President of 9/11 and presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani claims to have been at ground zero as often as rescue workers. Turns out he was down there for about 29 hours total. So much for his campaign.
August 18, 2007
The Ghoul gets a take-down
August 6, 2007
A troll for all seasons
Matt Sanchez is up to his dirty tricks again, but unwittingly sullies the name of his right-wing associates. First, The Weekly Standard reports that The New Republic’s Milblogger Scott Thomas Beauchamp (identity now revealed) dispatches were fabricated. After raising a such a big stink, it turns out that TNR’s source was none other than our favorite gay porn star, former male escort, Wikipedia editor, alleged thief, and obsessive egosurfer Matt Sanchez. So much for reliable sources.
The New Republic has since found corroboration for almost everything they printed. Media Matters has since called Sanchez on his bullshit. Time Magazine’s Swampland blog has also picked up the story. Blogger Nate Nelson wants to ensure quite reasonable that this chicanery isn’t being done on the public’s dime.
You can always count on Mateo for laugh.
July 17, 2007
The “Homeland”
Something about referring to the United State of America as the “Homeland” has always sounded a little odd, perhaps even a tad fascist. I’m not alone in this apparently. Wired’s Threat Level blog has a post today, There’s No Such Thing as the Homeland that helps put a point on it:
People who write and think of their country as the Homeland with a capital H tend to think that they can redefine torture, ignore international treaties, fund disinformation efforts to keep morale high, launch wars based on hunches and emphasize the power of the executive branch because they consider themselves the good guys who are the only ones who know what’s right for the country. They only want to protect the Homeland, don’t you see? The vocabulary is symptomatic of a rigid, nationalistic world view.
But even more apt:
There is no such thing as a Homeland. The United States is not Franco’s Spain, the National Socialist Party’s Germany, or Mussolini’s Italy. We do not face imminent destruction of our country or way of life.
The final assertion, of course, is arguable from a number of points of view. In particular, it is our reaction to terrorism that threatens our way of life.
July 16, 2007
Why impeachment could be a non-partisan issue
Opinion polls indicate that public support for impeachment is at a high point. But whether this idea runs along partisan lines is to miss the point. Bush & Cheney are the architects of a massive increase in executive powers and they achieved it long before the latest outrages, namely Cheney’s assertion that the Office of the VP is not part of the executive branch and that executive privilege universally trumps the Congress’ power to investigate. The Constitutional check to the potential despotism of the executive branch is the rarely used power of impeachment. According to John Nichols if there was ever a time to use it, that time is now, I think this quote neatly sums up what is at stake:
“On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this Administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any President has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don’t give away the tools.” — John Nichols
For more on this see Tough Talk on Impeachment.