Bush claims right to wage war on U.S. citizens

Quite a read at The Existentialist Cowboy.

Bush proves himself a "state absolutist", arrogating unto himself the power to wage war on the American people.

The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him.

-Glenn Greenwald: The NSA Fight Begins - Strategies for Moving Forward

So when Bush says that the "Constitution is just a Goddamned piece of paper", he aligns himself with Hitler, Mussolini, Mao -- "state absolutists", fascists, and radical communists. Simply, he has declared war on the American people, our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Democracy and freedom.

The so called "intolerable acts" attributed to King George III pale by comparison.

If we are lucky, Bush is on the wrong side of history and will fail. If we are not lucky, Bush will wage war upon the American people themselves and America will be forever lost if it is not lost already!

Bush is best described as anti-American or fascist by virtue of his partnership with "big oil" and other corporate interests. For Bush sovereignty resides with the state; the people are mere vassals. He represents a tradition more at home in the Teutoburg Forest or the grandiloquent halls of Hitler's Chancellery.

Much, much more at the link. Kinda like 'Philosophy 101' meets 'The Constitution'.

GOP's Chambliss Compares Iraq Troop Rotations To WW II

From Bob Geiger, a Veteran whom we highly respect:

And since coming to the Senate, his tenure has been most notable to the extent that, even in a Congress characterized by Republicans who serve solely as rubber stamps for George W. Bush, he's among the most compliant even by that lot's sorry standards.

So it's no surprise that Chambliss went to the Senate floor this week to argue against Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's bill to mandate more time at home for Iraq combat troops before Bush could sent them right back into battle. What is amazing is the sheer stupidity of what he said.

"It is an unwise and harmful effort to limit the ability of the President and his military leaders and handicap their use of personnel and resources available to them," said Chambliss, in arguing for sending troops back to Iraq with insufficient rest and medical care.

Now, that's just spin and not the really dumb thing -- though one could wonder how anyone could at this point rant about how we should let a proven incompetent like Bush manage a game of Monopoly, much less the U.S. military after the mess he's made of things.

"Keep in mind that during World War II and other wars of this country, service members participating in those wars deployed for 3 and 4 years with little or no break. With this in mind the current proposal by Senator Webb seems out of step with history and what it has taken to win the wars of this country. I can think of no way in which the Webb amendment will help our Nation succeed in Iraq."

Leave it to a Republican desperate to bail out Bush, to compare World War II and the gravity of that global conflict with Bush's war of choice about absolutely nothing.

And I know you're wondering, given that both Webb and his bill's cosponsor, Republican Chuck Hagel, are Vietnam combat Veterans, about the military record of a blood-and-guts guy like good old Saxby.

You guessed it -- he didn't do time in the military. He got a student deferment so he could attend law school and was subsequently given a medical deferment because of a bad knee.

But now, that's really no surprise, is it?

No surprise at all. Like most Repugs, "good old Saxby" is all flaps and no throttle, a lotta hot air and smoke 'n mirrors.

This Repug is particularly repugnant for the way he swiftboated another combat Veteran, Max Cleland, out of his Congressional seat.

Impeachment on Moyers

Last night's Bill Moyers Journal on impeachment of Cheney and Bush did not disappoint. It took up about 45 minutes of the show. Video and transcript. Please take the time to watch it if you missed it.

Sorry but ...

If you have a preoccupation with running down a cobblestone street in the company of animals who weigh 10 times what you do, have big fucking horns, and don't particularly like you, you should have your head examined.

MADRID, Spain—Charging bulls gored seven people and seriously injured several others Thursday as this year's San Fermin festival in Pamplona served up its longest and most dangerous run yet.

...

Happy landings, dope.

Dumbass Americans take note: Spain is a beautiful country with great people. There are a lot of other things to do and see than run with the bulls.

Bastille Day

Time for our own version of the French holiday.

You wanna bomb something?

Fuck Iran, bomb Pakistan:

The new intelligence report showing that al-Qaida is at its strongest since 9/11 does not point an accusatory finger clearly enough at the figure who has made it possible for the terror network to rebuild: President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan - a man touted by the White House as one of the chief U.S. allies in the war on terror.

...

We've given that little twerp close to $6bln since 9/11 and all he's doing is shoving it up our collective ass. Fuck him, blow his ass out the water and leave the Iranians alone.

Addendum:

We shouldn't even bother. We should bribe the Indians to do it. They've had an axe to grind with the Paks for years.

A whore in the hand ...

Another chapter of The Fourth Estate is up at The Practical Press.

Reality bitchslaps Peggy ...

Peggy Noonan puts down the Pernod, opens her eyes, and doesn't like what she sees. The great TRex tries to talk her through it.

[Warning: Don't click on the YouTube unless you want the damn song going around in your head all day.]

Spics and Niggers ...

Remember my post a couple months back, recounting my conversation with a customer?

So, I see a customer I hadn't seen in a couple months. He's ex-Navy, Republican, NRA member, mid-fifties. I've known him 15 years and he's always been a decent enough guy. Yeah, he watches Fox 'News' but he'd always listen to reason. He's really pissed off about the way Iraq was botched and about how it's all gone to Hell over there. So I ask him today, "I bet you're gonna vote Democrat next year."

"Nope," he says. "Republican across the board."

So I gotta ask. "Even after all this horseshit in Iraq?"

"Yup," he nods.

"How come?" I ask.

"Niggers and spics," he replies.

My jaw drops open. "What?"

"Niggers and spics," he says again. "The Republicans don't like 'em and neither do I."

...

And I'm sure many of you said, 'well, that's just one cracker motherfucker, the Republican Party isn't inherently racist'. Guess what? They are:

The one photo the GOP does not want anyone to see was snapped at yesterday's NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum. The NAACP invited all 9 Republican candidates to the forum, but only one showed up: Tom Tancredo. All the Democratic Presidential hopefuls showed up for their forum.

...

Click to embiggen

The American Republican Party, merely a cover for the KKK, Nazis, and any other racist, cracker piece of shit out there. Not only is it a criminal organization, but a racist one at that. Any black person who identifies as Republican should have their head examined. That goes for gay Republicans too. All you're doing is giving the bigots cover.

Great thanks to Nicole for the link.

On Harriet ...

Larisa Alexandrovna:

... Yet the Republican members on the [Judiciary Committee] are willing to hand over their Congressional oversight and even be slapped by the Executive branch publicly, making a sham of their work. That empty chair should have offended everyone, regardless of party. I can only conclude that whatever Miers has to offer is so damning that the GOP fears it more than they do the public outcry that will - and it will - come of this. [my em]

...

I can't wait to see what's in Harriet's airy little head.

"You win, you rule."

Good rant at ePluribusMedia Community.

In President Bush's case, he comes from of a particularly unsavory ultra right-wing Protestant religious influence that combines its influence on controlling his self-destructive personal habits with its claims that God's law supercedes man's laws and that the true believer must be obedient to the former.

The likes of Dick Cheney and others, of course, don't require the religious trappings on this notion. For them, Scalia is sufficient: You win, you rule.

Bush is constantly told that God is working through him. On the road to full Biblical rule, he must act without respect for the Constitution. He must wiretap, he must allow Guantanamo, he must permit Abu Ghraib, he must defend Cheney's refusal to disclose, he must sanction leaks exposing covert CIA operations, he must stack the court system, all this and more with disdain and disregard for the Constitution.

For him, it's not only because he can, but because God is telling him to.

I wish God actually would talk to Bush. Just once. I wish He'd tell him to shut the fuck up and go home.

Quote of the Day, sort of...

By guess who, at SPR

"By outlawing abortion, and keeping sex-ed and condoms out of the schools, we should be able to spawn enough cannon fodder for the next few generations."

Old news - move on

Yahoo!News

President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing.

Yeah, no point in discussing the White House role in the crime now Bush has seen to it that the star witness has no incentive to roll over on him and his, is there?

That weasly little punk sonofabitch. Again. Still. Forever.

Talk of Impeachment

Programming note: Bill Moyers Journal. PBS. Tonight. Check your local listings

Bill Moyers Journal explores the talk of impeachment gaining steam as a new opinion poll says nearly half of Americans favor impeachment of the president and more than half want to impeach the vice president.

.
I think it would be perfectly OK to just impeach a little more than half of Cheney. Just how much to be determined by a machete.

Opposition to American Oil Grab Is Unifying Iraqis

Well, I'm glad something is. The headline pretty much says it all, but there's more from UPI via Truthout.

U.S. President Bush may be right: Iraq's oil law, although highly controversial, could be a "benchmark for reconciliation."

When Iraq's council of ministers last week suddenly approved the law, critics of various stripes united in opposition. Shiite and Sunni political parties alike denounced it, vowed to defeat it, even threatened to ensure Parliament can't take it up. It is seen by some as weakening the central government and giving too much to foreign companies.

The oil law already faced opposition from Iraq oil experts - including two of the law's three original authors - as well as the powerful oil unions. The unions say they're willing to stop production and exports if the law gives foreign oil companies too much access to or ownership of the oil.

Last week the Iraq Freedom Congress - whose motto is "Working for a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the U.S. Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq" - teamed up with the new Anti Oil Law Frontier to rally masses against the law.

All the while a coalition in Iraq grows. It encompasses Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secularists. Its goal is to keep Iraq together. But it also wants an end to the U.S. occupation.

"They are also strongly opposed both to the terrorist forces of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and to the growing influence of Iran in Iraq," Robert Dreyfuss wrote of the opposition in The Nation.

Despite sharing two key tenets of the war on terrorism, the United States isn't supporting the coalition.

Of course not. We're not going to support any coalition, no matter how unifying, that keeps control of Iraq's oil in their own hands and negates the purpose of Bush's War. We don't mind too awful much having to kick down some bread for them to share as long as Big Oil gets most of it.

Quote of the Day

“Don't fear change especially when the status quo is so freaking frightening.”

—Cindy Sheehan writing at AlterNet

Bomb Iran?

Before you get all gung-ho about attacking Iran (and I'm speaking to the war mongering Rethugs that occasionally pass through here), read this insightful post from Brother Lurch:

...

Let’s briefly recap: just about everything in the US runs on the internal combustion engine. People moved into the suburbs to get away from the awful, crowded cities, but many drive 30 to 50 miles a day to work. Unless you work in a major city like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or Philadelphia, you don’t have a truly reliable public transportation system to rely on.

Most of our food is carried by semi-trailers. Are you ready for chicken at $8 or $9 a pound? Lettuce at $7 a head? $7.50 for a gallon of milk?

...

If you like gasoline at $3 a gallon, you’re going to love it at $8 $13 when the oil tankers stop sailing.

...

The oil producing nations have us by the short and curlies. Why do you think the Saudis have the ability to summon the Vice President of the United States to read him the riot act? Kicking them in the nuts right now might not be the best idea of the year.

Off to the shop; TGIF ...

Progress?

One day's headlines from Iraq Today - you decide.

Report: Iraq more violent in June

Iraqis bemoan lack of services in long, hot summer

Have the Tigris and Euphrates Run Dry?

“My mother was killed for not wearing a veil”

Iraqis grapple with high unemployment

Jobs fair aims to reduce unemployment, insurgency

Civilians help with raid on al Qaeda

'Arrowhead' Becomes Fountainhead of Anger

Iraqi lawmaker quits energy panel over oil law

Insurgent Group Condemns Saturday’s Car Bomb

Sunni extremists seize control of village in Iraq

U.S.-Iraqi forces retake village attacked by insurgents northeast of Baghdad

US Blunders Cause of Iraq Violence

US Faced With Iraqi Army Turncoats

US-Iraqi forces struggle to clear and hold Iraq's Diyala province

Explosives found in truck heading from Syria to Iraq

Wars Costing $12 Billion a Month

Audio: A Letter from the Front: A Soldier in Iraq

Dearborn man pleads guilty to spying for Saddam

Sensitive military files readily available online

Opinion: Resolute Amid the Wreckage

Aid agency appeals for help for 1,000 IDPs in desert camp

Number of IDPs tops one million, says Iraqi Red Crescent

U.S. Failing to Help Iraqi Translator and Family Targeted for Execution

Quote of the day: “We are not greedy, we gave up on the hope of living like the rest of the world long ago ... all we want is the luxury of water and a good night sleep.” —Lamia Hasan, a Baghdad mother of three

Second Quote of the day: “I just remember thinking to myself, I just brought terror to someone else under the American flag, and that's just not what I joined the Army to do.” —Sergeant Westphal

Quote of the Day

Aravosis:

America cannot afford to have a blithering idiot running our country in a time of war.

Your party of 'Moral Values'

Not that I care who you sleep with as long as they're a consenting adult, but if you wrap yourself in the cloak of 'morality' (gays are the anti-Christ), maybe you should practice what you preach or shut the fuck up.

Titusville police say they have arrested Florida State Rep. Robert "Bob" Allen, of Merrit Island, on second degree misdemeanor charges for soliciation for prostiution.

...

Officers say they noticed Allen acting suspicious as he went in and out of the men's restroom 3 times. Minutes later, he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20. Officers realized he was a public figure after the arrest.

...

I'm tired of these Rethug hypocrites minding my business and preaching their sanctimonious bullshit. Let me ask you Christians something. Don't you think they are just as hypocritical when interpreting the Message of the Lord? Just sayin'. It's your souls you're worried about. I'm good.

Thanks to Maru for the link.

Update:

Lambert has more from the DC Madam:

... Jeanette says that most of the clients who wanted to be dominated were Republicans. She cracks a smile, then adds, “They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings—Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings—and these are the people who run our country.

...

Like I said, I give a shit what you do behind closed doors, but don't persecute people for practicing the same kinks you do.

Felony

Josh Marshall

Hmmm. A very knowledgeable emailer says it's a felony ...

Invoking a privilege is one thing, but telling a person not to show up in response to a subpoena -- if only to actually invoke the privilege -- is quite another. It's not just worse, it's a felony under federal criminal law. See for yourself.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : ... Whoever corruptly ... influences, obstructs, or impedes ... the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress ... [s]hall be fined under this title, [or] imprisoned not more than 5 years ... or both.

Both. All of 'em.

Note to Congress: This is your big chance to show some sack and get the bastards who think they're above the law. Don't blow it this time.

Just more lies. Ho-Hum...

Cursor

Bob Woodward reports that in a November 2006 meeting, CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Iraq Study Group, "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," and that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around."

Woodward says Hayden listed the main sources of violence in this order: "the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, general anarchy and, lastly, al-Qaeda." On Wednesday, Tony Snow began his press briefing by saying, "the number one enemy in Iraq is al Qaeda," before calling the White House press corps 'defeatists.'

The generals have been told to call al-Qaeda the main enemy, or more properly, to call all the enemies our forces face 'al-Qaeda', so they do. Tony Snow has been told to lie about it, so he does.

Bush Pardons Entire GOP

Mark Morford

Allegedly reacting to some sort of hallucinogenic fever dream following an overlong bubble bath during which he reportedly sputtered lots of motorboat noises and ate one too many purple crayons, President Bush today made the stunning yet somehow entirely understandable announcement that all Republicans in his administration are hereby officially excused from any and all crimes they have committed, are in the process of committing, are planning to commit, or even merely fantasize about committing while encased in sweaty latex bodysuits in any one of a number of GOP-friendly D.C. fetish dungeons.

"DeLay! Gonzales! Abramoff! Rumsfeld! Frist and Scalia and Ashcroft and Rove! Hastert and Duke Cunningham and Dusty Foggo! Ralph Reed! Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and Jeff Gannon! Abu Ghraib instigators! Guantanamo endorsers! WMD believers! FEMA! Plamegate! Terry Schaivo hypocrites! Torturers and influence peddlers and domestic wiretappers, Halliburton bribers and no-bid contractors and dark Carlyle Group overlords!

"Also: Sex education misinformers, global warming deniers, scientist muzzlers, Energy Task Force liars, Iraq Study Group deniers, 9/11 Report ignorers, Medicare scammers, Diebold voting machine swindlers! Bogus Jessica Lynch and Saddam statue and fake Thanksgiving turkey event stagers! And all the rest I can't remember because wow there are just so damn many! Come to me and be not someone's prison bitch despite how you really, really deserve it! I hereby pardon you aaaaaalllll!"

Pelosi then sighed heavily and sipped some organic green tea. "You know what it makes me wish? It makes me wish there some sort of, say, large political body here in Washington, one that was right now controlled by, say, a completely different political party than this awful president," she said wistfully, as the aides glanced at each other furtively and rolled their eyes.

"Wouldn't that be great? And this group would have, say, some sort of legal and political oversight power to step in and stop this sort of thing, to formally rebuke the president and demand some sort of accountability and maybe even launch formal impeachment proceedings? Can you imagine?"

"I like to think it would be some sort of deeply flawed but absolutely essential system of, oh I don't know, checks and balances or something, and it would help ensure that this cretinous mealy mouthed little sonofabitch couldn't get away with stuff like this anymore.

"That would be so cool, wouldn't it? Man, I wish we had something like that here in America. Don't you?"

Don't we just.

Please read the rest.

Late ...

Read

This

This

and

This

See yas later ...

Figures ...

Our pal 42 knows how the Chimp and the Rethugs learned how to govern. They watch sci-fi.

Question of the Day

The Rude One:

...

When do we get to act like a nation of grown-ups where we can say, "You know, I don't give a fuck if my candidate likes to have his nutsack stomped by a cross-dressed male hooker in stiletto heels as long as he supports my issues"? And where those issues can be shit like war and education and health care and not bullshit like who's fucking who and for what reasons?

...

And of course you have to read the Whole. Fucking. Thing. I love that man ...

Doug Marlette

To be honest, I'm not sure I ever heard of the guy, but he died yesterday in a car crash. From Cursor:

Editorial cartoonist and novelist Doug Marlette died in a car crash in northern Mississippi on Tuesday. In a 2003 article in the Columbia Journalism Review, Marlette wrote about the controversy surrounding his "What Would Mohammed Drive?" cartoon.

It's well worth hittin' the links to read about him and see some of his work.

Another good one bites the dust. Adios, amigo.

Uncle Reamus’ Historicals 101

Do yerself a favor and go read Jurassicpork. Liquid alert!

Just as all roads led to imperial Rome, so all wars relate to the War on Terror/Iraq. In the past, George "Uncle Reamus" Bush has compared the glorious occupation of Iraq's oil fields to the Second World War, the Revolutionary War, the Seven Days War, the Hundred Years War, the War of the Roses, the Spanish American War, the Boer War, the Battle of Hastings, the 1975 World Series between the Red Sox and the Reds, the divorce of Donald and Ivana Trump and the time he sat on his brother Jeb's head while they fought over a coquettish, teenaged Harriet Miers.

However, Uncle Reamus' favorite corollary war is the Revolutionary War. In his neverending quest to educate the dark, unwashed masses, our education/war president unites his two vocations and teaches less fortunate children in economically-depressed liberal school districts about war, specifically the startling similarities between our war of independence with the one we gave to formerly independent Iraq.

"I see other similarities between Iraq's war and the Revolutionary War, Mr. President."

"And what might they be?"

"The massacre at Fallujah and the Boston Massacre of 1770 are very similar in that the locals wanted the occupying army out and the soldiers shot and killed some of the locals. In both cases, the massacres helped inspire an insurgency, the colonists eventually getting rid of an insane tyrant named George."

Just go read...

Flames of Hope

Since I'm sort of an unrequited gearhead, I found this very interesting. A good example of applying high-tech thinking to come up with low-tech solutions.

Newsweek

A Berkeley physicist has found a way to help keep Darfurians alive, by building a better kitchen stove.

[...] Gathering firewood can now mean a seven-hour round trip, during which women risk rape and mutilation at the hands of the Janjaweed militias that lurk in wait. (Men can't make the trip in their stead - they'll simply be killed.) A fact-finding visit to the region in late 2005 brought home the problem's urgency to Gadgil. "A huge majority of people were missing at least one meal a week because they did not have fuel to cook with," he says. In a sick Catch-22, many families were selling some of their food in exchange for the wood to cook it with.

Think about that the next time you turn a knob or push a button to cook dinner: what if you had to risk rape, mutilation, and/or death just to give your family a meal? We wouldn't be a nation of obese people, that's for sure.

[...] After returning from Darfur, Gadgil worked with lab colleagues and students at UC Berkeley to modify an existing Indian stove for Darfurians' needs. "Cook stoves, although they look simple, are very complex creatures," he says, "which is why you can't simply sit in Berkeley and say, 'Well, this is the stove for you'." While the Indian stove excelled at producing low-intensity heat for cooking rice, for instance, Darfurians needed a high-powered flame for sautéing onions, garlic and okra, ingredients in their staple dish, mulah. And since most families cook outside, the stove also needed to cope with the region's strong winds.

The result of their efforts is the Berkeley-Darfur stove (darfurstoves.org), a hollow drum that looks like a cross between a lunar landing craft and a stop sign. Designed with a smooth airflow to fuel the fire and an upper rim that fits snugly with different-size pots, the stove requires 75 percent less wood than an open fire, and a wind collar makes for a steady flame. That means fewer risky trips outside the camp. And those who now pay for firewood, Gadgil estimates, could save as much as $200 a year, which could be used instead for luxuries like new clothing and fresh meat.

Luxuries, huh?

Presented with a gleaming prototype that had been made in Berkeley, local craftsmen declared firmly, "There's no way you can build this in Sudan." Tachibana needed to tweak the production method - substituting hand shears for high-pressure water jets, for example - to arrive at a workable, low-tech solution.

I'm glad there are smart people working on projects like this. The Darfurian refugees are up against it from every angle, and every little bit helps.

Being of somewhat simpler mind, I think a good start on those folks' problems would simply be to send 2dMarDiv over there to kill Janjaweed. Oh, they're being wasted uselessly elsewhere, aren't they?

Be scared ... again

What do I always say? If a terror warning comes 'exclusively' through ABC News investigative division, you can bet it's another White House 'scare story'.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat.

...

So, with all the money we spent since 12 September 2001 to 'keep us safer', with all the legislation (Patriot 1, Patriot 2), with all the loss of our civil rights in the name of 'Homeland Security', we are powerless to stop a small group of goat-humping camel drivers?

Please.

Oh, and you know what this 'exclusive' is all about? Well, Ol' Chertoff has a 'gut feeling'. Amato calls it correctly:

...

This is a calculated move to ratchet up the terror in this country to help Republican candidates—PERIOD. They are far behind in raising money and in all the polls. He should be fired, but of course since he’s being instructed to say these things (sounds like a Cheney/Rove play) he won’t be. What a tool ...

Indeed!

Update:

Brother Lurch:

...

Damn! If Mr Bu$h had a 40% approval rating we wouldn’t be going through all this foolishness, and I’d be able to go to sleep without worrying about jihadis lurking under the bed waiting to slit my throat.

Personally, I think the Jihadis under his bed have more to fear from Lurch than vice versa. Heh ...

Update Zwei:

Via pygalgia in comments, go read Sweaterman.

Update Drei:

UL at Maru's:

... We're fightin' them there so we can be scared shitless here.

Update Vier:

Larisa Alexandrovna:

...

Do I think that Ross and AP are involved in a deliberate conspiracy to frighten us? No. But I think they are used to that end by unethical political maestros and because they are so willing to be used, they act as a tool for a political game that involves our lives and national security.

...

Out To Pasture

As ye sow...

Quote of the Day, sort of...

On the connection between defection and his own re-election, Sen. Pete Domenici (Repugtard - N.M.) via SPR:

"When my biggest fundraiser called to ask how soon we're getting out of Iraq, and then hung up on me, I knew it was time to stand up - before I lost my job faster than you can say 'David Iglesias'."

The search for warm bodies

WaPo

The U.S. Army fell short of its active-duty recruiting goal for June by about 15 percent, defense officials said yesterday. It is the second consecutive month the service's enlistment effort has faltered amid the American public's growing discontent over the war in Iraq.

Like, DUH!

Rumor reaches me that they have lowered physical standards once again, too. Now they have a medical corpsman stand on either side of the potential enlistee and examine his ears by peering into them. If they can't see each other, he's in...

Media Putz of the Week

Media Putz, "honoring reporters who just can't handle the truth", presented last week's award to Bill O'Rally of Fixed Noise.

Chris Matthews may have beat out Bill O'Reilly for being the first media whore installed into the BuzzFlash Media Putz Hall of Shame, but the gasbag, lusting loofah man, Bill O'Reilly was just a step behind.

Since there are nearly as many Media Putzes as there are GOP Hypocrites, we are trying to select weekly winners for their most recent acts of media prostitution.

This week, we chose John Christman's nomination of O'Reilly for trying to intimidate a high school student who had done his homework on Bill's intimidating hypocrisy. It all has to do with one of those demagogic distorted FOX faux stories, like its hype last winter that there is a conspiracy to do away with Christmas.

Details of his most recent act of media whoredom follow. They don't have the bandwidth to go back very far, nor do they need to.

Bill O'Reilly, you are indeed a trendsetting Media Putz -- and more than merit being named the second recipient of this dubious BuzzFlash distinction.

Like a high-dollar hooker, you really know how to fake it. (my em)

Every edition of the "Factor," you remind us how easy it is to separate journalism from the truth.

O'Rally's not really a reporter, journalist, or newsman, but he plays one on TV and lots of old 'tards fall for the act, so he more than deserves the award.

Bring 'em home

On Sunday, the NYTimes, maybe the leading newspaper in the country, started catching up with what us great unwashed have been saying for years:

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

Disregarding the fact that is has been time to put an end to this illegal war and occupation since the day it started, I guess when The Gray Lady says it, it's official.

NYT goes on and on, worth a read, but nothing new, just the things we've been saying all along.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened - the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage - with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading.

I think a good first step to 'stop the chaos from spreading' would be to 'rendition' Bush and Cheney to a secret prison somewhere where they can be held without lawyers, habeas corpus, the chance of a trial, or any Constitutional rights. Hey, it seems to be legal these days. Invite all the news services.

The world will cheer us for doing so. Well, except for Bush and Cheney's friends, like al Qaeda and Halliburton.

Update:

Robert Parry weighs in on NYT's editorial:

In an extraordinary full-length editorial, the New York Times has called for an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, a step that some anti-war Americans may praise as a turning-point while others will be left wondering why it took the nation's leading newspaper more than four years – and scores of thousands of dead – to figure this out.

To its credit, the Times does acknowledge that its previous pro-occupation positions – favoring rebuilding what the U.S. invasion had destroyed and worrying about the dire consequences that might result from a U.S. withdrawal – were faulty.

The Times concedes that whatever horrors might follow the end of the U.S. military occupation, they are not likely to be avoided by an indefinite continuation; that it is time to admit that a grotesque mistake in U.S. national security policy was made in 2003 and readjust strategy to make the best of it.

There's more.

Indeed

We have a right to be fed up with the cost of this war says Digby:

...

Americans have every right to be sick of this war, for all the reasons we discuss here and all over the country every day. But they have a right to be appalled that we are throwing this gigantic sum of money into that sinkhole too, even as we see Americans dying from .... sinkholes, and all kinds of neglected infrastructure, bad health care, environmental degradation, tainted food supply, natural disasters and a host of other ills that only the government can deal with --- and isn't. Now they are about to start with their tired mantra of "tax and spend," and insist on cutting even more necessary programs after they've run up a trillion dollar debt for an unnecessary war and enriched their defense contractor owners beyond their wildest dreams.

...

Exactly right. This war has turned out to be the Contractor Welfare Program. You know, around here we don't have much of a problem spending money for the troops' needs, better armor, better benefits, better VA care, but when that money goes directly to contractors, whose stock price has gone through the roof, and the troops are left vulnerable, we got a big fucking problem. This is a war for nothing and all we're doing is throwing good money after bad, and our troops are paying the price.

Dems take heed: Not another dime for this war! Defund and bring 'em home now.

Why is it ...

That when there's a DC sex scandal, the Party of Moral Values is always involved. Maybe you guys should look at yourselves before judging others. Remember, people who live in glass houses shouldn't get stoned.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Construction of Baghdad Embassy Plagued With Problems, Delays
State Dept. blames unanticipated number of workplace injuries.

Generals Warn Against Islamists in Turkey
Cite catastrophe of religious rule in Iran, U.S.

Army Hiring More Psychiatrists
But there's a shortage of armored couches.

MLB Licenses Logos For Caskets, Urns
Also catching on: tailgate funerals.

American Wins Hot Dog Eating Title
Restores pride in country that has suffered so many recent setbacks.

La Cosa Busha

Joe Galloway

Why is it that the Bush administration, in its dying throes, looks remarkably more like an organized crime ring than one of the arms of the American government? A poorly organized and run crime ring, truly, but a crime ring nonetheless.

How can it be that this man from Texas presides over a White House that shelters and provides cover for men like Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who clearly believe that the laws of our country are only meant to be imposed on lesser beings, the man in the street?

Where is it written in either the federal statutes or the Constitution of the United States that our laws against criminal acts apply to everyone but nice, meek, small-statured Republican political operatives who have a wonderful wife and children? Our prisons are full of nice, meek white-collar criminals who cheated a bit on their taxes or back-dated their bountiful option awards or raped and looted the coffers of corporations and beggared the poor fools who trusted them and bought stock in their criminal enterprises.

Instead of firing federal prosecutors who didn't go after illegal immigrants and voter registration fraud like pit bulls, why isn't our president demanding the dismissal of prosecutors and appointed regulators who turn a blind eye while the National Treasury is looted of billions by big corporations whose bosses write very large checks to Republican candidates?

What we have here, at the very heart of our own government, is a morass of criminal behavior unlike anything seen in recent American history.

On his way out the door, whether sooner or later, George W. Bush had better sign one last pardon - to himself - for all the damage and destruction he has wrought on a nation that expected far better.

Oh, I'm sure he will. Today would be fine.

General warns of Iraqi 'Tet'

NY Daily News

Sunni extremists may carry out high-profile attacks ahead of a September report to Congress on progress in Iraq, the top U.S. commander warned yesterday - recalling the Tet offensive that torpedoed support for the Vietnam War.

I've predicted the same thing elsewhere in the Brain, and no, I'm not going to go look it up, and I've never even been to West Point or commanded armies.

It wouldn't have to be country-wide like the Tet Offensive either. All the insurgents/al Qaeda/Sunnis/locals have to do is emulate the Battle of Hue in the Green Zone.

Bush's Real Fourth of July Message to Nation: Unprintable

Elizabeth de la Vega on Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Libby's 'get out of jail free' deal.

Knowing I could not listen to President Bush's actual voice on what is supposed to be a fun holiday, I turned to the White House web site to find his Fourth of July greeting. We continue to be, the president assures us, steadfastly committed to "America's founding truths" - including, of course, liberty and equality. I think it was the word "equality" that caused me to start choking on my corn on the cob.

Maybe there was some mistake. This web site posting did not even come close to reflecting the president's real Fourth of July message to the nation. That had been quite effectively delivered earlier in the week when Bush announced he was commuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence from thirty months to zero months. Apparently confusing his duties as president of the United States with those of a behind-the-plate umpire, President Bush called Libby's sentence "excessive" and threw the prison time out, as casually as if he were calling balls and strikes in a game of sandlot baseball. In so doing, President Bush sent a message to the American people that is as unambiguous as it is unprintable. Expressed verbally, the real message Bush was sending to the people of the United States could have been sent with just two words (the second of which is "you"); expressed physically, Bush's underlying message could have been conveyed with just one finger.

We're not as genteel as Ms. de la Vega: The Chimp's message to all of us was "Fuck you". Just like it's always been.

But, up until July 2, 2007, when he decided to take the law into his own hands, President Bush loved the sentencing guidelines. Bush and the Republicans have, for years, been insisting that the guidelines be applied rigidly - the president was simply not going to have any of this unseemly leniency that was beginning to infect the federal system under his watch. Indeed, in 2003, during the very same period that Bush, Cheney, Libby and the gang were scrambling to squelch the ever-increasing revelations about the president's fraudulent case for war, Bush's Justice Department, then under the leadership of John Ashcroft - and a posse of conservative Republican members of Congress - decided to take on these wimpy judges and make sure that neither they, nor any equally wimpy prosecutors, could exercise any discretion whatsoever with regard to sentencing. Tom DeLay told judges, "We are watching you" and the Bush administration tacked onto a child pornography law an amendment that required every downward departure from the guidelines to be reported to Congress.

Scooter Libby was sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines, to which President Bush has been insisting that prosecutors and judges slavishly adhere ever since he arrived in the White House. The sentencing range required by case law that Bush's own DoJ attorneys have routinely argued for, in cases throughout the country, was 30 to 37 months. Judge Reggie Walton gave Libby the lowest sentence within that range. Legally, the only way the judge could impose a sentence less than 30 months would have been if he had granted Libby's motion for downward departure. Libby had not provided substantial assistance to the government. Therefore, under the rules currently in effect within Bush's Justice Department, Libby had no legitimate ground for downward departure, and Patrick Fitzgerald was required to oppose his motion. If Judge Walton had actually departed downward based on any of these unapproved grounds, Fitzgerald would have been required, per the United States Attorneys' Manual, to report the downward departure so that issue could be evaluated for appeal.

The bottom line is that Bush's commitment to equality, the rule of law and uniform sentencing under the federal guidelines fizzled like a Fourth of July sparkler when it came to his friend.

In other words, well-knowing, despite his repeated assurances to the contrary, that he would never respect any adverse outcome of the criminal case against his and Vice President Cheney's top adviser and friend, the president simply and cravenly waited to reveal his true intentions to the American people until he could wait no longer, all the while hiding behind that very same criminal case.

This extended course of deception does not end the story: The statement Bush made when he emerged briefly from his Kennebunkport estate to issue a reprieve for the wealthy and powerful criminal defendant who happened to be his friend, was, of itself, a multilayered fraud. In his July 2 message, Bush, suddenly Solomon-like, attempted to convince the public that the matter he had been avoiding for four years on the ground that it was a pending legal case is, in fact, nothing more than a political dispute to be resolved through compromise. Clemency, Bush would now have us believe, is a decision to be made by weighing the arguments of "critics" and "supporters" of the investigation as if a pending criminal case could be decided by referendum, or maybe a call-in vote, the way we choose the American Idol. Working from this deliberately false premise, the president then purports to "weigh," as if they were equivalent, the arguments of Libby's defense team, which had already been rejected by Judge Walton and found insubstantial by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, against the actual facts and law of the case.

From the beginning, with regard to the CIA leak investigation, the president has deceived the American people and abused his power in a manner and to a degree that would be awe-inspiring if it were not so disgraceful. His conduct has been a study in perfidy and disregard for the law - the willful betrayal of the confidence and trust of the American people. These are the very definition of impeachable offenses. It is not enough for Congress to ask the public to send petitions and call the White House to "send a message" that the president's conduct will not be tolerated. It is up to Congress to deliver that message, and they know exactly what they have to do.

I think the world of Ms. de la Vega, but boy is she long-winded! There's still more to read.

I think to Bush and his Repugs, 'equality' = IOKIYAR.

Quote of the Day

Just too good. Stole Maru's whole post:

Gah! Ahhh! Ahhhhhh!!
What.. the... fuck??? I don't know whether to LMFAO or go out and strangle some goats --

Awol McGameBoy, in his weekly radio address to the faithful: "Democrats have a chance to prove they are for open and transparent government..."

Wow. I'm f*cking speechless. Reality really needs to bitchslap this poor miserable little fuckwit in the head, hard. Holy shit.

Balls ...

Big uns. This is why I like Conyers. Too bad what he's got ain't contagious:

... We’re hoping that as the cries for the removal of both Cheney and Bush now reach 46 percent and 58 percent, respectively, for impeachment that we could begin to become a little bit more cooperative, if not amicable, in trying to get to the truth of these matters ...

Transcipt and video at C & L, of course.

A Profile in Cowardice

Daddy Frank rips the Chimp for the coward and weakling he is. Today's 'must read'.

THERE was never any question that President Bush would grant amnesty to Scooter Libby, the man who knows too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq. The only questions were when, and how, Mr. Bush would buy Mr. Libby's silence. Now we have the answers, and they're at least as incriminating as the act itself. They reveal the continued ferocity of a White House cover-up and expose the true character of a commander in chief whose tough-guy shtick can no longer camouflage his fundamental cowardice.

[...] He had to throw a bone to the last grumpy old white guys watching Bill O'Reilly in a bunker.

The only people clamoring for Mr. Libby's freedom were the pundits who still believe that Saddam secured uranium in Africa and who still hope that any exoneration of Mr. Libby might make them look less like dupes for aiding and abetting the hyped case for war. That select group is not the Republican base so much as a roster of the past, present and future holders of quasi-academic titles at neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.

What this crowd never understood is that Mr. Bush's highest priority is always to protect himself. So he stiffed them too. Had the president wanted to placate the Weekly Standard crowd, he would have given Mr. Libby a full pardon. That he served up a commutation instead is revealing of just how worried the president is about the beans Mr. Libby could spill about his and Dick Cheney's use of prewar intelligence.

No one can stop Mr. Bush from freeing a pathetic little fall guy like Scooter Libby. But only those who paid the ultimate price for the avoidable bungling of Iraq have the moral authority to pardon Mr. Bush.

Do not miss the rest. That's our Pop!

Now we're off to the Truckee Lions' Pancake Breakfast and thence to see the rest of the 17th Annual Cannibal Cruise at Truckee River Regional Park. We could hear Papa Clutch and the Shifters playing at last night's street dance downtown just fine from our house, thank you.

Come home America

A beautiful post from Liberty at Corrente:

...

It is time America to come home. Home to the words which we written on parchment, printed on paper, but engraved on hearts and minds, with stylus of firearms, and ink mixed of blood and gunpowder: “when it becomes destructive to these ends… to alter or abolish it.”

Look at the man who wields the seal of 13 arrows and 13 stars, of 13 leaves and 13 olives, of 13 stripes and countless hopes and dreams. Ask yourself a single question: is he worthy of placing your sons lives in his hands? Hands that have signed so many laws unjust, unwise and unAmerican. Hands which have rubber stamped commands from other unelected. Ask yourself if his words are to be trusted, coming from the same mouth that has spat out so many of us on to the ground.

...

It's not that difficult ...

Truthfully, I thought it would be much more difficult. For me, a hotrodder and engine builder who has a reputation for building high-horsepower, gas guzzling performance cars, I likened getting 'green' with trying to quit smoking. Being I haven't quit smoking yet, changing my outlook and getting with the 'low-carbon' lifestyle was relatively easy.

Mrs. F and I are making a committed effort and you should too. I give a damn if you sign the pledge, but look at the guidelines and you'll find enough you can do to help the situation.

1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral;”

3.To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;

4.To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5.To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6.To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,

7.To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

We've changed most of the incandescent bulbs in the house to fluorescent (yes, you can see the difference in your electric bill) and will be getting rid of the V-8 Explorer for a vehicle with better gas mileage when the Mrs.' lease is up this fall. We've got a big problem in this world and if a stubborn old fart like me can change his habits, so can you. Let's get with it.

Thanks to Pach @ FDL for the Live Earth link.