mjh's blog

America Is A Free Speech Zone

Friends and Neighbors, Our Exalted Leader,

Duhbya, is comin’ to town Thursday night through Friday morning. Time to go up on your roof and leave him a greeting. I’m

trying to choose from these:

if lies were oil
we’d have a gusher

out, out
damn
duhbya

bush
be
gone

flunk bush

dump duhbya

impeach bush

Kenny Boy Lay & Jack Abramoff say hi!

Bush
Abramoff
Lay

DeLay

BUllSHit (an old favorite)

Add your own ideas in comments or send me photos of your greeting. I’ll post them on

www.rooftoprevolt.com.

peace, mjh

Foreseeing the Next Republican Disaster

“National security is more important than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. And to use it to try and get someone

elected will ultimately end up in defeat and disaster for that political party.” — Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

href="http://www.columbiatribune.com/2006/Jan/20060130News023.asp">Republican pans spying argument (AP)

I Feel Better Already

Study Ties

Political Leanings to Hidden Biases By Shankar Vedantam

When presented with negative information about the candidates they

liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected,

furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats — the scans showed that “reward centers” in

volunteers’ brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had

curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

Cutting the corruption

href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14113083p-14942598c.html">Cutting the corruption by Arthur Levitt Jr.

Now

removed from Washington and viewing its problems from the perspective of the private sector, I’ve come to think that our federal

government is plagued by some of the same problems that have been hurting corporate America, primarily a lack of transparency,

accountability and independence. As with many of the disgraced corporations of the past few years — Adelphia, Tyco and WorldCom, for

example — so it is with Congress: Conflicts of interest abound, oversight has been myopic and those given the public’s trust have used

it to enrich themselves. …

[L]awmakers need not look far for an example of how to reform themselves. Just as Congress passed the

Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 to clean up American industry, it should pass similar legislation to clean up American government.

I highly recommend you read the entire piece linked above. These are practical suggestions for cleaning up a

process from someone who has mucked out other stables. mjh

PS: The Albuquerque Journal titled this “Our

Congress Cannot Police Itself” — which is not at all the message of this piece.

god damn these mean fools

5 States

Consider Bans On Protests at Funerals By Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff Writer

At least five Midwestern states are

considering legislation to ban protests at funerals in response to demonstrations by the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka,

Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, who have been protesting at funerals of Iraq war casualties because they say the deaths are

God’s punishment for U.S. tolerance toward gays.

Though the soldiers were not gay, the protesters say the deaths, as

well as Hurricane Katrina, recent mining disasters and other tragedies are God’s signs of displeasure. They also protested at the

memorial service for the 12 West Virginia miners who died in the Sago Mine. …

Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps’s daughter and an

attorney for the church, said if legislation passes, the group will challenge it in court. “Whatever they do would be unconstitutional,”

she said. “These aren’t private funerals; these are patriotic pep rallies. Our goal is to call America an abomination, to help

the nation connect the dots. You turn this nation over to the fags and our soldiers come home in body bags.“

Hiking The Narrows Rim Trail

A couple of weeks ago, I took a drive

out to El Malpais and hiked a new-to-me trail, The Narrows Rim Trail. It seems likely that this trail leads to an overlook opposite La

Ventana Arch, but I didn’t make it that far.

Continue reading Hiking The Narrows Rim Trail…

Old Dog, New Trick?

Did anyone else notice that after wasting his swan song

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/loco/when-msm-attacks/">pissing on the blogosphere, Steve Lawrence has a new line (sorry). OK,

The Line on KNME (7pm Fridays) isn’t quite new anymore, and surely not New Media (until it has a podcast — YAWN!).

But

hold on. After Lawrence excoriated bloggers, who joins him on the set: Joe Monahan, one of the few bloggers making money. And what’s

this?! Next week, conservative blogger Mario Burgos will be the guest (what, is Greg Payne afraid to ride the bus after dark? Is Bohnsack

too busy re-writing Pong for Ruby?). And, no, I haven’t overlooked that regular Gene Grant is a blogger (I may be the only person Gene

Grant ever yelled at on his blog — or possibly anywhere). So, is Steve surrounding himself with bloggers to make himself look good by

comparison?

Regular readers would assume I had to be happy that Joe replaced Dimdahl for the week. Surprise! The ever dour, fast-

talking monotone Monahan made me miss the sly Burnsian-smile of Dimdahl, his skin so smooth and hair perfectly white (or are those hairs

transparent, like a polar bear’s?). Though I can’t stand Dimdahl most of the time, I imagine it most be wonderful to sit with Dimmy in

the warming hut aprés ski, drinking wine and passing a fatty; he’s probably brilliant while high.

I’d say we all need to

support these local TV shows, though Kate Nelson’s In Focus at 7:30pm is much better — The Line is the McLaughlin Group for people

under 50. But after my re-education at TheFix, I adhere to Capital

Darwinism which declares “if you can’t make a go of it, sod off, ya wanker!” It’s the profit motive, stupid!

class="sig">mjh

A Moment of Silence for Crosswinds Weekly

href="http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4417588,00.html">Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print

media By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter

“People are reading less and relying less on daily newspapers for news and

information,” [Steve Lawrence] said.

“I think that’s a tragedy. It’s bad for the country. It means we have a

less informed citizenry, and that means we have a less informed democracy.”

When I

wrote last week to argue with Steve Lawrence, editor of Crosswinds Weekly, about his dismal take on blogs, I had no idea he would shut down within days. I never got to see my letter in print! The

lengths people will go to to avoid acknowledging criticism.

And damn! if he wasn’t unrepentant to the bitter end. “Bad

for the country.” Under BushCo, we have no idea how many articles that have appeared in print in respected publications were actually

just ads paid for by Duhbya and Friends. THAT’S bad for the country. Reporters and memoir-writers who casually admit, ‘sure I made that

up’ — THAT’S bad for the country. Media giants buying up and unifying channels of communication — THAT’S bad for the country.

Alternative weeklies folding because advertisers oppose their liberalism — THAT’S bad for the country. Blogs? Blogging makes me read

more than ever, from a wider variety of sources than ever. As a blogger, I’m working hard to be informed and to help others connect to

information (and opinions, it is true).

I will actually miss Crosswinds, as I miss NuCity and others. Crosswinds was often

unabashedly liberal and alternative while, at the same time, a booster of local business — some of which stabbed it in the back. We are

a poorer community without it.

Of course, given Lawrence’s disdain for blogs, I don’t expect it to occur to him that he has an

existing Website (www.crosswindsweekly.com) that needs little advertising to support it. Like

href="http://www.alpertstruth.com/">Arthur Alpert after Prime Time, Lawrence, Sharon Kayne, Hal Rhodes, et. al., could continue to

write and interact with the community. Surely he doesn’t want his last hurrah to be his silly poke at the blogosphere. What could be

more ironic than to be reborn as one of us! But he has his TV show to play with now (as for me, I couldn’t stay in the same room that

long with Dimdahl without flipping him off; every time Dimdahl spewed “socialist” I would respond with “fascist.”).

class="sig">mjh

PS: Thanks to Lori for the tip. And to Sophie for the link.

href="http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4417588,00.html">Crosswinds’ closure puts spotlight on print

media By Sue Vorenberg, Tribune Reporter

Crosswinds Weekly was a forum for alternative viewpoints around Albuquerque, readers

said, and now it’s gone.

The free alternative paper has closed because it didn’t have enough advertising income to continue,

said Steve Lawrence, Crosswinds editor and publisher.

“There just wasn’t enough support from the business community,” Lawrence

said today. “That’s really the bottom line.”

href="http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2006/01/23/daily12.html">Crosswinds Weekly hits financial turbulence, ceases

publication Paul Krza, NMBW Staff

[Lawrence] did admit, however, to recently alienating one advertiser with his opinions. In

January, he took restaurateurs Jennifer James and Michael Chesley to task when he expressed support for a hike in the state’s minimum

wage. He noted that in 2004, the paper, in a cover article, had “raved” about James’ food-preparation talent, but when he and other

columnists backed fair-wage campaigns, James’ and Chesley’s Graze restaurant pulled its Crosswinds’ ads.

“I’ve been a journalist for forty years here and in New York City and always believed that journalism should be watchdogs of

government and business,” he says.

In an ironic twist, the demise of Crosswinds was announced in at least three

Albuquerque-connected “blogs,” none with any attribution or words from Lawrence, only days after he had launched an attack on blogging in

what turned out to be his final column for the newspaper.

Sharon Kayne commenting on the

href="http://www.dukecityfix.com/index.php?itemid=1412" title="Duke City Fix � UPDATED AGAIN -- R.I.P Crosswinds

Weekly">DukeCityFix: In fact, our support of the city�s living wage initiative cost us business. Lost revenue did not change our

editorial policy even though we clearly needed the revenue. Occasionally local businesses told us they wouldn�t advertise with us

because we were �too liberal.�

PPS: a note about how news travels. I heard about this via

email from my wife who heard about this in face-time from a co-worker who read about it in, gasp, the paper — the Trib, that is.

Granted, the blogs scooped the papers, as you can see with DukeCityFix on Wed acknowledging

href="http://www.alibi.com/editorial/section_display.php?di=2006-01-26&scn=blog&scn_page_num=1#13986" title="A Bad News

Day">the Alibi’s blog from Tues. Poor old MSM caught up 48 hours after the Alibi. But, wait, even a constant blogger like me still

got it second hand via the old dinosaur, paper.

Unlike paper, the blogs give us a place to post our condolences (or cheers), as

you will see at TheFix. Interesting times. mjh

Jack Abramoff’s Meetings with Duhbya

Mr. Abramoff’s Meetings

HERE ARE SOME things we know

about Jack Abramoff and the White House: The disgraced lobbyist raised at least $100,000 for President Bush’s reelection campaign. He

had long-standing ties to Karl Rove, a key presidential adviser. He had extensive dealings with executive branch officials and

departments — one of whom, former procurement chief David H. Safavian, has been charged by federal prosecutors with lying to

investigators about his involvement with Mr. Abramoff.

We also know that Mr. Abramoff is an admitted crook who was willing to

bribe members of Congress and their staffs to get what he (or his clients) wanted. …

Here is what we don’t know about Jack

Abramoff and the White House: whom he met with and what was discussed. Nor, if the White House sticks to its current position, will we

learn that anytime soon. …

Information uncovered by Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the

same inside the executive branch.

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff’s White House meetings is no mere exercise

in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of

government. Whatever White House officials did or didn’t do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and

therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting.

Photos of Bush With Abramoff Are Withheld by Jim VandeHei and

Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writers

Several White House officials have been briefed about pictures of President Bush and

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-

for-favors investigation, aides said yesterday. …

Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty in the growing bribery and corruption

scandal, was with Bush about a dozen times when pictures were taken by the official White House photographer or other participants over

the past five years, according to a source familiar with Abramoff’s legal situation. Abramoff, this source said, displayed at least five

of them on his office desk and has told people the president talked about his children’s names as well as personal details about their

schooling during one encounter. …

The source said Abramoff has more than half a dozen photos with Bush, including one of the two

men shaking hands, but has no intention of releasing them. The existence of the Bush-Abramoff photos was first reported by Washingtonian

magazine, which reviewed five photos but was not permitted to publish them. [mjh: WTF?]

Abramoff was no stranger to the Bush White House. He had served as one of Bush’s top fundraisers and assisted the Interior Department

during the president’s transition to power in 2000.

I’m Feeling . . . Surveilled

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301254.html?referrer=email">I’m Feeling . . .

Surveilled By Eugene Robinson

Google is able to know too much, and I guess it’s no surprise that the Bush administration

wants in on the action. The Justice Department’s demand to see an entire week’s worth of Google searches looks to me like an attempt by

the administration to get its foot in the door, and if I’m right, it’s even more of an Orwellian threat than the National Security

Agency’s snooping on phone calls and e-mails. …

When we ask a question of Google, it’s akin to being in the privacy of the

confessional. We lay ourselves bare.

Google is right to resist the Justice Department’s overreaching subpoena. Cyber-privacy is

going to be one of the great issues of the coming years

I wonder if reports are correct that Google

isn’t standing up for freedom against an Imperial President but, rather, trying to protect trade secrets. If the latter is true, Duhbya

should fall over backwards for a corporate friend — oh, but maybe Google doesn’t pay-to-play?

class="sig">mjh

Not really AmeriCo

In some respects, I don’t care that Alito will

be the next Justice, nor that he’ll replace a more moderate Sandra Day O’Connor. I am a little creeped out by 8 Catholics

ruling like a College of Cardinals.

I’m absolutely certain that I will live long enough to hear more than one Radical Righter

bray against the treachery of Alito or Roberts. It is inevitable that they will be disappointed — they always have been.

I also

believe in the Law of Unintended Consequences and the subtle shifting of the balance of power in our three-pronged government. The Loony

Right believes they are at the gates of heaven: they control the Legislature and the Presidency and are one Justice away from a

generational lock on the Supreme Court — plus the corporate grip on media and the tax-free businesses of mega-churches. With a rubber-

stamp Congress and Court, and the support of the church, this or the next conservative President will be more powerful than any president

since Roosevelt — and it’s all about destroying the New Deal.

But the Radical Right is losing its hold. The deception and

corruption become more obvious every day. The intolerance does, too. Those with power believe their judgements and pronouncements are

absolute and final. People are starting to fear their government — ironically, that’s one of the tenets of the Radical Right: hatred of

the Beast. They have become the Beast. They are repulsing those who are not ideologically pure.

America is stronger than the

momentary passions of any group, no matter how powerful they think they are — as liberals who supported personal freedom in the Sixties

well know. This president will leave office — thank god — thinking he was the greatest president ever. Power will shift — as it must

– and the pendulum will swing. The overall trajectory of America is not in the direction of more power for the rich and for business. We

are not really AmeriCo. mjh

JURIST – Forum: Legal Technicalities: Weighing the Alito Nomination by David Kairys

Like

the rest of us, [Alito's] for a clean environment and corporate responsibility, but he interprets environmental laws so it’s near

impossible to make out a case against a polluter, and anti-trust laws so it’s near impossible to make out a case of price fixing.

He tells us about the importance of privacy and of limits on the government’s power to intrude on individuals, which are the essence of

liberty. But he accepts farfetched rationales to justify most any intrusion – even the unauthorized strip search of a 10-year-old girl

and the unauthorized holding of a farmer at gunpoint and ransacking of his home.

He’s for balance among the three branches

government, but he’s taken every opportunity to strip Congress of the basic power to protect and serve the public. …

In many

such decisions, he was a lone dissenter, and majorities on his own court, including then-judge and now Secretary of Homeland Security

Michael Chertoff, often expressed unusual displeasure with his dubious manipulations of rules and evidence. …

He has a deep

allegiance to government, to corporations, and to the wealthy and elite – so deep that there is no way to know what, if any, limits he

might find acceptable.

Alito’s writings yearn for undiluted executive power and immunity of executive officials from all

legal claims – immunity from the rule of law. At the confirmation hearings, he wouldn’t accept any concrete limits on

presidential power, even in general terms. …

But he’s very willing – eager – to limit the powers of Congress when they are used

to protect the safety, health, jobs, environment or wellbeing of Americans throughout the country.

Executive and legislative power

matter. …

Alito believes in freedom, but it’s the freedom of the most powerful and wealthiest among us and of the government to

do as they please, with little or no concern for the effect on most Americans or the nation as a whole.

David Kairys is a

law professor at Temple University who has litigated leading civil rights cases.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Republican

When the new Chief Justice of the United States was sworn in — a once-in-a-lifetime event — where

was Scalia? Hanging out with real conservatives.

Now, his buds are outraged that this got reported. Are they mad that he

was caught snubbing his new boss? (Proof enough for me that Roberts isn’t a real conservative.) Or are they pissed at Scalia

being shown playing tennis? Hey, at least he wasn’t on a polo pony. Our Lords and Ladies need their diversions, don’t you know.

Note that Radical Righters call the following report a lie. Did Scalia skip the swearing-in or not? Did he play tennis or not?

class="sig">mjh

Conservative Legal Group Calls

for Investigation of ABC Report by Robert B. Bluey

ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross reported Monday for

ABC’s “Nightline” that Scalia was out of town at a Federalist Society legal seminar on the day of Chief Justice John Roberts’ swearing-in

ceremony. Ross’ report showed Scalia playing tennis at the hotel where he stayed—video that might have been obtained illegally, according

to the Federalist Society.

Steal This Idea!

Republicans Mean Business

href="http://mjhinton.net/mjh/graphics/rmb.gif">

src="http://mjhinton.net/mjh/graphics/rmb_small.gif" />

Click on that image for the larger version. Feel free to use either

image as a link; how about a link to www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/category/nada/dump-duhbya/ ? mjh

PS-

Originally, there was no “Feel free to add an apostrophe or equal sign.” I thought that was funny enough, but assumed someone

would not get it without some help.

Photos of Duhbya and Abramoff

TIME.com: When George Met

Jack By ADAM ZAGORIN, MIKE ALLEN

“The President does not know [Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff], nor does the President

recall ever meeting him,” McClellan said.

The President’s memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs

of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush’s aides have downplayed. While TIME’s source

refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually ….