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In a perfectly typical and not unexpected show of nose-thumbing, Vice President Cheney today replaced the indicted Scooter Libby with a couple of his other cronies.

Clearly they're very concerned about surrounding themselves with people who will offer intelligent, thoughtful counsel, and not just flacks who demonstrate loyalty above all else.

It just warms your heart.

In a surprise move, the White House announced the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, just days after the headlines were all about a major investigation into their political dirty tricks. Suddenly, the headlines aren't! Well, played.

In his speech announcing the nomination, Bush was also strangely emphatic about Alito's judging experience, as if that had been an issue with his last nomination.

Experience... A novel approach to appointing extremely powerful officials, I didn't expect him to go there, but we'll see how that plays.

As predicted, the sinking of the Miers nomination doesn't really help the progressive cause at all. It looked bad for the White House, sure, but the public has an extremely short memory, and we're just going to end up with a much more staunchly and unambiguously conservative nominee. Someone like Alito.

You can watch it here, or what's left of it.

Patrick Fitzgerald is a no-nonsense guy, and he looks to be handling this extremely well. He just completely slammed the current Republican talking point that the crimes for which Libby and possibly others are being indicted are not that serious or are "technicalities." He was extremely clear that these are very serious charges.

** UPDATE: Libby has resigned from his White House posts.

The news is in: Libby indicted on five counts: One count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements, and two counts of perjury.

CNN.

No indictments for Rove today, but the investigation continues. Statement from Fitzgerald coming in about an hour.

A few days ago, it was reported that the White House—apparently having nothing more important to do—had sent a cease and desist letter to the publishers of The Onion for their use of the presidential seal in a series of parodies of Bush's weekly radio addresses.

Today, The Onion hits back.

Ouch.

Press conference from Fitzgerald coming at 2pm ET, but the reports are that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, will be indicted today at least for making false statements to the grand jury, but that Karl Rove will not be indicted. The word is that Fitzgerald will ask for an extension of the grand jury's term to continue his investigation into Rove's role.

So it's not quite Fitzmas, or it's Fitzmas Part I. I don't like the term Fitzmas.

Cheney Aide Likely to Be Indicted Today; Rove Under Scrutiny - New York Times.

Don't vote for this guy.

Chris Craddock, 27, running for state delegate, reportedly made the following comment to a high school AP government class when a student mentioned that absent sex education, the United States could face STD and AIDS crises like we see in Africa:

"Africans will have sex with anything that has a pulse."

Seriously. That's what he said.

He also declared that he believes there are "three ways to become gay: You don't have a father figure in your life, you have an abusive father figure or you have no loving support in your family."

Oooookay. Raise your hand if you know someone who is gay and does not fit that description. I thought so.

So, the guy is a dipshit. Don't vote for him.

Oh, and even better than his ludicrous comments is his pathetic attempt to defend himself.

FLASH: Sex Runs Rampant in Africa!

Is this guy kidding? As far as I'm aware, Chris my boy, sex runs "rampant" and "wild" just about everywhere. People may be having sex right in your very own home town! Wild sex! Rampant sex!

Dude needs to get out more.

What's most absurd and sad about this whole thing is that he couldn't be more misguided and wrong. Yeah, there's an element of truth to the fact that the sexual mores in many African countries have contributed to the AIDS epidemic there. But it's for exactly the opposite reason that he's proposing. The reason is that they have the kind of culture and educational system that he wishes WE had. Frank and open discussions of sex and sexuality are taboo. Safe sex is not taught in schools and outdated, misogynistic customs are silently (and sometimes not so silently) enforced and perpetuated. Which is exactly what he wants to happen here.

We currently lack a massive AIDS crisis on the scale of many African countries. Implementing his ideas will get us that much closes to having one.

The kids were right, Chris. You're a douche. And you're nascent political career is over. Give it up. You're not smart enough.

Posted on the American Spectator by Mark Corallo, an influential Republican who is being consulted by the White House on Karl Rove's defense.

Via Digby

For a while now, just about everybody who knows anything about it—and is willing to address it honestly—has advocated some version of the idea that we need a "Manhattan Project" style program to look into alternative sources of energy. Our dependence on foreign oil—and on oil in general—is basically the root cause of nearly all of our major problems these days.

The government, naturally, has completely fucked this up. Instead of investing in other sources of energy to free us from having to do business with places like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc., they decided to spend $200 billion and counting to secure those sources of energy. And why? Why even now, with gas prices rising higher and higher, do they do nothing significant to change our energy policy?

This is why.

Because the companies who basically write our energy policy are making a fortune off of these policies, and most of the decision makers in the agencies that regulate that business used to work for it.

Until we realize that companies like Exxon-Mobil have no interest in peace, or non-destroyed Gulf Coasts, nothing will change. When things get bad for everyone else, things get better for them. And this goes for the entire military-industrial complex, really. As long as these people are manipulating our system, we will never have the kind of world nearly all of us would want. There's no money in it for them.

Not a surprise. Easily one of the stupidest nominations ever.

This cartoon pretty well sums it up.

Liz and I were lucky enough to get to see Joseph Wilson speak tonight at Town Hall in Seattle. It was pretty amazing to hear one of the central figures in what may end up being one of the great political scandals of our time, just as that scandal is reaching the boiling point. The mood in the room was jubilant, and only some of it was really vengeful. Most of it felt like people who had really just had enough, and were excited to see a crack in the armor of those who the feel are destroying the things they hold dear. It didn't feel entirely like schadenfreude, it felt like relief. Or at least the anticipation of relief.

Wilson gave a good talk. His message was fairly simple: participation and responsibility. He feels that his role in this whole affair is simply that he held his leaders accountable, and he strongly feels that we all should be doing the same.

He also mention some places in Washington state, and everybody clapped. Allow me to go on the record here and now that I'm sick of all the clapping. Clap when someone makes a strong point or finishes a song, fine. But can we please knock of the clapping every time a speaker or performer mentions something we're remotely familiar with?

"I was speaking to a friend in the sociology department at the University of Washington..." [clap clap clap clap] "I was in Santa Barbara a few months ago..." ["Yay, Santa Barbara!" clap clap clap]

For the love of god stop it.

Where was I?

Wilson also had a lot to say about the back story to the current mess we're in. He was in the foreign service for 20-some years, and served in the Iraq during the first Gulf War. He has a lot of admiration for George H. W. Bush and how he handled that situation, and claims that the feelings are mutual. He also had some powerful and moving words about the unbelievable waste of global good will that our government's actions after September 11 represent. It's really staggering, something I don't like to think about, but do pretty often anyway. We blew it in a magnificent way, and "it" was something we're not likely to see again in a long time.

That's it. It was good. I'm not much for "man-on-the-scene" reporting. Did I say it was good?

Happy [Maybe] Indictment Day.

A few days ago, Think Progress had an interesting piece about the right-wing spin machine and it's direct line into Fox News.

The best part:

They even have a nice video montage.

I ask you, how much more of an asshole could Bill O'Reilly possibly be?

I posit not much.

Evidence:

He recently equated giving money to MoveOn.org with giving money to Nazis.

Audio.

The context is that the judge in the DeLay case has given money to MoveOn.org. Naturally there's no mention of what other organizations this judge may have given money to, and I don't know either, but it's really beside the point. Are we going to start vetting every judge in the country for their political leanings and force them to recuse themselves when trying cases involving politics? What if the judge gave money to the ACLU?

How do you think O'Reilly would react if it were discovered that the judge had given money to the Bush campaign? Do you think he would demand a new judge? Somehow I doubt it.

I really don't like him.

A sad milestone... Bush and his friends' lies and spin have now cost 2000 American soldiers their lives in Iraq. Billmon shows us what 2000 looks like.

Everyone's all a twitter over the coming indictments. It should be an historic and interesting couple of days. The word on the street is that indictments will be handed down tomorrow to between 1 and 5 people—with most guessing closer to 5. The indictments will be sealed until a press conference on Thursday, though, so unless the indicted want to chat about it, we may not know until then.

Tomorrow night Liz and I will be at Town Hall in Seattle to hear Joseph Wilson speak, a wonderfully timed event that should be fascinating.

If you live in Seattle, I'll see you at The Stranger's still-not-quite-scheduled-but-probably-Thursday Indictment Night Party at the Mirabeau Room. Details.

I've been looking forward to seeing these poeople go down for a long, long time. Here's hoping they nail the bastards.

(Then again, other rumors suggest more delays, extensions, etc.)

I have to agree with Matthew Yglesias here on the recent spate of (formerly) highly placed Republicans—Scowcroft, Wilkerson, etc.—coming down hard on the Bush administration. It's certainly nice to hear, but where the hell were these guys last year? Protecting their asses, that's where.

As Matt points out, they saw what happened to Richard Clarke, and they were scared. But if they had some balls, they might have made a difference in the things they're now complaining about, instead of just becoming best-selling authors.

The latest Republican spin on the Valerie Plame affair and the Tom DeLay indictment: These aren't "crimes," they're technicalities.

Watch Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson make this point on Meet the Press.

Bill Kristol was making similarly pathetic statements on Fox News Sunday..

and...

The answer to all of this crap is easy: Yes, these are crimes, and they're very serious ones. Perjury? Obstruction of justice? Funneling corporate money into state races? Crime, crime, crime.

At least Tim Russert had the presence of mind to point out to Senator Hutchinson that Republicans didn't seem to be so against these kinds of things in the Clinton years. In fact, Hutchinson herself had some interesting thoughts on the matter back then.

The key thing to understand here is that criminals in positions of high power are often eventually brought down by what seem to be "minor" charges, even when everyone knows damn well they committed much more serious crimes. See, powerful people are hard to catch. They know how to cover their tracks, and they can wield enormous influence upon others to cover for them. They're not stupid, but smart criminals are criminals nonetheless.

The law is the law, and if these people are found guilty of breaking the law, they should be punished. Arguing that no one would reasonably pursue these "technicalities" absent some political agenda is irrelevant. You can't take a piss in Washington absent some political agenda.

In the end, this kind of spin is a desperation move. Keep it up, jerks.

(And yes, this is different than the Democrats complaints over the Starr investigation in one very important way. Outing a CIA agent in a time of war or manipulating campaign money to take over the legislature of the second largest state in the union are exponentially more serious than lying about blowjobs. It's not a witch-hunt when the crimes make a difference. It's justice.)

Uh... WHAT?

Just when you thought the world couldn't get any scarier.

(via the Slog.)

Okay, so this picture is everywhere, but hell, I'm so happy to see this guy get arrested (but not quite as happy as he is, seemingly), that I had to put it up.

That smile is really sad. I mean, I can understand his position that he's innocent and all, but nobody likes to be arrested you dumbass. You just look like a fool.

I was really hoping for some stripey pajamas and him holding up one of those number plates, but oh well.

Of course, DeLay and his lawyers are squawking endlessly about how this is just "retribution" on the part of the prosecutor. They're right, of course—it's retribution for breaking the damn law.

CNN.

The New America Foundation sponsored a brown-bag lunch with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former State Department Chief of Staff (2002-2005).

Wilkerson expertly dissects the Bush administration from the inside. Stunning.

Available in several video and audio formats here.

It's long, and by most traditional standards boring as hell, but if you're into this sort of thing—and you should be—it's amazing. (The really good stuff starts around the 20 minute mark).

Oh. My. God.

I don't even know what to say about this. Just watch and listen.

(click image for video)

If you didn't guess, he's singing part of the song in the voice of an unborn fetus named "Lil' Markie".

So, that's really disturbing and weird.

But that's nothing compared to this, the "Diary of an Unborn Child". Be sure to listen all the way through.

How many of these do you think Bush has in his bedroom?

I'm sure if Jesus were around today, he'd be quick to wrap himself in the American flag. From what I understand, that was totally his style.

(via The General)

Now this is just absurd. Really funny, too, though.

After promoting their upcoming segment on the president's phony chat with the troops the other day, NBC's Today Show goes out to a flooded town in New Jersey where their intrepid reporter is paddling a canoe down what used to be a street. And then two guys walk between her and the camera, showing the water to be about 3 inches deep.

In the west coast feed of the program, they found a deeper place for her to stand, and got rid of the canoe.

Crooks and Liars has the videos.

Hilariously lame and sad.

Sigh. This is not surprising, but that makes it no less depressing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you support these people, you're a fool.

The "president" had an "unscripted chat" with US soldiers in Iraq yesterday.

Except it was completely scripted.

And there's incontrovertible proof.

Lots of it.

AMERICAblog.

Think Progress.

Think Progress again.

National Journal.

Talking Points Memo.

Can we impeach this jackass already? Jesus.

Hardball gives a good rundown of the who, when and what of the continuously unfolding Valerie Plame affair.

A worthwhile 3 minutes or so if you need to catch up. We could be seeing indictments of top administration officials any day now.

Crooks and Liars has the videos and torrents thereof.

No confirmation that this is true, but AMERICAblog is reporting that Newsmax is reporting that Bono is going to share a stage with Rick Santorum in support of the turd-monkey's reelection campaign.

What the crap?

I'm no great Bono fan, but at least he seemed to stand for justice. Santorum? Not so much.

Good thing we're cracking down on all that "religious fundamentalism" in the Middle East. We all know the kind of trouble that sort of thinking can cause...

Surreal..

Yesterday the inventor of the Neutical, synthetic replacement testicles for pets, was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Well deserved.

If you're interested, there's a new version of Neutical on the market (though it is "equally superior to the other models") that features ScarRetard®, which, according to the website, "virtually retards the risk of potential scar tissue development."

I propose that these guys win a prize for most qualifiers in one sentence, too.

George Will—yes George Will—on the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

The amazing thing about this story is not the overwhelming majority (90-9) by which these restrictions passed, but that this was in defiance of the White House, which is, apparently, in favor of "cruel, infuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners.

Choice quote...

Yeah. That's the idea. The president does not have absolute authority and should not have it. He does not have the "flexibility" to ignore the human rights of anyone.

Asshole.

So it's become clear that my comments were messed up. I had set the junk comments threshold a bit high, apparently, and many legitimate comments were being flagged as junk and not displayed. I've fished out as many as I could find from the junk rolls and they should be back up now. My apologies.

Obviously I have no interest or desire to keep people from posting their views on this site, it's often quite entertaining, but I do what I can to stem the unending tide of junk comments. It's an annoying game.

So comment away. Please email me if you receive any notification that your comment has been flagged or moderated and I'll see that it doesn't happen.

Signs that we, as a society, have too much time on our hands, #198,239.

Buy now from UrbanPeel.com. Only $1100.

I'm inclined to agree with Digby here.

Conservatives that are all up in arms over Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court shouldn't be so surprised. Did they really think Bush was a conservative? His mission is not to advance the conservative agenda, it is to maintain power for his friends and allies and to cut down liberal social policies.

Digby:

Sadly, the egg isn't only on the faces of all these well-meaning, "true" conservatives who have been blind enough to keep supporting him all these years, it's on all of our faces. And our childrens' faces. And their childrens'. And on and on. Now that these ideologues have taken over the highest court in the land, there's no telling what kind of havoc they could wreak.

They know that they're on somewhat shaky ground these days with their elected officials and that the electorate is fickle (because the electorate doesn't pay attention), so now they've got a good piece of the unelected court that can enact massive changes to the social structure of this country with a few key rulings. It's really been a masterful game they've played, I'll give them credit for that.

I mean, this is his own lawyer. He now will have his own Supreme Court Justice. Or two.

For some reason I seem to have not mentioned this on this blog yet, but I recently created a new web site for the Seattle-based indie band Harvey Danger, in support of their new album Little by Little, which they are offering on their website as a free download, via Bittorrent even (and by direct download too).

Read about their reasons for doing this here.

The whole thing is starting to get a lot of attention, at least from the geeks out there. Hopefully from the music folks, too.

This morning it was Slashdotted and last week on Boing Boing!

Sweet.

New charge: money laundering.

This charge comes after DeLay's lawyers tried to argue that the conspiracy laws in Texas don't apply to the election code. Ceding that this may be the case, the grand jury found another charge.

Naturally, DeLay is playing this as if he's being persecuted, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me. He tried to weasel out of trouble on a technicality, so they found another charge. he claims that he's innocent, yet his lawyers are doing everything they can to make sure the case never has to go to trial.

The fact that the Republicans are going around crying about being persecuted by some imaginary Democratic cabal is laughable. And poor Christians are so discriminated against, too. How stupid do we have to be to let the idea that the ruling majority is persecuted by a powerless minority gain any credence?

DeLay keeps calling the indictments against him "retribution." He's right. Retribution for breaking the law.

I know this isn't unprecedented, but isn't it a little weird to have someone who's not even a judge become a Supreme Court Justice?

Isn't that kind of like hiring someone with no experience in disaster preparedness to run the Emergency Management Agency?

Or like hiring people with no experience in Arab countries to run Iraq?

Seems weird to me. First Roberts goes right to the head of the class, and now a non-judge is going to be one of the top judges on earth.

Oh, and I'd like to also express my uncontrollable rage every time George W. Bush utters the phrase, "legislate from the bench." God I hate that guy.

Thanks to all who wrote in, and my apologies to them and to everyone else for being so slow to fix that dreadful Windows/IE bug on my home page. Since I avoid both Windows and IE as much as possible, it didn't annoy me nearly as much as it did many of you, nor as much as it should have.

Anyway, it's fixed.

Get Firefox.
And a Mac.

New, from Ziploc, giant bags.

Unfortunately, this innovation came a little too late for these guys: (that would be the world's largest sandwich)