THIS MODERN WORLD

I saw one of those “Dissent is PATRIOTIC” bumper stickers this morning, with the flags in the background and the bold-yet-traditional typeface, and it got me thinking, as bumper stickers are intended to do. And what it got me thinking about was the fact that it was a reactive bumper sticker, a response to all the right wing morons who’ve spent the last four years insisting, in one way or another, that dissent is treasonous. It’s a slogan that accepts the parameters of the debate they set. So I decided that what we really need are proactive slogans, and thanks to the miracle of Cafe Press, I’ve gone from inspiration to marketed commodities in the space of an hour:

While I was at it, I put up another one I’ve had bouncing around in the back of my head for awhile — this one dedicated to those alleged libertarians who seem utterly unconcerned with the erosion of civil liberties, and completely willing to trust the current administration with the excessive powers it claims for itself:

Both of these designs are available on stickers, and a variety of other crap, in the store.

Via Gilliard, we learn that yet another fundamentalist homophobe is secretly attracted to men:

(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a male plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, police said.

Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was booked into Oklahoma County Jail Tuesday night on a misdemeanor charge of offering to engage in an act of lewdness, police Capt. Jeffrey Becker said. Latham was released on $500 bail Wednesday afternoon.

Latham, who has spoken out against homosexuality, asked the officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. Latham was arrested and his 2005 Mercedes automobile was impounded, Becker said.

I remember when I watched Angels in America, being annoyed at what seemed to me at the time as the triteness of the repressed straight religious character who, ha ha, turns out to be secretly gay! But in the intervening years, I’ve noticed that stories like this one seem to show up, gosh, several times a month. I guess Tony Kushner knew what he was talking about after all.

… to the Kossacks who clicked through on the Bush (almost) equals Nixon thing. I see that several of your compatriots are suggesting that “someone” should put the image on a shirt. Could one of you do me a favor and point out that the cartoonist already did? (Incidentally, I tried to register as “Tom Tomorrow” so I could post the comment myself, but the username is “already taken”… don’t know what that’s about …)

…update from a reader:

I saw your comment about the tom tomorrow user id being taken at Daily Kos. I went to that user’s page and found this:

“I am not the real Tom Tomorrow. I created this account after reading that someone had been spoofing his name on other blogs. I have no plans on posting from this account. If the real Tom Tomorrow contacts Kos to get this account, I’d be happy to let him.”

My thanks to whoever was watching out for me there.

Most of you have probably been seen this on Atrios and Americablog, but it’s potentially quite significant, so for the benefit of anyone who might have missed it …

It started with this exchange from a transcript on the NBC website:

New York Times reporter James Risen first broke the story two weeks ago that the National Security Agency began spying on domestic communications soon after 9/11. In a new book out Tuesday, “State of War,” he says it was a lot bigger than that. Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell sat down with Risen to talk about the NSA, and the run-up to the war in Iraq….

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don’t. It’s not clear to me. That’s one of the questions we’ll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don’t know the answer to that

Mitchell: You don’t have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn’t heard that.

Okay, so what does Andrea Mitchell know? Why is she asking if Risen knows if a specific journalist has been wiretapped?

It gets stranger, when NBC deletes that part of the transcript from the website, offering this lame explanation:

“Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on ‘NBC Nightly News’ nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.”

Hard to know what’s going on here. Clearly somebody knows something they’re not telling yet. The only mainstream journalist who has much of a track record for taking on his peers on stories like this is Keith Olberman, and since he’s at MSNBC, I kind of doubt he has the leeway to do the job. Hope somebody does.

One aspect of the Abramoff scandal that’s not getting much attention in the media, at least that I’ve seen, is his proximity to an apparent gangland murder:

While Abramoff’s influence-buying schemes are likely to entangle prominent politicians in bribery cases in Washington, the Fort Lauderdale murder-corruption case surrounding the SunCruz casino stands out as possibly the biggest embarrassment for the Republican power structure, since it may feature appearances by Abramoff and his onetime aide Michael Scanlon.

Fort Lauderdale homicide detectives are interested in questioning Abramoff about the 2001 murder of SunCruz casino owner Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis. Prosecutor Brian Cavanaugh told me he most certainly “will be spending time with Mr. Scanlon.”

Boulis was gunned down in his car on Feb. 6, 2001, amid a feud with an Abramoff business group that had purchased Boulis’s SunCruz casino cruise line in 2000. On Sept. 27, 2005, Fort Lauderdale police charged three men, including reputed Gambino crime family bookkeeper Anthony Moscatiello, with Boulis’s murder.

As part of the murder probe, police are investigating payments that SunCruz made to Moscatiello, his daughter and Anthony Ferrari, another defendant in the Boulis murder case. Moscatiello and Ferrari allegedly collaborated with a third man, James Fiorillo, in the slaying.

I’m sure he was in plenty of trouble anyway, but I can’t help but wonder if this figured into the plea deal at all.

Related cartoon (from October) here.