Olbermann takes Rumsfeld to the woodshed on Rumsfeld’s recent suggestion that those who question the Administration’s behavior are somehow confused, immoral, or disloyal. As always, eloquent and spot fucking on.

CNN is reporting that it may have been Richard Armitage who leaked (purportedly inadvertantly) Valerie Plame’s name (but not status) to Robert Novak. Armitage was a vocal critic of the Administration’s policies in Iraq, and left his post in the State Department after Bush’s first term.

Novak’s July 14, 2003, column cited two unnamed Bush officials as sources for the information about Plame — which, regardless of source, Novak was clearly publishing for partisan reasons; the entire point of the column was to discredit Plame’s husband, who had been debunking the whole “yellowcake” idea in the press.

Upshot: if the Administration isn’t behind the leak or its confirmation, well, good for them. We’re afraid the laundry list of grievances against this most mendacious of mobs, however, is still plenty long, and there’s no shortage of crimes for which many in this White House should, but probably won’t, stand trial.

Wonkette reports it’s Senator Tubes holding up the budgetary transparency bill. Both sides of the political blog world have been trying to figure out who the anonymous member was stopping this legislation, and it turns out it the pork king from Alaska. What a fucktard. Does no one in Alaska watch the fucking news? This douchebag is more embarrassing than even my home state’s legislative team.

A man in Baltimore was arrested for stealing his own car in a particularly egregious case of “DWB.” Despite having clear title to the vehicle, it was apparently the testimony of the owner of the stolen car (a Cadillac of a different color) that got him off.

Even so, here’s the real kicker: “police sold Spence’s car at auction two months before his day in court.” Yup: his lawfully purchased car was grabbed and sold by the state despite the absence of any crime.

Jackasses. We need a clear and national reexamination of the forfeiture laws in this country; police cannot be allowed to get away with behavior like this.

In the wake of the recent unfriendly court rulings on Bush’s novel approach to Constitutional law and human rights, Administration lawyers have been working overtime to pass laws designed to immunize the Administration and its minions against war crimes prosecutions:

In June, the Supreme Court (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) placed commander in chief Bush and the top of his policy-making chain of command in jeopardy for the treatment of their suspected-terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan and elsewhere.

So much has happened since June—the Middle East war, the civil war in Iraq, and the plot to blow up multiple U.S.-bound passenger planes—that most Americans have only a hazy idea of this Supreme Court decision that blew up the administration’s grand strategy for extracting information from its prisoners around the world by any means necessary.

But quietly, in fear of that ruling, the administration has drafted two changes—in the War Crimes Act and in our treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions—to foreclose any prosecutions of the Bush high command. The goal is to get these amendments passed by the Republican-controlled Congress before the midterm elections that could put the Democrats in control of the Senate or otherwise significantly increase their power in Congress as a whole.

Says Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice: “This bill can . . . in effect immunize past crimes. That’s why it’s so dangerous.” As Fidell also told the Associated Press, the intent is “not just protection of [high-level] political appointees but also CIA personnel who led interrogations”—including in their secret prisons.

That’s right. Having blatantly violated the principles we hold dear as a nation, not to mention the Geneva Conventions, they’re now scrambling to save their asses now that it looks like all their shit is coming home to roost.

More:

Here, specifically, is how the Bush high command is trying to escape the consequences of the Supreme Court’s stinging reprimand. One proposed amendment would forbid any prisoner to use the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights in any American court. But—as National Public Radio’s Ari Shapiro points out—the administration’s lawyers claim that this restriction “does not affect the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions.” Huh? I’d like to see White House press secretary Tony Snow handle that yo-yo if anyone in the White House press corps knows enough to ask the question.

The second amendment the Bush team wants Congress to push through would change our War Crimes Act, which calls for the prosecution in our civilian courts of those who commit war crimes. The amendment would exclude from prosecution those who’ve violated a section in the War Crimes Act that references this language from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting “at any time and in any place whatsoever . . . outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” (This would also expunge the much publicized language of the McCain Amendment to the Detention Treatment Act of 2005.)

Pay attention. These are dark days for our Republic, but enough attention focussed on stunts like these can help save us.

Remember how, on primary election day, his Joe2006 site went down? Remember how they made much noise about blaming the Lamont campaign, and how they insisted they were going to file criminal charges?

Yeah, for the most part that’s horseshit. Their site went down because their tech people were idiots. Now they’re trying to hire a new tech staff, and they’re being given the cold shoulder by two prominent Democratic tech firms. Said Blue State Digital: “Thank you for your inquiry about Blue State Digital’s technology services. Unfortunately, we cannot be of service to the Lieberman campaign. We work exclusively with Democratic candidates.”

Hilarious. Hat tip to Rob.

NO SNAKES OF ANY KIND WILL BE PERMITTED ON A PLANE. SNAKES ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED IN CHECKED BAGGAGE. This includes all pythons, boas, rattlesnakes, vipers, mambas, adders, and other known species of snakes.

First, take a peak at what security guru Bruce Schneier has to say:

Hours-long waits in the security line. Ridiculous prohibitions on what you can carry onboard. Last week’s foiling of a major terrorist plot and the subsequent airport security graphically illustrates the difference between effective security and security theater.

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 — no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews — had anything to do with last week’s arrests. And they wouldn’t have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn’t have made a difference, either.

Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It’s reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details — much of the “explosive liquid” story doesn’t hang together — but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won’t make us safer, either. It’s not just that there are ways around the rules, it’s that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It’s easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it’s shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we’ve wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets — stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security — and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don’t work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It’s not security, it’s security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it’ll catch the sloppy and the stupid — and that’s a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely — but it won’t catch a well-planned plot. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons; we can’t possibly keep them off airplanes.

The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror. Last week’s arrests demonstrate how real security doesn’t focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves. It’s a victory for intelligence and investigation, and a dramatic demonstration of how investments in these areas pay off.

And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized. They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point. If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose — even if their attacks succeed.

And follow that with the disclosure from Homeland Security that x-ray machines can’t find explosives, but of course we’ll still have to take off our shoes:

Findings from the report, obtained by The Associated Press, did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft. (…)

In its April 2005 report, “Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security — Phase I,” the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don’t provide the information necessary to detect explosives. Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.

We are allowing ourselves to be ruled by fools and idiots.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff wants to just spy on and lock up a bunch of people, thinking that’ll make us safer.

Let’s see: threat of terror attack? Very, very small. Threats to our liberty based on overreaching governments and eroding civil liberties? Growing as we speak.

There’s really no use pretending this jackass is a Democrat anymore. His own party, as it were, is no longer supporting him. He lost the primary, which is how we pick party candidates. Surely he must know that even if he prevails in November, he’ll have zero party support; he may even lose his committee positions between now and November if he doesn’t cut out the spoiled child routine.

Scalia told the GOP to get stuffed, so Tom DeLay stays on the ballot in Sugarland despite the Republicans’ desperate attempts to replace him.

Even better: the Chronicle is reporting (and we use the term loosely) that DeLay will withdraw completely from the race to facilitate a GOP write-in campaign, which they apparently view as their best chance to retain the seat.

Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD, which we suppose isn’t surprising given Fox’s ratings and the curious tendency of Fox viewers to be ill-informed.

Wade Sanders over at Military.com has a bit to say about Curt Weldon’s aggressive smearing of his opponent, Rear Adm. Sestak.

Smear agents view the political process as a game, where the facts and accuracy are secondary considerations to winning that game. They are secure in the knowledge that candidates, as public figures, realistically have no legal remedy. And, at their own peril, they complacently assume that no one will turn the same scrutiny on their own military service. Their credo is that no matter how outrageous the lie, repeat it often enough and enough people will believe it and veterans, whose honorable service has earned them public respect and the right to seek public office, can be destroyed.

No doubt, politics have always been tough and dirty. But, today, any chance to attack an opponent is not only fair game, in some circles it has become an essential part of a winning strategy. Take the case of recently retired Rear (two star) Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Jr., locked in a hotly contested race against the Republican incumbent, Curt Weldon, in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. Responding to a request from the American Legion, Sestak wore his naval uniform, that of a three star (Vice) admiral at a recent Memorial Day parade. Weldon and the Pennsylvania Republican Party instantly attacked, claiming Sestak was not entitled to wear any uniform, or the uniform of a that rank.

This is the same Weldon who less than a year ago stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and passionately railed against the smearing of a military officer, declaring it was “…so outrageous, it makes me sick at my stomach . . . they are destroying the reputation of a decorated career member of the United States military . . . if we let that happen then no one who wears the uniform will feel protected because we have let them down.”

Apparently, Weldon and his staff failed to do their homework, or they disregarded the law. Sestak was a Vice Admiral in his last job, confirmed by the Senate, and worked directly for then Chief of Naval Operations, Vernon Clark. Shortly after he was reassigned by Clark’s successor, Admiral Mike Mullens, he chose to retire at the two star level. Had Weldon, his team, and the state Republicans read the law, they would know that his wearing the uniform of a three star admiral was fully authorized by law.

Section 772(e) USC: “A person not on active duty who served honorably in time of war in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps may bear the title, and, when authorized by regulations prescribed by the President, wear the uniform, of the highest grade held by him during that war.”

The United States Code is backed up by the Secretary of Defense’s Instruction 1334.01, which includes undeclared wars, and Navy regulations. Since Sestak was confirmed as a Vice Admiral during the Iraq War, he was, and is, perfectly entitled to wear that uniform at military funerals, memorial services, weddings, and inaugurals, parades on national or state holidays; or any other parades or ceremonies of a patriotic character in which any Active or Reserve United States military unit is taking part. That’s the law.

This begs the question: just how much is the reputation of a decorated, respected military officer worth to Weldon and the other smear agents. Surely it must deserve the time it takes to access the readily available law and learn the truth. Perhaps it was hoped that no one would invest the time. This kind of deliberate or negligent attack is, to cite Weldon, “…so outrageous, it makes me sick at my stomach.” Weldon and the state Republican Party need to step up and apologize for their lame attempt at discrediting a man who has earned the respect of all patriotic Americans.

WORST EVER SECURITY FLAW FOUND IN DIEBOLD TS VOTING MACHINE:

“This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,” according to Dechert. “If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS — and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.” This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

Citizen concerns about Diebold’s machines have been common knowledge now for years. At this point, we must admit that either Diebold is the most absurdly incompetent firm ever, or that they’re deliberately making easily hackable machines for some nefarious purpose.

Or, at least, the Constitution. He’s pushing a bill through the Senate that explicitly allows the Executive branch to undergo warrantless wiretapping with no judicial review, and also transfers the existing suits to secret courts (i.e., not the Federal bench, where they are now).

First, it requires (if the Attorney General requests it, which he will) that all pending cases challenging the legality of the NSA program (which includes the EFF and ACLU cases) be transferred to the secret FISA court. Thus, the insufficiently deferential federal judges would have these cases taken away from them. Second, it would make judicial review of the administration’s behavior virtually impossible, as it specifically prohibits (Sec. 702(b)(2)) the FISA court from “requir(ing) the disclosure of national security information . . . without the approval of the Director of National Intelligence of the Attorney General.” That all but prevents any discovery in these lawsuits. Third, it quite oddly authorizes (Sec. 702(b)(6)) the FISA court to “dismiss a challenge to the legality of an electronic surveillance program for any reason” (emphasis added). Arguably, that provision broadens the authority of the court to dismiss any such lawsuit for the most discretionary of reasons, even beyond the already wide parameters of the “state secrets” doctrine.

There’s more:

• The Specter bill will gut FISA, a law that whose constitutionality or usefulness has never been challenged in over thirty years since its passage, by allowing less stringent legislation to apply to domestic surveillance.

• The Specter bill will prevent meaningful review by the judiciary from taking place, including allowing the Attorney General to move all pending cases challenging the legality of Bush’s domestic spying program into secret courts.

• The Specter bill allows FISA courts to throw out challenges to the legality of the domestic surveillance program for any reason. Americans can’t be expected to cede surveillance powers to the president without adequate congressional and judicial oversight.

This is a very, very, very bad idea. We agree with Atrios that this is the greatest threat to our country today. We do not exaggerate; separation of powers and judicial oversight are cornerstones of our government, and gutting those provisions to create an imperial executive will have very long-lasting and negative consequences.

Call your senator. The link above has a list; Texas’ John Cornyn is a member of the committee in question. If you call 888-355-3588, the Capitol switchboard will transfer you to any Congressional office. Make the call, to Cornyn and others. This bill must be stopped.

When the Justice department tried to investigate the almost certainly illegal domestic spying program started by Bush after 9/11, it was the President who refused to grant the required security clearances.

Yes. Bush killed an investigation into his own criminality. This the Saturday Night Massacre, but worse. He has no respect for the Constitution, the separation of powers, or the rule of law.

Would someone please explain to us why the Feds have such a fucking hard-on for online gambling?

Mr Stewart lets Ted Stevens hang himself with his own words on how the Internet works.

“The president is always right.”

“Why Conservatives Can’t Govern” is in Washington Monthly. Read it. Key point: the party whose stated ideal is to drown government in a bathtub can hardly be expected to fulfill governmental obligations once in power. As Wolfe notes, it’s sort of like asking a vegan to fix you a steak.

Adam Corrolla was set to have Ann Coulter on his radio show. Coulter called in an hour and a half late, and then complained of being short on time. Corolla told her to get lost.

ADAM CAROLLA: Ann Coulter, who was suppose to be on the show about an hour and a half ago, is now on the phone, as well. Ann?

ANN COULTER: Hello.

CAROLLA: Hi Ann. You’re late, babydoll.

COULTER: Uh, somebody gave me the wrong number.

CAROLLA: Mmm… how did you get the right number? Just dialed randomly — eventually got to our show? (Laughter in background)

COULTER: Um, no. My publicist e-mailed it to me, I guess, after checking with you.

CAROLLA: Ahh, I see.

COULTER: But I am really tight on time right now because I already had a —

CAROLLA: Alright, well, get lost.

As Atrios makes clear, it’s what the Dems ought to be saying about just about every GOP talking point, but this, at least, is a start:

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting, and no matter how you carve it, you can call it anything you want, but basically, it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight.

BLITZER: All right. You want to respond to the vice president, Senator Biden?

BIDEN: No, I don’t want to respond to him. He’s at 20 percent in the polls. No one listens to him. He has no credibility. It’s ridiculous.

The EFF explains how with The Corruptibles. Enjoy.

We’ve been wondering just exactly what to say about the suicides at Gitmo or, more specifically, the shocking statements that came from the camp’s commandant in re: suicide as an act of war. How’s that work exactly? Suicide bombing we sort of get — so did the Japanese in the waning days of Pearl Harbor, and so too do countless American war movies glorifying the crucial “suicide mission” nevertheless necessary for the greater good. But how exactly is out and out suicide — hanging yourself with your sheets in your cell — an act of anything but desperation and despair? It’s become abundantly clear that many if not most of the prisoners at Gitmo were gathered up on scant or no evidence, and our government insists they can hold them forever. If that’s not a ticket to despair, I don’t know what is.

So anyway, we were trying to spool up to give Rear Admiral Harris both barrels, but then we found that the Rude Pundit beat us there, God love him.

Over at Whatever, John explains why the whole “defend marriage” thing is an utter LIE on its face:

1. Same-sex marriage already exists in the United States. It has for two years. The definition of marriage in the US already includes members of the same sex marrying each other.

2. By pressing for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between men and women, it is the marriage bigots who are looking to change the definition of marriage.

3. The language of the proposed constitutional amendment would end thousands of legal marriages — both the same marriages that legally exist now and all the same-sex marriages that would occur between now and whenever the theoretical moment would be that the 37th state ratified the amendment.

4. The proposed constitutional amendment would make second-class citizens of all same-sex married couples by stripping them of a marital status they currently enjoy, while allowing all other legally married couples to continue being married.

[…]

As long as the marriage bigots can frame the debate as “defending marriage,” they can avoid acknowledging their agenda is patently hateful. But the accurate frame is that they’re attacking marriage — and attacking actual marriages — to change the definition of marriage into something that is in line with a discriminatory social agenda.

Republicans in Congress are trying to kill both PBS and NPR again, though presumably it’s because they don’t like the questions programs like Frontline ask rather than any animosity towards Sesame Street. Go sign MoveOn.org‘s petition, tell others, and call your Congresspeople. They’ve tried to do this before and got smacked down; let’s do it again.

And Jon Stewart made that clear on national TV when Bennett tried to argue against gay marriage on The Daily Show. Video over at Crooks & Liars.

Not that this is news, mind you. And, of course, we’re being deliberately inflammatory, but with developments like the ones he references, it’s difficult not to at least flirt with that conclusion. An educated public is in our best interest; cutting programs that help the middle and lower classes fund college seems profoundly unwise — unless what you really want is a permanent underclass.

Katha Pollitt beats the snot out of the antisex Right in her most recent Nation article. Mostly, it’s about how some are deeply opposed to a vaccine against HPV — which would therefore prevent cervical cancer and save lives — because it might encourage women to have sex.

No, we are not making this up. We wish we were. They’ve stopped being about “prolife” and are now more or less embracing “anti-sex” as a rallying point. Don’t think for a minute that these folks would stop at a repeal of Roe; they’re after Griswold, too.

Tom DeLay has turned to Stephen Colbert for support, apparently unaware that the “Colbert” on TV is a parody of right-wing blowhards like O’Reilly. DefendDelay.com, his legal defense fund’s web site, is featuring a video of Colbert’s hilarious interview with Robert Greenwald, director of the anti-Delay film The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress. Colbert does his usual idiot-conservative schtick while Greenwald explains, fairly clearly, what DeLay’s done. According to the fund’s mass email, though, Greenwald crashed and burned under Colbert’s questions.

Are these people really that stupid?

Somewhat surprisingly, GOP lawmakers are bitching about the FBI raiding Democratic representative Jefferson’s office and gathering evidence, which is an entirely appropriate response since Jefferson is so crooked he has to screw his pants on in the morning. The GOP’s actual agenda? Almost certainly laying the groundwork for similar bitching when any of the major investigations into GOP wrongdoing lead to similar raids on GOP lawmakers. (Which seems sort of inevitable, when you consider Abramoff and Cunningham cooperating with prosecutors, doesn’t it?)

As the Axis of Nielsen Hayden notes, could they be any more transparent?

CO2: It’s good for you!

Hat tip to OMIC.

They’re on the right (they’re libertarians, not republicans) and they’re not at all happy about George’s assault on the Constitution and its implications for presidential power in America. The full report is a PDF, but here’s the executive summary:

In recent judicial confirmation battles, President Bush has repeatedly — and correctly — stressed fidelity to the Constitution as the key qualification for service as a judge. It is also the key qualification for service as the nation’s chief executive. On January 20, 2005, for the second time, Mr. Bush took the presidential oath of office set out in the Constitution, swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” With five years of the Bush administration behind us, we have more than enough evidence to make an assessment about the president’s commitment to our fundamental legal charter Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad, a view that includes

• a federal government empowered to regulate core political speech — and restrict it greatly when it counts the most: in the days before a federal election;
• a president who cannot be restrained, through validly enacted statutes, from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror;
• a president who has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as “enemy combatants,” strip them of any constitutional protection, and lock them up without charges for the duration of the war on terror — in other words, perhaps forever; and
• a federal government with the power to supervise virtually every aspect of American life, from kindergarten, to marriage, to the grave.

President Bush’s constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.

The media’s reaction to Colbert’s stellar “fuck you” to both them and the Bush Administration has been kind of funny to watch. First, they ignored it completely, focussing instead on the lame Bush v. Bush skit that preceded it. Now that the video has been burning up the net all week, they’ve been forced to actually address it — and their talking point is the same as the administration’s: “He wasn’t funny.”

Bzzt. Wrong. We’re sure the press corps didn’t like the degree to which he pointed out their utter and complete emasculation and failure to provide any sort of watchdog role, but that doesn’t make it not funny. It just makes it funny, but about them. The press corps has become a lapdog, useless and ultimately powerless, so it’s no surprise they didn’t enjoy Colbert pointing that out so brilliantly. Now, if they’d just start doing their damn jobs again — but that’s probably too much to ask.

The White House is apparently upset about Colbert’s routine at the WHCD. Hilariously enough, right-leaning US News covers both their anger and their clear talking point that Colbert wasn’t funny. Um, right. We’ve seen it. It’s all over the net, and it’s hilarious. Maybe it’s not funny if you’re trapped in the west wing with an out-of-touch demagogue, but we can’t really help you there. It was funny, bitches, and you’d best shut up and take it. If you don’t want to be lampooned as an administration that ignores reality and the opinions of experts on virtually every front — and that famously insulates itself from every whiff of dissent or disagreement — well, don’t be that administration.

The GOP wants to send everybody $100 to help with the gas prices. Oh, and to get you to vote for them.

Attorney General for Torture Alberto Gonzales says Bush can order warrantless wiretaps on wholly domestic communications, too.

He sent his minions to disrupt Nick Lampson’s press conference in Sugarland. Their clear goal was to prevent Lampson from being heard; one jackass had an airhorn, which (as noted in this photo gallery of the event) is the tool of choice for people who have nothing to say, but want to say it louder than anybody else. These “protesters” weren’t content to just, you know, protest — they actively tried to disrupt Lampson’s speech and, at one point, assaulted at least one Lampson supporter. More at Kos.

This is what the GOP is about, at least in DeLay country.

Bill Maher has a great rant, saved for your viewing pleasure over at Crooks and Liars. Therein he pokes all sorts of holes in the notion that Christians are in any way oppressed in this country — one zinger includes the comment that oppressed groups tend not to gather in the opulent ballroom at DC’s Omni Shorham hotel. He continues:

The worst part is that the people bitching loudest about being persecuted for their Christianity aren’t Christians at all. They’re demagogues and con men and scolds and the only thing they worship is power. If you believe Jesus ever had a good word for war or torture or tax cuts for the rich or raping the earth or refusing water to dying migrants then you might as well believe bunnies lay painted eggs. […] Thomas Jefferson called the type of Christian who trumpets his own belief in the divinity of Jesus rather than the morality of Jesus “pseudochristians,” and that’s who’s running our country today. And since they thrive so much on turning water into whining, and get off on their endless pretend persecution, this EAster season, let’s give them what they want: let’s go to the zoo, get some lions, and feed them Tom DeLay.

The right-leaning Houston Chronicle is reporting that Tom DeLay will announce he’s dropping his re-election bid on Tuesday, and will in fact RESIGN by early summer. It’s confirmed by an exclusive interview at Time. The BugMan will resign and move to his condo in Alexandria, VA, a move that allows the local GOP to put someone else on the ballot for November.

Hey, Tom? Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Via here, and verified at Snopes:

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin http://www.raskin06.com/ , professor of law at AU, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?” Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” The room erupted into applause.

Emphasis added, for awesomeness.

It’s no secret now that many on the Right would like to ban not just abortion, but also birth control. Recall that the cases before Roe concerning privacy were about just that, not abortion (Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479 (1965)), about access to marital birth control, and the follow-up Eisenstatdt v. Baird (405 U.S. 438 (1972)), about access for unmarried persons). These are people who want women to be mothers not just first and foremost, but ONLY. They’re attempting to redefine pregnancy as the moment of sperm-egg union (the AMA says it’s implantation) in order to reclassify emergency contraception and even birth control pills as abortifacients, and are working to spread misinformation about condom use. This is the same crowd, most likely, who don’t want us to vaccinate against HPV, since safer sex means might lead to more promiscuity.

This makes clear that anti-choice isn’t just about abortion. If you’re truly opposed to abortion because you believe all pregnancies should have a chance at birth, the logical position is to support the widest possible access to good education and birth control, but these people don’t see it that way.

Salon has more. Read up, and then send some money to Planned Parenthood.

They’ve managed to ban birth control from county clinics in Missouri. (Via Atrios.)

Via Atrios, who quotes a Pew survey:

The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is “incompetent,”and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: “idiot” and “liar.”

Clear Channel Sucks. (Via Atrios.)

Never forget that our nation, “conceived in liberty” as we may be, was in fact initially founded by people too uptight to be British.

The latest manifestation of this ongoing American puritanism is detailed in the latest New Yorker; forces on the Right are working to prevent the widespread adoption of an HPV vaccine, since to remove its risks would be to encourage sex. HPV is a precursor to cervical cancer in women, but men can carry the virus as well. By pursuing this angle, they are actively attempting to stifle medical innovations that would reduce disease and death because they don’t want people fucking any more than is absolutely necessary. How much more screwy can you get? In what way is this moral?

(Yes, we just linked to Andrew Sullivan, but we initially got it from Atrios.)

The House has passed a bill backed by food industry lobbyists gutting all state food labeling laws and assigning all such authority to the FDA. The bill had no hearing, and is moving forward despite the opposition of most states’ attorneys general.

Maybe the Senate will be more sane on this, but we doubt it. At what point will be insist on REAL lobbying reform?

Point 1: The President has admitted on national television taking actions that are indisputably illegal; the domestic spying initiative has been undertaken in contempt of the FISA law put into place to curb executive abuses precisely like these.

Point 2: The Senate Intelligence Committee voted yesterday in a party line vote to not investigate the domestic spying plan, thereby abdicating their responsibility for oversight and, indeed, the rule of law. The Republican members of the committee have no personal integrity and no respect for the rule of law if they can use their position to protect a manifestly lawbreaking president.

A vote for any Republican, period, is a vote in favor of these tactics. I don’t care who they’re kin to, or what they say they’ll do. As far as the Heathen are concerned, they can all go straight to hell.