Great Moments in American Business Leadership

In West Virginia the last of the bodies from the worst mining disaster in the last 40 years have finally been recovered. In the time since the tragedy began, the country has come to learn about one of the more odious shits in American business, which is saying a great deal. His name is Don Blankenship and he is the CEO of Massey Energy.

Aside from running a mine that racked up 3,000 violations and $2.2 million in fines, he is someone that virulently fought against any kind of regulation or oversight. He got stooges and cronies of his chosen by Bush to the MSHA review commission that decides all legal matters under the Federal Mine Act with predictable results, busted unions, constantly downplayed worker safety, declared it more important to "run coal" than follow things like safety regulations, derided obvious and necessary laws, decreed all his opponents were like bin Laden, threatened and assaulted reporters, and became a darling of the Fox News Hannity set. He really earned the titles "evil bastard" and "the 7th scariest person in the US" that Grist dumped on him.

So now it's kind of funny to look back and see the kinds of things he said about safety, regulation, and government oversight now that this disaster happened. Not "funny- haha", but more of a "funny- people are dead because of this man" type thing. Which is to say, not funny at all.

At his Labor Day anti-union rally last year, Massey CEO Don Blankenship attacked the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), claiming it “seeks power over coal miners.” He mocked both “Washington politicians” and local elected officials who attempt to ensure miner safety:

We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming.

You really need to thee the video in the link, he literally draped himself in the American flag when he said this. But it's interesting that he says that the idea that anyone cares more about safety than him is as silly as global warming. One, literally anyone in this country could be seen as caring more about miner safety, as long as they don't end up resetting the "greatest mining tragedy" record before Blankenship does.

Secondly, as silly as global warming? You mean an easily tested a proven theory that has the almost universal support of the scientific community? You're right, Don. That sounds almost as ludicrous an idea as letting someone who won't literally exchange bodies for money look after workers. I guess it's one of those far out ideas like "venting methane gas from a mine". I bet some egghead scientist told you that'd be a problem too. You sure showed them.

Not that it's all bad news and mining tragedies for Donny. He hit a bit of good luck today as Standard and Poor upgraded Massey stock from Hold to Buy, noting that the financial impact of a mine exploding and killing 29 people would be immaterial to the bottom line. Hey, sounds like Blankenship was vindicated. He can trade lives and safety for money. Good for him. I guess everything worked out.

Stay classy, Eric and the rest of the GOP

As Sean referenced in his post yesterday, the dead-enders of the teabagging spectrum of American politics are not taking the prospect of cheaper, more accessible health care well. In no small part egged on by the litany of right wing commentators and politicians calling majority enacting of broadly popular legislation tyranny, the end of civilization, the end of America, Armageddon, and calling for revolution or at least an armed insurrection, there has been an uptick in violence towards Democratic lawmakers who voted for the bill. Everything from bricks through windows, to phoned in death threats, to faxing nooses to lawmakers, to cutting the gas lines of the brother of Congressman Perriello, to mailing white powder to Anthony Weiner, it's really a cavalcade of dangerous low level right wing terrorism by petulant children. Catalog the ongoing stupidity at TPM.

And so the response from Democrats has been to condemn the attacks and ask that Republicans maybe tone down the insanity juuust a few notches, maybe stop the calls for a new American revolution, and downgrade the danger to society from complete apocalypse to minor Armageddon. So in turn John Boenher went out and released a statement affirming that bad things were bad and good things were good, but wanted you to understand that he knew bad things were bad. Thus the response from Democrats was "Uhhh... Ok" and they knew in their hearts that this was as much of an apology as they were going to get.

But apparently some memo has been going around the halls of Congress and the GOP has decided that they aren't coming across as big enough assholes during this run of violence, so Eric Cantor immediately followed up Boehner's vague speech with one placing the blame on where it truly lied: with Democrats.

"I've never blamed anyone in this body for that. Period. Any suggestion that a leader in this body that would incite threats or acts against other members is akin to saying that I would endanger myself, my wife or my children."

Cantor said a bullet was shot through the window of his Richmond, Va., campaign office this week, and that he's gotten threatening emails.
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"It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain," he said. He called out DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen and DNC Chair Tim Kaine by name as those who are "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon."

"To use such threats against members of congress is not a partisan issue," he said. "By ratcheting up the rhetoric some will only inflame these situations to dangerous levels."

There's video, so you can see that he actually said that with a straight face. Yes, it is not the people who are calling for revolution and heralding the end of all things that are to blame for violence, it's people who point out that the violence is politically motivated after the fact that are clearly to blame. And he's been subject to violence too! Not that he would ever stoop to politicizing it by politicizing it in a political speech about politicizing violence. Sure, police called bullshit on his claims and said that his "bullet attack" was just random and the result of a bullet, fired into the air, randomly coming down and striking his office. Don't you see how that's worse? Gravity is attacking Eric Cantor!

Soon, other Republicans were taking Cantor's ideas to heart and were out in full force blaming Democrats for this. Reps Price and Bachmann hit the airwaves to decry Democratic politicization of right wing fueled attacks. In the case of Tom Perriello, where a Tea Party activist deliberately posted up the address of Perriello's brother and told fellow teabaggers to "drop by", thinking it was Rep Perriello's house, and then, magically, a gas line got cut, the NRCC not only downplayed the violence but excused it and claimed that the real victims were those in Periello's district who would be harmed by cheaper health care. It should be noted that Periello's brother has a wife and 4 small children.

Way to keep it classy, GOP. I thought there wasn't a lower place you could go, but the inciting of violence and then tacitly endorsing it and excusing it when it happens, only stopping to blame victims, was something I didn't see coming. It was my mistake for thinking some shred of human decency existed when things like gas lines being cut, children being endangers, and anthrax threats were being made and you'd have some sort of discernibly human reaction. Guess not. Whatever, keep calling for revolution, uprisings, and coded statements about "showing lawmakers the will of the people... wink wink", I'm sure it has no connection to any of these attacks. Keep it classy. Maybe there will be an actual death soon for you to blame on the victim.

Depressing information about Iraq of the day

With lasts month's bombing attacks in Iraq that left 127 dead, an attack that killed 155 in October, bombings that killed 35 in August, and attacks over the weekend that killed at least 35, the question is asked "why don't Iraqis have better bomb detectors?" Well, they have the money, they just choose to spend it on fraudulent technology sold by monstrous crooks. Still.



$85 million was spent on this "technology" from a UK company that is now under arrest for fraud. But the "machines", car antennas hooked up to a device meant to detect department store theft, are still in use by an Iraqi government who still seems to think that they work.

So in case you were wondering why the security situation is still so unstable after this many years and why dozens of bombs seem to go off each month, just know that one of the pillars of our security strategy was hoping that magic detected car bombs. Don't worry though, I'm sure we'll get this figured out sometime in the next intervening decade we spend in Iraq.

Awwwwwwww

Citizens, several GOP Senators are steaming mad about something. No, it's not that we didn't escalate the war in Afghanistan enough or the fact that our health care system is about become socialist, far from it. It's that they're mad at Sen. Al Franken, because they voted against his little "rape is bad, people should be allowed to file charges over it" bill and some nasty people have used that to imply that they don't have sufficient consciences or functioning human souls. Also: that they love rape. So they've pushed back as best they can, crying as hard they can that mean Mr. Franken is hurting their feelings with his rape legislation.

The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.

“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
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In a chamber where relationship-building is seen as critical, some GOP senators question whether Franken’s handling of the amendment could damage his ability to work across the aisle.

Yeah, John, I know how it is. I feel for you. I mean I would feel pretty bent out of shape if people thought I was for rape just because I voted against a law that made it so that people who were raped while serving for a government contractor could sue to prosecute it in civil court. I mean rape is bad, but we can't go around allowing people to attempt to receive legal justice for it just because it happened. How anyone could try to turn your opposition into a view that you're somehow callous and uncaring towards rape victims is beyond me. It's like Franken took that bill and violated you with it against your will. There should be a law against something like that.

Really though, I just want to chastise all of you who think that this is just a bunch of petty, crybaby whining from the GOP. Clearly Franken is responsible for the court of public opinion deeming them scumbags just because they're trying to defend the indefensible. He should do what they want: apologize for trying to further criminalize rape and come out vigorously defending the 30 Senators who think prosecuting rape is a bridge too far. It's really the only logical solution.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.18

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again
The Independent recounts an epic story of several British Islamist jihadists who were trained in Afghanistan to fight against the West, but have since had a change of heart and are now trying to speak out about why they believed what they believed and have begun outreach work with other Islamic youth. That all sounds like a misprint. If we've learned anything over the past few days, its that once someone has come into contact with Islam, we must not allow them to come within contact of our judicial and legal system and preferably not even our soil. Shunning them plus a few bombing runs on their own country is the only way to beat back this menace.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
What? You mean to tell me that intellectual titans and honest brokers like Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and the "You Lie" jackass are having their health care speeches and public statements crafted by lobbyists opposed to health care reform? And that they aren't the only ones? It's almost as if they aren't concerned with the plight of Americans without health care and are instead only looking out for corporations and their donations. The international community still has the nerve to say we're only 19th in corruption? I just hope the lobbyists write them some extra good "freedom is dead" material for when health care reform does pass.

Cost of happiness discovered by Australian economist
Yes, a man has spent the time calculating the monetary equivalent of various milestones in life and the effect of money on happiness. For instance: a marriage makes a woman feel as if she has gained the equivalent of £8, 726.25, while it makes a man feel like he has gained the equivalent of £17, 675.68. Dr. Sean and I have conducted our own study in conjunction with the These Bastards Institute of Scientific Discovery and we have found that the cost of happiness is equal to that of the cost of the cheapest alcohol with the highest percentage of alcohol by volume and the cheapest hooker within walking distance. Take that, Australia.

Celebrating Revolution With Roots in a Rumor
A story that recounts the events that sparked the Czech revolution, and how it turns out that some of those events that inspired a nation to march and overthrow it's communist overlords was based on a lie. That's all well and good and even a little funny, but don't you think the honest thing to do would be to turn the country back over to the Politburo with a written apology? To continue on as is just strikes me as dishonest.

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record
For the first time ever a civilian supercomputer, the Jaguar, is the fastest supercomputer in the world. It's speed is 1.759 petaflops or 1,759 trillion calculations per second. What is a petaflop? Well, it's sort of like a gigabyte, but it's bigger and likes to touch children in their bathing suit areas. As this computer is 69% faster than the previous record holder and twice as fast as the 3rd fastest supercomputer, it is now the frontrunner to lead the machine intelligence against its human oppressors that house it in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Forget Skynet, Jaguar is our new master.

Stay classy, Pat

Man of God with thighs of steel, televangelist and canola oil hater Pat Robertson, on how God's true calling for him is to shamelessly exploit tragedy in the name of the baby Jesus, especially when Muslims are involved.

“Islam is...a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. ...So you are dealing with not a religion. You’re dealing with a political system. And I think we should treat it as such and treat its adherences as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group."

Pat, how Godly of you to take the Ft. Hood tragedy and use it to advocate for religious persecution. Shame you didn't think to follow through on that belief when Tim McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, George Tiller was murdered, or Eric Rudolph was blowing up all those abortion clinics and the Olympics. Ah well, most people don't tend to advocate for their own Government organized subjugation.

I'm sure your decrying of Islam as a political system didn't come between various pleas to your audience to vote a certain way, support certain politicians, or oppose certain legislation. I wonder if this is also your message when you meet with GOP leaders and political action committees to discuss strategy, outreach, and political operations? Maybe you're just mad they're encroaching on your territory. I'm just confused. I thought all this terrorism stuff was happening because of God's hate of the gays the the ACLU, not because Islam is a fake religious political party run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Or is it both? Like I said, I'm confused. Luckily God has blessed us with Pat Robertson, so he can explain it all to us.

Stay classy, insurance industry!

A Guardian Life Insurance Company executive explaining how people with health insurance who actually use that health insurance are enemies to be squashed. Especially those societal health care leeches we call "muscular dystrophy patients."

Ian Pearl has fought for his life every day of his 37 years. Confined to a wheelchair and hooked to a breathing tube, the muscular dystrophy victim refuses to give up.

But his insurance company already has.

Legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims, the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl's.

In an e-mail, one Guardian Life Insurance Co. executive called high-cost patients such as Mr. Pearl "dogs" that the company could "get rid of."

How dare this sick man try to infringe on the main objectives of a health insurance company (profit) with his pissant concerns that they provide the health insurance coverage he pays for. Some people just make me sick, though let me make it clear: not sick enough to use my health insurance. If I had any.

Someone want to remind me why we're working so hard to preserve the system of private health insurance?

Shocking

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has just written a book he's out there hawking. In the rush to promote the book there are many shocking and stunning revelations that are coming out....that aren't really that stunning or shocking.

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Oh my, he was pushed to raise those security alerts as part of a politically motivated fear campaign? Thanks for pointing out the blindingly obvious. Nice that you're trying to claim some sort of integrity and spine in this revelation. I mean you "almost resigned" over the complete politicization of terror alerts. Hey, isn't using the threat of terror, real or imagined, to advance your goals...uhh terrorism?

Still you can learn this, plus what I'm sure are some hoary old chestnuts about freedom, vigilance, and the majesty of the bald eagle, in Ridge's new book The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe Again. It turns out fake terror alerts are one of those ways to be safe and failing to say anything or do anything about it until a buck can be made counts as passing said test.

Who could have foreseen?

Sorry to break some bad news to you. But it turns out that our lawless system of rendition and torture may have had a few kinks in it's execution. I'm as surprised as you. But the important thing is that we acknowledge the problems, so that we may better correct them for the next time we decide all of this is a good idea. First problem to fix? Make sure the guys you hire to run your torture program are actual experts, just not two weekend masochists who low bid the project, had "no relevant scholarship", and who had to Google "brutal tactics" and "Chinese communists" and then took notes on what came up.

Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.

They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.

But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough.

On the bright side, I'm sure these two will be in for a harsh rebuke when the Justice Department decides to only look at low level operatives in the upcoming "comprehensive torture probe". Still this is yet another crushing blow to the belief that the Bush Administration was an evil bunch of Machiavellian plotters, unleashing their brilliantly diabolical plans onto an unsuspecting nation. It turns out they were just cheapskate sadists on a tight time schedule and they proceeded with their colossally reckless notions in the laziest and ham-handed way possible. They were allowed to succeed because of the general lazy cowardice and general incompetence of their supposed overseers in Congress.

Ouch, I'm going to need to sit down. It's always hard to come to grips with the fact that what you thought was a higher class of evil, turns out to be dime store evil mixed in with garden variety stupidity. Talk amongst yourselves.

Scraping the Scum from CNBC's talent pool

I think I'm starting to get a handle on this whole Financial Expert Television Personality thing...

Three years ago, when money flowed easily, Ronald G. Insana left CNBC to hang his own shingle as a hedge fund manager. Now, as he returns to television, he has but one misgiving about his foray into moneymaking.

“The one regret I have is we ended up losing money,” Mr. Insana said in a recent interview.

You really have to admire the sick cyclical nature of this process. Just as the network, much to the amusement of practically everyone, is having its lunch eaten by John Stewart on a daily basis, it goes out and re-hires someone who moonlights as the drunken captain of a hedge fund. To recap Mr. Insana's brave journey through the financial netherworld:

Step 1: Leave post as Financial Analyst at CNBC to make a pile of money.
Step 2: Instead, lose a pile of other people's money.
Step 3: Return to post as Financial Analyst at CNBC.
Step 4: Find new and exciting ways to lose other people's money.

[Ed Note: All steps involve profit for Mr. Insana.]

Didn't we pass a law requiring that these people, as well as those responsible for hiring them (twice) be flayed in public? No? Anyone care to explain why?

Paparazzi oppress those who actually deserve it

If there's another benefit to the financial collapse, and we are examining the silver linings today on TB, it's that paparazzi have moved their oppressive coverage, swarming locust masses, and constant video scrutiny to people who actually deserve it: crooked CEO's. It seems as the crisis worsens people want to see coverage shift from attempts to create eating disorders, traffic violations, and street level up angle crotch shots, to, well the same things....but focused at people who have stolen from us and bankrupted us instead of entertaining us.

The celebrity Web site TMZ and TV shows like “Extra” and “Inside Edition” are expanding their coverage of starlets and Hollywood break-ups to include billion-dollar business scandals and the economic collapse.
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TMZ, a Web site better known for unflattering paparazzi shots of Britney Spears and Rihanna, drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage with a blog post late last month that exclaimed, “Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.” The site reported that Northern Trust, a bank that received $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, had hosted hundreds of clients and employees at a golf tournament and a series of parties in Southern California. “Your tax dollars, hard at work,” the site wrote.
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Harvey Levin, the editor of TMZ, who called the story “the most important thing we’ve ever done,” knows his readers don’t come to the site for a dissertation on mortgage-backed securities. “It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around $800 billion in bailout money. It’s too big a thing,” he said. “It’s much easier to understand paying for a Sheryl Crow concert.”

“Britney is fluff,” said Rory Waltzer, a photographer for TMZ, “but the stories about Northern Trust and Madoff and politicians in D.C. really have an impact on the country.”

You just found that out now? You needed financial Ragnarok to let you know that driving Britney Spears to an emotional meltdown over a period of years wasn't actually important? One thing though, stop trying to claim a Sy Hersh/Murray Waas level of investigative journalism. You aren't actually trying to cover these stories as news, you just cover them the way you cover/humiliate Octomom or Paris Hilton. It's just that you're trying to get a shot of Madoff's bulge as he gets out of a car this go around. All you're doing is providing the maximum level of discomfort the law provides until they're convicted. Which is exactly what we want this time. We've moved from wanting to see our idols be dragged down to our level to seeing crooks get fucked with.

When this is all over you'll still be back covering Joaquin Phoenix's latest meltdown, not diving into the balance sheets of Fortune 500 companies to discover the next crisis. Stop confusing yourselves with Woodward and Bernstein and go fuck with Mrs. Madoff, she's still hoarding that stolen money.

Quote of the day: On mercy for Wall Street

"I was watching Rush Limbaugh the other night, and I was horrified. I would have Rush Limbaugh drawn and quartered. He was sticking up for these Wall Street pigs. [I think] there should be public show trials, mass denunciations and executions."

-- director-screenwriter John Milius

Seems my consternations and rantings against the moneyed whore elite are relatively tame by the writer of Dirty Harry, Apocalypse Now and Conan the Barbarian's standards. I just wanted to stick one or two bankers on the horns of the bull statue on Wall Street. Maybe public stockades. I am a comparative pacifist.

"Mr. Milius, what should we do with these Wall Street gutterfucks?"

"I wish to crush them, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their women."

The Loathsome

via Buffalo Beast comes their comprehensive list of the years 50 most loathsome people of 2008. From Barack Obama to Sarah Palin (what you thought someone else was going to be #1) they list the offenses and the prescribed punishment. Among the highlights:

50. Barack Obama
Charges: Beyond a few token acts of bipartisan marketing, Barry's major duty in the Senate was to avoid legislating, so he could pretend Washington-outsider status and nullify attacks on his non-existent policy positions.

Sentence: Presiding over the decline of an exhausted empire.

45. Nancy Pfotenhauer
Charges: A face so hewn can't be found in American politics outside of the Black Hills—or possibly the Speaker's office. The envy of any giraffe prostitute, her Coulterish neck suggests a correlation between head-shoulder distance and affinity for dissembling fascism.

39. Caroline Kennedy
Charges: A limp, lifeless, murmuring slouch whose dearth of vivacity makes John Kerry look like Richard Simmons, Kennedy has the apparent focus and charm of a shock therapy victim on Haldol.

28. Frank Caliendo
Charges: The retarded man's Rich Little, Caliendo has been irritating Americans for nearly a decade, gaining recognition as the implausibly fat impressionist on the lethally unfunny "MADtv".

Exhibit A: His TBS vehicle, "Frank TV," is the least amusing thing to appear on television since the morning of September 11, 2001.

7. Dick Cheney
Charges: Still alive.

Sentence: Eaten alive by baboons.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.11

Has Anyone Seen a Stray H-Bomb?
FYI, in 1968 a US B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed into the water off of Greenland's Thule Air Force Base. Only three of the bombs were recovered. As of now there is one unexploded H-Bomb sitting at the bottom of a frozen bay, unable to be found by us, the Brits, the Danes, or Greenlandianeers. Or so they would have us believe. Perhaps the UK is sitting on a classic, retro, vintage '68 US H-Bomb and wants to show it off to look cool. Maybe there's some mutant whale creature named Bjorn with a taste for haddock that's going to rise from the Baffin Bay to lay siege to the Queen of Denmark in her ice castle in the capital city of Nuuk. Maybe it'll just explode and drop half of Greenland or a giant ice shelf into the sea creating a massive tidal wave that destroys the eastern seaboard. Sleep tight!

Cosmic 'Dark Flow' Detected Across Billions Of Light Years
Some sort of gravitational pull that lies outside the known universe is pulling the known universe towards it at a speed of about 2 million miles per hour. They gave it a creepy name, "the dark flow", and I'm sure it will kill us all with it's unexplainable, outside the universe ghastliness. Perhaps it is God pulling us towards him with a string, perhaps another bully universe is flushing us down a cosmic toilet, maybe it's the gravitational pull of yo fat ass momma. The only question is will CERN kill us before it does?

Fred Phelps Plans to Picket Funeral of Obama's Grandmother
Degenerate piece of shit Fred Phelps (picketer of gays, the military, and Mr. Rogers) and his collection of mouth breathing God-fascists are planning to picket the funeral of President-elect Obama's grandmother. Crafty sorts that they are, they have contingency plans for whatever state the funeral takes place in. Hopefully the Secret Service wails on them with their government issue America batons. Or God causes them to realize the pathetic futility of their lives with a well timed lightning strike. Either or.

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks
Hey, hey, hey, while you weren't looking, fuck while no one was looking, Big Bank Hank Paulson illegally got rid of a law he didn't have the authority to get rid of that saves banks $140 billion by allowing them to set up shady tax shelters. Further more lawmakers weren't aware of this until recently and won't do anything about it because it might monkey with some of the mergers that went on. Did I mention it was totally illegal for Paulson to do this? Thank God he's in charge, otherwise we might not get totally fucked out of every cent in Washington. Could you at least use guns and masks to steal? It's slightly more respectable.

Notes from the human potentialist movement

ABC News delves further into the naughty bits of the sex scandal surrounding Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), who apparently is a raving, mean-spirited pussy hound of the highest order. Not only was he bedding multiple women for various reasons, he was making some rather interesting demands of his female staff...

The settlement was reached after Allen hired a lawyer who sent the Congressman a "demand" letter, listing specific examples of Mahoney's alleged "gross misconduct" and "stalking" including:

"a) Calling Allen late in the evenings and demanding "phone sex;"

b) Demanding that Allen answer his calls or face termination;

c) Demanding that Allen attend fundraisers and "tease c-ck" to bring in more donations from the male members of the public;

d) Demanding that Allen engage in sexual conduct with another woman for his enjoyment."

Think the secretary who drafted the letter on behalf of Allen's attorney got through without laughing? I bet he/she kept a copy. I would. Normally you have to shell out ten bucks for a trashy trade paperback if you want to read shit like this.

Be sure to listen to the tape hosted on ABC's site.

New American lows: Yoo/Bybee II

The ACLU was able to get the release of the infamous Yoo/Bybee II memo that outlined acceptable interrogation techniques for prisoners held by the CIA outside US borders. Yoo/Bybee I contended that it would only be illegal for interrogators to inflict pain if "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death" were to happen. It's heavily redacted, almost to the point of completely being blackened.

One of the more stunning sentences that got through was a little one that stated "To validate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering...Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture. ... We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent."

Catch that? As long as the intent is to get information then anything you do is legal. As long as severe pain is only a byproduct of information gathering, it's legal. Unless you're a serial killer who silently tortures first, this basic standard applies to anyone who has ever committed torture. Our standard is now "At least be asking him about al Qaeda or something while you're crushing his scrotum." The other standard is that it had to occur outside the US, which is why the CIA ran (and still might run) black sites in countries such a Poland, Romania and Uzbekistan.

In case you had any illusions to the contrary: America did torture, is torturing, will continue to torture as long as Bush is in office. Or as Major General Antonio Taguba wrote, in the preface to a Physicians for Human Rights torture study on former US detainees, "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes."

In your name.