Hooray For Our Chains (16)

Senator Jeff Sessions: "The Klan was OK Until I Found Out They Were Pot-Smokers"

SHIMMY: Good morning, everybody. With the way the traffic was today, I think some people are still having trouble getting in here. I talked with Senator Sessions about this. He told me that he used to think the Klan was OK until he found out some of them were pot smokers.

JEFFERSON BEAUREGARD "JEFF" SESSIONS III: Judge Sotomayor said, I think six different times, quote, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion." So that's a matter that I think we'll talk about as we go forward.

SHIMMY: According to Justice Department attorney J. Gerald Hebert, you called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases.

JEFFERSON BEAUREGARD "JEFF" SESSIONS III: Shimmy, isn't it true that Judge Sotomayor's statement suggests we accept that there may be sympathies, prejudices, and opinions that legitimately can influence a judge's decision? And how can that further our faith in the impartiality of the system?

SHIMMY: In the mid-1980s, Senator Sessions, when you were a U.S. attorney in Alabama, you ridiculed the NAACP as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." You said the NAACP "forced civil rights down the throats of people."

JEFFERSON BEAUREGARD "JEFF" SESSIONS III: Isn't she saying that she expects her background -- and heritage -- to influence her decision-making?

SHIMMY: You called black former assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Figures "boy" during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan.

The Vatican vs. Gertrude Stein (Part XXII)

THE VATICAN: It is becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.

GERTRUDE STEIN: There is no pope.

Part 2 of 2: Sarah Palin Loved Tanveer Ahmad Until She Changed Her Mind

Joe Wurzelbacher thought this might be his cue to invite William Kristol to meet his family. He admitted that his mother would have a problem with him dating someone close to his own age. Joe Wurzelbacher brought William Kristol's hat to the office.

William Kristol distracted Sarah Palin by urging her to select bathroom tiles for their new house.

"Tanveer Ahmad went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan," William Kristol said, "and was delivered in shackles to the Monmouth County Correctional Institute in Freehold, N.J. His Texas misdemeanor had popped up in the computer as an offense involving a deadly weapon -- reason enough, after 9/11, for authorities to detain him pending deportation proceedings."

"These Troops and their important missions," Sarah Palin said, using two chairs for physical therapy, "those are truly the worthy causes in this world and should be the public priority with time and resources and not this local/superficial, wasteful political bloodsport."

Three weeks later, Tanveer Ahmad was dead.

Since Tanveer Ahmad had no known health problems, his friends were shocked and disbelieving. They were told that Ahmad had suffered a heart attack in the jail, and despite all efforts to revive him, had been pronounced dead in a hospital emergency room at 5:51 p.m. on Sept. 9.

An autopsy cited "occlusive coronary atherosclerosis."

"His friends did not know that the jail had a history of detainee complaints of medical neglect and physical abuse, and did not allow guards to send detainees to the medical unit without prior approval," Joe Wurzelbacher said. He sat next to William Kristol on the sofa.

"According to the jail’s internal investigation, Tanveer Ahmad walked into the medical unit shortly after 3:50 p.m. on Sept. 9 and 'was seen immediately,'" William Kristol said. "But a letter scrawled by a fellow inmate contended that before he showed up there, Tanveer Ahmad's pleas for treatment had been rebuffed by a guard for an hour."

"I loved Tanveer Ahmad," Sarah Palin said. "It was just, once the World Trade Center came down, I changed my mind."

Part 1 of 2: Sarah Palin Loved Tanveer Ahmad Until She Changed Her Mind

Sarah Palin took a risk, walking into Joe Wurzelbacher's garage.

She had a proposal: "I want you to help keep our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities: smaller government, energy independence, national security, and freedom!"

Joe Wurzelbacher refused to have anything to do with the plan.

"You should ask Tanveer Ahmad," he said.

Tanveer Ahmad, it turns out, was a longtime New York City cabdriver who had paid thousands of dollars in taxes and immigration application fees.

"I know when it's time to pass the ball -- for victory," Sarah Palin said.

Sarah Palin insisted on spending the weekend in Bensonhurst with her family.

As she talked about her relatives, Sarah Palin realized that Tanveer Ahmad's only trouble with the law was a $200 fine for disorderly conduct in 1997: while working at a Houston gas station, he had displayed the business’s unlicensed gun to stop a robbery.

"It would come back to haunt Tanveer Ahmad," she said, adding: "My decision was fortified during this most recent trip to Kosovo and Landstuhl to visit our wounded soldiers overseas, those who sacrifice themselves in war for our freedom and security. We can all learn from our selfless Troops."

William Krisol sat down with Sarah Palin to tell her that in the end, Tanveer Ahmad's body went back in a box to his native village, to be buried by his Pakistani widow and their two children.

"They're bold," Sarah Palin said of the Troops, "they don't give up, they take a stand and know that life is short so they choose to not waste time."

Bristol Palin asked for a ride to the lifeboat.

She said, "When immigration agents burst into Tanveer Ahmad’s two-room Flatbush apartment on Aug. 2, 2005, they were looking for someone else, his friends say -- a roommate suspected of violating his student visa by working. But they ordered Tanveer Ahmad to report to immigration headquarters in Manhattan on Aug. 11."

Why Those Iran Protests Stopped When Michael Jackson Died

"Mayakovsky Tree, did the protests in Iran stop because Michael Jackson still had a faithful punchbowl and his boiler was warm?"

The Mayakovsky Tree swayed at the trunk. His limbs rushed to the north like a tick fastened to the ear.

He planted a steel foot in the steam age and reclined in his idleness.

"I am large, like a girl with a bouncing ball," the Mayakovsky Tree said.

"Iran's Basij militia found Michael Jackson in his bedroom, and he wasn't breathing," I said. "He was still warm and had a punchbowl."

"Lickspittles with fountain pens compose romances for you on Headline News, where whores and hooligans walk, Shimmy."

"According to the Basij militia, Michael Jackson supervised or assisted punishable actresses in many aristocracies," I said.

A squirrel made its way up the Mayakovsky Tree, scratching its syphilitic claws along his trunk.

"Mayakovsky Tree, whether Michael Jackson wanted to or not, he brought pessimism into the publicity spike."

A hammer banged on the back porch. I hid underneath the ottoman.

"Shimmy, it's been nearly a week since U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq's major cities, and Michael Jackson still hasn't been buried."

"New compliments have arisen over Michael Jackson's vast esteem," I said. The ottoman comes with a padded top, and its underside makes me drowsy.

"Nouri al-Maliki took control of security in Iraq's urban areas, blushing like a grand piano after Michael Jackson died. Yet we don't have enough pockets to stuff our safes, Shimmy!"