Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

One step closer to my dream of seeing Rove handcuffed and marched off to jail:

Three weeks ago, Karl Rove blew off a congressional subpoena and refused to testify on the scandal surrounding the politicization of the Justice Department. Today, the House Judiciary Committee recommended contempt charges against Rove for his defiance.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 20 to 14, to cite Mr. Rove for defying its subpoena to testify in an inquiry into improper political meddling in the department.

“Mr. Rove has left us no option,” said Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the committee. Mr. Conyers expressed regret that the committee had been forced to use its subpoena power.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) noted in a memo, “Mr. Rove has refused even to appear before the Committee and assert whatever privileges that he believes may apply to his testimony, relying on excessively broad and legally insufficient claims of ‘absolute immunity’ — never recognized by any court — in declining to appear.”

The vote doesn’t literally cite Rove for contempt, but rather, recommends that the full House hold Rove in contempt through a floor vote.

This is delightful. I think we'll have to have an open bar tonight, my darlings. To Rove, and his new roommate Bubba! May he get exactly what he deserves.

In the "this is rich, innit" department, we have Sam Brownback wringing his hands over Chinese spying:

Yesterday, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) expressed fear that “foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of ’severe retaliation’ if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games.” Brownback, who is pushing the Senate to urge China to reverse course, said China’s action is “not right” and “not in the Olympic spirit.”

This morning on CNN, asked by host John Roberts if China’s action amounts to “spying,” Brownback continued his outrage:

BROWNBACK: This is the public security bureau in China requiring the installation of hardware that they can listen to anybody and everybody’s and their communications and their recordings that are sent over the internet in a real-time purpose or over long-term. That’s spying, John. […] Your
internet communications can all be monitored in a real time basis by the public security bureau of the Chinese government. I think they’re clearly intent upon spying. they’re going to be spying.

Uh, Sam? You've got no ground to stand on there, buddy. You've been humping virtually limitless, warrentless wiretapping in America for half of forever how. How's that different, pray tell?

When asked about the difference between the Chinese and American spying practices, Brownback said, “We don’t put the hardware and software on hotels.” He added that the Chinese program can be used on journalists,” “on athletes,” “on their families,” “democracy advocates,” and “human rights advocates ” — seemingly oblivious that all these groups could be spied on here as well. (HT: Atrios)

Riiight. Go on, pull the other one, it's got an NSA agent on.

Right-wing fuckwits seem to have a terrible time with facts. They're totally blind to the fact that facts are still facts even when the facts say things you didn't want to hear:

In 2006, after the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) released a study showing that Democrats got more favorable coverage than Republicans, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly hailed the organization’s president, Dr. Robert Lichter, as “a truth-teller.” On his Fox News show, O’Reilly praised Lichter’s findings as definitive proof “that the media leans left” because “the stats are the stats.” [Fox News, 10/31/06]

But now that the CMPA has released a new study — using the same methodology — that found that ABC, NBC, and CBS have been tougher on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) than Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently, O’Reilly has changed his tune about the validity of Lichter’s research.

See? We've got a dumbshit saying spying's wrong if another country's doing it, but not if America does it. And we've got an extraordinary fucktard saying that the methodology of a study is peachy-keen - unless that study doesn't say what he wants it to say, in which case, the methodology is wrong. You can't have your cake and eat it too, boys.

Someone get these people a ticket to reality, please.