Fashionably late whoring ...

Just like every Saturday, the next chapter of my novel The Fourth Estate is up at The Practical Press.

Help me, daddy ...

Yup, the Spoiled Brat-in-Chief must realize he's failed yet again. Daddy's coming to bail him out:

...

For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Mr Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Mr Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.

The White House confirmed yesterday that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Mr Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.

...

What's next, abdicating the Presidency to Cheney?

Prodigies ...

If the 'car bombs' in London are related to this, we got nothing to worry about. As Atrios says:

...

Anyway, assuming this was an attempted terrorist attack it appears the ranks of international terrorists are filled with incompetent idiots.

Moyers on Murdoch

Hel-lo McFly?

Um, the people are speaking. How about giving a listen?

A CBS News poll shows Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war, President Bush and the Congress, as well as the overall direction of the country.

More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going badly, up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it's going very badly.

While the springtime surge in U.S. troops to Iraq is now complete, more Americans than ever are calling for U.S. forces to withdraw. Sixty-six percent say the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be decreased, including 40 percent who want all U.S. troops removed. That's a 7-point increase since April. [my ems]

...

What part of 'get the fuck out' doesn't Congress understand?

Link thanks to the meme.

The Marines are pissed ...

...

Did you get that, Commander Guy? A Marine speaks out in public and says you’re betraying them and they let him do it. I’ll say that again: The Marines let him do it and they’re not going to punish him—at all. Madden is going to retain his honorable discharge.

...

The Angry Rakkasan notes the Marines are not taking action against a grunt who spoke out against the President publicly. The leadership of the Corps is sending a message.

La la la la la, I can't hear you ...

Watching bits and pieces of Larry King Live while surfing around my 200 channels for something other than porn or infomercials before the local news comes on this morning. Michael Moore was on with him (I happen to like MM ... a lot). Larry opened up the phones to the idiots who watch him and a call from one of the idiots got me.

This guy had no insurance, was 60 years old, and basically told MM that he would rather have no insurance than socialized medicine. He also said the problem with MM is that he says bad things about America and if only he'd say good things, stuff would work out well for everyone.

So I gather there are a lot of Americans out there who feel the same way?

Listen to me. Life ain't pretty. Yes, life is beautiful but shit happens in the real world. The only way to improve things is to look at a situation squarely, honestly, and objectively and make decisions stemming from those observations.

Listening only to flowery rhetoric is equivalent to burying one's head in the sand. I think that's one of the major problems with this country, a goodly portion of our population would rather hear stuff they want to hear than stuff they need to hear.

That's why people would rather go bankrupt, rather die from inadequate care, or no care at all, than believe the system we have is broken. They'd rather believe all the crap from the corporate suits than admit the health care system we have in this country is a failure. I mean, this is America, the greatest nation in the world; what could we possibly learn from anyone else?

Certainly not from those 'Old World' Europeans. Certainly not from the Canadians. We do everything better and if only people like Michael Moore would say it, things would be just peachy.

I have a low tolerance for stupid and it seems we have a bumper crop of it in America. I'm sorry, but if you feel this health care system is good, you are a moron. If you believe this lassiez faire policy toward an industry that has the power of life and death over Americans is a good thing, you are stupid. As Moore said, you don't run a police or fire department on a for-profit basis, our health care system shouldn't be either.

This is just another mess brought to you by the American Republican Party. If you'll notice, all of the industries deregulated by Regan have turned into cash cows for their leadership while screwing their employees and the American people.

As long as there are idiots in this nation of the type who called in to Larry King, the Republicans and Big Business will screw us regularly with neither a kiss nor lubrication.

[A big welcome to readers from Crooks & Liars.]

I dunno ...

It just seems to me these London bomb scares aren't what they are supposed to be. The little voice in my head (no, not that one) is telling me this has the CIA's or MI-5's fingerprints all over it. I have no evidence, mind you, but I've been around.

After what they pulled off in the tube a few years back, if these car bombs were intended to explode, they would have.

Just a gut feeling ...

Update:

Larisa Alexandrovna has a voice too, I see:

Okay, I know that a faux bomb threat of huge nonsensical scope was reportedly about to take down all of London, but here is the real news - in cased you missed it for lack of coverage an op-ed in NYT, by Richard Butler:

...

To use a tired old blogism, read the whole article.

Update (Saturday morning):

Larisa expands on the London car bomb hype:

...

Let's be very clear right off the bat here. Al Qaeda has become the garbage can title for every act of violence and terrorism imaginable. And more importantly, that fear concept has clouded the judgment of reporters and apparently police alike:

...

So on one side, I am left with a hysterical, emotionally charged and ethically bankrupt media and on the other side, I am left with a public convinced that either UK or US authorities tried to bomb London. This is the insanity we live in and it is astonishing to me just how insidious these two world views have penetrated our culture. Either fear or paranoia, but reason no longer rules the day.

...

She is correct. My comment from her page:

After 6 years of Chimp/Cheney and their manipulation of Tony Blair, I put nothing past them, especially not when a week of bad news for the White House just concludes. Remember the security level increases before the '04 elections? Remember all those inept 'jihadis' from the Fort Dix bunch to the Florida potheads they bust when things go south somewhere else? I don't believe the White House has reached its low point yet.

While I'll concede you're probably right about the Russians or the Saudis, if it does turn out to be the Saudis, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about U.S involvement behind the scenes.

I wish a day would come when I can trust my government to tell the truth. I'm tired of being lied to.

Light Blogging Today

I finally got my new digitizing turntable hooked up and my furniture problems as to where to put it so it's close to the computer kinda semi-solved, so today I'm playing with it and trying to figure out how to work it. So far so good. It records to the 'puter just fine, but I have to watch the LP because I can't hear it! I don't know if it's supposed to be like that or if I'm missing something, but I can live with it. I guess if I hooked it up to an amplifier I could play music through speakers, but that ain't the way it is. Once it digitizates, it plays back off the 'puter just fine.

For you technos out there, the software is Cakewalk Pyro 5.

Since I can't leave my revered Brainers in the dark as to what's goin' on, here it is in a nutshell:

Repugs BAD, Dems better.

Later.

They ain't completely useless ...

Digby:

... If any of the Dem contenders make it, we will have a president who speaks normal English, in complete sentences and responds to questions fluently and with real meaning. I can't tell you what a relief that will be after these last six years of alien gibberish and bizarre, robotic responses that everyone has been pretending are normal ways of speaking.

At least we'll be able to understand the lies* they're telling us. Heh ...

Off to the shop ...

*I will continue to believe all politicians lie to us until one of them runs the White House openly in the full light of day. Every President plays the CYA game of trying to keep hidden as much as possible so it doesn't come back to bite them one day. The Chimp has taken it to the extreme but all of them do it.

You know ...

In our quest to get the Chimp and Cheney out, we should make some time to do something about their appointees on the Supreme Court.

Blondie:

WASHINGTON, June 28 — Striking down an antitrust rule nearly a century old, the Supreme Court ruled today that it is no longer automatically unlawful for manufacturers and distributors to agree on setting minimum retail prices.

...

FYI: You know who benefits from this; the big business cronies of the Rethugs. [background]:

...

The Act was intended to prevent arrangements designed to, or which tend to, increase the cost of goods to the consumer. It was not specifically intended to prevent the dominance of an industry by a specific company, despite misconceptions to the contrary. According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company that "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act. The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. [my em]

...

Not no more.


John Amato:

...

In one full term, this Court has severely curbed local efforts to promote racial diversity in schools, upheld a right-wing ban on a necessary medical procedure for women, curbed students’ free speech rights, crippled Congress’ ability to keep corporate money out of political advertising, prevented taxpayers from challenging the constitutionality of Bush’s faith-based initiatives, made it almost impossible for women to prevail on claims of longterm sex discrimination . . . and they’re just getting started.

...

I suggest making the Chimp's appointments to the Supreme Court invalid considering all the ... ethical questions coming to light recently. Dems take note, you screwed the pooch on that one too.

Must read ...

The great Glenn Greenwald has an interview up with the legendary, iconic, uber-great Helen Thomas. Do not miss it.

...

HT: I think the American people, like people all over the world, know that under international law, you only go to war if you're attacked or you have a treaty with another country to go to war if they're attacked.

An unprovoked war, based on every rationale that turns out to be untrue, certainly has caused our esteem in the world -- we are despised -- not because we gave them something and took it back. It's because we were on a pedestal. We had a halo. Everything we represented, people all over the world aspired to.

And what we did was absolutely betray those great values and principles. You do not attack a country that did nothing to you.

...

An Important Reminder From Molly Ivins

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!”

—Molly Ivins (from her last column)

Jim Webb and the Populist Pitch

David Ignatius on Jim Webb in today's WaPo:

Sen. Jim Webb is talking about his mother's family, which lived in hardscrabble eastern Arkansas during the Great Depression and was so poor "there was nothing -- not even money." The Democrats built their party around such people, Webb is saying, while the Republicans never cared about them.

And then the freshman senator from Virginia begins quoting some lyrics from "Song of the South," recorded by the country rock group Alabama:

"Well somebody told us Wall Street fell,
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell.
Cotton was short and the weeds were tall.
But Mr. Roosevelt's a-gonna save us all."

That kind of populist anger is part of the Democrats' past, and Webb argues that it's the party's future as well. But he worries that "the people at the top of the party don't comprehend the power of that message" and that as a result the Democrats may miss their best chance in a generation to reconnect with the American middle class.

On the issue of fairness (if not political correctness) some influential Democrats are starting to come Webb's way. In a recent paper for Rubin's own Hamilton Project, Summers and fellow economists Jason Furman and Jason Bordoff made a powerful case for restoring the progressivity of the tax system. They found that in 2004 the top one-tenth of 1 percent in America made as much before-tax income as the bottom 28 percent combined. Actual federal tax rates on that top one-tenth have fallen sharply, from 60 percent in 1960 to 34 percent in 2004.

Webb's "fairness agenda" is political dynamite, in the best and worst senses. It's a powerful rallying cry, but it could turn into protectionist demagoguery if it isn't managed carefully. But Webb has one big thing right: America is becoming a more stratified society, in which the rich receive a disproportionate share of the growth in national income.

Denouncing the fairness argument as "class warfare," as Republicans like to do, may not work this time. The Democratic candidate who gets the fairness issue right could find a new way to rally the party and the country.

A musical group that you've never heard of is The New Lost City Ramblers. Here's their lyric about Mr. Roosevelt from their album Songs From The Depression (you can hear snippets at the site):

"...Back Again (Back Again)
Back Again (Back Again)
We've got Franklin D. Roosevelt back again
Since Roosevelt's reelected
Moonshine liquor's been corrected
We've got legal wine, whiskey, beer, and gin..."

A good populist move is to let us get fucked up legally so we won't notice what's going on in the Halls of Power. Maybe this time we'll get legalized marijuana...

It's something to think about, Dems...

"...show me a sign..."*

Go see the other signs PTCruiser put up in the EssEff Bay Area.

*From an old Linda Ronstadt tune (lyrics)(video):

And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
And I'll be willin' to be movin'

"Media Putz of the Week" Award

I won $5 from myself betting on who the first recipient of this award would be.

For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.

For our first BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week, we had so many nominations for Chris Matthews that we had to pick one by lottery. Before we even launched MediaPutz.com, it appears Matthews is already positioned for a lifetime achievement award.

Chris Matthews, you are indeed a trailblazing Media Putz -- and more than merit being named the first recipient of this dubious BuzzFlash distinction.

Every week, you remind us how easy it is to separate journalism from the truth.

Please read the rest.

Be sure to watch Noballs today. He's gonna have Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens 'debating' God knows what, but it oughta be funny.

Dear Dr. Dean,

Paradox asks Howard Dean for money:

...

One of the reasons liberal and democratic blogs barely limp along on amazingly little money is that their true talents, functions and values are vastly undervalued by the Democratic Party, and their effect on the political dynamic is so new what they contribute is not nearly appreciated enough. I’m quite sure, Dr. Dean, you have an immediate sense of who bloggers are and what they do, and I’m also quite sure it’s very insufficient, no disrespect an’ all.

...

What’s ethically wrong with the Democratic Party paying liberal bloggers a stipend every month as long as they continue to blog? Nothing, not that I can see. 100 bloggers paid $3,000 a month is $3,600,000 a year, total chump change.

...

Dear Dr. Dean,

Keep your fucking money. I don't want money from any political party. I don't sell ad space. I don't ask for donations.

Know why?

So no one can question my credibility or ethics. The day I take money from anyone for doing this is the day people can say, "I wonder who Fixer is shilling for?" My integrity has never been, nor will ever be, for sale.

I don't want your money. I want your party to do the job I and a bunch of other people sent you there to do. End this war, get rid of the Chimp and Cheney, and then you'll get money from me, lots of it, get it? Keep fucking around like you've been doing for the last 6 months and you won't get shit. Keep fucking around and you're gonna have me breaking your balls here until you get on the stick.

Here's the ball, Dr. Dean. Time for you and the party you chair to run with it.

Regards,

Fixer

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

...

'Cause, see, the Rude Pundit still has the moral high ground, even if we discover Ann Coulter was killed by raping rhinos with stiletto horns. You could be standing neck deep in a shit filled sewer, covered with syphilis sores and shoving a crucifix up your ass, and you'd still have the moral high ground over Ann Coulter.

...

That's about right.

More, More Dick ...

Now this is what I'm talking about:

The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The four parties have until July 18 to comply, according to a statement by Leahy's office.

...

Let's see you claim executive privilege now, you fourth branch of government motherfucker.

Great thanks to John Amato.

More Dick

Please pardon me for all the attention I'm giving to The Dick, but I'm just lovin' watchin' him step on his weenie! The prick thinks he can get away with anything because he has so far, but this one might be his undoing, God willing. Hmmm. That might go a long way towards proving the existence of a wise and beneficial God. Or at least a tacit admission that truth and maybe even karma actually exist despite propaganda to the contrary from this maladministration.

The Austin American-Statesman

America has never seen a vice president like Dick Cheney, and with any luck it will never see another one like him.

That towering arrogance and obsession with secrecy may backfire on the vice president in the end.

It'd be quicker to slip him an exploding cigar. Oh, wait, the CIA already tried that on Castro. How 'bout some acid, the squiggly kind, in his brandy? 5000 mikes oughta do it.

President Bush has to accept much of the blame for Cheney's arrogation of power because he has abetted his vice president's power-grab.

Bush has allowed Cheney to become a power base and establish policies that have lowered America in international esteem.

Bush has allowed Cheney the whip hand on matters from nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court to the torture of detainees at the now-infamous military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Cheney has had control over energy policy, space exploration and much more.

The Bush administration has pushed executive power and privilege to new limits, taken secrecy to new levels and shown disdain for human rights and international treaties. This administration had carved out a place — not a good one — in history before Cheney placed himself beyond both executive and legislative reach.

Now that this uniquely powerful and damaging vice president has produced a new constitutional crisis, the Bush legacy is more assured than ever.

Bush's legacy is most assuredly assured - a weak, incompetent, pitiful little man who allowed himself to be co-opted into ruining the United States for generations to come, if not once and for all. Worst. President. Ever.

W. Learns From Students

MoDo explores what happens when you put a group of extremely intelligent students in the the same room as a dunce.

A group of high school Presidential Scholars visiting the White House on Monday surprised President Bush by slipping him a handwritten letter pleading with him not to let America become known for torture and urging him to stick to the Geneva Conventions with terror detainees.

The president reassured the teenagers that the United States does not torture. Then the vice president unleashed a pack of large dogs on the kids, running them off the White House lawn, before he shut down the Presidential Scholars program and abolished high schools.

Since it's rare that Mr. Bush ever sees groups that have not been prescreened to be nice to him, he made the mistake of opening the letter in front of the students and was surprised to learn that he has made many Americans ashamed by subverting values that the country has always held dear, like abiding by the Constitution and respecting human dignity.

I'm glad someone besides The Dick finally told him something he needed to know, not that it'll make any difference.

Ms. Dowd comments on Sen. Lugar's statements about Bush's War:

Dick Cheney, the president of the Senate, immediately expelled Mr. Lugar and appointed himself the new Senator from Indiana. It was a busy day of Constitutional shape-shifting for the vice president, who had earlier nominated and confirmed himself to the Supreme Court, so that he could roll back judicial decisions tempering his desire for torture galore, and then morphed back into his executive branch role to bar the door to the Oval Office sandbox and prevent Condi and Bob Gates from giving W. the plan he wanted to close down Gitmo.

Once his BFF Rummy was pushed out, Vice mentally absorbed the role of Defense Secretary into his own portfolio. He allows Mr. Gates - that pragmatic meddler from the skeptical world of Daddy Bush - to keep Rummy's chair warm, but the new Pentagon chief is certainly not included in the super-secret paper flow Vice created to always get his own way. And Mr. Cheney never acknowledges the power of any secretary of state, be it Colin or Condi. Diplomacy is for wimps.

Cheney needs to go. Now.

Note to Congress: There's a guy in California and a guy in New York who would just love you to send them to deal with The Dick. Results guaranteed.

Cheneys Evicted from Naval Observatory

From Red Tractor-USA 'The Best News in the Field'

In a rare governmental move, the self-made non-executive Vice President and his wife were summarily evicted from their government-supported residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC today.

When the presiding Admiral of the Observatory was asked about the Observatory's mission and its relation to the resident of the house, he said "leaving a non-executive branch person in charge of the transit of stars across the meridian during the night would be a definite national security threat. Therefore, we sadly had to evict Dick and Lynn. They were damn good tenants, too."

An additional unwanted event happened just this morning when the GAO ceased Cheney's use of the executive "undisclosed location" bunker. The only temporary home left to the Cheneys, who value their executive-like perks of the office, finds them doing sleepovers in Air Force 2. That lease expires tomorrow and Trump wants his plane back.

The Post-CheneyBush Restoration

A good read at OpEdNews fast-forwards to the future.

(Boston, June 26, 2034) -- Pulitizer Prize-winning historian Isadora Tribe's much-awaited "The Restoration Years: America in the Post-Bush Era" jumped to the top of the best-seller lists almost immediately. The Harvard professor and I spoke in her Cambridge home about the revelations in that volume.

The reason why Bush was adjudged widely as "the worst president ever," even during his tenure, was a direct result of his years of unnecessary wars and chaos, bungling on a monstrous scale, the mangling of the Constitution, ideological extremism, and out-and-out corruption and larceny. In other words, he and his cronies laid waste to the institutions of our democratic republic.

When he was finally gone, nothing less than a thoroughgoing cleansing of the foul-smelling stable was in order. That was "The Restoration" era, years of undoing the great damage his administration has foisted on the country. Restoring our country's commitment to Constitutional rule and to sanity and realism in our foreign policy -- that was the Herculean job of his successors.

I'll be 88 years old when that book comes out. I'm going to get a signed copy.

"Wings of Justice" Award to Steve Gilliard

Wings of Justice

In an age when liberal blogging has become more competitive and many of its practitioners celebrities in their own right, Gilliard sought nothing other than to blog on behalf of fairness and justice.

"For helping to give me, and thousands of other progressives, back our faith in our country and in ourselves," Steve's BuzzFlash nominator notes. "With biting wit and snake-eyed determination, he fought the lies and obfuscation of our duplicitous opponents and never wavered in his love for his country and for his fellow citizens."

In a tribute on TomPaine.com, Gilliard's dedication is duly lauded. "He wrote 237 posts that month by my count -- yes, you read that right. One of the ways he was a pioneer was that he considered blogging his job. His readers were his bosses, and he wasn't going to let them down -- not one single day."

Most bloggers are white. Gilliard was African-American, but his only race was to get to the bottom of the truth.

Steve Gilliard, may God be with you. You've earned your Wings of Justice.

Crash Test Dummies ...

This affects me directly because, as many of you know, I'm a mechanic. When I saw this last night, I could just guess what my day would be like today. No, I won't be fixing any cars, I'll be fielding questions from customers, both on the phone and in person, about the cheap Chinese tires and if they have them on their car.

Federal officials have told a small New Jersey importer to recall 450,000 radial tires for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans after the company disclosed that its Chinese manufacturer had stopped including a safety feature that prevented the tires from separating.

Tread separation is the same defect that led to the recall of millions of Firestone tires in 2000. At the time, tire failure was linked to an increased risk of rollover of light trucks and S.U.V.’s.

...

Gotta love that 'free market' economy. Fuck all you idiots who spout the Rethug line that "regulation hurts business". Horseshit. Look at the airline industry since St. Ronnie of Raygun deregulated it. Look at the mass media, TV and newspapers, and the sorry state they're in thanks to the abolition of the 'fairness doctrine'. 'Free market' means big business can run roughshod over the rights of consumers and employees.

We've seen it with the food we feed ourselves and our pets, in the medicines we use to keep us healthy, and we've seen it in the products we use and the services we contract for. Big business is using us as crash test dummies and it's time for them to be held accountable.

Too bad the Chinese hold most of our foreign debt. They know we can't push them too hard or they'll call in the note in the worst case, but they do have the power to fuck up our economy royally. Think that wasn't by design? It's time to reexamine the place big business has in our society and in the national discourse.

Great thanks to Chris at AMERICAblog.
Cross-posted at F & G.

If she were a liberal ...

Ann Coulter would be living out a refrigerator box under a bridge. X at Creature's:

...

It really does boggle the mind that news orgs continue to host this vile shell of what was once a human being as if she were some sort of serious political analyst. Even Chris Matthews' lament that "she sells books" is no excuse.

...

How does she get away with the shit she does? It should be an excellent commentary on Fox 'News' that they have her on so many times. It's also a commentary on ABC News that they would even give her a forum, but any network that employs Frank Luntz and Mark Halperin doesn't have too high a bar to jump over.

I look at Coulter, and the crowds she draws, and it troubles me that so many Americans think she's funny, or witty, or actually take her seriously. There are enough nuts out there who would be happy to 'pull a Bobby Kennedy' with Edwards. Just once, and Elizabeth Edwards didn't go far enough, I would like to see her called out for what she is and be held accountable for her words, the way all the rest of us are.

Grunt wisdom ...

From Lurch:

...

Nothing makes a people more loyal to a resistance than having their homes destroyed by a foreign occupier. It’s funny; I learned this back in the Viet Nam era. I don’t think many of our military leaders were around, then.

No wonder 80% of Iraqis think it's okay to kill Americans.

'Angler' For Power

Eugene Robinson

It's ironic that the latest outrage from Cheney is his claim to be exempt from a presidential order concerning the handling of classified documents because his office is not actually, or at least not exclusively, a part of the executive branch. Cheney, you see, has spent the past six years pushing the envelope of executive authority, asserting for Bush and himself the right to do pretty much any damn thing they want.

Didn't Cheney claim executive privilege as his reason for keeping secret the process he followed in developing the administration's energy policy, including the names of the people with whom he met?

The Dick reminds me of a friend of mine in the Corps. His name was Murray and he was from Dunedin FL if anyone out there knows him. Anyway, he had the name 'Murray' on the front of his field jacket, and something like 'Wojohowicz' on the back. If he was screwing up and somebody called out "Murray!", he'd turn around, point to the name stencilled on the back and go, "No, not Murray. Wojohowicz, see?". Conversely, if he was doing good and someone called out "Wojohowicz!", he'd turn around, point to the name on the front and go, "No, not Wojohowicz. Murray, see?".

He got away with it, too.

The Dick is pullin' the same cheap shit. He's part of the Executive Branch when it protects him from scrutiny, and not part of the Executive Branch when it subjects him to scrutiny.

Cheney ain't no Marine Lance Corporal. Congress has to come down on his ass like a ton o' bricks. He can't have it both ways.

I heard somewhere that this is just The Dick's attempt to get this bullshit into the court system so there won't be a decision from that molasses-in-January bunch until the clock runs out on the current occupant and they all get to go home unscathed and uncharged with all their crimes.

Students of public administration should have to take a course called "Cheney." How he has amassed and employed his power offers a case study in how government really works -- and how a skillful operator can make a bureaucracy dance. Take Cheney's penchant for secrecy, which seems to border on the maniacal. His office stamps "SECRET" on routine documents, including talking points for officials to use with reporters. He keeps papers pertaining to everyday business in huge Mosler safes. Is this loopy? No, he's just putting into practice the dictum that information is power. Sunshine is for losers.

The vice president, whose Secret Service code name is "Angler," really does know all the angles. And above all, he knows how to survive. His onetime mentor Donald Rumsfeld is gone, his onetime top aide Scooter Libby is on his way to jail, yet Cheney -- defiantly, disastrously, unbelievably -- remains. It will take years to uncover and undo all the damage he has wrought.

No shit, but it needs to be done. In the meantime, remove him physically from his office in the Executive White House. In shackles.

A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney

Sally Quinn

The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections.

Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor's orders. And I'm sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family.

Be sure to go see who they want to replace him with!

I don't care if they replace him with Pee Wee Herman. Just get him the fuck out of there.

You ain't got the balls ...

Dear Dems,

I've been hoping you'd make a difference. I've been hoping since November. Know what? You all suck. Stop the whining and do something. I listened to you all on the talk shows this weekend, explaining how it is so difficult to rein in the President because you don't have enough votes to override a veto.

That's horseshit. It doesn't matter if Bush vetoes it all.

Listen to me, idiots. The fact you got the bills to the President's desk is enough to show the American people that you're actually trying to do something. That you're actually listening to us. You remember us, the folks who put you there in the first place?

None of you have come out and said, "George Bush and Dick Cheney have turned this country into a tinhorn dictatorhip". All of you who voted for this war because you saw it as a chance to finally grow some nuts are desperately trying to cover yourselves. Grow some today. Go before the people and say you made a mistake for whatever reason. Come clean. You'll feel better and then we can move on.

Or is it that you just don't get it? Do you think this 'collegial relationship' you have with your Republican counterparts is a good thing and you fear upsetting the apple cart? Take a page from the Korean Legislature, throw some punches. This won't wait until January 2009; our nation doesn't have the time. Get off your collective ass and call this situation what it is. At least you'll be on the record on the side of America.

There should be no compromise on Iraq, unless you have some sort of vested interest in our troops staying there. I certainly hope you're not making money off this war like Cheney. There should be no compromise on the U.S. Attorney matter and the subpoenas arising from it. In case you haven't realized yet, 'compromise' with the White House means giving them exactly what they want. (A hint: Google 'Neville Chamberlain' and 'Munich Pact')

It's time to say no. It's time to put a stop to this before we reach a point from where we can never recover. Grow some balls for crying out loud.

Sincerely,

Fixer

PS: I'm going to work now so I can pay the taxes that pay your salaries. So far, I feel like my money is being flushed down the toilet.

It's not working ...

A number of senior Sunni tribal leaders are among 12 people killed in a suicide bombing at a hotel in central Baghdad.

"According to initial reports, six sheikhs are among the dead," Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl said.

The Sunni leaders, from Anbar province, were meeting at the hotel and were the target of the attack, police said.

...

The Beeb.

Not just any hotel, mind you. This sucker is in the Green Zone, the most fortified patch of dirt in Iraq.

This guy drove through 2 checkpoints, parked his car, and then walked through another checkpoint to have his person searched. After that, he managed to calmly walk across the lobby to where the Sunni leaders were meeting before detonating himself.

So, tell me how, 4 years after 'Mission Accomplished', this guy got through all that security with a bomb vest? Of course it was an inside job and of course Iraqi security has been compromised.

The 'surge' isn't working, the occupation isn't working, and the only thing that is working is the insurgency, be it al Qaeda or homegrown groups. We can't win and the only thing we can do is get the fuck out.

God, what a moron ...

Your Preznit:

WASHINGTON - It might have been 80 degrees outside but it was snowing inside Ford's Theatre on Sunday, where President Bush attended a taping of an ABC holiday program.

...

"President Lincoln had a great appreciation for the performing arts," Bush said. "They offered relief amid the agonies of war, and he would likely be pleased that Ford's Theatre continues to bring together talented performers from across our country, including those with us tonight."

Last show Lincoln went to at the Ford Theatre, he left with with a terminal fucking headache, you dumb fuck.

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

Quote of the Day

Atrios:

... Our elite class is made up of a bunch of self-important children who believe lack of personal accountability for themselves is America's highest ideal.

The Government Is Misleading Us Once Again...

BeggarsCanBeChoosers

"As the U.S. government's official Web portal, USA.gov makes it easy for the public to get U.S. government information and services on the Web."

USA.gov's "Federal Executive Branch," section includes information for the public about all the offices and departments that made up the Executive Branch. And right there, under the Executive Office of the President section is a helpful link to the Vice President's official home page.

Dick Cheney needs to get on the phone and inform the U.S. government's own official Web site that it is giving the public misleading information about his office.

The Dick's a lyin' sack o' shit. Given the track record of his supporters it's no wonder he thinks he can get away with it. I am amazed, however, that he thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the other 98% of us.

The USA.gov site does have some useful info about getting a hunting and fishing license. Apparently you don't have to prove you know what you're aiming at.

"Jail to the Chief. He's the Chief and he needs jailing."

Go see "The Top 10 Reasons To Impeach Bush and Cheney". If I c&p 'em they come out all in caps and I'm too lazy to retype 'em.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

1957 Plymouth Unearthed in Oklahoma
Still meets CAFE standards.

European Aviation Agency Approves Use of Cellphones on Planes
Also approves boomboxes, air horns, cowbells.

Latest Polls Rank Congress Even Lower Than Bush
But way above Cheney.

Report: Teams of Suicide Bombers Headed Here
In time to affect next election.

Army Corps of Engineers: New Orleans Not Ready for Big Storm
Even after two years of non-stop lip service.

CORRECTION

In an historical analysis of how Americans defeated the militarily superior British forces in the Revolutionary War, we quoted an expert at Georgetown University as saying, "Their strength is their mobility. They don't stand and fight." In fact, he was referring to how American forces are now being defeated by local forces in Iraq.

Doo-chay! Doo-chay!

I sincerely wish the same end for The Dick as the first 'Il Duce' - full of bullet holes and hung by his heels in the public square. Dead, discredited, and reviled. Win-win!

The photo brings one question to mind, though: what does the monkey do when the organ grinder ain't around? In some societies, monkeys are referred to as "Bushmeat". Yecchh.

A tip o' the Brain to The Satirical Political Report. And Photoshop!

Stereotypes ...

Tangentially related to the post below, regulars here know how much Mrs. F and I love Paris; enough to plan to retire there. It is 'our city', the place, next to New York, where we feel most at home.

That said, I take a lot of crap from Americans who've neither been there, nor know anyone who has beside me. Most of their comments begin with "those fucking French". I guess we have the conservative propaganda to thank for that. So today I was pleasantly surprised to read a post from someone who has learned some of the same things about Paris and the French that I did a long time ago:

...

But there's another, even more unexpected part of Paris I'm getting to know: plenty of warmth and openness, even (especially?) toward Americans. My immediate disclaimer is that I am a young woman, here alone, so of course men are going to be, ahem, warm (that particular stereotype holds water: some French men can be relentless). But well beyond that, I've by now met men and women--in bookstores, at the gym, at author readings, at cafes, and in shops--all over the city who have made my assimilation smoother. Everywhere I go, I always make a concerted effort to speak French, and all the people and groups whom I've met sit and listen serenely, even though it takes me ten minutes (and numerous consultations with my French dictionary and notebook) to stammer out one just sentence. Then they answer me in French--slowly--and I answer back. Viola! Conversation ensues. Another new friend of a friend of a friend, who is French, took me under his wing, inviting me out all the time, and introducing me to his large and lively group of companions here. From my first night out with them, I've gotten emails and phone calls from the various guys and girls with offers to see plays, have coffee, and practice my French.

I think the French camaraderie I'm discovering goes hand in hand, at least in part, with its café culture, prevalent here more than anywhere else I've ever been. Part of that translates from a slower, more relaxed pace of life (c'est possible, even in a big, cosmopolitan city), and the aforementioned deviation from disposability, but most importantly, it offers license for le parisienne to linger in cafes over her café au lait or the vert for as long as she chooses, by herself, or with an acquaintance or four. Each café in Paris has a slew of as many chairs as possible squeezed into one area, most of them facing out toward the street, and people sit in them all day along; everyone has equal access to the energy of passersby, of which there are what seem like hundreds, even on tiny, quiet side streets. (Here, people stroll everywhere, or if not, they hop on their bike or moped, not in their Denali, to get where they need to go.) Paris's café culture supersedes over-the-top imbibing, too: it's about socializing, sitting around comfortably, and relaxing, while drinking wine, or just an espresso or a Coca-Cola. So perhaps another reason I have yet to see a person carrying a to-go cup of coffee is simply that a staple of life here is having most beverages out somewhere, sitting down, preferably with friends, even if it's when you don't have tons of time; in other words, taking (at least) a few minutes to enjoy.

...

Paris is a 'live and let live' place. It is a place where any time of the year you can see artists creating their works on the Pont des Arts, mimes at Sacre Cour, and street food vendors at Notre Dame.

As someone who doesn't speak French aside from the normal greetings (Mrs. F handles the complicated stuff), I find the people have been more than patient with me and helpful, far from the stereotypes you hear regularly in this country. A "bon jour" when entering a shop and "au revior" when you leave goes a long way.

Yes, they have their problems too, but we could learn a lot from them.

One thing they do need is a pooper scooper law, but you learn to walk with one eye to the ground.

God, we're idiots ...

Soccerdad has a look at a poll on how much Americans really understand about what's going on around them. Dispappointing as usual for one of these things. At least I'm disapointed. I guess I give us more credit than we deserve.

...

Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"

That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004.

...

Where's Shakes?

Here for now. It'd be nice to find out who fucked with her page. Just sayin' ... heh ...

Silly me [slaps forehead]

Watertiger explains it all. Dick is the King:

The Office of the Vice President represents the independent, capitalistic and entrepreneurial spirit of America and has done so publicly since 2001. Wherever oil companies and military industrial complexes are repressed, wherever the morality of disproportionate corporate profits is called into question, the Office of the Vice President is there to remind us of that skyrocketing capital gains for the few at the sake of the huddled masses, yearning for decent jobs and nationalized health care, is the American way.

Two hundred and eighteen years ago, the United States Constitution established the Office of the Vice President. It was implicit in the Constitution that future generations of Americans foresee the need for a fourth branch of government to protect the people from the dangers posed by a tripartite system run amok and to protect the upper class from the great unwashed.

...

We should just shut up and go along with it and maybe they might "let us eat cake". How long have I been calling for a 'Bastille Moment'? Oh, that long.

Update:

Walt at Blondie's says it precisely:

...

This disgusting creature who dares sully our government deserves to be impeached and removed from all political office, then brought to criminal trial for treason and fraud.

...

Hearbreaking ...

Via Atrios, Johnny got his gun.

TAMPA, Florida: He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him.

...

Cool resource ...

For Firefox users. I found this weather utility at the Firefox site, and have been using it for a couple months, and it's really helpful. It will install to your navbar or status bar (your choice) and shows you 3-day weather for your area plus provides quick links to radar and satellite data (plus a lot more minutiae). Did I mention 1-Click Weather is run by The Weather Channel? It's easy to download and installs itself (uninstalls just as easily if you don't like it).

Download Page

Shared Experience

AP

Democratic presidential hopeful Chris Dodd is issuing a call for community service that aims to create the first generation in which everyone serves their country.

He proposes making community service mandatory for all high school students, doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 and expanding the AmeriCorps national service program to 1 million participants by the end of his presidency.

I doubt if there's going to be a 'his presidency', but it's still a damn good idea.

Dodd said his goal is to see 40 million people volunteering in some for or another by 2020.

"I think we want to have a shared experience again," he said earlier Saturday at a house party in Amherst. "Our shared experience today is we all pay $4 for the same cup of cafe latte no matter where you live in America. That's not a shared experience. A shared experience is going out and sacrificing."

I think it should be mandatory, not voluntary, with full citizenship and voting rights awarded only upon its successful completion. Fat chance that's gonna happen. Americans are too spoiled and arrogant to think they can be made to do anything simply because it's the right thing for them to do.

Call it something other than 'community service' too. Community service is a sentence imposed by a judge after you fuck up, like cleaning up trash off the White House lawn after the Negroes play music.

Military sees drop in black recruits

AP

The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began, as other job prospects soar and relatives of potential recruits increasingly discourage them from signing up.

Walking past the Army recruiting station in downtown Washington, D.C., this past week, Sean Glover said he has done all he can to talk black relatives out of joining the military.

"I don't think it's a good time. I don't support the government's efforts here and abroad," said Glover, 36.

The brothers are wisin' up.

Pretty soon we may get an answer to the Vietnam-era question: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

17 Syllables

Deadly Haiku Of We Are Now Officially 'The United States Of Dick And Bush'

Latest From Bushtard
Same As Cheney, Says Exempt
Rejects Oversight

Will Congress Stand Up
And Do their Job On This One
Bush Is Not A King

Immune From All Laws
Endless War And Suffering
Except for The Base

The Rich One Percent
The Defense Contractors And
Religious Zealots

You can say a lot in 17 syllables if you string 'em together right.

Can The 'Surge' Beat The Clock?

Rozius Unbound

Frank Rich looks at how the Bush Administration will try to play the American public yet again as the September deadline for the Iraq fiasco approaches.

Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we'd be wise to heed.

The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the "surge" was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we'd have "a pretty good feel" whether his policy "made sense." On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a "snapshot" of progress in Iraq. "Snapshot," of course, means "Never mind!"

The second message was more encoded and more ominous. Again using similar language, the two men said that in September they would explain what Mr. Crocker called "the consequences" and General Petraeus "the implications" of any alternative "courses of action" to their own course in Iraq. What this means in English is that when the September "snapshot" of the surge shows little change in the overall picture, the White House will say that "the consequences" of winding down the war would be even more disastrous: surrender, defeat, apocalypse now. So we must stay the surge. Like the war's rollout in 2002, the new propaganda offensive to extend and escalate the war will be exquisitely timed to both the anniversary of 9/11 and a high-stakes Congressional vote (the Pentagon appropriations bill).

For the Bush White House, the real definition of victory has become "anything they can get away with without taking blame for defeat," said the retired Army Gen. William Odom, a national security official in the Reagan and Carter administrations, when I spoke with him recently. The plan is to run out the Washington clock between now and Jan. 20, 2009, no matter the cost.

As General Odom says, the endgame will start "when a senior senator from the president's party says no," much as William Fulbright did to L.B.J. during Vietnam. [...]

[...] The best way to honor the sixth anniversary of 9/11 will be to at last disarm a president who continues to squander countless lives in the names of those voiceless American dead.

I think Daddy Frank's experience as a theater critic makes him uniquely qualified to critique this maladministration's Theater of the Absurd.

A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy

MoDo on The Dick:

It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month.

Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he's blowing off his own administration.

Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress's ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney's chicanery.

On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it?

"It's absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don't apply to him," Representative Waxman told me. "The irony is, he's taking the position that he's not part of the executive branch."

Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn't have to worry every night that she'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over.

I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors - I'm visualizing dedicated "We the People" wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors - they pushed back.

Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.

I get a visual of bespectacled crew-cut nerdy types in 3-fer-$10 wash-n-wear white short-sleeve shirts beating Cheney to death with rolled-up archives. Ah, to dream...

Please read the rest.

Balls ...

It's about time. Not that I'm a big fan of Rahm Emanuel, but it's good to see a Dem calling bullshit on the White House:

Following Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the US government, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) plans to introduce an amendment to the the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill to cut funding for Cheney's office.

...

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch," said Emanuel in a statement released to RAW STORY. "However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments." [my ems]

...

Finally. Thank you. I hope it's contagious.

They forgot to tell us . . .

. . . that the "surge" would be in casualties. 25 more familes ripped apart this week, and that is just on the U.S. side:

From Yahoo! News:

“BAGHDAD - Roadside bombers killed seven U.S. troops Saturday, four of them in a single blast near Baghdad, and an eighth soldier died of a non-combat cause — raising to 25 the number of American soldiers killed this week.”

Impeach the bastards. Now!

R.

Fair fights ...

Let me tell you something right now. I never had a fight in which I fought fairly. Fuck that, I want to win. Anybody who wants 'to fight like a gentleman' is gonna get his ass kicked. This is not to say I'm a fighter, in fact I don't like violence in any form, but sometimes you have to defend yourself.

That said, it seems as if the generals running the Iraq mess believe the al Qaeda clowns over there should fight us 'like men'.

...

Let me see if I have this straight? We go after a supposed concentration of Al Qaeda. We encircle a city filled with civilians. We blow the living shit out of the place. And guess what? The terrorists aka insurgents beat feet and melt away. The so-called cowards won't "stand and fight". Well, looks to me like those cowards are much faster learners then we are.

General Odierno ought to go back and read some good old fashioned American History. There was this guy, General Francis Marion, who got the nickname "Swamp Fox" from a fussy British Colonel (Tarleton) who complained that Marion did not fight fair:

...

The current U.S. offensive will fail. We will punch ourselves out on an enemy that is smart enough to retreat in the face of overwhelming force. We will go house to house rousting able bodied men from their sleep and humiliating them in front of their wives. We will detain some of these folks but eventually let them return home. When they return home they will be fully prepared to support whatever insurgent group will help them reclaim the honor we took from them.

...

Iraq was doomed to failure before the first pair of U.S. boots hit the ground. The longer we stay, the worse it will get.

There are ways to fight an insurgency, none of which the American people have the stomach for. It's why we lost in Vietnam and why Iraq won't turn out any better.