Tuesday, December 23, 2008
I think that George W. Bush is looking at an interesting strategic problem right now. Of course he wants to pardon everybody who helped him commit all his crimes, but how does he do it? If he just issues blanket pardons to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, there’s good reason to believe that such pardons won’t hold up in court on the grounds that they’re non-specific. However, if he names the crimes they committed and then pardons them, then he’s just admitted exactly what they’ve done. And of course there’s the entire problem that no one has been charged with anything, much less convicted. So can you pardon someone of a crime that he haven’t even been taken to court for yet?
There are a lot of people out there saying that we should investigate and prosecute them now, but the thing is: nothing could be dumber. If we did that Bush would just pardon them and then it’s Game Over. Presidential pardons are one of the more undemocratic institutions we have, but we have it. So waiting is the right thing to do. Will the next administration investigate? I hope so, however I don’t have much confidence in it actually happening. But if the coming Obama administration is planning on launching investigations, then they’re doing exactly what they ought to be doing about it right now: shutting up about it.
At any rate, the Presidential pardon is a dumb thing for a President to have. I see the thinking that went into putting it there. The Presidential pardon was supposed to be a form of oversight on the courts. But the founders underestimated just how corrupt Presidents can become, and how the Presidential pardon would just be a way for Presidents to help out their buddies in jail, or worse, a way for Presidents to cover up their own crimes.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Remember when Brian Williams intrepidly reported on the gunfire heard in the streets of New Orleans, saying:
WILLIAMS: The looting we witnessed downtown, you could hear gunfire in the streets of the 25th-largest city in the United States. We keep saying human behavior degraded that week. There was a desperation that you can only get when you’re the head of a family. You don’t know where a meal is going to come from, you can’t find bottled water. You don’t know how you’re going to get your family to high ground.
Of course, he didn’t bother to go look and see who was doing the shooting, nor did he send one of his lackeys to do it. He just heard gunshots and thought to himself, “Oh, poor people. Of course. That’s what poor people do. This violence in the streets is surely the work of the lumpenproletariat. I shall tell the world.”
Well, now it turns out that actually rich white people were stalking and killing black people in the streets during Katrina. They had a militia, which was publicly known for years. And then the storm hits, and now there’s this white militia being told by their trustworthy news sources that “minority looters” are tearing the city apart. It was a clusterfuck with predictable results — a twenty-first century lynch mob, misinformed by the traditional media into action.
Over the course of an eighteen-month investigation, I tracked down figures on all sides of the gunfire, speaking with the shooters of Algiers Point, gunshot survivors and those who witnessed the bloodshed. I interviewed police officers, forensic pathologists, firefighters, historians, medical doctors and private citizens, and studied more than 800 autopsies and piles of state death records. What emerged was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed.
Herrington, Collins and Alexander’s experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
It’s almost the end of the year, and that means it’s time to get some lists of The Real Totally Best Of 2008 Stuff. Here’s a list of nominees for The 2008 Golden Winger Awards for Excellence in Wingnuttery.
Check it out and see if there are any truly stellar right-wing screeds you’ve missed this year such as when Mike Huckabee declared that secularism is comparable to Naziism, when Johah Goldberg wrote “The White Man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism,” or when Sarah Palin said that it’s unconstitutional for anyone to say that she’s running a negative campaign. My personal favorite is when Charlie Daniels (yes, that Charlie Daniels) put hand to keyboard to tell the world that global warmin’ ain’t nothin’ but a Yankee conspiracy.
Oh, but isn’t it unfair to just concentrate on the conservative whackjobs when there are liberal whackjobs too? True. There are liberal whackjobs as well. The difference is that the liberal whackjobs are marginalized loudmouths. The conservative whackjobs are their leaders.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The title of the article is Fill ‘Er Up With Human Fat. You can guess what it’s about. A liposuction guy saved up the fat and used it to fuel his car. Apparently a gallon of human fat will get you about as far as a gallon of diesel. The downside: It’s goddamn human fat. And it also might be illegal based on laws about handling medical waste.
Monday, December 22, 2008
I still call it the card catalog even though I haven’t seen an actual wooden case with drawers full of cardboard cards in it in years.
There I am, standing at a computer, typing, and saying, “I’m over here at the card catalog!”
Friday, December 19, 2008
Much rejoicing was made this year about how we had a black candidate and a female candidate for president. Most people agreed that it was a good development, even Republicans.
But here’s what’s left out of the discussion: The fact that we had a black candidate and a female candidate was the direct result of a century of civil rights and feminist activism — the exact same sort of activism that Rahm Emmanuel, Chris Matthews and David Brooks are all patting each other on the back over spitting on.
There’s this notion that progress just happens if you just wait long enough. Just wait and we’ll have gay marriage, we’re told. Can you think of any other avenue in life where it’s wise to expect good things to just sort of happen? Then why do we expect good things to magically happen regarding systemic oppression? — the exact sort of thing that our own history shows requires blood, guts, and maybe even a war to overcome.
But this time it’s different. Before, people had to struggle for justice. But this time, embracing the oppressor is the key to progress. Yeah, right. This theory is from people who don’t even believe in equality in the first place. So we should take it very seriously.
Friday, December 19, 2008
So, the theory now is that Barack Obama wants Rick Warren on the stage to prove that we can “disagree without being disagreeable,” and to show that there’s a diversity of ideas in this great country of ours, but that we can all get along despite them.
In that vein, Barack Obama should also invite to the inauguration:
- a member of the Flat Earth Society
- a Black Nationalist (Isn’t he pals with one of those? Where’s he?)
- a JFK conspiracist
- a UFO conspiracist
- the guy from Time Cube
- a die-hard fan of Rush Limbaugh
- a die-hard fan of the band Rush
- a neo-Nazi skinhead
- a hooker
They can all hold hands and sing Dancing Queen by ABBA. It will be perfect.
Or does it seem that some kooky people deserve our attention and respect, but others don’t?
