Reason Morning Links: Congressional Scandals, a Deal in Honduras, and Arnold's Acrostics

• The House Ethics Committee investigates dozens of legislators, including seven members of the Defense Subcommittee.

• The Honduran Congress will decide whether ousted president Manuel Zelaya can return to office.

• Disgraced basketball ref accuses practically the entire NBA of corruption; the NBA threatens a lawsuit.

• The United Steel Workers looks into starting its own manufacturing cooperatives.

• Questions you probably never asked yourself: What if J. Edgar Hoover were French?

• Not just a veto, but an F.U.

Comments

[Johnny Longtorso]

The real climate change catastrophe
In a startling new book, Christopher Booker reveals how a handful of scientists, who have pushed flawed theories on global warming for decades, now threaten to take us back to the Dark Ages

[TP]

Christopher Booker, huh? Is that you're final answer?

[highnumber]

The Urkobold so scooped you.

Funny story.

[Dunderhead]

I thought "scoop" referred to original reporting, not repeating.

[Pro Libertate]

Not necessarily. Here's one definition: "to get the better of (other publications, newscasters, etc.) by obtaining and publishing or broadcasting a news item, report, or story first."

So, among "widely-read libertarian culture sites", Urkobold scooped Hit & Run. It's a relative thing. Among all news sources, Urkobold scooped no one, but our agents are working to have all earlier references removed from the Internet.

[highnumber]

Besides what ProGLib said, Dunderhead, we're talking about the freaking Urkobold. Don't be so golldanged persnickety.

Anyway, I sure hope you've enjoyed having a taint.

[John Tagliaferro]

Scoop, taint in the same thread. This is goign to be ugly.

[Ska]

Wait until SugarFree comes along to add the use of 9 volt batteries....

[Dunderhead]

It's fortunate that Urkobold's sycophants are here to explain things.

[Pro Libertate]

Sycophants is a strong term. Employees conscious of the high price of error is more precise.

[Dunderhead]

I'll say this: the taint jokes never get old.

[John Tagliaferro]

taint dat da trut

[Withered Taint]

Believe me, it isn't a joke.

[Jesse Walker]

We all live in the shadow of the Urkobold.

[John Tagliaferro]

So that's what that stench is.

[Joel]

The Ahnold letter thing - I don't know if it's true, but if it is I take back every mean thing I've said about him since he was elected.

[Pro Libertate]

Looks like it's real--it's sitting on a California government server.

[Pro Libertate]

Actually, I think it's sitting on the governor's server. He hasn't ordered it taken down. Awesome.

Turn from the Dark Side, Arnold. There's good in you, I can feel it. In your next veto, just say those two words without circumlocution.

[JW]

I don't think that Ahnold actually wrote this. If he had, it wouldn't have said "I fuck you," but instead "Remember when I said said I'd fuck you last, Ammiano? I lied."

Or

"I fuck you! Aaaaauuuuugggghhhhh!"

[Pro Libertate]

His first language is Austrian, dude. You know, the language of Austria. Like Canadian is the language of Canada.

[John Thacker]

Virginia gubernatorial candidates give interviews to a Virginia magazine.

Asked who their political hero is, the Democrat, Craig Deeds, says FDR because "He changed the paradigm, completely changed the relationship between people and government."

The Republican, Bob McDonnell, says George Washington because "he willingly walked away from power. Some of the settlers wanted to make him king and he said no, it's what we just fought against in England and I'm not going to do that."

One of those answers is strictly better than the other. At least shows that McDonnell can give a good answer.

[mitch]

"settlers?"

[Nick]

Yeah, FDR made people dependent on the government, interred Japanese-Americans, and made the Great Depression last longer than it should have. What an amazing asshole.

[Ska]

I know he was a bad guy and all, but did he really throw Japanese AMericans into mass graves??

Oh, intern....small difference.

[John Tagliaferro]

The House Ethics Committee investigates dozens of legislators, including seven members of the Defense Subcommittee.

First guess is they are mostly Republicans being investigated.

Second guess is that there is plenty of uninvestigated blame to go around.

[prolefeed]

Surprisingly, 5 out of the 7 on the Defense committee being investigated are Democrats.

Not surprising in the sense that the party in power has more opportunities for corrupt behavior than the minority, but rather, surprising that the ethics committee isn't engaging in blatant partisanship.

[John Tagliaferro]

Color me pleasently surprised.

[Pro Libertate]

Inquiries are one thing; tossing people out for ethics violations is another.

[John Tagliaferro]

I will stop being surprised when that happens.

[Pro Libertate]

Really, given the number of people in Congress, the obvious corruption (to varying degrees and in varying kinds), and the spotlight placed on politicians, it is positively disgraceful that so few are ejected for ethics violations. We should see 5-10 removed from office each year at a minimum.

[Xeones]

Deeds' plan for paying to repair all the incredibly shitty roads in this commonwealth is to raise taxes, except somehow without, you know, raising taxes. McDonnell, on the other hand, wants to raise road money by selling off state-owned liquor stores and putting tolls on I-95 and I-85 at the North Carolina border.

McDonnell has a lot of social conservative baggage, but a few of his ideas are damn refreshing in the current political climate. He's been maintaining a double-digit lead over pretty much the whole campaign. I'm not going to vote for him (i traditionally write in my own name in gubernatorial elections), but Virginia could do worse.

[John Tagliaferro]

tolls on I-95 and I-85 at the North Carolina border

The only way I could complain about that is if they continue to use other revenues for the maintenance.

[sage]

The repub candidate is going to wallop the dem according to the polls, yes?

From an article I read yesterday, VA and NJ will be early referendums on Maobama's presidency so far.

[John Tagliaferro]

Maobama

Almost had to clean my keyboard on that one. Most excellent.

[JW]

They're both preaching to their respective choirs, so I say FAIL to both.

Any contemporary politician that would praise giving up power is just fucking lying through his over-whitened teeth.

[James Ard]

Unfortunately, Deeds has plenty of fools who go along with that crap. I'd say we've reached the point where most people believe government can solve all of our problems.

[Xeones]

I don't know about that, James. I think there's still enough of an individualist streak in the typical American that people are starting to say, "Wait a minute..."

The Administration is not helping itself much by the thoroughly unsubtle and idiotic way it's consolidating power.

[Xeones]

Tagliaferro, you won't be complaining about the tolls at all once you own your own liquor store. Me, i'm gonna buy an ABC franchise and then sell nothing but Thai cobra whiskey.

[John Tagliaferro]

As little as I drive I don't think I will be be doing any personal complaining about the tolls anyway. That damn sticker I have to have on a vehicle that sits in the garage 360 days per year, now that's a sore spot.

Liquor store owner huh? If I could get away with Obamaccounting I could retire on what I sell to myself!

[xack Beeno]

Corruption is bliss, its what makes US politics go round! LOL

RT
http://www.complete-privacy.at.tc

[aelhues]

Brilliant, instead of our government noobs acknowledging that they were wrong, they keep up the pressure until Honduras reinstates the wannabe dictator jackhole Zelaya. I imagine that there are a lot of confused and pissed Hondurans, who expected something completely different out of the supposed bastion of freedom, the USA.

[Ska]

hehe gov't nubs get pwnd

[Xeones]

If I could get away with Obamaccounting

I don't recommend trying that. If anybody but the government does it, it's a crime, just like extortion and murder.

[John Tagliaferro]

X, I believe I noted my acknowledgement of my limitations in that area appropriately 🙂

Oh, you left out money laundering.

[Tulpa]

The Honduran Congress will decide whether ousted president Manuel Zelaya can return to office.

Not only is the whole meddling in the Honduran constitutional crisis just a disgusting abuse of our influence, but the worst thing is that this will be spun as an Obama foreign policy achievement.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

[Mike M.]

I take it the boys at Reason haven't gotten around to reading all 1,990 pages of Nancy Pelosi's health care bill yet, as there's nothing here on it.

[TP]

Nor have they gotten around to the Financial Stability Improvement Act.

[Spoonman]

The FBI shot and killed a Detroit imam and arrested several of his cohorts, but haven't filed any terrorism charges against them.

Bonus circular reasoning: "We know from his conduct yesterday that violence was intended," U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg said Thursday. Two suspects were at large late Thursday.

[John Tagliaferro]

You SugarFreed the link.

Let me help: http://sukiproject.blogspot.co.....l">here.

Appropriate hat tips and links to yesterday's Reason thread included FREE.

[Spoonman]

Your link just leads back here.

Here's the URL, since apparently a href doesn't work here anymore...
http://www.freep.com/article/2.....que-leader

[John Tagliaferro]

Wow, you are correct. Thwarted again.

http://sukiproject.blogspot.co.....sunni.html

[Ska]

For us HTML spazzes, what should be used instead of {a href}?

[John Tagliaferro]

We both had to just past the full URL and let the system auto-link it.

I swore my first attempt worked in preview, but SugarFree swears that too and I never believe him.

[Xeones]

Oh, you left out money laundering.

And counterfeiting, and plenty more.

[aelhues]

Can you think of a compelling reason to read 1900+ pages of lawyer speak bloat, corruption, and constitutional bitch slap that won't be passed as is?

[Russ 2000]

Thanks for that NBA link.

Twenty years ago I absorbed just about anything NBA related for the purposes of future wagering. To make money in sports betting you need to hit a little bit better than 53%, which is not easy to do. But knowing NBA info and gossip I was hitting close to 60% on my tracking, and was seriously considering putting real money on games. Then I took 2 job transfers in less than a year which netted 2 decent raises which made the wagering idea moot. Plus the knowledge made the NBA game so predictable it bored the hell out of me and I've barely watched an NBA game since.

The referees just have far too much to do with the outcome of NBA and NFL games for me to take them as serious competitions. There was a lot of that going on in the NHL too even though there is a lot less referee control in those games, and referee vendettas have been reduced with two refs in the NHL. (I can't believe there is actually one good thing about the Bettman Era of the NHL, but there it is.)

[Space Fiend]

What do you mean about the NFL? Obviously the referees have a lot to do with the outcome, but there are like seven of them, making it hard to collude, and even simple biases toward a side or a strategy would probably simply be mirrored more often than not.

[John Tagliaferro]

You are just being willingly blind to the vastness of this conspiracy.

[Russ 2000]

Each crew has certain tendencies on how often they call/don't call certain infractions, especially holding, pass interference, and roughing the passer. They work all their games together, unlike the NBA where they assign the 3 refs individually.

[Xeones]

Can you think of a compelling reason to read 1900+ pages of lawyer speak bloat, corruption, and constitutional bitch slap that won't be passed as is?

Well, if you're a Congressthing, you'd BETTER have read and comprehended the whole thing. Nobody else has any say in it, though, so there's no point for the rest of us.

[prolefeed]

Right. Congresscritters reading a 1900 page bill. Happens AAAAAALLL the time.

/sarcasm

[John Dingell]

Reading the bill doesn't necessarily tell you what's in the bill. It's written in good legalese.

[Lamar]

It says "I fuck yous". You can infer the Austrian accent.

[aelhues]

I agree completely X, however I'd be willing to be that not a single D, and only a couple R's will read it in anywhere approaching entirety.

[Mad Max]

It seems that Arnold vetoed the legislator's bill after Arnold made a surprise visit to a Democratic Party dinner and the legislator told Arnold to 'kiss my gay ass.'

From the article:

'Ammiano later called Schwarzenegger's attendance at the event a "cheap publicity stunt" that wasn't at all amusing, in light of the governor's cuts in social services, ordered furloughs of state workers and failure to act on some gay-rights issues.'

The Age of Obama - rejecting the divisiveness of politics as usual and working to solve problems on a bipartisan basis!

The article says Ammiano is 'a professional comic in addition to being a liberal Democrat'

Who knew that a professional comic would also be a gay liberal Democrat? What a surprise.

[Mad Max]

From the article:

'"I think it was very creative, and it's time to bury the hatchet," Ammiano added. "I'm not interested in prolonging it."'

Comedy gold - or is he actually serious?

[Doggie Style]

Pelosi tells House Ds that party will suffer sizable losses but losing members better support HC or they will be dead to party as lobbyists.

[Mike M.]

You know the bill is in serious trouble even in the House when she's starting with the blackmail already.

What I want to know most of all is who really wrote this damn thing.

[Doggie Style]

"CBO Puts House Health Bill Total Cost At $1.055 TRILLION"

[TP]

Looks like Philly's SEPTA (transit) union is going on strike, just in time for the World Series tomorrow. They did this just before the RNC convention and ended up with a nice contract, but I don't think this shit's going to fly this time.

[hmm]

I used to leave messages in binary in random places at school. The best part was when I would get a response.