the case, Bob Perkins, said he was holding the case up temporarily in light of a defense motion demanding he recuse himself because he was a Democrat who had made recent donations to the Democratic Party and to Democratic candidates.

Mr. Earle, who has prosecuted a variety of politicians, most of them Democrats, during more than a quarter-century as Travis County district attorney, said after the court hearing that it was "absurd" to think of Judge Perkins removing himself from the case.

"What this means is that if a judge had contributed to Crime Stoppers, that judge could not hear a burglary case," Mr. Earle said. "Carried to its extreme, this is what I think this motion means."

As we get farther down the road from the Shitstorm that was Katrina, it looks like more and more of the facts are starting to appear. Funny how that works with the 1600 Crew, isn't it? Kinda like Mess O'Potamia...lack of cogent action, toss lots of money at it, and when it's still fucked up, blame everyone else. Well, it's starting to come home to roost.

On Aug. 29, Bahamonde said, he called Brown about 7 p.m. and warned him of "massive flooding," that 20,000 people were short of food and water at the Superdome and that thousands of people were standing on roofs or balconies seeking rescue.

Brown replied only, "Thank you. I'm going to call the White House," Bahamonde said.

Meanwhile, Preznit Nearly Nero strummed while Americans drowned.

Love it or not, the CIA has had a role in US Foreign policy since the end of WWII. Sometimes good/bad, sometimes right/wrong but usually always with a point of view that it offered up to key decision-makers when asked. For all the knuckleheaded cowboys who have been through the Agency, there are and have been thousands of men and women who have tried to work on and present essentially "good" intelligence, "good" being subjective and qualified as intel that presented balanced viewpoints to the folks requesting it. Have they gotten things wrong? Absolutely, and we all know about some of those failures. Have they gotten things right? Yes, and we'll likely never know about most of those things, because their successes probably mean that an event will never become front-page news, ever.

So it's a bit disconcerting to see this after the (like everything else) 1600 Crew politicization of CIA:

When Porter J. Goss took over a failure-stained CIA last year, he promised to reshape the agency beginning with the area he knew best: its famed spy division.

Goss, himself a former covert operative who had chaired the House intelligence committee, focused on the officers in the field. He pledged status and resources for case officers, sending hundreds more to far-off assignments, undercover and on the front line of the battle against al Qaeda.

A year later, Goss is at loggerheads with the clandestine service he sought to embrace. At least a dozen senior officials -- several of whom were promoted under Goss -- have resigned, retired early or requested reassignment. The directorate's second-in-command walked out of Langley last month and then told senators in a closed-door hearing that he had lost confidence in Goss's leadership.

The turmoil has left some employees shaken and has prompted former colleagues in Congress to question how Goss intends to improve the agency's capabilities and restore morale. The White House is aware of the problems, administration officials said, and believes they are being handled by the director of national intelligence, who now oversees the agency.

I remember when Jimmy Carter appointed Admiral Stansfield Turner to the CIA post, and how much howling and gnashing of teeth there was over that appointment because of his interest in the development of intel sources unrelated to "HUMINT". How when the reign of Bill Casey began there was a general moaning and groaning over the reduced capabilities of the CIA and the intelligence community in general. And look what "Wild Bill" Casey's most enduring legacy has been: Al-Qaeda. Great job, guys. Trying for a mulligan?

Harold Meyerson in todays Post.

A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's Republican leadership to offset the increased federal spending going to rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast by reductions in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs for the indigent. If things go according to plan, this week the House will begin to cut $50 billion from those efforts.

The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry.
...
That, however, would have meant less money for defense contractors and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional Republicans' campaigns. GOP committee chairmen made that point so forcefully that the idea was scrapped.

The beauty of taking the cuts out of Medicaid and student loan programs, by happy contrast, is that it doesn't reduce the flow of funds to the Republican campaign committees by a single dime.

Getting the people most affected by these cuts to the polls next year and in 2008 with a clear understanding of the reason for, and source of, their pain will overcome all the republican gerrymandering and slander even in places as red as Mississippi.

Keeping this issue alive might prove that the republicans have finally Overreached Too Far.

With the rumours flying around about Darth Cheney potentially taking a hit from the Plame Game Blame Team ... aka Patrick Fitgerald and his Musical Grand Jury (singing informants, optional), there have been all these rumours about Condi being elevated to Veep if Crashcart heads off for his date with Mr. Jethro of Allentown.

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Lying, treacherous, Pwned by corporate America. Condi.

For all that, she's still a lying sack of shit who still chooses to put the 1600 Crew agenda ahead of what's in the best interest of this country.

Condi. Truly the republican choice for America...dishonest and disingenuous all in one pair of black-leather knee-high stiletto heels.

Condi, the female embodiment of the 21st Century Southern Strategy in a plain brown wrapper.

Condi.

Oh to have been sunbathing on the balmy shores of the Sundance Sea on this day...

Tracks of a previously unknown swimming dinosaur have been found along the shores of an ancient sea in Wyoming, scientists announced today.

The tracks reveal an event 165 million years ago when a six-foot-tall, two-legged dinosaur waded into the inland sea and gradually lost touch with the ground.

Or maybe these guys have a better explanation... or not.

Sly Stallone is going to remake not just one, but two movies that made him. Proving that at least in Hollywood it doesn't take George Romero or Roger Corman to provide a Little Zombies Shop of Horrors...

Sylvester Stallone has signed on to reprise his role as the boxing champ for a sixth installment in the once mighty franchise.
...
Rocky isn't the only muscle-bound hero Stallone is taking out of mothballs. He's also breaking out the bandana for a fourth turn as Rambo. Stallone will also write that screenplay.

Nor does the craving for Zombies in the Valley apparently. Now for the hat trick...Night of the Living Dead Career...

The 1600 Crew has trotted out some of its most beholden vassals to come to the Sewer that was The Peoples House to pimp for Miers. I wonder if they could be arrested for either pandering or violating the Mann Act; crossing state lines for immoral purposes involving a female.

The White House on Monday brought in six former justices of the Texas Supreme Court to voice support for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers and try to quell grumbling about her from conservative Republicans.

The event marked an attempt by White House officials to change the subject to Miers' legal credentials from last week when the administration got bogged down in a debate over her religion.
...
"I'd trust her with my wife and with my life," former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill told reporters on the White House driveway after a meeting with President George W. Bush.

Any Texas Supreme Court justice aspiring to the federal bench can expect rough sledding in the U.S. Senate. In much of the country, people are shocked to learn that our Supreme Court justices are elected in million-dollar campaigns that are heavily financed by special interests that have cases before the court. A 1999 Texas Supreme Court poll found that even within Texas, 83 percent of the public, 79 percent of lawyers, and 48 percent of judges say that campaign contributions significantly influence judicial decisions.

Texas Ethics Commission and Court records reveal that 37 percent of the $1.4 million that Justice Owen raised for her campaigns came from lawyers and litigants who had a direct stake in cases before her court. In a 1996 opinion, for example, the Court reversed a lower court ruling and lowered the tax exposure of a major donor, the H.E.B. grocery store chain (H.E. Butt Grocery Co. v. Jefferson County). In another case, the Court upheld a verdict for a plaintiff injured in an H.E.B. store. Yet Justice Owen–who has taken $7,500 from H.E.B.’s owner–joined a dissent that would have overturned that jury verdict (H.E. Butt Grocery Co. v. Bilotto).

On the day of the H.E.B. tax case, the court issued an Owen-authored opinion that haunts her nomination like a nightmare. That decision overturned a lower appeals court ruling to free Enron Corp.–the justices’ No. 1 source of corporate donations–from having to pay $224,989 in school taxes (Enron v. Spring Independent School District). Speaking about Owen’s nomination last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT), said, "I have heard from a lot of Republicans who are concerned about her Enron connections." One question that seems certain to arise in an Owen hearing is something like: "Justice Owen, please explain how a judge who is not blind to appearances of impropriety would take $8,600 from Enron’s PAC and executives–including $1,000 from Ken Lay–and then NOT recuse herself from a $224,989 ruling in Enron’s favor?"

Ah, and more stellar Sleeping Capital Murder Lawyer Texan Justice:

In 1999, a new trial was ordered but the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, appealed and the original verdict was upheld.

Mr Cornyn has not yet said whether he will appeal again to the US Supreme Court.

Because there's no Crony like and old Crone-y. Ever.

Well, just remember to Die Bold, Iraq, Die Bold.

Iraq's electoral commission said Monday it intended to audit "unusually high" numbers in results coming from most provinces in the country's landmark referendum on the draft constitution.

The U.S. military said, meanwhile, that its warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages Sunday, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a roadside blast. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.

Oh, wait.

Never mind. I forgot we were Spreading Democracy and Freedoms one Five-hundred pounder at a time. My bad.

1. Pulling Out?
   
2. 2005 Beltway Dictionary
   
3. O-Oh
   
4. Another 1600 Crew failure?
   
5. DeLay until everyone gets bored, right?
   
6. Dribbling Out
   
7. Deep Shit
   
8. Yeeeup
   
9. Kinda Sleazy
   
10. The JeebusSaur