Jezebel: saddam hussein

GOP To Cheney, Sanford: Sit Down, Shut Up

Megan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Not a day can go by, it seems, without Dick Cheney attempting to prop up his legacy and Mark Sanford busting out declarations of love for his mistress. Racialicious' Latoya Peterson and I have some advice for both of them.

Crappy Hour with Latoya Peterson, July 2, 2009

Condoms: The Prophylactic Against War Criminals!

TatianaTheAnonymousModel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:40:00 EDT

This Chinese condom ad features the tagline "Such tragedy could have been easily avoided." Click through for a bigger picture of some of the terrible world leaders who might never have been. [Dieline]

The Candidates Have Economic Plans, But Only One Is Kid-Approved

Megan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Barack Obama's economic plan is out and it has: $3,000 tax credit to businesses for hiring new people; penalty-free access to your retirement savings; the elimination of taxes on unemployment benefits; more money for automakers (of course); and a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. Like Kix, it's kid-tested and mother-approved. [NY Times]
McCain's got his plans, too, which include: Obama's no-tax unemployment benefits; a reduction in your capital gains tax as though your stock has gained in value since you bought it; and tax breaks for only old people on tapping their retirement savings. I mean, I guess that is his main constituency, but still. [Washington Post]
Speaking of McCain's core constituency, someone else yelled "Kill him!" at a Palin rally today. [Politico]
And if we want to talk about who is pallin' around at terrorists, someone should ask why the head of McCain's transition team was pallin' around with Saddam Hussein. Fair's fair, folks. [Washington Independent]

Sarah Palin told Rush Limbaugh she was "nothing to lose" these days, so she plans to continue her ill-founded attacks on Obama rather than talking about the issues she keeps mixing up the talking points about. [Huffington Post]
Christopher Buckley, conservative son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., announced that he was going to be voting for Barack Obama given John McCain's being a big dick now and not acting like a small government conservative, so the National Review told him to piss off because differing opinions aren't welcome in the GOP these days. Just ask Kathleen Parker. [Daily Beast, Daily Beast]
To Buckley's point, McCain's campaign found yet another area of government spending they don't really intend to subject to a freeze when they take office. If you're keeping track, it's now defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans spending and science spending that they're not going to freeze, but there are still 3 weeks until the elections. [The Hill]
And, by the way, the bailout plan is no longer voluntary for banks. Nine so far have been told they will be participating in it. Nothing like a little nationalizing power to make a Republican Treasury Secretary forget his free market "principles." [Washington Post]

John McCain's Staff Tells One Reporter To Stay Off The Bus

Megan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:00:48 EDT

Stephen Price is the senior writer for the Tallahassee Democrat (no relation to the Party) and tends to stick out just a touch when in a scrum of mostly-white political reporters. Last week at a McCain rally, he stuck out so much that a McCain staffer asked him and his legitimate press credential to leave. McCain's staff says it's because he was a state reporter, since, you know, McCain doesn't care that much about his local and state press coverage. [HuffPo, HuffPo]
By the way, the Swift Boat guys are back and now they've got books! And mass e-mails! And virtually no credibility! [Washington Post]
Speaking of lacking in credibility, House Republicans are claiming that their protest against House Speaker Pelosi's decision not to bring a drilling bill to the floor is lowering gas prices! [HuffPo]

In still more barely believable news, apparently the letter that was the only supposed documented link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is probably a CIA forgery. When do we stop calling the intelligence there "faulty" and start calling it "manufactured"? Was that letter, at least, manufactured in a mobile lab?[Washington Independent]
But, hey, at least Stephen Price isn't a Japanese reporter trying to cover the Beijing Olympics. In China, they don't "escort" you away from what you're trying to report on, they beat you up and haul you off in violation of China's supposed agreement on press freedoms. But they're really sorry! They promise it won't happen again until at least tomorrow! [Boston Globe]
And to make us seem more sorry, a U.S. Olympic Committee official reportedly bitched out the four cyclists who arrived in China for the Olympics today wearing the face masks issued to them... by the USOC. What, did Bush get to appoint a bunch of incompetent assholes there, too? [NY Times]

Saddam Hussein Started Gulf War 1 Over Hearing His Women Called "Whores"

Moe — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:30:00 EST

Last night 60 Minutes interviewed an FBI interrogator who had spent seven months hanging (See what we did there? You can thank Richard for the pun) with Saddam Hussein. What we learned: Saddam, much like Terrence Howard, is a lyrical consumer of baby wipes; Saddam didn't really regret gassing the Kurds but he destroyed most of his weapons of mass destruction because they were getting too expensive to maintain and only pretended to still have them to ward off attack from Iran; the FBI threw him a birthday party replete with Lebanese cookies baked by the interrogator's mom; when asked about his loser-rapist sons he told the interrogator, "You can't choose your kids." But the biggest bombshell was his unexpected defense of Iraqi women: apparently he made the decision to invade Kuwait — and start the first Gulf War — in response to Kuwaiti Emir Al-Sabah's threat to "turn every last Iraqi woman into a ten-dollar prostitute." Clip above.

Saddam Hussein Made Up That WMD Thing To Deter Invaders

Moe — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:40:31 EST

So it turns out Saddam Hussein lied about having WMD so the rest of the Axis of Evil would leave him alone. [CBS News]
How much would you bet even he couldn't have kept that lie up 935 times! [Wash Post
Isn't it funny how yesterday's enemies are today's...[Reuters]
The New York Times to endorse Hillary Clinton? Identity politics much, Gray Lady??? [Radar]
George Soros says it's the worst economic crisis in 60 years. Because financial instruments masterminded by crafty hedgies like himself just got too hard for central bankers and bureaucrats to understand. And speaking of hard to understand... [Financial Times]
But anyway, everyone else smarter than you agrees. [NY Times]
"Tax cuts in general perpetuate the excessive consumption that has marked the American economy." [NY Times]
Suck it, Stiglitz, I want my six hundred bucks. [WSJ]
Bill Gates is over capitalism. Convenient. [WSJ]