Rummy could wreck a junkyard with a rubber hammer...

James Wolcott has a few things to say about Rumsfeld.

Donald Rumsfeld, whose Steely Resolve more and more resembles aluminum siding, is a man unafraid of confronting the full spectrum of America's enemies from Al Qaeda to Amnesty International.

His retirement as Secretary of Defence will leave a trail of ruination as its legacy that will stretch forward into the indeterminate future.

"When Rumsfeld leaves office, what will his successor inherit?"

"A volunteer military without volunteers. The Army missed its active-duty recruiting goal in April by almost half. Guard and Reserve recruiting are collapsing. Retention will do the same as "stop loss" orders are lifted. The reason, obviously, is the war in Iraq. Parents don't want to be the first one on their block to have their kid come home in a box.

"The world's largest pile of wrecked and worn-out military equipment (maybe second-largest if we remember the old Soviet Navy). I'm talking about basic stuff here: trucks, Humvees, personnel carriers, crew-served weapons, etc. This is gear the Rumsfeld Pentagon hates to spend money on, because it does not represent 'transformation' to the hi-tech, video-game warfare it wrongly sees as the future.

"Commitments to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of future weapons programs that are militarily as useful as Zeppelins but less fun to watch..."

"Finally, the equivalent of an unfavorable ruling by a bankruptcy judge in the form of a lost war. We will be lucky if we can get out of Iraq with anything less than a total loss."

Yeah, I'd say that about covers it.

I got nuthin' to add to that. There's more. Go read.

He's All Ours Now, Heh-Heh!

South Knox Bubba is wending his merry way up the California coast along Highway One. He's posting his daily travelogue along with some beautiful, even for him, photos. Go see.

Brrr

Maybe I'll start packing the tools again.

Raising Hell

Gord's post below got me thinking. I always tell you to contact your congressweasels and bitch, right? Well, I made it easy for ya today:

[Alabama], [Alaska], [American Samoa], [Arizona], [Arkansas], [California], [Colorado], [Connecticut], [Delaware], [District of Columbia], [Florida], [Georgia], [Guam], [Hawaii], [Idaho], [Illinois], [Indiana], [Iowa], [Kansas], [Kentucky], [Louisiana], [Maine], [Maryland], [Massachusetts], [Michigan], [Minnesota], [Mississippi], [Missouri], [Montana], [Nebraska], [Nevada], [New Hampshire], [New Jersey], [New Mexico], [New York], [North Carolina], [North Dakota], [Ohio], [Oklahoma], [Oregon], [Pennsylvania], [Puerto Rico], [Rhode Island], [South Carolina], [South Dakota], [Tennessee], [Texas], [Utah], [Vermont], [Virginia], [Virgin Islands], [Washington], [West Virginia], [Wisconsin], [Wyoming]

And I'm putting a link in the sidebar so you can find this info again easily.

Premature Ebombulation

This article in The Nation is about the US/UK bombing of Iraq prior to the criminal invasion and what it may mean. Go read, it's a gooder.

But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began.

At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq.

It only takes one member of Congress to begin an impeachment process, and Conyers is said to be considering the option. The process would certainly be revealing. Congress could subpoena Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, Gen.Tommy Franks and all of the military commanders and pilots involved with the no-fly zone bombings going back into the late 1990s. What were their orders, both given and received? In those answers might lie a case for impeachment.

This is getting better and better.

Too much fun...

Today is mos' def not a slow news day. Go to Cursor and rock out.

Ugh! Great White Assholes

6/2/1924: U.S. Congress agrees to give citizenship to some Native Americans.

Gee, that was big of 'em, huh?

Can I be the one to stick the fork in him? Huh? Huh?

Go read Geov Parrish about Deep Throat, the Downing Street Memo, and the Media.

Here's what John Dean, key Watergate figure, wrote about Dubya's case for the Iraq war in a June 2003 column for findlaw.com: "To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked... Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be a 'high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause."

Snowballs start out slowly too. When they git down the mountain a little ways, sometimes they turn into avalanches. Our media needs a few little "balls" to get the avalanche started, though.

Can you hear me NOW?

From Rob the squid:

A Google news search reveals that the majority of the coverage of the Downing Street memo is either on foreign news sites (France, New Zealand) or on blogs (Brad Blog). Only a few U.S. sites (aside from bloggers, such as the Big Brass Alliance) have made mention of the story, and then it's from the "U.S. largely ignores Downing Street Memo" angle.

[. . .]

Why is it the only American news outlet that even mentions the memo is Fox?

Update: 16:30:

Rook puts his own unique spin on the Fox situation.

One way in, one way out...

Since Interstate 80, "Main Street USA" is about a mile from me and I have to use it a lot, I thought I'd give ya a little diversion from politics. I love reading about Way Out West in the Noo Yalk Times! You can choose from a multitude of I-80 web cams here. Take a little break in the mountains.

Red on Dems' Strategy

Apropos of Fixer's post, below, go see what Ariana has to say.

Strategies

Oliver Willis takes a look at ours.

True sacrifice

Echidne takes one for the team.

Grip

Or the lack of it. London's Financial Times does a piece on how the U.S. is losing control of their Iraqi puppets allies.

[. . .]

In the more sombre assessment of others in the administration, however, the US has long lost its grip on Iraq's political process. "We are losing control," said one veteran Arabist in the administration who requested anonymity.

[. . .]

Geoff Porter, analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, said US interests had been "stymied on most fronts", with US officials frustrated with, and ignorant of, Iraq's fractious politics. "There is an air of resignation, with people throwing up their hands that this will be a long-term process."

[. . .]

So, another part of this fiasco gone to shit. The Bush administration can't even get the underhanded shit right. I mean, you take over a country less than half your size, with the greatest, best trained military in the world, and you can't even install a puppet democratic government you can control? Did anything go right in Iraq, you murderous, inept fools?

Thanks to the Wankers for the link.

There's more at the door

Ask along that man who's wearing a carnation.
Bring every single person
from Victoria Station,
Go into that hospital
and bring nurses and patients,
Everybody go home and fetch their relations!

- Welcome - The Who

The Swarm continues:

[. . .]



Progressive Democrats of America has joined with AfterDowningStreet.org, a coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups to launch a campaign urging the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war and they need everyone's help! Here are some simple tools to alert your local media outlet about this new coalition. Demand a Resolution of Inquiry!

[. . .]

I forgot to give proper credit. Sorry, Froggy. I've picked your pocket twice in the same post from two different sources. It's gotta be some sort of bloggy record.

Update: 11:25:

Froggy finds someone else who noticed:

while many of his former supporters are still angry with senator john kerry, he seems to finally have caught on and is following the lead of the emerging real leaders of the democratic party---bloggers.

[. . .]

Update: 13:00

More from the Sister:

[. . .]

The Big Brass Alliance, in addition to supporting Congressman John Conyers' and AfterDowningStreet.org's efforts to pursue a formal inquiry into the administration's actions leading up to the Iraq war, is also throwing its weight behind the Awaken the Mainstream Media campaign started by Daily Kos diarist smintheus.

[. . .]

Excellent

Travis finds the best shit.

Deep Throat redux . . . sorta

Jaye at Blondie's:

[. . .]

Enough of who Deep Throat is or what he did. Get on your knees and thank Gawd for him and Daniel Ellsberg. Medal of Freedom anyone? More about how Watergate is more and more like, Jesus, what do you call the Bush administration's scandals?

Yellow Cakegate?
Iraqgate?
My Pet Goatgate?
Electiongate? Part I and Part II?
Mission Accomplishedgate?
AWOLgate?
The president looked stoned on the night we went to war against Iraqgate?

[. . .]

With all these 'gates', the Chimp administration should be rounded up and sent to Leavenworth for the rest of their newborn natural lives.

Waves

Lambert:

The Republicans have been trying to abolish Constitutional government for some time. And each time, the wave breaks further up the beach.

Nixon, the first wave: Watergate, and the plumbers, were felonies orchestrated and directed from the White House. And Nixon tried to use national security as a cloak to hide his crimes. But our Democratic institutions - and here I use the letter "D" in both upper and lower case - were strong enough to withstand the assault. Hearings were held, and Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment.

[. . .]

Little by little. The Repub machine is like a glacier, moving steadily forward over decades. Interesting post.

Bend over . . . again

NEW YORK, May 23, 2005 - Troubled United Airlines ended its traditional pension plans dramatically earlier this month, abandoning them in a highly publicized move to the federal government's pension insurance agency. But many other traditional plans die quietly, either converted to "hybrid" plans or frozen and replaced with worker-funded 401(k) plans.

And it's happening with increasing frequency.

[. . .]

Here comes another bailout of big business.

[. . .]

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures private sector pensions, says the number of covered plans has dropped from a high of 112,208 in 1985 to fewer than 30,000 today. Of those remaining, some 20 percent are hybrid designs such as cash balance plans under which companies allocate pay and interest credits to accounts in each employee's name.

[. . .]

There's a statistic from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund that private pensions already $450 billion in the red and will go higher as more companies default on their plans. 20 of the major Fortune 500 companies have not paid into their own plans for a couple years now as it is and 39% of plans are underfunded.

A note: Defaulted pensions picked up by the PBGF are generally worth a third of what they originally were.

Once again, everything big business touches manages to go to shit. To wit: The savings and loan industry, the airline industry, the prescription drug industry, and the energy industry. Oh, did I forget to mention these folks (and their lobbying PACs) are the Repubs biggest campaign contributors?

Now, do you think upper management is taking any wage or benefit cuts? Do you think they feel this kind of stress?

[. . .]

"I calculated that under the cash balance plan, I would have to work until 78 to get the same annuity (monthly benefit) I would have had at age 65 under the old plan," Krueger said.

[. . .]

How, at 65, do you deal with suddenly having to work another 13 years? Do you think this poor woman will have any kind of retirement? Odds are, she'll die working for the man just to scrape out some sort of existence. It's criminal.

My dad was a crusty old Brit, but he gave me a few pearls of wisdom that have proven true over the years. Most of it had to do with relating to women, but he always said that if you want to live like a human being when you retire, don't depend on anyone.

Nobody cares if you can afford to live but you. I never expected to get a pension or Social Security, but there's a lot of folks in their '60s and '70s who are living on a combination of company pensions and SSI. What does that do to them when their income is suddenly cut by two-thirds? What are they gonna do when the Chimp fucks up what's left of their SSI?

It's time for a change in the way we think in this country. We've become too much a 'disposable society'. Instead of revering our old folks and learning from them, we just treat them like chattel, to be tossed away when they're no longer useful. Sort of what they're doing to our troops.

This Explains A Lot

Trust in a bottle:

...Swiss and American scientists demonstrate in new experiments with a nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin.

After a few squirts, human subjects were significantly more trusting and willing to invest money with no ironclad promise of a profit.

The researchers acknowledged their findings could be abused by con artists or even sleazy politicians who might sway an election, provided they could squirt enough voters on their way to the polls.

Apparently, this has been on the market since the 2000 election, and the Republicans are adding regular and stronger doses to the water supply, especially in the red states. I guess some of us are lucky enough to be immune.

Sure does explain why 51% of the nation buys the Repugs' crock of shit.