Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure at his summer home in Maine on Monday, causing a fall that resulted in minor scrapes, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.
He will remain in a hospital in Maine overnight.
Cop goes apeshit over upside down flag, assaults citizens
The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office arrested activists Mark and Deborah Kuhn in West Asheville Wednesday morning after a complaint that the couple was desecrating an American flag. They say a deputy invaded their home and used excessive force.
If you think this is an isolated example of this behavior, I’ve got a nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
His brand of substance-free pussified blowhard sociopathy fits right in with the modern GOP. I can’t imagine why he doesn’t have more followers.
The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamuss rather visceral protest.
Let me repeat: rather than kennel his animal or make room in the car, he strapped it to the roof for a 12 hour drive. 12. hours.
Samuel Walker saw combat in Iraq firsthand: He was splattered with human flesh and shrapnel in a dining hall when a suicide bomber blew himself up just a few feet away.
When Walker got back to the U.S., he brought some of the battlefield home with him. He heard phantom screams in broad daylight, smelled gunpowder that wasn’t there. A loud noise would send him into a defensive crouch. He’d been eating French fries in the mess hall at the time of the blast, and the sight of a McDonald’s restaurant now brought back violent memories.
Two doctors diagnosed Walker with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, directly related to his close encounters with violence in Iraq.
But Walker was not a combat soldier. He was a civilian recreation supervisor for KBR, the largest contractor in Iraq. And instead of getting the medical and counseling help he sought, Walker, a U.S. Army veteran, found himself caught in a morass of red tape and rejected insurance claims.
I post this for a few reasons including, inter alia, our country’s inability to treat mental illnesses as illnesses, the ridiculousness of our so-called “health-care system”, my interest in (and prediction that) the major systemic healthcare burden for our veterans (contactors included) is going to become increasingly psychology-focused rather than physicality-focused as field medical technology and other protective war tech preserves people’s bodies but leaves our minds as exposed as they’ve always been, and that the government has essentially been paying for Huguenots, but refuses to acknowledge them as such (no VA for you, buddy!)
That may be a record for longest run-on in the history of this blog. Probably.
Too bad this one is that the zombies of America have stuck us with a regressive group of misogynistic sadists on the Supreme Court.
Mr. Bowles, an Ohio inmate, challenged his conviction in federal district court and lost. The court told Mr. Bowles that he had until Feb. 27 to appeal. He filed the appeal on Feb. 26, and was ready to argue why he was wrongly convicted. But it turned out the district court made a mistake. The appeal should have been filed by Feb. 24.
The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, that Mr. Bowles was out of luck, and his appeal was invalid. So much for heeding a federal judge.
A special shout out to the cowardly Dems who were “keeping their powders dry” when they chose not to fight first Roberts then scAlito.
Steve Gilliard died after a long fight with illness. His cantankerous energy was always a welcome part of my reading day. He was 41.
Goodbye Steve, you will be missed.
Don’t want to be thought of as a bunch of pussies? Then stop acting like a bunch of pussies.
Media analysts are casting the Democrats’ decision to pass an Iraq spending bill without a pullout provision as a win for the White House. MSNBC’s Hardball, for example, said “after weeks of refusing to back down to the White House, today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did just that.” NBC Nightly News reported, “The Democrats will argue they took a tough stand here, but the reality is that facing a veto threat, they backed off.” USA Today describes the Democrats as “flinching,” the New York Times calls “the decision to back down” a “wrenching reversal for leading Democrats,” and the Washington Times titles its front-page story “Democrats Capitulate On War Funds.”
You were elected in 2006 to end the war. Over 2/3rds of the American populace wants us out and out ASAP. Bush’s support is under 30%, and this is what you do? You capitulate on a nonnegotiable item to a weak Caligula and a weaker congress.
The only against you right now are Caligula, his enablers, and the media. If you can’t stand up to the opposition party and the idiotsphere, then you don’t deserve to be in Congress.
Poorly played, Dems, poorly played. You now own this war just as much as the GOP. You fucking cowardly idiots.
Here’s your letter to the editor (reg req’d, use BugMeNot)
It’s time to wrap up the comic strip “Sally Forth” and put her in the recycle bin.
I was appalled at Wednesday’s comic making light of Ted stealing a computer from his office. When the next comic didn’t go anywhere toward explaining that he didn’t mean it or that he was getting his comeuppance, that finished any interest I had in the strip. The comeuppance may show up in a few days, but with our short memories and occasional neglect of the comics page, it will be too little too late to do any good.
I haven’t liked “Sally Forth” for some time; it’s tiresome that she always, always gets the last word. When this feminist comic star first appeared in print, it was a delightful change. But that was then. It’s gone on too long and is too one-sided.
Please get rid of it and bring back “Arlo and Janice.” They have a very intelligent cat.
Beverly Haywood
Juneau
and here’s the strip at issue:
Sorry, there’s been a job search going on and big networking changes at work made the blogging more difficult (well, sorta. I was also burnt out).
But … I’ve got a new job… which will keep me super busy and I’ll be a Very Important Person and all that now, but also requires moving to a whole new area where I figure I’m going to have nothing to do in the evenings except comment about the world. And how hot it is there.
Apologies for the absences, but I figure I just want to beat billmon to the punch on the whole Lazarus thing.
See you soon.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell has died, a Liberty University executive said Tuesday. He was 73.
Earlier, the executive said Falwell was hospitalized in “gravely serious” condition after being found unconscious in his office.
Toodles, fucker.
Giuliani warns of ‘new 9/11′ if Dems win
Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president â€"- and I think obviously I would be the best at this â€"- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,†Giuliani said.
If only there had been a Republican government in power on 9/11, then all of this could have been stopped!
Catholic Church buries limbo after centuries
The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.
In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation,” according to the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which obtained a copy on Friday.
The thumbs-down verdict on limbo had been expected for years and the document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised,” was seen as most likely to be final since limbo was never formally part of Church doctrine.
Pope Benedict authorized the publication of the document.
Seriously? WTF?
Great work, creator o’ vid!
In the biggest news story of the year so far out of Washington, I Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, has just been convicted by a jury for lying about his role in the public outing of a covert CIA officer whose husband, a former diplomat, had strongly challenged the Bush administration’s case for going to war against Iraq.
Now, given the testimony and what we know, it is obviously time to impeach Cheney. Granted, he and Bush should have been impeached long ago, but we have even stronger evidence of his felonious activities now.
Impeach Cheney before that blood clot finally kills the evil bastard.
Stop this insane, bloodthirsty authoritarian administration before they kill again.
Some view the spiraling attacks as a strand in a worrisome pattern. At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs. U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran, and they were also quick to deny any link to Sharafi’s kidnapping. But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous. A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, i n a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.
Yeah, we’re totally not attacking Iran. Totally.
Rumor is, the General is in.
Which is a good thing, since Clarke is, until he is officially out of the race, the officially endorsed candidate of this here site. Go check him out and when you find yourself nodding in agreement and saying “hell yeah, Wes!” then come on back here and… well, OK. You don’t have to come back here. But remember Clarke and get ready for primary season.
You want electable? How about a brilliant southern general who did not lose a single soldier in a shooting campaign? How about an aggressive liberal/moderate who believes in the social good, rational international relations, and logical economic policy? A guy who is already experienced in diplomacy and highly regarded internationally.
Let’s go, General. Your country needs you. Again.
Where have we heard this before?
The Bush administration has postponed plans to offer public details of its charges of Iranian meddling inside Iraq amid internal divisions over the strength of the evidence, U.S. officials said.
Am I dreaming or does no one else in the media remember 2002? Jebus on a stick, we’re stuck in an endless loop of idiocy and evil perpetuated by the administration and abetted by the media and spineless Dems.
For the Dem examples, two of the announced front runners, both of whom voted for the Iraq resolutions apparently learned nothing from the worst foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history or the administration’s mendacity. Both Clinton and Edwards have come out and essentially said that war is still on the table with regards to Iran.
Here’s Clinton:
“U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” the Democrat told a crowd of Israel supporters. “In dealing with this threat … no option can be taken off the table.”
Here’s Edwards:
Iran must know that the world won't back down. The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions. We have muddled along for far too long. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table, Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table.
Make no mistake, we all know exactly what they mean by no option: a preventive strike on Iran by US forces. That’s the stated presidential philosophy, that’s what our options are: do nothing or attack.
Here’s my message to both of you: you’re not getting my support now, let alone my vote. Attacking Iran is a mistake of monumental proportions. In addition to the illegality of it. In addition to the inhumanity, immorality, and cowardice of an attack, it will result in the death of thousands of our troops in Iraq and in the Gulf and make us a pariah state on the scale of a late-80s South Africa or an anytime Israel.
If we let this happen, we have all failed, but none so much as those with a voice and the power to derail this train who instead add coal to the furnace.
Before the attack on Iran becomes a fait accompli
The Air Force is preparing for an expanded role in Iraq that could include aggressive new tactics designed to deter Iranian assistance to Iraqi militants, senior Pentagon officials said.
The efforts could include more forceful patrols by Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border to counter the smuggling of bomb supplies from Iran, a senior Pentagon official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military plans.
Such missions also could position the Air Force to strike suspected bomb suppliers inside Iraq to deter Iranian agents that U.S. officials say are assisting Iraqi militias, outside military experts said.
Note: this is in addition to making a Naval officer (with specialty in air strikes) head of CENTCOM and the current bullshit whispers about us killing Iranian agents who were mixed in with the Iraqi militias.
Look, they - the authoritarian nutbags in the administration - are going to attack Iran unless we do something about it.
So do something, already.
An actual, honest to goodness, straight talk from a pol. A Republican no less:
Credit where credit is due. Bravo, sir.
(I’m at a conference all week, hence the light posting)
I’m starting to really dislike you
“Our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, commonsense way,” Obama said in a video posted on his Web site. “Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that’s what we have to change first.”
Remind you of anyone? Like, oh, Lieberman.
Listen, you triangulating, do-nothing, gasbag… there is no need for you to adopt the GOP talking points and DC punditocracy formulations of “reality” in order to be accepted.
No one likes a triangulator. Except perhaps Clinton, Bill… and his presidency was an ahistorical aberration… and you’ll also remember that that particular triangulator was despised by the DC ruling class.
So don’t excuse the rabid GOP destruction of our governance as “partisanship” that applies equally to both Dems and Repubs… use your parliamentary power. Don’t talk about the challenges to big problems that demand solutions… solve them.
