Mike Huckabee — too moralistic to protect our national security
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
President says a new intelligence report on Iran provides ‘a warning signal’
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
Does anyone else find it odd that Jeff Gannon seems to need our support to keep it up?
You’d think with the rates he was charging before, he wouldn’t really need much help in that department.
I’m actually disappointed that NRO blogger W. Thomas Smith, Jr. has been outed as a serial fabulist.
The guy was just getting started. In addition to the string of “I see brown people” posts that were his downfall, Smith apparently also wrote about “infiltrating” enemy strongholds and concocted a bizarre story of a Bond-like “delayed acid-weapon” planted by terrorists under an anti-Hezbollah politician’s car, where it “ate through the chassis and caused the vehicle to basically break in half while he was driving.”
Beirut-based reporter Christopher Allbritton’s buddy told him: “I wanna cover this guy’s Lebanon. It sounds so much more interesting.” Me, I just wish I could still read about it. But sadly, it appears that even the gormless K-Lo isn’t going to swallow Smith’s tall tales anymore. And there isn’t much K-Lo won’t swallow.
[Gavin adds: I can think of one thing.]
But what if Smith were still a warmonger-in-good-standing over at NRO? What stories from his florid pen might we have enjoyed of a winter’s eve? Here’s where he was headed:
BREAKING: Credible sources tell me that over two dozen clones of executed Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein are being stored by Baathist agents in a cryogenic chamber under the Temple Mount. Watch this space for updates.
WHAT THE MSM WON’T REPORT: Hundreds of al-Qaeda ninjas on submersible gunships were engaged by MI-6 agents in an underwater battle near the wreck of the Achille Lauro yesterday. At stake: Britain’s Trident II missile codes and sex with Pussy Galore. Needless to say, the good guys won. Gotta hand it to the Limeys.
A QUICK TRIP TO WAZIRISTAN: So a couple days ago me and my buddy Mike Ledeen are resting in the secret underground Mujahideen tunnel that leads from Algiers to Jakarta, after a long night of killing an entire Wahhabist zombie army. And Mikey turns to me and says, ‘I bet you can’t sneak into Osama bin Laden’s cave and pluck a single hair out of his ass without him waking up.’ And I say, ‘The hell I can’t!’ And he says, ‘Oh, yeah, tough guy? I say you can’t!’ And I say, ‘You don’t want a piece of me, asswipe! I’ll slice your goddamn face off!’ And he says, ‘The hell you will!’ … so to cut a long story short, that’s how come I was in Waziristan yesterday, plucking an ass-hair out of Osama’s greasy backside. Also, that’s how I got a hold of my authentic mask of Mike Ledeen’s face, which I use to freak out K-Lo whenever she tries to fact-check me.
America has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. […]
The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.
The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.
The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.
During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.
Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.
He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”
Of course, as a dedicated disciple of Hugo Chavez, I condone this sort of lawless behavior.
More background here:
U.S. officials, including a determined prosecutor, had contacted Canadian officials in a plot to trap Mr. Tollman in Canada under harsh conditions and away from his business and family — wanting to pressure him into abandoning his rights and surrendering to their custody, without following proper procedure, a judge would later rule.
Mr. Tollman, who is in his early 40s, didn’t know of the charges or his impending arrest. He was detained as he left the plane, and only recently returned to England after a lengthy legal battle kept him in Canada for almost two years.
Mr. Tollman successfully fought an attempt to extradite him in a quiet court case last year, when a judge slammed the actions of U.S. officials and made an exceptional ruling of “abuse of process,” after a trail of e-mails and notes made clear their attempt to avoid Canadian extradition laws.
Mr. Tollman was able to insist on his rights largely because of his “sense of outrage,” personal wealth, intelligence, stamina, power and prestige, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy ruled.
“If the system went awry for him, what hope is there for the weak, the poor and those less powerful?” she wrote.
I just don’t know what to say anymore.
We have entered Week Three of The Day By Day Breastfeeding Singularity. Today’s original strip is here.
Clearly it needed improving, but after two panels (see below) it seemed as though the story had arced to a place of natural fulfillment.
…Or had it? What could the third panel be?
Update: The only thing is that the new dialogue has to fit in the bubble, like this one by OTB:
Or this one by Candy:
It doesn’t have to be that concise, but believe me, once you start constructing new idiosyncratic Chris Muir speech bubbles (the weird, awkward curves must be just so), the charm of the work starts to clatter straight downhill.
The Rickster gets another one wrong:
Last time I looked, Bush wasn’t ruling by decree.
Rick, meet signing statements. Signing statements, meet Rick:
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. […]
In October 2004, five months after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq came to light, Congress passed a series of new rules and regulations for military prisons. Bush signed the provisions into law, then said he could ignore them all. One provision made clear that military lawyers can give their commanders independent advice on such issues as what would constitute torture. But Bush declared that military lawyers could not contradict his administration’s lawyers.
Oh wells. I guess Rick should stick to doing what he does best, i.e., leveling baseless accusations of pedophilia against his fellow bloggers.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
UPDATE: Y’know what really makes this galling? Think about why we’re in Iraq right now. Because Saddam Hussein was allegedly on the verge of making a ton of nookuler weapons and becomin’ TEH NEXT HITLER!!!! In other words, because our government lied and exaggerated about its enemies. The wingnuts’ lack of self-awareness is epic.
Oh hey, look! Democracy occurred somewhere!
Voters in this country narrowly defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution in a contentious referendum over granting President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers, the Election Commission announced early Monday. […]
In recent weeks, members of previously splintered opposition movements joined disillusioned Chávez supporters in an attempt to defeat the referendum on constitutional changes. The plan would abolish term limits, allow Mr. Chávez to declare states of emergency for unlimited periods and increase the state’s role in the economy, among other measures.
Nifty. It’s nice that some countries believe in limiting executive power. Now compare that with things like this:
The Senate joined the House in embracing President Bush’s view that the battle against terrorism justifies the imposition of extraordinary limits on defendants’ traditional rights in the courtroom. They include restrictions on a suspect’s ability to challenge his detention, examine all evidence against him, and bar testimony allegedly acquired through coercion of witnesses.
And this:
The Democratic-controlled House last night approved legislation President Bush’s intelligence advisers wrote to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners without a court order.
The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation’s wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism and on Congress’s desire to act on the issue before its August recess.
Maybe ballot referendums are the best way to stop Bush from doing whatever the hell he wants. A lot of the folks we elected to “represent” us sure don’t seem to have much interest in doing so.
UPDATE: Atrios writes:
Anyway, watching US media coverage of Venezuela makes me realize that US coverage of foreign affairs is utterly corrupted by something. […]
After Chavez was elected in 1996 and re-elected in 2000, the New York Times cheers on a military coup which installed “a respected business leader” and hails it as a move signaling “democracy is no longer threatened.”
They backpedaled from this editorial after the fact, but likely only because the coup didn’t take and Chavez was returned to power.
Basically, yeah.
By rule, I think that journalists should at the very least be extremely suspicious of powerful people. This should be the case whether they’re covering the government, businesses or even sports teams. In no case should responsible journalists find themselves swooning over the powerful. A lot of our foreign policy journalism is dominated by swooners such as this tool who see themselves not as watchdogs but as evangelists for the righteousness of American military power. I’ll have more on this later, because I think Roger Cohen is a uniquely warped individual who perfectly captures all the various sins of American foreign policy journalism.
Once Lawyers, Guns, And Money and TBogg had made fun of the latest Day By Day strip, we really had no further choice in the matter.
Update: Xenos asks:
How much resentment and bitterness does this white, professional, and financially well-off couple carry around in their heads that, upon the birth of two healthy children their first thoughts center around how affirmative action is so unfair to them?
That strip is pretty hard to improve, and may indeed be a Day By Day classic. (It even has a punchline!) And yet, missing from the narrative is a certain dramatic frisson, a certain urge-toward-tension such as is found in the greater works of art. Perhaps this brings it nearer to its potential:
