The emperor has no brain

The president of the United States is pictured here expecting
Americans to buy what no second-grade teacher would

This will not be a lengthy post, mainly because I don't know what you really can say about displays of Category 5 crazy.

Either you recognize moonbattery when you see it . . . or you're a moonbat.

President Donald Trump proved once again Wednesday that he's a couple tacos shy of a combination plate. The man (or one of his obsequious staffers) doctored -- with a black marker, no less -- a hurricane forecast map from last week to "prove" that Alabama so too coulda been "hit hard" by Hurricane Dorian.

All because Trump tweeted this Sunday morning:

NOW, BY SUNDAY morning, everybody following the storm (except Trump, apparently) knew Dorian was going to come nowhere near Alabama. The only way you could write what Trump wrote in his tweet is if you are a) bat-shit crazy, b) suffering from dementia, c) have no fucking idea which of those states down there is Alabama . . . or d) all of the preceding.

My money's on D.

Trump began tweeting Sunday morning at 7:25. Between then and 7:58 a.m., he tweeted, retweeted and rage tweeted a number of things. Three of the retweets, in chronological order were these:

IN THE LAST retweet, the National Weather Service forecast map shows a small probability of tropical-storm force winds over a tiny sliver of southeastern Alabama. That would be if the hurricane tracked to the western periphery of the cone of uncertainty -- that is a far, far cry from "will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated."

But what you gonna do? Dotards gonna dotard. Trump's "Alabama" tweet came at 9:51 a.m. Sunday, after all these contradictory retweets.

The non-delusional community quickly responded to all this with a collective "What the fuck?" The press weighed in with a series of "the president erroneously tweeted. . . " dispatches, which is what journalists say when they really mean "What the fuck?"

Many think Trump doctored this as well.

And because the narcissistic nut job in control of 6,000-something nuclear weapons cannot ever be wrong about anything, he soon began rage tweeting about the lying fake-news media's lies about his inability to read a damn map with "circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was." For the record, my beautiful and intelligent wife predicted he would do exactly that.

I was just trying to figure out exactly how drunk I could get before Trump managed to bring about the End of Days.

Then came Wednesday. And the press availability in the Oval Office. And the hurricane map from last week with the Marks-A-Lot makeover.

I WAS WRONG. In this Era of Truthicide, posts about what used to be self-evident can expand way beyond what used to be necessary. You can write reams attempting to convince cultists and true-believers-in-the-unbelievable that the craziness in plain sight is both crazy and in plain sight.

It is a fool's errand, and I plead guilty. In my defense, the alternative is surrender and despair.

In this Age of Trump, is it better to be a fool cupping one's hands around a flickering, dying flame of hope, or better to be a realistic fatalist awaiting the end of one's country . . . one's world . . . the end of reason and truth?

That's the question -- one of the questions -- confronting a country led by an idiot man-child coloring on government maps to make lies into something like the truth.

I don't know what's going to happen between now and November 2020. All I know is this -- whatever happens, however the Age of Trump ends, that this might somehow all end well lies well outside the Cone of Uncertainty.

Farther even than Alabama.

'We haven't stopped.' (Lying, that is.)

Well, this is rich. It was laughable on Monday, Oct. 18, 1971, and it's a regular riot today, more than 47 years later.

Thanks to protectors of Louisiana's natural resources, like oil-and-gas stalwart Louisiana Land and Exploration Co., there's a lot less of Louisiana's natural resources to protect -- save for the saltwater of the Gulf of Mexico that's replaced the land and marsh where those oil derricks and oil-company canals once were.

Who knew that tearing up the marsh and digging expressways for saltwater intrusion weren't ecological best practices? More importantly, who cared? 

THE OBVIOUS answer to that one is "Not enough people."

It's a sad thing to live long enough to see your homeland commit suicide. But there we are.

At least we can appreciate the irony of this ad from way back when. (Insert bitter, knowing chuckle here.)

There was this today

We cannot make any judgments on whether or not the campaign of the man elected president of the United States of America was in cahoots with a hostile government to rig the election in Donald Trump's favor. We just don't have all the facts yet.

We don't know for sure whether there indeed is a fire or where it is, exactly. We do know there's a hell of a lot of smoke, and it's blowing in from that direction.

And we also know this: That we're even suspecting what we suspect means the republic is in mortal danger. That Trump is governing how he has thus far -- via a weird mix of basic incompetence, a fundamental skepticism of the American narrative and a vindictiveness toward his political enemies, the poor, the Other and even some of his own supporters -- only adds to our peril.

Can the United States survive this? No one knows, not really. We have no experience in this; the closest analogy would be an investigation into Leonid Brezhnev ordering the KGB to break into the Watergate on behalf of Richard Nixon . . . who was allegedly in on the plot.

Facing South. Courthouse, Denison, Iowa.

This crisis comes to a nation as divided as it's been since the South seceded in defense of slavery. The Union was preserved at the cost of the Civil War and nearly 700,000 corpses. Robert E. Lee couldn't even have dreamed of the kind of weaponry your average, solitary American gun nut possesses today.

Or, as newsman Dan Rather said today on Facebook:

If you are a praying person, today is a day to pray for the future of your country. I have seen a lot in my decades in the press, but I have never seen a day like this. This is a stress test for our democratic institutions and one can only hope that the system of checks and balances we hold so dear, can indeed hold.

The statements by FBI Director James Comey in testimony today about Russian interference in the 2016 election were jaw dropping. It should be also noted that both he and NSA director, Adm. Mike Rogers, categorically denied that there was any evidence to support Mr. Trump's repeated allegations that Trump Tower was wiretapped by President Obama. That we do know. But it must be noted how much we do not know. We cannot afford to back off on investigating, fully, completely, and openly, allegations that are anathema to the spirit of our republic. But we cannot also afford to jump to conclusions. We want answers. We want to know more. That is natural. But patience will be required. It is better that this plays out in a systematic way. It is for all these reasons that I think a careful bipartisan investigation is essential.

RATHER, who covered Watergate as tenaciously as anyone at the time . . . and has more than 60 years of journalism under his belt, said that as The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza was writing this in the newspaper's The Fix blog:

Given Comey's flat denial of any evidence of Trump Tower being wiretapped, there will be increased pressure on both Trump and Republican members of Congress to back off that position and apologize for it. Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Will Hurd (R-Tex.) have already called on Trump to apologize to Obama. It's hard to imagine that other GOPers won't follow that lead in light of Comey's testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Monday.

Trump is another matter. His offhand remark at a joint news appearance Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that perhaps he and she had both been wiretapped by the Obama administration suggests he isn't planning to leave the issue alone — much less apologize for it.

And we know that for 35 to 40 percent of the public, that will be enough; they simply trust Trump more than they trust any intelligence official or media outlet.

But that's sort of beside the point. Trump is the president of the United States. There is now ample evidence that a very serious accusation he made about a former president is simply not true. Standing by it now is simply irresponsible.

TO ME, the most frightening thing is that 35- to 40 percent of the public thing. Those folks, at this point, are either delusional, white supremacist dead-enders or stone-cold fascists -- even if they're too self-unaware to recognize that fact.

Trust me on this; I'm in my 50s, and I'm from the South. Back in the day, probably half of the biggest flag wavers in Dixie would pick Brand B in a blind taste test where Brand A was the United States of America and Brand B was Nazi Germany.

Whether Trump stays or goes, we're going to have to deal with that 35- to 40 percent of Americans who are every bit as un-American and subversive as unreconstructed white Southerners were in the 1950s and '60s.

It will get ugly, and our country may not survive it. Assuming it survives Trump.

I'm with Dan Rather. Today is a fine day to pray for the future of America.

'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves'

Sixty-three years ago tonight, Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly went to war in defense of an idea. That idea is the United States of America.
 

That defense on CBS Television's news program See It Now necessarily meant declaring war on one of our occasional demagogues who rise to the level of existential threat. In 1954, that demagogue was Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R, Wisconsin). His particular -ism, involving a witch hunt that exploited people's intense fear of communism early on in the Cold War, came to bear his name -- McCarthyism.

McCarthyism looked to be a war on communist subversion by any means necessary. What McCarthyism actually was was an assault against our American foundational idea.

We always seem to forget that America is not a nation -- it is a country and an idea. A country organized around an idea.

NATURALLY, we never exactly (or even roughly) live up to the idea -- the ideal -- but the point is that we keep aiming for it. In that respect, it's like Christianity. Yes, you're a sinner, but you repent and keep trying to do better.

The times when this country truly is in peril is when we lose the narrative. With McCarthyism, we twisted the narrative and used that idea against itself, as a justification for cynical subversion. The Reds weren't the only subversives in this national morality play. Who knew?

Now we struggle for control of the narrative of another American morality play. McCarthyism has become Trumpism, after our latest existential threat, President Donald J. Trump.

And I wonder whether this time we've thrown away the script -- the founding ideal -- altogether.

As Ed Murrow said, our defense is not of one party or another, but instead it is of the truth. I think we have a steeper hill to climb than that of 1954. In 1954, Americans had many questions, but No. 1 on the list didn't seem to be Pontius Pilate's -- "What is truth?"

I'LL CLOSE with Murrow's final words on that historic telecast. They're better than any I'll ever write. Apply to our present national emergency as needed.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Good night, and good luck.

The lights are going out across Washington

The truth will set you free.

Trump, not so much.

How doth he use thee? Let me count the ways.

In case actually watching Donald Trump deliver up this staggering act of cynicism would bring on projectile vomiting that might never end, here is a transcript of what he said in an address to a joint session of Congress.

When you put your hand on the Bible and swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God," and then you lie, that is perjury -- a felony.

When you take political cover behind the corpse of a dead serviceman, then (in all likelihood) lie through your teeth before Congress and the American people as you use his grieving widow as a stage prop . . . I have no idea what words would be sufficient to describe the enormity of the moral offense. I do, however, have an idea of the words that might describe a commander in chief that shameless and foul.

None of which I dare use here.

Another thing I have some idea about is why Trump is so desperate to delegitimize the mainstream news media -- moments like this that are exposed for the cynical propaganda they are by reporting like this, from NBC News:

Last month's deadly commando raid in Yemen, which cost the lives of a U.S. Navy SEAL and a number of children, has so far yielded no significant intelligence, U.S. officials told NBC News.

Although Pentagon officials have said the raid produced "actionable intelligence," senior officials who spoke to NBC News said they were unaware of any, even as the father of the dead SEAL questioned the premise of the raid in an interview with the Miami Herald published Sunday.

"Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into [President Trump's] administration?" Bill Owens, whose youngest son Ryan was killed during the raid, said. "For two years prior ... everything was missiles and drones (in Yemen)....Now all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?"

A senior Congressional official briefed on the matter said the Trump administration has yet to explain what prompted the rare use of American ground troops in Yemen, but he said he was not aware of any new threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al Qaeda affiliate that was targeted.

(snip)

The White House has repeatedly called the Yemen mission a success. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Feb. 8 that anyone "who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens."

"We gathered an unbelievable amount of intelligence that will prevent the potential deaths or attacks on American soil," said Spicer.

A Defense Department official also pushed back Monday afternoon, saying the raid has yielded "a significant amount" of intelligence.

But the only example the military has provided turned out to be an old bomb-making video that was of no current value.

SOMEONE is lying. Given the track record of Trump and the track record of the press, my bet is on the usual suspect: Donald J. Trump.

Just in case the last 30 or so years isn't sufficient to tell you what kind of man we have elected president of the United States, Tuesday night's shamelessness at the Capitol should, at long last, be enough.

Enough. Interesting word, that. It indicates that you've had your fill, that you want no more. It means you're done.

I suppose that some day we'll have had enough of Donald J. Trump's presidency. I fear that when we have, we will be in no condition to do anything about it, rather like Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens -- may God rest his soul.

And may God have mercy on ours.

President Trump's excellent 'fine-tuned machine'

The Trump Administration is a "fine-tuned machine."

Any attempt to characterize it otherwise is fake news. Duly noted.

And, by the way, it's all Barack Obama's fault.

So, without further ado and for your reading enjoyment, The Washington Post today brings us the best in news . . . and the best in entertainment.

President Trump on Thursday aired his grievances against the news media, the intelligence community and his detractors generally in a sprawling, stream-of-consciousness news conference that alternated between claims that he had “inherited a mess” and the assertion that his fledgling administration “is running like a fine-tuned machine.”

“To be honest, I inherited a mess,” Trump said, in news conference that lasted more than an hour and was at times rambling, combative and pointed. “It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country.”

Yet moments later, the president seemed to acknowledge the widespread reports of turbulence and upheaval emanating out of his West Wing, only to claim that his White House — which so far has been marred by staff infighting, a controversial travel ban, false statements and myriad leaks — was operating seamlessly.

“I turn on the TV, open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos — chaos,” he said. “Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can't get my Cabinet approved.”

IN OTHER developments, this from the "Tomorrow's News Today" file,  The Onion will be ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy, having been brought down by "You can't make this shit up."

Then again, maybe not

Yes, seeing is believing. Or is it?

We live in an age when making people believe what you want them to believe is easier than ever. You can even provide them with "proof" that what plainly isn't, in fact, is. Ergo, half the crap you see on Facebook -- or InfoWars.com.

Remember that when our betters in Washington decide, at their leisure, that now is the time to blow the bejeezus (bemohammed?) out of the mullahs in Iran or the Assad dictatorship in Syria in the name of Truth, Justice, the American Way and the War on Terror.

Remember Iraq. And remember that your friendly, neighborhood federal government has a lot more money and resources than a college-age filmmaker in Rochester, N.Y.

Phonies leave us in the soup

The country's secular intelligentsia has gotten its knickers in a twist because GOP veep candidate Paul Ryan, in our betters' eyes, went all Taliban when he -- correctly, I think -- said he didn't "see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith."

"Our faith informs us in everything we do,” he continued, causing The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, among others, to wet himself. Figuratively, of course. I don't want to know whether he did literally -- TMI and all that.

Still, one must beware of such philosophical musings from a politician. That would be like putting your faith in Otis Campbell's eloquent pronouncements on the joys of teetotalism.

This dispatch from the Romney-Ryan campaign trail in Ohio (speaking of "Do as I say, not as I do") suggests, perhaps, that the congressman from Wisconsin might want to take a closer look at his Catholic faith, his own heart or -- ideally -- both.

BEARING WITNESS to ugly here is the Youngstown Vindicator:

The president of Mahoning County’s St. Vincent de Paul Society is “shocked” and “angry” that Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan used the soup kitchen for a “publicity stunt.”

Brian J. Antal, who runs the society, said the campaign “ramrodded themselves in there” without getting proper permission for the visit Saturday that followed Ryan’s town-hall meeting at Youngstown State University.

“They said they got permission from the right people, but that would have been me, and I never would have given them permission,” Antal said Monday.

Juanita Sherba, St. Vincent’s Saturday coordinator for the dining hall, said she gave the Ryan campaign approval that day for the visit by the candidate and his family.

Sherba say she now realizes it wasn’t her call to make.

The event “was a photo op,” she said. “It was the phoniest piece of baloney I’ve ever been associated with. In hindsight, I would have never let him in the door.”

When an advance person from the Mitt Romney/Ryan campaign asked about the visit, Sherba said it took her by surprise.

“I didn’t know it was my place to say ‘no,’” she said. “I made a mistake.”

The event was completely staged by the campaign, she said.

“They couldn’t have cared less,” Sherba said. “The advance man said Paul Ryan wanted to come and talk to our clientele, but he didn’t."

(snip)

Despite some media reports, Sherba said Ryan and his family washed a few dirty pots and pans, but it wasn’t necessary.

It was all about him coming in and doing dishes for publicity,” Sherba said. “We had to save dishes. We would have gone home by the time he arrived. We didn’t need him to do the dishes. It was getting late, and I said that we were closing in five minutes. I waited longer than that, and he finally arrived.”

I SAY that Mr. Gopnik, from his enlightened (ahem) perch somewhere that matters, would be far better served to worry a lot less about some pending Jesus-freak mullahocracy in America and worry a lot more about the American a**holeocracy that's already in place.

And they all shine on. . . .

It's a drag, man.

Coups. D'etat, da city, da whatever. Recalls, free for alls, agitation, confrontation, conflagration -- they're all a drag, man.

The Mayor Suttle Recall Committee is a drag. Recall-committee member John Chatelain is a drag. Recall "money man" Dave Nabity is not only a drag, he's harshing all of Omaha's mellow.

And from the first time that they really done us -- ooh, they done us -- they done us good. I heard that on a record somewhere, and somebody ought to have a bed-in to protest this crap. At least that way, we wouldn't have to go far when the recall-istas wanted to do us good . . . again.

Personally -- being that I'm still a work in progress when it comes to peace and love and enlightenment -- I'd prefer to have a protest action built around "Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey," then have 28,720 chimpanzees all flinging their feces at John Chatelain, Dave Nabity (right) and their trusty flack Jeremy Aspen in a bit of symbolic political theater.

But like I said, that's just me. And my monkeys.

IF IT SEEMS that I might be a bit around the bend, here, just keep in mind that reading the Omaha World-Herald is getting to be a drag, too. Like, I mean, look:

A civil war has erupted within the group pushing for Mayor Jim Suttle’s recall.

A member of the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee — Omaha attorney John Chatelain — accused possible mayoral candidate David Nabity on Wednesday of trying to “take control” of the committee to “enhance his mayoral ambitions.”

He said Nabity tried to exert control over the committee by raising the bulk of the money for the group from his friends and possible supporters.

Nabity acknowledged he plans to start a second pro-recall committee but vehemently denied Chatelain’s charges. He said the new committee will include businessmen who want to be involved in government and campaign affairs in Omaha long after the recall has ended.

“I’m afraid Mr. Chatelain has a warped sense of the facts, and his comments are so far off-base that it’s not worth responding to,” said Nabity, who added that Chatelain was angry because of run-ins they had during the campaign.

A Republican, Nabity is not a newcomer to politics or controversy. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor in 2006.

Last year, he helped to form a group of businessmen and women called the Omaha Alliance for the Private Sector. The group has been highly critical of Suttle and the city’s contracts with firefighters and police unions.

IT'S PRETTY BAD when there's just too much hate for one target to accommodate, you know?

Watch out! Knife fight!

It became clear Wednesday that Nabity has provided crucial support to the group.

Nabity has said he was not a part of the group, but he acknowledged Wednesday he has been a key fundraiser for the group, persuading his friends and supporters to donate to the campaign. He also acknowledged he was instrumental in bringing a national recall expert to Omaha — Paul Jacobs — to help manage and organize the paid circulators.

Nabity said the group came to him for help.

But Chatelain said Nabity came to the group, saying he had friends who wanted to donate and who wanted the committee to hire paid circulators.

Nabity raised about $200,000 of the $287,000 the committee eventually collected, Chatelain said.

It was after Nabity raised the money and hired Jacobs that he began to try to “take control” of the group, said Chatelain.

At one point, Nabity asked Chatelain to step down. Nabity then said if he wasn’t allowed to put his people in charge of the recall effort, he would take “his donors” and start a new committee, Chatelain said.

“At this point, we began to suspect that Mr. Nabity was putting his own mayoral campaign team in place and wanted to control the recall campaign through it,” Chatelain said in a written statement.

WHAT CAN I say about this kind of insanity? Nothing. At least nothing beyond telling folks to step back, stay safe and enjoy the show.

Fortunately, I don't have to -- and it's just total Instant Karma that this is happening this week -- because the great, late John Lennon already did:

Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face,
Better get yourself together darlin',
Join the human race,
How in the world you gonna see,
Laughin' at fools like me,
Who on earth d'you think you are,
A super star,
Well, right you are.

Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Well we all shine on,
Ev'ryone come on.

AND JOHN is just getting warmed up. He also has some questions for the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee:

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
we'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

BUT NO. The recall-istas are not interested in making sense and addressing public concerns.

Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.

Ev'rybody's talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Popeyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.

Let me tell you now
Ev'rybody's talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation,
flagellation, regulation, integrations,
meditations, United Nations,
Congratulations.

ME, I'M sick of arguing. I'm sick of being sick of the perpetually outraged.

And all I am saying is give Jim a chance.

Scene we'd like to see

Better recalls through magical thinking

So, Mr. Recall-Petition Circulator, what's the deal here? Why are you trying to get rid of Mayor Jim Suttle?

Long story short, it's all about taxes. Omaha can't afford a spendthrift, tax-crazy mayor like that!

Here's the deal. You see, Jim Suttle . . . mumble mumble . . . uh . . . broken promises . . . uh . . . union deal that cost taxpayers a million dollars. OK, I'm gonna skip some of this stuff . . . mumble mumble . . . you can read it for yourself, but they sayin' it's gonna cost $900,000 to recall him out of office, but that's a bunch of bullcrap . . . mumble mumble . . . he ain't worth supportin'.

It's all perfectly clear, and it's all brought to you by "consultants and people running the campaign who are kind of, you know, conservative . . . fiscal conservative types from D.C. and stuff."

So just rest assured that the recall people ain't full of bullcrap or nothin' like Jim Suttle. I mean, would they lie to you?


PAY NO ATTENTION to those media people behind the curtains telling you about a 2-percent restaurant tax.

No! No! It's a 15-percent tax! Yeah . . . that's the ticket!

Seriously, man. Would a petition-consulting company that's "all over" lie to you, Mr. Voter? No!

And not only would such a big company. . . one that's "like a conservative, libertarian, sort of tea-party effort" . . . not only would it not lie to you about a 15-percent tax, it'll help defray the cost of a recall vote just to show you that the guys in charge are as swell a bunch of guys as ever tried to run a mayor out of office.


TRUST US, the taxpayers won't have to pay a dime for a slew of special elections.

How? Ancient Chinese secret . . . money men!

"Well, if we run with a spring election it won't cost anything extra. But we do have backers that, if they say it's gotta be a special election, we have backers that are willing to pay it."

Who are these backers of whom you speak?

"Well, I'm not sure who all these money men are, but they're, they're the ones who are behind this."

Oh.


AS IT turns out, the "money men" are . . . the federal government! Just the kind of fiscal-conservative, libertarian, tea-party solution that we need!

I don't know why we never thought that the conservative, libertarian, tea-party recall organizers would have all the federal-funding-of-local-elections bases covered.

See, a recall vote would be mostly paid for with federal money "because it's an election."

It all makes so much sense if you don't think about it.

If Lee Terry could run against himself. . . .

A crazed gunman walked into an Omaha hospital today, hours after leading police on a high-speed chase when lawmen foiled his mad scheme to gun down his in-laws.

And death roamed the corridors.

In the dark Nebraska predawn, the gunman assaulted his terrified wife at a hunt club they owned near a small northeastern Nebraska town. Who did she want to die first? Cold blue steel was pressed to her head.

Who did she want to die first, her mother or her sister?

It's midday in Omaha. The scene: a busy medical center near downtown. Two police officers find the man -- gun in hand -- standing at a pay phone near the hospital cafeteria.

THEY CONFRONT him. He answered with a fusillade of hot lead. The officers are hit, but fate has spared them grievous wounds.

They return fire, mortally wounding Jeffrey Layten.

Jeffrey Layten: Hospital shooter. Wife beater. Foiled murder plotter.

He could have been al Qaida in a pickup, if not for the bravery displayed by American police officers in the line of fire. And Lee Terry -- CONGRESSMAN Lee Terry -- thinks he was a great guy:

"I have known Jeff for years and hunted on his property many times. Jeff has always been an easy-going person," Terry whined to the Omaha press corps, "and today’s episode is very out of character for him."

WHAT IS the "character" of a crazed would-be killer, Congressman? And what is the character of a gun-happy Republican politician who "hunts" with domestic terrorists?

Call Lee Terry's office at (202) 225-4155 and tell the congressman you're sick of his tolerance for domestic terrorism. Tell Lee Terry he's too extreme for law-abiding Nebraskans, and that his criminal-coddling ways will come to an abrupt end this November.

Stop Lee Terry before more of his "easy-going" friends put their blue-steel barrels of terror to your head.

* * *

This message is paid for by the One Good Turn Foundation, and Lee Terry should approve of our methods. We're just taking a page out of his playbook, after all.

Lies, damn lies and Lee Terry's mailers

So this is what Rep. Lee Terry was cooking up in our nation's capital when the pretty lady lobbyist got him "so drunk."

Latch on to that excuse, Congressman. The New York Post -- no friend to your political opposition -- will vouch for you.

The other explanation for this one is that Terry is a contemptible liar -- even by Republican-politician standards -- and has no honor at all. When one speaks of "no honor at all," it's usually referencing something like blatantly slandering the opposition in November's U.S. House race in Nebraska's 2nd District.

IN A FLIER aimed at pro-life Democrats, Terry alleges that state Sen. Tom White "supports taxpayer abortion on demand." In the strange, strange world of Lee Terry, this is what constitutes supporting using "your tax dollars to pay for abortions on demand":

White on Monday described the health care reform package approved by the House as "far from perfect, but better than continuing with the status quo."

That, he said, matches the assessment of Omaha investment icon Warren Buffett as well as his own experiences as a cancer survivor and small business owner.

"Now it's time for Congress to turn to fixing the economy, getting our fiscal house in order, and restoring the economic and job growth the country so desperately needs," White said.

(Lincoln Journal-Star)

I SUPPOSE there's room for Terry to go even lower in this election battle, but I don't know whether he could stay out of jail in the process.

The "abortion on demand" slur about health-care reform goes back to the epic battle over the legislation passed in March. And, frankly, the only people who buy it are GOP pols (for obvious, and cynical, reasons), their wholly-owned subsidiaries within the politicized "pro-life" movement and the nation's Catholic bishops.

To get there, the bishops and the "pro-life" groups had to make some pretty paranoid and wild assumptions about what the legislation would do. That ground has been well covered, including on this blog.

In brief, academics who specialize in health-care law have said the Republican pols, the professional pro-lifers and the bishops are nuts if they think what Terry and his ilk slur as "ObamaCare" provides taxpayer subsidies for "abortion on demand."

To be even briefer, what we have in this electoral silly season are lies, damned lies, and whatever Lee Terry is mailing out to pro-life Democrats. Actually, we knew it was coming. It was on the Politics Daily website just the other day:

With a state unemployment rate in August of 4.6 percent (the third lowest in the nation, thanks to a booming agricultural economy) and Omaha itself at just 4.9 percent, the 2nd District has been spared much of the I'll-never-work-again despair that shapes politics in most of America.

As Lee Terry knows all too well, he represents the most hotly contested individual congressional district in the 2008 presidential election. Because Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, the Obama campaign mounted a successful crusade to pluck off a surprise pickup in a state that has been stoutly Republican in presidential politics since 1964. Terry, whose victory margin was held to 52 percent amid the Obama upset, acknowledged with blunt honesty that the Democrats "had one heck of a ground game that got people registered and practically eliminated the Republican advantage in the district."

Comparatively inexpensive ad rates (about $75,000 a week for 1,000 gross rating points) allow White (who had $532,000 cash on hand at the June) to be competitive with the incumbent (who had $787,000 in the bank) on Omaha television. Both candidates, who went on the air late last month, have each committed to buying at least $400,000 in additional TV time before November. Terry plans to press his financial advantage through radio advertising and sending out about 300,000 mailings. For example, even though both candidates are anti-abortion in this roughly 40-percent Catholic district, the Terry campaign is readying a special direct-mail piece aimed at pro-life Democrats.

Two elements make the TV narrative here in the Omaha area slightly different than the cookie-cutter national norms. Because of the comparatively low local unemployment rate, the economic crisis that both candidates decry is the national debt rather than lost jobs. A Terry spot slammed his opponent for supporting the economic stimulus and the overall goals of the Obama health-care bill and claimed, as a result, that the difference between the two candidates was "2 trillion dollars" and that White intended to pay for it "with higher taxes and more debt." White's first ad began with the candidate starring directly into the camera and declaring, "When you look at the debt that both parties in Washington keep piling on our kids, it's just wrong."

White never identifies himself as a Democrat. Instead, in his ads he is vaguely identified as "a different kind of leader for Nebraska" and "Nebraska independence for Congress." Asked about a lack of a party label in his ads, White said candidly, "This is not a year where that's effective. Nor is it ever. You have to understand in my whole career, I have never run as a Democrat. The legislature is entirely non-partisan."

A national Republican strategist calls the 2008 bank bailout vote "the one symbol of anti-incumbency that has a chance of working against incumbent Republicans." Small wonder that Tom White has gone after his rival for his vote in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in an ad that claims "Washington politicians like Lee Terry . . . voted for wasteful spending like the Wall Street bailout." Asked about the TARP vote, Terry said, "I really thought it would cost me the [2008] election."

AND I GUESS we all knew Terry would go as low as he did in slurring White as a radical pro-abort. All we had to do was remember what the Republicans threw at Jim Esch in the fall of '08.

White certainly figured Terry's GOP slime machine was warming up. Just after the Terry mailer hit this pro-life Catholic Democrat's mailbox this afternoon, this robocall from White hit my answering machine:


I SECOND that emotion.

And I grieve for the truth, murdered yet again by a "pro-life" politician who will do -- and say -- any damnable thing to keep sucking at the taxpayer teat on Capitol Hill.

She 'misspoke.' Yeah, that's the ticket!

George W. Bush lied us into a disastrous and unjust war in Iraq. Do we really want to replace such "truthiness" with the lies of someone who can't even make the ridiculous sound plausible but keeps trying to, anyway?

From The Associated Press:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" when saying last week she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996. She later characterized the episode as a "misstatement" and a "minor blip."

The Obama campaign suggested the statement was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.

During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

According to an Associated Press story at the time, Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on the trip. And one of her companions, comedian Sinbad, told The Washington Post he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.

When asked Monday about the New York senator's remarks about the trip, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed to Clinton's written account of it in her book, "Living History," in which she described a shortened welcoming ceremony at Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

(snip)

I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

REMEMBER Jon Lovitz' pathological-liar character on Saturday Night Live, Tommy Flanagan? Exactly.

Hillary's explanation could have been lifted straight from an old SNL script: "I went to 80 coun -- 800 countries, you know. I wrote a lot of this in my book -- it sold three cop . . . three billion copies. You know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions, uh, trillions, yeah, that's it -- trillions of words every day. So if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement. Yeah, that's the ticket!"

Is anybody with half a brain buying this attempt at papering over an incompetent attempt at pulling off the kind of bald-faced lie that even Bill would shy away from?

HILLARY! has no good way out of this mess of her own desperate making. Either she was trying to get away with telling a blatant lie -- and a stunningly stupid one, given the videotape evidence -- or she knowingly took her then-15-year-old daughter into a dangerous war zone, where the child was, to hear the candidate tell it, forced to run for her life, ducking Serb sniper rounds.

Or, if she didn't knowingly take her daughter into a active-combat zone, why didn't she know? Is she that dense? Does she have a habit of trusting her life -- and her daughter's -- to a bunch of rank incompetents of exceedingly questionable judgment?

Or . . . if she didn't get shot at in Bosnia, exactly where did she get shot at? I mean, getting shot at is something you don't easily forget. Or "misspeak" about.

After all, you have to be careful in choosing who'll be answering those 3 a.m. phone calls.