Support our troops--vote for them

If you haven't been following Paul Hackett's run for Congress in Ohio, you need to catch up. Dude's just back from Iraq (two tours) and up for a seat in a special election August 2 in a heavily Republican district. And looking pretty good. But the most interesting thing about the race to me is the depths his opponent is sinking to in an attempt to smear him. These fuckers are actually making the case that an Iraq war veteran is less patriotic than the average Republican sit-on-his-ass Congressman. It ain't pretty, but pay attention.

If you have disposible income, give some to Paul. He walks the walk.

Warrior:warmonger as honest:idiot

This word map is hilarious--among other things, it shows that people who dislike Bush clearly have a better vocabulary than those who like him.

How many dead in Ohio?

Meanwhile, my boss's old nemesis Tom Noe continues to run himself over with a bus--a bus he evidently bought with public money:

OHIO INVESTMENT SCANDAL
Petro: Noe stole millions
Coin deals described as 'Ponzi' scheme
Petro: 'There was an absolute theft of funds going on."
By JAMES DREW and STEVE EDER
BLADE STAFF WRITERS

COLUMBUS — Tom Noe stole millions of dollars from the state and used a “Ponzi” scheme to fabricate profits within the state’s $50 million rare-coin investment, Ohio’s attorney general said yesterday.

“There was an absolute theft of funds going on,” Attorney General Jim Petro said.

Mr. Petro said there is evidence that Mr. Noe pocketed nearly $4 million in money invested with the coin fund through the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation since 1998.

Now, keep in mind, Petro is a Republican, and he refused Democratic requests for an independent investigation into Noe's shenanigans back in April. He appears to be involved in some questionable campaign funding schemes that Noe ran, as well.

But, he's running for governor! So I guess he has to tie on his superhero cape and fight The Forces of Eeeeevil.

I wish him luck. When your sitting Republican governor has an approval rating of 17%, I think the Republicans need all the luck they can get. Or steal. (Scroll down for the ordinal rankings. I see our own Rick Perry is #42 out of 50, with 38% approval. Jeb Bush ain't lookin' so hot either.)

Happy Anniversary

Notice the change in the title bar above.

And yes, the car is fixed.

Still no photos

I'd been wondering what was up with this--looks like they have chosen to stonewall. Big surprise there . . .

Government Defies an Order to Release Iraq Abuse Photos
JUL 23 2005
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan late Thursday that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material, which they were to have released by yesterday.

Advice

You probably should not plan a major construction project at your home, take on two simultaneous freelance jobs, and work a full-time job while your two children require ferrying to two different locations on a daily basis. Because if you do, your car will break down.

Happy birthday to me

Rumsfeld has until July 11 to produce Iraq benchmarks

By DAVID S. BRODER
Washington Post columnist
Last update: July 03, 2005

President Bush is facing a legal deadline to deliver what he has been most resistant to providing: a set of specific benchmarks for measuring progress toward military and political stability in Iraq.

Under a little-noticed provision of the defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

I can hardly wait.

Our heritage is founded on violence against women

This is why I think it's funny that Scott McClellan used to (allegedly) get beat up by girls:

Convergence of Driver, Bicyclist Ends in Arrest
Bystanders Track Alleged Assailant
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 2, 2005

It began as a shouting match on a busy Capitol Hill street corner during the frenetic morning commute, a bike-vs.-car incident not uncommon in a big city.

But then the silver-haired, retired Navy lieutenant got out of his car, approached the red-headed ballet dancer riding a bike and allegedly shoved her to the ground, authorities said. He got back into his car and, as bystanders followed him, drove down the block to his nearby office, the bicyclist said.

The man was identified as Ted E. Schelenski, 64, vice president for finance and operations at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that promotes conservative policies. He pleaded not guilty this week to a charge of simple assault.

Conservative alpha male beats up 105 pound woman who dared to challenge his authority. Does anyone doubt that these people all need to have their asses kicked by girls?

Deja vu all over again

For a while I thought California might pull ahead in the contest of Republican corruption. But Ohio politics keep comin' through in the clutch.

Which reminds me, the WaPo has a kind of interesting timeline of the Watergate scandal which filled in a few blanks for me (though it does leave out some kind of important events, like when the tapes actually got turned over). I hadn't realized, for example, that the Supreme Court decision that executive privilege did not cover the tapes was unanimous. The timeline includes links to the Post's coverage of events at the time. I was struck by the lag time bewteen discoveries and any widespread political fallout for Nixon. In October 1972, Woodward and Bernstein ran a lengthy piece confirming that the Nixon campaign was running a dirty tricks operation against the democrats, with FBI sources corroborating. A few weeks later Nixon won re-election by the largest margin ever. It took a while for the tipping point to be reached, I guess. Maybe a hopeful sign things still work like this, I dunno.

Humor for the weekend

Fafblog once again shames those of us who think we're funny, this time with the Fafblog Constitutional Theater.