“Disrespecting the Bing”….what does it mean?

quaoar at dKos uses the expressing “disrespecting the Bing” in a diary today, using it to mean something like “pleading (informally) to a much lesser “crime.” The origin of the expression was in episode 34 of The Sopranos, and was noted by Timothy Noah.

The expression never really seemed to catch on, except, predictably, in New Jersey. I think the proposed usage is overly nuanced; I mean, it would take a five minute discourse just to explain. Better just to use it to mean, sarcastically or not (after all, the Bing was a strip joint and mob headquarters), as noting criticism or lack or proper reverence of whatever important place might be under discussion.

Arizona to penalize business owners who hire illegals

Well, here is a real step forward, for a change. Bush’s immigration and justice people have staged sweeps of illegals, but have not enforced the laws on hiring.
Link

Gov. Janet Napolitano on Monday signed sweeping legislation against employers of undocumented workers, targeting the state’s market for illegal labor with what she called “the most aggressive action in the country.”

The penalty for violators: the suspension of a business license on the first violation and permanent revocation on a second, amounting to a death sentence for repeat offenders.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for other states to follow suit. I am not thinking many states want to be the last safe haven.

Is the new anti-Iran propaganda push aimed at war? or setting the stage for a longterm US presence in Iraq?

Ironically, or perhaps not, an ex-Democrat who said “nobody wants to bring our troops home more than me” has become the Bush administration’s go-to guy in the Senate for support of the Iraq war. Joe Lieberman is most likely motivated by some misguided idea of what is good for Israel, and sees the Bush “activities” in the Middle East as helpful. Lieberman responded to a provocative Michael Gordon piece in the NY Times on US claims of Iranian interventions in Iraq:

The fact is that the Iranian government has by its actions declared war on us,” said Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats. As a result, he said, “The United States government has a responsibility to use all instruments at its disposal to stop these terrorist attacks against our soldiers and allies in Iraq, including keeping open the possibility of using military force against the terrorist infrastructure inside Iran.”

However, though Lieberman has become the point man for Bush, this is really ham-handed diplomacy. We aren’t going to attack Iran. The goals of the propanda war against that nation are really twofold, and neither of these is to incite a war. The Bushies think that war -mongering will bring Iran to the table, and they want to use the Iranian threat to influence the American public to accept a longterm American presence in Iraq.

He stopped short of advocating an immediate military strike, but said, “while I sincerely hope that diplomacy alone can convince the Iranian government to stop these attacks, our diplomatic efforts are only likely to succeed if backed by a credible threat of force.”

The purpose of the anti-Iran propaganda may have its goals in Iraq. Robert Gates, in a Wall Street Journal article, is cast as the mediator, looking for a middle ground between Bush’s intransigence and the growing calls for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq:

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seeking a political deal in Washington to trade off troop cuts in Iraq for support for a long-term, smaller presence there, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Citing unnamed US government officials, the Journal said that Gates and some political allies are pursuing political support for maintaining a US military presence in Iraq to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda.

The tradeoff, according to the report, is a commitment to slashing back troop levels — now about 155,000 — by the end of President George W. Bush’s term in office, in January 2009.

Gates’s goal is to mollify the strong US sentiment for a pullout of US forces, while not abandoning Iraq altogether.

One gets the sense that the Washington Post series on Dick Cheney may have finally extinguished once and for all the possibility that the crazies would send us into war with Iran. But the threat evidently is still viewed by the Bush administration as continuing to have some utility.

George W. Bush, concerned about Libby’s sentence, laughed at death row woman in Texas

Bush thought Libby’s sentence was too “harsh.” Really? One of the priorities of Bush’s Department of Justice is to produce more death penalties.
As governor of Texas, Bush sent 160 people to the gas chamber, and seemed to enjoy the whole thing. He actually mocked Karla Faye Tucker:

Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer criticized Gov. George W. Bush for making fun of an executed Texas woman in an interview Bush gave to Talk magazine. “I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death.” Just before her execution date, Tucker appealed for clemency on the grounds that she had become a born-again Christian. Bush’s reply: ” `Please,’ Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don’t kill me,’

Bush was not only calloused about sending people to their deaths, he prevented any reform in a state trial system which is widely agreed to be a disgrace:

There have been questions all along about the depth and seriousness of George W. Bush. They have been brought into sharp focus now by a surprising issue: the way the death penalty is administered in Texas. In his comments on that subject Governor Bush has defined himself, unforgettably, as shallow and callous.
In his five years as governor of Texas, the state has executed 131 prisoners — far more than any other state. Mr. Bush has lately granted a stay of execution for the first time, for a DNA test.

In answer to questions about that record, Governor Bush has repeatedly said that he has no qualms. “I’m confident,” he said last February, “that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts.”

That defense of the record ignores many notorious examples of unfairness in Texas death penalty cases. Lawyers have been under the influence of cocaine during the trial, or been drunk or asleep. One court dismissed a complaint about a lawyer who slept through a trial with the comment that courts are not “obligated to either constantly monitor trial counsel’s wakefulness or endeavor to wake counsel should he fall asleep.”

This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush’s time. It made chilling reading.

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who — based on a hypothetical question about the defendant’s past — predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical.

Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his credentials.

Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, “We’ve adequately answered innocence or guilt” in every case. The defendants, he said, “had full access to a fair trial.”

There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care.

At the heart of the problem is the Texas way of providing lawyers for defendants too poor to hire their own, as most are in death cases. There is no state system. Judges assign lawyers — often lawyers who have contributed to their election campaigns.

“The State of Texas is a national embarrassment in the area of indigent legal services,” a committee of the State Bar of Texas says in a report just approved. Again, Governor Bush has shown no concern about this reality. He vetoed a bill, passed by the legislature, that would have let Texas counties set up a limited public defender program for the poor.

Bush’s statement about commuting Libby’s sentence, is of course, by all odds just a lie. Bush, Cheney, et al think that they are above the law, and they may be. And that would be the end of the American experiment in democracy.