Buy this DVD

I got a DVD in the mail today. It's called "There's Something About W". It's not a rant like "Fahrenheit 9/11". This one's a wry, measured look at George W. Bush and what he's done. There are lots of neat people in it. It's 40 minutes long and costs twenty bucks.

You can get info at www.SomethingAboutW.org

More on DeLay, the Puke

This is from a New York Times editorial.

The committee should have at least approved a formal inquiry by now, but the latest reports indicate that the issue will soon be deep-sixed as the Republican Congress shows no appetite for investigating Mr. DeLay, one of Washington's most feared and bare-knuckled partisans.

We'll take him for Zell Miller

Via Kos. Lincoln Chafee is having second thoughts. From The Guardian:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee said Monday he plans to support his party in November but may write in a candidate instead of voting for President Bush.

The Rhode Island lawmaker, known for moderate views that often run counter to the Bush administration, said he was going to vote for a member of his party even though he disagrees with the president on many issues.

[. . .]

The Republican said the party's direction in the future will determine his political career as well. He said he's ``not OK'' with the conservative platform from the Republican convention, but would not say if he'd consider switching parties in his next election in 2006.

``It wasn't that long ago that moderates had more of a voice,'' Chafee said. ``It's a cycle that I hope will come back.''

See, this is where I see the difference between real Conservatives and the goddamn Jesus freak, bible thumping, right wing, Christo-Fascist, wingnuts that inhabit the area in and around 1600. Hopefully, more of the moderates will start to sit up and think.

VWOTW Part Deux

Gordon thinks it's criminal. Me too. This is another part of the same article at AlterNet (I read it after reading Gord's post) that got me. You know, it's bad enough they let Tom DeLay and his cronies gerrymander the fuck out of Texas using the census, now they're using it for something I doubt the Founding Fathers intended. The Farmer at Corrente has more on this too.

[. . .]

Michigan is the state that Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, mentions as a potential trouble spot. On July 16, the Detroit Free Press quoted John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative from Troy, Michigan, who said, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." Detroit is 83 percent African American.

Pappageorge later told the Associated Press that he was not advocating suppression of the black vote but that "you get it [the Detroit vote] down with a good message."

Cecelie Counts, AFL-CIO director of civil, human, and women's rights, says she thinks Pappageorge was acknowledging the truth the first time around. "That is the political reality in most of these swing states," she says. Democrats "can't win Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania without the African American vote, without a tremendous African American vote." And, she says, by using census numbers, Republican strategists "can pinpoint places" where minority voters are likely to influence an election. "They know it's Detroit. They know it's Kansas City and St. Louis. They know it's Las Vegas." [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Swing state-by-swing state details here.

Update: 19:05:

More on DeLay from Kos:

A Capitol Hill Democratic source tells me that your calls last week, demanding the ethics committee investigate DeLay, made a difference.

It wasn't so much that committee Democrats want to punt on the investigation, nor that they are more interested in maintaining the ethics truce. Rather, they have been seeking a way to move forward that doesn't invite retaliation from the other side. Of course, given who they're dealing with (DeLay), retaliation seems all but assured if they do anything other than punt.

[. . .]

Call the members of the ethics commmittee and keep pushing. Kos even gives you their numbers. Maybe we can get this shyster out of there.

Bush=Closet Frenchman?

From Asia Times:

Washington's strategic position in the Middle East is stronger than it has ever been, contrary to superficial interpretation. With much of central Iraq out of US control and a record level of close to 100 attacks a day against US forces, President George W Bush appears on the defensive. The moment recalls French Marshal Ferdinand Foch's 1914 dispatch from the Marne: "My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack." To be specific, the United States will in some form or other attack Iran while it arranges the division of Iraq. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Full story.

Big John at NYU

[. . .]

General Shinseki said it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq. He was retired. Economic adviser Larry Lindsey said that Iraq would cost as much as $200 billion. He was fired. After the successful entry into Baghdad, George Bush was offered help from the UN -- and he rejected it. He even prohibited any nation from participating in reconstruction efforts that wasn’t part of the original coalition – pushing reluctant countries even farther away. As we continue to fight this war almost alone, it is hard to estimate how costly that arrogant decision was. Can anyone seriously say this President has handled Iraq in a way that makes us stronger in the war on terrorism?

By any measure, the answer is no. Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and united our enemies. And our standing in the world is at an all time low.

Think about it for a minute. Consider where we were… and where we are. After the events of September 11, we had an opportunity to bring our country and the world together in the struggle against the terrorists. On September 12th, headlines in newspapers abroad declared “we are all Americans now.” But through his policy in Iraq, the President squandered that moment and rather than isolating the terrorists, left America isolated from the world.

We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no imminent threat to our security. It had not, as the Vice President claimed, “reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

The President’s policy in Iraq took our attention and resources away from other, more serious threats to America.

Threats like North Korea, which actually has weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear arsenal, and is building more under this President’s watch…

… The emerging nuclear danger from Iran…

… The tons and kilotons of unsecured chemical and nuclear weapons in Russia…

… And the increasing instability in Afghanistan.

Today, warlords again control much of that country, the Taliban is regrouping, opium production is at an all time high and the Al Qaeda leadership still plots and plans, not only there but in 60 other nations. Instead of using U.S. forces, we relied on the warlords to capture Osama bin Laden when he was cornered in the mountains. He slipped away. We then diverted our focus and forces from the hunt for those responsible for September 11th in order invade Iraq.

[. . .]

Go read the whole thing here.

VWOTW*

This story was in today's Progressive via Alternet:

In late August, People for the American Way and the NAACP released a report entitled, "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today." "In every national American election since Reconstruction, every election since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, voters-particularly African American voters and other minorities-have faced calculated and determined efforts at intimidation and suppression," says the report. However, it describes recent voter suppression tactics as "more subtle, cynical, and creative" than "the poll taxes, literacy tests, and physical violence of the Jim Crow era."

Jim Crow is still casting a very long shadow.

*Voting While Other Than White

This shit's a sin, and criminal to boot.

The Straight Poop

If you're as confused as I am over this whole Dan Rather shit, Lambert at Corrente has the low down.

Questions? Don't Need No Stinkin' Questions!

From today's Washington Post Editorials:

PRESIDENT BUSH hasn't taken questions from White House reporters in nearly a month. He's had just 15 solo news conferences during his presidency, the last a 13-minute session at his Texas ranch. When he does answer questions at town hall-type campaign rallies, they're from pre-screened supporters. As Towson University professor Martha Joynt Kumar notes in a forthcoming article in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Mr. Bush opened a news conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai by saying, "We'll answer questions in the tradition of democratic societies." Under the Bush presidency, that tradition hasn't flourished.

If I were him, I wouldn't want to answer any questions, either.

Wisdom

From the sage. Josh Marshall:

A new Zogby poll out tonight has not great but decent news for Kerry.

Bush 46%, Kerry 43% on the head-to-head match-up.

Kerry's got his work cut out for him. But he's very much in this race. And the president's underlying weaknesses are still very much there [my emphasis]

Let's hope Kerry/Edwards can expose those weaknesses some more (I'm counting on Kerry making Bush look like a fool in the debates). And I'm praying more of the American public comes to their senses.

Belated Thanks

To South Knox Bubba. Gordon pointed this out to me last night. Must've missed it while I was in London:

Programming note...
Sunday September 05, 2004

Reader and frequent commenter Gordon (who just recently appeared on the scene here at SKB) has joined up with The Fixer (another reader and frequent commenter) at The Fixer's Alternate Brain blog.

With Gordon on the left coast and The Fixer in NYC, it's a coast-to-coast tag-team smackdown of everything good and decent about America, and a lot of good clean fun. Unless you are a Republican.

(Apparently they hooked up here, so you can add matchmaking to the growing list of free services provided by SKB.)

Great thanks for the good words, dude.

As much as we'd like to, we had better never forget Vietnam

A little while ago, we watched today's "Face The Nation" on CBS. At the end, the moderator, Bob Schieffer, whom I like and respect,said that "Vietnam has become the centerpiece of this presidential campaign. That war ended thirty years ago, before a good many of today's voters were even born. A great many Americans would like to forget about Vietnam."

Yeah, I'd like to forget the time I caught my dick in the woodchipper, too, but I better not.

Ron Kovic, paraplegic Marine Vietnam veteran and author of "Born On The Fourth Of July", in the movie of which he was played by Tom Cruise, has something to say about lessons learned or not learned, in Steve Lopez' LATimes column on Sunday.

I'm not a Vietnam vet, but I am a Vietnam-era vet, and I well remember those times. They were fucking awful. It's happening again, goddammit, and I don't like it a fuckin' bit. "Those who do not learn the lessons of history" someone said, "are doomed to repeat it" and that's exactly what is going on with this administration. They didn't have to go, "other priorities" and all, so they have no concept of Vietnam vis-a-vis the fact they're pulling the same shit.

Let's get rid of this bunch of liars on Nov. 2 and get a man in the White House, actually elect the sonovabitch, who knows not to take war lightly.

Ugh! Heap Big Stereotype

Here's some more on the new Smithsonian Native American Museum:

A good cure for this kind of thinking is to read mystery novels about Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police by Tony Hillerman.

Well torque my sphincter

Democratic Veteran has this:

When the Neocons so disgracefully let Gen. Shinseki go off to what they assumed was an ignominious retirement right before their anticipated glory-covered march into Iraq and the hearts of all Iraqis (except the evil man and his evil troll-like henchmen), little did they know that he was a four-star general and a leader fo some reason or another. I guess they thought the Army just naturally promoted knotheads for no reason to the top spot.

Now, out of South Carolina comes a story that's being given the best possible spin by a someone in the National Guard chain of command. But despite the comments by the Battalion Commander and his top enlisted man, I don't think that morale and readiness are at their peak...you don't lock down and punish soldiers who are ready behaving themselves. Unless of course you're Captain Queeg.

[. . .]

You gotta read the whole thing.

Follow up

Via skippy the bush kangaroo. Remember the woman who'd lost her son in Iraq and got arrested for interrupting Laura's speech?

Well, some good news:

TRENTON, N.J. -- Police have dropped charges against a Hopewell woman who was arrested when she interrupted a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush to ask why her son was killed in Iraq.

Sue Sapir-Niederer had refused to leave the Thursday rally at a Hamilton fire house and was eventually escorted from the site. Sapir-Niederer wore a T-shirt that bore the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of her son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin.

[. . .]

[Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph L. Bocchini Jr.] "It is our determination that the police officers had more than enough probable cause to arrest Ms. Sapir-Niederer and were justified in the their actions," said Bocchini. "Taking all factors into consideration, including the recent loss of her son while serving in the armed forces in Iraq, I believe that the continued prosecution of the this matter would serve no useful purpose."

[. . .]

Details.

Well, at least the DA had some sense. Must be a Democrat. A Republican would have charged her with a capital crime.

Time for leadership

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer via Atrios:

The happy story administration salesmen peddle on Iraq reflects an inexcusable failure to confront war's grim realities

With less than seven weeks to go before the elections, it's not surprising that Iraq would turn into an all-purpose campaign punching bag over what's gone right and wrong in the war on terror. That does not give the George W. Bush administration carte blanche to waltz through this crucial phase of the war which has entailed the sacrifice of more than 1,025 U.S. military lives and more than 7,000 wounded as if nothing were wrong and U.S. forces were on course to achieving peace, democracy and prosperity for Iraqis.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

[. . .]

Any objective assessment says the war has worsened and that a change of course that may be even more expensive in time, money and military personnel than the war so far is overdue.

Yet the president's Pollyannish pronouncements that "this country is headed toward democracy . . . this country is headed towards elections" continue.

[. . .]

What is inexcusable is the administration's continuing failure to confront the grim reality and remold policies to make the best of this sow's ear. The delay in gearing up to get the trainers, uniforms, weapons and money that Iraqi security forces need has meant that not a single Iraqi police officer is fully trained and street-ready. The Iraqi army was disbanded with nary a thought to the security vacuum this would create. Our NATO "allies" still are haggling over a skeleton force of 300 military trainers that have yet to arrive in Iraq. Scores of willing police recruits continue to die unnecessarily because of the failure to build secure barriers around recruitment centers.

[. . .]

Full story.

About time

From Wampum:

National Museum of the American Indian Grand Opening

[. . .]

National Museum of the American Indian Grand Opening
Location: District of Columbia
Directions: 4th St. and Independence Ave., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20024

The National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C., is located on the National Mall between the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol Building.

[. . .]

StartDate/Time: September 21, 2004 9:00 AM
End Date/Time: September 21, 2004 5:30 AM
Open To Press: Yes
Cost: Free
Contact Phone: 202-633-1000
Website: http://www.nmai.si.edu/

Bend over and grab your ankles

The Veterans Administration is considering whether to close the Manhattan VA Hospital and sending everyone to the Brooklyn facility. Trying to cut costs and all. You know what it's like to get from Upper Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn if you're handicapped? It might be only a few miles away, but the hassle factor is incredible. I guess Bush only cares about the troops who are healthy enough to go to Iraq. Fuck everyone else.

Update: 10:35:

Finally found a link to this.

Every Thursday afternoon for the past year, Peter Bronson has gathered with his small group of veterans in front of the VA hospital on E. 23rd St. in Manhattan.
The country is at war, after all, and the number of American casualties in Iraq keeps climbing at an alarming rate. And not just the dead, which passed 1,000 this week; it's also the wounded, now at almost 7,000.

To Bronson, a veteran of the Korean War, it makes no sense for our government to be talking about closing down veterans hospitals when the number of wounded from this war was more than 1,100 in August alone.

[. . .]

The Bush administration has been developing grand plans for several years to make our nation's huge and unwieldy system of military hospitals more efficient.

This plan involves closing some hospitals, reducing in-patient stays for veterans and creating more out-patient facilities.

As with most Bush programs, the plan has a friendly-sounding name: CARES. That's short for Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services.

When word leaked out that the CARES Commission, appointed by Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, was about to recommend closing the Manhattan VA hospital, a furor erupted among veterans groups and local politicians, especially our two local senators, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Full story.

Now who's looking out for our vets? Ain't the Bush Administration, is it?

God=Dubya

How silly of me that it took until now to see the light. Yeesh! From Sadly No!:

Holly Crap!

Sometimes even reading something isn't sufficient to convince you that it's true. This is one of those times:

In the lobby, Holly (for Holland) Coors, the thin, blond doyenne of the Colorado beer outfit, had just returned from Madison Square Garden [...]

"It's [President Bush's] faith," Mrs. Coors said. "It breaks my heart to hear him criticized. They hated our Lord, too." [Emphasis added.]

Just in case anyone needed a reason not to drink Coors anymore. (Yes, Blair sent us the link.)

It's gotta be that thin air up in the Rockies. Either that or the water. Never touch the stuff myself. Fish fuck in water.

Fixer Rule: If it ain't got alcohol, fizz, flavor, or color, I stay away from it.

Tweaks

Did a little adjusting on the way this fucking thing looks. Feel free to comment . . .