Numbnuts's Nucular Nutzoidness

Robert Scheer

The quandary in which Bush finds himself regarding Iran's apparent quest for nuclear weapons is only the latest example in an astonishing series of national security blunders.

A once swaggering president, who so convincingly wielded a bullhorn and modeled a flight suit, now has assumed the pretzel pose of a supplicant attempting to cajole our old enemy in Tehran into dropping its nuclear ambitions while simultaneously initiating talks with Iran aimed at bailing us out in Iraq. After the fiasco of using the blunt instrument of military force to "democratize" Iraq, Bush now resorts to mild talk of U.N. sanctions on Iran, the very weapon he had derided in relation to quarantining Hussein. Bush's nutty nuclear braggadocio on Tuesday -- "all options are on the table" -- was a sign of weakness, not strength, hobbled as he is by various self-created impediments.

One is that he has lost the trust of Americans, foreign leaders and even many Republicans by lying about Iraq -- crying wolf, in essence -- and then fumbling the occupation. Another invasion would be a tough sell, both here and abroad.

Two, Iran is, as Republican Sen. Richard Lugar put it subtly, "part of the energy picture." In other words, it exports gobs of oil. U.S.-Iran tension already has sent crude prices above $70 a barrel. "I believe, for the moment, we ought to cool this one," Lugar warned the White House. "We need to make more headway diplomatically to be effective."

Three, the United States is highly dependent upon Iran-trained Shiite religious factions in Iraq for what is left of the tattered welcome mat Bush & Co. told us to expect when we came to overthrew Hussein. Key Iraqi Shiite leaders have stated they would support Iran in the event of a U.S. attack. Cozying up to the Shiite fundamentalists in Iraq is a bargain with the devil, born of weakness, the pattern for this president.

Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq. See more of Robert Scheer at TruthDig.

Zillow

Just to take a little break on Bush-Bashin' Thursday, check out Zillow.com. It's kinda like Google Earth, except when you type in your address, it tells you approximately how much your house is worth.

Just for fun, I typed in Fixer's address. It came back with "No information available in the Twilight Zone". Hmmm.

Steak night at deer camp

A letter to Georgie from a South Arkansas good ol' boy:

Hey George, I hate to have tell you this, son, but they're talking bad about you out at the deer camp. That's real bad. When you've lost the deer-camp-boys you're in big trouble around here.

George, they're a calling you a liar. Yep, they are. And if it's one thing they don't cotton to, it's a liar, George. They know liars; they've had liars for employees and dealt with liars in trying to do businesses. "Cain't' trust a liar" just about sums it up around here, George.

I guess it's partly cause we come from pioneer stock. Most of our people moved here from Tennessee and Alabama, and before that Georgia and the Carolinas and some from Virginia. We come from a long line of survivors, George. Only the survivors got this far. They survived by their wits and hard, honest work, with a little luck thrown in. Excuse' me for saying so, but they also learnt' real early how to separate the chicken salad from the chicken s****, George. (G's note: anybody who kin misspell a cuss word with asterisks is my kinda guy!) They watched out for what people did rather than pay too much attention to what they said. Their Grandpas taught em' that.

And, oh yea, these ol' boys, they really don't like being played for a fool when they've kindly given you the benefit of the doubt. On a scale of one to ten George, that's a ten.

Yep, when he loses the flannel-shirt-'n-.30-'06 boys, he's lost everybody who breathes even a little oxygen.

They're not too crazy about all the new and proposed gas wells in prime huntin' country in Colorado, Wyoming, and a coupla other Western states, either.

Worst president Ever

Today's must-read, from Rolling Stone.

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

Wordy bastards, these historians. Wade through it. It's worth it.

Divine Strake

Wish I could be there. I know, most of you say 'how horrible', a bigger way to kill people, and I agree. But I love blowing shit up. If I could get the time off to see them light this sucker up I'd be there. I'll let 'em blow these things off all day, as long as no one gets hurt.

Damned liberal media

Why can't they show good news? Oh, you mean like this?

A new poll of leaders of Iraqi women's-rights groups finds that women were treated better and their civil rights were more secure under deposed President Saddam Hussein than under the faltering and increasingly sectarian U.S.-installed government.

This is doubly troubling. It's troubling first because the Bush administration used the issue of women to justify its now widely criticized invasion of Iraq in part by promising to improve the situation of women.

It's troubling second because the administration has issued news releases, held public meetings and tried to gain media attention (as well as U.S. public support) for all the "good" it's supposedly doing the women of Iraq via this invasion.

...

Yeah, so how's that 'hearts and minds' thing going? Thought so. Oh well, at least Afghanistan is going well, right?

KABUL, Afghanistan - A massive explosion believed to have been caused by a rocket shook the Afghan capital late Wednesday near the U.S. Embassy compound, wounding an Afghan security contractor, officials said.

...

Well, maybe not. Oh yeah, the opium poppy crop will be bigger this year than ever, that means heroin prices should go down here, right?

THE Capital faces being hit by an influx of cheap and dangerously pure heroin following a bumper opium crop in Afghanistan, drug experts warned today.

...

Oh...wait...

Thanks to Maru for the directions.

Oh yeah!!!!

Thermite (video 3:51). Big boom...heh...

Note: Unfortunately, I am not one of the guys in the video.

Very great thanks to PZ Myers.

Why?

Why is there a picture of President Bush consorting with an admitted terrorist sympathizer floating around? Why are they consorting in the first place?

Hail Mary

Mark Morford at SFGate.com:

It's just like playing blackjack in Vegas.

Invariably, sitting right next to you is some guy, eyes shifty and body twitchy and making weird sounds with his mouth and smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead dreams, with a huge pile of chips he is quickly turning into a very small pile of chips.

...

He then does what every miserable, lunkheaded gambler does at this point: In a fit of alcoholic rage and demonic encouragement, he says, "Screw it" -- and digs into his pocket, pulls out his last remaining crumpled $1,000 bill and slaps it down on the table in one big final gesture meant to turn his fortunes around all at once, damn the wife at home and forget a decent meal and forget every ironclad rule of gambling because damn it the gods owe him and he's long overdue for a change in fortune. Yes. Right. Sure he is.

Sure enough, the lug loses his big Hail Mary bet. He is broke. He cannot believe it. He curses the table, curses the whore cards, swears at the dealer for not treating him better, slams the rest of his drink and his face contorts and his hands shake and he stumbles off into the night, railing against his lousy luck, the gods, all of humanity. Same ol' situation, happening all over Vegas. And, of course, Washington, D.C.

...

This is what puckers my sphincter more than anything; that the Chimp might also get desperate and say 'fuck it' and push the button. Scares the livin' shit out of me.

Tip o' the Brain to Brilliant at Breakfast.

Welcome to the Brain

To all the readers coming over from The Daou Report. Take a look around and please feel free to commment if you like. We hope you make the Brain a regular stop.

Update:

And I've been remiss in welcoming folks from Ned Lamont's blog. Ned's the guy who's gonna have Joe-mentum's job come November.

Ain't nobody that nuts

...

In all seriousness, I think the real story here continues to be that things are so bad at the White House, the level of denial and secrets to be kept, the self-bamboozlement and bad-faith so profound, that they just can't manage to bring in any new blood.

...

I sure as hell wouldn't want to walk into what must be a complete mess at the White House. Josh Marshall via Atrios.

More on White House "shakeup"

A letter from Bush to his daughters. Heh.

McClellan resigns, Rove retreats

WaPo complete with short video.

Karl Rove, the president's most influential adviser and a dominant force in the Bush administration since its beginning, surrendered key policy responsibilities today while press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation.

New WH Chief of Staff Bolten appears to be undertaking the Herculean task of metaphorically cleaning out the Augean stables. Unlike Hercules, he also has to fill them back up, but that should be easy: there's plenty of horseshit locally available.

Update:

Political Wire:

Having secured White House press secretary Scott McClellan's resignation, new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten "has offered Fox News Channel anchor Tony Snow the job of White House press secretary," the D.C. Examiner reports.

The Hotline says other possible candidates may be Rob Nichols, Dan Bartlett, Torie Clarke, Dan Senor, Brian Jones and Ron Bonjean.

Well, we want more transparency in the White House, and I see through all of them.

Re-update: (No, I didn't ship over!)

Stephanopoulos weighs in:

I'm betting Senor will get the job... but not much.

He has blurbs on the whys and why-nots of each of them.

Re-re-update:

Attytood nails it:

White House introduces new press secretary: Meet "Beltway Bob"

Just go see!

The Lesson of the Oklahoma City Bombing

I'm not going to link to articles or information about this event,pretty much everyone who follows American current events knows what happened on April 19, 1995.If you don't,Google it fer chrissakes.

When I was in school(back in prehistoric times)we learned something when it came to America:
We are too powerful to be taken down by outside forces.Mostly because we have a bad ass military,and Americans were known to have each other's backs during a crisis.We also happened to be rather innovative and smart.The thing we,as citizens,have a duty to do is to keep destructive forces from taking over FROM WITHIN.Or you get precisely what we have now,criminally insane and greedy people in charge of the government and those that cheer them on.The Founding Fathers were not stupid men,despite their many asshole-ish tendencies.Being powerful guys themselves,they knew how easy it would be for that power to be abused.Hence all those checks and balances,a few common sense hard and steadfast rules,with a sort of open ended understanding that this system would be able to progress forward.To adapt to the needs of a growing Superpower while keeping the general population fairly well off and Free.Or that's the gist of the whole enterprise that we call America,you get the idea.

I think the whole damned country is suffering from PTSD.So many of us have suffered traumas,often violent ones at the hands of another human being.I figure that has one of two outcomes for a person.Someone either remains Damaged(which festers into bad,very bad,things)or they work very hard towards Healing(which mostly results in compassion,empathy,a desire for peace and a wanting to do good).This is a fairly universal experience,trauma of some sort and the resulting road back.Maybe it's not so much a good vs evil thing we have going on here,but a Healing People vs Damaged People battle?Is it emotional and violent physical trauma that is the cause of evil? And if that's the case,should we not be devoting time and massive resources towards stopping violence,suffering and abuse?

For America's reputation and trustworthiness to be restored,I firmly believe a kind of national reckoning,nurtured BY our so called"leadership"at the federal level,HAS to happen.We'll never be seen as"good"again by the world,or by ourselves until we do.And we can multi task here,it's not like the country has to come to a grinding halt while we work on this.

Of course,this is just my opinion,I could be wrong.What do you think? We have a fair portion of our citizenry who are addicted to hate,and it's officially out of control.How do you reign that in? I just think that we have to face our own cultural/societal flaws and try to rectify them as best we can before we go bossing the rest of the planet around.Our corporations also mimic this type of cold,calculating hatred,think about it.Or maybe I'm just a hopeless bleeding heart liberal,lol.

Sorry for blathering,this seems a bit disjointed perhaps. Something has to be the impetus for violence,that's a learned thing.Babies aren't born evil and mean.You just don't decide for no reason to set off a bomb that kills 168 people,something bad has to happen before a person can go there,right? Why is it that America seems to have so many walking wounded who act out in heinous ways?

Duck and cover

I lived in Connecticut for 18 months, a beautiful state with decent folks who make me proud to call them 'neighbor'. I'm even more proud of them now that Joe-mentum is on the run.

...

Joe Lieberman is clearly dragging Dubya around like a ball and chain. He's not his usual hawkish self answering questions about the Iran and the critique of the 6 generals, he's avoiding the entire state of Connecticut and he has refused to debate Ned Lamont. The black smoke rising from the Lieberman campaign has turned the national media toward looking at Ned with much closer scrutiny. Says Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent: [my em]

...

Joe, you're their senator. You have to go home sometime. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! If you kiss the Rethugs' ass a little more, maybe they'll let you run on their ticket. To paraphrase and butcher Lloyd Bentsen's words, you're no Lowell Weicker. Heh, fucking turncoat idiot.

Don't forget to wipe...

Rumsfeld is getting desperate. Good.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld predicted Monday that calls from retired generals for him to step down would fade away, and he dismissed the criticism as a standard part of the history of American combat since the Revolutionary War.

"This, too, will pass," Mr. Rumsfeld said during an interview with Rush Limbaugh, the conservative nationally syndicated radio host.

To which BuzzFlash replies:

Message to Mr. Master of the Universe: We are not talking about a bowel movement here. We are talking about thousands upon thousands of lives lost, thousands more wounded, billions of dollars of our money spent wastefully, and a military that thinks you don't know what the Hell you are doing -- along with the blessed ignorance of Bush and Cheney.

No, Donald, this too will NOT pass. It's called incompetence, arrogance, and abysmal, utter failure.

How's it feel bein' a big No. 2, Stinky Rummy?

Choosing up sides...

Asia Times

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.

The SCO, an Intergovernmental organization whose working languages are Chinese and Russian, was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO's change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Iran's nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States.

The SCO's enlargement move, in this regional context, would frustrate the entire US strategy. Ironically, the SCO would be expanding into South Asia and the Gulf region, while "bypassing" Afghanistan.

This at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is stepping up its presence in Afghanistan. (General James L Jones, supreme allied commander Europe, said recently that NATO would assume control of Afghanistan by August.)

So far NATO has ignored SCO. But NATO contingents in Afghanistan would shortly be "surrounded" by SCO member countries. NATO would face a dilemma.

If it recognizes that SCO has a habitation and a name (in Central Asia, South Asia and the Gulf), then, what about NATO's claim as the sole viable global security arbiter in the 21st century? NATO would then be hard-pressed to explain the raison d'etre of its expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union.

I have no opinion on this yet, but it seems as if the sides are being drawn up due to the emergence of Asia as a bloc of power. Also, they need to band together to resist Bush's idiocy. I don't blame them.

Oh for Chrissake....

I have another busy afternoon of garden work ahead of me here,but I had to stop in and direct your attention to this madness...

"DIVINE STRAKE is one of several "DIVINE" efforts under the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat (HDBTD) program. DIVINE WARHAWK consists of deep underground operational tunnel facility defeat demonstrations using advanced weapons at the White Sands Missile Range. DIVINE HELCAT was a 2004 reconstitution exercise to determine reconstitution time for the C3I tunnel facility at Nevada Test Site (NTS). Also in 2004 planning began for DIVINE HATES, which is a WMD production and storage tunnel complex functional defeat effort. "

Divine HATES?Are you freaking KIDDING ME?

Enough of this Messianic,exceptionalistic and just plain criminally insane bullshit.They need to be spending money and time taking care of our service men and women,how about Project Divine Get the Troops Some Body Armor That's Not Defective? Project Divine Give the Troops Proper Mental Health Care? How about Divine PEACE?Oh never mind.I do know I'm not amused,in the slightest by this "cleverness".

I need to go play in the dirt before I lose my mind,lol.WTF is WRONG with people? I don't scare too easily,but I'm scared folks,to my core.I'm not liking it much either.Maybe I oughta skip planting stuff and just dig a bunker.

Recipe for Holy War: Add two nut jobs and stir

Beth Quinn editorializes:

All right. I'm now officially scared.

Having just read Seymour Hersh's article about Bush's Iran plan, it appears that we no longer have a case of the good guys versus the bad guys.

What we have here is the bad guy versus the bad guy - two madmen playing an international game of chicken, ratcheting up the rhetoric to appeal to their fundamentalist followers.

There's no doubt that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is mad in the head. In fact, it might help you remember his name if you pronounce it "Ah'm mad in ee head." (my em)

In last week's New Yorker magazine, Hersh provided a detailed look at Bush's response to Ah'm Mad In Ee Head. According to Hersh's sources, Bush wants Ah'm Mad In Ee Head to defy U.N. demands to quit playing with uranium.

You know why? Because our own madman wants to trot out one of our own nukes and bomb Iran's madman out of business - along with a few hundred thousand other Iranians, of course.

As one congressman told Hersh, "The most worrisome thing is that Bush has a messianic vision." Bush is waging a holy war. He's on a crusade. And so is Ah'm Mad In Ee Head.

One nut-job fundamentalist Christian plus one nut-job fundamentalist Muslim equals one nut-job Holy War.

So now I'm officially scared. On their own, Bush and Ah'm Mad In Ee Head are frightening enough. Working together, these two could create the Perfect Storm.

I think that's it in a nutshell.

Senate hearings on Bush...Now

Carl Bernstein calls for Senate hearings on Bush and frames it in relation to -what else?- Watergate. Long, but worth a read.

Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.

The first fundamental question that needs to be answered by and about the president, the vice president, and their political and national-security aides, from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, to Karl Rove, to Michael Chertoff, to Colin Powell, to George Tenet, to Paul Wolfowitz, to Andrew Card (and a dozen others), is whether lying, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation of information have been a basic matter of policy—used to overwhelm dissent; to hide troublesome truths and inconvenient data from the press, public, and Congress; and to defend the president and his actions when he and they have gone awry or utterly failed.

The calculations of politicians about their electoral futures should pale in comparison to the urgency of examining perhaps the most disastrous five years of decision-making of any modern American presidency.

It took the Senate Watergate Committee less than six months to do its essential work. When Sam Ervin's gavel fell to close the first phase of public televised hearings on August 7, 1973, the basic facts of Nixon's conspiracy - and the White House horrors - were engraved on the nation's consciousness. The testimony of the president's men themselves - under oath and motivated perhaps in part by a real threat of being charged with perjury - left little doubt about what happened in a criminal and unconstitutional presidency.

There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived.

It's good to see that half the pair that brought down Nixon is still in the fight.