Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone.

Richie Havens, January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013

Without a Mention in a Times Article, Did the WHIG Really Exist?

I hadn't written anything on the WHIGgate Update blog since 2009, but on this tenth anniversary of Bush'n'Cheney's Shock'n'Awe show over Baghdad, I had to go back there and repeat one of my routine searches to see if The New York Times -- the "Paper of Record" -- had yet made one reference in its news pages to the WHIG, the White House Iraq Group.  

You can look at earlier entries on that blog from 2005-2009 to see more about this key group whose sole purpose was to sell us this illegal criminal invasion of Iraq (the obvious reason why would-be war criminals of BushCheneyCo rejected the authority of the International Criminal Court in 2002), but the Times still has NO news articles about this group whose existence has been widely reported in The Washington Post (though I'm having trouble today finding a live link to the key Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus article in the August 10, 2003 Post), by Bill Moyers, in The Huffington Post, The Daily News, and elsewhere, and publicly confirmed in print and video by key players like Scott McClellan.  But still, all the Times has to show when you search for existence of this group in its pages are a handful of Op/Ed pieces written (and written well) by Frank Rich.
This would all be just a strange omission in the journalistic record of this disastrous war if the Times' Judith Miller hadn't played a key role in spinning the WHIG's web of lies with her reporting about the aluminum tubes that were supposedly being used by Saddam Hussein to enrich uranium. Dick Cheney could then conveniently point to this reporting in "the liberal press" to help make his fictional case for war (with that glee about others' death and destruction which only the true chickenhawks among us can feel).
The Times at some point will need to come to terms with its own culpability in beating the war drums, but I'm no longer holding my breath.

(Crossposted from WHIGgate Update)

Is "Liberal" Finally Being Removed From the List of Words That Must Be Bleeped?

The Garden of Mr. Rogers' Mind

This is why all of us who watched public television are liberals.

What Type of Liberal Are You?

I just discovered what type of liberal I am (other than "True Blue" of course) by taking this super scientific online test:

My Liberal Identity

You are an Eco-Avenger, also known as an environmentalist or tree hugger. You believe in saving the planet from the clutches of air-fouling, oil-drilling, earth-raping conservative fossil fools.

Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor

I prefer "tree hugger" to "Eco-Avenger", which sounds sort of comic-bookish.

Kids Say the Darndest Things about Animal Abuse at Thanksgiving.

"Dear God, Thank you for the turkey we're about to eat and for the turkey farms where they pack them into dark tiny little sheds for their whole lives. Thank you for when they burn their feathers off while they're still alive and for when turkey gets kicked around like a football and killed by people who think it's fun to stomp on their little turkey heads and special thanks for all the chemicals and dirt and poop that's in the turkey we're about to eat. Oh, and thank you for rainbows. Amen."

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Gaspin' Flag for commemorating the 2012 Total Collapse of Teaparty (#TCOT)

Just call me Betsy Ross for my alterations to the infamous yellow snake teabag flag...

The official "Gaspin' Flag", which will soon be flying over Total Collapse of
Teaparty (#TCOT) memorial service barbecues throughout the red states.

Please feel free to use and share this variation on the old Gadsden flag that the teabaggers appropriated during their headlong rush to irrelevance.

Tomorrow is Today

“Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow. Tomorrow, we begin a better tomorrow. This nation is going to begin to change for the better tomorrow. … We can begin a better tomorrow tomorrow, and with the help of the people in Florida, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
-- Mitt Romney, yesterday in Sanford, Florida (not in coordination with Stephen Colbert or Colbert's "Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow" Super PAC)

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--William Shakespeare, The Scottish Play

Vote today as if it does signify something.

Another Must-See Hurricane Sandy Video

Here's another essential video from Hurricane Sandy. I'm sure that we'd be doing much better if we had Mitt Romney's privatized Federal Emergency Management Agency working on a profit motive starting the clean-up later this week, wouldn't we?


This performance from a (pre-Etch-a-Sketch) man who would be President took place at one of the early Clown Circus performances in New Hampshire on June 13, 2011. This asshole has been on our television sets for much too long. The American voters cannot be stupid enough to keep him in the public eye for four more years, can they?

"... this boardwalk life for me is through ..."

Could the namers of hurricanes have picked a more appropriate name for a hurricane aimed directly at the boardwalks of New Jersey?