Listen...in the distance...a funeral

Listen. In the distance, the sound of a funeral march. But not the usual, brass-and-drums version played in New Orleans. No, this is The Washington Republican Dirge, played on shredding machines, with a whining choir. Security paper services, the ones that take away those rollaway bins lurking in the corner of every office in Washington, are working overtime, and hiring extra crews. Even the White House, especially over at Dick's office, has turned off the heat and cranked up the A/C to offset the heat the industrial-grade shredders are throwing off, as White House staffers, in shorts and shirtsleeves, throw ream after ream into the maws of those shredders. There are even a few, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, that can grind almost anything into unrecognizeable pulp. Hard drives, CDs, thumbdrives, even framed photos of Abramoff, Cunningham, Ney, Hussein, even Rumsfeld, all the evidence goes into the hoppers, to become fuel for alternative-energy generators.

"In the meantime" now becomes a literal designator of the next sixty-some days, the official name of the last throes of this Republican Congress. And in this mean time, expect to see some of the ugliest behaviors, in service of ramming through the most extreme bills. Constitutional ban on abortion, make Bush's tax handouts permanent, more hand-off of legislative and constitutional powers to the executive, any an all are possible, even probable. And the floors of the House and Senate are going to make Hormel's rendering plants look pristine. Republicans are mean masters, and sorer losers, and they'll do everything they can to take their ball, OUR Constitution, home with them when they have to leave.

To any and all that can get near to these operations: Take picture, get copies, record conversations. Keep "contemporaneous journals," as both the FBI and IRS call them, because they can be used in evidence, even when the original evidence has been ground up, hauled away, and used for fuel or landfill.

Because America is doomed to let these fascists back in, if we don't learn exactly what they did, and hold them publicly accountable in such an extreme way that NO ONE will ever dare try steal America from its citizens again.

Treason is a hanging offense, and I wouldn't mind a few hangings. (Names available on request.)

ARVN, anyone?

As more Republicans, in the electoral fights of their lives, find themselves facing the hard choices in Iraq, of either ramping up our manpower or 'redeploying' it, more and more of them are finding some refuge in the GOP line about training and supplying an Iraqi Army to replace our personnel there. As Junior puts it, so eloquently that you know someone wrote it for him, "As the Iraqi Army stands up, we'll stand down."
I've got a one-word answer to these weasel-words: ARVN. Army of the Republic of Viet Nam. Look it up. The parallels are so eerie, and obvious, that I'm amazed that no one's made this connection.

And as we continue to build the largest, most barricaded US Embassy in the history of the world, right there in downtown Baghdad, I remember a joke from National Lampoon, from that period that Junior avoided, both in service and in lessons.

What do you call 2500 people hanging from a helicopter?
Our orderly retreat from Viet Nam.

Iraq: Viet Nam Redux.

Mark, Laura, Denny and the Cardinal

OK, everyone's weighed in on this Foley affair, some pretty despicably. What did you expect from Republicans?
The farthest-out was the plaintive squeal from ditto-heads that Ted Kennedy was still in office, killer that he was. God, they go for their last argument first. So boring. I'm not going to compare an single accident to a ten-year pattern of behavior, or 40 years ago to here and now. Naw. I'll drop my murder-bomb: why is Laura Bush still in the White House?
Granted, most of the gang-bangers Laura's supposed to be mentoring should be listening to her, but only because she's a killer, something most of them haven't gotten to...yet. Don't believe me? Look it up. Welcome to the reality-based world.
Moving on. Do Dennis Hastert and the Republican leadership in the House remind anyone else of Cardinal Mahoney, Cardinal Law and the rest of the American Catholic prelate? Pages, choir boys, what's the difference? Moving their priests and congressmen around, just to maintain their power and avoid scandals. Maybe this is that convergence of Protestant evangelists and the Catholic priesthood that the Republicans have been working on. Big Tent. Just don't look inside. "Deliver Us From Evil" is in theaters now. But does that title refer to the Catholic priesthood or the Republican Party?
Finally, the two Foley talking points Republicans seem to have settled into are the following:
One, "It's a vast, Soros-financed conspiracy...that we got caught with our pants down, masturbating while e-mailing, right before an election." Yet the left-wing can't get Soros to write a measly check to keep AirAmerica financed. Face it, the left ain't that well organized.
And two, "See, this is what homosexuality leads to: wanting sex with teenage boys." This is a personal favorite of the evangelical loonies of Dobson, Robertson and Falwell. They ignore that the same logic implies heterosexual Christianity leads to shooting 10-year-old Christian girls in their schoolrooms because otherwise the killer will want to molest them.
The scandal isn't that a Congressman was diddling teenage boys or girls (I'm waiting for that shoe to drop.) The scandal is that all evidence says that the Republicans have known, for YEARS, about this situation, and always relied on fear to deal with the problem. Fear of the congressman being outed. Fear of the pages being blackballed from politics for reporting this. Fear of the homosexuals in the RNC and the House leadership being accused of being pedophiles.
So Republican. "We have nothing to use but fear itself."

A newer mini-series at ABC

A new mini-series is in production at ABC, based in part on a report of findings from Senate hearings into past Administration actions. The docu-drama also draws interviews with participants, news reports and books. Several Administration figures have written ABC to object to their portrayals, and to the fictional events that appear in the drama.
"People won't be able to tell where the truth stops and the lies start," complained Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, who is portrayed in one scene hanging up on a CIA agent who is complaining about contractors using water-boarding and electric shock on detainees at a secret CIA prison in Romania. Gonzales said further, "And at no time did President Bush say 'I don't care if they're dead after we get the info, as long as we get it!' "
VP Cheney has written an op-ed piece denouncing the portrayal of him making several phone calls to Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of his former company, Halliburton, assuring them they will get all the reconstruction contracts once the war in Iraq starts, and his ordering his Chief of Staff, in a meeting with Karl Rove, to shut down the CIA's monitoring program of Iran's nuclear effort by exposing an undercover CIA agent. "It's a two-fer," his character says in the mini-series' scene. "We discredit Wilson on Iraq's nuclear program, and we keep the CIA blind to Iran's. Hell, we can use the same Powerpoint slideshow again at the UN."
The mini-series, "Inside Bush's Secret Prisons" was written by one of Al Franken's close friends.
Hope Hartman, ABC spokesperson said that, as with another, similar series, this one will be broadcast without commercials, as a public service.
And no, she was not being ironic.

Five Years Later

If you are against this invasion and/or occupation in Iraq, you have to vote Democratic in 2006. And you know why.
But if you believe every reason that George W Bush gave for us to invade and/or occupy Iraq, then you have to vote Democratic this year, too. Because if you believe we have to succeed in Iraq, whatever that means to you, you have to elect someone who will fight this war. Because every day this Administration is in charge of this war is one day closer to the day when we HAVE to leave Iraq because we CAN'T fight any more.
The Administration's idea of success isn't yours. Their idea of success is a location of continuing hazard and havoc, to use as a place to make money as mercenaries, on no-bid, no-oversight contracts. Their idea of success is to use a made-up war to keep you distracted from their theft of your job, your tax money, your health insurance, your pensions and your Social Security. Their idea of success is keeping you in line by questioning your patriotism while they make you work harder every day to make the same money you made last year.
And that's not your idea of success, is it?
If Iraq is the central front on the war on terror that threatens the entire civilized world, then we need to fight it like that. No new cars, so we can build thousands of Hummers and tanks, fighters and choppers. No deferments, for men or women, because we need a million people in regular uniform to take over the Middle East, rather than MBAs driving Beemers. No tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, the least patriotic of our citizens, profiting from this war twice each day, by paying less, and not sending their kids.
We need to add two hours to every flight boarding period, and half a day to the sched of every unloaded ship, so that no one can ship any WMD by air or sea. And we need to apply these rules to the private jets that avoid all this scrutiny.
We need to build and staff more emergency clinic facilities, to react to the injuries and diseases of a chem/bio/rad attack.
Not to mention bring our exhausted Guard back home, to rest, and then to protect the Homeland. We need to train more police, firemen and nurses to be the front line in this 'war of cultures' that is bound to last for tens of years.
Five years after, the clowns in this administration haven't done any of this. They can't win it over there, and they won't protect us over here.
And now they want to invade Iran? Haven't you had enough?

"There Must Be Consequences"

Junior gave a speech today. He's angry that Iran won't roll over on his demand that they shut down their uranium enrichment program. Regardless of the ins and outs of that, which will be discussed ad infinitum, ad nauseum, from left and right, I want to remark on one phrase he used.
"...there must be consequences."
Why? What leads him to this conclusion? What experience in his life leads him to think that actions have consequences? Not his family's history. Certainly not his academic career or his avoidance of his military service. Not his business career. And he has paid no price for his absolute (and I use that word in its mathematical sense) failure in service to the nation and and its constitution.
What consequences have been delivered unto him? 'Consequences' is a word he uses to justify his petulant foot-stomping when he doesn't get his way. And until someone teaches him what the word actually means, it's meaningless coming from his mouth.
He wants to start a war, and he should say so, like he told his biographer in 1999, about Iraq.
This is why I want a Democratic House and/or Senate. Not to impeach this clown, at least not right away. First, I want two years of showing this guy the consequences of his absolute failure.
Then we impeach him between the 2008 election and the swearing in of the next President, just so his name always has that stain, that asterisk, that lumps him with Nixon and Clinton. That would be a bitter pill. A better one would be for the impeachment to conclude with conviction, and his ouster.
Like he says, "there must be consequences."

Olbermann Has Arrived

Keith Olbermann, over at MSNBC, has been a comer for a while now. As he has snarked at the various mouthpieces for the Reaganazis, pronouncing 'Coulter-geist' or O'Reilly the "Worst...Person..In The WOOORLLD!", at least for that evening, his writing has become more pointed and (to mix geometric metaphors) more edgy. And his ratings have climbed.

Well, last night, he arrived. Taking more than five minutes to give as good as he thinks we got from Rumsfeld, Olbermann took not only Rummy but the whole Administration to the public square, and flogged them for the miserable little people they are, and for what they are doing to America. No pulled punches, but no name-calling, the preferred tactic of the little minds that are trying to justify their support of this Administration. Just excellent analysis, perspective, and rhetoric in the classic sense of that word.

His blow-off is a long quote from Edward R. Murrow, eerily appropriate to the current situation, though Murrow spoke the words in 1954, at the height of the Joe McCarthy's manipulation of the Red Scare. If he seeks to wear Murrow's shoes, that ghost would have permitted it, at least this once.

Without further ado, watch this. And welcome Keith Olbermann to the A-list or journalistic analysts.
A while in coming, but worth the wait.

Who has principles in Connecticut?

Who has fewer principles? Is it Joe Lieberman, for refusing the judgement of his party and of the people of Connecticut that he's supposed to represent? Or is it the Republican party, and more specifically the Republicans of Connecticut, who would rather vote for a man who disagreed 90% of the time with the president they elected? Well, they ARE Republicans, so what do you expect?
In this situation, the people with principle are the Democrats of Connecticut that voted based on the candidates' records and campaigns, not on the candidates' electability. Also principled are the Democratic Party leaders, who supported the incumbent in the primary, as they should, and now support their party's new choice for Connecticut. Because it's about preferences in the primaries, and about party in the general election.
And the win-at-any-cost, never-mind-the-ethics White House has decreed that the party's own candidate in Connecticut will get no money and no support from the RNC, the NRSC, or any other official party organ at the national level. As always, since they don't care about the law, they have even less care for ethics and principles.
So right now Joe's ahead, because all the Republicans are running to him, and he'll take all comers, and their money. Ned's behind for now, because the rest of the Democrats haven't come to grips yet with the fact that voting for Joe Lieberman will mean a vote for more Republican dictatorship, more Republican malfeasance, more Republican destruction from the Senate, because he'll vote with those that brung him, and that'll be Republicans.
Wake up, Connecticut.

"Macaca" - Welcome To The Real World of Virginia

George Allen is a racist SOB! George Allen also happens to be the senator from Virginia. And his racism is, according to him, the real representation of Virginia. And he's right. Virginia is home to hundreds of thousands of racist bastards. You know how I know? Because they elected him! This is a guy who moved to Virginia from California because he knew they'd never elect him in California, not after driving around with a Confederate flag painted on his car. This is guy who keeps a noose in his office in Washington, to remind himself of the good old days. A guy who knows a nigger when he sees one, and would have been laughed out of that Virginia Republican meeting if he'd called S.R. Sidarth, a native Virginian born of Indian parents, a nigger. Because George Allen knows that this guy was a 'macaca,' actually spelled macaque in his mother's native Tuunisian French, at whose knee George learned his racist attitudes and the correct vocabulary to go with it. It's the name of a type of monkey, and it's been used for decades, in Africa and in white supremacist gangs here, to specify non-whites of Arab or Indian ancestry. And George Allen is a very discriminating racist!
Go check out '

So Much for "Adults In Charge"

It's amazing what motivates me to write. I'm listening to Franken, interviewing Eugene Linden, author of the new book on climate change, The Winds Of Change. And he says ..."we caused it, and we can change it...". Yet the Republicans continue to deny it is happening, as well as refuse to acknowledge that anything can be done.

This is one more example of the refusal by Republicans to be held accountable. For anything!! And that's what gets me to finally write on this thread I noticed that runs through the behavior of all Republicans. By now, we've all heard the quote from Cheney that "the adults are back in charge," from his first days in the White House. But Republicans NEVER want to be held responsible. And the litany of "nobody could have foreseen"s, for the use of planes as missles on 9-11(Rice), for the cost and length of the Iraq insurgency(Cheney), for the collapse of the levees(Bush), is just the beginning.

Let's start at the White House. Do not hold them responsible for imprisonment or torture. No one has jurisdiction to tell the President what to do. The same with wiretapping and all the other invasions of privacy, from library reading lists to outing undercover CIA agents. The 'unitary executive' theory is just a fancy name for 'king,' and kings only answer to God. The examples are unending, from increasing air pollution and child poverty to decreasing real incomes and food quality, best epitomized by Bush's inability to think of any mistakes he'd made after more than 4 years in office. He was angry anyone had the gall to ask him a question. he certainly doesn't think he has to explain anything, to anyone.

How about Congress? Nope, not here. By letting the president have everything he wants, from tax cuts to a shiny new war every couple of years, without ever investigating any of the financial losses or policy changes that have come out of the White House, they have said "We don't want to do anything. Let them do it!" And by refusing to change any policies on how Congress operates, they demonstrate their refusal to be held responsible for their own actions. From dismissing and repacking the Ethics Committee until it wouldn't indict Tom Delay, to attempting to have a dinner honoring former Congressman Randy Cunningham, who was unable to attend because he's doing 100 months in federal prison for bribery and ethics violations, Congress refuses to change at all, even as the Abramoff scandal continues to send Congressional staffers to prison and require ever-more members, ALL REPUBLICANS, to put criminal defense attorneys on retainer, using campaign funds to do it.

Of course, the judiciary is an exception. Oh, yea? Read the Supreme Court's first decision of the Bush era, the one that selected him for high office. A more unsavory bit of torture was not committed until Guantanamo, a year later. And the Court knew it. Why else would the decision also say, essentially, "You can't hold us responsible for this, so we refuse to allow this decision to be used as a precedent. This is a one-time deal!" That precedent of not being willing to be responsible for the reality of their decisions especially informs the knackered pencil shavings of Scalia and Thomas to this day.

And what of the heavily-moneyed group of industrialists and theocrats that fund this continuous error in judgement? The whole POINT for them is to never be held responsible. Corporatists like Olin, Scaife, Allen-Bradley and Coors all want nothing more than to go back to when their money began, back to the turn of the last century (all of these boys having inherited their wealth.) That was when nobody could tell them who they could hire, how much they should pay, how long they could work their employees, or in what kinds of conditions. No one could hold them responsible for the cyanide and mercury they dumped in the water or the lead they burned into the air, or for the lies that passed for lists of ingredients, if they put a list on the label at all.

Theocrats want the government's money, but don't want to have to tell how they spend it, or if it does any good. And that's why George W Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. In a later stage of government-based theocratic enforcement, it'll be the new FBI. It's already got the initials. For now, it's why they work so hard to undermine science. It requires review and accountability, both anathema to the religious right.

And finally, we come to the folks that elect these politicians, who worship these theocrats, who dream of being one of the 1/2 of 1% of America that runs the corporations. And they don't want to know. They don't want to see the disasters these policies have caused. They don't want to invesitgate the collusion, the money-laundering, the bribery, the sheer theft. They don't want to worry about the economics or the health of the world they're leaving their children. So sooner or later, you get one of two bottom lines from them. Either it's Clinton's fault, or it won't matter when the Rapture takes them.

The worst thing about this attitude of non-responsibility is that it is based on a fear of failure. And fear always leads to anger, directed first at the thing that did the scaring. And the scariest thing to a person like this is someone else who knows this person failed. So Bush lashes out when asked about mistakes. Cheney belittles anyone who questions. Rush refuses to admit he committed a crime, while O'Reilly buys the silence (and the phone-sex tapes) of the staffer he sexually harrased.

Ultimately, the only resolution would be to have no one left that pointed out the failures. So, first, no Democrats are Americans, so their opinions don't count. Then, per Ann Coulter, Liberals, including all Democrats, should be killed. Only Republicans will be left, scared to death they'll be next. But since the failures will continue, someone must be to blame. And since it can't be those who actually failed, another group to blame will be found, and killed.

This will continue to one of two ends. Either some contingent finally wakes up to reality, and overthrows the failure-prone leadership AND its philosophy, or it ends with two people at each others' throats over who was responsible for that last failure. And no matter who wins that fight, they'll be wrong.

But the 'winner' will never admit it.

Two slogans and some math...

Well, the Muddled East continues to entertain...
1) "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" - someone far wiser than I.
2) "A Theocracy Is NOT A Democracy Is NOT A Theocracy Is NOT A Democracy..."ad infinitum - A major facet of the problem of Israel.

At the same time these two seemingly-neverending characteristics of the current situation play themselves out in a delightful new variant, Junior and his strange bedfellow, Condi, demonstrate how completely clueless they both are. Condoleezza literally spoke for 10 minutes without constructing a declarative sentence that had semantic content. Listen to her. Students of semantics are impressed, but none others.

And now, the math. Solve this series of simultaneous equations:

Is > P + S + L + J + In + Iq + SA
P > Is
S > Is
L > Is
J > Is
In > Is
Iq > Is
SA > Is

This is the military balance-of-power problem of the Middle East, defining the perceived military needs of each player, where Is = Israel, P = Palestine, S = Syria, L = Lebanon, J = Jordan, In = Iran, Iq = Iraq, SA = Saudi Arabia...

The situation is one of perception, leaving sheer religious and racial hatreds out of it (yea! right!)

Israel sees a pan-Arab enemy, and so must have more arms than all Arab countries combined. Meanwhile each internationally-recognized shiekdom (Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia) as well as each of the other nations, who all see themselves as sovereign, free-standing nations, contending with the others as well as with Israel, must have more arms than Israel.

The joke is that the non-governmental Islamic organizations, Hamas in Palestine (Sunni), Hezbollah in south Lebanon(Shi'ite), and the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt and Pakistan, ARE creating a pan-Arabic movement. Using the hatred of Israel, and its biggest supporter, US, to organize and motivate followers to overthrown their national governments, the rise of a pan-Islamic federation is happening before our eyes, and without a whimper from the Junior Administration. Hamas was elected in Palestine, Shi'ite mullahs run Iran, and we have not a civil war but a religious war happening in Iraq. Now Hezbollah has dragged the nation of Lebanon into supporting its fight against Israel.

Two last thoughts on Junior's press conference...

1) The story of the disbanding of the CIA unit that searches for Osama is "not true."
[from the NYTimes transcript today]
PRESIDENT BUSH: I -- you know, it's just an incorrect story. I mean, we got a -- we're -- we got a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden. So whatever you want to read in that story, it's just not true, period.

2) The transcript doesn't let you hear how Junior's exasperation at the 'hard work' of answering questions allows him to slowly work himself into a high dudgeon at the end of the press conference, so that he is literally gritting his teeth when he says "I've enjoyed it. Appreciate it."

Is this just his usual disgust with having his policies questioned, or if it's a sign that his anti-psychotic meds need adjusting?

Still Listening to Bozo

During this press conference, he has touted diplomacy, that it takes time, and that we have to do things with partners, not alone. Who says he can't learn new talking points?

About 45 minutes into it, a gal busts him on the failures of his North Korea policy, and asks why stick with a policy that's failed. And he literally repeats all his talking points on North Korea, the same ones he'd used in his speech and in answering a previous question. Literally verbatim.

It's awe-inspiring to see someone so uninterested in participating in doing the work his job demands. (As I type, he has just stormed off angrily, saying 'I've enjoyed it!' through actually-clenched teeth.) This guy has been coached to the nth degree, and sticks to his talking points.

There's 'on message' and then there's 'automaton.' This man isn't just a white-knuckle drunk, he's a white-knuckle speaker, gripping his talking points and agenda and never letting go, no matter what the facts, no matter what the question...

Dear Lord, how much longer must we suffer in this desert that is the Junior Bush intelligence vacuum?

It's "hard work" listening to this clown's press conference

Junior is still interrupting all the summer school trips to the Museum Of Science and Industry in Chicago. He just made his "You look like you're over 65" joke to the first member of the press corps. As always, an inslt treated as a joke. Typical 3rd-tier frat boy humor...

And he has reminded us, at least a dozen times, that "it's hard work", whether in reconciling the House and Senate Immigration bills, or fighting the "war on terror," or creating jobs...

First, I don't think I ever heard Clinton talk about how hard the job was, which may have been one of the reasons why he made it look so easy.

Second, whenever Junior says it, it comes out as a whine. "Y'know, I mean, it's haaaarrd wooorrk!" I can't stand having this whiner as our leader. No wonder we get no respect.

And third, WE all know being president is a tough job, WTF did he expect? Oh, yea! This is the first job he's ever had where he actually had to show up every day, where Daddy's money and his connections couldn't bail Junior out. Where he at least had to look like he was paying attention. No wonder he's so incredibly bad at the job. Even the "Governor Of Texas" gig was easy, because that governor's job is to be a figurehead (read their state constitution), and his legislature only met for 90 days every other year! No wonder the family ran him for that job.

Man, it'll be hard work digging America out of the pile of shit this guy has dropped on us...Post-Republican America will be a turdblossom, or just a turd. Either way, it'll be hard work...

Happy Birthday, Mr. Pres-i-dent...

Marilyn sang for Jack Kennedy's birthday in a sheer, skin-tight dress that she had to be sewn into. The only thing that kept it legal was the splash of sequins across the front...

Dick Cheney may have worried, in some fever-dream, that Kenny-Boy would sing for Junior, in some orange jumpsuit that he was shackled into....

But Kenny-Boy gave Junior a MUCH better gift for his birthday.

Boy, Dick might think about giving something similar to America on its birthday next year. I'm sure America would appreciate it even more than Junior appreciated his gift...

Happy Birthday, Junior!

Give me your poor, your tired...

Tuesday I celebrated America's Independence doing the same thing as many American men: yard work.

Differently from most, as I worked, I listened to 'The World' on NPR, as they played two articles that explored the naturalization of immigrants, many of whom became citizens yesterday across America.

The first story interviewed several long-time immigrant workers, one a mechanic of 22 years, one a housekeeper for eight years. Both still live in the deep south of the Southwest, both were originally illegal, both still speaking in their native Spanish. Both are now determined to become citizens, to protect themselves from the animosity towards illegals in the current debate.

The second story was of a woman, now 22 and graduating from college, who came to the US five
years ago from the Sudan as a sanctioned refugee. She settled with a host family, was given legal status from the US and funding the refugee agency, and was prepping for her naturalization ceremony yesterday. Her entire interview was in perfect, lightly accented American English.

From two stories, a choice of lessons: If even a refugee girl can learn English and join
American culture, then those illegal immigrants that haven't learned English must not really want to be Americans, and don't really even want to try.

Or: Keeping people illegal keeps them out of the mainstream of America, keeps them segregated, huddled with others in their situation, and prevents them from ever reaching their economic potential here, even while they exceed their economic potential in the country they came from.

It seems like a choice between America's hopes and its fears.
Pick one.

Global War On Dick Kickin' !

It's impossible to express my disgust with the phrase 'war on terror' and the resulting 'We're in a time of war' excuse for every trampling of the Constitution by this Administration and its rubber-stamp Congress, most recently in the chest-thumping and threats surrounding the NYTimes exposure of the White House spying on American citizens, without warrants, voiding at least two constitutional amendments.
So...
1) Please tell me when Terror did not exist in the world. Tell me how we will know when there will not be any more.
2) Since you can't do #1, how's about defining how we will know when we have won the 'war on terror,' so we can go back to reading the Constitution the way it was intended, and stop using it as a door mat at the entrance to the White House.
3) Can't do that either, eh? Then let's declare a similar war, also against a methodology rather than a state or an army.
I propose a Global War on Groin Hits. Anyone who thinks about hitting someone else in the groin should be jailed and tortured, possibly with groin hits. Anyone who thinks someone is thinking about hitting them in the groin has the right to spy on that person, go through their phone calls and bank accounts, to protect their 'family jewels.'
Silly, isn't it? This has always gone on, and will, as long as there are testicles hanging from people who are thought to deserve a good whacking by anyone else.
The difference is, of course, that a groin hit rarely kills the victim, while we've seen terror attacks kill people for hundreds of years, including the WTC attack of 2001.
But the analogy equates a person to a nation, in case you didn't notice. And the WTC attack didn't particularly hurt America as a whole. The economy continues, the political system continues. Trucks navigate roads, children go to school.
But America has changed its behavior towards its citizens, and towards the world. In both cases, for the worse. And in that sense, the terror attack worked, not because of the attack, but because of what we let our government do to us and to our nation, using that attack as an excuse.
The list of what they are doing to us is already long, and sad. And oh, so pointless. Think of what we'll find when the constitutionally-required openness in government and the constitutionally-designed checks-and-balances kick in!
There will be no end to the war on terror, because there is no army to conquer, no enemy to star in a surrender ceremony. But there will be an end to America. And that is when we decide that the idea and establishment of the principles of the Constitution is no longer important.
Because the war is actually one of ideas. And how we continue to treat our citizens and our nation and our international friends and treaties will tell who wins this battle. And we come closer to losing every day that we treat our citizens more like we accuse 'them' of treating people, rather than convincing people they wanted to be treated more like we expect to be under our Constitution.

I'm back...and feel like I've been through finals and a dissertation proposal defense...neither of which is likely to happen soon, but two weeks of business travel and family guests results in the same effect.
So, before I get back in gear, a quick rundown of the absence:
Three days in Manhattan, seeing The Daily Show, Billy Connolly, and Spamalot. The throat's still raw from laughing, and barely held together in the subsequent three days of policy at the Take Back America conference in Washington from the 12th to the 14th. I reported on the conference for a local AM AirAmerica affiliate's Sunday show, hosted by Barry Gordon. From the opening day, with Robert Redford, through the Hillary/Pelosi/Kerry breakfast the next day, and seeing Russ Feingold, Joe Wilson and Ned Lamont talk Iraq on Wednesday, it was a helluva show. I was interviewed on Father's Day on the BarryGordonFromLeftField Show, while my dad, my favorite Democrat, listened. You can hear the interview here. I'm the first guest, so you only have to suffer the ads. It's AM radio, after all.
Back home, to attend the oldest niece's HS graduation, then enjoy a few days of parents staying with me, including a night for Mom at the local hospital. Note: never test-drive a seafood restaurant with visitors...
All caught up? Look, everyone is focusing on Iraq. The conference was damned near a one-note concert in the full sessions, and only got to other subjects in little break-outs of 100 to 200 people. The best post I've read lately is from the RudePundit, here. So in the interest of change, as well as speed, I'm going to reprise a complaint from this time last year: Have you looked at the Dow Jones Industrial Average today? It's at 11079, after a 104-point rise today. "So what?", you ask, "That's a nice one-day jump." Yea, until you get some context. Remember when Junior wanted to privatize Social Security. Wanted us to do our own investing, to hand our funds over to some brokerage house to manage, (and get a fee for doing so,) even if we kept the funds in something as 'safe' as an index fund, like, maybe, a DJIA Index fund (called Diamonds in the vernacular) for example?
Well, 10218 is stuck in my head. It was the market close of the DJIA on a day in June of 2004, when I drove 12 hours straight through from home to Salt Lake City, to get a car back from a shop that had resusitated it from the ministrations of a drunken Mormon who'd rear-ended it, and me in it, about two months earlier. 10218 was on the air as I got a speeding ticket, because they ticket their own (my SLC rental had Beehive State plates) but not tourists...
Anyway, do the math. Two years, 861 points since 10218. That's a total of 8.4% increase over two years. It would be much less if your broker took his 1.25 percent the first year, which you then wouldn't earn on the second year. After which, the broker takes his 1.25 percent again. So maybe you made 5% over those two years, sitting still and betting on the Dow. You'd have made the same increase, maybe even a tad more, over the same two years if you'd still been in the standard Social Security system. And that's using Junior's own figures. But the important thing, for Junior and his corporate backers, is that 1.25 percent per year they'd make off your money if Social Security was privatized. Because they don't get any of that now. That gets used to pay for your parents, my berieved underage nieces, and the rest of the widows and orphans that expect civility and care from us, and that we, purporting to be civilized, give them through Social Security.
I compare every day's close to that June 2004 close at 10218. And I watch the fascists in the Reaganazi Party, because they won't sleep until they get their hands on that big pool of money called Social Security. 'Cause 1.25% of all the Social Security funds, every year, is...well, it's a whole lot!

I can dream, can't I ??

OK, so Skilling and Lay got the first taste of the rest of the life we having been wishing for them since 2001. Probably a pyrrhic victory for America. I mean, we'll NEVER see the money they made disappear, and if their lawyers are really good, they'll be able to stay out of prison until January of 2009, at which time Junior will pardon them both. He needs to make sure that they won't rat him out over Cheney's Energy meetings and the other collusions amongst the oil men in and out of the White House. After all, the one person Junior can't pardon is.....Junior!
Instead of continuing to rain on your parade, allow me to suggest that 'going away' presents would be in order for 'Kenny Boy' Lay. And being a good liberal, wanting the best for my fellow man, let me suggest the following:
Send along an order of condoms (my favorite brand) and some single-use packets of KY (also makes those gas prices easier to take) to Kenny Lay, in care of his legal representative, Danny Petrocelli, at O'Melveny & Myers, in Century City (aka LawyerLand) in LA.
I'm sure he'll be able to pass these gifts along to Ken.
After all, lawyers have a better chance of delivering to the prisoners than the rest of us. It's their job!

For the irony-deficient conservatives...

"There is nothing wrong with holding an opinion and holding it passionately. But at those times you're absolutely sure that you are right, go find somebody who disagrees. Don't allow yourself the easy course of the constant 'Amen' to everything you say."
- Condi Rice, 5/22/06, Boston College commencement address

Obviously, she never gave this advice to her boss, because she's still Sec. o' State.

And is that how the cabinet members reply to the utterances of the anointed one? 'Amen'? Do they also genuflect when they enter, or when they exit, or both? And must the eyes be averted?
Just wondering...

Competence By Design

New York holds seemingly never-ending design contests (and legal battles) over how to memorialize those lost there on Sept. 11th, and how tall the new target, er, office building should be. Sen Jeff Sessions has weighed in on a preliminary, three-barrier design for the new fence at the Mexican border, and bidding has been opened to Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, so no one will be suspicious when Halliburton gets the primary contract. And yet, if you Google "New Orleans Levees Design Contest" in the news, you get nothing. And THAT's how seriously this nation is taking the idea of bringing back New Orleans.

We've all seen that snarky, but oh-so-telling email that's gone around, the one with the photos of the Thames barrier in England, the mid-ocean barrier that protects the Netherlands, and the new one (after a huge design contest) to protect Venice Italy from sinking, all very high-tech, demonstrating serious, nation-level investment, followed by the weed-covered dirt piles and collapsed concrete panels that were supposed to protect New Orleans.

So, now that Naigin's been re-elected, and the Republicans can't withhold support anymore just to try to swing an election, I think the mayor should announce a design contest. And just shame the damned Army Corps, and the whole Republican Monarchy, by demonstrating that the job CAN be done, as long as it's taken seriously, and done competently, neither of which is possible under the Republican theory of government.

Mary Cheney really tics me off

Mary Cheney really tics me off. She's got a book out, explaining why....why...why her parents could use her sexual orientation to win votes among the Log Cabin Republicans, but she's pissed off that Kerry used it to point up the hypocrisy of her parents, her party, her campaign, HER, in supporting the BushCheney '04 campaign against gays! She doesn't think people (gays) should be one-issue voters, but her Party's whole campaign is to create a union of one-issue voters, whether they're anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, or anti-gay marriage.

One of the little conflicts I'd like her to address is that homo-haters, this administration's supporters, claim homosexuality is either a choice or the failing of the parents. Of course, no one would choose to be treated the way gays are in America, so it must be bad parenting. So which convicted drunk driver is the failing parent here, Dick or Lynne? These two paragons of the Party of Family Values! (I won't even mention those other fine parents, George and Laura.)

The fact is that most evidence says homosexuality is genetic. So which side of the family did it come down to arrive at Mary? Since her older sister's conception date was exactly 2 days after the military lifted the ban on drafting married but childless men, Dick's fifth(!) deferment seems to demonstrate that neither Dick nor Lynne was particularly interested in parenting, just in staying out of Nam (him) and keeping him in better paying jobs (her.)
The answer may lie in Lynne Cheney's "Sisters", a fine novel of women on the American plains.

I'm just saying...

Give the NSA something to track

At the NSA.gov site, there are lots of phone numbers you can call, where you can get lots of information.

My high school English teacher always said 'Go to the original sources.'
Why not give them a call about the program? That's the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program,' you little old American (=terrorist?) you!

Surprise! I'm AGAINST Impeachment !

All these angry people, buzzing about, 'Impeach! Impeach!'
Don't they see what has happened in America? Don't they see how it has happened?
Don't they understand that Junior is just the hood ornament, the cherry on top, the symptom of the disease?
And if they insist, immediately, on the passion play of 'The Impeachment of George Walker Bush,' that no one will have any stomach for the REAL investigations into the real crime, that of one-party rule, collusion among the three branches of government, collusion between the government, the ReagaNaziCorporation (RNC) and corporate America! And with Republicans running a rear-guard action that these additional investigations are just retribution fro Dems being out of power for so long, they'll look like the underdogs.
If they really believe that removing the hood ornament means anything other than that the car goes into the shop for a few days, they're wrong.
I want to put the Republican machine in that car cruncher that OddJob used in Goldfinger. I want every participant as the guy in the trunk of that car when it went into the compactor....

And then I want to put the hood ornament on my mantle as a trophy. Like Franken says, do a quickie impeachment between Election Day '08 and Jan 20 '09, just to show the world the disdain we hold for this petty tyrant.
...and then cancel his Secret Service detail, just for grins....

It depends on what 'Accomplished' accomplished

During the 'celebrations' earlier this week, of the third anniversary of Junior's landing(?) on the carrier, and of 'Mission Accomplished,' I realized two things:

First, 'Mission Accomplished' was exactly 6 weeks after the start of the invasion. You know, as in "it'll take six days, six weeks...I doubt six months." So this is a celebration not only of their lack of planning for the war, but of their pre-planning for the photo-op. Boy, was Colbert right!

And second, I figured out why Junior's bulge was so large.
Before you think I'm overly-focused on Junior's package, realize that most Fox commentators spent that day remarking on it (listen to Stephanie Miller's podcast of April 28, 2006, reading the transcripts. They're hysterical!) My dad, a WWII Air Force bomber pilot, had duty in England, including teaching flying, and being trained on how to land on a carrier. The Navy then had an unofficial 'Order of the Diaper' for each new initiate into the sheer terror of letting someone else, the flagman on the deck, tell you how to land your plane on a short, pitching airfield in the middle of the ocean.

If you stage a massive, internationally-televised photo op, you don't want your star refusing his big entrance 'cause he's wet himself, do you?! What's your insurance policy?

Can you say 'Depends?'

Just What America Needed !

Two quick thoughts, and then off for a well-deserved trip with my honey...

1) They picked Tony Snow because he was dirty from the Sr. Bush Administration. Much has been made of the impossibility of bringing truly fresh (read 'innocent') talent into the Whore House, so haing them use the same old staffing technique, 'Load up from Dad's Administration,' shouldn't have been a surprise. What it DOES confirm is that FOX News is the same as Hudson, Manhattan, American Enterprise, or any of the other 'Institutes' that the ReagaNazis park themselves in when they're out of power...Not just a cheerleader, but an official part of the Party.

2) America needed Bush the Junior. Really!

And while I'm gone, I'm going to put together a justification for that statement that is already several pages long in my head...

A quick thought on the recent shuffle at the White House: BFD!

The two items of real note are as follows:
1) Whether Andy Card jumped or was pushed (I vote 'jumped' as the poor bastard's looked exhausted for months,) he's been working a billion hours a day with no deputy, for almost two years. Karl's been drawing the 'deputy' paycheck, but if you think Karl Rove ever gave Andy the time of day, you're smokin' stuff. So with Bolten coming in to fill Andy's shoes, Bolten needs help or he'll never get up to speed. So they gave him back the 'deputy' slot to fill with a helper. This changes NOTHING at Karl Rove's desk, as getting the Deputy title just gave him 'policy' cover. But, as The Prince Of Aluminum, Sec. O'Neill, called them, the "Machiavellis of Mayberry" never care about policy except as a funtion of politics, and that's ALL Karl cares about.

2) McClellan says it'll be a two or three-week transition to a new 'spokes-hole', but only a moron throws out the old without an idea of who to replace him with. Oh, yea, THAT moron. I forgot...

Y'know, it's tough to find rats who want to jump ONTO a sinking ship, especially when the rats that are already onboard won't trust them to not take one look around the wreckage and flee to the nearest press office to 'rat' them out. (pardon the pun) Especially if there would have to be congressional confirmation hearings, where the incompetence of the outgoing rat, and the shit-pile he or she (can't forget 'Leezza) left behind, could be fully inspected and remarked on by senators in public. God Forbid!

They throw like they make war: Badly.

Thank God baseball season has started. I'm a Cincy fan, and THAT's why I like red, and why I HATE that the Reaganazis have stolen my favorite color, my team's color!! Blue is for Dodger weiners...
And what the hell does all this have to do with politics? Well, Junior threw out the first pitch in Cincinnati last week, at the 'Great American Ballpark.' He was invited to do so by the Reds' current owner, who was a co-owner of the Texas Rangers with Junior. He's one of the guys who overpaid Junior in the buy-out of his piece of the partnership. Anyway, the local Republicans cheered him on, his pitch went wild above the plate, but the amazin' Jason LaRue brought it in and saved face for Junior, just like the troops are trying to do in Iraq.
And the home team, MY team, paid the price for showing him off, and covering his mistake.

Reds lost 16-7 !!!

Yesterday, 'Big' Dick Cheney threw out the first pitch at RFK in Washington for the first home game for the Nationals. He was booed from the moment he set foot on the field to the moment he walked off. The booing will be his excuse for pitching from half-way to the mound, and still bouncing it in the dirt in front of the plate. The fact is, he's a wimp and (pardon my insensitivity) I've known 10-year-old girls who throw better. FOX killed the mike during their live feed for the pitch, because they can't take reality.

Nationals lost!!

So, a little hint. Don't let losers lead your team, or your team loses!! QED

My next bumper sticker

IF YOU BELIEVE BUSH,
YOU BELIEVED O.J.

Greenbacks, wetbacks, yellowbacks

Seen the new ten-dollar bill? Looks like a piece of newspaper that got left on the dashboard cooking in the sun all day, all piss-yellow except for the oval in the back. Well, you got a yellow president, what do you expect? It'd look better with Junior's picture on the front, instead of some Jamaican (look it up.) At least then, the yellow streak on the back would be appropriate.

Forebodings about hindsight

I read more than I should. There's a statement that would appall my mother. But I'm all input, perpetual voluminous input, and my output is scattershot and infrequent (look at my posting dates, for example...) Which is why I'd like to refer you today to a piece of laser-tight writing that Steve Coll had in last week's New Yorker. Just read it. As an aspiring writer/analyst, I shake my head in awe. As an American, I weep...

Republicans REFUSE to learn from Europe

Suddenly, Junior wants to talk immigration, mostly to get everyone off the war, the NSA wiretapping, the CIA covert operative, the (fill in your favorite Junior Admin horror show here!)

Plenty of others are talking about plenty of flavors of this issue, so I'll stick to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. You know, "All persons born...in the United States..., are citizens of the United States..." (This is also the amendment that Junior is violating with Gitmo and 'extraordinary rendition.' Read up!)

Seems the Republicans want to repeal that Section, cause y'know them wetbacks just keep coming here to have those American babies. And it really conflicts with those Republican family values to break up a family, shipping mom and dad back to TJ while the infant citizen stays here and fends for itself (?)

This, just as France has had fourth and fifth-generation Algerian youth rioting in the streets, burning cars and mugging people, largely because they were born in France, as were their parents, yet French law for many years refused to allow them citizenship. So they are outcasts in the only country they know, with no allegiance to any nation, and no ability to work their way up the ladder of French life.

The same thing's happening in Germany. Just in 1999 were the laws changed to permit many of the Turks born in Germany to be declared citizens. There are still laws on the books there defining 'German' by the mother's bloodline. These go back to 1913. So only 40,000 of the 2,000,000 Turks in Germany have become citizens, even though more than half of these Turks were born in Germany and speak German as natives. They all live in enclaves and most are excluded from voting, or running for office.

Yea, let's get us some more of that racial segregation and artificial underclass here. Apparently the Republicans just can't get enough of that racial hatred...


sing along:
"Should Americans pick crops?
George says 'No!'
'Cause no one but a Mexican
would stoop so low.
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros"
- Tom Lehrer, 1965 from the song "Senator George Murphy" (elected 1964, California)

SSDG - Same Shit, Different George!

Mourn on April 30th...

(was on vacation, watching Spring Training. Hope you missed me!)

Lots of noise about the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Marches on the left, Bush stumping to the right. So what?
I'm waiting for April 30th. THAT'S the date that Dems and Progressives ought to focus on. Why?

"[The war] could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
- Sec of Defense Rumsfeld, 2/7/03.

So, on April 30th, six weeks from now, let's remind everyone of the third anniversary of when this pre-emptive strike was supposed to be over, leaving our troops lanquishing in a diabetic haze of thrown candies, needing their gas masks on to protect them from the heady scents of piles of flowers for the victors.
And remind them of that oh-so-deadly self-delusion that this doddering refugee from the Ford Administration uses for judgement.
My one regret about Rumsfeld is that he'll die long before he is universally recognized for the incompetent he is.

Late To the Job Market, Part II

Junior was down in New Orleans a couple days ago, surveying the damage he's responsible for. I have never heard anyone I'm supposed to respect whine so much about how hard the work is as this clown does at almost every press conference. And I'd put money down that Junior is the first US president, at least since Hoover, and maybe before, to use "how hard the job is" as an excuse for mistakes made by himself or his administration.
But I'm not surprised by his whining. He's never had to show up, much less on time, even for the few months he spent hiding out in the Texas Air Nat'l Guard. He's finally got a job that he wants credit for doing, but he doesn't want to do the job itself, because 'it's hard work!' Hard work? Maybe for you, rich, pampered, whining boy! The guy you followed could negotiate legislation, talk peace with opponents on conference calls, AND get a blow-job, all at exactly the same moment, in the Oval Office. That's a whole different kind of 'hard work,' and we NEVER heard him complain!

Christ, Jan 21, 2009 can't come soon enough!

Late to the Job Market

Why is Junior so irritable?
Wouldn't you be if suddenly you found yourself with a job you were expected to show up for? Where your absences and vacations were national news? And where you couldn't just quit and sell the business to one of your daddy's friends?
Remember, this is Junior's first full-time job. The governorship of Texas doesn't count. It's the weakest of the 'weak-governor' offices in the US, and the legislature only meets for three months every other year. His entire tenure only had two legislative sessions! And the Lieutenant Gov signs most of the real business. Junior kissed babies, shook hands, and laughed at women being executed. Mostly he went to games at his old ball park!
Why'dja think the family parked him in Texas, and put the bright one in Florida?
Personally, I think they got him the presidency so there'll always be someone to take care of him after his folks kick off and can't cover his ass anymore.
At least he'll have Secret Service protection. God knows he'll need it. I figure he may be the first President who'll want to retire to a foreign country. But who'll have him?

Building the Republican Wall between Church and State

I swing wildly, from immediate news commentaries to hopefully higher-level pieces of analysis. Case in point today.
I think a part of the Democratic outreach to Christians should point out the Democratic party's incorporation of Jesus's teachings into government's role in people's lives. Feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, halt and lame, whenever they ask. We are our brothers' (and sisters') keepers, regardless of creed or color. Those are New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society ethics. By incorporating these into government's relationship to its citizens, this becomes reliable help, not 'random acts of kindness' provided by the local church as best it can with the paltry tithe it gets from its parishioners.
These sure as fuck aren't Republican principles! These are Republican "entitlements for the weak" that need to be cut back to provide more tax money to the already-obscenely wealthy, that top 1/10th of 1 percent, most of whom inherited it. Like our president, for example...
The joke here, I guess, is that a true separation of church and state would mean that we would become truly Republican, cutting off any spending on programs for the health and feeding of children, the poor and the elderly. So I guess the latest ReagaNazi budget proposal is in the most absolutist reading of 'a wall between church and state.'

Negatives versus Positives

Junior's negatives at this point in his 2nd term are the ones Republicans had HOPED for at this point in Clinton's. And at this point in his Administration, Bill was in the process of being impeached! Instead, Bill was in the mid-60 percent range.
Maybe, just maybe, the best way to run the country isn't having one-party rule, electing an incompetent president, and then appointing cabinet heads and support staff that are even more incompetent.
'Course, it's a great way to line Republican pockets...As an example, apparently, (and I can see this headline on a couple of subscription sites, but not on any mainstream news feed) Republicans have proposed cleaning up the United Arab Emirates ports deal, by having an American company join with Dubai Ports World to manage the US ports. Guess what US company" Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Yup! Halliburton...

C'mon! You can't make this shit up!

I gotchya 'free markets' right heah!

Groucho Marx often recounted the tale of a dinner party at which he propositioned a starlet sitting next to him. 'Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?' Groucho asked, laughing. The starlet, blushing, nodded agreement that she would, and they both laughed.
Later, over drinks, Groucho asked, 'Would you sleep with me for twenty dollars?' This time, the starlet slapped him, hissing 'What kind of girl do you think I am?!'
Said Groucho, 'I know what kind of girl you are. Now we're haggling for price!'

A legislator asked a vintner how he'd feel if he was allowed to mail his wine to any customer in the US, overriding all state liquor sales regulations other than age requirements. The vintner, having wanted to mail his California wines to New York and Florida customers for years, praised the legislator's good sense at eliminating these costly restrictions on the free market.
The next session, the legislator asked the vintner how he'd feel about having to compete against marijuana distributors and cocaine manufacturers for the recreational dollars of his customers. The vintner was appalled that the legislator would propose such a dangerous, unAmerican idea, and wondered what he could be thinking!
Said the legislator, "Now, we're haggling for the meaning of 'free!' "

Whenever I hear anyone (other than a few hard-core libertarians from the Cato Institute) bad-maouth regulations and talk about 'free markets,' I always pause to ask if they endorse selling beer to 12-year-olds, SAMs to the Crips, or marijuana to anyone. If they say 'No!', then we both know what kind of person they are.
Then, the conversation can move on to 'acceptable manners and levels of market regulation.'
At least then the discussion is a rational and realistic negotiation.
To paraphrase Clinton, it depends on how free 'free' is!

Post Traumatic Sedition

Everyone else will be blogging today about the newly-revealed videos of Junior's Katrina briefings. My only comment is that the ReagaNazis didn't need a video tape to impeach Clinton, but now we have Junior on two videos, lying about using court orders for all wiretaps, and for claiming that no one could've anticipated the breaching of the levees. If a Democratic president committed these crimes, this Congress would be doing NO other business but impeachment. So, again, another instance on to the pile of two-faced-ness that has created hypocrisy-fatigue in the American populace.
No, I want to talk about the new assault by the ReagaNazis on our troops, our vets, those guys and gals in uniform that these asses use up like toilet paper, but won't join in battle (Five-Deferment Dick Cheney, for example.) It's not been enough to reduce death benefits, to reduce VA funding, to send the troops off through multiple deployments with insufficient armor, dirty water and poisonous food (aw, hell, I'm not doing links, look it up!) The lunch room at one of my clients got a new USERRA poster yesterday, and the protections for returning soldiers, especially ones in the Guard and Reserve, are pathetic.
Now, it's an assult on the possibility that these soldiers suffer from mental damage as a result of being in battle, and being treated like this. Yesterday's NY Times sported an opinion from an AEI shill, Sally Satel, who wrote that many of the soldiers claiming post-traumatic-stress syndrome (PTSD) are just baby-boom slackers who see this as financial security. She worked the wards of the VA during the reign of Bush the Elder, but her attitude here reminds me of Patton's walk through tents of the injured in WWII, and abusing soldiers with shell-shock. She uses the fact that some of these soldiers took years, maybe tens of years, before finally showing up for treatment, as evidence that they're probably faking.
How long, how hard, how much time and money, have we spent trying to get soldiers who are psychologically damaged by their service to come forward and ask for help? yet here's this clown, with NO military service, setting up the ReagaNazi excuses to cut back on the financial disaster that is coming from the support America owns our soldiers, even at the current, niggardly levels of the Junior Administration. The $2 trillion estimated total long-term cost of the Invasion of Iraq needs to be cut back to allow more money to flow into crony pockets, and to the ReagaNazi marketing centers, like the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the AEI that Satel shills for.
Not only do these slacker vets need to be cut off, but anyone who sympatizes with them, or thinks Junior's doing a lousy job, needs to be investigated for sedition. Like Laura Berg, a nurse at a VA hospital who wrote a letter to a local paper criticizing the government's Katrina response and VA support. She finally spoke out this morning on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now show. The transcript of the interview might inform the AEI's Satel as to why many vets are having resurgences of shell-shock. Instead, the government is apparently trying to shut Nurse Berg up.
It's what we've come to expect from the chickenhawks and cowards that populate the White House and the rest of the Republican Congress: the vets should suck it up and not ask for help, on the battle field or afterward, and anyone who says otherwise needs to be threatened with arrest.
War on the cheap, and don't ask questions! These people have no shame.

Pravda and TASS (for those of you old enough...)

One of the coffeeshops I frequent got suckered into a cable-n-broadband package, and hung a big flat-panel up to entertain the folks as they wire up for the morning. The broadband's wireless, so I can pick-up e-mails at lunch, for free, and do some posting.
The owner's a liberal, but by the time I get there, he's switched from the CNN he opens with, to FOX to calm the ReagaNazi cluster at the main table.
This morning, while another guy stood beside me, sipping his coffee and waiting for his breakfast order, I asked the owner when he switches back to CNN.
He said he usually doesn't.
I said 'I can't watch Pravda!'
The coffee came out the nose of the guy next to me.
Obviously, he got the reference, but I wasn't sure how he took it (other than strongly) until he finished coughing, and started laughing.
'Course, the more correct reference would be TASS, the broadcast agency. Pravda was print. Like the NY Post and the Washington Times.

By the way, have you ever noticed the naming (unoriginality? riding another's reputation? assumption of a stupid, confused readership?) of the REAL newspapers and the RNC fishwrappers in NY and DC? It's truly a bizarro-world arrangement:
NY Times and Washington Post - (formerly) REAL newspapers
Washington Times and NY Post - Moon and Murdoch publish their versions of Pravda for the RNC

Breeding Tells The Tale

Why is anyone surprised by this Dubai Ports deal? Money knows no national allegiance, Junior is all about money, and anything that makes him and his a LOT more money is just fine. Since no American company of significance manages any of the major ports, there's no Bush money in putting them into American hands. But the Mahtouock (sp?) family that runs Dubai are also heavy investors in the Carlyle group that the Bush family has a lot of money in, and son Neil's Insight company has funding from that same family. So Junior won't bite the hand that feeds his family.
In doing this, Junior demonstrates his lack of faith in the American system to provide safe harbor for his family through thick and thin, and he demonstrates his priorities: family first, law second, nation last.
Not surprising for a Mexican father who's seen his family and city neglected ond abused by a single-party government for 70 years, (the goal of the current ReagaNaziCorp.) But for the wealthy son of the wealthy son of the wealthy son of a new York international banker? Well, that's Junior's argument for the elimination of the inheritance tax, and it speaks volumes to me about why it needs to be kept, and the rate increased.
By definition, Junior is an American, because he was born here (more later.) But by temperament, by family upbringing, and as evidenced by every act he has committed in his sorry life, Junior is not American. He is almost anti-American. How'd this clown get to be president? Oh, yea! Family!

Cheney leaving? Won't hold my breath!

My favorite load'a'crap rumor going around right now is that Cheney will step down/be pushed out after the 2006 elections.
Reasons given: 1) He's a liability since the shooting. 2) His health is failing. 3) The Republican Party doesn't have a vice president to run for president in 2008.
Bullshit! In order:
1) When hasn't he been a liability? Please name ONE example of political or administrative competence. Not even brilliance, just competence. Everything this guy touches turns to shit, from energy policy to hunting with friends. I'll bet Ms. Willeford doesn't return his calls anymore, either.
2) This guy's health isn't any worse or better than it was when he picked himself to be vice-president, except that his knees have had heart-attacks since then. And when he's tired, he can just rest out of sight. Every one simply assumes he's off cooking up more tragedies for America to live through and pay for.
3) Republicans need a VP to run for prez in 2008. No argument, this has been the usual pattern for the Republicans. Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Quayle(!?). But the problem here isn't that Cheney won't run, the problem is, who would replace him?
Any respectable candidate for 2008 would want to avoid having two years of the taint of the Worst President Ever. (This is deservedly in caps.) This would immediately gurantee his loss at the polls, and the end of his political career.
Nor would he be acceptable to the Bush White House, since anyone who speaks English and can hold two thoughts in their mind at the same time is going to make Bush look even less competent than he does now. Why do you think the only event Bush and Cheney both spoke at in the last six years was when they were giving unsworn testimony to the 9-11 Commission?!
So what's the point of putting some new face in to replace Cheney when you can't show him off without reminding every voter of the turd you foisted off on them for president in the first place. If anything, it may run off even more voters than the current 'team' will repulse with their ongoing mis-management and malfeasance.

More real stuff later today...

The New Blog

(Miles from home, sans wires, I create an e-mail address, then a blog that uses that address as the contact. No actual connection to my human presence, no link except technical, for the hardwearers that may at a later date subpoena logs and squeeze the MAC address off the IP traffic that sends my posts to the Blogspot server(s?) wherever they may be.)

So let's just bust out of the gate with two little comments.

First, they're called 'ReagaNazis.' They hide behind the well-marketed image that went on the box we now know as the Republican Party, and anyone in the party that argues with the party line is besmirching the memory and ideals of a B-grade TV star, front-man for Darts and Brondes, who was already senile by the time he got tothe White House, and relied on his ability to read cue cards to get him through 8 years + 1 speech of chief executive-ness.

They hate America. At least the incredibly successful America of the 20th century. The one that won two world wars, was a manufacturing powerhouse, gave it's soldiers free college, and set the goal of assuring its citizens that what they bought was what they thought they were buying, what they drank was healthy, what they breathed didn't poison them.

ReagaNazis hate that stuff. They're big on the 'every man for himself!' crap they're picthing as the 'Ownership Society', except that most of them couldn't make it without the stable infrastructure that America pioneered and that the other Western nations emulated.

Our current beast-in-chief is the best example there is. Thought experiment (TE.): Imagine that George Bush , at any point in his careening career, is allowed to fail, to live with the results of his complete ineptitude, to have to learn from his mistakes. With his demonstrable lack of a learning curve, this clown would already have had a child (you didn't know about the Mexican abortion his folks forced the girl to have?) and be in jail for stealing from the company that took over his failed oil company but kept him as a mid-level manager cause he knew where his wells were drilled.

His parents money, cronyism, name, whatever you want to call it, are what make us the suffering sheep we are today. Compare him to Clinton, a guy who made it entirely on the amazing quality of his mind, and a work ethic that always pulled it out of the fire instead of, in Junior's case, always screwed it into the ground.
No comparison...

The other thing I wanted to get off in this first post was:

F.I.R.

Filibuster

Impeach

Repeal

FIR has to be the marching plan for the reconstruction of America by, dare I say it, the Democratic party and its elected officials, starting NOW!
Take a goddamned page from the Harridan of Bel-Air, Nancy Reagan, and 'Just Say No!' to everything this Junior Administration an its fellow travelers in Congress propose. Use every trick in the book to stop these clowns, to stand at least for NOT being haters of the American citizen, like these Republicans are.

Here we go...