The Sheer Douchebaggery of Fox News's "War on Christmas"

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Jon Stewart issues the formal declaration:

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Occupied America

So it seems that the military will be allowed to arrest an American citizen on American soil, say "he or she is a terrorist" and that's all it takes: They can hold that person without trial forever. No trial, no judicial review, fuck the Sixth Amendment.

So what's next? Are they going to eviscerate the First Amendment while they are at it? Why the fuck not; just send in the Army, arrest the protestors, declare that they are terrorists and throw them into a concentration camp.

Didn't those chowderheads in the Senate take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution? Can we now impeach all of those who voted for this craptastic provision?

Every senator who voted for this provision is a traitor. These are the senators (a "nay" vote was for obliterating the Sixth Amendment):

Alexander (R-TN), Ayotte (R-NH), Barrasso (R-WY), Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR), Brown (R-MA), Burr (R-NC), Casey (D-PA), Chambliss (R-GA), Coats (R-IN), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Conrad (D-ND), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Hagan (D-NC), Hatch (R-UT), Heller (R-NV), Hoeven (R-ND), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Inouye (D-HI), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Johnson (R-WI), Kohl (D-WI), Kyl (R-AZ), Landrieu (D-LA), Lee (R-UT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (ID-CT), Lugar (R-IN), Manchin (D-WV), McCain (R-AZ), McCaskill (D-MO), McConnell (R-KY), Moran (R-KS), Nelson (D-NE), Portman (R-OH), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Rubio (R-FL), Sessions (R-AL), Shaheen (D-NH), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), Stabenow (D-MI), Thune (R-SD), Toomey (R-PA), Vitter (R-LA), Whitehouse (D-RI), and Wicker (R-MS).

I'm not surprised that most of the votes for this provision were Republicans, they're pretty much a pro-police state bunch. If you're one of their constituents, you might want to drop them a line, anyway, but I urge you to really hammer the living shit (metaphorically speaking) out of the goddamn Democrats who think that authorizing the military to detain American citizens without the protections of the Constitution (which we fought for to both get and to protect) is just peachy.*

230 years ago, we fought a war over shit like this. We fought a war against an occupying force that claimed the right to lock up anyone it wanted for as long as it wanted without judicial review. The Bill of Rights was deemed to be so important that, without an agreement to pass it and offer it to the several states, the Constitution itself would not have been ratified.

This is how our freedom in this country dies. Not by invasion, but by gutless weasels in our Congresses who give it away. Shame on all of them. May boils break out on their butts. May beets grow in their intestines. May they all go insane from syphilis, for they are nothing but cowardly whores.**

Finally, I should give a shout-out to those two Republicans who were loyal enough to this country to fight this tyrannical provision and stand against their own party. They are: Kirk (R-IL) and Paul (R-KY).
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* I didn't bold "Traitor Joe" Lieberman, for he's nothing more than either a Republican who is too stupid to sit where he belongs or a Trojan horse.
** I take part of that back, as referring to sitting United States senators as "whores" is probably deeply offensive to working whores.

FAA Job Opening

Right at the top:

Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt resigned Tuesday, three days after he was arrested on a drunk driving charge near his suburban Washington home.

The beef wasn't that he was driving drunk. No, the problem was that he didn't inform his boss, the Secretary of Transportation about the arrest. So his boss read about it in the paper. Which is never good for a political job.

I don't have any beef with Babbitt's performance. He was light-years better than two of the previous Administrators who wouldn't have known a pitot tube from a relief tube.

Russian Elections

The Russians claim that their elections were "transparent".

What was transparent was widespread fraud.

International monitors said yesterday that of 150 polling stations monitored, 34 were "very bad", and reports came in from across the country of multiple voting, stuffed ballots, and public-sector workers coming under pressure to vote for United Russia.

Before the election, Putin's party wanted to exceed the margin of victory in the previous election. Even with rampant ballot stuffing, they couldn't get there.

I suspect that if the ballots were honestly counted, United Russia would have come in well under 50%. They'll boost their percentage to somewhat over 50%, so they can hold a majority in the Duma.

It was about as free and fair an election as the ones held in Chicago under Daley the First.

Welcome Home, Guys

They went out for a seven-week exercise and were gone for seven months.

Phoenix Crash

The NTSB preliminary report is available here (4-page PDF).

(Original post)

The Six-Foot Long Vertical Brush-Hog

The editor of an online fashion and lifestyle magazine was severely injured at a McKinney airport Saturday when she walked into an airplane propeller.

Lauren Scruggs, 23, landed at Aero Country Airport -- off Virginia Parkway -- about 9:30 p.m. after viewing North Texas Christmas lights from a small, private airplane. The prop struck her upper body, according to her friend Janeé Harrell, resulting in a skull fracture, severe facial cuts and the amputation of her left hand, among other injuries.

Props are dangerous. From behind, they are almost invisible, for the back side is painted flat black so as not to reflect light into the pilot's eyes. At night, you won't see it on the ground. They've killed people who were supposed to be familiar with them.

Some airplanes you might safely exit and enter with the engine running. Some you can't (older Navions). But if you're going to load and unload passengers with the engine running, they must be thoroughly briefed and, if at all possibly, escorted. For if you are the pilot and someone strolls into the prop, it's on you.

Bombed

How many times does this need to happen, people?

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt was placed on a leave of absence Monday and U.S. officials said his employment is under review following his arrest for drunken driving in suburban Northern Virginia.

Babbitt, 65, was charged with driving while intoxicated after a patrol officer spotted him driving on the wrong side of the street and pulled him over about 10:30 p.m. Saturday in Fairfax City, Va., police in the Washington, D.C., suburb.

Considering that a DUI pretty much means the end to a lot of different careers now, I'd be surprised if Babbitt comes back to work.*

Too bad for him that he wasn't a congressman or a senator. Then it'd be no big deal to have a moral slip like that. After all, Diaper Dave is still in the Senate.
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But really, folks, it's been something like 25 years since the cops started cracking down on driving while intoxicated. At what point do you just roll your eyes and say: "Jeez, what the hell is wrong with that guy?"

It's Not Just "Operation Gunwalker" Anymore

Yesterday's New York Times had a lengthy article on how the Drug Enforcement Administration has been laundering money for the Mexican cartels.

I respectfully suggest that anyone who doesn't think that the DEA was taking a cut of the money and that, in itself, was a reason why the DEA has been so eager to engage in money laundering, probably should stop reading this blog and go out looking for unicorns and leprechauns' gold.

(Of course, if you happen to work for the Feds and you wonder aloud if this makes any sense, you'll be fired.)

"No Brains Required to Work Here"; TSA Edition

Indeed, a functioning cortex is probably a detriment for employment with the TSA.

Vanessa Gibbs, 17, said officials with the Transportation Security Administration at Norfolk International Airport stopped her during a security screening because they said her handbag -- which has the shape of a gun designed on it -- was as a security risk, WJXT-TV reported.

This is the purse that so freaked out the TSA:

Does the TSA work hard at recruiting people who apparently were shitcanned from being school administrators?

Meanwhile, the TSA is strip-searching women in their upper 80s at JFK Airport because of the terrorist threat posed by great-grandmothers.

(John Richardson has a good idea.)