Saturday Shuffle

The Dark Half - Christopher Young
Into the Hollow - Queens of the Stone Age
Dollhouse (live) - Switchblade Symphony
I Like You - Morrissey
Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta Fuck Wit - Wu-Tang Clan
Viginti Tres - Tool
Junkhead - Alice In Chains
Miami Vice Theme - Jan Hammer
More Human Than Human - White Zombie
Happy Birthday - The Birthday Party

The Rule of Law: Ruling some more than others

Glenn Greenwald breaks it all down--as he usually does--now that the Obama DOJ has levied 50+ years worth of charges against an Army private alleged to have supplied information to the organizers of the WikiLeaks website.

* If you torture people or eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, you receive Look-Forward Imperial Immunity.

* If you shoot and kill unarmed rescuers of the wounded while occupying their country and severely wound their unarmed children sitting in a van -- or if you authorize that conduct -- your actions are commended.

* If you help wreck the world economy with fraud and cause hundreds of millions of people untold suffering, you collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.

* If you disclose to the world evidence of war crimes, government lawbreaking, or serious corruption, or otherwise embarrass the U.S., you will be swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and face decades in prison.

Saturday Shuffle

Them Bones (live) - Alice In Chains
When You Sleep - My Bloody Valentine
Double Team - Tenacious D
I Turned Into A Martian - The Misfits
Sweet Cycle - Tito & Tarantula
Letter To Memphis - Pixies
You and Whose Army - Radiohead
Detachable Penis - King Missile
San Francisco Days - Chris Isaak
Spanish Blue - Aqua Velvets

At the corner of Mendacity and Hysteria...

...lies Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

After signing off on an immigration law that allows police to stop anyone brown enough that they "reasonably suspect" to be in the country illegally, she realized that she had to make the case to her constituents--as well as the country, at large--that the Arizona immigration problem outweighs the burden this will undoubtedly cause on U.S. citizens whose appearance is now just a bit too illegal-y. To that end, she devised a strategy:

Lie.

And lie, shamelessly, at that.

Now that her "drug mule" scare-mongering has blown up in her face, she's decided on a new tactic:

Avoid criticizing feds who might take umbrage at looking incompetent, and make sure the fear factor is even more outlandishly pants-filling:

Arizona governor says immigration leads to beheadings

In an interview with Fox News, Brewer said, "We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings."

"Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded," she added.

You can't put more "peril" into the Brown Peril than conjuring up images of crazed (and, most likely, drug mule-ing) illegal immigrants rampaging through the countryside, lopping off people's heads, right?

Surely, the gruesome threat of imminent, violent, non-English speaking death will provide more than ample justification for even the most bleeding of hearts who might currently object to everyone darker than John Boehner having to carry proof of citizenship lest they find themselves detained by the police...

You can guess what happened next, can't you?

County coroners can't back Brewer beheadings claim

Officials with six county medical examiners offices in the state, including four from counties that border Mexico, say they have never heard of such attacks.

The Arizona Guardian contacted the coroners' offices in Yuma, Pima, Pinal, Maricopa, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties. All of them said they'd never investigated an immigration-related crime in which someone's head had been head cut off within their respective jurisdictions.

The way I see it, the reality-challenged governor has gone so far around the bend, so quickly, that she has left herself with very few options for her next step in this insanity arms race. Her choices:

Undocumented workers A.) are a known cause of cancer, or B.) are, in fact, zombies.

My money is on zombies. Don't disappoint me, Jan.

The Teabagger movement: STILL nothing to do with race

And you are the one playing the race card if you say different. Via firedoglake:

Those who embrace the Tea Party movement are much less likely than others to see discrimination as a threat to the nation’s future and a hurdle for minorities. More than three in four say racial minorities have equal job opportunities; half of non-Tea Party supporters agree. They overwhelmingly reject the notion that economic disparities between blacks and whites are mainly the result of discrimination.

Nearly half say blacks lag in jobs, income and housing “because most African Americans just don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves up out of poverty.”

See?

"We're not racists, we just think a lot of blacks are lazy, complacent, and weak-willed."

And in further startling revelations:

So, as the numbers indicate, the respondents are clearly speaking--not from any racially based prejudices or stereotypes--but from their intimate, personal knowledge of lower-income minority populations and their life circumstances and beliefs.

The heartbreak of end-stage Foot In Mouth disease

Did I say "heartbreak?" I meant "humor." Oopsie:

RNC chair Michael Steele suggested history stands against the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan, a gaffe caught on camera during a fundraiser last night in CT.

"This was a war of Obama's choosing," Steele says in remarks captured on what appears to be a hidden camera. Steele blasted Obama for "demonizing Iraq while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan."

"If he's such a student of history has he not understood that, you know, that's the one thing you don't do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? Because everyone who's tried, over a thousand years of history has failed," Steele says.

Would that have been a war of Illinois State Senator Obama's choosing, Mikey?

It must be, because, last I checked, the Afghan war--land and otherwise--began back in 2001. What an intoxicating amount of power that body must have, able to mobilize billions of dollars for an international war effort. No wonder Chicago politics is such a contact sport.

Steele's had a bullseye on his back ever since he became a heretic to the Church of Limbaugh. That transgression demanded nothing less than public groveling and kissing the pillpopper's ring. Now he dares to speak ill of one of our concurrent Glorious Wars of Freedomizing and De-Islamofascistification? He might as well demand free medical marijuana, gay marriage, and abortions on demand for 13 year-olds while he's at it.

This won't end well and the sharks are already circling:

I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican party.

Needless to say, the war in Afghanistan was not "a war of Obama’s choosing." It has been prosecuted by the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama. Republicans have consistently supported the effort. Indeed, as the DNC Communications Director (of all people) has said, your statement "puts [you] at odds with about 100 percent of the Republican Party."

Best clean up that resume of yours, Mr. Steele. Looks like our new unemployment filings may be increasing by one in the very near future, and if you thought your GOP buddies were cruel to you now, wait until you see their interpretation of compassion for the jobless.