Spanish is the Loving Thumbs...

Paul Krugman
Ron Paul

"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment, it is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, when they do what they do, you have more carbon dioxide." - John Boehner

Uranium and arsenic are also naturally occurring. Does that means its okay to dump them on Boehner's front lawn? - richard m

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."-MLK, Jr.

"I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old" - Barack Obama

Events are moving quickly, the NY Times reported that Iran is ready to make use of their political pawn: "The head of Iran’s judiciary said Monday that he had ordered the “careful, quick and fair” consideration of an appeal against the eight-year jail sentence imposed on an Iranian-American journalist, one day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged the chief prosecutor to reexamine the case.

Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Iran’s highest judge, issued a decree to the head of the Tehran court, calling on the appeal to be “considered at the appeals stage in a careful, quick and fair way,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported." So it does look like Roxana Serbi may be released soon, it all depends on what backroom deal is made, say the US complementing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad one week before the June elections...

Besides, Ahmadinejad has his hands full, after being booed and ridiculed at a UN conference on racism, one that the US declined to attend. It's been thought that this conference was just going to be a big dumping on Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. The Current policy is to close their eyes, click their heels three times, and wish that the Palestinians would just go away...

Which is pretty much the global policy of countries towards their indigenous peoples, from Australia to Peru. Here in the US we have to give our native people credit for adapting to whatever Godforsaken Hellhole we send them to... In Latin America, they have a time honored tradition of rebelling against US imperialism, wanting to have the opportunity of decimating their own native populations without outside help, thank you...

This last weekend we found President Obama in Trinidad for a summit of the Americas, and a chance to change the decades old attitudes of our neighbors to the South. As USA Today puts it: "For decades, governments from Cuba to Nicaragua have served up anti-American rhetoric as a daily ration to supplement the paltry fare on many families' tables. It is deeply ingrained in the continent's psyche.

At the summit, for instance, Chavez handed Obama a book chronicling five centuries of meddling in Latin America by foreign powers, including the United States. Such intervention is a fact, and has been to the detriment of the region. But a far bigger detriment has been the many populist uprisings, repressive and corrupt governments, Marxist revolutions, and cult-like rulers from the Perons in Argentina to Fidel Castro in Cuba to Chavez himself. To understand their impact, you need only know that a century ago, Argentina had per capital wealth rivaling that of the U.S. They diverged for internal reasons, but that is a circumstance that no struggling nation can easily acknowledge."

In response, the GOP is trying to portray Obama's polite behavior as a weakness. From Politico: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tore into President Barack Obama Monday for his friendly greeting of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying Obama is bolstering the "enemies of America.”

“Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators – when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead,” Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends.”

Judd Gregg told MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday that while Chavez is "not a strategic threat,” Obama’s greeting of him is “not a good way to start your presidency."

And Ensign called Chavez "one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world. He is a brutal dictator and human rights violations are very, very prevalent in Venezuela. And you have to be careful.”

Gingrich first raised the issue on Friday, the night Obama and Chavez first met at a reception.

“I think it sends a terrible signal to all of Latin America, and a terrible signal about how the new administration regards dictators,” Gingrich said on Fox, also citing Obama’s willingness to talk to Iran, his handling of North Korea and overtures to the Castro government in Cuba. “I don’t think there’s any downside to talking to him. But I think being friends, taking a picture that clearly looks like they’re buddies hurts in all of Latin America.”

Wow, a lot of quotes, especially from Gingrich, now known as the Ugly American, who feels that he had better be getting as much air time as possible if he wants to become the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2012. What might Obama counter to all of this?

"Obama addressed such criticism before he left the summit in Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday, noting his “great differences” with Chavez and expressing concern for the Venezuelan president’s “inflammatory” rhetoric toward the United States and interference in neighboring Latin American countries

“It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States,” Obama told reporters at a news conference. “I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.”

Also, at the end of the summit, Obama had this to say about the by now famous handshake: “We had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was, is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness – the American people didn't buy it,” Obama said. “And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it — because it doesn't make sense.”

USA Today sums it up: "As is the case with previous efforts in other parts of the world, it remains to be seen what tangible results can be achieved with this softer sell. But Latin America could be the perfect place to try it out.

The region has no countries like North Korea or Iran that present serious threats to world peace. Two of its thorniest issues affecting the U.S. drugs and illegal immigration can be addressed in large measure through what Latin Americans want most: economic growth. And, if Obama can successfully change the image of the United States in the region, its most repressive regimes would have a harder time passing off their self-inflicted economic problems as the result of some variant of Yankee imperialism.

But that will not come naturally.

I'm not sure where I got this next quote, as I erased the rest of the article, but it sums things up nicely: "This, as much as Obama’s persuasive communication skills, political acumen, strong advisers and appealing positions, may explain why the president remains so popular and Republicans so unpopular.

It often takes a party some time after losing an election to regain its political sea legs. Some smart Republican politicians profess not to be worried now, as long as they can provide more coherent resistance by this summer."

Late night jokes should resume tomorrow...

___

Roxana Saberi, Scapegoat, Martyr, or Spy?

Joe Klein
Bill O'Reilly

Just when relations between the US and Iran looked likely, the trial and sentencing of Roxana Saberi became the thorn in the lion's paw...

CNN reports: "Saberi's father, Reza Saberi, said in March that his daughter called him on February 10 and said she'd been arrested 10 days earlier.

He said his daughter initially thought she was detained for buying wine. "She said she bought a bottle of wine last year and kept it to take to a friend for her birthday," he said. "She said authorities told her the person who sold her the wine turned her in." Alcohol is banned in Iran.

But a report last week by Iran's Press TV said Saberi was arrested in January for working illegally as a journalist after her press card was revoked in 2006. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, also said in March that Saberi had been working in Iran without a permit. "Her press card was revoked," Qashqavi said. "Without a permit, she should not have been engaged in news and information gathering in Iran."

Saberi moved to Iran six years ago, and worked as a freelance journalist for the BBC and NPR. Two years ago her press credentials were revoked. Neither Saberi or the government has said why they were revoked, and honestly, that was when she should have left Iran.

She kept on making friends in official places and gathering information for a book that she was working on for the last two years, until she was arrested in January. She says that it was because she illegally bought a bottle of wine for a friend, a crime punishable by death, who then snitched on her. The government's prosecutors said that it was because she continued to work as a journalist without credentials. Iran keeps a tight watch over its media outlets, there is no such thing as a free press. A couple of weeks before her trial, it was announced that she was also being tried for spying and passing information on to US officials. In an Army Day report that was broadcast on NPR she did a report about: "missiles that are hard to track with radar, super-fast torpedoes recently tested in war games, and other domestically produced weapons" in addition to its "tanks, armoried personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane."

She was tried quickly in a court that was cut off from all media, including any representatives from the US or Switzerland, whom the US had been using as an intermediary. None of the full charges or evidence have been made public, and she was sentenced to eight years in prison. Of course, her lawyer has appealed the decision.

This is where it gets interesting. Less than 24 hours later, Iran's news service released a letter sent from the President to the Iranian court. From the NY Times: "Reuters’s Parisa Hafezi reports from Tehran: IRNA said the letter from Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, to prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi dealt with Saberi’s case as well as that of detained Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan.

“Based on the president’s insistence, please make sure that all the legal stages about the mentioned people be based on justice,” the letter said. ” … and you personally make sure that the accused people will enjoy all freedoms and legal rights to defend themselves and their rights will not be violated,” it added." Now, it could be that he wants to make sure that the prosecutors had an honest case and that she wasn't railroaded, or to make sure that all rights were accorded to her because it would then get international scrutiny.

This may be Iran's way of using her as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the US, probably either in reducing her sentence, dismissing the charges during an appeal, or releasing her to be deported back to the US. It's nice to know that spying in Iran gets you a similar sentence to throwing shoes in Iraq...

I don't know why we keep insisting we are bringing democracy to these countries. Not one other country has based their government with the US model. They all have chosen the British model instead, including Iraq. That they continue to have elections, real or make believe, is a miracle in itself... What we really need to be concerned with are human rights, but we can't admit that because it would give legitimacy to Jimmy Carter's presidency. Besides our right wing extremists have more in common with Iran's Ayetollahs and Aghanistan's Talibans...

So everyone should be happy with this nugget reported from Newsweek: "Human rights still appear to be a luxury in Russia. Recently, Lev Ponomaryov, director of the Moscow-based Organization For Human Rights, and a leader in the new political opposition movement Solidarity, was reportedly beaten by a group of men outside his home . Stanislav Markelov, whom the Wall Street Journal called one of Russia's top human rights lawyers, was murdered in late January, as was Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old freelancer for Novaya Gazeta, which, according to the New Zealand Herald, is the last major publication critical of the Kremlin. Novaya Gazeta also lost three other journalists in the last decade-- Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin, and Igor Domnikov." With American Nazi groups recruiting in Utah, gun dealers in Texas defending their right to sell to Mexican drug lords, and children celebrating the anniversary of Columbine, we don't have far to go before taking the next irreversible step...

The most people who will be affected are those who go back to Iran to visit family on a regular basis. And you do have to be careful going back to somewhere that has less freedoms, its so easy to break the rules... A friend of mine related that his parents still lived in Tehran, and that they were having persistent colds and coughs, and could he please sent a Western remedy that might help? So, he sent them some Nyquil... He was then wondering why his parents then kept asking for him to keep sending them the miraculous cold medicine, until he looked at the ingredients on the label. Yep, it contains alcohol, and he put them in danger of jail and a death sentence if an Iranian customs officer ever opened the boxes he sent to them...

Baghdad Basics, Somewhere Off the Somali Coast...

Dana Millbank
Kathleen Parker
Yossi Melman
Sumit Ganguly


"The vitriol of last year's presidential campaign has outlasted the election" - Dana Millbank

"But on the plus side, if Texas did secede from the Union, we could then invade them for the oil." --Jay Leno

“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more” - Iraqi police detective



Ahh, such delight journalists take in their craft. These days, no matter what you write, you will be criticized in the most mean and vitrolic way. People are not very nice when commenting over the Internet, as Dana Millbank found out, writing for the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack.

On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to fall on its face. I am part of the ObamaMedia. I am pimping for the left. I am carrying water for Obama. Lord, am I an idiot." Of course, I haven't experienced any of this, because all that I write is sweetness and light...

According to the NY Times, life in the ancient city of Baghdad is returning back towards normal: "Nightclubs have reopened, and in many of them, prostitutes troll for clients. Liquor stores, once shut down by fundamentalist militiamen, have proliferated; on one block of busy Saddoun Street, there are more than 10 of them.

Abu Nawas Park, previously deserted for fear of suicide bombers seeking vulnerable crowds, has now become a place for assignations between young people so inclined. It is not that there are hiding places in the park, where trees are pretty sparse; the couples just pretend they cannot be seen, and passers-by go along with the pretense.

It is a long way from Sodom and Gomorrah, but perhaps part way back to the old Baghdad. The Baathists who ruled here from the 1960s until the American invasion in 2003 were secular, and more than a little sinful. Baghdad under Saddam Hussein was a pretty lively place, with street cafes open until 2 or 3 a.m., and prostitutes plying their trade even in the bowling alley of Al Rashid Hotel." I wonder where the US troops get their R&R, do they use the local Iraqi whores, or do they fly the boys and girls out to Dubai, Kuwait, or some other place to furnish them with good old Western vices?

Some interesting facts provided by the Angry Arab: "1) There are 41,000 prisoners in Iraq: 15,000 of whom are in US custody. Of course, as we all remember, the US had surrendered sovereignty of Iraq to the Iraqis. Oh, yeah.

"2) Published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the report examined the causes of death for 60,481 Iraqi civilians killed violently during the first five years of the war, using statistics compiled by Iraq Body Count. The findings are surprising to anyone familiar with the regular headlines from Iraq blaring explosions around the country. Executions with firearms, not bomb blasts, have killed most civilians in Iraq. Researchers say 33% of the victims examined in the study died by execution after abduction or capture. And 29% of those victims had signs of torture on their bodies such as bruises, drill holes or burns. Suicide bombers in cars or on foot were responsible for 14% of the victims in the study, while U.S. airstrikes killed 4%."

"3) Between 2006 and 2008, some 40 women who served in the Iraq War spoke to me of their experiences at war. Twenty-eight of them had been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped while serving. They were not exceptions. According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed." Locally, we have the Air Force Academy, which was noted for the amount of sexual harassment of the women students, and the willful ignoring of those incidents by the good old boys who ran the place, oh, I mean the Captains and Generals that ran the Academy found the complaints had no merit... Besides Don't Ask, Don't Tell, our Armed Forces have to be pulled kicking and screaming out of the caves from the Neanderthal Period... Statistically, sexual crimes have been on the rise here for the past two years, where other forms of violent crime has gone down...


The fun and games continues off the Somali coast, where, according to the NY Times: "Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced the Yemenis to sail a "mother ship" attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.

In a separate incident, gunmen from Somalia seized a Belgian-registered ship and its 10 crew, including seven Europeans, further south in the Indian Ocean. A pirate source said the vessel, the Pompei, would be taken to the coast."

If anything, the pirates seem to be escalating their efforts; maybe they know that this way to make some money is coming to an end. Or it could be that when you are seventeen you have no idea of what death is, and willing to go out and perform daring and foolish acts; which is why we like to make our kids into soldiers...

"Most of Somalia's pirate gangs operate from the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, where many of them say they first took to the seas to stop illegal fishing by European fleets and the dumping of toxic waste.

In a Reuters interview late on Friday, Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole also blamed ship owners for paying ransoms that encouraged impoverished youths to join the gunmen. "But the root cause of this piracy, as everyone knows, is illegal fishing," Farole said in neighboring Kenya.

"That situation still exists, so any activity directed at eliminating piracy should also be combined with the elimination of illegal fishing by foreign trawlers."

Late night jokes:

"We have a new 'border czar.' His job is to make sure nobody sneaks into the United States from Texas." --Jay Leno

"Do you know about this? Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax tea party this week by saying that Texas has the right to secede from the Union if it wants to. And former President Bush, who now lives in Texas, is of course against the idea. Bush said if Texas leaves the Union, they'll be a foreign country, 'like Alaska and Hawaii.'" --Jay Leno

"President Obama's now in Mexico. He has already met with the FWEA, the Future Wal-Mart Employees of America." --Jay Leno

"And, you know, Obama is the consummate politician. You see him trying to appeal to the Mexican people? Like, he even changed his slogan to 'Yes, we Mexi-can.' That's what he said today." --Jay Leno

"Newsweek magazine reports that the reason there are so many of these pirate hijackings is that the shipping companies have decided it's cheaper just to pay a ransom than to change the shipping route to sail out of the pirates' way. So even though these are evil crooks, we give them the money anyway. It's the same way the bank bailout works." --Jay Leno

"In Philadelphia, a government program offering a $10,000 tax credit to any business hiring an ex-con had no takers. In fact, you know the way most ex-cons actually get jobs? They get re-elected." --Jay Leno

"Oh, well, here is something that makes me proud to be a member of the NBC family. NBC has signed disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to star in a reality series. It's called, 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!' This is different from the show he did in Illinois. That was, 'He's an Idiot, Get Him Out of There.'" --Jay Leno

"The state of California says that singer Dionne Warwick owes $2.2 million in back taxes. I feel kind of sorry for her. I mean, if there had only been some sort of group or network of psychics she could have consulted with." --Jay Leno

"And New York Governor David Paterson announced that he will support legalizing gay marriage in New York. Well, you can understand why New York politicians are for this. Let's look at the problems. I mean, David Paterson and his affair, Eliot Spitzer with the hookers, Hillary and Bill. Straight marriages obviously don't work in New York. Let's try the gay thing." --Jay Leno

"George W. Bush has reportedly landed a $7 million book deal. The book will be about his years as president and is tentatively called 'Decision Point,' because every time Bush had to make a decision, he would point to Cheney." --Jay Leno

"Did you hear what Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said about Obama yesterday? He called his new policies 'unsubstantial and overrated.' Then Hillary Clinton said, 'That's exactly what I've been saying.'" --Jimmy Fallon

"To pay off her campaign debt, Hillary Clinton is auctioning off a day with Bill Clinton. She is. Bill says he's thrilled to do it, as long as Hillary isn't allowed to enter the auction." --Jimmy Fallon

"President Obama is in Mexico right now. So if you want to break any laws or anything, this is the time to do it." --Jimmy Kimmel

"Yesterday, the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, said Texans are fed up with Washington. He said they might secede from the rest of America. If Texas forms their own country, they could be invaded by Mexico. They'll have to change their name to Texico." --Craig Ferguson

David Letterman's Top Ten Signs the Government Is Spying On You

10. Your kitty has a satellite dish on his head.
9. At restaurant waiter urges, "Speak directly into the dinner rolls."
8. Your car's GPS unit has an awful lot of questions.
7. "Girl Scout" delivering your thin mints is 6'4, 270.
6. Keep finding underpants labeled "Agent Morales."
5. Mailman warns you, "This conversation may be recorded for quality control purposes."
4. NSA sends over sexy lingerie they'd like your wife to wear.
3. You sing in the shower, a mysterious voice responds, "A little pitchy."
2. There's a Navy Seal hiding in your fish tank.
1. Several times a week, you get chloroformed, stuffed in a trunk and dumped in Mexico

Tortured Logic

Paul Krugman
David Brooks
Michael Gerson
Eugene Robinson
Barack Obama


"Don’t count your recoveries before they’re hatched." - Paul Krugman

Conservatives are so incensed by warnings about the threat of right wing radicalism that they're considering overthrowing the federal government. - Josh Marshall

President Obama's attorney general announced the release Thursday of four controversial memos detailing harsh interrogation methods used on high-value terrorist detainees like waterboarding, keeping detainees awake for days on end, confinement in close quarters and even using insects to exploit a detainee's fears. In releasing the memos, Holder and Obama pledged that none of those who employed such tactics would be prosecuted...

From ProPublica: "Among the OLC memos released today, one appears to inadvertently reveal that a top al-Qaida suspect captured in northern Iraq in January 2004 was held by the CIA in a secret prison.

After Hassan Ghul was arrested in early 2004, President Bush told reporters: "Just last week we made further progress in making America more secure when a fellow named Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Hassan Ghul reported directly to Khalid Sheik Mohammad, who was the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. He was captured in Iraq, where he was helping al Qaeda to put pressure on our troops."

Military officials and former CIA director George Tenet described Ghul as an al-Qaida facilitator who delivered money and messages to top leaders. The U.S. government never publicly discussed Ghul again. The 9/11 Commission report said Ghul was in "U.S. custody." But the government itself never discussed Ghul’s whereabouts. And the CIA has never acknowledged holding Ghul.

Since then, he has been considered a missing, or ghost detainee. But in the heavily redacted OLC memo dated May 30, 2005, government censors appeared to have missed a single reference to his name and confinement during a lengthy description of the interrogation techniques used against him. The reference can be found at the bottom of Page 7 in the memo, where Ghul’s surname is spelled "Gul."

According to the memo, Ghul was one of 28 CIA detainees at the time who had been subjected to the agency’s "enhanced interrogation techniques." Specifically, the memo says he was subjected to "facial hold," "facial slap," "stress positions," "sleep deprivation," a technique called "walling," in which a detainee’s shoulders are repeatedly smashed against a wall, and the "attention grasp," in which the detainee is placed in a choke-hold and slapped.

So it appears we now have evidence Ghul was in a CIA prison. Where he is today is still a mystery. We’ve called the CIA, and they declined to comment." OOPS! Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice...

I'm not sure what they are trying to accomplish if they are not going to prosecute anyone over this. We've hired a bunch of sadists, and I'd hate to be these guys' children, c'mon tell daddy the truth...

Of course, members of the Bush administration cannot be happy about this. I even wonder about George Bush's attitude because he was given a head's up as a courtesy by Obama. Perhaps Bush, too, isn't quite happy with Cheney and Rumsfeld, figures they've screwed up his legacy pretty well by now... As Craig Crawford writes in CQ Politics: "Dick Cheney was already hopping mad over Obama's earlier release of torture-related memos, but the documents unveiled on Thursday are even more detailed than last month's release -- which then provoked Cheney to go on the warpath in television interviews blasting Obama's handling of national security.

The Bush team had to know this would happen in the next administration. Both presidential candidates last year publicly opposed the harsh interrogations. It seems likely that GOP nominee John McCain would have released these memos.

Looks like the Bush folks needed a shredder." Expect a whole lot of fallout from these documents, fodder for the news shows for weeks, and maybe paranoid identifications from Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity, since they already think the government is singling them out as right wing radicals...

Here's a better characterization of Louisiana"s Governor Bobby Jindahl, more in keeping with the way he really thinks than that horrible speech he gave in response to Obama addressing Congress. From the Huffington Post: "On ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was asked whether he agreed with former Vice President Dick Cheney that President Obama has made the country less safe.

"Democrat or Republican," Jindal responded, "we should all agree that our current President and our former President would obviously want to do everything they could to keep us safe. I don't think we should question President Obama's patriotism or his intentions."

"Let's give the new administration a chance. Let's not question their intentions, but let's have a real debate on their policies," Jindal added. "We should give the new administration a chance ... I don't think we should question Obama's patriotism. ... At the end of the day, I don't think we should be questioning the administration's intention, but I think it's good to have an honest debate."

Late Night jokes:

"Some Americans did a very dumb thing today. They had tea party protests. They've been mailing tea bags to Congress to I guess express their dissatisfaction with taxes and government spending because nothing shakes a politician up like a complimentary bag of tea. 'Hey if you don't straighten up next year, crumpets, buddy.'" --Jimmy Kimmel

"A lot of protests today. Thousands of people had these tea parties, during which they protested higher taxes. But here in LA, it was called the Green Herbal Double Decaf Tea Party." --Jay Leno

"According to MSNBC, there's a big problem with identity theft affecting electronic tax filing. People are stealing other people's identities, filing taxes in their name, and then getting their refund check. Today, half the Obama administration said, 'That's what happened to us!'" --Jay Leno

"President Obama should get a big refund this year because he has a lot of dependents. AIG, Citibank, Morgan Stanley -- all dependents." --Jay Leno

"And as you know, that captain of the merchant ship that was held captive by three Somali pirates was rescued when the pirates were shot and killed by a group of Navy Seals. President Obama authorized the military to use any force necessary to accomplish this. And today, the CEOs of Ford, Chrysler and GM said, 'We'll build any car you want.'" --Jay Leno

"President Obama has lifted the travel ban to Cuba. If you do travel to Cuba, don't forget to set your watch back 50 years. Yeah, if you go back. If you're looking for a '58 Buick, that's the place to get it." --Jay Leno

"President Obama is going to Mexico tomorrow. He visited Canada a couple weeks ago, then he went throughout Europe, then he went to Iraq, and tomorrow he's going to Mexico. See, this is what happens when your mother-in-law moves in with you. 'Honey, I'm going to be out on the road a couple weeks.'" --Jay Leno

"And, according to the U.S. Labor Department, because of the recession, the number of unemployed lawyers in this country has hit a ten-year high. So, see, there is a silver lining in all of this." --Jay Leno

"You know what you call a bunch of lawyers sitting around out of work doing nothing? Congress!" --Jay Leno

"In Arlington, Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency is holding something called the National Bed Bug Summit. Health officials are going to offer advice on how to combat the growing problem of bed bugs. And it's being held in Arlington's Crystal City Sheraton Hotel. See, that's when you know the economy is bad, okay? When a Sheraton hotel is thrilled to be hosting the bed bug summit. 'Hey, be sure to come back in June for the big head lice symposium.'" --Jay Leno

"But the good news is we have a new White House dog, a Portuguese water dog named Bo. So welcome to the White House, Bo. Actually, Bo has only been there a couple of days, but he is already very busy. Earlier today, Bo hosted a luncheon for former White House dogs." --David Letterman

"And you know they have Bo wearing one of those electronic collars. If he strays beyond the perimeter of the White House grounds he gets a little buzz. That's to make sure he doesn't -- no, wait a minute, that's Joe Biden." --David Letterman

"This is like the Boston tea party for people that decided, let's say, I don't know, two and a half months ago, that they didn't want to pay taxes anymore. The tea part is just a metaphor [on screen: a Fox News reporter pointing to boxes at one of the tea parties containing a million tea bags]. Let me get this straight. To protest wasteful spending, you bought a million tea bags. Are you protesting taxes or irony?" --Jon Stewart, on the tea party protests (Watch video clip)

Tea's Bitter Aftertaste,Homeland Insecurity, Sarah!

Dana Millbank
E J Dionne

"Congress is the only whorehouse in the world that fails to make a profit." - Tobin Smith

"The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government." - Theodore Roosevelt

"True patriotism isn't cheap." - Robert Reich

There have been several opinion pieces written in response to the tea parties yesterday, by Karl Rove, John Kass in the Chicago Tribune, and Joe Conason in the New York Observer. Locally, our Colorado Springs Gazette had front page coverage: "If there was one prevailing message it was opposition to taxes. "Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery," said Richard Randall, a talk show host on KVOR-AM and emcee of the local event. He was quoting Calvin Coolidge.

But a series of speakers, hailing from various points on the red end of the political spectrum, delivered a message that was far more diffuse. They condemned everything from abortion to Somali pirates.

What the rally lacked in focus it made up for in free-floating anger, epitomized in the "Impeach Them All Now!" and "No More Laws!!" placards that were among hundreds of hand-lettered signs hoisted in the spring sunshine." The attendance was actually about 700 people instead of the 1500 the paper gave. It was a low key crowd, a mixture of all ages, with just about everyone holding a sign or flag of some sort. I'm going to have to buy the Don't Tread On Me flag with the coiled snake, there were quite a few.

I took a lot of pictures, but kept away from the racist and hate signs directed towards Obama. The sound system wasn't very good, you had to be standing in front of the stage to hear well, but the speakers weren't very good so it didn't matter much. My friend Doug Lamborn was there, as characterless and boring as ever... In the end, there was no dancing, no direction, no way to let the anger out for these thousands of people who gathered across our country. If the economy gets worse, and unemployment benefits run out, we will see that low level anger spark into something more destructive and uglier, not just here in the USA, but on a global scale. Talk about your global warming after the riots have set it on fire...

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a nine page report for law enforcement officials on what to look out for in right wing extremist groups, and Deborah Saunders, writing in the SF Chronicle, has a good opinion piece: "The assessment reads like a sophomore's bad political science essay in, for example, noting that right-wing extremism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

"This is a very unfortunately named document, "Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Sara Kuban told me. No lie. The not-quite-classified-but-also-not-meant-for-public-distribution assessment reads like a rookie mistake penned by political lightweights. But Kuban told me it was written by "career officials" who had been working on the assessment for more than a year. (Read: DHS started working on this when George W. Bush was in charge.) That career officials would write such tripe should scare you.

The "right-wing" document, however, targeted, not activities, but political thought -- opposition to abortion, immigration amnesty and gun laws... The "right-wing" document started with the acknowledgment that Department of Homeland Security intelligence "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence." Then: "The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."

Janet Napitano issued a response this morning to the conservatives who thought Homeland Security was singling them out: "Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States," Napolitano said in a written statement issued by her department. "We don't have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence."

As Craig Crawford notes in CQ Politics: "Lyndon Johnson once noted that the right wing is more frightening than the left wing because ultra-conservatives are far better at organizing themselves." It's true, there are more right wing think tanks and policy centers with the words Liberty, Independence, and Tax Reform in them, all designed to pull in gullible conservative dollars.

As the Political Animal noticed: "It's probably worth re-emphasizing, then, that the point of the law-enforcement report wasn't that veterans are right-wing extremists, but rather, that right-wing extremists might target veterans for recruitment. Indeed, Bush's Justice Department prepared a similar report in 2008 titled, "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11," which found that while veterans don't make up a large percentage of "white supremacist extremists," they have sometimes taken leadership roles in the movement.

Oddly enough, when this report was distributed to law-enforcement officials last year, Boehner and Republicans didn't say a word. It's almost as if their goal is to score cheap political points off a misunderstood DHS report, without concern for the facts."

Extreme right wing thought is a form of mental illness, and disenfranchised, confused, alienated young men and women coming back from the stress of constant death and injury are susceptible to its allure, a hand extended when there no others. Right now we are lucky that most of these poor kids kill themselves or commit homicide on our local population and are not organized into a bunch of para-military hate groups like those that flourished during the 1970's and 80's. I remember friends coming home from the Vietnam War, burying automatic rifles in their backyards and taking their wives out into the desert to teach them how to shoot. Thank God our Veteran's Administration has changed and is trying to address the various demons that attach themselves to our returning soldiers, bless them one and all...

The NY Times has an updated piece on Sarah Palin: "Ms. Palin and her aides insist she is as engaged with state businesses as ever. “We have a very good working relationship, as far as we know, with lawmakers,” Ms. Palin said last week in her office, where she met with reporters. “Our door is always open.”

Democratic lawmakers had been crucial in the past to the governor’s efforts to raise oil taxes and approve legislation promoting a natural gas pipeline, her signature achievements, yet many say Ms. Palin has abandoned those relationships, that she has become more polarizing rather than working to broaden her appeal. In turn, some Democrats have missed no opportunity to snipe back...

All of which has made Ms. Palin alternately warm and testy in her dealings around the Capitol. In the meeting with reporters in her office last week, she expressed little distress over lawmakers’ revisions to legislation she favored. She also said she prays for “the revelation of truth” to combat what she says are persistent lies about her and her family." I just don't know if she can last until 2012...

Late night jokes:

"Whew! Last night, I had that great new drink, the Navy Seal. Three shots -- boom -- and you're done." --Jay Leno

"Well, you know, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Somali pirates were all 'untrained teenagers with heavy weapons,' or as we call them in this country, rap stars." --Jay Leno

"As you know by now, Captain Phillips was rescued when Navy Seals shot and killed three of the pirates, although, according to Phil Spector's attorney, the pirates shot themselves in the head." --Jay Leno

"There was some nice news this week. The Obamas got a new dog. It's a Portuguese water dog named Bo. Now, don't confuse that with what Dick Cheney had. That was a waterboarding dog. That was totally different." --Jay Leno

"You know, Portuguese water dogs are very intelligent animals. In fact, some White House Cabinet officials have already taught it how to get out of paying taxes." --Jay Leno

"Scientists from the University of Padova, in Italy, announced this week that baby chicks have the ability to do basic arithmetic and can add basic numbers together. You know, it's bad enough our public school kids can't compete with kids in China and Japan. Now we're losing to poultry in Italy? This is bad. We need to get better schools." --Jay Leno

"How about that Obama dog? They got a new dog. Yeah, a little Portuguese water dog. And the dog, as you would expect, is not house broken yet. In fact, earlier today, he left a bigger mess in the Oval Office than Bush did." --David Letterman

"A new dog in the White House. I believe there hasn't been a dog in the White House since that pack of semi-domesticated wolves that Cheney kept in his dungeon." --David Letterman

"General Motors is recalling 1.5 million vehicles, because they say the engines could catch on fire. Well, luckily, no one bought any of them." --Jimmy Fallon

"A new report shows that a bag of heroin can be cheaper than a six-pack of beer. That's really good news and bad news for Amy Winehouse." --Jimmy Fallon

Acacia Park, Colorado Springs Tea Party

There were about 300 people of all ages that showed up. Most everyone had signs, only a couple were ugly and hateful. Every other person had a camera and we all took pictures of each other. Here are mine... to really see them, click on the picture for the full size.

I Love Elizabeth Warren

David Waters
Kathleen Parker
Harold Meyerson


"A third of Americans say they are born again," - Jon Meacham

"Rush and his boys are doing what Gene Debs and his comrades never really could. In tandem with Wall Street, they are building socialism in America." - Harold Meyerson

"We are all rightwing extremists now. Welcome to the club." - Michelle Malkin

Political Wire reports that: "A new Marist Poll finds that for the first time this year, more Americans -- 49% -- see the country moving in the right direction compared with 40% who think things are heading the wrong way. This includes a majority of registered voters -- 52% -- who feel the country's course is back on track. "

Today is April 15th. I hope to take some pictures of my local tea-bag party and post them later. The Ron Paul crowd says that they were the ones who first came up with the idea, and others have co-opted it. Logically, the reasons given for the protest don't make sense, so I don't think that this is being done for any real purpose, maybe to bolster up and have people join the local Republican party again. Mostly, it's going to be a cathartic experience for many of those who now feel displaced, and no longer have a voice in policy making. And it will be like a big, outdoor Libertarian convention, with odd and crackpot individuals running around. I'm hoping for some good old, sixties style confrontations, because I want to be entertained... Who knows, maybe it will change my perspective...

Speaking of weird news, this report from The Daily Beast: "Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo."

This, too is from The Daily Beast. I think elsewhere I mentioned that I love Elizabeth Warren. And no, she isn't talking about me in the picture above...She may be the last principled person involved in the TARP mess. It seems that every bit of information she gets has to be bullied and pulled out with pliers like a rotten tooth. Instead of excerpting it, here is the whole article:

"Troubled Asset Relief Program overseer Elizabeth Warren warned on Wednesday that the Obama administration's approach toward resuscitating the financial sector lacked proper transparency and accountability, resembling the Japan model for economic recovery that dragged on for nearly a decade.

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Warren acknowledged a double standard in how the White House has approached the banking and auto industries, and said that the president would do well to show the former the tough love he's offered the latter.

"I fear right now that we are much closer to the Japan end of the scale," she said, when asked whether the economic recovery resembled the accountability seen in Sweden's efforts or the lack thereof in Japan's. "And that's particularly with the banks. I'm not the first person to observe that the banks and auto companies are being treated differently from each other in this sense. We have clearly moved with the auto companies towards at least more accountability and less with the financial institutions, for the people running the financial institutions.

"Again, I'm not going to stand here and say I think that they should be fired, that is not the position of... the oversight panel," she added. "But you have got to have these options on the table. if you take the option of getting rid of management off the table, then you not only change the relationship between the government and the financial institution that is getting taxpayer money, you have change the relationship with a taxpayer. Because the taxpayer says, 'let me get this straight. In my little business, if it goes down, I lose my job.'"

Hitting the same notes of caution earlier in the program, Warren cheered the administration for finally agreeing to release information on the stress tests that they are applying to beleaguered banks. But she wasn't entirely placated. Noting that any bank -- however troubled its solvency situation may be -- could pass a stress test that was easy enough, she made the case for the Treasury department to release data on the test itself.

"I want to look at the stress test itself. I want to make sure it is not a two-mile-an-hour walk on a treadmill," she said. "What I want to do, what I want our panel to do, is an independent evaluation of the stress test. That's what we are looking for... And look, ultimately I hope I come back to you and say 'hey, guys, fabulous stress test.'"

"I think there is no reason we shouldn't able to [get this information]," Warren added. "And I hope that that is the point of view that ultimately prevails."

A Harvard Law professor, Warren was appointed to chair the five-person congressional oversight panel for the TARP back in mid-December. Since taking over the post, she has criticized the Treasury on a host of fronts: from a failure to cooperate with her panel, a lack of transparency in its bank-relief program, and not doing enough to stabilize the mortgage market."

Late night jokes:

"Well, you've been watching the big score over the weekend, huh? Navy 3, pirates 0. Yeah! As you know, Navy Seals kicked some Somali pirate booty this weekend. I tell you, those Navy Seals, what incredible marksmen. They shot the three pirates without hitting the captain or any of the parrots that were sitting on the pirates' shoulders." --Jay Leno

"I tell you this, this Capt. Richard Phillips is a genuine American hero. He allowed himself to be taken hostage to save the lives of his crew. And did you know that this Captain Phillips used to be a cab driver in Boston? In fact, so were half the Somali pirates that kidnapped him." --Jay Leno

"Anyway, they asked Captain Phillips what he's going to do now. And he said he's going to Disneyland to wipe out the Pirates of the Caribbean. So I think he's a little wound up." --Jay Leno

"You know, it's interesting, I tell you. We were off last week. And I have to admit when I first heard that a pirate in Africa had grabbed someone hostage, I thought, 'Boy, Madonna is really committed to that adoption.'" --Jay Leno

"Anyway, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder tried to put all this in perspective. He said this is the first act of piracy against the United States literally 'in hundreds of years.' Well, if you don't count AIG, of course." --Jay Leno

"Speaking of that, the New York Post says that Bernard Madoff's wife, Ruth Madoff, may go back to using her maiden name. But I don't know if that's going to work because her maiden name is bin Laden." --Jay Leno

"President Barack Obama got quite a reception when he was in Europe last week. Did you see while he was visiting Germany, the crowd started chanting, 'Yes, we can! Yes, we can!' Pretty amazing, a bunch of Germans chanting, 'Yes, we can.' That has got to make the French a little nervous, huh?" --Jay Leno

"Of course, the big story is that the Obamas got their new puppy! How about that, huh? On Fox News, they declared that the dog is a Muslim socialist." --Jay Leno

"No, it's a Portuguese water dog, which sounds like something you order in a bar, doesn't it?" --Jay Leno

"Of course, the hardest thing these days about paper-training a puppy is finding a newspaper that's still in business." --Jay Leno

"Barack Obama's daughters are very smart. They told him they will take the same responsibility for the dog that he is taking for the economy. That way, if the dog leaves a mess in the White House, it'll be cleaned up by future generations." --Jay Leno

"Actually, this has become a first family tradition. All the first families have had a dog. The Obamas have Bo, that's the name of the dog. The Bushes had Barney. The Clintons, of course, had Bill." --Jay Leno

"This Wednesday, April 15th, taxes are due, but people who work for President Obama are busy doing their taxes for 1998, '99, 2000." --Jay Leno

"Well, look at this. I pick up the paper today, and according to a survey on how Americans will spend their tax returns, 48 percent say they'll pay debts, 39 percent will save it, 27 percent will use it for everyday expenses, 11 percent will make a major purchase, and another 11 percent will use it for vacation. OK, that adds up to 136 percent. OK, there's the problem right there!" --Jay Leno

"Oh, I tell you, the economy's in bad shape. You know Fort Knox? Well, they changed their name to cashforgold.com. That is how bad the economy is." --Jay Leno

"How about that story, with the pirates off the coast of Somalia? Man, I mean, President Obama, this guy is getting it done, you know. He rounded up the Somali pirates and the Madoffs all in the same year. Looking pretty good." --David Letterman

"Anyway, reports are saying that the White House staff loved the dog. But the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is jealous, because until the puppy arrived, he was the cutest little guy in the White House." --Craig Ferguson

"Bo arrived just in time, because Sasha and Malia were getting tired of throwing Frisbees at Joe Biden." --Jimmy Fallon

"Bo, that's a great name, although they almost named it after the other dog from the White House, Bill." --Jimmy Fallon

"So the Navy Seal snipers shot three pirates. They shot them at the same time, simultaneously. I mean that is sharp shooting, ladies and gentlemen. Boom, all of them gone. I mean, something like that hasn't really happened since the last Dick Cheney hunting trip." --Jimmy Fallon

"The pirates were trying to negotiate but it was a tough deal. They were hoping to be adopted by Madonna." --Jimmy Fallon