Suite Jesus!

The Smoking Gun has the "Downtime Suite" requirements for an Under-a-rock Star:

After posting the performance contracts of artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and U2, The Smoking Gun has finally obtained the backstage demands of a real rock star. That's right, below you'll find a copy of Vice President Dick Cheney's standard "tour" rider.

And, of course, all the televisions need to be preset to the Fox News Channel (what, you thought he was a Lifetime devotee?).

Mrs. Cheney's H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers.

So the "tuff" guy can't operate a thermostat or a TV remote by himself? Or is he just above it all? I'll bet he pisses in the sink anyway.

He should be glad I don't work at his hotel. Between the plugged-up plumbing, short-sheet job, TV permanently tuned to PBS, yellow ice, and the phone ringing every ten minutes all night long, I bet I'd have some fun!

Tell the Senate

Censure Bush on illegal wiretapping.

"We can put stirrups on the craps table..."

Please pardon that sarcastic title about a serious subject: the despicable South Dakota Forcible Birth Act. One woman is going to do something about it. From Indianz.com News

"When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother's life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set off a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of "simple rape," there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as "simple." He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by "simple rape."

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," she said to me last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women."

I think the SD forced-birth law is, in and of itself, a damn fine definition of "simple rape". Kudos to Ms. Fire Thunder.

Time to stand up

Digby:

...

But times have changed. The Republicans are being hoist on their own hubris and it's time to recognise that people are sick of their tired cant and want to hear from us again. Listening to George W. Bush's speeches for the last five years, particularly after 9/11, is like having someone sing "It's a small world after all" over and over and over again. It was bad the first time. Now it makes you want to stab your ears with a letter opener. The press, forced to listen more often than anyone else, seems to have reached its limit as well.

Make the argument, Dems. People are ready to listen.

...

As I said yesterday:

...

Note to Dems: Now is the time to shove the knife in and twist.

If you wait too long, you'll lose the opportunity. Even gridlock in Congress is better than what we have now.

And just an afterthought: I saw the ABC News profile of Tammy Duckworth last night. While I don't know her position on all the issues, her story is inspirational. She won the Dem nomination for the Illinois House seat held by Rethug Henry Hyde. We wish her, and Illinois progressives, all the best in November. If you like what she's about, help her out.

Update:

Shakes has the other side of the Duckworth story. The Dem leadership who has no idea of what the Dem base wants.

Ghosts

Go read Lurch. Been there, and a lot of folks coming home will go down that road as well:

...

There are things a man can never forget, and there are things he wants to. When he wants to forget things he can't forget, it can create torment. Late at night those figures appear in front of us, morphing out from the dark wall of the room. Or maybe a suggestive mind thinks they are there. Does it matter? They inhabit my life as surely as if I could reach out, touch them, bum a smoke, offer a can of beans, or pass a canteen.

...

Only in New York

Or, Car 54, Where Are You?

(New York-AP, March 22, 2006) - It took a police helicopter and sharpshooters armed with tranquilizer guns to catch a wily coyote in Central Park Wednesday, and it took a few sightings and a couple of spirited chases before he was captured.

...

Thank God criminals are dumber than cops. Dealing with such a superior intellect had 'em stumped. Heh...

It's just another example of why I love living in NY. The only people who were fazed by a coyote in Central Park (look at a map of NYC and figure out how he got there from one of the upstate counties) were the ones who own little dogs who'd qualify as a meal for the wild animal. Everybody else took it right in stride.

Essential

Read this:

...

3. Bush does what he feels like doing and he deeply resents being told, even politely, that he ought to do anything else. This is called a "sense of entitlement". Bush is a man who has never been anywhere and never done anything, and yet he has been flattered and cajoled into being president of the United States through his connections, all of whom thought they could use him for their own purposes. He has a surface charm that appeals to a certain type of American man, and he has used that charm to claim all sorts of perks, and then to fail at everything he has ever done. He did not complete his flight training, he failed at oil investing, he was a front man and a glad-hander as a baseball owner. As the Governor of Texas, he originated one educational program that turned out to be a debacle; as the President of the US, his policies have constituted one screw-up after another. You have stuck with him through all of this, made excuses for him, bailed him out. From his point of view, he is perfectly entitled by his own experience to a sense of entitlement. Why would he ever feel the need to reciprocate? He's never had to before this.

...

Great thanks to our pal Creature for the link.

I'm trying to be serious...

...really I am - well, a little bit, anyway - but it's hard when there's shit like this out there a mere click away:

BATSHITCRAZY, VA - On the third year anniversary of the Iraq war, the megalomaniac founder of the Washington Times Reverend Sun Myung Moon launched his new "Preemptive Warrior" magazine to help boost the sagging morale (and ever decreasing numbers) of "Bush Doctrine" supporters.

"Either you give us the goddamn oil, or we nuke your ass! That's the real Bush Doctrine message, isn't it?

If you will please excuse me now, I have to hold a mass divorce for that thousand couples I forced to marry last year," said Reverend Moon.

Go see. Be sure to scroll all the way down.

Lies, Prevarication, and Bullshit:

El Rude-o on Bush's Cleveland bullshitapalooza:

But, as ever, it's not the fact that Bush didn't answer the questions people in the Cleveland crowd asked; it's the way that he didn't answer. Right out of the gate, someone asked, "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?" Not once in his entire endless goddamn answer did Bush address what the Clevelander wanted to know, other than "The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." And then blathering on about his job is to protect us, September 11th, and using "diplomacy" before the military.

If the Rude Pundit were an endtimer, waitin' fer that mighty apocalypse so's Jeeeezus can come on down on a dark cloud fartin' lightnin' to rapture some motherfuckers up to the Great Beyond, readin' the tea leaves fer any glitch in the system that'd say it's all about to go down, he'd be mighty pissed off at Bush's claim that he hadn't heard about it. Ain't that why endtimers voted for him? 'Cause he supposedly was in on the whole deal? And if you deny it, ain't you denyin' you some Jeeezus? And...oh, shit, the Rude Pundit's brain just can't fuckin' take that much rank stupidity from all sides.

Heh. For once, the pundits agreed that Bush's proper answer to that question should have simply, and without hesitation, been "No".

I mean, you have to know what was goin' on in his head: "Fuck this 'unscripted' shit! Unca Karl never would have let that asshole within a country mile of this shithole, let alone ask me that. What do I say? The ignorant christer bastards finally elected me. Took 'em two tries. Mighta been some corporate types ain't buyin' into that crap, tho'. Which bunch do I wanta piss off? I'll plead ignorance. They'll buy that. It works every time!

Boy, I hope tomorrow's better. I just hope that Old Ay-rab Thomas goes to the ball game we sent her tickets to."

I hope he keeps up these unscripted Q&As and press conferences, but I got a hunch they'll yank him back before he really puts his foot in his mouth or (gasp!) actually inadvertently tells the truth about something.

And don't let 'em make any slot machines either...

From Voter Action:

For Immediate Release: San Francisco, March 21, 2006 - A group of 24 California voters, including Dolores Huerta, social justice activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, announced at a news conference today that they have filed a lawsuit against California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to nullify his "conditional" certification of the Diebold TSx electronic voting system and to block purchase or use of the TSx in California due to serious security, verifiability and disability access problems.

"A crisis is brewing in California when computerized slot machines used by gamblers in the state are more secure and auditable than the electronic voting systems used by California voters to decide the future direction of their government," said Lowell Finley, Esq., counsel for the plaintiffs and co-director of Voter Action. "Expert testing has confirmed that the Diebold system contains "interpreted" code --programming that is vulnerable to malicious hacking, and prohibited by the California Elections Code. The Diebold touch screen voting system is a severe security risk, and does not accommodate all disabled voters as required by law."

"California voters have the right to vote and to have their votes counted correctly. The last thing we need is to start using voting machines that deny access to disabled voters and create an unacceptable risk of fraud and vote manipulation," said John Eichhorst, co-counsel for the voter plaintiffs, and a partner with Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin.

A spokesman for Diebold's law firm of Gonif, Swindle, and Finagle responded, "We will fight this tooth and nail with all the power for which we've paid Republican politicians and judges over the years. Besides, they're in the tank with voters and need us this November more than ever. There's no way they could win in California without cheating, and maybe not even then, but we have to try."

I made that up to see if you were really watching - G.

Voter Action, www.voteraction.org, is a project of the International Humanities Center with members across the country. Voter Action recently led successful litigation in New Mexico to block purchase and use of the types of voting machines that are most error prone and vulnerable to tampering. In addition to California, Voter Action is currently supporting similar efforts in New York, Pennsylvania and other states.

Kudos to Voter Action for doing this. It's a start.

In my little town, we use a #2 pencil to vote with. Not very hackable.

White House Jumps the Shark

Andy Borowitz via Truthdig:

The recent woes besetting the Bush administration offer conclusive proof that the White House has finally jumped the shark, an expert in the field of jumping the shark said today.

Jumping the shark - a phrase referring to the phenomenon of a long-running television series suddenly becoming irretrievably bad - has never been used to explain the rapid deterioration of a presidency before.

But according to shark-jumping expert Jace Monteith, "The Bush administration is beginning to look like the fourth season of 'Saved by the Bell.' "

"If you were reading TV Guide and it said, 'This week, trouble ensues at the White House when the vice president shoots a man in the face,' you'd be like, oh, man, they're running out of ideas," Mr. Monteith says. "What are they going to do on next week's episode, give the ports away to Arabs?"

Mr. Monteith thinks that recent calls by Senate Republicans for President Bush to bring "new blood" into his administration are yet another ominous sign the White House has jumped the shark.

"That's something always done to make a show last for another season or so," Mr. Monteith says. "I don't know who the White House has in mind, but I hope it turns out better than Scrappy-Doo."

Usually, I'll just let you go there and read the comments for yourself, but this one I felt you should see:

I suggest that in the minds of the MSM addled America, Bush jumped the shark when he nominated his own "Leather Tuscadero" character, a swooning Harriet Miers.

Meanwhile "Pinky Tuscadero", er uh, wife Laura was touring the world telling us about fictional advances in womens rights.

Simultaneously the MSM has been feeding us "Jonie loves Chachi" world news as if everything is OK.

I feel like Ralph Malf...

Wheres the real Fonz when we need him?

Hey, Fixer, if you've got a leather jacket and a comb, I've got the Triumph...

Convinced?

I haven't been spending as much time blogging and watching the news in the last couple weeks since I've been playing husband and wife lately (not a complaint; in fact I enjoy taking care of the Mrs. for once. Usually she's the one nursing me after I've been punctured, broken, or torn off a body part).

So yesterday, all I see is Chimpy McFlightsuit on every channel, 'convincing' the American people he did the right thing going to Iraq. I'm not convinced, but I doubt anything he says could make me change my mind. The thing that stuck me though, more than any of the bullshit he was shoveling, was his body language.

He looked like a guy who knew he was wrong. Didja notice every time he looked down or away from the reporter he was addressing? This isn't just a difference in point of view, this is a man who knows exactly what the consequences of his actions and policies are, knows he's fucking his fellow Americans and is not trying to convince us his way is better, just trying to get us to accept his lies as fact. Trust me, being in the car business for the better part of my life, and the military for the rest, I've developed an extremely good bullshit detector.

Kudos to Ol' Helen Thomas by the way, whose question, "Why did you want to go to war in the first place?", elicited the most emotional response from Bush. Know why? Because she hit it squarely on the head. Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq and nothing would have deterred him. That's obvious.

Now, after five years of basically no real interaction outside of scripted, rehearsed GOP lovefests, why do you think they threw him out there yesterday? If you listen to CNN's Candy "Rubens would have loved me" Crowley, you'd think the Chimp's 'people' like him out there 'just like the 2000 campaign when he was so good'. But if you think so you'd be wrong. The Repubs are scared shitless because they know the American people won't believe their lies anymore and they are desperate. If they'd wanted him 'out there' so badly, he would have been. A lot. They know, if they lose control of the House and Senate in November (and they could, even if the Dems perform per tradition), the Chimp will be out of office by the following Fourth of July.

Note to Dems: Now is the time to shove the knife in and twist.

Flied Lice...

This is too funny fer words. Thanks, Cleek.

Smurfs or Snorks?

Go read what Riverbend has to say after three years of Bush's War in her country.

I don't think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite this bad today. The last few weeks have been ridden with tension. I'm so tired of it all - we're all tired.

Three years and the electricity is worse than ever. The security situation has gone from bad to worse. The country feels like it's on the brink of chaos once more - but a pre-planned, pre-fabricated chaos being led by religious militias and zealots.

My electricity's OK, but the rest sounds a lot like here, huh? Fundies are fundies, crescent or cross.

In the last weeks alone, thousands have died in senseless violence and the American and Iraqi army bomb Samarra as I write this. The sad thing isn't the air raid, which is one of hundreds of air raids we've seen in three years - it's the resignation in the people. They sit in their homes in Samarra because there's no where to go. Before, we'd get refugees in Baghdad and surrounding areas... Now, Baghdadis themselves are looking for ways out of the city... out of the country. The typical Iraqi dream has become to find some safe haven abroad.

Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and of shock and awe have evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference between now and then was that three years ago, we were still worrying about material things - possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel... It's difficult to define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war critics couldn't imagine the country being this bad three years after the war... Allah yistur min il rab3a (God protect us from the fourth year).

I think sometimes when we're denouncing Bush's War as lies, dead American troops, horrendous wasteful expense, and Neocon and Muslim ideology gone mad and out of control, we lose sight of the fact that there's actual normal human beings that are suffering way worse than we are because of it.

Taco Bell Nation

This article in the LATimes West Magazine isn't about politics, but I can politicize anything. Not a particularly complimentary piece, it still made me drain and refill my drool buckets several times. Have fun.

Let me describe the #3 plate at every local authentic Mexican restaurant 50 years ago. Imagine an oval, particularly thick ceramic plate being hustled over straight out of an oven, so hot it can only be delivered with a potholder and a warning to never, ever touch - it's a hot, hot plate each recipient, individually, will be told - that is set down a distance from the edge of the table so it won't burn chest hairs or whatever, and the clothes in between. The refried beans are gurgling, and the "Spanish" rice is reconstituting into its dry grain state, the peas and carrot chunks mutating away from the vegetable category, and the red sauce of the enchiladas is bubbling, the yellow and white cheese topping still sizzling from being on the verge of burning. Wait long enough so the plate can be handled. Then, go on, tip it sideways. Tip it upside down. Toss it to practice dexterity, letting it roll over and over, and catch it. Spin it on a finger like a top, food side down, or roll it on its edge across a long banquet table. Yes, the tablespoon of shredded iceberg lettuce and that thin, very thin slice of a too-green red tomato - colorful garnish - that nobody ever eats anyway, both of them wilted and dehydrated, will fall off. But the rest? Nope. It's a Mexican Frisbee!

And where's the politics, you may well ask? Why, right here:

Taco Bell is to Mexican food what the Bush administration is to Leadership and ethical governance.

The GOP advantages in 2006

By the mighty Kos hisself:

The GOP is in trouble. The president is as popular as dirt at a Superfund site, its agenda has suffered at the hand of reality, Iraq is a disaster, they're about to start executing Christians in our "success story" Afghanistan, Congressional Republicans just raised the debt ceiling, again, movement conservatives are turning against the ideologues running the party, and special prosecutors and investigators are still sniffing around most of the party's and movement's top leadership.

Given the huge leads Dems garner in opinion polls and that Dem fundraising is keeping pace, if not exceeding, GOP efforts, it's time for HUGE gains in November, isn't it? Isn't it?

Maybe. It's an indictment of Democratic ineffectiveness that we can't take these huge GOP liabilities and turn them into sure-thing pickups in the fall. But the GOP still has a lot of things going for it.

Among what they got goin' for 'em are Scared Democrats, a Friendly Press, and Fear and Hate. Kos lines 'em out pretty good. Go read.

Senate To Legalize Watergate Break-In

From Opinions You Should Have

he Senate will vote next week to pass a bill that will retroactively declare the Watergate break-in to be legal.

"If President Nixon felt that spying on the Democratic National Committee headquarters was necessary, that's good enough for me," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.), who elaborated, "It's time for us to stop second-guessing our leaders."

The bill is the first of a number of laws that aims to ensure that the President can do no wrong. Other laws contemplated by the Senate specifically authorize the trading of arms for hostages, manipulating intelligence to make the case for war, misleading the American people, and the use of the word "strategery."

Democrats moved swiftly with an amendment making the truthfulness of grand jury testimony dependent on what the meaning of "is" is.

Republicans also plan to give the White House three "Free Passes" and two get-out-jail-free cards in case White House officials commit crimes before Congress has the opportunity to decriminalize them.

"I am satisfied that these bills increase Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch," said Sen. Olympia Snowe. "After all, we can't insulate the President from the consequences of his wrongdoing unless the President tells us what he is doing wrong."

I'm not even going to try to add to that...

The Mission really Was Accomplished...

Greg Palast

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED

On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.

But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney, accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called,

"Operation

Iraqi

Liberation."

O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it.

t's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just love it.

As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%.

Please go read in between the quotes. I posted this so we won't lose sight of what's really going on. Always remember and never forget that this administration is all about getting your money into their friends' pockets. They don't care if they ruin us in the process, either. There's China and India waiting in the wings with 2.3 billion potential customers.

You what?

You're making how many million dollars a year to play a game and you refuse? For that money, if the manager says walk out to center field, stand on your head, and make sparks shoot out your ass, you do it. Get out, you spoiled, overpaid piece of shit.

Memes

Can you hear it? The new Repuke line: "If Dems get control of Congress in November, their only agenda is impeaching the President". You see what they're setting up, don't ya? Whiny ass baby Ken Mehlman was on Wolfie's last night pushing just that. Know why? They got nothing.

The Rethugs surely can't run on their record over the past 5 years, can they? The only thing they can do is get the Dems to say, 'no, impeachment isn't foremost on our minds', or get an unequivocal 'we're not going to impeach the President'. If the Dems past perfomance is any indicator, they should roll over shortly and come out on the record vowing not to impeach the Chimp. Wouldn't surprise me.

Me? I'd say 'you're damn straight we're gonna impeach him, first chance we get'. And then proceed to lay out the case why. And then promise to pursue criminal charges after he's tossed out of the White House. But you know what we'll get, don't ya?

The Dems'll say, 'oh, we're taking the high ground' or 'the country doesn't need an impeachment fight in time of war'. Fuck you, pussies. Groveling and sniveling in fear is not taking the high ground. Taking the high ground is getting sprayed with Repuke verbal diarrhea and standing up for what's right, regardless of the amount and intensity. See: "Feingold, Russell" if you're unsure how it's done. This means you Nancy Pelosi.