Michael Schiavo's supporters are communists according to FOX:

White House press gaggle yesterday:

Q Are we hearing any new language today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, it's conversation, so it's not formal, prepared remarks, per se.

Q It's not scripted? (Laughter.)

Yeah... yuk it up, you hacks.

If it said "(Derisive laughter.)" I'd be in a better mood- absent further detail the logical conclusion is the White House Press Corps is just a big circle jerk.

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Wonder if that's the end of Nightline?

Couple people getting caught thinking they're off mic-

Hannity and Randall Terry

via

I'm just watching Fox & Friends- earlier this morning they had a minister on who wanted Terri to continue "living" in this vegetative state, so for balance they brought on a pair of Communists who disagree.

This is obviously an attempt to discredit those who stand with Mrs. Schiavo's decision. It's not gonna work- the vast majority of the country with Michael Schiavo on this- why only interview a couple of Commies who hold the majority opinion?

I've been working on building a WordPress version of OverSpun- thanks to David who suggested it and steered me away from Movable Type, which is pretty cool in it's own right... but WordPress seems to be the shit.

It seems pretty easy to use and there are some really cool tools and templates that I can steal to make me look more proficient than I really am with web design.

From Drudge:



So... is Drudge trying to suggest that Macauley Culkin was involved in a four-way with Darth Vader, Vader's gay robot and Michael Jackson?

Come to think of it... that might be MJ's dream orgy...

Nevermind.

Cheezy works. That's the only conclusion to draw- this form of protest:

is catching on.

Check out Bush and Cheney today:




I'm pretty sure I saw some protesters outside Terri Schiavo's hospice holding up purple ink-stained fingers. Cheezy totally works on these rubes. The rest of us will continue rolling our eyes...

Think he ever hands Barney off to the guy carrying the nuclear football?

So I haven't been able to read the internets since yesterday afternoon because I'm traveling, but along the way I've been watching CNN and other news outlets 'cuz on account'a I'm a news geek... So now that I'm back online the first thing that I see is Jeb Bush's attempted shootout with local law enforcement officers as reported in the Miami Herald- Nobody else is reporting it- it's a total media blackout.

That's incredibly fucked.

At this point I'm more confident that The Daily Show will cover it than the "real" news networks.

More coverage of Terri Schiavo's situation and cable news's vampiric coverage of it.(Includes hard-hitting FOX News interview with TV psychic John Edward who I'm sure is shocked he wasn't asked to weigh in earlier...)

Maybe I'm coming late to this party- Gawker today spotlighted a photo of Ann Coulter showing off her out of proportion alien hand:

Bonus- in looking to see if this photo is for real (meaning it's not a bad Photoshop job to make her look foolish, rather a bad Photoshop job to make her look skinny...) I found my favorite Matt Drudge photo evar!

Check it out:

Here's Ann's photo gallery.

From the 3/16/05 Late Show with David Letterman:

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So, what, we're not allowed to throw eggs at motorcades anymore? No fun.

For all we know she was wishing Bush a happy Easter...

Bush speaks Mexican, no?

Every time I think he can't be more hack-tacular he out-hacks himself:

Here's The Daily Show's coverage of the Bush administration's fake news crusade- also Rob Corddry explains the liberal media filter.

I haven't checked out Get Your War On in a while- the first thing I saw today made me fall out of my chair:

Here's The Daily Show's brilliant coverage of the Terri Schiavo case and Congress's ridiculous (and staggeringly unpopular) butt-in.

From today's press gaggle, regarding Bush signing a bill in the doorway of his bedroom:

Q Was it just one signature, or was it the standard, lots of pens?

MR. McCLELLAN: I will double-check for you. I didn't check in that level of detail. I think it's just a signature. If something changes, I'll let you know, but I think it was just one signature.

Man, I'd love to get my hands on one of them there Terri Schiavo souvenir bill-signin' pens!

Update: Later in the gaggle Scott MacClellan lied about the 1999 "Pull The Plug" law that Bush signed in Texas- Think Progress has the goods.

Congress performs an end-around on the judicial system.

Next time I get a parking ticket I'm gonna appeal it all the way to Congress!

On a serious note- this is a tragic situation, but the fact is that this decision rests with the husband. The time to object was during the wedding ceremony.

It's disgusting to see how eager our government officials are to destroy the foundations of our government. It's important that everyone remember how compromised our elected officials are- everyone who voted for this bill, to say nothing of the jackass that signed it, violated their oath to uphold the Constitution.

Hey- remember a couple years ago when the Bush administration lied their way into Iraq?

Well, those crazy kids are at it again!

WaPo:

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.

Scott McClellan, the press secretary to President Bush, called on you and allowed you to ask questions on a nearly daily basis. What, exactly, is your relationship with him?

I was just another guy in the press room. Did I try to curry favor with him? Sure. When he got married, I left a wedding card for him in the press office. People are saying this proves there is some link. But as Einstein said, "Sometimes a wedding card is just a wedding card.''

You mean like "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar''? That wasn't Einstein. That was Freud.

Oh, Freud. O.K. I got my old Jewish men confused.

You should learn the difference between them if you want to work in journalism.

Bwahaha.

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Morons.

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Two years since we invaded Iraq to stop them from attacking us with their huge cache of weapons of mass destruction.

That didn't work out so well, did it? Turns out there never were any weapons- we just use that excuse to invade. You know, you'd think there'd be a law or some type of formal punishment for a country that invaded another country and killed over a hundred thousands of their citizens based on fake evidence.

You thought wrong, motherfucker. Clearly the rules don't apply to everyone.

Now, common sense tells me that someone will take offense to this hard reality- simply put, this is why we are immeasurably less safe than we were before we ignored the UN and invaded Iraq. We have countries who practically worshipped us now saying, "Fuck your Yankee blue jeans!"

It may be years before we see the blowback for Bush's murderous adventure- but it's coming.

Never forget who inspired the roots of the anger.

Lewis Black was on fire last night- here he covers mafia cops, Vice Adm. Albert Church's mystifying idea of accountability regarding the ever growing torture scandals, and terror suspects buying guns.

Here's a clip of The Daily Show's coverage of Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank:

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Bad day for cable news-

Poynter:

From TOM WILLIAMS, Malta, NY: Any lingering doubt that the national cable news channels have lost their collective minds should have been dispelled on the afternoon of March 16. While the U.S. Senate was voting that day on the Cantwell amendment, an attempt to stop the Bush administration from allowing oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), CNN and MSNBC were blathering on about the death-penalty ruling in the Scott Peterson case. Outside its immediate community, the Peterson case is a total non-event. And it’s not as if the Senate vote on ANWR wasn’t good video: As dutifully covered by C-SPAN, the vote was close (49 to 51 against), and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chair of the proceedings, was wearing -- and I could not make this up -- what appeared to be an “Incredible Hulk" tie. Stevens’ tie perhaps aptly describes the current state of national cable television news: an incredible junkpile.

MSNBC's front page:


Has the nightly Larry King panel turned Peterson into a celebrity?

I never understood the fascination with this case myself... it's a horrible thing, but talking about it every day for hours on end isn't news. As tragic as this story was, it's not nearly the most important.

Squirmy Scotty meets his match, gives up:

Q How is the President going to mark the second anniversary of our war against Iraq and the start of the third year?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there's still a few days off until the date that we began the liberation of Iraq, and --

Q The invasion of Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the Iraqi people showed that they appreciate the sacrifices of the coalition forces, of Iraqi forces, and our men and women in uniform of the U.S. military, who helped --

Q Well, we're still there and we're still fighting, aren't we?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- to provide them with the opportunity to determine their own future, and to move away from their past of oppression and terrorism. And, obviously, we will --

Q How is the President going to mark the anniversary?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we will have more to say as we move closer to that, to express our eternal gratitude to the men and women of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed in the defense of freedom, and who have helped to liberate some 25 million people in Iraq. We are --

Q That isn't why you went in.

MR. McCLELLAN: We are forever grateful to our men and women in uniform. And the Iraqi people have expressed their gratitude, as well, and showed that they are committed to defying the terrorists who want to return to the past by going to the polls and voting for a future based on freedom and democracy. And the National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people, the transitional National Assembly, will be meeting for the first time tomorrow. It's an important step on the path to democracy. And we stand with the international community in doing everything we can to support the transition to democracy in Iraq. We stand with the Iraqi people, and we are greatly appreciative of our men and women in uniform who continue to serve and sacrifice for this important cause. We are also grateful to their families who have made sacrifices, as well.

Q How many people are dead?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, April.

Leiby:

All hat, no cattle? A joke President Bush told recently in Montana struck several readers as very familiar when it was recounted in yesterday's Style section. In Bush's telling, the joke involved a city slicker asking for directions in Livingston and being told to look for two "cattle guards." Now, everyone in cowboy country knows a cattle guard is a metal grate that keeps livestock from straying. But this fellow is so clueless, he asks: "Hey, what color uniforms do those cattle guards have on?"

In 1978, when Dubya was running for Congress in Texas, the very same joke was on him. His Democratic opponent, Kent Hance, used that punch line to portray the 31-year-old Republican as a carpetbagging easterner. At a candidate forum, Hance got laughs by recounting how he'd given a lost motorist directions to a ranch, telling him to turn after seeing a cattle guard. And the man asks: "What color uniform will that cattle guard be wearing?"

In Hance's version, the city slicker was driving a Mercedes with Connecticut plates. The Connecticut-born Bush, who lost that race, didn't enjoy being the butt of the joke. But clearly he never lost his love for Texas cowboy humor.

via BoingBoing- some guy wrote a script that parses the Daily Show clip archive on Comedy Central.com and makes them more accessible- right now there are 648 clips.

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Crazy story...

This just kind of made me laugh- spotted it on Google's main news... er... "news" page for some reason- check out the sarcastic quotes littering this story in the "Christian" "Post":

A San Francisco judge on Monday ruled against California’s ban on gay “marriage”,

[...]

At the crux of his ruling was his opinion that marriage is a basic "human right"

[...]

Kramer wrote that the state's ban on same-sex "marriage" violates "the basic human right to marry the person of one's choice."

The ruling was made in light of a series of lawsuits brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couple one year ago, after the California Supreme Court halted the four-week “marriage” spree that Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated in February 2004. Newsom and SF city officials handed out some 4,000 same- sex “marriage” licenses” in defiance of state law before being ordered to stop.

In August, the state's high court invalidated those "marriage" licenses and ruled that Newsom had overstepped his authoirty in giving the green light to such unions.

Monday's ruling is not retroactive, and will not validate the licenses issued in the past. However, if it is left to stand, same-sex couples will be allowed to "marry" across the state.

[...]

Should California voters approve the amendment, as they did the current marriage laws, the state will join thirteen others in placing the issue out of the hands of “activist judges” and in the hands of voters.

That's what we finally learn from the FCC today.

They planned to use Madden for the bit originally, but Terrell Owens stepped in at the last minute- was it racism that caused all the agitation?

It took me a long time to make that connection, but think about it- would anyone have given two shits if Madden were the one trying to hump that skank?

Quick one from Friday's Jimmy Kimmel show- Bush appears to be off the wagon-




Also check out Jimmy's regular feature "This Week In Unnecessary Censorship"

It never stops:

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

[...]

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform.

[...]

They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

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This is a naked attempt by the Bush administration to de-legitimize the press.

Anyone who saw how Bush's march to war in Iraq was covered in the US plainly saw the diminished credibility of the press.

Unfortunately, this is a whole new level. They've traded in any credibility they had left for pre-packaged government propaganda. I mean, hey, less work for them, right?

I can only hope this article is, at long last, a step in the right direction.

Here's The Daily Show's coverage of John Bolton's nomination to the UN post-

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Bonus- includes the always hilarious segment "Great Moments In Punditry (As Read By Children)"

I'm switching web servers- could mean some weirdness over the weekend... er... different weirdness anyway...

(This is the new server, fancy, no?)

Here's Jon's interview with Paul Krugman from last night's Daily Show:

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The Post:

Top military intelligence officials at the Abu Ghraib prison came to an agreement with the CIA to hide certain detainees at the facility without officially registering them, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Keeping such "ghost" detainees is a violation of international law.

Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, who was second in command of the intelligence gathering effort at Abu Ghraib while the abuse was occurring, told military investigators that "other government agencies" and a secretive elite task force "routinely brought in detainees for a short period of time" and that the detainees were held without an internment number, and their names were kept off the books.

I'm sure it was just a few feeble-minded people on the night shift causing all this violation of international law... ya ever heard of people blowing off steam?

Where's my Vicodin?

/limbaugh

I get enraged by a lot of things, but bumper stickers aren't a trigger. (So far.)

There are just so many things wrong in this picture- the weird face Bush Sr. is making (the caption says he was eating something) the guy behind Bush Sr. looking like he's gonna kill someone... and what the fuck is Hal Sparks doing there?

Recent instances where the White House transcripts have required a [sic] when transcribing Bush:

March 8, 2005:

Melissa happens to be a board [sic] of this community college system.

March 4, 2005:

And the reason I bring that up is there's all kinds of ways to serve our country. We've got those wearing the uniform serving our country, whether it be abroad or here at home. But you can serve your country, as well, by feeding the hungry; or finding shelter for the homeless; or helping a low-income person fill out a tax reform [sic].

February 28, 2005:

My six years as governor of Texas have been invaluable to me as I carry out my duties as the presidency [sic].

February 22, 2005:

The United States and the U.S. [sic] stand together in support of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon come into action. [He was meeting with E.U. leaders.]

February 17, 2005:

Q When might they report back?

THE PRESIDENT: Don't know -- don't know yet. Do we have any idea?

MR. HADLEY: Sometime next month.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Hadley said, "Try to work me in the press conference," and I did. (Laughter.) Congratulations. Sometimes [sic] next month, he said.

[I think this one might be a little unfair- "sometimes next month" is probably just hillbilly talk... right?]

February 10, 2005:

Now, if you're a worker who earns $35 [sic] a year over your lifetime, and this system were in effect where you could put 4 percent of your payroll taxes in a personal account, and you start at age 20, by the time you retire, your personal account would grow to $250,000. That's compounding rate of interest.

Halliburton is working in Iran.

Wonder if they'll have time to get out before we invade?

On to the related fake news of the day- The Onion has a scoop:

Wow is this great footage of Bush talking at CIA headquarters. It's telling that in this day and age only the Daily Show has the guts to actually air it.

Dino Ironbody takes a look at the state of journalism today from last night's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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He's threatening to sue over this link, to be exact.

What an ass.

Here are The News Hounds

Yesterday the empty heads on Fox & Friends reported on a "detailed study" from something called "Movie Guide" which indicated that patriotic movies do better at the box office. After a minute or so of mindless conversation something happened that kind of freaked me out- one of the hosts repeated word for word exactly what I was screaming at the TV.

I promise I'll use my new-found powers for good, not evil.

I think after looking at this screen grab you can see what I was screaming about:

Remember that part of "The Passion" where Jesus was up on the cross chanting, "USA! USA! USA!"? Well... I do. But I was sniffing glue at the time.

Here's the video I put together.

(The music is mclusky the band, not mclusky the guy who knows one chord but is still able to rock-out, man.)

The folks at Fishbowl DCare trying to call Howard Kurtz's bluff by accessing a day pass to a White House press briefing. It's day two, and it's not going well ...

Al Franken has played this on his show before- it still cracks me up- I remember both these questions were asked in that press conference, but I didn't realize they were asked one after the other:

THE PRESIDENT: We've got new leadership going to the Department of Education. But all our Cabinet Secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet. I'm confident you'll be, over the course of the next four years, willing to give our different policies an objective look -- won't you? Yes, I can see that.

Yes, sir.

Q [White House Plant JEFF GANNON] Thank you. Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock-solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

Boehlert @ Salon:

"Republicans have a clear, agreed-upon plan how to diminish the mainstream press," says Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was granted unique access inside the White House in 2002 to report on the administration's communication strategy. "For them, essentially the way to handle the press is the same as how to handle the federal government; you starve the beast. When it's in a weakened and undernourished condition, then you're able to effect a variety of subtle partisan and political attacks. Armstrong Williams and others are examples of that."

[...]

The systematic effort to undercut journalists, to strip them of their traditional influence in national affairs, represents the Bush administration taking steps to "decertify" the professional press corps by "trying to unseat the idea that these people, professional journalists assigned to cover politics, have a legitimate role to play in our politics," according to Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University. He views that effort, along with James Guckert's (aka Jeff Gannon's) ascension at White House press briefings, as being closely linked: "Creating 'Jeff Gannon' as a credible White House correspondent and creating radical doubt about the intentions of mainstream journalists (in order to decertify the traditional press) are two parts of the same effort."

Get a day pass to Salon- this one's worth sitting through the ad.

CNN:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday challenged people seeking to ban displays of the Ten Commandments on government property, noting legislative proclamations invoking God's name are permissible.

"I don't see why the one is good and the other is bad," Scalia said from the bench[.]

Oh- this is an easy one- none of them are good. Printing "In God We Trust" on the money? That's particularly distasteful. For the faithful, printing their deity's name on the money ought to be considered blasphemy- what God-fearing person would want to equate money with their God? (make your own organized religion jokes here...)

For others, (has "brights" caught on yet?) they've got the name of an imaginary wizard who lives in the sky etched on their coinage.

Money is secular. So are the courts. So is the rest of the U.S. government. They're all threatened by a few who are unable or unwilling to see that He is not everyone's lord and savior.

I have very little faith in the Supreme Court, but they did just decide to stop killing little kids and retards, so maybe there's hope.

Hitchens looks at Ohio's peculiar election results-

I am not any sort of statistician or technologist, and (like many Democrats in private) I did not think that John Kerry should have been president of any country at any time. But I have been reviewing books on history and politics all my life, making notes in the margin when I come across a wrong date, or any other factual blunder, or a missing point in the evidence. No book is ever free from this. But if all the mistakes and omissions occur in such a way as to be consistent, to support or attack only one position, then you give the author a lousy review. The Federal Election Commission, which has been a risible body for far too long, ought to make Ohio its business.

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Actually it's not fair to compare these two... one is a psychopathic, power-obsessed monster and the other is a fictional character from Lord of the Rings.