Defiance and delusion

Man, do I ever love The Guardian! Unlimited, indeed!

George Bush's announcement last night that he is going to pour more troops into Iraq was the last throw of the dice in a misconceived enterprise that has dragged his country, this country and the Middle East into a nightmare. [...]

The sorta strange part is that Bush himself gaffed the bones to only roll snake-eyes and yet he's got our ass ridin' on the pass line like they're gonna miraculously natural up. What an idiot.

In opting for a troop surge, Mr Bush has ignored the message of the mid-term elections, the Iraq Study Group, Congress, his own top generals and most world opinion. US generals have difficulty enough maintaining current levels of combat-ready troops and are not convinced that more troops will make any difference. Rather than listen to them, Mr Bush has turned to the right, to those who argue that honour and the America's national interests require fighting on. One senses that "honour" is the more important of the two.

What Bush and the wingnuts know about 'honour' would fit in a gnat's ass.

Back at home, the president is almost alone. Only senator John McCain, the leading Republican candidate to replace Mr Bush, and Joe Lieberman, on the right of the Democrats, support his plan. Queuing up to oppose him, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and senator Edward Kennedy have all said that they intend to hold symbolic votes on the plan. They cannot overrule a decision by the commander-in-chief, but they can isolate him. There could be as many as 10 Republican defections in the Senate. The Democrats have turned up the volume of their moral outrage, presumably because they think Mr Bush will not be able to hold the line with the latest announcement. In most people's minds, the argument for withdrawal, however gradual, has already been won. The only issue that remains is how quickly it happens.

I think the presidential candidate that promises to end it during his inauguration speech will have a good shot at the White House.

The Real Disaster

NYTimes

President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.

Americans needed to hear a clear plan to extricate United States troops from the disaster that Mr. Bush created. What they got was more gauzy talk of victory in the war on terrorism and of creating a "young democracy" in Iraq. In other words, a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one.

Mr. Bush did acknowledge that some of his previous tactics had failed. But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq. He described the failure of last year's effort to pacify Baghdad as if the White House and the Pentagon bore no responsibility.

In any case, Mr. Bush's excuses were tragically inadequate. The nation needs an eyes-wide-open recognition that the only goal left is to get the U.S. military out of this civil war in a way that could minimize the slaughter of Iraqis and reduce the chances that the chaos Mr. Bush unleashed will engulf Iraq's neighbors.

What it certainly did not need were more of Mr. Bush's open-ended threats to Iran and Syria.

We have argued that the United States has a moral obligation to stay in Iraq as long as there is a chance to mitigate the damage that a quick withdrawal might cause. We have called for an effort to secure Baghdad, but as part of the sort of comprehensive political solution utterly lacking in Mr. Bush's speech. This war has reached the point that merely prolonging it could make a bad ending even worse. Without a real plan to bring it to a close, there is no point in talking about jobs programs and military offensives. There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq.

We are not going to get out of the dishonorable mess Bush has caused us to be in by thinking we can let the same man who started it try to end it using the same mindset that started it. He doesn't want to end it as long as he thinks he can salvage his "legacy".

Whether or not he gets to try to widen his war to Syria and Iran, whether or not his friends continue to reap vast wealth by stealing Iraq's riches and our tax money, no matter the eventual disastrous outcome of the whole deal, Bush's legacy is set in stone: like an ignorant, petulant little kid, he lit a fuse that may yet reach the powder keg that will blow up half the world. The results aren't all in yet, won't be for years, but Bush did it.

Anyone who thinks we are going to "win" anything, or "succeed" in this vast criminal endeavor is drinking his bathwater. It is lost. It has failed. There has never been and will never be any other possible outcome. The decision to invade Iraq, which was no threat to us, was immoral to begin with and handled in the most incompetent way it possibly could have been. Garbage in, garbage out.

It's what we get, deserve even, for allowing this human garbage to be installed in the White House. The one lesson we may have learned from Bush's poisonous reign is that we need to watch like a hawk lest some future insane idealogues ever try to hijack our country again.

We have one thing in common with Iraq: we've both been screwed by Bush and the neocons. Those are the enemies we need to deal with here at home. Iraq must do what Iraq must do. We need to be out of it.

Our troops will continue to die and be maimed for life mentally and physically, and even more families will suffer, all in vain, all for this bully's ego, until someone physically removes this horrid little man from the position of power that allowed and continues to allow him to perpetrate his madness.

"Surge"

So, fortunately I didn't catch the Chimp's speech before I went to bed. Caught the lowlights when I woke up. 20,000 more for the meat grinder is the bottom line.

Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy is delusional. Good officers, men who've led others in combat, men who've been educated in the art of war and baptized under fire have told him that "several hundred thousand" would be required to secure Iraq after we invaded. (See: Shinseki, Eric General)

If several hundred thousand were required to keep Iraq from decending into the mess we're in now, it will take far more than that to dig us out from it now. 20,000 troops are a drop in the bucket; the best we can hope for are short-term successes in certain neighborhoods, but one Friedman Unit from now, we'll all be asking what this 'surge' actually accomplished.

It will accomplish a few things. It will extend tours for troops already on extended tours. It will draw more National Guard and Reserve units into the war, thus degrading our response time to emergencies over here that much more. It will probably break our Army and Marine Corps. It will hinder or destroy our military's ability to respond to another crisis somewhere else in the world. It will affect recruiting efforts, already has. And it will further marginalize us in the international community.

And the bodies will continue to come home as will the wounded. This 'surge' tells us all there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel except for an oncoming train. We will continue to sacrifice our young and our money on the altar of George Bush's legacy, one that is irreparably tarnished and dented. Last night, George Bush said he cares nothing for your children's lives, your hard-earned money, or your security.

He does not care if our soldiers live or die, for he will never know what the families of the dead go through when a plain Ford Crown Victoria pulls up in front of the house and two officers step out, one of them a chaplain. He will never know what they go through as they have to break the news to the next of kin. He will not know what the honor guard commander goes through when he has to present the folded American flag to a grieving widow, mother, or child, nor what the person who is grieving goes through when the rifle team renders a 21-gun salute, when the bugler plays Taps, when the coffin is lowered into the ground.

He will never know that because his daughters are safe and he avoided combat during wartime. George Bush must pay for this and the rest of his sins. He must not be allowed to avoid responsibility, as he has done throughout his life, for cavalierly squandering American lives and treasure. I want him out and will not be satisfied with a Nixonian departure, no ride off into the Texas sunset. I want to see his psychotic ass in a prison jumpsuit.

On Bush's Speech

First of all, it ties my stomach in knots and makes me cuss out loud to watch that sonofabitch lie to us, so I didn't watch his act. I did, however, listen to the gasbags dissect what he said. Here is my conclusion:

He has changed his Iraq strategy - he came out with a whole new set of delusions and admitted the old ones didn't work.

Damn, I'll be glad when this Iraq clusterfuck is over enough that our troops are out of harm's way. Then we can go after that miserable little prick for lying us into this mess in the first place. And the horse he rode in on.

A little math...

From Counterpunch:

Passing the grim marker of 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq briefly focused Americans' attention on the war. But we live in a big country with lots of malls.

But what if our fellow citizens were killed and wounded at the same rate as people in Iraq? Here's the math.

Last fall the British medical journal "Lancet" published a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of Iraqis dead "as a consequence of the war" was about 2.5 percent of that country's population, or roughly 655,000 people. Over 90% of those died from violence.

Comparable casualty rates in our country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia would be dead. Every. Single. Person.

And we are just now getting serious about cutting off money for this war?

Besides that unimaginable death toll, every person in Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Colorado would be wounded. Every. Single. Person.

Would that be the point we stopped politely asking our Congress members to please end the war, and began taking over their offices in every state in the union?

Go read. They're planning to.

Little Mosque On The Prairie

There's a lotta TV news today. This one's from Canuckistan. BBC News:

I'm with a group of surprised camels, a 300lb chicken shwarma and a bemused comedy writer in a wintry, wet Toronto square.

We're here for the launch of CBC's new sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, which depicts a Muslim community trying to assimilate in a small prairie town.

That leaves me speechless. I gotta call my cable company and see if they can get CBC. I hope this show is as funny as Will and Grace!

Go see the reaction from some Canadian Muslims.

Maybe some American TV hotshot will do a spinoff about U.S. fundies trying to assimilate in L.A. Better yet, Frisco. Nah. Never happen. First, they ain't funny, and second, there'd be Hell to pay. They take themselves too seriously, but it'd be a hoot for the rest of us to poke fun at 'em.

Reality TV?

I hope so. From the Yorkshire Post:

Set in 2010, The Trial Of Tony Blair, starring Robert Lindsay, sees the former premier plagued by nightmares about the war and fears that he will be killed by a suicide bomber.

Viewers of the More4 drama will also see Mr Blair convert to Catholicism to seek forgiveness for his sins.

Yesterday Lindsay, who also starred as the Prime Minister in the drama A Very Social Secretary, said he took the role because he was angry over the Iraq war.He said: "I still think it's an illegal war and has been a huge mistake and it's not going to get any better."

In the drama, which is to be broadcast on Monday, George Bush is in rehabilitation after being discovered comatose at his ranch.

Oh, tish poo! I'm sure the Secret Service is used to that!

A fleshed-out review appears at This is London.

The least worst choice

Sally Quinn on growing up as an army brat during the Korean War and how it affected her as a child. Worth a read.

Here's the money line about the upcoming escalation in Iraq:

We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.

The problem with the least immoral choice is that the choice will be made by the most immoral president in our history.

Vote Vets

Brother D has the details:

...

Please take a moment to read two very important pieces on this issue, describing why an escalation of the war is potentially very dangerous. First, this piece by VoteVets.org advisory board member, former General Wesley Clark. General Clark clearly lays out all the reasons why the president's escalation won't help secure Iraq and transition the US out. Second, please read this piece that I penned on why the proposed boost, along with other changes in Iraq, could signal the intention to launch an attack on Iran, and further destabilize the region, threatening US security.

...

Reality check ...

While we've all been ecastatic over the Dem victory in November, it's time for a dose of reality. Paradox over at Steve Soto's place has a well thought out scenario of what's probably gonna happen as we move forward:

...

Assuming the Democrats got 51 votes for a bill to stop the war (one hell of an assumption), are there 16 Senate Republican votes to override the veto? Dream on. Assuming there is, what happens when Bush flatly orders the Army and Marines to stay in the war anyway even if there isn't any money? As CIC he can make them do that. What would the Joint Chiefs do then?

Congress isn't going to stop the war with bills that cut off funding, just forget it, it's naive and counter-productive to espouse they can. The Democrats are not capable of it, period, the Republicans will not go along and already a very hostile media environment is framing the election as one that "...reflected a desire among the American people for the congress to stop fighting and work together." Yes, that's our American "journalism" corps, such shining warriors of Truth.

...

Good points (and more in the rest of the post), though not what most of us want to hear. That said, we can do something the Rethugs probably can't; work within the existing reality to affect change. The idea is to keep on the Dems' ass to do the right thing, and those of us with Rethug reps should hound 'em, reminding them they will have to face reelection sooner or later.

They write themselves ...

This is why today's "Quote of the Day" post is so apt. These idiots are ruining irony, satire, and political cartoons.

Tip o' the Brain to Digby.

Good luck!!!

Our esteemed colleague, mother figure, and conscience here at the Brain, the Angry Old Broad, is going to be waterboarded at Guantanamo, being rendered to a secret CIA prison camp in the Balkans, going to have oral surgery tomorrow. We wish her well and a speedy recovery. Good luck, AOB!

Quote of the Day

Gordon in comments on my post this morning:

Besides ruining irony and satire, these bastards are making cartoons not funny as well.

Gimmie an 'O' ...

Or, how the Chimp measures 'victory' in Eye Rack:

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972. [my ems]

...

Mission Accomplished.

Thanks to the lovely Pam Spaulding for the link.

Redirection

Fixer, in his infinite and no doubt painfully acquired wisdom, had the foresight to set up a backup blog to cover a Blogger transition. Transition or not, Blogger was down big time this morning, but the backup was there!

As every military person knows, you should always have a 'tactical' and a 'running spare' of just about anything. In some circles, that is called 'one to shit on and one to cover it up with', but the outcome is the same.

To see my today-so-far posts, please make the painless trip to HQ. You'll be glad you did. Or not. Go.

Bottom line

Glenn Greenwald:

...

But the current situation is completely different. Even according to the war's remaining advocates -- particularly those who want to escalate in Iraq -- there is a serious and harmful shortage of willing volunteers to fight in Iraq and to enable a more aggressive application of U.S. military force generally. So we do now have a situation where those who are cheering on more war and escalation really are needed not at the computer screen but on the battlefield, in combat. And their refusal to fight is actually impeding the plans of those on whom the President is relying for "Victory."

...

This surge in Iraq is gonna be a fizzle. They can't scare up enough troops, according to Greenwald 9000 is about it, and less and less of America's youngsters (the Yellow Elephants sure ain't going) are willing to sacrifice their bodies and minds, maybe even their souls, for a lost cause.

Time to leave, one way or another.

Iceberg and Meat Grinder

Montag has some good 'toons.

Like the high tide ...

Digby looks at the hypocrisy of the Rethugs' whining. I just pray the American people (whom I have little faith in after they gave us the past 6 years of Bush and the Rubber Stamp Congress) will see these assholes as spoiled, whiny ass babies:

...

This has been going on almost as long as I can remember, from Nixon's crimes to Reagan/Bush and the Savings and Loan scandals and Iran Contra and now Bush Jr and well... everything. Every time they did it, the establishment watched these people rape the nation and then got all misty eyed for civility and healing and forced the Democrats to not only clean up the mess, but take unbelievable abuse while they did it. This has got to stop.

...

I wonder how successful the Republicans would be in '08 if right at this minute, instead of playing all these bullshit political games with everything, actually did work in a bipartisan manner with Dems? As I said, I have little faith in the public, but I'm hoping the majority will see this for what it is; gamesmanship and the health of the nation be damned.

...

Update: Jesus H. Christ. You just can't win with these people. John Boehner asks the Democrats to let him go to the Ohio State game today along with a bunch of other politicians and in the spirit of comity, the Democrats said yes. Now they are being slammed for being hypocrites because they have gone back on their pledge to work five days a week. Had they said no to Boehner, they would have been slammed for not allowing him to cheer on his team in the big game.

...

Quote of the Day

Shakes on McCain:

...

Either way, the contemptible old duffer needs to shuffle his pathetic ass off to a much-needed retirement in Arizona, where he can sit on the patio of his semi-detached independent senior living cottage all day writing Memoirs of Bush's Geisha, and where a sun-baked brain can serve as an excuse for any further such wanton idiocy.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

BUSH WILL SEND 20,000 IMPERIAL TROOPERS TO IRAQ
Surge represents first stage of Operation Empire Strikes Back.

Given They Knew Then What They Know Now, 57 Senators Wouldn't Have Voted for War
Given they know now what they'll know 12 months from now, 100 wouldn't have voted for it.

Oil Companies Express Alarm, Concern About Global Warming
Following precipitous drop in demand for home heating oil.

Administration Suggests Polar Bears Be Added to Endangered Species List
If executive branch is granted immunity from all prosecution.

Democrats Outline Bold Agenda

Go see the chart at the bottom of page two.

Skimming the gene pool

Something I look forward to every year; this year's Darwin Awards are out.

We Have a Sociopath as President

Like, DUH! A BuzzFlash interview with Justin A. Frank MD, author of "Bush on the Couch":

I think what he does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn't matter whether it's actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he'd have to defy. -- Justin A. Frank, M.D.

A sociopath is someone (to grossly generalize) who exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others. In fact, a sociopath may take hidden pleasure in being able to cause emotional distress, suffering, and even death to others, while -- on a day to day basis -- appearing as Mr. Affability.

That, you might say, fits Bush to a "T." And that, you might say, is why he is willing to have everyone sacrifice for his own sociopathological "goals" (as unarticulated as they may be to even Bush) except for himself, his family, and friends.

We have a sociopath who has his hands on the steering wheel of America -- and that is a very dangerous thing indeed.

That's just part of the lead-in. Interview follows.

BuzzFlash: But he was quoted as saying, even if everyone is against him except Laura and his dog, he would continue. It struck me that almost everything he does seems to be distilled to this statement -- which is: I can't be wrong.

Justin A. Frank, M.D.: Right. He is being consistent. He is essentially saying that he can't be wrong and he is not ever going to be proven wrong. What seems like dithering or failure to react to the Baker Commission, is much more of a direct reaction, which is a way of ignoring it completely. He is very honest when he says I'm not going to change. He said that to Tim Russert in 2004. He also said that a couple of months ago, that if everybody in the world disagreed with him, he would sort of stay with Laura and his dog, and that that would be that. He is not going to change.

In his Wednesday press conference, he started talking about bipartisan behavior, but he tried to reshape what seemed to me to be a voter mandate about getting out of Iraq, or changing course, into a message supporting his own needs, and he's always done that.

It comes down to his psychic survival. It's the fear of being wrong. It's the fear of shame and humiliation at needing other people. It's a fear of dependency, like we were talking about earlier about the antipathy towards psychoanalysis. He is determined to never be wrong, and to never make a mistake, because shame is a terrible thing for him.

Well, that's just too goddam bad. The collapse of the United States will be a terrible thing for the rest of us, but since Bush can't make a mistake, I guess it'll be our own goddam fault.

Don't worry. He'll blame everyone, anyone, but himself.

It'll be the fault in part of the teeny-brained majority that actually sort of elected him in 2004. You're going to sow what you reaped.

And so will the rest of us. Thanks again, assholes.

I know crazy people. There's nothing wrong with being crazy, but when you combine crazy with evilness and stubbornness and a parallel universe in the most powerful office in the world, no good is going to come of it, as we are seeing.

Beach Impeach

From the Beach Impeach Project

January 6, 2007 -- Over 1000 people gathered in Nancy Pelosi's district, on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, to spell out the message "IMPEACH!" "America is a great country," said event organizer Brad Newsham, a local cab driver and author. "But President Bush has betrayed our faith. He mislead us into a disastrous war, and is trampling on our Constitution. He has to go. Now. I hope Nancy Pelosi is listening today."

I hope so too, Mr. Newsham.

The Timely Death of Gerald Ford

Frank Rich on Gerald Ford, Vietnam, Saddam's Big Drop, and Bush's escalation in Iraq:

The very strange and very long Gerald Ford funeral marathon was about many things, but Gerald Ford wasn't always paramount among them.

What the Ford obsequies were most about was the Beltway establishment's grim verdict on George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. Every Ford attribute, big and small, was trotted out by Washington eulogists with a wink, as an implicit rebuke of the White House's current occupant. Mr. Ford was a healer, not a partisan divider. He was an all-American football star, not a cheerleader. He didn't fritter away time on pranks at his college fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, because he had to work his way through school as a dishwasher. He was in the top third of his class at Yale Law. He fought his way into dangerous combat service during World War II rather than accept his cushy original posting. He was pals with reporters and Democrats. He encouraged dissent in his inner circle. He had no enemies, no ego, no agenda, no ideology, no concern for his image. He described himself as "a Ford, not a Lincoln," rather than likening himself to, say, Truman.

Under the guise of not speaking ill of a dead president, the bevy of bloviators so relentlessly trashed the living incumbent that it bordered on farce. No wonder President Bush, who once hustled from Crawford to Washington to sign a bill interfering in Terri Schiavo's medical treatment, remained at his ranch last weekend rather than join Betty Ford and Dick Cheney for the state ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.

It's against the backdrop of both the Hussein video and the Ford presidency that we must examine the prospect of that much-previewed "surge" in Iraq - a surge, by the way, that the press should start calling by its rightful name, escalation. As Mr. Ford had it, America cannot regain its pride by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned and, for that matter, as far as Iraq is concerned. By large margins, the citizens of both countries want us not to escalate but to start disengaging. So do America's top military commanders, who are now being cast aside just as Gen. Eric Shinseki was when he dared assert before the invasion that securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops.

The "surge," then, is a sham. It is not meant to achieve that undefined "victory" Mr. Bush keeps talking about but to serve his own political spin. His real mission is to float the "we're not winning, we're not losing" status quo until Jan. 20, 2009. After that, as Joseph Biden put it last week, a new president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof." This is nothing but a replay of the cynical Nixon-Kissinger "decent interval" exit strategy concocted to pass the political buck (to Mr. Ford, as it happened) on Vietnam.

As the White House tries to sell this flimflam, picture fresh American troops being tossed into Baghdad's caldron to work alongside the Maliki-Sadr Shiite lynch mob that presided over the Saddam hanging. Contemplate as well Gerald Ford's most famous words, spoken as he assumed the presidency after the Nixon resignation: "Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

This time the people do not rule. Two months after Americans spoke decisively on Election Day, the president is determined to overrule them. Our long national nightmare in Iraq, far from being over, is about to get a second wind.

Daddy Frank is usually right. This time, I hope he's wrong, but I fear he's not.

I don't get it

And before you tell me that I'll never get it because I don't have kids, what's with these Quiverfull people? I have a lot of friends and relatives with kids, and I know how much shit costs for them, and the replacement rate when they grow out of their clothes every few months, not counting doctor visits, education, let alone feeding 'em. So I ask the question, what the fuck do you have fifty million of 'em for?

If there is a grandmother to this movement, it's Nancy Campbell. Her magazine has been advocating this lifestyle for decades. Campbell explained why followers even have a problem with natural family planning or the "rhythm method."

"When we really stop and think about it, it's not natural," she said. "We have to go against the way that God designed our bodies. He designed them to be fruitful, so if a couple [doesn't] want to have children?they've got to do something to their body so it doesn't work the way God planned it."

What about simply not having sex?

"What married couple is not going to do that?" Campbell asked.

I mean, aside from the fact of the screaming and bodily fluids abounding, how much money do you have to make to support a house full o' kids? I mean, were we of the child-producing mind, I figure Mrs. F and I could afford to have two and still give them the stuff they needed. We both make decent money and two would be the limit, the point where we would have to begin shortchanging them on the things that really mattered; education, nutrition, health care.

Are these people independently wealthy? I doubt all of them are. So tell me, what are these kids in huge families missing out on? I know, if children are loved it shouldn't matter how much money is available, and I agree. But this isn't 1906. It's 2006, and you can't grow food to support yourselves in your backyard. Most people can't build their own house, or work on their own cars. There are expenses that can't be avoided in this day and age.

What if these folks fall into the category of the 46 million who don't have health insurance? I'm sure it's real difficult to look into your sick kid's eyes and tell him you can't afford to take him to the doctor.

And what about other stuff? My parents took two weeks vacation in the summer every year, the years I wasn't in Germany. One week would be spent in the Catskills, the other would be spent taking me to places that would be educational. Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, Howe Caverns in Upstate New York, Boston and Philadelphia to learn about the foundations of this nation, Gettysburg to give me a sense of what it meant to fight against one's own (amazingly, this from two naturalized citizens but I digress). I learned a lot that's helped me later in life on those trips.

My point is that while you're following God's plan to be fertile, where do you find the time to raise your kids (especially when mom's on her back all the time, spittin' 'em out)? Where do you find the money to buy them the tools to become productive, responsible, and successful adults? I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something but I thought you wanted to give your kids the best and it seems to me that 8, 9, 10, or fifteen children isn't the way to do it, no matter what God says.

Rumor has it ...

The Plank, via TPM, via Maru (well, it is a rumor, isn't it?):

Because standards are lower on weekends... here's a new rumor straight from an insidious "Washington cocktail party": John Negroponte is becoming deputy secretary of state as preparation to replace Condi Rice when she leaves her job. Why would she do that? To take over for an "ailing" Dick Cheney as vice president. Sure, Cheney resignation rumors are about as old as the Bush presidency. But one well-informed person said that, while he doesn't think this will happen, he also doesn't dismiss it out of hand.

It would figure Condi would be the one to break the gender barrier in the Executive.

Update:

Related staff notes from Cdr. Huber:

...

Many were surprised when Bush named Navy Admiral William "Fox" Fallon to replace General John Abizaid as head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). At first blush, it seemed unusual to place a Navy man in charge of an area of responsibility (AOR) in which two ground wars are taking place. But the CENTCOM AOR also includes Iran, and any military confrontation with Iran will be a major maritime and air operation. A naval flight officer, Fallon's credentials as a maritime and air power expert, his combat experience, and his record as a force commander at the three and four-star level, are unmatched. What's more, from what I've observed and heard about him, he possesses a super-human intellectual capacity. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he still remembers the serial number on his baby spoon.

So it I were Mr. Bush, and was determined to press forward with Bill Kristol's neoconservative agenda, Fallon is the exact guy I'd put in the CENTCOM billet.

...

Bush makes it clear: He will only listen to impeachment

OpEd News

In these two short months since an election that was supposed to have turned the country around, it has become increasingly clear that everybody got the message except George Bush.

Bush is clearly determined to ram his plans through, in the pursuit of a dreamed-of victory in Iraq, come hell or high Congress. The ONLY card that Congress can legitimately play, against his dog-headedness, is the impeachment card.

This is precisely what that playing card is for, and the means are at hand to accomplish it. Everyone knows, very well, that Bush has been guilty of crimes for which he can be tried and impeached. It's quite true that we have no way of being sure that an impeachment will follow the trial . . . but isn't that what a trial is all about? We'll know when we get there. But we shall NEVER know if we don't get there.

Are trials normally avoided because we cannot be sure of guilt in advance?

What a quaint notion that is!

WE KNOW WHERE BUSH IS GOING, IF HE IS NOT IMPEACHED.

And from my perspective, that is precisely reason enough to pursue the impeachment.

Remember I5: Investigation, Indictment, Impeachment, Incarceration, Inhangthesonofabitch.

Let's do it before he commits his next sociopathic crime against law and humanity.

Cross-posted at aitcHQueue.

An AOB catch up post

1) I shall be disappearing as of about 7pm this Wednesday(the 10th)because my surgery is scheduled for 10 in the morning on the 11th(Thursday). I'm having 4 teeth surgically removed,I'll be under a general anesthetic(hold me,I'm scared of that shit) during that and on pain meds for a couple days after. So,if I happen to post something that looks like this between Thursday and Monday:

Snertfurm @#$%!,forsenatrus oestricula lberg gabba whee

You'll know that somehow I managed to get to the computer without falling on my face,and Fixer or Gord can just delete that nonsense. I apologize in advance,just in case.

2) Calling all geeky nerd types:
I am a complete moron when it comes to computers or technology of any sort,so,I am placing a call for recommendations for the following:

a)an inexpensive yet well made laptop computer for surfing the internets,email,pictures from my digital camera and for writing(more on that in a moment). Appearently we have wireless capability now,according to The Husband. Not that I need a laptop,but if I know what I want,it's entirely possible I could get one for my birthday in few months. I don't even know what a reasonable price is for a laptop. I've seen 'em for 500 bucks all the way up to 2 grand,yipes.

b) What would a person need to create audio files,and how would one set up a website for said audio files? I ask because I'm thinking of starting a project with my son,a fledgeling mom and son internet radio station type thing. Also,the kiddo wants to make movies,perhaps even his own animations and I have no earthly idea how to encourage that by getting him what he needs to do such a thing. Obviously he needs a video camera for live action filming,but it needs to be one that will load onto a computer and then maybe even eventually make it to the internets. He's going to be 13 in March,and I figure the things he'd need to get started would be a good b-day gift,as long as it doesn't cost me a king's ransom. He's a kid,so the camera especially needs to be able to take some abuse.

c)My stupid ass Microsoft Word program keeps shutting down. I write a half a page and it dies. This has been going on for awhile now,I have no clue wtf is wrong. I need a word processing program because I want to start submitting articles and essays to magazines and the like and perhaps make a dollar or two this year. Plus,I want to write a book and I need a program that allows for that. Something reliable that won't fuck up every 5 minutes. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

3) As of tommorrow night,it has been 4 weeks since I've smoked a cigarette. Yay me. I step down to the lowest dose of nicotine patch after tommorrow,and then it's supposedly pretty easy to go from that to no patch at all. I shall find out how easy it is soon. This whole process has not been even a little easy,especially with another smoker in the house. The nicotine withdrawl,even with the patch, has triggered serious depression,there's been a couple days where I cried over dumbass shit all day long. If I could do one thing over again in the process I think I would have prepared a little more before I quit. I've also gained almost 10 lbs,which isn't helpful to me feeling all that fabulous and stunning.

Ok,enough of me now,and as always,thanks in advance for anything helpful or wonderous you care to contribute.

Are they kidding?

This* will mean our end.

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters", according to several Israeli military sources.

...

Okaaaay. I thought Israel didn't have nukes? Oh, right. Moving on ...

...

Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

...

Cajole America into action? If this country takes unprovoked action against Iran, Dr. King's March on Washington will look like a hangout on the corner. Do these Neocon idiots actually believe the American people won't drag 'em out and string 'em up?

Soften up world opinion? World opinion of the Israelis, and us, is probably at an all time low. Who in Hell do they think will condone this aside from the deranged and moronic 20-percenters in this country who've been advocating nuking the Islamic world for years?

...

Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

...

Um ... duh.

...

Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.

...

Sorry about that 3-eyed kid you got, Mrs. Ibrahim, but shit happens in wartime.

...

Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world's oil.

...

Sorry you can't afford to drive to work anymore, Mr. and Mrs. American, but the Iranians cut off all their exports to us and OPEC has cut theirs back to a trickle. But you know, we all have to make some sacrifices.

Future history: "And we all remember how American President George W. Bush signed the terms of surrender of the American Empire aboard the Iranian frigate Martyrdom in October 2008 in New York Harbor. The world's last superpower was brought to its knees after the unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran's atomic energy facilities by the Israeli Air Force. Faced with their oil reserves dried up and the flow of Mid East oil almost halted, the U.S. had no choice but to surrender after the economy collapsed and anarchy broke loose. Most will mark 11 September 2001 as the day the Islamic nations finally gained the upper hand over the West, but empires take time to crumble.

The end finally came when Russia and China, afraid of the same fate as the U.S., signed non-agression treaties with Iran and covertly supplied them with weapons and expertise in their struggle against the Americans and Israelis. Most are certain, though there is no evidence, that the nuclear device exploded in Tel Aviv was one of the old Cold War suitcase devices developed by the Soviet Union in the sixties."

My man Cenk Uygur has some thoughts on this lunacy too.

*Big tip o' the Brain to our pal Lambert.

And since it's Saturday night ...

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while. The Disgruntled Chemist and I are kindred spirits in the fact we both like to blow shit up and we both like good beer (stuff that doesn't come in fridge-convenient 36 or 48-paks). Chemist has been on a crusade for a while now, sampling good beers and writing reviews, which I have used on many an occasion. If you love good beer like I do, you owe it to yourself to use The Disgruntled Chemist's Beer Blogging Archive as a resource.

The 'New' Blogger ...

Sucks wet monkey ass. I'm trying to set up a backup site on the new Blogger for this page so we can continue in case of problems converting this page to the new system. Let me tell ya, I'll have to re-educate myself in their CSS code. What a pain in the fucking ass. I can't move the blogrolls with ease, I can't move the other links with ease, nor can I use the old template (the one I use here) over there. I can imagine what they'll fuck up when they do decide to move us.

Dear Google,

You suck my hairy white ass.

Fixer


Note to Brain Staff: Check your Inboxes for invites for the new site.

Update:

Gord's anger management counselor is proud of him. Mine ain't proud of me. I been cussin' for hours. Heh ...

Quote of the Day

Kreetcha:

Trent Lott is an ass. Last night on Hardball he all but admitted that Cheney and Co. cooked the Iraq WMD intelligence, yet he and his GOP crew marched us to war anyway. It's fuckin' criminal.

Yes indeed, my friend. And you know how far we've fallen when they'll admit it without fear.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday night blogwhore*

The next installment (Chapter 13) of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.

*Apologies to Elton John.

How come?

Seems we needed to know every time Monica Lewinsky visited the White House. How come we're not allowed to know when Jack Abramoff and Jeff Gannon did?

Kicking when down

I don't know what to say:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty.

The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.

...

Great thanks to Watertiger for the link.

Climate change

Since most of us are in shorts and t-shirts (it's 60 degrees here on Long Island) and have yet to get a real freeze (except for poor Gord up in them thar big hills out west), can we all agree that, aside from me being able to give my home heating oil company the finger this year, we've got a real problem on this planet?

...

Ski resorts have been struggling to survive in Europe. There's no snow, though Vermont just got a welcome boost. Still, the trends now are impossible to ignore. It all just feels wrong now, and you don't need a scientist to tell you about it. Someone just told me the cherry blossoms on the DC tidal basin are starting to bud already, this week. I haven't seen it myself but my friend is pretty reliable. What's the weather like where you are?

Fortunately, the criminally insane Republican leadership in Congress is no longer in charge:

...

"Girl, go get 'im!"

This musical greeting to Nancy Pelosi from Yikes McGee will warm the cockles of your heart.

Democrats Burn the Republicans' Bed

The Rude One, in toto:

[Goddamn, it was so easy to predict: the first reaction of Republicans losing their power in Congress is to whine like the oldest, mangiest bitches in the pound, hoping that if they cry loud enough, they'll avoid the long walk to the metal table in the other room. As Democrats take over today, they've said that the Republicans can go fuck themselves. Break out the needles.

The fact that Republicans even think the victim act will work is laughable, in a "Christ, that's sad, let's shoot Old Yeller way." They don't realize that people love it when the bully gets beaten up. When an abused wife shoots the shit-faced, pummeling husband in the back of the head. When the convicted serial rapist is turned into the gang-banger's punk in prison. Sure, sure, we can bemoan the system that creates the circumstances where such violence can occur. But even in our most bleeding hearts, it's hard to feel anything but satisfied. Because for every life directly damaged by the actions of thuggish wads of fuck, there's reverberations to many, many people. Ask the family of any woman who's been raped. The parents of any kid who gets slugged every day at school. So even if you've promised non-violence as a way of life, well, at the end of the day there's a difference between pacifism and passivism.

So, really, and, c'mon, the proper response, as many have said, to the NRCC's pussy wails of disenfranchisement is to stare at them like the pathetic peep show masturbators they are. They seriously think saying, "Democrats promised to share their toys" is going to have traction as a counter argument to the election results, even when the entire country knows that Republicans kept the playground locked to Democrats for all these years. This is a Karl Rove ploy, the weak wimper of a cancer-ridden corrupt old man, trying to turn the Democrats on themselves, hoist them on their promise of better bipartisanship.

You can smell his sausage-like finger grease all over George Bush's sad editorial in the Wall Street Journal. "What Congress Can Do For America," it was titled. And the simple answer, the one demanded by all Americans whose paychecks don't rely on desperately trying to make Bush into a "leader," is "Fucking stop you."]

Amen.

Quote of the Day

The cartoon at Sumo's. Read the post too, dammit.

I apologize

As you lovely folks are about to discover, I went nuckin' futs on this machine today. There's a lot goin' on. Whee!

Please forgive me, and read every word.

I'm gonna go shovel snow now.

"Malkin may get this guy killed"

A follow-up to Fixer's post, from Cursor:

After the Iraqi Interior ministry acknowledges the existence of a disputed AP source , the source is arrested for talking to the media, but there are few signs of regret from the conservative bloggers who denounced the AP's reporting, and Eason Jordan spreads the blame around.

Way too much content to excerpt. Thank goodness for links.

Street fightin' man...

More on the resignation of Harriet Miers in WaPo:

"They face the question of, to what extent you cooperate or protect presidential prerogatives and withhold documents," said H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a former Bush White House lawyer. "Potentially, it could be a period of conflict with the Hill. . . . It's not necessarily going to be a bloodbath, but it's certainly possible."

Republican advisers have been telling the White House to be ready for war, and many cited Miers as the wrong general. "The White House knew they needed to get a tough street fighter -- that's what this is about," said one such adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve access to the White House.

The advice, according to this person, could be summed up this way: "You guys better lawyer up, and lawyer up in the right way. You better understand the need and the peril and the urgency. . . . You need somebody as tough as [Clinton aides] Harold Ickes or Bruce Lindsey. Because they're coming for you."

"Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you..."

I had a vision of Karl Rove, drunk and shirtless, glasses askew, bent over the trunk of a black and white Crown Vic...Heehee!

I know of a coupla ol' "street fighters" that'd just love to be in the White House, just fer an hour or two, please Jesus, and we they ain't lawyers.

"Kick rocks, Dick!"

Pandagon

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), now the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee as the Dems take over the House, has booted the VP out of his suite.

Rangel, you might recall, has called the VP a "son of a bitch" and said "Sometimes I don't even think Cheney is awake enough to know what's going on," and "He's got heart disease, but the disease is not restricted just to that part of his body. He grunts a lot, so you never really know what he's thinking."

Mr. Rangel says he regrets calling The Dick a sonofabitch in public, but I don't think he really does. Why regret telling the truth?

Charlie's one of my faves.

"...the gavel changed hands with a hug and a kiss."

Good story about the changing of the guard in the House. Or maybe NAMBLA...

WaPo

When House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) rose to present the gavel to the new speaker, he was magnanimous in acknowledging both the roots of Republican defeat last November and the historic import of the moment.

He concluded with a warning for Democrats, gleaned from his party's pursuit of power and the lessons learned from defeat: "If there is one lesson that stands out from our party's time in the majority, it is this: A congressional majority is simply a means to an end. The value of a majority lies not in the chance to wield great power but in the chance to do great things."

In what must be another first, the gavel changed hands with a hug and a kiss.

[...] Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.) shouted "Praise Jesus!" during the opening prayer.

The old fart gets wound up, don't he? I will say this about Sen. Byrd: he inspired me to get the "little red book" of the Constitution and refer to it often. He always carries one.

Today, Democrats hope to pass new rules to promote open deliberations in the House, rein in special-interest spending and lawmaker pet projects, and prohibit passage of spending or tax measures that increase the federal deficit.

Over the next two weeks, Democrats in the House plan to enact new homeland security measures, increase the minimum wage, allow federally funded stem cell research, permit the federal government to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cut student-loan interest rates and fund alternative-energy research by rolling back tax breaks for oil companies.

But Pelosi herself acknowledged that her carefully constructed consensus agenda will not satisfy the angry electorate that swept the Democrats to power. Democrats will have to confront President Bush on the larger, more controversial issues of the day: the war in Iraq, military tribunals that suspend the legal rights of terrorism suspects, and warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

Her call yesterday for a new direction in Iraq "that allows us to responsibly redeploy American forces" elicited strong applause in her party while clearly splitting Republicans, many of whom joined the ovation.

The domestic shit's all well and good, but I remind our legislators:

IT'S IRAQ, STUPID!

Barf and liquid alert!

"Six years of George W. Bush: A celebration of courage!"

Let the games begin!

John Murtha

I will be recommending to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that we begin extensive hearings starting on January 17, 2007 that will address accountability, military readiness, intelligence oversight and the activities of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will be demanding substantive answers to questions that have gone unanswered for far too long.

Go get 'em, Colonel. I hope you act like the bulldog you look like.

This is just one of many investigations scheduled to take place. This is gonna be fun!

"...six years of backlog to clean up"

My Left Nutmeg on minority party rights, and a response to Bush's WSJ bullshit piece.

In 2004 Minority Leader Pelosi proposed to the GOP leadership a Minority Bill of Rights. The Speaker of the House didn't even bother to respond to her letter. Now that the House has changed sides, three members of the GOP Leadership have proposed that she now honor the request she made two years ago.

The correct response is for the New Speaker of the House to agree to the Minority Bill of Rights that will go into effect exactly TWO YEARS from the request, as that's how long they made her and the Democrat minority wait before they even bothered to respond.

So, on Jan 2, 2008 the Minority Bill of Rights for the House will become effective. If it was a good idea for the GOP to wait two years before they began to think it is a good idea, it's a good idea to wait two years before implementing it.

Pretty damn generous, to my way of thinking.

For six years the GOP has controlled all the Federal Government. The result, a culture of corruption where every vote was for sale to the special interests. Homeland security that said that checking on 10% of the cargo entering our country was okay. No investigations into fraud, waste and abuse. A blank cheque on spending like a drunken sailor with money that we don't have. No bid contracts to favored corporations. And most of all, a destruction of the middle class, which has been shrinking for the last six years, not growing. More people having less. That's what six years of the GOP running both branches have done to America. Well, get ready sir, for all that is about to change.

CHEQUE? Ain't there a "Nutmeg State" up around Canada somewhere?

The concept of "working together" is an odd one. Do you really want the Democrats to treat your fellow Republicans the way that we were treated for the last six years? I am sure that they don't. In the House they are demanding a Bill of Rights, just as we did two years ago. Two years ago the Speaker of the House didn't even respond to our request. We were ignored. We were not allowed on commitees. We were refused rooms for investigations, We had no supeona power. We were treated like we didn't exist. We were not able to even offer amendments to bills. Do you remember how a vote was left open for hours so that the GOP leadership could arm twist the votes that they needed to pass a bill you wanted? Rules be damned, and the same with a minority voice. Well Mr. President, do you think the GOP members of the house would like to be treated the same way that they treated us? The way the Executive treated us?

Now you want a two way street where before you were more than happy to run over us and leave us and the over half of America that we represent unrepresented. I'm sure it would be understandable if we were a bit upset, as the American people are, they showed that to you and us at the polls.

Have you been asleap for the last six years? Where do you get off saying that the minority party has a strong say in the form bills take? For the last six years the minority party has been locked out of having any say in the form that bills take. We haven't been able to even offer amendments to the bills presented in the House. As for bringing up bills of our own to the floor, hell had a better chance of freezing over.

The writer makes many good points. Go read.

Fuck bipartisanship, at least for a while. We want revenge on these Repug bastards, as bad and intolerant as that sounds. The pols can't say that out loud, but I can. Mrs. Pelosi can signal that the Repugs can have a say by wearing ice skates in the House.

Update:

A rough draft of Bush's WSJ op-ed has been found. Chortle!

White House Postponing Loss of Iraq, Biden Says

Say what you will about Joe Biden, sometimes even a blind pig finds a truffle. WaPo:

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam.

"I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," Biden said. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."

Biden said that Vice President Cheney and former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "are really smart guys who made a very, very, very, very bad bet, and it blew up in their faces. Now, what do they do with it? I think they have concluded they can't fix it, so how do you keep it stitched together without it completely unraveling?"

It is completely unraveled, but one thing they could do is make apologies in suicide notes and leave a place for someone who might be able to do something. Like admit a bad idea has failed as it should have and was destined to do in the first place, that we've lost, and get the fuck out of Iraq.

It's up to all of us

Go read Molly Ivins.

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.

I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

Here she cites several examples of what went wrong and promises to do more in each column.

We need to cut through all this smoke and mirrors and come up with an exit strategy, forthwith. The Democrats have yet to offer a cohesive plan to get us out of this mess. Of course, it's not their fault -- but the fact is we need leaders who are grown-ups and who are willing to try to fix it. Bush has ignored the actual grown-ups from the Iraq Study Group and the generals and all other experts who are nearly unanimous in the opinion that more troops will not help.

So, like I said, it's up to you and me, Bubba. We need to make sure that the new Congress curbs executive power, which has been so misused, and asserts its own power to make this situation change. Now.

Now.

It's not a game ...

Now, I generally don't follow, read, or quote Right wing blogs. They're idiots, period, and I don't give their rantings serious tought. It's as if they're playing a game with our nation's future. I guess the role-playing computer games weren't gratifying enough so they began to play with real life, all the while taking money and favors from the Right Wing Noise Machine.

That said, I do pay attention to them when they manage to really fuck something up. The 'Veronica' to Ann Coulter's 'Betty', Michelle Malkin and a bunch of her no-dick male cohorts have created a scandal (there was no scandal to begin with) to try to smear the Associated Press (something AP can do well enough on its own). In their zeal to remain relevant, they might just have put the life of a source in the Iraqi Police, and his family, in mortal danger.

Look, idiots. I don't give shit what you say on your blogs. They're yours and this is still America and you can say what you damn well please. My problem with you is when your words and actions get people killed. Especially innocent people. Especially for some non-existant 'scandal' you create to justify your own existence.

I hope you can sleep well at night.

Quote of the Day

"I have absolutely no problem with anyone believing differently than I believe, as long as they don't impose their religion on me or my government," says Ms. [Lori Lipman] Brown, a former Nevada state senator [and current Director of Secular Coalition of America].

An interesting article for me being I have a big problem with people (especially the government) telling me what to believe.

Great thanks to Blondie for the link.

Nyuk! Nyuk!

Cursor

Appearing on "Countdown," (Rep. Barney) Frank told Keith Olbermann that "when the Republican administration of George Bush tells me not to use legislation to make political statements, it's kind of like being accused of being silly by the Three Stooges."

And then what?

WSJ on the escalation in Iraq:

The administration's high-level deliberations about the size and duration of any potential surge have taken on added significance because both opponents and supporters of the war agree that U.S. influence in Iraq is rapidly diminishing. As Iraq confronts a civil war and a faltering political process, adding more U.S. forces could well be the administration's final real opportunity to stabilize the country.

"If we surge and it doesn't work, it's hard to imagine what we do after that," Mr. Kagan says. "But we're already in a very bad spot, and if we don't do anything defeat is imminent."

More American deaths to try in vain to save Bush's legacy by postponing the inevitable.

His 'legacy' is already etched in stone: a failed evil fantasy.

It's Official

EssEffChron

(01-04) 10:43 PST Washington -- The U.S. House of Representatives, for the first time in its 218-year history dating to the beginnings of the American republic, elected a woman Speaker today when it chose Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco to lead the chamber.

Pelosi, upon her election about 10:30 a.m. (PST) today, became the first Californian and the first San Franciscan to head the 435-member lower house of Congress.

The 66-year-old Pelosi was elected by a 233-to-202 vote on party lines that became a foregone conclusion after Democrats rolled to victory in last November's midterm congressional election that swept aside 12 years of Republican control in the House.

I just happened to catch the results of the vote on TV as they were announced. They cut to L'il Fat Denny. He looked like he'd just noticed he was sucking on a turd instead of a lollipop. Ha!

OK, Nancy, congrats and all that shit. Party it up 'til tomorrow. You (we) earned it.

Then get to work. Crack the whip. Do your 100-hour social programs deal.

Then end Bush's criminal occupation of Iraq. Remember I5: Investigation, Indictment, Impeachment, Incarceration and Inhangthesonsabitchez.

Miers bails out

LATimes

Harriet Miers, President Bush's failed Supreme Court nominee and longtime adviser, on Thursday submitted her resignation as White House counsel.

Snow said Miers' departure did not signal the beginning of an exodus of senior officials after six bruising years at the White House. Asked if other officials were poised to go, Snow said, "I'm aware of none and anticipate none."

Heh. He gets paid to know nothing and anticipate nothing, and then lie about it.

The White House needs to make room for a phalanx of criminal (apt description, no?) lawyers anyway.

This is just too easy, but I have these lovely visions of a buncha swimming rats and a sinking ship...

The balloon goes up!

Stolen en toto from Colonel Murtha himself at Arianna's place.

I will be recommending to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that we begin extensive hearings starting on January 17, 2007 that will address accountability, military readiness, intelligence oversight and the activities of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will be demanding substantive answers to questions that have gone unanswered for far too long.

The war in Iraq and its effect on our military and our nation's future remains the most crucial issue facing the new Congress. I will be will be recommending an aggressive pursuit of action that will allow us to reduce our military presence in Iraq at the soonest practicable date.

I've been waiting to hear this going on 4 years. A hearty welcome to the 110th Congress who take their seats today. Congratulations especially to Speaker of the House (God, it's good to say that) Pelosi.

Off to work ...

It continues ...

The Right Wing Noise Machine and its bought-and-paid-for press. I heard something like this last night when I had Wolfie on:

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.

...

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

...

So it's not, 'let's see what the Dems will do for the people', or 'the Dems have a robust agenda to turn around this nation's slide under the Rethugs'. No. It's 'the Dems are a buncha meanies because they're not bipartisan'.

Know what? Fuck you assholes.

We've had 6 years of the Rethugs' version of 'bipartisanship' and look what it's got us. We're laughingstock in the world community, our economy is teetering on the brink, we're engaged in an endless 'War on Terra', the last Congress was one of the most corrupt in history, and we've managed to destroy a nation that was relatively peaceful and terrorist-free.

And you 'journalists' are worried the Rethugs might not have a say in crafting legislation in the new Congress? I say keep 'em out of the process until this nation is running correctly again. I'm sorry, but if I have a guy in the shop who wrecks more shit than he fixes, well ... he's out the door at the soonest before he costs me more money.

If we have a political party whose recent track record has been one of utter failure, they should be kept out of the process until they complete remedial Lawmaking 101. Do they have Legislating for Dummies out yet?

Look, I believe in bipartisanship. I believe the more viewpoints you consider, the more informed decisions you make. I don't believe the Dems should pull what the Rethugs have over the last few years; tit-for-tat isn't the answer but until the Chimp is out of the White House, I would limit congressional Rethugs' power greatly. They've proven they can't be trusted to look out for anyone's interest but their own and that of their campaign contributors.

They've proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They've proven, since Nixon's time, that their motto is 'Party before Country'. Gerry Ford did when he pardoned Nixon not 'for the good of the nation' but for the good of the Republican Party. The same crew has been around since then. Had Nixon gone to trial, I'd venture to say many of the players in the WH today would have slinked off into obscurity back then. Either that or done jail time. Cheney and Rummy are ubiquitous in every Rethug administration from Nixon to Dubya and all the minor players have gotten steady employment since. It's time for a thorough housecleaning at 1600 and the Rethugs in Congress should have no power until all the investigations are over.

We can't afford it, on many levels. We can't afford bipartisanship until we fix the United States.

Great thanks to Digby for the link. Go read his post on this too.

Oh Man,Tee Hee

Be sure to read the comments too, I'll wait.....

Well played Representative Ellison,well played.

Then there's this. Not so much funny as it is just plain spoiled brat. Tom Price is my rep,yay. What a cheezy little tick on a weasel. This is the kind of representation my neighbors don't seem to mind. As long as the tax cuts keep coming and the gas is below three bucks a gallon no one seems to give a shit. I hate the suburbs.

Avalanche

BooMan in the wake of Olbermann's 'Special Comment':

I could go and find dozens of links to back up what I am about to say, but I'm feeling lazy. So, I'll just say it.

The country has finally turned on George W. Bush. The country is in a very bad and testy mood. At the extreme, tonight's Special Comment on Keith Olbermann's Countdown was the most blistering indictment of a sitting President in the history of broadcast television. I have never seen anything like it. It violated every law of Higher Broderism. It even passed into raw conspiracy theory at points. In different and more stable times, a rant like Olbermann's would mark the swift end of his career. But our nation has entered into a new stage. Olbermann will pay no price for his outburst because even though it was extreme, it was an extremism that has now entered the boundaries of acceptable discourse. The country has no more use for George W. Bush and it has no will to rally to his defense.

The overriding mood of the nation is that we should take away the car keys. And that is the genius of democracy. We may be easily scared and led astray, but as long as we protect our institutions we will always eventually correct our mistakes. The country senses that we cannot wait until 2009 to take away the keys. Congress knows it. Our allies know it. The country stands ready to overthrow this administration and redeem our system of government (my em). I have called the logic of impeachment 'inexorable', and it is.

The President's decision to escalate the Iraq War and call for sacrifice is going to start an avalanche. And no one can stop an avalanche.

Avalanches are sometimes started by loud noises. Let's keep yelling.

Quote of the Day

Related to Gord's post on Olbermann's testicles early this morning, Steve Gilliard:

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His daughters whore around Argentina and he thinks no one notices? He wants some poor kid from Wal Mart to do another tour?[*]

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Bush and his friends. He should take those fat, cheetos eating fucks at the think tanks and ship their asses overseas. Let Cliff May run a convoy and have Max Boot drive. Let Goldberg man the .50.

Let those useless motherfuckers sacrifice more than their filthy fucking mouths. Let them do what they ask of others and then denigrate.

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*If there's one thing I remember my dad bitching about during the Vietnam days was how many college kids got deferrments. While he was a defense contractor and made a good living from Grumman's and Republic Aircraft's contracts, he realized the injustice that was being perpetrated. The kids who couldn't afford college got drafted, the kids who weren't 'privileged' enough to know a congressman or senator went too. My father was a stubborn old Brit whose every waking minute was spent chasing a buck, but even he got what was going on 40 years ago. Shit ain't changed yet.

Dubya's Berlin

[Disclaimer - This is a flagrant Godwin's Law violation but I've been doing it for 2 1/2 years and I'll continue to do so. The similarities between the Chimp and Hitler are too great.]

Via Blondie from DU:

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Although there have been numerous comparisons over the last few years of Bush vs. Hitler, one cannot avoid the similarities between the two in their final days. Depleted armies, lost wars, generals in revolt and a desperate cling to an unrealistic hope of resuscitating misguided ideologies are just a few of the parallels shared by these two figures. Sadly, neither leader was able to recognize the irony of their respective falls being a result of those ideologies to which they so strictly embraced.

To be fair, there are no invading armies outside Bush's White House bunker (although the 110th Congress may be seen as such) and DeeCeeVille is not ablaze and in complete chaos. However, Baghdad is George Dubya's Berlin and even though he could see the death and destruction and hopelessness his actions have caused - if he chose to - he still continues to hunker down and wait for some kind of miracle that will save that which cannot be saved. Bush is still in his bunker mentality as the weapons he and his administration used against the world and the American people begin to lose their effectiveness. Here are just a few examples of those depleting armaments.

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Except that Hitler had quite a few early successes. Everything the Chimp has touched has gone to shit.

And just an aside before I run out the door. I thank God every day my mother didn't live long enough to experience the Bush Presidency. Growing up when Hitler came to power, being a nurse in the German Army, being an American prisoner of war, and despising Hitler with every ounce of her being, as well as being a tough broad, she would have tried to storm the White House single-handedly and they would have tossed her in Gitmo. Mom was a naturalized and proud American citizen and raised me to cherish the rights and freedoms we have here. The things she told me about, the warning signs she'd recognized in hindsight from when Hitler came to power, she would have recognized right away from the Chimp. I did. It was my motivation to begin blogging. Rest easy, ma, we're on it.

KO slaps the shit outta the Chimp

Go see Keith Olbermann take Bush to the woodshed over his new propaganda word "Sacrifice" at Crooks and Liars. K.O. must hafta get his pants cut special for a #10 sack. Good on yer, Keith.

It's all about the whining ...

It's what the Rethugs do best. Whine about this, whine about that; they've had control of the country for six years and have yet to do anything worthwhile. Now they're whining about being in the minority and the 110th hasn't even been seated yet. Digby chronicles:

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They are fully back in minority victimhood mode without missing a beat. And there is a sense of gleeful excitement about the whole thing --- "heh, heh, I just hope I live long enough to see what that horrible woman is going to do to this country."* If you mention Iraq, they shrug their shoulders and start babbling about John Kerry and the draft dodging Clinton. Some lament that the Democrats wouldn't let us win it (we should have "glassed 'em.") For the most part, they seem absolutely thrilled to be in the minority and they are already doing the only thing they have ever really been good at --- carping about Democrats from the sidelines.

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If they'd put as much energy into running shit properly as they did running off at the mouth, things would actually work and we wouldn't be a laughingstock. It's gonna get worse as time goes on, you know. I'm getting a migrane just thinking about it. They remind me of the guys who think they know cars. They talk a good line but after they're done 'fixing' their car, it comes to me on the hook with a box of parts in the trunk to do it right.

Retirement travel

To start off the new year in a positive manner, I spent a little time this morning reviewing my retirement travel plans. The thought of cruises to far away lands, this time not in uniform, captured my imagination. Everything was going along swell until I clicked on "budget". This came up:

Young Republicans want to help!

Continuing ...

The Crazy Turk, Cenk Uygur (whom I love) picks up where I left off yesterday, but he takes on the hardcore Jesus freaks:

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There are also numbers that showed how well the public is attuned to the current political and economic climate, with eighty percent predicting an increase in the minimum wage and ninety percent predicting higher gas prices.

But there is one number that stands out among the rest as absolutely unbelievable. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth in 2007. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT! IN 2007!

These people are nuts. There's no polite way of saying it. If I sound superior, too bad. Sanity has its advantages.

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Time to get a grip. Jesus ain't coming back to 'kiss it and make it better'. We're on our own and it's up to us to make a better world for ourselves, not just for the Christians but for everyone. Quit waiting for someone or something to do it for you; you'll be waiting a long goddamned time.

What I want ...

*Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

As this New Yorker waits for Governor Spitzer to be seated today, and the 110th Congress later this week, as I welcome 2007 in with hope it will be better than 2006, I just wanted to remind the people, the American citizens who continually voted to enable the thieving, lying, morally bankrupt administration and rubber stamp Congress that runs this nation, how they were played for sheep. There was a formula in place, devised by people far smarter than those using it now, and all of you fell for it. Thank you very much. It makes me wonder how many of you fall for the African 'get rich quick' email schemes that litter my Inbox.

The reason I'm bringing this up now, on the first day of a new year, this New Year, is because I'm tired. I'm battle fatigued fighting the 'Information Civil War'; at least that's what I call this situation between the reality-based folks and the Right Wing Noise Machine. I've been looking back through our archives this morning, randomly stopping at posts over the past 2 1/2 years and realizing that we (here and in Left Blogtopia [y!sctp!] in general) spent a lot of time rebutting untruths and spin shoveled in by the Right.

I'm fucking tired of you folks believing everything you hear on TV as gospel truth. Don't you question anything? Or don't you care because other people's kids are dying, or other families are the ones who can't make ends meet, or you won't be around when the environment finally succumbs to all the crap we've poured all over, in, and above the Earth? You don't care what goes on as long as you get your share. As long as you have your house, your SUV, your little urchins have their video games, and you can pay the bills, fuck everybody who can't. As long as your kids ain't dying in some misbegotten war, as long as you don't have to sacrifice for the nation, who gives a fuck what they do in Washington, right? I'm sick and tired of you sheep.

It was the sheep in Germany who allowed an evil group of men to take control of a proud nation and break it; only now, 60 years later can Germans begin to hold their heads up with national pride. It was the sheep in this country, those of you who thought the Chimp was somebody 'they wanted to have a beer with', who thought the Republicans would 'keep us safer', who believed all the spin, misdirection, and lies without the slightest iota of doubt, who willingly gave up their civil rights, and were willing to give up more of them, in a cowardly attempt to 'be safe'.

I'm sick of you fucking people.

You're the ones who are jumping on our bandwagon now. The 40-odd percent of Americans who now realize the mess they've allowed to be spread all over this country and now they're all pissed they've been fooled. Thing is, a couple years from now, you'll probably be fooled again. I've seriously lost faith in the intelligence and common sense of my fellow American over the past 6 years, because the situation we're in is your fault. Seriously, how many of you possess a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge?

I remember a time when being an American meant something good in other parts of the world. I remember, in the 60s and 70s, spending summers in Europe and being treated like a celebrity just because I was an American. I remember when people used to look to this nation as an institution to emulate, something to strive for in pursuit of personal liberties and freedoms, as a nation abiding by the Rule of Law and, while not perfect, a nation of people striving for fairness for all. It pains me to visit Europe now and see signs and grafitti saying "Fuck Bush" and comparing us to the more dastardly regimes of history. Thank you for making me feel unwelcome in my ancestral home, you sorry, cowardly sheep.

I also want all you armchair generals to shut the fuck up this year. Every day my ears and intelligence are assaulted by idiots who've 'had it with the Iraqis, after all we've done for them' and we should just 'bomb the shit out of them and get it over with'. We started this, you morons. The blood spilled already is on our hands. I'm truly sorry you never got to experience combat and your only connection with it has been through Hollywood offerings. I'm truly sorry that our children fighting and dying in some desert (or jungle) somewhere makes you more of a man (or woman) and satisfies your bloodlust. I'm sorry you're that insecure as a human being, but you make me sick. It sickens me that you have such little disregard for innocent human life, people who are more like you than different, just because their skin is a different color, or worship a different God, or speak a different language. Do something with your lives to give them validation instead of finding some sort of meaning in other people's sacrifice. It is you who are responsible for the carnage, no one else, for without your cooperation, your vote, your complacency, this would never have happened.

I hope you got your rocks off at Saddam's trial and subsequent lynching, because if you think any justce was done there you, as usual, are sadly misinformed. And for all of you who are of age to serve this nation, cheerleading from the homefront doesn't qualify. If you really support the occupation in Iraq, enlist and do your part. Because you hypocrites piss me off more than the regular sheep. Playing GI Joe at the paintball range or taking your AK-47 out to shoot up junk cars doesn't qualify, so refrain from telling me what you would do in Iraq. Enlist and show me how many ragheads you're gonna kill. Otherwise shut the fuck up because I've made a resolution to put you on your ass this year. There are now 3000 U.S. troops dead in the war you wanted, either put up or shut up.

So, for 2007, I have one request for the sheep. Stay out of the fucking way. The choice to elect our representatives is not American Idol or Survivor, it is serious business for an informed public. If you're not serious about your freedoms, rights, and privileges that come from being American, stay the fuck home on Election Day. The choice of who leads the world's only superpower is not a game, not a fucking reality show. Our representatives' decisions affect not just the lives of a third of a billion people in this nation, but the lives of six billion others who don't have the right to vote in America. If you can't take it seriously, if you can't inform yourself and rely on the dog and pony show in our so-called 'free press', just stay out of it and go about your business. If you've learned anything over the past 6 years, it should be that qualification for elected office, especially the Presidency, has nothing to do with a candidate's personality.

You've made our job, those of us who actually care what happens to this nation and the world now and in the long-term, that much more difficult. We'll deal with the hardcore morons and Kool-Aid drinkers, the 18% of socio- and psycopaths, the racists who want to turn this nation into Germany 1933, but it's you sheep that give them relevance and credibilty through your inaction and apathy. We're leading, either follow or get out of the way.

The Republican Party is a criminal organization and you sheep are just passive foot soldiers. They couldn't have created this mess without you as accomplices. Make up for it this year and actually pay attention to what's happening around you and stop parroting the horseshit you hear on Fox News. We're just beginning to straighten out the mess, let us do it.

*Great thanks to our pal Ed Encho for the Hermann Göring quote.

'07

12:00AM OWT* 1 January 2007. 27°F., waxing gibbous Moon, partly cloudy, scattered gunfire, fireworks, sirens, sober as a judge.

Ho-Hum. Another trip around the Sun begins. Or the non-stop one continues. BFD.

Happy New Year, everyone.

*Out West Time