MOE: oh here you are...

MEGAN: As always, right here, just multitasking and reading crap on the internet

MOE: I just remembered it was my afternoon off which is really fucking good because I am totally out of ADD drugs again and um, I had to get really wasted last night.

MEGAN: Yeah, I'm taking the afternoon off as well, but mostly so that I can drive back to D.C.

MEGAN: So, want to see the shittiest ads of the Presidential race so far?

MOE: Oh Jesus. Oh fucking Jesus. Okay, let's play a game: what's more depressing?You knew we were holding Saudis, Yemenis and Pakistanis without evidence in Gitmo, but did you know about the Chinese???

MOE: There are 16 Uighurs there, picked up mostly in Afghanistan after they got sick of the Chinese oppressing them.

MEGAN: Aw, dude, we have 16 Uighurs? Great. How much you want to bet that the Chinese got their intel on the Uighur terrorist threat against the Olympics that they used to justify further oppression from us?

MEGAN: Oh, wait, that was easy. Here's an article about it from the Voice of America, which is America's radio station abroad.

MOE: Yeah aren't we not allowed to listen to VOA in America because it's propaganda? And yes the Chinese assistance in the war on terror is very invaluable to our struggle against Muslim extremism which is the worst problem a country has ever faced in the history of modern statehood!

MEGAN: "They" will destabilize our government if we let "them," so we must protect the most important parts from destabilization, and the Bill of Rights is only, like, the 3rd most important document, definitely.

MEGAN: It doesn't say anything about the pursuit of happiness or executive privilege.

MOE: I love this headline: Judges Cite Need for Reliable Evidence To Hold Detainees …

MOE: it's like something you'd read in the daily newspaper of some fledgling democracy!

MOE: here

MEGAN: Judges Ask Administration To Stick To Principles On Which Country Founded, Not Dismantle Democracy In The Name Of Security

MEGAN: Well, if we want to stick to depressing news, how about a Biblical justification for attacking Michelle Obama (and, basically, every Jezebel) for defying God himself by not being subservient and thereby attacking Barack for not being godly enough to appropriately control his wife?

MOE: Dude apropos of absolutely nothing while I try to slog through the Gail Sheehy piece on Hillaryland and the Sy Hersh piece on Iran under the influence of absolutely no drugs check.out. this outfit. It looks like something Huma Abedin might recommend!

MEGAN: Dude, don't slog, I can break that shit down for you.

MEGAN: 1: Hillary and Bill hired a bunch of people who didn't get along, thinking that was a great campaign strategy. Like her Senate office and, frankly, the Bush Administration, it was a insular group of people used to defending the hordes.

MEGAN: 2. Mark Penn sucks and blames everyone else for his failing.

MEGAN: 3. Everyone hates Mark Penn, who used to privately call Bill Clinton when he couldn't convince Hillary or the other staff to do what he wanted because he's a tattle-taling bitch.

MOE: Also there was this

He sounded giddy, recalls Congressman Altmire. "'We’re going to win Ohio for sure, and Texas looks good, and we’re coming to Pennsylvania 'he said. ‘Keep your powder dry. Don’t endorse anybody—just wait it out.’?"The flattered first-term congressman said he was concerned that Senator Clinton might not play well on the top of the ticket. "President Bush won my district twice … "

Clinton interrupted him. "How well did I do in your district?"

"You won it twice."

"Well, there you go," Clinton said, gloating."

There was silence for a while, and Clinton assumed he had won his case."

"With all due respect," Altmire finally said, "you’re not on the ballot this year."

MOE: NEITHER IS ROSS PEROT!

MEGAN: 4. Ickes is pissed that Mark Penn made $20 million dollars, sucked, ran roughshod over him and still went out of his way to take politically untouchable clients (i.e., the Colombian government).

MEGAN: 5. The chunky Chicos necklaces and jewel-toned pantsuits were all the fault of Huma Abedin who is herself impeccably dressed, so she's now the world's biggest underminer.

MEGAN: 6. Hillary's make-up artist matched her eyeshadow to her suit jackets.

MEGAN: 7. Mark Penn railed against Hillary every showing emotion because he is at his core a sexist pig who doesn't believe women can be women and still President EVEN THOUGH that's the times when she connected best with voters.

MEGAN: 8. Both Clinton's undertook a concerted effort to pressure Obama into taking her as VP to the horror of most other Democrats who found it unseemly

MEGAN: 9. Patti Solis Doyle was ousted because they were out of money, not that they were out of money, per se, they were just out of primary money because donors can give $2300 to the primaries and $2300 to the general election campaign.

MEGAN: 10. Reporters were all drunk on the plane between Iowa and New Hampshire.

MEGAN: 11. Mark Penn sucks some more and is insufferably arrogant.

MEGAN: The end!

MOE: Okay so far on this. 1. Bush wants "regime change" and he's paid $400 million to fund it so far but that doesn't get you so far.

MOE: 2. There's some group called the Baluchis who are going to help us out because, you know, they're SUNNI.

MEGAN: !. Not in a country with oil it doesn't. In Cuba maybe.

MOE: 3. Some Democrats have gone along with this TREASON

MEGAN: 2. Not that McCain knows the difference between that and Shi'ites

MEGAN: 3. Um, they totally did, like they always do. Bush gives good belly rubs!

MOE: 4. The Joint Chiefs are not fans of this plan.

MOE: 5. Admiral William Fallon: I want to have his babies.

MEGAN: 4. The Joint Chiefs don't want their military legacies to be tons more soldiers dying in a pointless war.

MEGAN: 5. I'll leave that one to you. I wouldn't want to quit drinking for 9 months.

MOE: You don't have to completely quit, and definitely not for the whole nine months! Also you don't keep it down very well in the first few months of pregnancy anyway.

MEGAN: Yeah, I've heard that, though it reportedly depends on the woman. Also, with my personal history of (probably but not definitely developmental) birth defects, I probably would have to be way stricter than average.

MOE: But also I was not actually saying that literally just in response to:

Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”

MEGAN: Yeah, that is pretty fucking sexy. I'd hit it.

MOE: 6. There are some laws, about how Congress needs to hear about it if the CIA declares war on The Iran, because Congress is where the CIA would get money to do such a thing, but the Bush Administration maybe doesn't know about those laws, because they are still operating from the rule book that they were using when United Fruit chipped in most of the $$ for regime changes andsuch, only instead of United Fruit they are maybe finding another source for the money. (Bernanke?)

MOE:

"The agency says we’re not going to get in the position of helping to kill people without a Finding," the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the legal threat confronting some agency operatives for their involvement in the rendition and alleged torture of suspects in the war on terror. "This drove t"the over-all authorization includes killing, but it’s not as though that’s what they’re setting out to do. It’s about gathering information, enlisting support."

And how are you going to enlist support if you don't kill a few evildoers here and there???

MEGAN: More likely Chevron.

MEGAN: And, obviously, if you didn't mean to kill them, it's, like, totally ok. Casualties of an undeclared war, man.

MOE: 7. There is some group called the Gang of Eight that includes Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and John Rockefeller and it occurred to me that I forgot the members of the Gang of Four besides Jiang Qing. You always remember the girl involved in something like that. BTW God bless YouTube!

MEGAN: I mean, the problem with getting a declaration of war is that no President has really ever bothered. They get an authorization to do whatever the fuck they want to do and then use it, bypassing Congress's constitutional powers in that regard.

MEGAN: His hip thrusting is kind of freaking me out, man.

MOE: Ew yeah I know…if cheap wine is doing that to him…btw Admiral Fallon's nickname is "Fox". Silver fox!

MOE:

"Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing," Fallon’s colleague said. "The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney."

The Pentagon consultant said, "Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that."

MEGAN: He really just does get foxier the more you read.

MOE: 8. Were we speaking of cheap wine? Because there was an explosion someplace in The Iran called "Shiraz."

MEGAN: Which the Australians pronounce Shur-azz instead of Shur-ahz

MOE: 9. Oh yeah, remember Mossadegh? Weird how you can't spell that name without "Mossad." Anyway he's briefly mentioned, not by name but I always wondered what happened to him and turns out he stayed under house arrest until 1967. He was TIME's Man of the Year in 1951. Dude old Timestyle was soooo trippy.

MOE:

For all its power, the West in 1951 failed to cope with a weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country; the West had not yet developed the moral muscle to define its own goals and responsibilities in the Middle East. Until the West did develop that moral muscle, it had no chance with the millions represented by Mossadegh.

Hahahah they sure found some growth hormones for that whole "moral muscle" problem!

MEGAN: But, like steroids, it kind of rots your brain and shrinks your testes and makes you pissed off and gives you unsightly acne. Or whatever the foreign policy equivalent of those things are.

MOE: 9. We are overestimating the amount of ethnic tension we can stir up in Iran because the Baluchis really hate the government but actually, the "Baluchis" according to Robert Baer, is just a more Italian family restaurant chain sounding name for Al Qaeda, and they are bad dudes who cut people's heads off and shit, no lie, KLS is a Baluchi, and so is Ramzi Yousef.

MEGAN: Oh, but, like usual, we'll just pay them now and depose them later!

MOE: 10. Then there is some Tufts professor who tells us about a violent Al Qaeda funded resistance movement called the Iranian People's Resistance Movement and wouldn't it just figure with a name like that they are supposedly connected to the "drug culture."

MEGAN: Wait, so there are two al Qaeda's in Iran? Nice.

MOE: 11. Probably more, but then there are some Kurdish groups too, and they all get shitloads of money from the CIA for doing absolutely nothing, and I think I just decided what to do with my life or at least the next year of it. "My Year In The Iranian Resistance." How about it Megan? We'd totes get famous. Angie and I were going to try to get a defense contract a la Efraim Diveroli but her boyfriend said it was probably too late for that. Her boyfriend who works, in the Pentagon, for a defense contractor. I wonder how much money the most highly remunerated person in the Pentagon makes. Anyway. Also I forgot to mention it but

MEGAN: Dude, I'm all up for going on the government cheese, especially if it's someplace cool like Iran and we could get a book deal out of it!

MOE: 12. Al Qaeda has money too and they're sending it to Algeria, maybe because it's the home of Zacarias Moussaoui and he was a hoot.

MEGAN: Well, if you're not talking defense contractors, the most highly remunerated person at the Pentagon is the SecDef.

MEGAN: Well, I guess that means al Qaeda doesn't like Sarko. If they're spending money their they must be recruiting there, and if they're recruiting there, I'm thinking Paris. They haven't had an attack yet, but we have, the UK has and Spain has.

MOE: No I am talking defense contractors. Also Pastor Pfleger I forgot to mention his appearance on GMA but he appeared on GMA.

MEGAN: Oh, well, then it's got to be, like, the CEO of Boeing or something. That's my guess.

MOE: Yeah but the CEO of Boeing ... not Mullally.. shit, I dunno, anyway, it's not important, his OFFICE is not in the Pentagon. See what I'm saying?

MEGAN: Ah, ok, I see what you're saying. I'll be the grunts who have to work in offices there still don't make more than the SecDef. I can't find his pay, but the highest guy below him makes $200,000, so I'm guessing it's about that or a little more.

MOE: ah tere you are
  you can tell by my typing that I am extraordinarily hungover
But you will tell even moreso from my thought process
 
MEGAN: I am a little hung over myself, and dying for a Diet Coke. But it's pouring rain here.

MOE: OH my god the "Video Professor" himself is on Fox and Friends.
 
MEGAN: Nuh-uh! Switching now!
  
Wow, he's orange.

MOE: He's giving away a FREE BASKET of HIS INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS
Um and then they cut to a big segment on who got kicked off American Idol
Never suggest that Fox only has time for its right wing ideological agenda.
 
MEGAN: Does Elton think AI is still racist?
Okay, NO WAY is Donald's hair not thinning. Also, this is pretty much why I watch CNN even though they replaced my Soledad.

MOE: Yeah I would watch MSNBC probably because it's the Fox News of Trotskyists but ...I still can't figure out why they're both muted on my cable box. I think I should probably call time warner. But who wants to do that?

MEGAN: Oh, God, and be on hold forever? But at least it's not Comcast. Neener neener, Comcast, I got FiOS
Oh, God, that asshole that asked Chelsea about Monica is going to be on CNN. Does he not realize that everyone thinks he's a complete douchebag?

MOE: Okay so, some stories. Hillary wants grandkids. But why should we trust you, lying pimp puppet Chelsea? How do we know she didn't actually say, "I want a grandcat so in the middle of the night I can slaughter it??"
  Also, I don't care that that guy asked Chelsea that question.
  I mean, the way it was phrased was annoyingly Fox News.
  But fuck, she is an adult  
He looks like an ass.

MEGAN: OMG, totally. I just think it's a douche move to ask a girl about her father's affair. He is an ass.
 
MOE: Meh.
 I mean, I guess.

MEGAN: Ha, he's saying other dudes from his communications class wanted to know the answer. Because they're dudes.
 
MOE: The chance it would get answered by someone like Chelsea are so slim...the chance you'll look like an ass are so high.
 
MEGAN: They're all trying to figure out how to cheat on a woman and get her to stick around.
 
MOE: Fuck if Chelsea knows. She wanted her mom to leave him when she was ten or something.

MEGAN: Dude, so, remember how they passed that law allowing pilots to carry guns in the wake of 9/11? Yeah, some guy shot up his own plane by accident yesterday. I feel safer. You?

\
MOE: Oh god: 1. Who. 2. You know what's depressing is I just checked Facebook and my Horoscope says it's a good day for my "intellect" rating. And my initial thought was, "And I squandered it on THIS HANGOVER" and my immediate corollary thought was "Which is so bad I am believing my horoscope"? I think we should talk about that Pakistan story though. In the Washington Post, on how Musharaf's reduced powers are forcing us to bomb them with our own two ...well, bomb them unilaterally. Does this vindicate Obama? Because I'm really hungover.
  
But that's how it seems.
Also Donald Trump is on Fox & Friends talking about his brief run for the presidency. And he's saying that he didn't plan to run. "People tinkered with me. I made a speech in New Hampshire and people said, 'He's running!'" Um, Donald? Remember that book you wrote about your plan to run for president? Because I do. And it was AMAZING.
Donald Trump is like the apotheosis of everything I love about this country/city/dudes/etc.
 
MEGAN: Can Donald Trump just disappear again, like he did in about 1996? Because that was amazing.
Also, my Facebook horoscope says "A dramatic change in your attitude or appearance could have a negative impact on family relationships right now. You may not have done anything as drastic as a nose ring or a facial tattoo, but you could risk making a bad impression on someone whose help you will need in the future." Luckily, I barely leave the house, so I can't make a bad impression on anyone!

MOE: Ooooooh, this is what mine says.

It is impossible for you to be content with superficial answers now, and you are impatient with people who avoid looking candidly and honestly at root causes and hidden reasons for any problem or situation. You tend to force your views on other people now. Also, you can become obsessed with an idea or problem until you have figured it out.

MEGAN: My God, the Facebook horoscope people, like, know you. Today.

MOE: So did Hillary plagiarize her Bosnia trip account from Olympia Snowe?
  Is Chuck Phillips as much of an idiot as Bill O'Reilly, as Jay-Z once notably suggested?
Oh look, the GDP is suffering, but corporate profits are still on the rise! That's great, great news for those of us in the problem solving business.
 
MEGAN: Anyway, so on Pakistan. I can't believe that people were all freaked out about Obama saying we'd go after OBL in Pakistan with or without Pakistani permission. I mean, had it been the anti-war people freaking out, fine, but hawks were the ones who wigged. I mean, the only reason we haven't yet is so's we don't destabilize Uncle Pervy. But if we go after them now, maybe, Obama can actually live up to his doctrine about changing the way we do foreign policy or something.
Olympia Snowe's totally voting for Hillary I bet.
And Chuck Phillips must be the only person in the world that thinks that Diddy is anything but a middle class guy. He's probably even nice.
Also, if you'd like, a moment of silence. The inventor of the Egg McMuffin has gone to the Playland in the sky.
 
MOE: Oh, and shit, just in time for tax season: guess who's suddenly "under scrutiny" as a result of this financial crisis that no one understands: the accounting industry. What a surprise! You mean, the ones who actually understand this shit are the culprits? When was the last time the accountants were blamed for some arcane financial scandalcrisis thingy? The last time one happened? Speaking of, calling all corrupt accountants: I still need one! And now, to resume denial. Re Pakistan: everything you said. This is why I'm eager to see a McCain-Obama foreign policy debate play out. But Hillary is taking it to the Convention. Where, by the way, we are going. Don't worry if you want to bring someone home I can sleep through pretty much anything.
Holy SHIT re the egg mcMuffin! Did you see that I wrote about egg mcmuffins yesterday?
 
MEGAN: I did! Also, I was sad you didn't mention the time I actually made you one on your actual stove.
 
MOE: I was really hungover that time.
Or wait, in pain...something.
 
MEGAN: I remember, that's why I made you one! Runny yolks and all.
 
MOE: But thank you. I used to make those all the time on the actual stove but english muffins are curiously hard to come by and/or expensive in this neighborhood, in contrast to Harlem, where they were abundant and cheap.
I know you care, audience.
 
MEGAN: No, we were both shitty drunk the night before. That's when we met up with Greg Wassertrom and Hunter Walker and then you went to a party and I got drunk and waited for you at the bar downstairs and argued with some Hillary supporter just because I could.
Because I was feeling argue-y.
  Really? I'll bring English muffins up next time.
By the way, how much do you want to give a low dollar donation to get in on the raffle to have dinner with Obama? Because I want to. Bad.

MOE: Oh right. That night. I went to Jessica's house and we discussed ...cannibalism. I had just read that Harper's reading re cannibalism during the Great Leap Forward. Which, inspires me to bring you this small update re Tibet. 660 people have been held, according to the government. I am not sure why we are supposed to believe them, but that is what they say. And dinner with Obama: I knew when it started looking like he could become president that I was foregoing any chance for dinner with him, and that is okay.

MEGAN: Also, CNN is reporting live from Philly in front of the Art Museum and they are apparently having a Frieda Kahlo exhibit. I think we should task Commenter Braak to go and report back.
 
MOE: Hey Braak, speaking of, do you know about ESCHACON????
 
MEGAN: Only 660 people? That doesn't actually seem like a lot for China.

MOE: I am supposed to go down on Saturday and meet TRex and sundry other leftblogger types in Philly but...I also have like ninety other commitments, one of which is my sister, who just texted me telling me her newest documentary plan was "My Sister, The Marxist," and I should really try to do my taxes this weekend, if only for the sake of the art. Do you know there is a giant picture of ammunition on the front of the Times today and I havent' gotten to the story yet?Something about the Afghans. Ammunition is not the most photogenic thing, you know? I guess it's an image that conjures ...possibility. But.

MEGAN: Well, if you go, tell TRex I say hi and that I am mad at him for not inviting me, too. I mostly did my taxes earlier this week, I just now have to figure out that whole home office thingie and whether there's anyway that I can possibly get enough of a deduction out of that to make it worth my time to figure it out.

MOE: Oh my god the story is actually kind of amazing.

But to arm the Afghna forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

MOE: Okay, so the company is called AEY. Hedquarters: Miami Beach. 22-year-old CEO Efraim Diveroli: hott.In a shaggy way. Contracts up to $300 million. Wiretap suggesting: corruption; old arms; everything made in China. I haven't gotten to the jump, but already I am going to tell you: Israeli mob. Ecstasy trafficker family. And that brings me back to Trump, and this story I did about how he was doing business with the Israeli mob — unwittingly of course. everything is unwitting with him.

MEGAN: Because he is witless?

MOE: But yeah. I'm telling you. Mark my words. His family is in the ecstasy business. If only they were selling that to the Afghans. Also: how are you supposed to transport anything into Afghanistan if you aren't somehow wound up with contraband traffickers? No one talks about what logistics geniuses the drug traffickers are, and how we could probably make business a lot more efficient by legalizing drugs and learning their secrets. Well no one talks about that because it is a retarded thought. I'm jumping.

MEGAN: Actually, that's not a completely retarded thought. I mean, heroin is really Afghanistan's most successful export and it gets grown and distributed well despite all its problems. Like, we can't even manage to distribute money not to grow it well.
 
MOE: Here is the masseur. Also hott.

MEGAN: Albania's defense minister? Totally fuckable.
The masseur looks high as shit and like a drug dealer. I'm sticking with the defense minister.
  The masseur's eyes are like something out of a horror movie.
Efraim looks stoned.
 
MOE: Oh Jesus.

Michael Diveroli, Efraim's father, had incorporated the company in 1999, when Efraim was 13. For several years, a period when the company appeared to have limited activity, Michael Diveroli, who now operates a police supply company down the street from AEY's office, was listed as the company's sole executive.

MEGAN: Nice. Efraim looks like one of those guys I would happily allow to hit on me in a bar and use his rather limited vocabulary to tell me how fucking sexy I am and how I should go home with him and who I will never actually go home with because I think if you cannot say "cunnilingus" correctly you probably aren't going to be worth the time or the condom to fuck.

MOE: Ephraim is a young Israeli mobster from Miami. I interviewed one once. He was a year from federal prison, not that he revealed that to me at the time. He was the cockiest motherfucker I've met in my entire life. But, in the words of the intern who transcribed the interview: "God he sounded hot."
'
MEGAN: A little arrogance can be attractive in a man, especially, say, if a girl is particularly used to dating guys with maybe not a ton of self esteem NOT THAT I DO THAT OR ANYTHING but too much just pisses me off because normally it's not backed up by anything.  
But I'm also older than your former intern.

MOE: On a note unrelated to sex, the thing this story is making me realize is that the cool thing about selling arms is that, unlike with lead toys or drugs, they don't seem to get screened so much. This guy seemed like he was picking his up in Albania — straight-arrow country, that Albania — and they'd originally come from China in the sixties and seventies. In the sixties and seventies, when arms were probably being smelted in backyards while people subsisted on other people, not to get to circular about things. I am still awestruck by the... awesomeness of this story. 
Incidentally, the Albanian they hired to repackage this shit, Kosta Trebicka, is also pretty hot.

MEGAN: Our government defense dollars at work. No wonder we're winning the war.

MOE: OH my god best. So last summer, Trebicka and Diveroli, the 22-year-old, were talking about how tough it was to do business in Albania, and the 22-year-old suggested that Trebeckia send "one of your girls" to have sex with the head of the export agency. "Money might help too." It always comes back to whores.

MEGAN: And money. Also, really? Did any of these guys have trouble getting laid without having to pay for it?

MOE: Not if they're drinking with me. But you know the neocons: they like a challenge.