The Zong

When it’s a spineless majority of assholes masquerading as public servants.

The Democrats’ yearlong fight to boost federal spending on children’s health insurance ended with a whimper Tuesday.

After coming up short in their efforts to enact a $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) — enduring two presidential vetoes along the way — congressional Democrats signed off on Republican demands to extend the program until 2009.

So that’s it then. While approximately 10 million children live (or die) without health insurance in this country, our representatives in congress can’t seem to stop tripping over their dicks. I mean, if you thought Democrats couldn’t get anything done when they were in the minority in both houses, take a look at their track record since taking over. From the NSA’s illegal wiretapping to putting a timetable on bringing our troops home to a funding ban on family planning organizations abroad that perform abortions, our newly-minted majority can always be counted on to run from a good fight.

House Democrats are not walking away from SCHIP, said a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). For a start, the House will vote on Jan. 23 to attempt to override President Bush’s second SCHIP veto.

Moreover, the enactment of the extension does not mean Congress cannot do more, the spokesman said. “It does not preclude us from bringing up a strong, bipartisan bill,” he said. “The goal here is to cover 10 million children. That’s why discussions will continue. … If there is an opportunity to have a vote on this legislation, absolutely we will have one,” he said.

I suppose it’s time to start asking Madame Speaker’s spokesman, if not the speaker herself, some questions like: “What the fuck are the uninsured children supposed to do while you wait for the opportunity to have a vote?” Or even: “What happens if the GOP stays in the White House next year?” I guess the kids will have to figure that shit out for themselves.

So I’ve been alternately thumbing through the mind-numbing Mitchell Report and sleeping for a few days, all the while trying to ignore all the pundits so as to venture a somewhat independent opinion on the thing. I’ve definitely given up on even trying to decipher how the thing was actually put together, but I can say that if you paid me whatever George Mitchell was paid to do this, I could have probably come up with something a little more entertaining.

As far as I can tell, George Mitchell has constructed a blacklist in a manner that would make Joe McCarthy proud. I mean, I won’t sit here and say that I don’t believe a lot of what’s in the report, but it’s important to view all the allegations in the report for what they are: allegations, rumor, and accusations by people who are facing serious jail time. I’m sure that Mitchell is right that juicing was/is widespread, and that a lot of the players listed in the report are probably dirty, filthy fucking cheaters, but the report is thin on proof and heavy on the kind of shit I might try to include in a report to make it 409 pages long instead of 55.

What pisses me off, really, is that Bud Selig and all of baseball’s managers and owners are left basically unnamed in the report, other than a cursory nod and mild wagging of the finger. Why the hell weren’t the executives investigated more thoroughly by Mitchell? It seems pretty unlikely that they just didn’t know this shit was happening, and like a major flaw in the report that they weren’t asked more questions in general.

That said, I implore the media and baseball itself to give all these accused players the Barry Bonds treatment at every single opportunity. All the cheaters, whether they’ve failed drug tests or not, should have asterisks placed next to every win they’ve ever participated in, and all of them should be forced to testify in front of a Grand Jury. Then, their testimony should be leaked and their local piece-of-shit sports rag should have a couple of shitty reporters salvage their worthless careers by writing a bunch of sensationalist bullshit into a best-selling book. I’d also like all the fans in New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Diego, etc. to go find the asterisk signs and syringes that they brought to their games against the Giants the last couple of years and bring them to every fucking game their own teams play for the rest of their lives. I mean, what’s good for the goose is good for your own hypocritical, filthy cheating fucker-filled organization too, isn’t it?

The news of the Miggy/D-Train move to Detroit for some (very promising) prospects came as a bit of a surprise to some in the baseball world, not the least of whom was Josh Willingham, who isn’t really good enough to get traded just yet.

Cabrera and Willis were the last players left from Florida’s 2003 championship team. Unable to secure a new ballpark, the Marlins keep shedding players when they are due to earn huge salaries. Cabrera made $7.4 million this year and Willis $6.45 million. Both were eligible for arbitration and likely to receive raises.

“I halfway expected one of them to get traded, but not both in the same deal. So it’s a little bit of a shock,” Marlins left fielder Josh Willingham said. “It’s deflating.”

And so we can continue to thank the Florida Marlins for assisting the grand exodus of talent from the National League. I’m not sure how good Detroit’s former prospects actually are, but their new lineup is looking kind of fucking stupid, much like the lineups of the Red Sox, Yankees, and Angels. This leaves the NL looking even more pathetic and boring than it was last year, but let’s not forget to blame all the National League teams who were evidently sleeping when all this happened. I’d really like to blame Brian Sabean for this, but he didn’t really have much to offer in a trade for even one of those guys. I suppose I can blame him for bankrupting the Giants’ Farm System, and a quick look at the Yahoo! MLB Rumors page shows a couple of tidbits that make me feel a little sick. The first one is about Miguel Cabrera, something Sabean said just this past Saturday:

”I hate to speak to somebody else’s business, but you wonder if they really want to trade the player or if they absolutely, positively have to win the deal in such a one-sided fashion,” San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. “Maybe they’re not going to get something done. I don’t know.”

Maybe they’re not. Or maybe they just did. For prospects that you don’t have because you give away first-round picks all the time to save money. Glad you got a new contract out of it, brah.

Of course, there are still quality players out there. This was just posted regarding the Blue Jay’s Alex Rios:

Would the Giants trade Matt Cain for Alex Rios?

Late Tuesday, it was learned that the “interesting” proposal Brian Sabean had mentioned Monday involved Rios, the Blue Jays’ outfielder. He has three more years of arbitration eligibility before becoming eligible for free agency after the 2010 season.

The Blue Jays want Cain for Rios, according to a high-ranking Toronto official, and the Giants seem more willing to part with Tim Lincecum.

So let me get this straight: You wouldn’t trade one of the only prospects we have for the new Manny Ramirez in the prime of his young career, but now you’re talking about trading Lincecum for Alex Rios? What the hell is wrong with you?  Did you watch any baseball last season other than the fucking Home Run Derby? This smacks of the kind of desperation that might lead to a really horrible Sabean Masterpiece for the Giants. There is a precedent for this…

Remember in 2002 when the National Intelligence Estimate said Iraq was going to use something called Weapons of Mass Destruction to whip America’s ass? I was pretty sure I remembered that, and I went and read some of it. From the “Key Judgements” comes this little tidbit, which I’m sure you’ll remember from the W. Administration’s Greatest Hits album:

“If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year. “

That little clause goes right up there with “The smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud” and “We’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here” in the bullshit rhetoric Hall of Fame that was constructed in order to justify invading and pillaging a sovereign nation that never attacked us. At the time, the NIE was touted as a Big Fucking Deal by everyone who supported the war, including Hillary Clinton, and was given to us as pretty much hard factual evidence, even though absolutely none of it was true.

So you can imagine my joy in reading about the new NIE on Iran, which says:

“…Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb”

All political uses aside (ha ha), since the 2002 debacle, I would posit that the NIE has about as much structural integrity as this country’s bridges, but that’s never stopped the Bush Administration from using something to justify a war before, so I expected them to maybe come out and announce the creation of a bipartisan congressional committee to work out what should go in the giant holiday gift basket we’re about to send to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I mean, the NIE says all sorts of things which suggest that Iran is done being part of the Axis of Evil and is more interested in being part of the Cadre of Good Guys. To wit:

Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.

There is plenty of bet-hedging in the report, as we are reminded that Iran probably still wants to develop nuclear weapons, and I’m sure that’s true. I want a lot of stuff too, like a swimming-pool full of scotch and strippers, but my intelligence suggests that it will be a few decades before I am able to achieve that objective. Still, you’d never know any of this hearing it from Steve Hadley who loves to read between the lines when it comes to matters of National Security.

But the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes.

“It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

In looking over the transcript, I don’t see any pauses or notes to show when Hadley had to clear his throat and cover his mouth to subdue the hysterical fucking laughter that must have been welling up inside him as he said all this. I mean, I understand how politicians learn to spin shit in their favor all the time, but are you fucking kidding me?