Tough justice

An article in tomorrow’s Washington Post says that the Chinese are solving their girl-shortage problem by buying brides from North Korea.

The Italian supreme court rules that a woman wearing tight denim jeans can’t be raped. The all-male judges, never having heard of a zipper, insist that a woman must cooperate to get them off, especially Italian women with large asses. Alright, they didn’t say the last part. They reject the idea of threats possibly being a component of rape, because there is nothing worse than rape with which to threaten women. In protest, women MPs and a lot of other women will be wearing jeans until the court of cassation, tired of seeing fat Italian asses, reverses itself.

Today Pluto passed beyond Neptune’s orbit, resuming its position as the 9th planet, having escaped an impeachment resolution and removal from office as a planet. If anyone is asking my position, I haven’t considered Pluto to be a planet since Charon was discovered.

And yes, I do have a position on Pluto being a planet. I have a position on everything, haven’t you noticed?

George Dubbya knows foreign affairs like Dan Quayle knows spelling

A “Draft George W. Bush” campaign opens. They think he has the principles, the something, and the something else to win the next election. He’s also an ignoramus. William Hague, leader of the British Tory party, is visiting the US including Texas. And while the Washington Post was too polite to mention it, it was clear that Dubbya had no idea who he was, first confusing him with Alexander Haig, and then evidently thinking that Hague was something in the current British government.

Although Monica is still on Starr’s leash, not allowed to speak to the press, Linda Tripp, who also has an immunity agreement with the Office of Independent Council (motto: We’re not holier than thou. We’re holier than you) (from Matt Groening), is somehow allowed to go on tv. Must have been the same oversight where they forgot to tell her not to talk with Paula Jones’s lawyers.

Although it just came out this week that Janet Reno is planning to investigate some of Starr’s abuses of power, including lying to her, the decision was evidently made in mid-January. Now here’s something: it didn’t leak. That was before the trial started in the Senate and details might certainly have affected it, but Reno didn’t leak it. The Justice Dept didn’t leak it. And Starr’s office didn’t leak it. So it is possible for something not to leak: it just has to be helpful to William Jethro Clinton.

Hasn’t even cleared her throat yet

Henry Hyde said over the weekend that it isn’t over until the fat lady sings, and she hasn’t even cleared her throat yet. Now the first part of that quote I myself used as a subject line a couple of weeks ago when Monica was called, and felt a bit cheap in so doing, but even my mind wasn’t filthy enough to think of the second part. Guess it takes a Congressman.

When they were debating whether to make their speeches in open session or not, Daschle suggested that grandstanding could be cut down by limiting the speeches to 10 minutes instead of 15. My suggestion: for all the value any of this has, we could save still more time by leaving the speeches at 15 minutes, but having all 100 Senators recite them at the same time.

Phil Gramm, in opposition to censure, notes that Andrew Jackson’s censure was expunged from the record an election or two later, and that Jackson is now on the twenty dollar bill.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department has announced plans for a sixty-nine dollar bill....

The 4th Circuit eliminates Miranda rights.

In the “why do we bother to vote” department, California’s new more caring Democratic governor fries his first felon.

Yeltsin almost makes it to King Hussein’s funeral, but has to go home early, tired, as the Daily Show put it, after handing out invitations to his own upcoming funeral. Back in Moscow airport, Yeltsin’s plane clips the plane with the Italian prime minister, and spokesmen rush forward to say that Yeltsin wasn’t trying to fly it, like that bizarre conducting incident.

Clichés in the Trial of the Century

The New York city police shoot an unarmed Sierra Leonean 24 times. Almost as worrisome to the city’s innocent bystanders, they also missed 17 times.

The surgeon who amputated the wrong leg a while back in Florida, and was assessed a jolly big fine ($2,500, probably less than he tried to charge Medicare for the operation), who then missed the target by an even larger margin by putting a chest catheter in the patient in the wrong bed, is back at work.

The anti-abortion web site ordered to pay $107 million in a questionably constitutional decision for almost advocating the deaths of doctors, announces plans to install web-cams at abortion clinics. Its provider then pulls it.

In her deposition, Monica Lewinsky objects to her affair being described as “salacious”. The Daily Telegraph says she’s lucky she wasn’t asked to spell it.

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The municipal employee who used the word “niggardly” is hired back in D.C., but you’ll notice it took a week for it to be realized how stupid that was. I also didn’t notice any black leaders standing up to say that of course blacks aren’t so stupid that even if they didn’t already know the word they couldn’t have it explained to them, and that it was an insult to suggest otherwise.

Oklahoma executed the guy who committed the murder when he was 16, a new low in the death penalty biz. His was the 12th or 13th execution of the year. The Philippines resumes the death penalty tomorrow.

After the Senate today voted not to let the White House know in advance what clips from the depositions the prosecutors are planning to use on Saturday, Tom DeLay had to have explained to him twice the suggestion that there be a break before the defense responds to this surprise evidence, as if the whole idea of fundamental fairness was alien to him. But then often enough in this farce the White House was supposed to respond to charges not even made yet. I kept waiting for David Kendall to put on his Karnak hat but he never did. DeLay may have been distracted by Newsweek reports that he himself lied under oath in a civil suit deposition.

Testimony

The lower house of the Dutch Parliament has voted to legalize brothels, which is a surprise to everyone in the universe, who thought they already were.

Today Sidney Blumenthal, the chief proponent of the vast right-wing conspiracy, will have his deposition overseen by Arlen Specter, who invented the single-bullet theory.

Bossy

Margaret Thatcher says that Tony Blair is too bossy.

The 1st Circuit appeals court upholds the idiotic federal law outlawing computer kiddy porn created by computer manipulation rather than by using actual naked children.

Prince Charles finally goes public with Camilla. Mr. Lucky’s photo op was ruined by too much flash photography, making it impossible to air on tv for more than 5 seconds at a time without sending epileptics into spasm.

A piece in today’s Wash Post talks about Barbara Durham, who was forced on Clinton as a nominee to the 9th Circuit in exchange for his getting a judge he actually wanted. Durham broke the Washington state canons of individual conduct during her election in 1996 to the state supreme court by running a partisan campaign (Republican, if you hadn’t guessed), and by having the state attorney general as her campaign’s co-chair--no, no conflict of interest there. And she endorsed Dole on the grounds that he would get the executions moving.

Netanyahu’s election slogan is causing some controversy: “A strong leader for a strong people.” It probably sounded better in the original German.

Dennis Miller says that the Senate is trying to figure out a form of punishment for Clinton that won’t make him hard.

The majority of federal wiretaps are now issued by a secret intelligence court.

Did you know that since 1996 civil rights settlements are taxable? What incredible nerve Congress has. On the up side, Paula Jones gets screwed again.

Sex addiction

The pope in St. Louis speaks against abortion and assisted suicide, arguing for the dignity of human life. He then put on one of his many funny hats, and drooled.

44 Senators, if you read both votes together, said that they’ve heard enough to dismiss the charges, while 0 say they have heard enough to convict and need to see more.

Oklahoma plans next week to execute someone for a crime committed when they were 16, the first such since 1977.

Evidently Sidney Blumenthal is the right’s bete noir, the dark prince in its conspiracy theories, its Richard Mellon Scaife if you like. This is why he wound up on the witness list and not Betty Currie. Of course the last time he was questioned, it was by Starr’s people last June. They asked him whether Bill Clinton believes that oral sex is sex, does Bill Clinton’s religion include sexual intercourse, whether he ever discussed with Hillary whether Bill had a sex addiction....

Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap

One of the defendants in the Jasper, Texas murder-by-dragging trial has a tattoo of Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap.

Speaking of Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap, the House impeachment “managers” today announced their list of witnesses, described by Bob Barr as two Jews and a niggra.

1 year on

The Wash Post’s impeachment coverage has recently included a “one year ago today” section, and today is the anniversary of the finger-wagging episode.

Normally there is no more fervent supporter of freedom of the press than myself, but sometimes there is an exception. Whatever reporters were briefed by Senators about what was said in closed section today should be hauled in and have electrodes attached to their genitals until they name the offending Senator, who should be expelled from the Senate under the standing rules. I didn’t support the decision to go behind closed doors, but I want a scalp. The hypocritical assholes can’t have it both ways.

Lindsey Graham’s speech arguing against dismissal was an exercise in televised nervous breakdown, and very entertaining as such. Henry Hyde, looking more than ever like Willie Loman, did his sorrowful-at-the-ways-of-the-wicked-world routine. Of course Saturday he supported the civil rights of Paula Jones in the same speech as he mentioned his opposition to abortion, just in case anyone had forgotten that he’s a prick.

As I write, the Senate is hearing arguments about hearing witnesses. No it isn’t, it just went to break. This is all rather problematic because there are good political reasons why Clinton’s people can’t put on a proper defense. If Monica testifies that she understand that Clinton wanted her to lie, without his actually having said so, someone needs to ask her whether she also believed that he would leave his wife for her and that Linda Tripp was her bestest friend. McCollum said that it is not he said, she said because she told other people at the time. She needs to be asked whether she also told them that she slept overnight at the White House and her other tall tales. None of this is possible.

I haven’t made any comments on the impeachment trial of William Jethro Clinton in the last couple of days, so here are my thoughts on developments in that period:

That Cheryl Mills sure has a sexy voice, doesn’t she?

On to other things.

I saw a bit of a clip on the Daily Show yesterday of Dan Quayle in a classroom. The teacher introduces him and explains to the tykes that he is President Clinton’s vice president. She is told that he isn’t and asks who is. Does anyone know where this took place?

Also on the Daily Show yesterday was a piece about a church in whose stained glass people have spotted the image of... Bozo the Clown. And there it was, too, clear as day. The pastor said sorrowfully that, yeah, once it’s pointed out to you, it’s impossible afterwards not to see it.

I think it was on the Daily Show that it was said that the only mention of the impeachment trial during the State of the Union Address was the bit about protecting our children from tobacco.

State of Union/impeachment & whatnot

So Bob Barr didn’t go to the State of the Union speech (see below). I’m guessing it’s for a reason similar to that of Andrew Cuomo, the single Cabinet member who traditionally doesn’t go, so that if the Capitol blows up, after the partying dies down, the Department of Health and Urban Development can go on. Similarly, Barr didn’t go so that even if Clinton, Gore, all but one member of the Cabinet, and most of the House and Senate and Supreme Court get blown up, the impeachment hearings can continue.

In 1940 a German firing squad executed a French horse that kicked a German soldier to death.

The Supreme Court lets stand a 25-year sentence under the Calif. 3 Strikes law for someone who shoplifted some vitamins.

During the Address, there seemed to be applause for everything. Who but a politician would applaud “putting a human face on the global economy”?

A quick read through Salon, the free parts of Slate and the Washington Post show no one else making the obvious observation, so I will: Clinton said that Boomers like himself have a fear of becoming a burden on their children, which is why Social Security should be shored up by investing a lot of money in the stock market. An interesting sentence for someone who last week sent a large chunk of Chelsea’s inheritance to Paula Jones.

In the speech and in today’s impeachment hearings, the day was surprisingly abject-apology free. Maybe we’re done with all the groveling. Today, Ruff pointed out two obvious holes in last week’s case: the call from Betty Currie to Lewinsky that proved there was a Clinton conspiracy to hide gifts, actually occurred after the gifts were given to Currie, not before. And Vernon Jordan’s meeting with Lewinsky that proved the job assistance was a bribe in exchange for false testimony because it occurred immediately after the judge in the Jones trial ruled that testimony from other girlfriends was admissable, actually occurred before--Jordan was on a plane to Europe by the time the ruling came down.

Quick excerpt from a Washington Post story:

There were tricky moments. At one point, Ruff found himself explaining that Clinton could not possibly have been obstructing justice when he lied about his affair to various top aides. Why not? Because he was lying to everyone else too. If you had a television, the president lied to you. The aides were nothing special.

He said it so calmly, so smoothly, that it passed by entirely unremarkably.

State of the Union?

The House impeachment wranglers made the point over and over yesterday that Clinton was being accused of stuff that the Senate has previously impeached judges over. I think that presidents in the future should wear uniforms so that they may be easily distinguished from other people in uniform. If Billy Clinton were a judge, he’d be wearing a black robe and no pants and he would serve for life upon good behaviour. If he were in the military he’d wear another kind of uniform and he could have been thrown out for the adultery alone (or for being gay or for sending a bunch of Italian skiers to their deaths). If he were in the Boy Scouts, he could have been thrown out for any of this, or for being an atheist. But he isn’t any of these things. Get over it.

A British judge rules that a house is not haunted. The owners were trying not to pay it off.

Motto: “And sleep like a Senator during an impeachment trial”

A piece in the Monday Washington Post points out that Clinton is in one sense not above the law at all, that the abuses perpetrated by Starr are the ones that US attorneys inflict on average Americans every day. Indeed, Reno has been lobbying against a bill to make US attorneys comply with state ethics rules and not interrogate people who have lawyered up (as they say on NYPD Blue).

On the talk show circuit today, 19% of the “jury” has spoken its mind, if any. D’s are fighting back on the witness issue, threatening to interrogate Starr and Tripp. It could be a long winter.

This year South Africa will legalize polygamy, as long as it is performed according to traditional rituals and so on. There will be no legal limit on bride-price, so this should hold the incidence down. Interestingly, whites will be able to take advantage of the law. No discrimination in the new South Africa.

Now it can be revealed

Jerry Falwell says the Antichrist is alive now and is a male Jew.

The University of Abertay (Dundee, Scotland) is developing a degree in computer games technology. The university’s first fellows in this dept. are the people who created Lemmings.

Egypt convicts a couple to one year for kissing in public.

The Sunday Times confirms that Hitler had one ball.

The US Department of Defense wants the right of prior censorship over Scott Ritter’s book.

All right, I admit it, Jerry Falwell, *I* am the Antichrist. There. You’ve dragged it out of me.

At the impeachment yesterday, Tom Harkin objected to the Senators being called “jurors” on the grounds that, quote, “Only losers get stuck with jury duty.” Rehnquist sustained the objection.

Republicans are calling for Monica Lewinsky to be called so that her body language can be read. I’ll leave it to you to create your own jokes, using the following elements: Ted Kennedy and Braille, overeating as an aid to Senators sitting in the back.

Ya know, Mark Fuhrman pleaded nolo contendre to perjury in an actual murder trial and got a $200 fine.

In one of the sillier moments, George Gekas talked about his mother’s naturalization classes, in which she learned that the three branches of government were, she said in her “wonderful, lovable accent”, were “The Exec, the Legisla and the Judish.” George Gekas’s mother was, in fact, Chico Marx.

And on and on. Bill McCullom actually summarized yesterday’s summary of the Starr Report. Jeff Greenfield on CNN is speculating that none of the House managers are speaking to each other, since they all deem it necessary to repeat the same damn things, including reading what Betty Currie said Clinton said to her (perhaps if it gets repeated enough times, we’ll all be convinced that Currie was able months later to remember it word for word?). Jon Stewart on Nightline described the Republicans from the House as looking like “every guy who ever fired my father.” McCullom looks like Clark Kent sucking on a kryptonite lemon. Now let’s see if I’ve got this argument straight: perjury must be impeachable because the Federal sentencing guidelines (the ones written in the 1980s?) said that perjury is as bad as bribery, which is mentioned in the Constitution. Head...hurt. The guidelines also say that crack is much worse than powder cocaine. And Clinton was lying when he said he wasn’t paying attention to his lawyer. If he has to deal with people like these Congressmen every day, I’ll bet he’s mastered the art of looking like he’s paying attention when he isn’t. As opposed to the Senator, I forget which one, who’s been showing up wearing sunglasses so no one can be sure when he’s sleeping.

I’ve read the affidavit of Bob Barr’s ex-wife, on the web, of course. What is it with Republican first wives and cancer? Bob reacted to her breast cancer and chemotherapy by saying she should take her mind off it by working for his election campaign.

Christopher Hitchens quotes Clinton after ordering the missile strike on Sudan: “I was here on this island [Martha’s Vineyard, poor baby] till 2:30 in the morning, trying to make absolutely sure that at the chemical plant there was no night shift. .. I didn’t want some person who was a nobody to me--but who may have a family to feed and a life to live and probably had no earthly idea what else was going on there [a CIA official?]--to die needlessly.”

And Michael Douglas in the movie “The American President,” which we know Clinton has seen because it’s about a president who dates: “Somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor is working the night shift at Libyan intelligence headquarters. And he’s going about doing his job because he has no idea that in about an hour he’s going to die in a massive explosion.”

From bias free of every kind, this trial must be tried

Someone at Slate counts today as the 9th presentation of the same old evidence against Clinton including the Starr report, Starr’s testimony to House, the judiciary committee’s presentation to the whole House, etc etc. And boy did it seem it, from the half or so I’ve seen or heard so far today. Henry Hyde said that oaths were real important (key theme today: every time someone lies under oath, an angel dies), that Thomas More went to the stake rather than swear a false oath (all together now: I knew Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas More was a friend of mine...). Poor Paula Jones had her civil rights violated. It’s always laughable watching Republicans try to hitch their causes to civil rights: Sensenbrenner likened Jones’s suit to sit-ins at lunch counters. Especially laughable if you’ve read today’s NY Times article about the Council of Conservative Citizens and why Trent Lott had to have known what it was all about, including the frightening information that 34 Mississippi legislators and Governor Kirk Fordice (who I’ve described as David Duke without the sheet) are members. And don’t get me started on Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, one of the three jurors currently consorting with the prosecutors about witnesses.

Things House “managers” did today they shouldn’t have: turned the count about grand jury perjury into an argument that Clinton lied during the Paula Jones deposition. Which he did, but that was a count the House voted against. It should not be resurrected now. And making the argument for calling witnesses during what was supposed to be about something else.

In other news today, the Pope says that God is not an old man with a beard, but refuses to say what she does look like.

The European Commission barely survives a censure vote, unfortunately.

A Labour county councillor in Sussex of all places defects to the Scottish National Party.

Israeli Watergate?

Something else worth paying attention to in the days or weeks ahead: the German debate over the proposed citizenship law.

A new California law says that it is now legal to throw out your old batteries. Um, you have all been recycling those batteries as was legally required, haven’t you?

So Bob Barr (R-Antebellum South) committed adultery, lied about it in court papers, failed to pay child support, and paid for his wife’s abortion. And has a really creepy mustache. Larry Flynt also says he has video on a congressional player yet to be named. And pretty much said that the next one he outs will be Tom DeLay.

The sheer spectacle of the Clinton impeachment is just overwhelming, isn’t it? Rehnquist in his personally designed comic opera robes, Strom Thurmond in his personally designed comic opera hair and comic strip (Li’l Abner) accent. The senators were required to keep silent under pain of imprisonment. I personally saw three senatorial heads explode. Each senator signed something or other and got a souvenir pen. A cigar would have been more appropriate. An exploding cigar would have been still more appropriate. Clinton still hasn’t been allowed to see all the evidence against him. But remember, folks, this is not a trial, no matter what they call it, even if it is the trial of the century of the week. It is essentially an administrative procedure. If they don’t want to show him evidence, they can. There has never been a standard of proof established for impeachments (beyond a shadow of doubt, a preponderance of evidence, whatever). I personally think they could order Clinton to testify without any right of non-self-incrimination, because it is not a trial.

The most popular boy’s name in California and Texas last year was Jose. Elsewhere, Austin is big (groovy, baby). I don’t know what the most popular baby’s name in China is, but it’s certainly a boy’s name, since they’re producing fewer girl babies than ever before.

Linda Tripp has established a legal defense fund. So send your letter bombs to...

Who are these unnamed US officials who are confirming to every newspaper that will listen to them that the CIA used the UNSCOM inspectors as cover to spy on Iraq? On the one hand, the US’s blatant abuse of the UN will definitely make sure that weapons inspection will not be re-established in Iraq or anywhere else (North Korea might have been a candidate). The UN’s credibility is especially damaged by the fact that the information flow came entirely through the US, which passed on only what it felt like, only to the UN folks it liked (Scott Ritter, to name one, was out of the loop), and for all we know tampered with it before doing so. On the other hand, whose idea was it to give the UN essentially espionage duties, for which it had no capabilities whatsoever? What did anyone expect it to do, other than to subcontract the job out?