Wonkette

New York Times, today: “Bush Stops in Missouri for Embattled Senator” MORE »

Al Kamen reported yesterday that Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff is the proud recipient of this year’s “prestigious Henry Petersen award.”

The award is traditionally given to Department of Justice criminal division careerists who did their jobs well for a long time. Chertoff’s honor hasn’t garnered a lot of attention, but one guy who did notice was Miles W. Swanson, grandson of Henry Petersen himself. Swanson writes:

Today with horror I read in the Washington Post that Michael Chertoff is receiving the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Henry Petersen Award, the most prestigious award for the DoJ’s Criminal Division. Besides being my grandfather, Henry Petersen was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, chief prosecutor for Watergate, and career employee at the DOJ. What makes this situation so horrible, besides the fact that Mr. Chertoff is a political appointee, an ass, not a career employee at the DOJ, and probably the exact opposite of my grandfather: I moved to New Orleans from D.C. a couple months after Katrina to do volunteer legal work. I staff a free legal clinic in the 9th Ward with the Common Ground Legal Collective as well as several bankruptcy/debtor relief clinics in and around New Orleans as part of The Pro Bono Project. As you can imagine, I deal with Mr. Chertoff’s mess on a daily basis. Normally, I go out to lunch with all the heads and award recipient and to the award ceremony (being held tomorrow [today -ed] at the DOJ) every year with my grandmother and mother to present the award. It’s probably best that I don’t go as they would have a tough time holding me back.

After the jump, Mr. Swanson’s letters to Mr. Chertoff and Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher.

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• Heard on the Hill: Democrats are putting grainy photos of Tom DeLay, Michael Brown, and Harriet Myers on reporters’ chairs in the Capitol, thus bugging the hell out of everyone… “Pro-business, tax-cutting conservative Democrats” to form Congressional voting bloc group. Problem: Only four of them, no cool name yet. We suggest “The Republicans.” [Roll Call]

• Reliable Source: Former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen pitched a tv show about the Pentagon called “E-Ring.” Jerry Bruckheimer stole his idea a couple years later… President Bush and Karl Rove hold fundraiser two doors down from Hillary Clinton fundraiser. Neither calls cops on other. [WP]
• Yeas and Nays: Smartass Jeopardy-winning pseudo-celeb Ken Jennings knows what a Wonkette is. When asked what bar the Bush Twins used to frequent, answers “The Cock and Balls.” Examiner editors clean it up… Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass) throws karaoke fundraiser, somehow neglects to invite us. [Examiner]
• Under the Dome: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) calls his opponent crazy, starts website subtitled “A Political and Satirical Website Dedicated to the Tinfoil Tales of Crazy Clint Curtis… The white supremacist guy from that Nation picture still likes George Allen, has Jewish friend. [The Hill]
• Lowdown: Karl Rove is on a protein shake diet. The protein comes from the baby meat. [NYDN]

• “Rolling Hurricane Revue” tour heads to Mississippi and Louisiana to mark today’s one year anniversary of Katrina. Blame game still on, reconstruction in MS faring better than LA. [WP, NYT]

• Tropical Storm Ernesto is weak, but FEMA Director David Paulison’s “No More Fuckups” doctrine has an army of personnel in Florida. [CNN]
• Kofi Annan wants in on the cool kids “disaster touring club,” heads to southern Lebanon. [BBC, NYT]
• Bill Clinton in Africa visiting AIDS patients, finds warm reception: “George Bush has actually delivered more resources, but Clinton is ten times more popular in Africa.” [NYT]
• President Nursultan “The Friendly Kleptocrat” Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to visit White House in September. [WP]
• Indiana Republican congressman Mike Pence no longer the “perfect conservative” as he tries for compromise on immigration issue. [NYT]
• Fenty vs. Cropp televised debate yesterday — no steel cage, just a really small table. [WP]

• Kings have their castles, but just because you’re a penniless drunk who lives in group basement apartment with bike messengers doesn’t mean you don’t have anyone to look down on. [DC Urban Family]

• Red is where the rich people are, cause those neighborhoods are “hot.” [Metroblogging DC]
• At least you don’t live in Baltimore. [Frozen Tropics]
• FEMA’s got a little class warrior streak running through it that’s apparently not so popular with the Tyson’s Galleria set. [Diary of an Ad Man]

• Jordanian hipsters are ahead of the curve, already discussing Middle Eastern “crisis” with detached irony. [My Occupied Territory] MORE »

Had a long week? Let Today’s Cartoons cheer you up, with their cheerful, hilarious caricatures and subtle wit! Or, as resident cartoon expert the Comics Curmudgeon explores this week, with thinly-veiled profanity and bizarre toilet humor. Same difference, in the end.

After the jump: Dogs peeing on congress and sexually harassing children, the f-bomb, and some serious monster-related creepiness. Enjoy.

MORE »

• CIA confirms it’s still the evilest motherfucker on the block by firing DC blogger “Econo-Girl” for a post stating, “torture is wrong.” [Econo-Girl]

• The Brookings Institute focuses the full intellect of their army of PhDs and comes up with “it sucks to be poor.” [NYT]
• Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan: who got served? [Sweetness & Light]
• Web-editors of Hezbollah’s official website live in fear that one day they will forget to put “Israel ” in quotation marks, and find an envelope on their desks with more than a pink slip in it. [ Alghaliboun.net]
• Annoying Emergency Broadcast System “beeeeep” to be replaced by whatever annoying ringtone you happen to be using. Which actually might not be a bad idea. [WFMU; The Local]
• Why does the government spend so much money? You gotta pander to win. [Heritage.org]

Earlier today, we linked to the FEMA job application that misspelled “department.” We never meant to give that impression, but it may have read as if we were accusing Michael Brown of the typo in question. In fact, proving conclusively that FEMA’s institutional difficulties predated his tenure there, the misspelling was the responsibility of FEMA’s HR department. We received an email to that effect earlier today from Michael Brown himself, who says, “those commentators claiming that I can’t spell department should back off.” We can attest to his correct spelling in both that email and the follow-up. Brown: “And see, it does show that I can actually read!” MORE »

What to do when your FOIA request turns up boring documents? Seize on that most satisfying of criticisms, the typo. As Raw Story has done, delightfully, with Michael Brown’s application to work for FEMA. Below, a sample of Brown’s application (helpful proofreading marks provided by us at no additional cost):

And, hilariously, they did it again on the next page. Simple error? More likely: FEMA’s subconscious demonstration of resentment at losing its independence to a de[a]partment that, while a completely useless and nightmarish bureaucratic cesspool of money, you’d hope has a few secretaries on staff who can proofread these things. MORE »