CNN is reporting that, as expected, disgraced Republican operative Jack Abramoff and government investigators have reached a deal. Abramoff will plead guility to fraud, corruption and tax evasion. He faces 10 years in prison.
One bit of news: Abramoff has been cooperating with investigators for about a year.
Box Office Mojo: “In limited release, Brokeback Mountain rebounded by 61 percent from last weekend when it lost some heat as it rolled into non-metropolitan areas. Ang Lee’s $14 million cowboy love story lassoed an estimated $4.8 million from 269 venues (up 52). Corralling $15 million in 25 days, it’s scheduled to enter 80 new markets on Friday.”
It was New Year’s Eve 2005. There I was, hunkered down in my little bungalow, scotch in hand, trying to keep the dogs from freaking out over the fireworks and occasional gunfire that characterize my neighborhood on the last night of the year. We don’t go out on New Year’s in Miami — too dangerous.
So there I was, anticipating watching the ball drop and seeing Dick Clark’s holographic projection “live” from Times Square or watching Anderson Cooper being kissed by a drag queen in Key West, when all of a sudden, the TV went blue. Flicking through the channels, I was greated by blue, blue, blue screens. So I poured another scotch and listened to the firecrackers, bottle rockets and occasional semi-automatic gunfire until the old year rolled over.
Come to find out today that one of those gun-totin’ cowboys killed my cable. Apparently, Comcast had a devil of a time tracking down the source of the problem — a bullet hole in one of its main fiber-optic lines. So me and about 50,000 of my neighbors were forced to have a television-less New Year’s, which gave us time to reflect on a monumentally crappy old year and list our resolutions for the hopefully less-crappy new one.
Resolution #1: Stay home and helmeted and flak-jacketed next New Year’s Eve.
Warrantless wiretaps : Do Americans care whether their government spies on them? The Bush Administration desperately hopes not.
They’re betting the farm that most Americans won’t mind that the president broke the law if they are convinced he did it to protect them.
But if a new private poll is any indication of public sensitivities on the issue, they may have bought the farm instead.
According to the New York Times, results of a poll for the Ponemon Institute, a privacy consulting firm, showed that on the subject of domestic spying and other government intrusions into the privacy of citizens, 88 percent of Americans were “concerned,” and 54 percent were “very concerned.”
Lawrence Ponemon, the institute’s founder, said that the 88 percent concerned about government intrusion is about double the number concerned about corporate privacy breaches like data theft at banks and credit card companies and similar security lapses.
The poll was taken after the New York Times revealed that Mr. Bush okayed hundreds of warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens despite legal prohibitions against it.
Lake Superior State University has released its 2006 List of Banished Words , as it has every Jan. 1 since 1976. Words and phrases are nominated by people the world over for their “mis-use, over-use and general uselessness.” Previous winners have included “user friendly,” “at this point in time,” and “have a nice day.” A selection from the new list includes:
HUNKER DOWN – To brace oneself, in anticipation of media onslaught. Trotted out in reports about everything from politics to hurricanes. “I have a hankering to ban all of this hunkering.” – Kate Rabe Forgach, Fort Collins, Colo.
PERSON OF INTEREST – Found within the context of legal commentary, but seldom encountered at cocktail parties. “People with guns want to talk with you.” – Melissa Carroll from Greensboro, NC. “Does this mean the rest of us are too boring to deal with?” – Patricia Johnson from Mechanicsville, Va.
COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS – A five-dollar phrase on a nickel-errand. Value-added into many higher education mission statements. “Not to be confused with ‘school.'” – Jim Howard from Mishawa, Ind.
UP OR DOWN VOTE – A casualty of today’s partisanship. No discussion on this one; the committee just tossed a coin. “I see a bright future for ex-senators as elevator operators.” — Allan Dregseth, Fargo, ND.
BREAKING NEWS – Once it stopped presses. Now it’s a lower-intestinal condition brought about by eating dinner during newscasts. “Now they have to interrupt my supper to tell me that Katie Holmes is pregnant.” — Michael Raczko, Swanton, Ohio.
FEMA – Dedicated to the memory of a great federal agency consigned to the ash heap of parody. “If they don’t do anything, we don’t need their acronym.” – Josh Hamilton, Tucson, Ariz.
Nominations for the list can be made anytime throughout the year. To submit a word for the 2007 list, go to www.lssu.edu/banished.
Must-win: The start of 2006 signals the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a nasty election year. As of today, Team Bush is officially in war mode. Every move they make from now until November will be calibrated for maximum benefit to GOP candidates in the mid-term elections.
What is at stake is Mr. Bush’s viability as president. In public, Republicans may sneer at the idea that the president could be impeached, but if the Democrats regain control of either body, investigations into the administration’s actions on a whole host of matters would begin forthwith. Any one of those investigations could reveal crimes and/or cover-ups – and everybody knows it.
The list of Bush scandals that have been whitewashed by the corrupt Republicans who control the Congress is breathtaking. Here are the major ones:
Pursuing just two or three of these items, the Dems could keep the Republicans on the defensive all the way up to the 2008 presidential election.
The GOP knows it faces a political disaster in the order of magnitude of Watergate. They are cornered and there is every reason to expect that this will be the most hard-fought mid-term election in memory.
Fortunately for them, however, they have one factor working in their favor: Their enemy is us.
Yesterday, on the Sunday news chat shows, Liberal Oasis spotted two leading Dems still playing softball – or was it footsie? – with Mr. Bush:
Ten years ago, what American would have believed they’d someday be living in a country that denies global warming and evolution? In 2005, nature provided all the proof of herself we need.
The Sierra Club is calling it Year One. Bill McKibben:
…a month before Katrina hit, [the] Massachusetts Institute of Technology…published a landmark paper in the British science magazine Nature showing that in the past half century tropical storms have been lasting 60 percent longer and spinning winds 50 percent more powerful. Two weeks after Katrina struck, Science published another paper, by a Georgia Institute of Technology team, demonstrating that Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have become twice as likely in recent decades… Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to monster size in the abnormally hot waters of the Gulf. Within a day, a million people were homeless. That’s far too many, we soon found out, for the federal government to cope with. And it’s just the beginning…
Katrina cast up ironies like so much flotsam and jetsam. The storm, for instance, wreaked particular vengeance on Mississippi, a state governed by Haley Barbour (R), who in an earlier incarnation as a GOP power broker and energy lobbyist helped persuade President George W. Bush to renege on his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Thanks to Barbour and the other lobbyists-turned-administrators who throng the White House, the federal government has done exactly nothing to slow the progress of climate change. Today we’re emitting 20 percent more carbon than we were in 1990, when scientists were first issuing their prescient warnings. […]
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
