Talk about the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. This is so laughably inept, you’d almost think they f’d up on purpose…

That Troubled Terrorism List

A half-billion-dollar emergency program to repair the nation’s main and deeply flawed terrorist watch list is “on the brink of collapse,” according to a Congressional investigation. That means that warning signs of a terrorist attack could again be lost in the chaos.

Some of the flaws discovered are mind-bogglingly basic. The Railhead database, it seems, also has fundamental problems with its search function. It failed, for example, to handle multiple word searches connected by “and” and “or,” and it could not offer matches for slight misspellings of suspects’ names.

A half billion dollars and they can’t do a Boolean search? My damn cell phone can do a Boolean search!

Sleep tight America, have no fears. Your imperial federal government is rushing to protect you, using 1983 database tools and the management skills of five toddlers on a Slip N’ Slide.

DeLay might be cleared of charges
Appeals court says money-laundering law didn’t apply to checks.

Money-laundering charges against former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two indicted co-conspirators may be dismissed because the 2002 campaign finance case involved checks and not cash, a lawyer for DeLay said Sunday night.

But the ruling contained a silver lining for the trio’s lawyers because it concluded that the state’s money-laundering statute — written in 1993 to combat illicit drug activity by focusing on the cash in the criminal transactions — did not apply to checks at the time DeLay is accused of laundering corporate money into campaign donations. The Legislature changed the law in 2005 to include checks.

Yeah, you “win”, asshole- only because you didn’t launder cash like a drug dealer. No, you laundered it like a Congressman.

What a repellent piece of crap, this poster boy of GOP rule.

Voting machine maker discloses program error
Firm says mistake may cause votes to be missed

COLUMBUS – A major voting machine maker has notified its customers in 34 states that a programming error discovered during testing may cause votes to be dropped when they are uploaded to a computer server from the machines’ vote-holding memory cards.

The Allen, Texas-based Premier is a unit of North Canton-based Diebold Inc.

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything.”

Watching the trainwreck that is John McCain’s attempt at a presidential campaign, a rational person is forced to conclude that one of three things are occurring.

First, maybe he’s doing the best he can. He turns 73 on Friday, perhaps the rigors of life in a 24/7 fishbowl is too tiring for a man his age. Watching his public appearances invokes roughly the same feeling that one gets seeing a dog with a bad leg trying to get across a street- yeah, he might survive and not get crushed, but still the kindest thing to do would be a bullet behind the ear and thanks for the memories Fido. It isn’t his constant flip-flopping on issues, hell, he’s a lifetime politician- nobody expects him to have anything remotely akin to character, but his problems are deeper than simply saying whatever he guesses the person in front of him wants to hear. He literally looks overwhelmed- incoherent, stuttering, rambling, he’s a disaster once he opens his mouth. Hell, watch him at Sturgis- he’s so turgid at the thought of biker votes that he pimps out his wife and twitches about the stage looking more like a carny chicken dancing on a hotplate than a presidential candidate.

And lets not forget that his campaign, such as it is, is a remarkable disaster in public relations. Take one example. On the day following his probably career-ending gaffe of not remembering how many houses he owns, he takes a nine car motorcade to Starbucks for a latte. Every operative in his employ that didn’t object to that grotesquely stupid stunt should be fired immediately. If you were the Obama campaign, you couldn’t have written a better scene even with all your buds in Hollywood.

Another way to look at the horrorshow that is McCain for President is one any rational person would agree is possible- he just doesn’t want to be our next President. And really, what sane person would? I imagine that somewhere- maybe at his estate in Sedona beside his heralded grill, the powers that be of the GOP gave him an offer, something like this: “John, we’ve fornicated the puppy for 7 years now, and any fool can see we’ve f’d up everything we touched. The next president is going to have to raise taxes, get us out of Iraq, and give a bunch of “gee, we’re sorry” handjobs to A-holes like Putin if we’re ever going to be a real country again. So John, we aren’t gonna waste one of A Team this time around, because frankly, we don’t want to have the White House, not this time. Let the coon have it- he’ll have to piss so many people off fixing our mess that we can come back in 2012 and kick major ass. Granted, you’ll be retired by then, but we’ll fix you up sweet if ya play along.” And McCain, accustomed to selling out for money, took the deal.

But lastly, he could be counting on the standard GOP playbook: Get close enough to steal it. Bush stole it in the courts and on CNN the first time (see Brooks Brothers “riot”), stole it with Blackwell in Ohio in ’04, and there is nothing to suggest that McCain- who is using Karl Rove as an adviser- isn’t planning on doing it again. The man stands for nothing, trading away his five years in captivity for a shot at the big show, so corrupting an election is just one more trickle of weak piss upon the standards that this country presumably stands for. Selective polling has McCain and Obama dead even on the eve of the Democratic convention, but it is in no way the truth. It’s in the networks- and the GOP’s- best interest to maintain at least the illusion of a real race, CNN to sell ads, the GOP to sell arms. If the race actually is remotely close, it is only so because the media in this country refuses to call a fool a fool and actually report on what Sidney McShame actually does. Sure, Obama might be inexperienced and untested.

But McCain? He’s been tested. He failed. But despite all of the above, if this twitchy, bitchy little goof actually wins, I’ll be disgusted- but I won’t be surprised.

And thats the saddest outcome of all. Most of you probably didn’t notice, but I changed the slogan atop TTP to:

America is at that awkward stage: It’s too late to work within the system, but too soon to shoot the bastards Claire Wolfe

And that’s where we’re at, ladies and gentlemen. Read ‘em and weep.

Cheney linked to Stevens corruption trial.

Newsweek reports that in a conversation “secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) “discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits.” Stevens promised Allen, “I’m gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, ‘Look … you gotta get this done’.” Two days later, Vice President Cheney undertook the unusual move of writing a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to “promptly enact” a bill to build the pipeline.

Ain’t got the time to read the Constitution, but can intercede on the behalf of his bidness buddies. Nice priorities…Dick.

Man Selling Anti-War Shirts Wins Ruling

PHOENIX – A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred Arizona from using a state law to prosecute an online merchant who sells shirts that list names of thousands of troops killed in Iraq.

“It is impossible to separate the political from the commercial aspects of that display,” Wake wrote. “For example, the state argues that Frazier can sell his shirts without displaying the soldiers’ names. But Frazier’s product is his message, and his customers’ message.”

As federal agency declares ‘new phenomenon’ downed WTC 7, activists cry foul

According to a federal agency report released Thursday, a “new phenomenon” known as thermal expansion was directly responsible for the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Sept. 11, 2001.

“There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through,” Gage added during the press conference. His group asserts that thermite, a steel cutting agent, was used to bring the building down.

Lenny>George/Richard>Bill>Doug.

If life ever required a chainsmoking drunk in a raincoat shouting the truth, it sure as hell is now.

Get it now.

Feeding the Beast
In order to weaken federal agencies, the Bush administration has expanded them to the point of collapse

By controlling regulatory officers, the Bush administration has put a ‘political watchdog’ on the inside. With the stroke of a pen, Bush has usurped control of all government rulemaking.Share Digg del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine When President Bush exits the White House in January, he will leave behind a federal government in shambles.

Policy analysts and legal scholars paint a picture of an executive intent on controlling every aspect of the federal bureaucracy, in particular the agencies tasked with regulating industry and commerce.

Supreme court justices and a crippled government. Ah Bush, your legacy shall endure.

Rosanne Cash says people who ‘speak’ for father shouldn’t

When John Rich recently took a Florida stage to support the presidential campaign of John McCain, he said, “Somebody’s got to walk the line in the country. They’ve got to walk it unapologetically,” before singing Johnny’s song, “Walk the Line.”

“I knew my father pretty well, at least better than some of those who entitle themselves to his legacy and his supposed ideals, and even I would not presume to say publicly what I ‘know’ he thought or felt. This is especially dangerous in the case of political affiliation. It is unfair and presumptuous to use him to bolster any platform. I would ask that my father not be co-opted in this election for either side, since he is clearly not here to defend or state his own allegiance.”

Now, I respect Rosanne, and I would never speak for Johnny, but just a hunch, I’m guessing he’d have this to say to McCain: