Santa Gave Chalabi A Lump of Coal

Hilarious:

The politician and onetime administration and U.S. newspaper source, Ahmed Chalabi, "appears to have suffered a humiliating defeat at the recent Iraq polls," NBC News reports today, according to the uncertified preliminary results.

It said that preliminary results in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad indicate that Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress scored a minuscule 0.36 percent of the votes.

Wait, you help get us into a war and you can't even steal an election? Too funny (funny ha ha that is)

The best part?

"The election results in Iraq may present Chalabi’s ardent U.S. supporters with a quandary: Chalabi, as well as other losing candidates, is alleging fraud in the election, even though the Bush administration hailed the vote as a historic step for democracy in Iraq," NBC reports. Indeed, the country is now in political turmoil over this.

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

Tom DeLay: Still On The 'Naughty' List

And here is your lump of coal Hot Tub: Appeals Court Won't Speed Up DeLay Trial...

A Texas appeals court on Thursday rejected a bid by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay to get a speedy trial on a money-laundering charge lodged against the powerful Republican lawmaker.

DeLay had sought an quick trial on the charge in the hopes that an acquittal would allow him to return to his post as U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader next month.

Maybe there is a Santa... HO HO HO!

An Interesting Scenario, But...

Also a darn Rude one: Rape David Brooks To Save America.

I'll say this though, once you get past the rape bit, you have to admit he does have a point.

Breaking: Rove Implicated In Leak!

... That your mom & dad are really santa:

WASHINGTON, DC—The recent leak revealing Santa Claus to be "your mommy and daddy" has been linked to President Bush's senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

"If this devastating leak, which severely undermines the security of children everywhere and has compromised parent-child relations, came from the highest levels of the White House, that is an outrage," said former Bush counterterrorism adviser and outspoken Bush Administration critic Richard Clarke.

The identity of the mythical holiday gift-giver, previously known only in grown-up circles, was published in the popular Timbertoes cartoon in the December issue of Highlights For Children. Jean Abrams, a conservative firebrand known to have close ties to Bush appointees in the Department of Education, revealed "Santa" to be a code name for anonymous parental gift-giving.

Oh what will we tell the children?!?

Re-Posted: Avoid These Elves

Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays (all of 'em) from your friends at the Hollywood Progressive Institute!

Guess Who Isn't Going To Jail?

Scooter that's who:

The Veep Still Loves His Scooter
Want proof that loyalty and friendship mean more than politics in the Bush administration? Then go no further than Vice President Dick Cheney 's Christmas party last week, where ex-aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, ousted after his indictment in the CIA spy-outing case, was given a hero's welcome. "He was warmly received, and he looked terrific," says a partygoer. "Everyone was happy to see him." Libby arrived with his wife and sans attorney and went through the photo line just like everybody else. And while he shunned talk about his case, "everyone wished him well," says our tipster.

Why do these people these people hate America and out our spies?

Mad As Hell

Watched NETWORK again last night... so timely. Amazing that someone hasn't made a re-make of it (are you listening Senors Soderbergh & Clooney?). So here are 2 thoughts from that movie today, first from the 'mad prophet' Howard Beale:

And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this tube? So, listen to me! Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park, that's what television is! television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion-tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! If you want truth, go to God, go to your guru, go to yourself because that's the only place you'll ever find any real truth! But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry: just look at your watch -- at the end of the hour, he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear!

We deal in illusion, man! None of it's true! But you people sit there -- all of you -- day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds -- we're all you know. You're beginning to believe this illusion we're spinning here. You're beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! We're the illusions! So turn off this goddam set! Turn it off right now! Turn it off and leave it off. Turn it off right now, right in the middle of this very sentence I'm speaking now!

And then there's the malevolent response:

JENSEN: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars! Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably deter- mined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.

HOWARD: Why me?

JENSEN: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

I wonder who would play Howard Beale today? Actually Jay would be my pick...

Ho Ho Ho. Bah Humbug.