many happy returns of yesterday

Keeping with my long-running tradition of only getting to this stuff a day after it happens, World O'Crap was one year old yesterday.

I remember when SZ found out that I was really the head of the Trilateral Commission and I had to have her killed.

Good times, good times.

She writes real good for a dead chick.

Many more.

snort

TBogg. Limbaugh. Malkin. You do the math.

nothing old but the news.

The things you learn reading blogs.

Apparently, despite what I thought I'd read in various works of history, the "slaveholder's position" was that african-american women should be able to decide whether to bear the children of rapists.

Who knew?

shadowy groups taking part in the election

Of course, some shadowy groups are more equal than others

For more than a year David Norcross has been a key player for the Bush-Cheney campaign in organizing the Republican National Convention. Mr. Norcross has hired the convention's chief executive, headed the committee responsible for guiding decisions on everything from transportation to entertainment and helped make arrangements for the delegations coming to New York.

But Mr. Norcross wears more than one hat.

At the same time that he has held this inside-the-party position with access to top government officials, he has also been lobbying the Bush administration on behalf of clients like Raytheon, the defense contractor. Mr. Norcross lobbied the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the Senate and the House, all on behalf of Raytheon, while he has been the chairman of the convention, according to records on file with the secretary of the Senate.

There is nothing illegal about Mr. Norcross taking on both jobs at the same time, especially since his role at the convention is a party position, not a government one. In the past, party chairmen with far greater access to the White House than Mr. Norcross, including the former Republican National Committee chairman, Haley Barbour, and the onetime Democratic National Committee chairman, Ron Brown, have also simultaneously been affiliated with lobbying firms.

But Mr. Norcross's dual roles come after Congress has sought to limit corporate influence in politics with stiffer campaign finance laws. But those laws have had the unintended effect of exaggerating the already considerable influence of corporate interests in the Democratic and Republican conventions.

"Look, this is how this system works," said Fred Wertheimer, executive director of Democracy 21, a Washington-based group that helped push through changes to the campaign finance laws. "These conventions are the oasis, the last remaining watering hole. They are the ultimate mixer for office holders, lobbyists, corporate and other special interests and big money guys."

And within that environment, Mr. Norcross works at the highest level as a lobbyist representing companies like Boeing and the biotechnology company 20/20 GeneSystems Inc., which is based in Rockville, Md. Mr. Norcross's employer, the Washington-based law firm Blank Rome and its lobbying subsidiary, highlights his party credential in Mr. Norcross's official biography posted on its Web site.

"Mr. Norcross is a member of the board of directors of Blank Rome Government Relations L.L.C., and was recently appointed chairman of the Republican National Convention's Committee on Arrangements for the 2004 Republican National Convention, to be held in New York City,'' the company Web site says. "His practice focuses on legislative affairs, legislative and executive department liaison, lobbying, advocacy programs and public affairs."

I think we can agree that the $20 you donated to MoveOn makes you much more likely to demand special treatment from the government than Raytheon will.

The Republic clearly won't be safe until we purge voters from the process.

well, but

the Times quotes a first amendment lawyer named Susan Buckley in support of Our Fearless Leader's use of the Olympics in his campaign ads

Susan Buckley, an expert in election and copyright law, said the Bush campaign had probably not violated the spirit of the law.

"Basically, this is political speech about the state of our world," Ms. Buckley said. "And they're drawing an Olympic analogy in order to make that point."

It might have served the readers of the Times if they had pointed out that Ms. Buckley has Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell among her clients. It almost certainly would have served the readers of the Times if they were to have pointed out that Ms. Buckley is the attorney for the National Association of Broadcasters in their suit against the FEC to overturn the BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act).

I guess we have to give them some slack. I don't suppose the publishers of the Times know all that many first amendment attorneys.

how cool is this

The Times, harking back to better days, has a database of Al Hirchfeld's 75 years of caricatures for their theater section, sorted by date, subject or show.

Hunt the Ninas.

service records (thanks, Digby)

Mr. Kerry's service

The commander of a Navy swift boat who served alongside Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry during the Vietnam War stepped forward Saturday to dispute attacks challenging Kerry's integrity and war record.

William Rood, an editor on the Chicago Tribune's metropolitan desk, said he broke 35 years of silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission that resulted in Kerry's receiving a Silver Star because recent portrayals of Kerry's actions published in the best-selling book "Unfit for Command" are wrong and smear the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry.

Rood, who commanded one of three swift boats during that 1969 mission, said Kerry came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and that Kerry devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by their superiors. He called allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were "overblown" untrue.

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's Tribune.

Rood's recollection of what happened on that day at the southern tip of South Vietnam was backed by key military documents, including his citation for a Bronze Star he earned in the battle and a glowing after-action report written by the Navy captain who commanded his and Kerry's task force, who is now a critic of the Democratic candidate.

Rood's previously untold story and the documents shed new light on a key historical event that has taken center stage in an extraordinary political and media firestorm generated by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Our Fearless Leader's service

Bush on Bush

"I'm saying to myself, 'What do I want to do?' I think I don't want to be an infantry guy as a private in Vietnam. What I do decide to want to do is learn to fly."

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 1989

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."

Dallas Morning News, Feb. 25, 1990

"I don't want to play like I was somebody out there marching when I wasn't. It was either Canada or the service. ... Somebody said the Guard was looking for pilots. All I know is, there weren't that many people trying to be pilots."

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nov. 29, 1998

blog apotheosis

Fafblog meets Glenn Reynolds

jiminy h crickets on a freaking pogo stick

Child "Pimp and Ho" costumes.

On sale.

Starting at size 4 (or roughly the size of a normal three year old).

Jon-Benet Ramsey died for our sins.

via xoverboard