Read this:

Stolen from TAPPED:

AXIS OF DRIVEL. We've just completed our September issue, and it's now available online for all Prospect subscribers. We've made David Sirota's new article, "The Big Squeeze," available to all our Web readers. Sirota looks at five areas where big business has become not only a player but the referee, after four years of deregulation and handouts from the Bush administration. CEOs and HMOs have made off with billions since 2000; you can guess whose pockets it comes from. Sirota looks at what the oil, healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries have received -- and what it's cost the rest of us.

No surprise to me, but for you non-political junkies, this will open your eyes. Bush is not only wrecking the country, he's selling it out from under us too. Asswipe. Do yourself a favor and follow the links.

God & Politics

Talk about brainwashing the sheep. Stole the whole thing from Barbara at The American Street:

Florida Feels Bush Wrath
George W. Bush reminded Florida voters Saturday that he is *The* voice of God. “Hurricane Charley was an act of God that not coincidentally followed a poll showing John Kerry in the lead among Florida voters,” Bush hinted. Voters in other swing states could also be subject to “acts of God” if they worship another God before Bush, the commander-in-chief added. “It’s hellfire season again in California,” Bush said while visiting the Pacific Northwest this weekend. “How long has it been since there’s been a good-sized earthquake in Portland?”

Bush says it is his goal to make Barrack Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention come half-true. “By the time I get through with my vengeance there won’t be any blue states left,” Bush said. “There are huge nuclear weapons facilities in New Mexico and Washington that voters there should consider before they cast their ballots.”

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” Bush told a gathering at the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s church in Lynchburg, VA. “and I’m going to take full advantage of that by destroying these ‘sensitive’ Democrats.” Falwell reminded Bush of the time he and the Rev. Pat Robertson were able to keep a Hurricane out of Virginia and changing its course to the "homosexual-infested" Long Island and Connecticut areas. “I do the same thing,” Bush admitted. “There is no record of a hurricane ever hitting Crawford, Texas.”

This is outrageous. And as for homosexual-infested Long Island, come up here, Pat. I ain't queer, but I'd give it to your ass so hard you'd choke. Fucking bible-thumping, Jesus freak, assholes.

Yeah!

From The American Street:

Courtesy: General J.C. Christian, guest blogger.

Update: 06:15 Sunday:

The Farmer at Corrente has more on the Keyes 'Legacy of Lunacy'.

"Liberal brainwashing"

From Jesse at Pandagon:

Because Liberals Indoctrinate Kids

Oh, hell no.

"Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! A Small Lesson in Conservatism" is a wonderful way to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. In simple text, parents and children follow Tommy and Lou on their quest to earn money for a swing set their parents cannot afford. As their dream gets stuck in Liberaland, Tommy and Lou’s lemonade stand is hit with many obstacles.
Liberals keep appearing from behind their lemon tree, taking half of their money in taxes, forbidding them to hang a picture of Jesus atop their stand, and making them give broccoli with each glass sold.

Law after law instituted by the press-hungry liberals finally results in the liberals taking over Tommy and Lou’s stand and offering sour lemonade at astronomical prices to the customers.

Then conservatives come along and propose no regulation whatsoever, even when Tommy urinates in each pitcher. They then propose a consumption tax on nonessential items like lemonade, which means that they now have to charge $.75 a glass instead of $.50.

They then release a terror alert just for the block, telling people to be highly afraid of any suspicious activity, but also reminding them to go shop.

Ain't that special

President Lowlife is rushing to Florida to survey the damage from the storm. Took the fucking asshole 10 days to get HERE after 9/11, but he can sure run when little brother calls. Rat bastid. It pays to live in a red state when federal aid is being passed out, doesn't it?

Shut up, I'm campaigning

Seriously, I know my blogs (this one and The Fixer) are not the most widely read in the blogosphere, but I know some pretty respected and influential folks have cruised through. With that in mind, I'm campaigning, not for me, but for the Mrs.

That's right. I may be an idiot, but my wife is one of the smartest people I know and I believe she would be great for a Cabinet Secretary position in a Kerry administration. So, if any of you folks who are connected with Kerry/Edwards, or if you know someone influential in the campaign, put a good word in about Mrs. F. I could see her as Secretary of Commerce or Secretary of the Treasury. She's a hell of a lot better than the idiots who work for President Clueless.

So, what do you say? Think about it. And I promise that I will stay far, far away from the Halls of Government, so you don't have to worry about the property value of the White House going down. Silly me, what am I saying? After Bush gets done, it won't be worth shit anyway.

Kaplan on Iraq

From Josh Marshall at TPM:

[. . .]

The key sentence is this one: "the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks."

[. . .]

And the key is Kaplan's point about tactical victories and strategic setbacks. Yet, I think we can go further and say that these don't 'yield' strategic setbacks, they are strategic setbacks in and of themselves.

Winning a pitched battle against Shi'a insurgents in the heart of one of Shi'a Islam's holiest sites (and by this I mean not just the Imam Ali Mosque, but the cemetery near it and the area immediately surrounding it) is itself a defeat for us.

(Here is a piece just out from the Post that illustrates the bind into which we've sunk the Army and Marines.)

As the shrewdest thinkers on the left and the right concede on this issue, our true strategic challenges in the Muslim Middle East are not conventional military ones, but hearts-and-minds challenges. . .

[. . .]

Entire post.

Personally, I think the time for winning the hearts and minds has long passed, the opportunity squandered.

Thoughts . . .

Via CNN. This whole McGreevey thing:

TRENTON, New Jersey (CNN) -- New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey -- who said he would step down in November after admitting an extramarital gay affair -- faced pressure Friday to resign immediately amid accusations that he abused his office and power to pursue a sexual relationship with the man.

"While employed by one of the most powerful politicians in the country, New Jersey Governor McGreevey, I was the victim of repeated sexual advances by him," said attorney Allen Lowy, reading a statement on behalf of his client Golan Cipel.

McGreevey, who stunned the political world with his announcement Thursday that he is gay, had cheated on his wife and would leave office in three months, has not publicly identified the man he was involved with.

[. . .]

While I understand why McGreevey wants to wait until 15 November, I don't think he should go through with it. I think he should get the fuck out now. NJ is certiainly Democratic, and I'm pretty sure we would win a special election held this November. This ploy of McGreevey's sounds too much like something the Republicans would do out of desperation; remember Florida 2000. Resign now, Jim, let's put this to bed so the Republicans can't scream.

New York City & the GOP

From that smart and insightful kid, and fellow New Yorker, Matt Yglesias:

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
I'll be back in my hometown of New York City for the 2004 Republican Convention, spending some time on a Prospect credential and some time hanging out with the other independent progressive bloggers come to document the goings on. I know New York pretty well, and I know that New Yorkers (a) don't like Republicans, (b) regard 9-11 as their tragedy and don't like to see it exploited by Republicans they don't like, (c) don't like seeing traffic all fucked up, (d) don't like tourists, and (e) did I mention they don't like Republicans. I mean, Bush is really hated. NYC has got to be the least Republican place on the planet this side of the Gaza Strip. It even passed through the whole realignment thing unaffected -- give us Lincoln and we won't vote for him, the City went for McGovern and it went for Mondale. It really hates Republicans.

So, speaking personally, I'm torn between a desire to see New York kick some ass and really teach the GOP a lesson for having the balls to repeatedly screw the city over on counterterrorism stuff, then show up in town trying to gay bash and 9-11ify their way to reelection, and a fear that over-the-top protests will bolster Bush's reelection effort.

Bush's resume

My brother-in-law doesn't send a lot of crap out. When he does, it's pretty good:

This individual seeks an executive position. He will be available next
January, and is willing to relocate.

RESUME
GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520


EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

- I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
- I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
- I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
- With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

- I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
- I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
- I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
- I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
- I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
- I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
- I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
- I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
- I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
- My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
- My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
- I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
- I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
- I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
- I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
- I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
- I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
- I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
- I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
- I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
- I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
- I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
- I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
- I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
- I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
- I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
- I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.
- In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.
- I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
- I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.
- I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

-All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
- All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
- All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

See, pretty good, huh? Say, "Thanks, Bobby".

Economics

From Steven Roach at Morgan Stanley via Just a Bump in the Beltway:

An unbalanced global economy is back on the razor’s edge. High oil prices are taking a toll on the US growth dynamic at precisely the point when a Fed tightening cycle has begun -- a risky combination by any standards. At the same time, a shift to policy austerity in China has led to a modest slowing of that overheated economy, with a good deal more to come. That puts a two-engine world -- driven by the American consumer on the demand side and the Chinese producer on the supply side -- in a zone of heightened vulnerability. As I see it, the risks on the downside outweigh those on the upside by a factor of three to one. I would now assign a 40% probability to a recessionary relapse in the global economy in 2005.

[. . .]

Read the entire report.

The Bush Administration's economic policies, along with their foreign policy, have bougt us to the brink. Four more years of President Clueless will push us over the edge. Assholes.

Brace yourself

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the changes in the tax structure under Bush. Essentially, the Bush tax cuts, in terms of the relative burden, have given tiny, almost imperceptible relief to the lowest two quintals, massive relief to the richest quintile, and made the middle class pay the difference. . .

[. . .]

From Kevin at Lean Left. Look who gets the biggest break and look who paid for it. Read the entire post.

Well said

By Xan at Corrente:

Republican Cleavage

These are not words often seen together. The twin peaks of contemporary Republicanism are the Taliban wing, which would just as soon not even acknowledge the existance of breasts, and the Have-And-Have-More faction, which tends to pick their second and third wives on the basis of mammary size.

So far these A-versus-D cup factions have coexisted uneasily in an increasingly mismatched Victoria's Secret of mutual electoral uplift. Appropriately enough it may be in another place known for high peaks that the sag begins to set in:

(via WaPo's E. J. Dionne)

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. -- You've probably seen those sexy twins in the Coors beer ads. Alluring women selling products is a way of life in our country. We are about to learn if the mogul who ran those ads can successfully cast himself as a friend of conservative family values.

Conservatism is a noble tradition and an intellectual mess. Conservatives say they revere both traditional and market values. But those two sets of values so often contradict each other that conservatives have to cover their eyes -- from the twins ads, for example -- if they are to pretend to be consistent.

What is the most powerful force for permissiveness in the United States? It is not liberalism. It is the free market's use of sexuality to sell products.

Do conservative politicians who care primarily about taxes and the interests of big business merely use "conservative values" as a slogan for attracting votes from the less well-off who gain little or nothing from their economic programs?

What do conservatives really care about -- their values or their incomes? The Colorado Senate race gives them an excellent opportunity to show what matters most.

Full story (WaPo)

Conservative values should be self-imposed first, before they try to impose their questionable values on my ass.

Wesley Clark

Via johnkerry.com:

General Wesley Clark, USA (ret) released the following statement today [12 Aug] in response to Vice President Dick Cheney’s attacks on John Kerry:

“I spent almost all of my adult life in uniform serving this great nation in the United States Army. I have led American soldiers into battle and led an international coalition in the Balkans where diplomacy, backed by force, was the winning formula.

“George W. Bush failed to learn the lessons from his predecessor or history. His ideologues who control American foreign policy have squandered much of our credibility with our allies and failed to achieve victory in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. They gambled with a go it alone policy and our soldiers are paying with their lives.

[. . .]

“But then, maybe that’s to be expected. Neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney has ever heard a shot fired in anger. Never worried whether he’d ever see his family again or seen the destruction caused by the weapons he’s wielded. The losses of war are permanent. The consequences are unpredictable. That’s why John Kerry has always said force should be a last resort. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Full statement.

Krugman on 'Ownership'

Via Corrente:

[. . .]

Call me naïve, but I thought all Americans have a vital stake in the nation's future, regardless of how much property they own. (Should we go back to the days when states, arguing that only men of sufficient substance could be trusted, imposed property qualifications for voting?) Even if Mr. Bush is talking only about the economic future, don't workers have as much stake as property owners in the economy's success?

But there's a political imperative behind the "ownership society" theme: the need to provide pseudopopulist cover to policies that are, in reality, highly elitist. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Full story.

Storm front coming

Cross posted from The Fixer:

All you clowns who are told to evacuate the storm areas? Listen to the fucking warnings and leave. I'm watching the news and you see the inevitable old geezer saying, 'lived here for ninety years and I ain't leavin'''. Have a nice funeral, dickhead. Man, I was on a detail to Altus AFB, Oklahoma to help them clean up after a tornado. Lemmie tell you what. The day you see an Air Force C-5 (2nd biggest plane in the world) that the wind picked up, carried a hundred yards (over two other C-5s) and set down on top of another, is the day you realize the extent of Mother Nature's fury. Listen to me. GET THE FUCK OUT!!! It's only stuff, it ain't worth risking your life for. Pack up the wife, the kids, and the pets, and get the fuck out. Don't say I didn't warn you.

PA polls

Via Kos:

The last four polls out of Pennsylvania

Strategic Vision (R). 8/2 - 8/4. MoE 3%:

Kerry 51
Bush 43

SurveyUSA. 7/31 - 8/2. MoE 3.7%:

Kerry 53
Bush 41

Los Angeles Times. 7/17-21. MoE 4%:

Kerry 51
Bush 39

Quinnipiac Univ. 7/6-11. MoE 2.5%:

Kerry 49
Bush 42

It's not so early anymore. Absent some major changes in the electoral dynamics, PA looks increasingly out of reach to Bush. The only Gore states threatening to bolt the Blue fold are Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.

So, the folks out in the boonies in PA are coming to their senses. Good.

More Garrison Keillor

Via Corrente:

More from Garrison Keillor's new book:

Democrats have changed America in simple basic ways in the last fifty years that have benefited everyone. Race has become less and less an issue in people's lives and racism has ceased to be socially acceptable anywhere. Women have moved into every realm of society and this is everywhere accepted without much comment. Equal opportunity in education, employment, and housing. There is general agreement on the right to a dignified old age, guaranteed by the state. Democrats led the way in bringing these things about. It's one thing to get into power and do favors for your friends; it's quite another to touch the conscience of a nation. The last Republican to do that was Teddy Roosevelt.
(Garrison Keillor's Homegrown Democrat. pp. 11-12)

[. . .]

Good read

From Mother Jones:

What the 9-11 Commission Report does not explain is why, on the morning of September 11, 2001, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and other top officials were essentially missing in action.

“Who’s our quarterback” in case of a future terrorist attack? “Who’s in charge?” That was the core question members of the 9-11 commission put to every government official they interviewed. “The reason that you’re hearing such a tone of urgency in our voices is because the answer to the question was almost uniform,” said commissioner Jamie Gorelick at the press conference following today’s release of the 600 page final 9-11 Commission Report. The person in charge, she said the commissioners had been told over and over again, would be the president.

“It is an impossible situation for that to remain the case,” Gorelick observed. Impossible, because the commission’s report clearly shows that on the morning of September 11, 2001, the president and the other top officials in charge of the systems to defend the country from attack were, in essence, missing in action: They did not communicate, did not coordinate a response to the catastrophe, and in some cases did not even get involved in discussions about the attacks until after all of the hijacked planes had crashed.

[. . .]

Full story.


Good night.

Fun stuff

Via TBogg. Make your own Bush here.