Deliberate Denial of a Superior Story

From Geoff Boucher's must-read interview with Gary Kurtz:

The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone “like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns,” as Kurtz put it.

And now comes this...

Sweet lord, I hate George Lucas.

Su pronóstico es muy grave

Yeah, that's a bull giving a matador the ole "Timothy Dalton at the end of Hot Fuzz" treatment. Horn right up the windpipe, right out the mouth. Don't worry, the man is still alive... somehow, but he's described as being in critical condition. I'd say so. As one of the posters of Deadspin so astutely pointed out, I bet it was easy to intubate.

Normally there would be cause for consternation and condolences for the poor man getting a horn in the jugular. But, seeing as how he was engaged in slow, ritualized, artistic animal murder, it's only fair that the bull gets to put points on the board as well. Fuck him. Yay bull! Don't mess with mother nature, Spain.

And just in case you were wondering... yeah, that photo does enlarge. Click to embiggen.

More of that Hopey Changey stuff

There he goes again, undermining the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Good on ya, Barry:

President Barack Obama signed a memorandum Thursday requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have nonfamily visitors and allowing their partners medical power of attorney.

The memorandum orders the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation.

[via The Advocate]

Quote of the Day

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) on how he has already seen the future, and doesn't like how the terrorist trials has turned out for the Bloomberg family.

"I saw the mayor of New York said today, 'We're tough. We can do it.' Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist?" Shadegg said.

"How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the judge's wife? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok," he continued.

Boy, don't you just love it when when red state blowhards who live as far away as possible from a terrorism target tells New York how to run things? I mean, how come they aren't as pants wettingly afraid of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as he is? Plus he's more or less calling the NYPD a Keystone cops organization, our prison system unfit to handle uneducated opium farmers, and that our Federal justice system unable to handle something as complex as a trial. It's impressive, really.

One also has to appreciate the way he brings up the kidnapping of one of Mayor Bloomberg's daughters as if it is the only logical endpoint of holding trials. Hell, the imaginary terrorists are future raping both the Bloomberg daughters as we speak, in a hover apartment two blocks from Madison Cube Garden in New New York. It is an assured outcome that wouldn't otherwise be possible if Barack Obama didn't want to appease terrorists so much. Hell, it's probably what the new season of 24 is about.

But bonus points must be handed out for the "political correctness run amok" remark. Usually that phrase is just reserved for bitter old white men who are just pissed off because they can't tell racist jokes in public, openly stereotype different races, and have to let blacks into their country club. I never knew that "political correctness" involved due process and using the justice system of this country to prosecute criminals according US and international law. The GOP teaches you something new every day.

Ah well, I can only hope that Shadegg can stop shaking in fear at the thought of trials to imagine a scenario where the imaginary Bloomberg hostages are rescued from the imaginary terrorists by Jack Bauer...and say....Huckleberry Hound. Can you do that Johnny? For their sake?

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.04

Italian court finds CIA agents guilty of kidnapping terrorism suspect
Well that makes one country that's actually serious about prosecuting torture, rendition, and kidnapping in the name of America's war on terror. Surprisingly it's Italy, who can't even convict its openly corrupt prime minister. That's a bit of a shocker. But Italy has tried and convicted 23 Americans in absentia for the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" that resulted in an Italian citizen being kidnapped and tortured. Sadly none of the convicted are named Bush, or Gonzales, or Cheney. Italian courts are also considering putting out international arrest warrants to capture the men. Someone want to roll up a copy of this news and hit the President and the Attorney General over the head with it?

Democrats’ healthcare bill would pay for ‘prayer’ treatment
Ahh Democrats, you could fuck up a one car funeral. Sure, you can't get a good health care bill passed and something simple like a woman have rights over her own body is going to prove to be a challenge, but you can make sure that the bill lets charlatans get money from the government by making "prayer treatments" actual medical expenses. Didn't you get the memo: prayer is basically most people's health care system of choice right now, and it's not because they want it that way. Do you think, maybe, we could just take that money and spend it on, I don't know, something that will actually improve the health of people or drive down medical costs? Or, we could just flush the money down the toilet in deference to the alligator god, who will in turn reward us with a healthy harvest. Doesn't that sound good?

Russia Leads Nuclear Space Race After U.S. Drops Out
Russia is seeking to take the lead in awesome when it has a $600 million nuclear spaceship flying into obit by 2012. Meanwhile the US is still dicking around with rocket fuel. This should allow the Russians to make their rockets twice as efficient and allow them to do longer and more elaborate deep space exploration and missions. We, on the other hand, will fart around in low orbit while Richard Branson and his Virgin: Galactic space tourists get within "flipping the bird" distance at us. The article also has an interesting history of nukes and space, if you wish to sigh at the path not traveled.

Flu fears help Clorox sales
Well at least this pandemic is making someone money, you know, other than the vaccine companies and the conspiratorial conglomerate of Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama/the Bilderburg Group/the Secret Society of Jewish Bankers/the Yankees/Freemasons who created the disease for their own socialist political ends. Yes, bleach sales are driving a stock spike for Clorox as worried and paranoid parents buy it by the pallet to marinate their pork in it, make their kids drink it, and obsessively and compulsively wash their countertops with it in order to protect themselves from Porcine AIDS. It won't work, they'll all be dead while the last remnants of us fight it out in Boulder and Vegas, but it's nice that Clorox, as well as the makers of Glaad bags and Brita filters have profited in this time of irrational flu panic.

A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts
How badass are sharks? Even their skin pattern kicks the living fuck out of weak ass bacteria. That's right, using a sharkskin pattern on a protective film cuts the rate of disease and bacteria spreading because those rotten little microbes can't attach themselves to the sharkskin pattern. How slick is sharkskin? Scientifically speaking: slicker than greased goose shit. A man with a PhD said that, honest.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.02

Pa. high court tosses 'tainted' juvenile cases
Thankfully for the basic tenets of justice, the courts tossed thousands of juvenile cases that were tainted by a kickback scheme that ultimately resulted in a crooked judge sending kids to a for profit detention center in return for bribes. Have to hand it to Judge Ciavarella, throwing people in jail for money is a step up. Usually people just get tossed in on the basis of race, religious, social, or economic status. You free marketed the shit out of legal malfeasance.

Car maker develops its own flower species
Now the Japanese are rubbing our noses in it. Not just content to beat our heads in over the regular car and hybrid markets, now they're making special flowers that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere. When fully grown one of these flowers can actually flip the bird in the correct geographical direction of Detroit while it wipes its own ass with GM stock. Progress, it's a beautiful thing

'Torture flight' plane spotted in Birmingham
The European Parliament is up in arms because of the reemergence of the infamous CIA torture/extraordinary rendition/"frat house hazing" plane that jetted terrorist suspects all over the world to CIA black sites during a refueling in Birmingham and a meeting with British SAS forces. Lest you think that this means Obama is somehow reneging on yet another one of his war on terror campaign promises and that this is not "change we can believe in", know this: that plane used to refuel in Leeds. Now who feels silly? You, that's who.

Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million
Look at that, another quarter, another massive loss by the car indust...wait, what the fuck? Almost a billion in profit? Did Ford find some Nazi gold Harry buried out behind the headquarters? rich uncle die or something? *gasp*...is an American car company being....run intelligently? Sources cite the cash for clunkers program as well as an extensive and intensive 17 hour surgery that removed many of the executives' heads from their collective asses. Ford hopes to make a full year profit by 2011, at which time the sheer unlikelihood of an American car company running itself well will cause the universe to collapse in on itself.

Obama Strategy on Health Legislation Appears to Pay Off
Yup, that's right. According to the NY Times, Obama's strategy is paying off. What strategy is that, you might ask? I have no clue. Because to me it looked like they dicked around for months, fobbed off decision making and power to the legislative bodies, made sure that the "moderates" had the power, needlessly courted Republicans they knew would not support the bill in any shape or form, hamstrung progressive, kneecapped the public option, publicly tried to oppose measures that were not only popular within the caucus and the American public but had been campaigned on by the President himself, then no legislative pressure or arm twisting was applied, Harry Reid was told to basically go it on his own, the White House still fought against even the milquetoast weak public option that remained in the Senate bill, and now Joe Lieberman is threatening to blow up the whole thing unless the weak bill is made even weaker and more ineffective after Obama saved his ass within the caucus and lobbied for him to keep his Senate committee chair. Yeah....looks like that "strategy" really paid off. Note to Rahm or Axelrod or whoever ghostwrote that article: I wouldn't be too eager to claim credit for what just happened and what's about to happen.

Questions

Civil Lawsuit Over Katrina Begins

A groundbreaking civil suit began in federal court here Monday to consider claims by property owners that the Army Corps of Engineers amplified the destructive effects of Hurricane Katrina by building a poorly designed navigation channel adjacent to the city.

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile-long channel known locally as MR-GO and pronounced “Mister Go,” was completed in 1968 and created a straight shot to the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans. The suit claims that the channel was flawed in its design, construction and operation, and that those flaws intensified the flood damage to the eastern parts of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.

One geological expert testified on behalf of the plaintiffs that the channel was “one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the United States.”

Do you think that they're going to win all the money in existence, or just all the money that the banks haven't taken yet?

Are we going to have to invent new numbers for the financial award?

Jillion, bajillion, bazillion, kazillion? I'm a bazillion man.

Will we have to measure jury deliberation time in minutes or seconds?

Open up the coffers Geithner, the American taxpayer is going to have to take another gut shot.

¡qué pena!

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, William J. Haynes II, David Addington, and Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human-rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. “The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

Awwwww. Looks like the gamble that no country would decide to enforce their own torture laws and treaty requirements seriously didn't exactly pay off, Bush Six. There is one adult country left on earth, even if it is the one that had all its athletes make slanty eyes for pictures promoting the Beijing Olympics.

Don't think that changing judges meant you're cut any slack either. It's procedural, having to do with the fact that the judge presiding over the prosecution of the Bush Six for torturing five Spanish citizens is also the one presiding over the trial of the five citizens on terrorism charges. See, Spain can walk an chew gum at the same time: press charges on terrorists and prosecute men who authorized the torture of them. But that judge switch may not even happen, and if it does all you get to do is move from the guy know for taking on terrorism and Pinochet, Judge Baltasar Garzón Real, and get a guy who is currently running a trial against the use of CIA rendition and black sites against Spanish citizens, Judge Ismail Moreno. It think they have a saying for that: out of the frying pan and into another frying pan.

Anyone in the Obama Justice Department getting any ideas? Maybe we should run our own trials to prosecute men who illegally authorized torture. No? Just gonna pretend it didn't happen? Fine. Thanks again Spain. Want to get a trial started on illegal wiretapping? I'm sure at least one Spaniard got illegally recorded.

Take notes

To the members of the Bush Administration who authorized and condoned torture during your reign, take notes on the Khmer Rouge torture trials going no right now. One: it may be a portent of your future if you step off American soil. Two: even fake apologies filled with caveats are more contrition than any of you have shown.

The commandant of the most prominent Khmer Rouge torture house apologized in court Tuesday for atrocities he had committed but said that he had feared for his own life and that he was being made a scapegoat for others.

“I would like to express my regret and heartfelt sorrow,” said the commandant, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is the first defendant in a trial involving the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, overwork and disease, as well as torture and execution.

“My current plea is that I would like you to please leave an open window for me to seek forgiveness,” said Duch, who is 66.

Remember this for when your trial in Spanish court starts, it might buy you a few years off. Yeah, didn't expect that did you? But that's what happens when you kidnap, wrongly imprison, and torture Spanish foreign nationals. Spain tends to get all mad and its human rights lawyers start filing briefs to Baltasar Garzon, the judge who went after Pinochet, Kissinger, Argentine military officers, and Spain's second largest bank. By the way Spain, signing on to international treaties banning torture and binding you to prosecute those who torture your own citizens.....and then actually following through and obeying those international treaties is sooooo childish. What are you, six?

So to Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Douglas Feith, William Haynes II, Jay Bybee, and David Addington, remember to add in just a dash of fake remorse. Doug Feith, with his claim that his complete disrespect and ignorance of the Geneva Conventions actually mean he showed torture laws great respect, hasn't seemed to get the message yet. Oh well, don't leave the country unless you have a human rights lawyer on retainer and bail money. Who ever wanted to see Europe anyway?

On second thought, maybe Madoff is an even bigger asshole than you thought

Madoff To Plead Guilty To 11 Counts

In a courtroom surprise, it was revealed Tuesday that Bernard Madoff will plead guilty Thursday to securities fraud, perjury and other crimes, knowing that he could face up to 150 years in prison for one of the largest frauds in history. The revelation came as prosecutors unveiled an 11-count charging document against the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman, and as his lawyer, Ira Sorkin, told a judge that Madoff planned to plead guilty this week without a plea deal.

Madoff has been under house arrest in his $7 million Manhattan penthouse since he was arrested in early December after authorities said he confessed to his family that he had carried out a $50 billion fraud. In court documents filed Tuesday, prosecutors raised the size of the fraud to $64.8 billion, an amount recounted in apparently false statements from November 2008.

Shocking, I can't believe he'd wouldn't want to face a trial or judgment by a jury of his peers. Seems though the government decide to up their estimate of funds thieved and extra $15 billion, really vaulting Madoff up higher on the all time crooked fuckers list. This despite the fact that last week they were saying Madoff might have only stolen a couple of billion, due to the fact they were using his "profit" "records" as a basis. Guess not.

So now that he's plead guilty on 11 counts of grand grand grand grand grand larceny he faces up to 150 years in prison, a life/death sentence unless he used that money to discover the secrets of immortality (possible, he stole a lot of fucking money). Now come the interesting part, dear reader: the sentencing. Are they going to treat him as the scumbag pariah he's become, punishing him in a magnitude of the wealth he stole, showing the country what happens to pigs like him, sending out a warning to all future Bernie Madoffs by giving him a 150 year sentence? Or do they do what normally happens, a slap on the wrist of about five years, which turns into a stint in the pen of about 18 months? I know I'm not betting high.

It all seemed so legal

Obama Looks to Limit Impact of Tactic Bush Used to Sidestep New Laws

Calling into question the legitimacy of all the signing statements that former President George W. Bush used to challenge new laws, President Obama ordered executive officials on Monday to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on any of them to bypass a statute.

But Mr. Obama also signaled that he intended to use signing statements himself if Congress sent him legislation with provisions he decided were unconstitutional. He promised to take a modest approach when using the statements, legal documents issued by a president the day he signs bills into law that instruct executive officials how to put the statutes into effect. But Mr. Obama said there was a role for the practice if used appropriately.

“In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded,” Mr. Obama wrote in a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch.

And with that, another of the Bush Administration's bright ideas is declared to be insanity. No more freestyling statements that take a law and twist it and turn it into something that means the opposite for the executive branch or discards the law entirely. I don't know why people would ever see a need to change this idea in the first place. First our elected betters in the Senate go to all the hard work of destroying what was probably a good idea by watering it down and adding all kinds of loopholes and inadequacies. You're telling me the President shouldn't be allowed to take that hard work and sign it into law, with the caveat that he is in no way bound by that law or will be subject to any prosecution for breaking that law? This hardly seems like America anymore.

Among Bush's 1200 signing statements were a scrawled "Nuh-uh" on a law providing Congressional oversight for Katrina, a decree that all bills with the phrases "no torture" or "cannot torture" were to be read as "go torture" or alternately "why aren't you torturing now? stop reading and go dunk that Arab's Koran in something.", or Bush's favorite one "do opposite" with an arrow pointing to some provision. In the end he even had a rubber stamp made up that said "Fuck this shit" that John Yoo and David Addington said would legally allow him to ignore any law he signed.

The directive by President Obama to ignore all Bush signing statements will be followed by the Justice Department unless they discover a signing statement by Bush declaring Obama has to follow them or Obama himself makes a signing statement declaring them valid. Legally/constitutionally we don't even need Congress, provided the President can write down a better law in the margins of the one he's supposedly signing. I think Madison or some other dude said so in the Federalist Papers.

Broken News: Bloggers outfit Paul Krugman with mechanized war suit

Schematic of ECON7-KRUGBOT MK-3000 (Click to enlarge)

SECRET UNDERGROUND LAB--Driven to the point of repeatedly striking their heads against the wall in reaction to Congress' reluctance to do anything about the crumbling empire over which it presides, infamous Internet malcontents Matthew and Sean announced today that they have completed construction of a mechanized battle suit designed specifically for Paul Krugman.

The pair hope that the Nobel Prize-winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, whom they credit as "the only motherfucker in the room talking any goddamn sense" will don the suit and descend upon Congress and force them to confront the imminent collapse of their nation's economy.

While they are keeping most of the suit's specifications secret, Matthew did divulge that its weaponry would include a cast-iron Economics 101 textbook to be used as a cudgel, as well as a circular blade of sharpened adamantium, bench tested at roughly 4,000 RPM. Reading from a prepared statement, Matthew said, "The ECON7-KRUGBOT MK-3000", which is named for the number of times it has been programmed to stomp on Nancy Pelosi's testicles, has emerged from the final round of testing and is ready to jump start the economy by jumping on some empty skulls."

"'The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.' Jefferson said that," explained Sean. "I say there's no reason that blood shouldn't drip from the tip of a four-foot retractable serrated claymore attached to three tons of death-dealing heavy machinery wielded by an angry intellectual."

The frustrations behind this endeavor are apparently the result of Matthew and Sean having paid far too much attention to Congress over the last two weeks, an action that Cambrige University Neurologist Dr. Hamil Fayden compared to "dilating one's pupils and staring directly into a solar eclipse whilst running one's testicles through a pasta wheel."

As Matthew later explained through a welding mask while he was bent over what appeared to be a device designed to fire rocket-propelled chainsaws, "Reason clearly escapes these cretins. 300 million Americans are staring down financial Ragnarok and all Congress can do is quibble over a few million bucks for a sewage treatment plant in Crotchrot, Kentucky. If these charlatans won't listen to a measured, well-informed argument from a Nobel Laureate, maybe they'll listen to a twelve foot steel spike in the face and a liberal sprinkling of grenades and tracer fire."

Though enthusiastic about the project, Sean seemed slightly less optimistic than his counterpart about its results. "I just hope he leaves a few of them alive. For one thing, covering all of those new, governor-appointed senators would be a pain in the tits. But more than that, I'm really hoping to take [House Minority Leader John] Boehner out into a crowded intersection and beat him with a garden hose full of marbles."

The plan, inasmuch as loosing a mech-suited economist into the halls of congress to pass violent judgment on members of government can be called a plan, calls for our elected betters to be brought in front of the iron behemoth, whereupon they will be questioned on general economic principles as well as recession and depression history. If they cannot express a coherent economic thought or name a statistically or historically supported bailout proposal then Krugman will be allowed to mete out punishment based on the weaponry at his disposal. Or alternately, depending on his mood, wade onto the halls of Congress firing indiscriminately, having prejudged everyone as guilty. Sources say both Matthew and Sean are rooting for the latter option.

When asked to comment on the proposal, Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford shuddered and noted, "I've been covering politics since 1989 and I have yet to find one Congressman or woman who could cogently articulate what scientists would call a 'thought' on economics. Christ, they're still arguing over whether there need to be more tax cuts that don't work or what random dollar amount they should arbitrarily pick and decide to remove from the stimulus plan in order to appear 'centrist'. It's going to be a bloodbath. All I know is I've got my seats in the upper balcony reserved and a trashbag full of popcorn at the ready."

The pair admitted to having no luck in securing Krugman's blessing, much less his agreement to enter the metal monstrosity and spread his financial gospel to the non-believers.

"We have faith," said Sean as he painted a logo reminiscent of Boba Fett's insignia on the Krugbot's left shoulder plate. "Failing that, we'll have his family in chains."

Calls to Professor Krugman's office were not immediately returned, although Princeton spokeswoman Marissa Florentine did state unequivocally that both Matthew and Sean had been preemptively banned from setting foot on university property.

Arlen Specter is concerned

After the constant parade of embarrassment that waltzed through the Justice Department over the past few years, with the ignoring of laws, political based prosecutions, acting as a political arm of the White House, enabling law breaking, refusing to serve subpoenas or really do much of anything that Congress wanted, and just in general being in the complete pocket of the White House, Arlen Specter has had enough. It's not because Democrats are in office or there was a cyborg replicant that kidnapped him, replaced him, and shirked his duties over the past eight years, it's because....actually it's probably one of those two reasons.

A leading Republican senator issued a broad attack on Tuesday on President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., questioning his political independence.

The senator, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Holder’s support of the White House’s stance on three contentious issues when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration suggested that he was too willing to do the president’s bidding.

“He’s had an outstanding academic and professional record, and I acknowledge that early on,” Mr. Specter said of Mr. Holder in a 25-minute speech on the Senate floor. “But aside from these qualifications on Mr. Holder’s résumé, there is also the issue of character, and sometimes it is more important for the attorney general to have the stature and the courage to say no instead of to say yes.”

It's funny that none of these concerns were raised when you greased the skids for Ashcroft, Gonzales, or Mukasey, during all the Judicial Committee hearings you presided over either as chairman of ranking minority member, or in general. Of course you're mad about them now, but when you had the chance you were constantly backing down and groveling. That is the Arlen Specter way, complain about something then turtle and vote for it when it's time to do something.

But like many Republicans (and some Democrats) you've found your spine and dusted off your principles just in time. You can move your main focus over the years from Bill Belichik's taping methodologies onto the country and the Rule of Law. Congratulations, I'm sure the timing is coincidental. Just one question: is Chris Matthews sure he doesn't want to run in 2010?

Broken News: America indicted on 200 million counts of liver terrorism

WASHINGTON—In what amounts to a shocking post-New Year’s wake-up call, roughly two-thirds of Americans discovered today that the US Justice Department has indicted them on millions of counts of liver-related acts of terrorism and self-abuse. The indictments, which were mailed out today to midnight revelers and professional alcoholics posing as people exited for a new year, are part of the government’s new line of get tough policies on what's been described as “the American populace’s unending illegal war on their organs.”

“The war on terrorism has become so broad and vague as to become pointless,” explained Justice Department lead prosecutor David Danforth. “It is with this vacuum in activity prosecuting the supposed real war on terror and several provisions inserted into the last passing of the Patriot Act by teetotaling busybodies, that we are finally able to take some action and prosecute the American populace for acts of self terror and abuse on a scale comparable to a thousand 9/11s. With this indictment, we hope to finally stop American abuse of the smaller and more vulnerable organs, and stop this genocide against America's defenseless enemy: its own liver.”

He continued, “Frankly we’re just all happy to be doing some real work for once. It’s been all quiet on the terrorism prosecution front and there’s only so many times you can indict Tommy Chong before he learns not to mail bongs to co-eds. We’re glad to be able to knock some of these monsters off the streets and get some real billable hours in.”
If convicted, America faces up to 200 million felony counts of abuse, war crimes, torture, and making terroristic threats against themselves. Also included in the indictments were a battery of lesser charges, including fat girl buggery, street vomiting, littering, street sign theft, toplessness, sudden flash lesbianism, dishonest declarations that things are going to change this year, and overly gay man hugs.

“I dare you deny that this is a rash epidemic of incredible violence to a beleaguered populace,” observed government spokesman Michael Jameson. “Just look at their code: Irish car bombs, Jager bombs, acid bombs, Nigerian vodka knives, shooters, rusty nails, kamikazes, bloody brains, snake bites, B-52’s, F-16’s, and Soviet liver rapers. You tell me these aren’t part of a concerted violent effort on the part of a deranged mass of citizens determined to slowly render their internal organs inoperative. That doesn’t even get into drinking Banker’s Club or Vladimir. You can’t tell me that shit isn’t battery acid and piss filtered through used underwear. This is for their own good. These people cannot keep liquefying their insides with codswallop every time the calendars change. This unchecked aggression will not stand.”

Part of the problem in mounting a defense is that so many citizens have been recorded voluntarily making declarations about their intentions to molest their livers with swill and violently execute their few remaining brain cells. From drunkenly wandering in front of news cameras to videotaping themselves getting wasted, prosecutors are straining to remember when the last time so many so brazenly stated their intention to commit crimes in full public view.

“It’s like these kids don’t even care,” observed clinical psychologist Dr. Adam Denton. “You see them leave Facebook status reports like ’I’m going to get soooo fucked up’ and post pictures with captions like “Fuck you liver, I’m getting soooo fucked up right here’ and you wonder what they’re thinking. Then there are all the recorded phone conversations. I understand the government barely had to violate civil rights to get these people on tape. So many of them were leaving messages with the time and date telling friends to come ‘get fucked up’ or that they were ‘soooo fucked up right now’ and that they wanted them to join in the horrific destruction. It’s going to be an open and shut case. These caustic freaks are going to go away for a long time.”

As part of the government’s stance, there will be no negotiating or plea bargaining with these terrorists. After they are put before a military tribunal and convicted, most of America will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay, which has seen its chain link fence prisons expanded to accommodate the tens of millions of new prisoners.

Due to space limitations, the prison has been built both upward and downward, providing some with all the comforts of a Victorian floating prison while others will endure the inescapable horrors of an underground gulag, replete with mole people attacks. For the convenience of the millions of prisoners, all major religious texts have been preemptively placed in the mass latrine modeled after former Philadelphia Eagles venue, Veterans Stadium.

Prosecutors expect to have the military show trials started up by the middle of February and completed by the end of the same week. The Justice Department hopes that these trials and convictions will serve as a lesson to the remaining parts of the country and a more orderly transition from 2009-2010. Sources close to the department claimed that, next year, an actual celebration to take place instead of a combo drunken street brawl/orgy with confetti. If not, insiders say the government is willing to come down with a second round of indictments.

Alaska update: Hulk gets more smashed

Once the sun rises in Alaska and they hook the old women ballot counters up to car batteries, Ted Stevens will find himself down 814 votes and rising. The remaining ballots are from Begich-friendly districts and it's starting to smell like this race is all but over.

While no self-respecting political blog is ready to call it, I'm happy to offer, for your pleasure, this Ted Stevens Memorial Link.

And rightly fucking so

In an irony I'm sure he would have appreciated, last night George Carlin became the first person to posthumously receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Why in the blue fuck it took so long--previous recipients include the funny, but less so, Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin--is anybody's guess.

But at least it happened. At least Jon Stewart and Lewis Black got to pay homage. At least what's left of Joan Rivers got to talk about sharing club space with Carlin before anyone knew who they were. At least Dennis Leary got to drop a few F-bombs.

Of everyone there, I guess Black said it best. "Without your presence among us, George, the world is a less funny place."

Mukasey says jump. Democrats must not have heard him.

Mocking Mukasey

On Wednesday Attorney General Michael Mukasey proclaimed that Congress needed to enact a new law governing how courts should handle legal challenges from detainees. That such a law should contain provisions that "should bar the disclosure of classified evidence in the detainees' habeas proceedings, prohibit the detainees from being brought into a U.S. courtroom for hearings." Mukasey even waved around the possibility that failure to do so would mean that detainees would be released on the streets of Anytown, USA free to terrorize the Walmart and take the swing set of your kid's playground by force.

This display, otherwise known as the mating display of the bushus legalus horribilus whereupon they display their asshole and expect you to jam your face in for a whiff, was typical and to be expected. What was unexpected was the Democrats, perhaps not hearing him or possibly being too tired from caving over telcom immunity to so quickly cave again, didn't do anything. In fact they dismissed and were openly hostile to the idea. The Adjudicator Pat Leahy stated "The courts have a long history of considering habeas petitions and of handling national security matters, including classified information. The administration made this mess by seeking to avoid judicial review at all costs, causing years of delay and profound uncertainty."

Dear God, a cogent analysis of the situation then a refusal to act based on solid legal reasons and precedent. We're in uncharted waters here. What happened to the Democrats? Bush said jump. 'How high' is the response. HOW HIGH. I offer tentative, confused hand clapping and hope you accidentally take this line of action some time in the future.

Shortsighted judge dooms country to another terror attack

Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps

A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.

Apparently this rogue judge, handing out his shortsighted decrees from his bejeweled throne, didn't get the message. Laws are only suggestions that the President might want to consider following, if that's alright with him. They aren't God's Law, which the President is required to follow only if there's a 2/3 majority in the trinity on said issue. But now we're vulnerable to islamofascists because some judge says even classified information can be considered by a court and the President's powers cannot override the FISA statute.

I do like how this lawsuit started, it's really fit for the highlight reel of Bush's own "Bloopers, Boners and Massive Constitutional Overreaches." The meatheads in the Justice Department gave the suspected terrorist documents revealing the existence of the secret wiretap program.

But thanks anyway Judge, it only took 7 years for someone to stand up on this issue and say "Shut the fuck up and follow FISA you tit-clutching moaners." Only 7 years to reject the Bush administration's legalese excuses for breaking the law. FISA is the law and by some Constitutional fluke the President is required to follow the law.

Unfortunately there's still a loophole: because the spying is secrecy and with no oversight, no one can prove they were illegally spied on and therefore can't challenge the spying in court. Oh yeah, Congress is also going to make it all retroactively legal so no charges can ever be brought up and no one will ever do time for it. There's that problem too. But small victories are victories. You got a little freedom back today, that's more than can be said for most days over the past few years.