The greatest internal threat to our country

Some would say that terrorism is the greatest threat to our country, others would say the financial crisis, the unchecked power of the Presidency, the abandoning of civil liberties, our foreign policy, or Dick Cheney hopped up on mescaline and methamphetamine stalking the streets with a rifle and a license to kill. Others would just laugh off these so called 'threats' and point to our greatest national horror and potential for crisis: the competent, experienced, diverse, and strong willed individuals that Obama has selected as advisers. You don't even know the kind of trouble these assholes could get us into.

President-elect Barack Obama is assembling a new and influential cadre of counselors just steps from the Oval Office whose power to direct domestic policy will rival, if not exceed, the authority of his Cabinet.

Presidents have long strived to centralize influence in the White House, often to the frustration of their Cabinet secretaries. But not since Richard M. Nixon tried to abolish the majority of his Cabinet has a president gone so far in attempting to build a West Wing-based clutch of advisers with a mandate to cut through -- or leapfrog -- the traditional bureaucracy.

Obama's emerging "super-Cabinet" is intended to ensure that his domestic priorities -- health reform, the environment and urban affairs -- don't get mired in agency red tape or brushed aside by the ongoing economic meltdown and international crises. Half a dozen new White House positions have been filled by well-known leaders with experience navigating Washington turf wars.

But some see the potential for chaos within the administration.

Damn his eyes! How dare he make sure that his priorities like universal health care don't get mired in bureaucratic red tape or ignored as the focus turns to the raging tire fire that is the economy. Making sure priorities get passed......that way leads to madness. And nominating experienced hands who know how to navigate the corridors of power and through turf wars? What the fuck was he thinking?

Worse yet are his plans to try to co-ordinate vast policies that span a myriad of agencies, like environmental policy or health care policy, with one "quarterback" who will help manage and implement the larger goals with interdepartmental co-operation. Someday we'll look over this smoldering wreckage of planning, co-ordination, integration, implementation, and focus and wonder......why didn't anyone sound the alarm bells? Why couldn't things have been done in the opposite way, like during the Bush Administration? Well, you warned us Washington Post. You did.

Obama to America: "Don't kill yourselves...yet."

Obama Economic Speech: Warns Of Dire Consequences Without Stimulus

President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday the recession could "linger for years" unless Congress pumps unprecedented sums from Washington into the economy.

"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech set to be delivered at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., outside Washington. Excerpts from his prepared text were released in advance by his transition team.

It was the fourth day in a row that Obama has addressed this front-burner issue and it was the highest-profile appearance yet on an issue that can define his early months in office.

You hear that? It isn't too late. Take the noose off of your neck, pull your head out of the oven, back the car with your kids in it out of the lake and just forget that story you concocted about a generic ethnic minority kidnapping them. There's still time! All we need is to come together and pass an economic stimulus. Which of course means we have to turn it over to Congress, which of course means we'll have to watch Harry Reid get dicked around by Mitch McConnell so that we can get more top 1% tax cuts and a capital gains cut into this stimulus.

Of course Obama has already seen this eventuality and thus has decided to make tax cuts up to 40% of his proposal. A plan that Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman sees as more than a little troubling. More specifically, he says we'll have an 8% gap in GDP that the stimulus has to fill, Obama's plan only calls for 3%, and the fact that it's taken up by "ineffective" (for a stimulus) tax cuts is a problem. But Obama's plan is to get 80 votes in the Senate, which is nice and an absolute fantasy. Shouldn't the "greatest crisis since the Great Depression sexed up the eighties collapse" be more concerned with....I don't know...fixing the problem instead of providing a plausible "They voted for it too" cover for 2010 and 2012 elections?

So there we are, there's still time to avoid the apocalypse (financial, not robot) if we pass the stimulus that expert economists say isn't enough and too cluttered with ineffective incentives in a sure to fail attempt to get a minority party to jump on board. Excited?

Finally, a bailout we can get behind

And on top of. And underneath. And parallel to, with both me and the bailout on our sides, spoon-like, so that I can pretend to be doing a lot of work when really I'm just resting and nibbling on the bailout's neck and saying nice things so the bailout thinks I'm all sensitive and shit.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

I'll go on record as saying that I don't disagree with Flynt's logic: people are happier when they're fucking and porn makes people want to fuck. Or, at least, render them deeply depressed at the thought that they probably won't be fucking anytime soon. And what are sad, self-conscious people, America? They're good consumers, that's what. Look no further than the bars, liquor stores, candy aisles, and soon-to-be-empty-again gyms all over this great land of ours if you doubt me.

Trouble is, most of the people who watch a lot of porn -- naturally, Matthew and I would know nothing about this -- tend to a) not pay for it in the first place and b) fall asleep soon thereafter, usually about halfway through Big Trouble in Little China. So Flynt is neither getting paid nor encouraging procreation. But it's not as though he cares much about the latter so long as the former is in sight.

Still, very funny. And a fitting satirical tribute to the last few months. Cheers, Larry. You can piss away my tax dollars on pills any day of the week. Beats what GM is likely to do with them.

Bush: petulant to the very end

President-Elect Obama made a request of George W. Bush: stop fucking up the country if it would be alright if his family moved into Blair House, the official state guest house of the White House/State Deptartment, one week earlier than scheduled so that the Obama daughters could start school on time. This request was turned down on the grounds that the White House claimed Blair House was already booked with a guest and they couldn't move in. So the Obama's had to live in a hotel for two weeks instead.

Of course it turns out that, at the time they rejected the request, no one was scheduled to stay at Blair House. When pressed into actually finding a guest to stay there so they didn't look like total classless, lying scumbags, the White House invited John Howard, former PM of Australia, to stay there for his Medal of Freedom ceremony so they could plausibly claim a resident. His stay length? One day. And for the other two Medal recipients, Tony Blair and Colombian guy? They made hotel arrangements. Clearly Blair House can only fit one man and then that fucks up the whole rest of the week so no one else can stay there.

Did I mention that Blair House has 119 rooms and 35 bathrooms, is actually four separate but connected townhouses, is secure and wouldn't cause extra security problems and costs that a two week stay in a hotel would? I forgot that. So congratulations George, I think that just about seals up your Presidency: completely self absorbed and completely petty 'til the last embers burned out. Before you leave. remember to shit in the Presidential bedroom toilet and not flush. Maybe get John Howard to do it.

We salute you.

Broken In Brief: Burris stakes claim for lamp, end table

WASHINGTON--After his attempt to seize the senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama was rebuffed by Congress, former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris publicly claimed ownership of two floor lamps and a brass doorknob that were left behind in Mr. Obama's office and moved to claim an ornate end table gifted by the Prime Minister of Fiji and placed just outside the office entrance of the junior senator from Illinois.

Burris, who was appointed to the senate seat by Illinois Governor Rod "I'm so corrupt, I shit Daleys" Blagojevich, was told upon arriving at the Capitol that his credentials were not in order and that he would not be seated with the 111th Congress.

"Frankly, we are dismayed." said Burris attorney Timothy W. Wright III. "We intend to avail ourselves of the justice system and pursue this seat with everything at our disposal. In the interim, Mr. Burris plans to lay hands on Ted Kennedy's decanter, a couple of duvet covers, and a jar of that stuff they use to keep Nancy Pelosi's skin tight. I think it's beet juice. Anyone who tries to deny him these items is denying the will of the voters."

Efforts to get Mr. Burris on the record were rebuffed as the Senator-Select was busy trying to figure out the proper seat configuration in his Ford Windstar so that he could fit both the end table and his entire entourage inside. The final configuration was rumored to be both back seats down and Mr. Burris' press secretary sitting on the lap of Mr. Wright.

It's not my fault: Madoff edition

THE SEC WATCHDOG WHO MISSED MADOFF

The Securities and Exchange Commission's New York watchdog, under fire for failing to uncover Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme - despite a dead-on tip by a whistleblower - yesterday tearfully defended herself, arguing that she and the agency did the best job possible.

"Why are you taking a mid-level staff person and making me responsible for the failure of the American economy?" an upset Meaghan Cheung, with eyes tearing up, told The Post.

"I worked very hard for 10 years to make a career, and a reputation, and that has been destroyed in a month," said Cheung, who was the SEC's branch chief of the New York enforcement division during that unit's earlier probe of Madoff's brokerage business.

The 37-year-old has been singled out by whistleblower Harry Markopolos as the woman who failed to detect the scam despite his lengthy warnings. It was Cheung who signed off on a 2006 SEC investigation that effectively gave Madoff the all clear.

First off, you are a Branch Chief. That's not mid-level. Secondly, you received extremely specific warnings about the exact type of scheme Madoff was running and you failed to even come anywhere close to finding out what happened, in fact you said everything was on the level. Ponzi schemes are possibly the easiest fraud schemes to figure out and bust. The fraud behind a Ponzi scheme is that they don't have the amount of money or holdings that they say they do. Whether or not they are telling the truth is a matter of you looking at what they claim they hold and then going to the custodian/banks who are holding all that money/filthy lucre and seeing if the numbers match up. You couldn't even do that.

Boo hoo, you fucked up horrifically. Of course your career should take a drubbing. Despite a detailed map, flashlight, and a sherpa, you couldn't hack it up the mountain. Maybe you're an idiot, maybe you didn't want to take on the guy who was buddy-buddy with everyone important in the financial industry, including the SEC. Either way you told everyone the guy who defrauded people for $50 billion was squeaky clean, despite him running one of the oldest, most obvious, and most easily verifiable scams in the books. You didn't notice any of this, but it wasn't your fault. Thanks for taking responsibility and showing so much dignity, somewhere there's a four year old who's embarrassed for you.

Someone explain this past election to Harry Reid

Finally the Democrats aren't going to get steamrolled. Finally they're going to stand up to the President and say "No, we will not be your lapdogs anymore!' Finally they are going to exercise authority and oversight. It's just that they're going to do it against the guy who shares their political beliefs and is going to try and pass many of the same plans they also agree with. Guh?

Reid, who lambasted the GOP-led Congress for being a rubber stamp for President Bush, indicated that he will not bow to the Obama administration.

Reid stated, “I don't believe in the executive power trumping everything... I believe in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government.”

“If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. … I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him,” he said.

Uh, Harry? Who is you work for then? Because judging from the last few years, it isn't the American people, or the people who elected you, or registered Democrats. It's nice though that you decided to move from enabling a historically unpopular President with his historically unpopular and at most times illegal polices, to sandbagging a popular recently elected President who shares the same priorities that you allegedly profess to hold.

Boy, this makes me excited for the next two years. A feckless moron who got steamrolled by Republicans every step of the way and just this week figured out a way to get a man legally certified as the winner of the Minnesota election not seated, announces his intentions to show independence just at the time he should be gearing up to help out. Is it too late to get him removed as Majority Leader? He hasn't succeeded at anything and I have no idea how he got the position in the first place. Republicans, you telling me you can't run someone against him? Are there no Nevada Republicans? Help us out. It's just nice to know that when they finally win, there are always enough Democrats ready to cock that big gun and point it squarely at their foot. Congrats Harry, you found a spine, bring it over here so I can hit you with it.

Entitled political heir objects to maneuvers of entitled political heir

So it seems that someone has finally started to push back on the idea that you should name Caroline Kennedy to the NY Senate seat because her last name is Kennedy. Who is this brave soul valiantly trying to put the brakes on the nomination? Andrew Cuomo, who's more than a little torqued that she cut in front of him, is usurping his throne, and just in general all pissy that there's one prestigious last name in New York that's more famous than his. This will not stand, man.

Even as Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo insisted he was staying out of the competition for New York’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, a top Cuomo aide urged labor leaders and upstate officials to refrain from embracing Caroline Kennedy for the job, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Two of the people, including a prominent upstate Democratic operative, said the Cuomo aide, Joseph Percoco, had suggested the upstate officials give Ms. Kennedy a cold reception and had questioned her credentials.

“He said, ‘Don’t you think it should be someone who understands upstate? Don’t you think it should be someone with experience? Shouldn’t it be somebody who knows New York better?’ ” said the operative, who spoke anonymously out of fear of antagonizing the attorney general. “They’ve been trying to feed people.”

Shouldn't it be the person with the last name of a father who served the state more recently? I mean Mario Cuomo was Governor in 1994, I don't recall John F. Kennedy doing anything of note since late 1963. These legacy kids get rough when these offices of inheritance come up. Legally I don't know what claim Cuomo has on a Senator's seat, his father was Governor and thus he is the rightful heir to Patterson. Bobby Kennedy was a New York Senator, so that means Caroline has some sort of claim on the seat, but only if Robert Kennedy Jr doesn't step forward to take it. He hasn't so we're all clear on that front. I think that Caroline's move is legal under the Monarchical Succession provisions of the Magna Carta.

Listen, instead of all this political back biting and snippy calls to legislators, why don't we settle this the old fashioned way? You both sharpen your silver spoons to prison shiv quality knifing implements, meet in front of the statehouse, and have a 'to the death' shank off. Or have your butlers do it for you. Only then will we know who is ready to lead.

Say it ain't so, Jebbers

Jeb Bush Not Running For Senate In Florida

Jeb Bush has announced that he is not running for Senator from Florida, dealing a blow to the GOP's chances to hold on to their open seat here.

Jeb told the Associated Press that his brother's poor poll numbers were not a factor: "While I'm proud of my brother and I love my brother ... people know that I'm Jeb Bush and I don't think that would have been a problem."

Is this the end of the dynasty? I'm apoplectic. I don't know what I'll do without you all in my life....slowly ruining it with your shoddy ideas. I just can't believe it.

Boyz, give the Bush family a proper send off.

CIA slapfight

What's the most important story today? Inter-party squabbles over who told what when over Barack Obama's choice to lead the CIA, Leon Panetta. You see the media got word that Panetta, a former Clinton White House Chief of Staff and the OMB director, was the pick for CIA head and blared it all over the place. This of course ruffled the feathers of outgoing Senate Intel Chair Rockefeller and Diane Feinstein because Obama didn't tell them before the media got wind and broke the story. So the nomination might be in jeopardy. Because Washington is a place run by adults.

The surprise selection of Panetta, a former California congressman and chief of staff to President Clinton, would give Obama a CIA director with loyalty to the White House and an experienced managerial hand to steer the administration away from potential intelligence scandals.
...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who this week begins her tenure as the first female head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was not consulted on the choice and indicated she might oppose it.

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director," Feinstein said. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

A senior aide to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the senator "would have concerns" about a Panetta nomination.

Of note, the people that were unequivocally agreeable to Feinstein and Rockefeller, to whom which raised no concerns: Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld, Michael Hayden, and Feinstein also backed Porter Goss and Michael Mukasey. Of note is their claim that they want a career intel professional in charge, which is interesting since that's never really seemed to be a concern before. But more interesting is trying to find a career CIA man who isn't entangled in the CIA's policies of torture and rendition, policies which Feinstein and Rockefeller didn't actually oppose and, despite some tough talk, completely buckled when it came time to actually do anything.

Panetta? He's unequivocally against torture, rendition and all that shit decent people find objectionable. He's also run a giant Government bureaucracy and helped steer a President through national security and foreign policy waters. So of course he's unqualified and raises concerns. But I guess Barry made a mistake, he didn't hand hold the children enough before the press leaked something and now they're mad that Obama didn't make the horrible, torture riddled choice they wanted him to make. Barry, hand out the "Pobody's Nerfect" cookies, look sheepish, and pretend to care about what two people (whose stewardship of the Intel Committee has been abysmal) think about your choices.

Antonio Vazquez Alba: The Face of Truth

All this time, we were wrong. Progressives around the world, and especially here at home, have been railing against the excesses of American military might permitted under Bush's doctrine of preemption. Many of us were uneasy about Afghanistan. Most of us fought to prevent Iraq. We've criticized policy decisions and pistol whipped the Bush administration at every turn, convinced that daddy issues were simply not justification enough for the losses in blood, treasure, and international goodwill.

We were misled:

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's self-proclaimed "Grand Warlock" says the United States will pull troops out of Iraq in 2009 and send them to the border with Mexico in an attempt to expand its territory.

We need to regroup, focus our energies. The campaign against this colonial effort will surely be long and brutal. But we have moral authority, god, and a fucking warlock on our side and we will not be defeated. Join us!

Above, Antonio Vazquez Alba, level 70 Mexican Warlock

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.

Poor bastards lament non-Kennedy status

This morning, via the New York Times, we learn of a sad tale. People without famous last names who want to be Senator of New York now that Hillary has moved on to her position of saying "The Israelis did what?" The sheer amount of repressed rage and positive assessments of Queen Caroline VIII through gritted teeth on display are enough to make you wonder if one of the also rans is going to take a swing at our appointed better. All I'm saying is that the reporter had to edit out a lot of curse words that these people muttered under their breath.

It is not easy competing with a Kennedy. This axiom of American politics has been true for more than half a century.

But nowhere is it more obvious than in New York nowadays, where United States Representatives Steve Israel and Carolyn B. Maloney, who both aspire to the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, have followed the lead of Caroline Kennedy and crisscrossed the state in a campaign-style dash through city halls, train stations and offices of local party leaders.

They have variously invited reporters to lunch, cheerfully passed around cream-filled pastries and publicized every stop on their schedules, but still attracted scant attention compared with the heiress to America’s most storied political dynasty.

Mr. Israel was greeted by four reporters Monday afternoon at the Mar-Logg Restaurant in Utica, where patrons barely seemed to notice as he held court in the rear of the diner. He said the low-key reaction did not trouble him.

What's worse, knowing you have no chance versus a Kennedy, or knowing that you still have no chance after her horrible stint of interviews, entitled air of "Why do I even have to do anything other than tell the Governor I want it", and Palin-esque media rollout? So listen, you are going to have to change your names or at least pretend that your name is famous for some reason.

If you don't want to become a Cuomo, Rockefeller, or Sharpton, then Steve I think you're going to have to claim you invented Israel. That might not be the most popular thing right now, but how many Palestinians can vote in a New York election? There definitely aren't any Palestinians in the Governor's mansion. Carolyn, just go by your first name and hope everyone confuses you with the other Caroline. As long as no one reads the name in print and only hears it audibly you have a shot. You could just waltz up to the Governor say "I'm Carolyn, give me the seat I want" and get it and if you can do a good impression of a Kennedy, you'll be able to get by Patterson. He sure as hell won't be able to visually ID you. His dog might figure out what's up, but I'm betting there's no 'fraud' bark. Otherwise? You have no hope, it was preordained when you fell out of the wrong vagina. Blame your mother.

US Awards Season

Bush Chooses Uribe, Blair, Howard For Medal Of Freedom

President George W. Bush is giving the nation's highest civilian award to three foreign leaders who have been among his most loyal partners on the world stage, particularly in the Iraq war.

Bush is awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and to two former leaders: former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Bush is conferring the prestigious award on his friends in an East Room ceremony on Jan. 13 _ exactly one week before he leaves office, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday.

"The president is honoring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad," she said. "All three leaders have been staunch allies of the United States, particularly in combating terrorism."

Ah yes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Cable Ace Award of American honors. Whenever you need to attempt to save face for your terrible policies you hand out the Medal of Freedom in an attempt to pretend you're awarding them for success and not a one day headline. Blair and Howard are being awarded for their complete and total sycophancy during the war on terror and the extreme lengths to which they would ignore their own people and governments in their fruitless support of our boy wonder and his Iraqi adventure. In an unrelated observation, both of them were driven from office. Howard by the voters and Blair by his own party in an attempt to stave off retribution by the voters.

Alvaro Uribe is getting the award because Bush really wants Congress to pass a free trade agreement with Colombia. A man with drug trafficking links, paramilitary links, and bribery charges, getting an award for his human rights work. Which is good, unless you are a worker in his country trying to unionize, then you get your skull cracked. But you know who I feel sorry for? Everyone who got this award from Truman's creation of it to Clinton. These people were honored and probably genuinely excited to receive the honor. Then Bush ran in and turned it into a punchline. So congrats, you've received a devalued honor. Maybe you can sell it for scrap if you fall on hard times.

Proud moments in American publishing: Laura Bush edition

The New York Observer reported today that Simon & Schuster paid two-fitty an undisclosed amount at auction last month for the right to publish Laura Bush's memoir under its Scribner imprint. While neither author nor publisher have been forthcoming about either the book's content or the amount forked over for the rights, odds are a typical passage will disclose the First Lady's tactics for rebuffing advances by Paul Wolfowitz, what to tell your anvil-smart daughter after pictures of her doing tequila slammers in Cabo San Lucas surface in the tabloids, and how many boilermakers it takes to make the pain stop. I also suspect the printed book will be complemented by an audio version for George to read.

Harrison ascendant

Harrison has death grip on defensive award

Linebacker James Harrison, the best player on the NFL's best defense, won The Associated Press 2008 Defensive Player of the Year award.

The announcement was made Monday.

Harrison, whose career-high 16 sacks set a team record, also led the NFL with a career-high seven forced fumbles. He beat Dallas' DeMarcus Ware in balloting by a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcaster. Pittsburgh's latest version of the Steel Curtain was the league's stingiest in total defense, pass defense and points allowed.

Harrison earned 22 votes to 13 for Ware.

Congrats to the scariest man in football, perennial holding victim, and strip sack super-God James "Deebo/Silverback" Harrison. He is the fifth Steelers to win the award following in the footsteps of Mean Joe Greene (1974), Mel Blount (1975), Jack Lambert (1976) and Rod Woodson (1993). LB James Farrior placed second in 2004. According to NFL.com Harrison got 22, Ware 13, Ed Reed got 8, Albert Haynesworth got 5, and Steeler Safety Troy Polamalu got 2. Harrison also picked up 3 MVP votes last week and zero votes for Longsnapper of the Year.

Well done, now go eat Philip Rivers raw on Sunday.

Burris and Blagojevich made for each other

The newly ordained Senator from Illinois, Roland Burris, has decided that being the loathed appointee of a shamelessly crooked governor's aborted seat selling bid wasn't enough, he needed to rub people's noses in shit too. He took to the pulpit to decree that you can have the Senate seat back when all the racists that oppose him pry it from his cold dead hands.

Burris and his backers described his future in religious terms, saying his move to the U.S. Senate is preordained.

"Friends, we're going to have to have some powerful prayer. . . . They can't deny what the Lord has ordained,'' said Burris at New Covenant Baptist Church, 740 E. 77th, surrounded by ministers, politicians and activists.

That's right, the Lord has ordained Burris' selection. The Lord and not some helmet haired douche whose pathetic attempt to stay relevant, profess his innocence, and attempt to slum for black votes in a prospective jury pool ordained this choice. Burris then went on to profess his deep humility and the fact that in the entire state of Illinois there was no one who existed that was a better choice then him. Then his supporters decided to get all classy again over Harry Reid's supposed claim that he will not seat anyone Blaggy picks.

"How can Harry Reid determine who can get elected to what in Illinois?" Davis said at another rally for Burris. "The African-American community's not going to roll over and play dead. That day is long gone."

Elected? That's one way of putting it. The more accurate way is selected. The most accurate way is to say selected by a crook whose extreme corruption tainted any choice he could have possibly made. Plus, while I don't know much about the black community, I'm not sure they're all about standing up for a white criminal's right to make shady appointments to vacated seats.

But there we are, Pay Rod made his choice and his choice has gone about conducting himself with all the class one would expect from a Blagovevich selectee and with all the tact and subtlety of someone who screams fire in a crowded theatre. Thumbs up Illinois, you made it all possible.

Bill Richardson hides behind tree, doesn't wanna be Commerce Secretary

So the Obama Transition has hit a bumpy patch. THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN AMERICA, Commerce Secretary, will need a new Caesar. Bill Richardson, last seen in the middle of a Asian/Latino streetfight over his nomination, will abdicate his throne at Versailles and return to the swamps of New Mexico. The reason? Some minor investigation into a transportation contract that he'll be exonerated for in a few months.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson abandoned his nomination to become commerce secretary under pressure of a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to his political donors _ an investigation that threatened to embarrass President-elect Barack Obama.

Richardson insisted he would be cleared in the investigation and Obama stood by the governor as an "outstanding public servant." But both men said it has become clear that a grand jury probe would not be finished in time for Richardson's confirmation hearings and could keep him from filling the post in a timely matter.

Richardson's withdrawal was the first disruption of Obama's Cabinet process and the second "pay-to-play" investigation that has touched Obama's transition to the presidency. The president-elect has remained above the fray in both the case of arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the New Mexico case.

Well done HuffPo, way to bring up Blagojevich as if Obama has been connected to him in any way. But really, that's why Richardson is out? An investigation that will be happening while he gets confirmed? Really? What'd he really do? Murder a kid he was molesting? Sell our precious commerce secrets? Start nuclear testing at Alamogordo again? A Larry Craig-esque gay sex bathroom Riverdance? Perhaps this is all the result of when he grew that beard and went all evil-Spock on the country.

So we are down a public servant and Obama is shamed on the national stage and may have irrevocably damaged his Presidency and thus the country with this misstep. As the nation tries to move on and heal from this revelation of withdrawaling, we look to our next Commerce Secretary, appointed by God to rule over us, to show us the way. Possible appointments? I don't know.........some minority or woman that they need to use to shore up some ethnic vulnerability in some support group that didn't get gladhanded enough post-election. Maybe a gay/minority two-fer. It is an important position after all.

The billion dollar fun palace opens

US Inaugurates New $700 Million Embassy In Baghdad

The United States inaugurated its largest embassy ever in the heart of the Green Zone on Monday, officially opening the fortress-like compound that was built as a testament to America's commitment to Iraq.

Addressing an inauguration ceremony under tight security, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the $700 million embassy was testimony to America's long-term friendship with Iraq, where about 146,000 U.S. troops are deployed.

"From this embassy in the years to come, we look forward to building our partnership and contributing to the future," Crocker said.

Iraqi's were so excited that they set off five simultaneous celebration fireworks displays located directly in cars, surrounding people, at various random points in Baghdad including a Shiite shrine. The fortified compound embassy is state of the art and contains so many necessary daily amenities, like housing, gyms, pools, restaurants, guards, and a marine battalion so that no one stationed at the embassy will ever have to venture into Iraq for any reason. Never ever ever ever ever. That place is fucking dangerous.

Of course our future partnership with Iraq will consist of us awkwardly coughing, then slowly backing out of the country while shrugging and nervously laughing. Our leaving will be heralded by the Iraqi's until they realize the job we did training their police and army. By that time we'll have moved America and left no forwarding address.

But in case you were wondering, yes Virginia, we did build a monument to our failure. It cost $700 million and is the world's only hubris themed amusement park.

Al Franken ascendant

So the Minnesota recount is finally over and done in a speed that makes Russia's withdrawal out of Georgia seem swift. Funnyman Al Franken will be certified as the winner of the election by a massive landslide of 225 votes, cuing up the imminent Scanner-style exploding of Bill O'Reilly's melon. This of course means that Franken will be able to take his place in the Senate around...oh...say never.

The state Canvassing Board was poised to certify the results of the recount in Minnesota's grueling Senate election in Al Franken's favor _ but that doesn't mean the race is definitely over.

The board was to meet Monday and was expected to declare which candidate received the most overall votes from nearly 3 million ballots cast. The latest numbers showed Franken, a Democrat, with a 225-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who led Franken on election night.

But after the announcement, there will be a seven-day waiting period before an election certificate is completed. If any lawsuits are filed during that waiting period, certification is conditional until the issue is settled in court.

That's right, Coleman still has to file countless numbers of lawsuits and drag this out to the bitter end. Of course the major lawsuit he wants to file is over the matter of a number of ballots that Coleman claims were double counted but no one else seems to agree with. The number of ballots he says were counted twice? 150. Meaning that if he's right, he still loses.

In the Senate, Chuck Schumer has said that they should honor the results of Minnesota's election and seat Franken. Republican Senator John Cornyn finds that legally seating the certified winner of an election to be "troubling" and has vowed to filibuster any attempt to seat Franken until Norm Coleman is able to jack his lawyer's billable hours into the millions. Of note is the fact that Franken is Democratic Senator number 59. John Cornyn is a man of rules and laws, but also making sure he'll be able to stall shit with impunity. So as we see Minnesota will never legally have two Senators, they get one from now on.

Things you need to know

You can watch Darren Aronofsky's submission for the Most Depressing Movie Ever Awards, 2000's Requiem For A Dream, on Hulu. That is if you don't mind "ass to ass", Jared Leto's arm getting sawed off in prison, nude Marlon Wayans, and all the fucked up shit in that movie being broken up by ads for debt consolidation, getting kids interested in the arts, the Honda Civic, and Go-Gurt. I'm sure all these companies are glad to have paid for promotional consideration to get their ads inserted every 20 minutes into a bleak film about addiction. Especially the 'getting kids interested in the arts' people.

Also available: Howard the Duck, Gattaca, and Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. Enjoy.

It is written...

Next Sunday, 4:30, Heinz Field.

versus

Yinz Stillers vs. the Chargers. Playoff football.

Picture of the day

Priced to own

In what is surely the surest sign of a depressed economy, it turns out that Crawford Texas, fake home of our scamp in chief, is going through a bit of an economic downturn. It seems there just isn't a market for kitschy, cheap shit with Bush's face and "Western White House" slathered on it. Luckily for you, if you want to build that monument to the absentee landlord presidency you'll be able to do it at deeply discounted prices.

Already a couple of souvenir shops in Crawford have closed as the Bush boom started to peter out over the past year and as the nation turned its attention on the new race for the White House. For the two remaining shops, things have slowed to a trickle.

There's up to 30 per cent off prices at the Yellow Rose, a cavernous place on the corner of the main intersection in town. Mugs, T-shirts and beer coolers badged with a presidential seal and the words "western White House" are flanked by life-sized cardboard cutouts of the President. Businessman Billy Johnson, 67, wearing a cowboy hat, jeans and boots, says he hopes the tourists will keep coming.

"You never know," he says, adding that he is just a steward of the store. Who owns it then? "He does," he says in a Texas drawl and pointing skyward.

"You can't tell what is going to happen next, we are kind of playing it by ear."

So goes the heartbreaking story from the Australian, America's source for Crawford gift shop news. So I want you all to pause, pour a little out of your 40 of OE, and mourn the passing of an industry. No more easy money off of "Western White House" hats, "Impeach Bush" mugs, or some shirt with the gruesome visage of Dick "Dick" Cheney. Crawford is just the tip of the iceberg, this downturn could affect upwards of a dozen people. So buy up those discounted angry t-shirts now, it'll be a few weeks before Obama provides enough material for a non-racist sarcastic bumper sticker.

You stay classy Fox News

In this the spirit of the new year, we find that even Fox News is optimistic for what is to come, hopeful that our new President will be able to lead us through these tough times.

If you didn't catch it, the message scrolling across the screen was: HAPPY NEW YEAR AND LET'S HOPE THE MAGIC NEGRO DOES A GOOD JOB. LOVE JEN AND JOHN C.

No, happy new year and good magic Negro tidings to you, Jen and John C. Magic Negro tidings to us all, every one.