Part Lenny Bruce, part Howard Stern, part Paul Krassner and part flushing toilet to those offended by his cobalt-tinted monologues, Carlin has been an outsider since he dropped out of high school and discovered marijuana.
With the insurgency becoming both stronger and bolder, and the chances of conducting a legitimate election growing grimmer by the day, a genuine sense of alarm can actually be detected in the reality-resistant hierarchy of the Bush administration.
Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday of an ominous new development in Iraq. "We've noticed in the recent couple of weeks," he said, "that the I.E.D.'s [improvised explosive devices] are all being built more powerfully, with more explosive effort in a smaller number of I.E.D.'s."
Mr. Bush's so-called pre-emptive war, which has already cost so many lives, is being enveloped by the foul and unmistakable odor of failure. That's why the Pentagon is dispatching a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq to assess the entire wretched operation. The hope in Washington is that he will pull a rabbit out of a hat. His mission is to review the military's entire Iraq policy, and do it quickly.
I hope, as he is touring the regions in which the U.S. is still using conventional tactics against a guerrilla foe, that he keeps in mind how difficult it is to defeat local insurgencies, and other indigenous forces, as exemplified by such widely varying historical examples as the French experiences in Indochina and Algeria, the American experience in Vietnam, the Israeli experience in Lebanon, and so on.
With the war draining the military of the troops needed for commitments worldwide, the Pentagon is being forced to take extraordinary steps to maintain adequate troop strength. A temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers for the Army, already approved by Congress, will most likely be made permanent. The Pentagon is also considering plans to further change the rules about mobilizing members of the National Guard and Reserve. Right now they cannot be called up for more than 24 months of active service. That limit would be scrapped, which would permit the Army to call them up as frequently as required.
That's not a back-door draft. It's a brutal, in-your-face draft that's unfairly limited to a small segment of the population. It would make a mockery of the idea of an all-volunteer Army.
Something's got to give. The nation's locked in a war that's going badly. The military is strained to the breaking point. And it's looking more and more like the amateur hour in the places that are supposed to provide leadership in perilous times - the Pentagon and the White House.
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The disdain they [the Dem leadership] show for their blogging rank-and-file betrays a deep lack of understanding about who we are. We don’t blog because we like to hear our own voices—we blog in the increasingly futile hope that they will hear our collective voice and conduct themselves in a manner befitting representatives who are actually listening.
Dammit, we’re your base, and we’re worth listening to.
. . . "The president's idea of bipartisanship is, 'Here's what I want to do, join me,' " said Rep. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "It isn't about negotiating. It isn't about compromise. It's almost this belief that they have the monopoly on what's best for the country." . . .
This will be the most expensive inaugural in history as W celebrates himself while the rest of the world looks on in disgust.
The president prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq.
Even for a White House steeped in hooey, it's a challenge. President Bush will have to emulate the parsing and prevaricating he disdained in his predecessor: It depends on what the meaning of the word "win" is.
The president's still got a paper bag over his head, claiming that the daily horrors out of Iraq reflect just a few soreheads standing in the way of a glorious democracy, even though his commander of ground forces there concedes that the areas where more than half of Iraqis live are not secure enough for them to vote - an acknowledgment that the insurgency is resilient and growing. It's like saying Montana and North Dakota are safe to vote, but New York, Philadelphia and L.A. are not. What's a little disenfranchisement among friends?
"It's going to be ugly," Joe Biden told Charlie Rose about the election.
The arrogant Bush war council never admits a mistake. Paul Wolfowitz, a walking mistake, said on Friday he's been asked to remain in the administration. But the "idealists," as the myopic dunderheads think of themselves, are obviously worried enough, now that Mr. Bush is safely re-elected, to let a little reality seep in. Rummy tapped a respected retired four-star general to go to Iraq this week for an open-ended review of the entire military meshugas.
Mr. Wolfowitz, who devised the debacle in Iraq, is kept on, while Brent Scowcroft, Poppy Bush's lieutenant who warned Junior not to go into Iraq, is pushed out as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That's the backward nature of this beast: Deceive, you're golden; tell the truth, you're gone.
Mr. Scowcroft was not deterred. Like Banquo's ghost, he clanked around last week, disputing the president's absurdly sunny forecasts for Iraq, and noting dryly that this administration had turned the word "realist" into a "pejorative." He predicted that the elections "have the great potential for deepening the conflict" by exacerbating the divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. He worried that there would be "an incipient civil war," and said the best chance for the U.S. to avoid anarchy was to turn over the operation to the less inflammatory U.N. or NATO.
The Iraqi election that was meant to be the solution to the problem - like the installation of a new Iraqi government and the transfer of sovereignty and all the other steps that were supposed to make things better - may actually be making things worse. The election is going to expand the control of the Shiite theocrats, even beyond what their numbers would entitle them to have, because of the way the Bush team has set it up and the danger that if you're a Sunni, the vote you cast may be your last.
It is a lesson never learned: Matters of state and the heart that start with a lie rarely end well.
SANTA FE -- The state would pay for a $250,000 life insurance policy for members of the New Mexico Army and Air National Guard under a proposal announced Tuesday by Gov. Bill Richardson.
The proposal is part of a package of military benefits that Richardson will ask the Legislature to approve when it convenes in two weeks for a 60-day session.
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"We don't need the Americans' intervention. We know who to elect. Not like them -- they elected a moron."
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I want conservatives to read this site and come away steaming. I don't want them to think they will like a word I will say here. I don't want them to think I will consider their opinions or viewpoints. I want them to think: boy he doesn't like conservatives and really, really doesn't care what we say.
I'm tired of people acting like these people can be reasoned with or talked to. They don't want to talk, they want to drive us away into a corner and ridicule our ideas.
I'm not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I'm not interested in debating them. I want to stop them.
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Meanwhile, if the Democrats don’t pull this troubling story together with the Armstrong Williams debacle, and use them to point out loudly and repeatedly how corrupt and morally bankrupt this administration actually is, then they truly are a useless bunch of wankers.
[. . .]More Americans want answers:
Ralph G. Neas president of People For the American Way today called on the White House to immediately ask all federal agencies to disclose any public relations contracts with news commentators, and any programs that seek to disguise the release of agency information as real news stories put out by independent news organizations.
Armstrong Williams is just the tip of the iceberg. [my emphasis]
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Lemme see if I 'm getting this right: They steal public money to mis-inform and dupe the public so they can keep doing what they're doing, even though it's wrong, and get the duped public to agree with it? Is that pretty close?
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So it seems like a good time to remind readers of this story. The Bushies awarded the contract to supply oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to one of the core funders of the Right. What a coincidence! At a time when oil prices are higher than ever, many have questioned why the government wouldn't at least put a hold on oil purchases -- not to mention pumping some oil OUT of the reserves to lower demand. But that would mean that Koch gets less of our money to put to use funding the Right! Well, it isn't about the interests of the people of the country, it's about the interests of The Party.
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We should probably try to boot him out anyway. But I'm willing to make Social Security the last straw on whether I would support him in a primary. In general, I think the party needs to make it clear that anyone who supports the Bush Social Security phase-out should expect a fierce battle in the primary.
Bush's Drug Videos Broke Law, Accountability Office Decides
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people.
The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said.
The accountability office does not have law enforcement powers, but its decisions on federal spending are usually considered authoritative.
In May the office found that the Bush administration had violated the same law by producing television news segments that portrayed the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.
The accountability office was not critical of the content of the video segments from the White House drug office, but found that the format - a made-for-television "story package" - violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda.
Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, who requested the review, said the use of the mock news segments broke "a fundamental principle of open government."
A spokesman for the drug policy office said the review's conclusions made a "mountain out of a molehill."
The drug policy office told investigators that it would have been difficult for "a reasonable broadcaster" to mistake the videos for independent news reports.
But the G.A.O. said the drug policy office "made it impossible for the targeted viewing audience to ascertain that these stories were produced by the government."
Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity or propaganda purposes" not authorized by Congress. The accountability office has found that federal agencies violated this restriction when they distributed editorials and newspaper articles written by government officials without identifying them.
The accountability office said the administration's misuse of federal money "also constitutes a violation of the Antideficiency Act," which prohibits spending in excess of appropriations.
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I always believed that Christians would use the Gospels as their foundation for living good lives and being good to others, not only to please the creator, but to just make living on earth a little bit better. These maniacs have stolen Christianity from Christians and we had better do something about it even if you don't have a religion or are of a different religious persuasion. These are dangerous people and have turned Christianity once again into a religion of oppression. God help us.
CALL ME CRAZY .... [Jonah Goldberg ]
But I think this guy's post about Armstrong Williams is flat-out racist, and it's not like I throw that around lightly.
I found it while searching Technorati for what the blogosphere was saying about Armstrong Williams. I don't know much about Steve Gillard. Okay I don't know anything execpt I've come across the name in searches before and Technorati says it's fairly well-known.
Anyway, I find the Williams thing to be a total trainwreck, but I don't think it warrants lame slave jokes and the like. Then again, I don't think anything warrants even non-lame slave jokes. Shame on this guy whoever he is.
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Of course it's totally unethical and illegal, but hey, he's already sold his soul to massa, why not sell it some more. Massa George wanted him to do somethin' so he did it. And got paid well for it.
On top of Clarence Thoams begging his white patrons for money, this ought to expose the character of the negro conservative. They have no soul and no morals. They can be bought by their white overlords because they apsire to their status, but think themselves unworthy to be treated as the same. Now, I'll freely admit both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have used their position to gain personally. But this kind of craven greed is a feature of the negro conservative. He shuffles and bucks along for his master, losing his soul and dignity in the process.
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I normally don't visit that sewer of a site of yours, but calling me racist while working for NRO is, at best a joke. How could you tell the difference? I mean, don't you work with a company full of anti-black bigots like Rich Lowry? Didn't William Buckley defend segregation?
I did notice, however, you were first in line to toss Williams to the wolves. Couldn't wait, could you?
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The thing about blogging that has been reenforced over the year is the futility of appeasing the right. They're gonna come after you anyway, no matter what you say or do, so standing up to them is the rule of the day. Those people only mean me ill. Pretending that there is a common ground is futile.
Congress can't act like that because they have to do things. But what the fuck are Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg gonna do for me? Not one fucking thing. I won't play tit for tat with them. I consider them little better than racist scum and I don't really consider their opinions/ They're just clowns to me. I know some people want to debate them and exchange ideas. I don't. I have more readers than that racist rag of a magazine does.
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The way that normal, non-hallucinating people of any political persuasion can help the soldiers in the field, the people of Iraq, and, not least of all, themselves, is to appreciate the true situation as best they can, and to demand accountability from our political leaders when the situation is not handled effectively. The true situation is that there is a large and popular insurgency in Iraq, made up of disparate interests, but all drawing their strength from the long-standing popular discontent with the American and coalition occupation, a discontent based on a very understandable dislike of foreign armies, and fueled by the thousands of Iraqis we have killed, intentionally or not, to say nothing of Abu Ghraib - here, 6 months later, almost completely forgotten. This is the reality that was apparent to journalists well outside the "Sunni triangle" last March, as well as to the Marines who first "liberated" Baghdad. True, many soldiers in Iraq have been in places where people were nice and glad to have them, which is great, but misses the main point. Kennedy was shot on a sunny day, but most newspapers didn’t lead with the nice weather.
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And if you really want to help the American war effort, you can join the fucking armed forces and go to Iraq like thousands of others have, and then you can do the best job you can to show them that Americans care about them and want, above all else, for all of our futures to be better and more peaceful than the past, and get paid shit. You will then be my personal hero, really, and I hope you don't get killed or maimed or see or do something that makes you hate everything for the rest of your life, which is a very real possibility. If you, like me, are too much of a coward to risk your life and health on a mission like that, then you can donate to charities which help soldiers (although it is worth looking into where and what kind of help is needed – some places don’t need it as much as others). But the easiest thing you can do is influence the politicians who create the policies – and in some cases the military strategies - which are being carried out in Iraq, but to do this in a useful way you first have to make some contact with reality. Reality is that the situation in Iraq is horrible, the outlook for any lasting peace is grim, and that this has nothing to do with a nebulous, malignant, all-powerful “Left”, and everything to do with the people in power who make bad and stupid policies. You can pull your head out of your ass, stop dreaming up stupid conspiracy theories about how everyone around the world you don’t like is working together to destroy Freedom, and tell them that they need to do a better job. And if they won’t do a better job, the solution is not to get upset at people who aren’t waving their pom-poms or denouncing Saddam single-mindedly enough for you, it is to fire the fuck-ups so we can maybe have some chance at salvaging something from this fiasco. [my emphasis]
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It is my view that those of us who vehemently opposed this war can and should still support the soldiers and their families. Their sacrifice is no less a sacrifice because the action they are engaged in is a tragically wrong headed blunder. That's on BushCo, not our soldiers.
