This is hilarious in a “Holy shit, our President is so out of touch that he actually believes this” sorta way :

BUSH : It is important for Americans to know that we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, to respond to natural disasters and to help secure our border.

Tell that to the people of New Orleans. Here’s a guy who’s proven himself unable to walk and chew gum at the same time (or really alone for that matter), who’s now trying to convince us he can do both and juggle. “Lemme try again, double or nothing” is not a strategy for success.

Equally “hilarious” was this bit of defense :

BUSH : The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor and our friend.

You’re sending the military to the border, dummy. What else should we call it? I know you want people to think they’re getting sent there to “aid” the border patrol, but they’re not getting deployed to the Mexican/American LOC to make coffee.

Lest the immigration hawks believe that the President is being too kind to immigrants with his support of a separate, but equal guest worker program, pay attention to the fine print.

BUSH: Therefore, I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time.

This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing.

Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks. And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.

Thanks for all the hard work and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Since there isn’t a path to citizenship, there’s not a whole of incentive there for immigrants to join a program that promises to deport them at the end of a specified period. And since the Bush Administration has all but suspended the enforcement of labor laws against employers (aside from a few well-timed, recent publicity stunts), getting employers to go through the trouble of doing background checks on their indentured servants isn’t going to be nearly as attractive as sticking with the status quo. This isn’t just a bad idea on practical grounds, but on moral ones as well. Pay close attention to the fine print of this “guest worker” program. This isn’t a way for workers to work hard and earn the right to permanently join our American family, it’s a cheap way to cover the asses of employers who want a steady supply of cheap, expendable labor. The President should be ashamed of himself.

Heh. The President is going to give a major primetime address on Monday to try to convince the public that, four and a half years after 9/11, he finally cares about illegal immigration. It’s sorta quaint how the White House still thinks the public likes Bush enough to sit through one of his speeches and respects him enough to believe what he’s saying. It’s been a long, long time since he was a speech away from reversing his political fortunes. Too little, too late, Junior.

The big idea that’s apparently important enough to interrupt 24 to tell us about is a plan to deploy whatever National Guard troops the President can scrape together to help secure the border. This might be a good idea if illegal immigration was a sudden crisis, but the immigration “problem” has been brewing for more than thirty years. It’s not like the President can just pretend this snuck up on him. Besides, we already have an agency that patrols the border….they’re the border patrol. If you’re responding to a semi-permanent security situation on the border, you should devote more resources to that agency, not misuse the National Guard again.

Regardless of the merits of the Presidents proposals or their popularity with the public, as someone who’s firmly opposed to this latest bit of pandering, I see very little to worry about. After all, if we learned anything during Hurricane Katrina, it’s that the President’s promises to deploy National Guardsmen are worthless. Just like his pre-hurricane assurances to Louisiana state and local officials, George Bush just wants to give everyone the impression that he’s on top of things, but he doesn’t want to bother with paying attention to a crisis or taking any responsibility whatsoever. The only “crisis” the President is concerned about is the likelihood of Republicans losing the House. So on Monday night, he might give a cute little speech, but we all know it’s not going to mean a damn thing.

Shamelessly stolen from Crooks&Liars.

Stuck in a hotel in Seattle on a business trip (which explains the lack of blogging) and I’m watching the C-Span’s rerun of Senate hearings mentioning the latest bit of extra-constitutional shenanigans by the current squatters in the executive branch. The battle lines seem to be predictably drawn along party lines (at least from the parts I’ve seen), with the Democrats taking the “separation of powers keep America from sliding into despotism” position and Republicans taking the ” don’t mention anything, lest the terrorists find out that we’re pissed about 9/11″ position. Unfortunately for the almighty Bush and his fellow patriots, those bastards at USA Today couldn’t resist tipping off the terrorists about the NSA’s attempt to gather data about every call made within our country. So there’s a helpful hint, Mr. Bin Laden. Never, ever use a telephone in the United States.

But what’s especially odd is that the President-fellating caucus were concerned that Americans might draw a parallel between this scandal and the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program. I suppose one might see a common thread between two programs that pry into the communications of the American people without any judicial or legislative oversight, but collecting information about telephone calls isn’t the same as listening to the contents of those calls. One Senator went as far as insisting that that telephone records aren’t private information, which seems sorta odd considering some recent Congressional action :

In a unanimous vote Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4709, the Law Enforcement and Phone Privacy Protection Act of 2006.

The bill introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, back in February 2006 would amend Title 18 to provide criminal penalties for fraudulent sale or solicitation of unauthorized disclosure of phone records.

The bipartisan legislation was approved by a vote of 409-0.

‘Few things are more personal and potentially more revealing than our phone records,’ Smith said in a statement. ‘A careful study of these records may reveal details of our medical or financial life. It may even disclose our physical location and occupation — a serious concern for undercover police officers and victims of stalking or domestic violence.’

If passed in the Senate, the legislation would impose serious criminal penalties against those people who sell, transfer, purchase or receive confidential phone records of a telephony company without prior consent of the customer.

“If passed in the Senate” is turning into a mighty big “if” these days. Unlike the people’s house, Senate leaders think your telephone records are, like the name and occupation of Joe Wilson’s wife, public information that should can be shared freely at the President’s sole discretion.

I love these commercials they keep showing on CNN with smart-ass kids telling us how wonderful “clean coal” technology is. Watching a twelve-year-old giving a lecture about energy independence feels as if someone reached into my brain and found a way to broadcast the thoughts that run through my head every time George Bush talks about his energy plans. Like in his recent gushing to ethanol industry, his combination of enthusiasm and arrogance would be boiled down like this :

“Did ya know you can drive a car on this?”

Which is to say that if you want to learn more about energy, don’t trust a coal industry shill who’s too young to drive or a big business whore who can’t tie his own shoes. Or, to beat the trolls to their own punchline, a liberal blogger who’d rather score cheap shots on the President than do some research and write a good post about alternative energy sources.

Also, I dunno where else to put this, so I’ll just mention it here. David Blaine is lame.

I gotta admit that the latest trend in comment spam isn’t bothering me for once. Until now, comment spammers have left messages like “Fun with underage fucksluts? Try V!AGR@” or “This post is well-written and entertaining. Join me and my friends at partypoker.com”., but my recent post “Stuck” has some of the funniest spam I’ve seen yet :

Not much on my mind. I don’t care. I’ve just been letting everything happen without me , but shrug. Whatever. I feel like a void.
. . .
I haven’t been up to anything today. I can’t be bothered with anything recently. Nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven’t gotten anything done recently, but oh well. Not much noteworthy going on worth mentioning.
. . .
My mind is like a bunch of nothing, but I guess it doesn’t bother me. I haven’t been up to anything recently. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing to speak of.
. . .
Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven’t been up to much these days. I just don’t have much to say right now. I can’t be bothered with anything , but whatever.

I love the idea that some spammer decided to write a bot to write random, angsty prose. But whatever. Why should I even bother with writing this stuff? I feel like a void.

Bam! With the retirement of Porter Goss as head of the CIA on a Friday, I think a certain scandal is about to hit the big time :

The Wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.

A CIA spokeswoman called the speculation that Goss was partying with prostitutes “flatly untrue”, so I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that he’s resigning out of the blue a week later. They always save the most embarassing news for Friday afternoons…

UPDATE : I knew they’d try to play this off like another White House “shake-up” story. I’m with Josh Marshall on this one :

And the talking heads on CNN were speculating whether Goss’s departure might be part of Josh Bolten’s ‘new blood’ shake up in the Bush administration. I don’t suppose it anything to do with the fact that Goss is neck deep in the Wilkes-Corruption-and-Hookers story that’s been burbling in the background all week. We don’t know definitely why Goss pulled the plug yet. But the CIA Director doesn’t march over to the White House and resign, effective immediately, unless something very big is up.

My guess is this has something to do with the news that, according to TPM Muckraker, the Watergate Hotel “has received multiple subpoenas in connection with the Wilkes Hookergate scandal.”

Have you heard the big news? A member of one of America’s most powerful political dynasties was caught drinking and driving! Even worse, it looks like he might have recieved special treatment from the authorities because of his family connections!

I agree that DUI is a big deal, but let’s keep the faux outrage to a minimum, okay?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these are the two most bizarre political ads I’ve ever seen and they’re from presidential candidates who lost. The first up is this apparently drunken, one-take endorsement for Gerald Ford :

You know your campaign is in trouble when your ads include the message “And that’s why I hope that…I don’t know…please think about it.” But the oddness of Pearl Bailey is nothing compared to this surreal attack ad from Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 campaign :



So let this be a lesson to the Democratic media strategists. With the election a mere six months away, do your best to avoid advertisint that’s batshit crazy.

Every time I see the commercial for that remake of the Poseidon Adventure, I can’t help but think how great it would be to remake Airplane as an action movie. It would be worth it just to see some action hero shouting “Do any of you people speak jive?” Since that ain’t gonna happen, here’s hoping Snakes on a Plane doesn’t suck. Or rather, here’s hoping it sucks in the right way.