Veep Debate Buzz

There's lotsa good shit about tonight's debate flyin' around, mostly the goods on Dick.

Cheney's lies and the facts from AlterNet:

"America faces a choice on November 2nd between a strong and steadfast President and his opponent, who seems to adopt a new position every day."

FACT: Cheney opposed invading Baghdad before he supported it. In 1991, Cheney cautioned against U.S. troops advancing into the city, "telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting 'bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.'" [American Progress Action Fund, 9/2/04]

FACT: "An examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation ... Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace ... taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago." [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/04]

Etc., etc. Lots more of these.

This by Paul Krugman, a truly mild mannered and sharp brained critic of this administration and defender of democracy:

Now it's Dick Cheney's turn.

Mr. Cheney's manufactured image is as much at odds with reality as Mr. Bush's. The vice president is portrayed as a hardheaded realist, someone you can trust with difficult decisions. But his actual record is one of irresponsibility and incompetence

So here's Mr. Edwards's mission: to expose the real Dick Cheney, just as Mr. Kerry exposed the real George Bush.

This one by Charlie Cray on Alternet on questions that need to be asked about Halliburton:

Halliburton is the largest contractor in Iraq, with over $18 billion in contracts. Halliburton employees have returned with stories about $45 charges per case of soda, $100 per 15 pound bag of laundry, the ditching of $85,000 trucks because of flat tires and other minor repairs, and the use of five-star hotels in Kuwait while the troops sweat it out in tents in the desert. Criminal investigations are underway in association with kickbacks and tens of millions of dollars in excess charges for gas imported from Kuwait. Does Vice President Cheney – and the same should be asked of Senator Edwards – support legislation introduced by Sens. Durbin (D-IL) and Craig (R-ID) to establish a special committee modeled after Harry Truman's World War II committee, to root out corruption and save taxpayers the millions of dollars lost through the kind of waste, abuse and outright fraud seen at his old company?

Those'll do for now.

Incredible

From Atrios:

Republicans - Too Stupid to Breathe

According to the most recent Gallup poll, 62% of Republicans think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Is it stupid, brainwashing, or denial? How can people refuse to look at the facts? I just don't get it, but it's the way the Republicans do business. If you believe in something long enough and hard enough, it will become reality. It'd be nice if Big John coud give 'em a reality check on 3 Nov.

More Draftier, a lot

Josh Marshall:

No, no, no ... we really really don't want a draft.

House Republicans, worried about the traction of charges that President Bush will be forced to reinstitute the draft in a second term, are rushing to the floor this afternoon to vote on the Draft legislation Charlie Rangel (D-NY) introduced early last year.

No hearings, no notice, no nuthin'.

I'll post more as the situation develops.

Imagine if it passes? As Gordon says, cannon fodder and deck apes.

Update: 16:15:

Charlie Rangel:

The Republican leadership decision to place the draft legislation on the Suspension Calendar is a political maneuver to kill rumors of the President's intention to reinstate the draft after the November election.

I am voting no, because my bill deserves serious consideration. It should be subject to hearings and to expert testimony. The Administration should come and tell us about our manpower needs, about recruitment and retention, about the extent to which out troops are overextended. And they should give us their views about shared sacrifice. If they did all of those things in a serious way, they would have to admit that my bill is an option.

[. . .]

Read on.

Draftiest Yet

Colonel David Hackworth, USArmy(ret) has a lot to say about what he feels is a slam dunk, in Soldiers For The Truth.

Recently, when John Kerry brought up the possibility of a return to the draft, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was quick to respond that Kerry was full of it.

But my take is that Kerry is right on the mark. Not only because Rummy has been flat wrong on every major military call regarding Iraq, but because this is a war that won’t be won by smart weapons or the sledgehammer firepower we see every night on the tube.

So the draft – which will include both boys and girls this time around – is a no-brainer in ‘05 and ‘06.

Israel, a country that has lived under the barrel of the Islamic terrorist gun for decades, has the most combat-experienced counterinsurgent force in the world – and boy and girl draftees are its major resource.

Count on it. We will follow their lead.

In between the quotes is a lot of red meat. This guy knows a lot more about it than I do.

Dubya, Reach Out And Touch Jerusalem

Good news from Truthout:

Influential American evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday that Evangelical Christians feel so deeply about Jerusalem, that if President George W. Bush were to "touch" Jerusalem, Evangelicals would abandon their traditional Republican leanings and form a third party.

"God says, 'I'm going to judge those who carve up the West Bank and Gaza Strip,'" Robertson said. "'It's my land and keep your hands off it.'"

Anything that would split the Republicans into two parties just tickles me plumb to death, and the Republicans could be rid of the phony nutjob Christians and the Bush they rode in on. Hop to it, Georgie, it's win-win.

Sure, I'll Take Off My Clothes, But First...

Talk about your grass roots in the Heartland! Read this article in the NYTimes.

Over the last six months a range of adult performers - from performance art-oriented burlesque dancers at Emo's to harder-core strip clubs to online pornographers - have conducted voter-registration drives.

Now we're gettin' somewhere!

But What Does It All Mean?

Wow, this debate deal won't go away. As long as there's funny shit like this by Will Durst, that's OK. Here are some samples from "What They Say/What They Mean (Debate Edition)":

WTS: "Sending mixed messages isn't good for our troops or our allies or for the Iraqi people."
WTM: "Logic complicates things."

WTS: "It's hard work. We're working hard."
WTM: "Are my two minutes up yet?"

WTS: "The administration at this time has no plans to re-institute the draft."
WTM: "This is a permanent policy that will last right up until after the election."

WTS: "The economy's turned the corner."
WTM: "Then it rolled twelve times, hit a tree and burst into flames."

WTS: "The Iraqi people hunger for democracy."
WTM: "As long as it doesn't include heretical covenants like women driving and stuff like that."

There's a bunch more like that but I had to stop somewhere. Go read it and have some fun.

Molly Does It For Me Again

I noticed this statement by the president (small 'p' on purpose) during the debate and wondered if anybody else did. Molly Ivins did. She never lets me down.

We all had our debate moments, but the one that stunned me was, "It's (Iraq is) hard work. I see it on the TV screens."

Watching it on TV -- boy, that is tough work all right. And what was the "hard work" thing about?

Isn't TV where Dubya says we've been getting our misperceptions and misinformation about his Divinely-inspired, brilliantly led, flawlessly executed, and smoothly running Crusade in Iraq?

Apparently, he feels that only White House disinformation is the correct disinformation.

I am glad the president saw "hard work" on TV. At least he now knows what it looks like. He wouldn't know "hard work" if it bit him on the ass.

She closes her article with:

Sometimes, I get the feeling the whole country is being run by Paris Hilton.

If she were, I could at least stand to look at the person who is screwing me.

Debate tonight or New Yorkers, take heed!

And I'll probably stay up to watch it. Edwards makes the Mrs. all tingly so she'll want to see him give it to Darth Vader.

Vote note:

Attention all New Yorkers. FRIDAY is the last day you can register to vote in New York State for the upcoming election. Get your ass out and get the form and register, goddammit. I'll be going through the phone book and calling each and every one of you, checking to see if you're registered. You don't wanna piss the F-man off by saying no, do you? And I hope you Jersey people beat the deadline of 9 pm last night.

Yeesh

I know people think this way. Hell, I lived in Ft. Worth and the panhandle of Florida, but it still amazes me. From Jesus' General:

[. . .]

Pastor Armstrong says that we shouldn't worry about things like the economy, insurance rates, or other issues (which I took to mean the Eternal War against Brown People) because God will take care of those things if we stop the homos from getting married.

The moral issues are really going to determine whether God blesses this nation, and if God blesses this nation, we don't have to worry about the economy, we don?t have to worry about what our insurance rates are going to be, we don't have to worry about all these other important issues--the bottom line are these moral issues.

[. . .]

How in Hell can we have intelligent discourse on the future of our nation when this is the thinking of the Republican base? God will take care of us, huh? Then why did he give us free will and cognitive thought? Remember, all dogs go to heaven, but God gave us free will so we could choose our Hell. God helps those who help themselves.

Addendum from The American Street:

[. . .]

The Third Right refers to a GOP where the more extreme elements of the Christian Coalition (who draw support by pressing the fear of Armageddon and Rapture around the next corner) have combined with the major capital wielders of the military industrial complex (who also thrive on the politics of fear) to create a political machine more powerful and more corrupt than any coalition in US history.

Similar in its use of propaganda and fear to the Third Reich, they are not Nazis. Ideologically driven as it is, it’s a close neighbor of Naziism, close enough to earn a sobriquet that sounds close, just to serve as a flashing yellow light that we must proceed with caution to prevent its intersection with that ruthless predescessor.

Just to clarify things. [my emphasis]

American Taliban.

Veep debate warm-up

[. . .]

The H-word is indeed likely to be heard from Edwards, as it has been on the campaign trail. Howard Wolfson, a Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) adviser, predicted a tough indictment from Edwards on Halliburton, which he called "a one-word answer to a lot of questions, and a symbol of corporate malfeasance, crony capitalism and poor planning in Iraq."

[. . .]

Story.

I hope Little John slams Cheney's ass on not just Halliburton, but the Enron mess and the California energy crisis. He should also spin it that the big East Coast Blackout of 2003 was somehow Cheney's fault too. Hey, he's a lawyer, he can do it.

Thanks to WTF Is It Now?? for the link.

It STILL is the economy, stupid

From General Glut blogging at The American Street:

The second presidential debate is coming up this Friday and will focus on economic issues. While you can expect all the usual questions about the budget, jobs, economic growth, health care, etc., I suspect one issue you won’t hear much about is the global economy and its effects on the US economy, both now and into the next four years. In particular, Bush and Kerry need to talk seriously about the so-called ‘twin deficits’ this week: both the $420bn federal budget deficit and the $600bn current account deficit. My guess is that the wonkish argument from the first debate over bilateral versus multilateral talks with North Korea won’t make a reappearance. But I’m telling you now, these deficits will have far more impact on your everyday lives than North Korean nukes ever will. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Read on.

I try to read Brad DeLong and some of the others, and I've learned shit, but the General is the only guy that I can understand the first time through. I could never get my head around economics. That's why Mrs. F handles the money. Before I met her, I spent all my money on beer and pussy.

But one thing I do know is that deficits kill the economy and burden our children and grandchildren with mounting debt. It's time we got somebody in the White House who understands that.

Betty Bowers On The Debate

Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, does it again:

Honestly, those Poles remind me of surly Jenna Bush sometimes. Invited to the party – and then gets all tetchy because there's a cash bar.

And speaking of poles, I don't think Jenna's pole-dancing for John McCain and the press once her mother had nodded off after her "bonus" Halcyon kicked in helped with our President's concentration during the debate.

This gal's a hoot. Click around and find her thoughts on the Friends Of Our Lord (FOOL) and Bringing Integrity To Christian Households (BITCH).

My tinfoil hat seems to be stuck to my head today.

Pinocchio/Borg Accused of (Gasp!) Dishonesty

This article in Spinsanity is titled "Bush/Cheney Campaign Fails Honesty Test." Duh.

He said he'd attack terrorists who threaten America. But at the debate, John Kerry said America must pass a "global test" before we protect ourselves.
The Kerry doctrine: A global test.
So we must seek permission from foreign governments before protecting America?
A global test?
So America will be forced to wait while threats gather?
President Bush believes decisions about protecting America should be made in the Oval Office, not foreign capitals.

Kerry did say that he believes a preemptive war waged by the US should pass a "global test." But in context, his meaning was quite different than what the Bush campaign is claiming: "But if and when you do it, Jim," Kerry said to Jim Lehrer of PBS, the debate moderator, "you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Clearly, Kerry meant that a President must be able to demonstrate to the world that the preemptive war is being waged for legitimate reasons, not that foreign governments must provide "permission."

How long does your nose have to get before you can't open a door without hurting yourself? Oh, that's right, Bush has people for that. They must communicate with radios, they're so far in front of him.

I heard Sen. Kerry say that and his meaning was clear to me.

Dog Story

This is a good story by Jon Katz(?). I know it's a little long, but I'm getting "debate lights" for my tinfoil hat.

Herding was the thing Homer most loved, and there was no more companionable grazing dog. He quivered with excitement whenever we pulled into Raspberry Ridge, the farm where we herded sheep for my friend Carolyn. When I said, "Let's go get the sheep," Homer exploded with glee and rushed to the barnyard fence.

Homer licked my hand and stared at the sheep.

Sounds like me when Fixer takes me for a walk.

Ho,Ho,Ho

This was on my tinfoil hat when I got up this morning. I couldn't resist. Resistance is futile....

One day, while walking to the store, I passed by a Nursing Home. On the
front lawn were six old ladies lying naked on the grass.

I thought this was a bit unusual, but continued on my way to the store.
On my return trip, I passed the same Nursing Home with the same six oldladies lying naked on the lawn.

This time my curiosity got the best of me and I went inside to talk to the
manager.

"Do you know there are six ladies laying naked on your front lawn?"

"Yes," he said. "They are retired prostitutes, and they're having a yard
sale."

Still More Draftier

In the spirit of our ongoing thread about the condition of our military, I offer this by Cynthia Tucker.

The Bush administration is trying to quash a rumor that keeps cropping up in cyberspace. For several months now, e-mails from an unknown source have warned that President Bush plans to reinstitute the draft if he wins a second term.

Fear of conscription continues to float just below the surface because so many voters understand somewhere in the backs of their minds that Bush's military plans simply don't add up. A Pentagon advisory board recently issued a report stating the patently obvious: The U.S. military won't have enough troops in the coming years to meet its continuing war and peacekeeping obligations.

Amazingly, Bush and his aides continue to engage in a denial that borders on the pathological: The U.S. is winning the war on terror; everything is going swimmingly in Iraq; and, of course, the military doesn't need any more troops. Even more amazing, they've been able to get away with this strange cognitive dissonance. Bush's poll ratings go up even as Iraq melts down.

But I have the feeling that more and more voters are getting the sense that something about Bush's policies just doesn't add up. They might not want to think about it. If nothing else, Bush offers certainty in an uncertain world. But you've got to tamp down a lot of doubts to hang onto that certainty.

Bush'll claim he's creating jobs.

The Supremes

The election on November 2 is also going to decide who deciphers the Constitution for the next 40 years. Read this article by Ellen Goodman.

Say, aren't eight of the nine members on Medicare? Isn't John Paul Stevens 84? Didn't Chief Justice William Rehnquist just turn 80? How is Sandra Day O'Connor, a survivor of breast cancer? And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon cancer? Everybody feeling OK? Anybody ready to retire to a golf course in Arizona

In speeches, the Bush-Cheney team talks in atmospheric terms about “activist judges” and “strict principles.” But on conservative talk shows and in rallies, people talk about overturning Roe v. Wade and getting prayer in the schools, about eliminating affirmative action and turning back gay rights.

Conservatives get it. As a lobbyist for the Christian Coalition said, “If you ask people in this group their top priority, the first thing they would say is changing the U.S. Supreme Court.” Activist Clint Bolick told a reporter, “This election could be a twofer -- we win the White House and the Supreme Court.

In presidential politics we're voting for four more years. In the Supreme Court, we're voting for 40 years.

Just another reason to not elect Dubya&Co. That bunch'll get a court in that'll turn back the clock to 1955. I was alive then and life was beautiful all the time. Unless you were black or pregnant and didn't want to be. The liberal court fixed a lot of problems and the next court might undo it all.

Calling all New Jersey residents!

Today is your last chance to register to vote. If you haven't, you'd better, goddammit. I'm gonna borrow Gordon's tinfoil hat and hunt you down if you don't.

On Bush

From Digby. A must. Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway is just as articulate about Bush and Iraq.

The Russians too, Virginia?

Gordon and I have been on a roll lately regarding the environment.

Looks like President Putin fell for that 'junk science' too, huh?

Practically unnoticed in all the hoopla surrounding the presidential debate this week was Vladimir Putin’s signing of the Kyoto Protocol. Although the Russian parliament must still ratify the pact, Putin’s turnaround marks a key moment in the world’s efforts to do something about global climate change, inarguably the most fundamental environmental issue of our time.

[. . .]

From Kos.

Predictions

I found these under my tinfoil hat after a refreshing nap:

The year is 2029-----

Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia formally known as California. White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.

Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.

Baby conceived naturally . . . scientists stumped.

Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon).

Iraq still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

France pleads for global help after being overtaken by Jamaica.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

George Z. Bush says he will run for President in
2036.

Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.

85-year, $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise is the key to weight loss.

Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.

Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut. (hey! I just sent it. I didn't write it!)

Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.

Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.

Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.

Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.

Capitol Hill intern indicted for refusing to have sex with congressman.

IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.

Florida Democrats still don't know how to use a voting machine

Draftier

An article in the NYTimes on Oct. 1 describes how the military is lowering its recruiting standards to help compensate for the current shortfall in applicants for enlistment.

Army officials said Thursday that for the recruiting year that started this week, at least 90 percent of new recruits should be high school graduates, compared with 92 percent last year. And up to 2 percent of recruits can be enlisted even if they scored in the lowest acceptable range on a service aptitude test, compared with 1.5 percent last year.

In 1966, during the Vietnam War, the DoD came up with Project 100,000 in which standards were relaxed to allow Low Aptitude CatIV recruits, those in the 10-30th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, to enter the service. It was an attempt to elevate individuals out of their circumstances in the War on Poverty. From 1966 to 1971, 456,000 people in CatIV were enlisted or drafted. A high percentage of these went to Combat Arms such as Infantry, Gun Crews, or Seamen. Cannon fodder and deck apes, meaning no offense to my esteemed webfooted brethren.

Read the report to find out how this project, and the servicemen involved, made out.

Since the end of the draft, standards have been high for the all-volunteer force and only the cream of the crop of applicants were accepted. Even the infantrymen are smart. We have advanced to the point where the grasp of technology and its use have superceded the need for cannon fodder. This is a good thing.

It's changing due to the mess that Bush has created in Iraq. The smart kids ain't going for it, and they have to reduce the standards to allow the increased need for warm bodies to be met. By lowering standards incrementally, the military is starting out slower this time. Project 100,000 was sort of all at once. In an effort to forestall a draft, they will lower standards a little bit at a time to generate enlistments, just as they did in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

Reinstitution of the draft will be political suicide for whomever is on the throne at the time. Bush hopes he can forestall it until his term expires in 2009 and screw whomever comes after. Given his inability to correct the situation in Iraq, this is probably his wisest course.

I think that President Kerry is smart enough that the draft won't have to happen and that's the way I'm betting.

Personally, I will defend this country with a slingshot if I have to, though preferably with an M-14 and bayonet. I would go to Afghanistan in a heartbeat, but not to Iraq, and I don't blame the kids a bit for not signing up.

Bush the environmentalist

Gordon had a post the other day about the effects of global warming on the native Alaskan village of Shishmaref. Following this, I found a link to Bush's environmental record since he took office. Unbelievable.

Update: 15:20:

Bubba has more on global warming and the TVA.

An Expert's View on Iraq

Thomas Friedman is an actual expert on the Middle East. Excerpts from his Op-Ed in today's NYTimes:

Sorry, I've been away writing a book. I'm back, so let's get right down to business: We're in trouble in Iraq.

What happened? The Bush team got its doctrines mixed up: it applied the Powell Doctrine to the campaign against John Kerry - "overwhelming force" without mercy, based on a strategy of shock and awe at the Republican convention, followed by a propaganda blitz that got its message across in every possible way, including through distortion. If only the Bush team had gone after the remnants of Saddam's army in the Sunni Triangle with the brutal efficiency it has gone after Senator Kerry in the Iowa-Ohio-Michigan triangle. If only the Bush team had spoken to Iraqis and Arabs with as clear a message as it did to the Republican base. No, alas, while the Bush people applied the Powell Doctrine in the Midwest, they applied the Rumsfeld Doctrine in the Middle East. And the Rumsfeld Doctrine is: "Just enough troops to lose." Donald Rumsfeld tried to prove that a small, mobile army was all that was needed to topple Saddam, without realizing that such a limited force could never stabilize Iraq. He never thought it would have to. He thought his Iraqi pals would do it. He was wrong.

Friends, I return to where I started: We're in trouble in Iraq. We have to immediately get the Democratic and Republican politics out of this policy and start honestly reassessing what is the maximum we can still achieve there and what every American is going to have to do to make it happen. If we do not, we'll end up not only with a fractured Iraq, but with a fractured America, at war with itself and isolated from the world.

I may be just a little biased, but the only chance I see to get out of this Mess-O-Potamia at all will begin with President John F. Kerry.

Read the article.

Drafty

From Kos:

With that ominous line, the NY Times WIR opens an article about another subject we know all about, and the public is catching up on... the Draft. Saying, 'yeah, I already knew that' doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the very real angst out there with voters. The 5% of political junkies have been talking about it for months, but now it's conversation everywhere.

Well, I wrote about it here and here.

And in my search, I came across this post, which I wrote this past Memorial Day.

Why I Bitch

You're probably saying to yourself. "Boy, the old Fixer-man is a bigger idiot than usual, bitching about this Memorial Day thing, and Americans forgetting what this weekend is all about."

You know why? Because I dodged bullets for four years in Asia, drug interdiction in South America, and killing a few Cuban Communists in Grenada. I've lost friends over the years, guys (and gals, you politically-correct busybodies) who had the same things to live for that I did, families, hopes and dreams to make something of themselves and a better life for their kids. In short, I hate war.

I am a child of war, but call me the silver lining in the dark cloud of World War II. My mom was a German Army nurse during that war, and my dad was a British paratrooper. They met in Jamaica, Queens in 1953, after dad came back from the Korean Conflict. Yes, the poor bastard moved to the U.S. after WWII and was promptly drafted into the U.S. Army in 1950. They met and married and gave birth to one child, yours truly. In my family, on both sides, going back five hundred years, military service was understood.

I had to be coaxed, at age 17, to enlist (It was either enlist or serve 6 months on a Grand Theft Auto charge). And I'm grateful that my dad convinced the judge to give me a chance to redeem myself. I served eight years total (6 regular AF, 2 active reserve), and I'm proud of the part I played in protecting the country. I'd go again if they'd take this broken down old carcass, and there are many who would also go to protect this country without question. Old bastards like me who love America and would gladly lay down our lives to protect what we have. There are many like me, a couple million of them serving on active duty right now.

They go, without question, to where our leaders send them. They lay their lives on the line every day to do what our leaders say is a noble job. They will do it again and again because they made the commitment, officers and enlisted, generals to privates, they all made their commitments to the noble ideals of the United States of America. It is our leaders' responsiblity to assure the correctness of their sacrifice. People with such commitment do not deserve to have their lives wasted by those who have never looked into the business end of an enemy rifle. Unfortunately, I feel the lives of our boys and girls are being wasted in Iraq, and that pisses me off.

We have a bunch of guys in Washington who've never served in the military. Yes, I include President No Nuts because the only reason he went into the Guard was that there was no other way out. To these guys, the lives of our military personnel are just numbers on a ledger sheet, not exeptionally trained, valuable resources who should not be squandered in pursuit of imperialistic dreams.

Solders hate war. Anybody who enjoys killing, even in wartime, is a psychopath, period. Ask any general if he wants to put his people in harm's way. he'll tell you that a reality of war is that he has to, but he doesn't want to, and he doesn't want to do it frivolously. The glib frivoloity with which the Bush Administration went to war in Iraq is criminal, and the lack of planning for the aftermath is treasonous. I'm sorry, to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have perished in Iraq, to the families who will have an empty chair at future holiday gatherings, to all those who have suffered because of this fiasco, but 800 lives have been lost for NOTHING. You have not sacrificed your lives to protect this great nation and the Constitution, you were murdered by people who only see your lives as a means to an end. Hopefully, some time soon, they will be forced to pay.

Yes, I am one pissed off motherfucker this Memorial Day. 800 of my brothers and sisters are dead, close to 5000 wounded, for NOTHING. They say Bush went to war to avenge his daddy. Well, I want vengeance for our honored dead this past year. Getting Bush out in November is not good enough. I want him in jail.

Well now there are over a thousand dead and the draft might very well be a real possibility. Tell me again how staying the course is the right thing to do.

A job for Gordon

Hey Gord, I came across this:

Any Reno, Nevada bloggers want to volunteer to drive the Pants On Fire mobile? (link is a Quicktime video)

You need a clean driving record to qualify. It just visited Oregon and is headed your way. Anyone anywhere can also apply, though I’d say it’d be put to best use in the time remaining in swing states.

Jerry Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s is behind the promo and its site that emphasizes the Pinocchio Presidency’s litany of lies.

From The American Street.

And so it begins . . .

From The Agonist:

Thousands of Floridians who think they're registered to vote could be turned away at the polls Nov. 2 because their voter registration forms weren't completely filled out, officials said Friday.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood said some groups registering voters are turning in application forms with information missing, such as unchecked boxes asking whether applicants are citizens, mentally incompetent or felons.

A group that's been seeking copies of the incomplete applications in an effort to help people complete them said Hood's office, citing state law, has begun blocking them.

"Clearly, way over the number that could determine the election" won't be able to vote, said Judith Browne, a lawyer with the Washington-based Advancement Project, which promotes multiracial participation in voting. She was referring to President Bush's disputed 537-vote victory in Florida.

[. . .]

Just FYI, Glenda Hood is 2004's version of Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State who facilitated the Crawford Putsch of 2000. This is the Republicans' ace in the hole, key Republicans in swing states who are in a position to influence the vote count. And don't forget Diebold, the corporation who makes most of the digital voting machines and a big Bush/Cheney campaign contributor. Remember, Karl Rove told Sean Hannity that he had some 'surprises' for Kerry.

Update: 13:55:

Pink Bunny of Battle: Return to Sender.

No more Land’s End shirts for this rabbit. [1]

Some Lands’ End employees said Tuesday they were hoodwinked into attending a speech by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at the company’s Dodgeville plant.

Viewers said the company told them Giuliani’s speech would be motivational in nature. Instead it was a political speach supporting President George W. Bush for reelection.

[. . .]

They'll do anything to win, including attempting to brainwash their contributors' employees.

Results

Don't ask why I'm up this early after partying my ass off last night. Well . . . the dog had to go. So, while I'm up, I found this over at Kos:

Chatterbugs!!!

The results of wrong war, wrong time, wrong place:

Iraqi civilian fatalities: Uncertain, but at least 12,976

Iraqi military fatalities: Uncertain, several thousand

Coalition fatalities: 1198

U.S. fatalities: 1060

U.S. fatalities in September: 80 (tied for 3rd highest month and highest since May)

U.S. wounded (according to Dept. of Defense): 703

Number of Weapons of Mass Destruction found: Zero

[. . .]

And we should stay the course? I don't give a shit if God came down and told Bush to do this personally, it's still wrong.

Results revisited. From Newsweek:

Oct. 2 - With a solid majority of voters concluding that John Kerry outperformed George W. Bush in the first presidential debate on Thursday, the president’s lead in the race for the White House has vanished, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. In the first national telephone poll using a fresh sample, NEWSWEEK found the race now statistically tied among all registered voters, 47 percent of whom say they would vote for Kerry and 45 percent for George W. Bush in a three-way race.

[. . .]

These are results we like to see.

Mah Birfday

Well, it's tomorrow, but the Mrs. is taking me out for dinner tonight here. The fact of how this relates to the blog is that there definitely won't be any more posting from me tonight (gotta make myself pretty), and little if any tomorrow (I'll probably be hung over). Y'all better behave while I'm gone. If you give a shit, I'll be 42.

Osama is in the house

Karl Rove on Sean Hannity's show. From NewsMax:

"And you've also got to have a couple of surprises - and we've got a couple of surprises that we intend to spring."

I've said it before and I'll say it again. They're gonna pull Osama out of an undisclosed location, where he's been playing cards with Cheney, and parade him in front of the cameras. Either that or there'll be a 'terrorist' incident here on election day.

Thanks to Kevin Hayden at The American Street for the link.

I Like It

I just heard about this site by James Wolcott, and this is the first post I saw:

The allusion in "Tweet Smell of Success" to "Reichian" refers not to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, but Wilhelm Reich, renegade psychotherapist and founder of the Orgone Institute, who in his 1948 book Listlen, Little Man! addressed the reader:

"You let the powerful demand power 'for the little man.' But you yourself are silent. You provide powerful men with more power or choose weak, malignant men to represent you. And you discover too late you are always the dupe."

Not a bad description of Bush's "base."

And this line in the second:

But that was before John Kerry grape-stomped Bush into a sullen mash.

A lovely mental picture, no?

That blog deserves a closer look. See ya.

Your Vote Counts

There are people who don't bother to vote because they think that their one measly vote won't count. I can tell you from personal experience that this is not so.

A few years ago, we had a local election and one of the measures was a $1M school bond issue. I never vote "yes" on any bond issue except Veterans' funding, just on principle, as I am against public indebtedness.

My wife and I both got home from work very tired that day and decided to shine it on. Neither one of us had ever missed an election since we were old enough to vote.

The measure passed by ONE vote. If we had voted, it would have lost by ONE vote. That's with about three thousand voters in the district. I don't know how many actually showed up, but WE could have made the difference. I'll take that back: we DID make the difference, by not showing up to do our civic duty.

I'll never miss another one.

The Two Faces of Bush

Here. Flip-flopper extrordinaire.

Vote, dammit

Courtesy of Steve Goddard's History Wire:

Don't Take Your Vote For Granted

In a presidential year in which only about half those eligible to vote will in fact do so, it's well to keep in mind that for many eligible voters -- among them women, African-Americans, Asians, Native Americans and the poor -- the path to the voting booth was strewn with obstacles that they first had to surmount.

University of Houston History Prof. Steven Mintz examines the history of voting rights in this election season on [here]:

"The story of how voting rights became virtually universal is not a story of unbroken progress. Rather, it is, as historian Alexander Keyssar has persuasively argued, a story of struggle. There have been periods in which voting rights have contracted and periods in which they have expanded. The United States was the first nation to expand the vote to virtually all white men, but it has also undergone periods in which voting rights were restricted, and it was one of the last Western nations to guarantee the vote to all citizens."

Update

For those who give a shit, I updated our non-political blog, which is now called The Fixer & Gordon. Truths about the auto and motorcycle repair business and other shit that blows our skirts up.

Remember this

From Matt Yglesias:

. . . I don't have a great deal to say, either, except this: Right now would be a bad time to become overconfident. Bush could easily recover some of his poise for the next two debates, though the issue terrain should be more favorable to Kerry. Expectations are so heavily leaning toward John Edwards that the slightest failings could generate positive coverage for Cheney. Must crucially, people need to avoid the mistake made after the Democratic Convention of sitting on our laurels. Kerry needs to stay on the offensive.

Spineless

From Media Matters:

In the buildup to the first presidential debate, some CNN commentators called the event "a decisive moment"; a "key opportunity" for Senator John Kerry; "the most important night of John Kerry's presidential campaign"; a chance for the candidates to win "the very big prize" of undecided voters; or "a pivotal moment." After the debate, these same CNN commentators said Kerry performed well -- but then downplayed the significance of the debates.

[. . .]

And this from Josh Marshall:

I will spare you any pretense of mock surprise that Fox News is ridiculously biased against the Kerry campaign. But it's one thing to know it and another to get such a blazing and undeniable example of it as a story with fabricated Kerry-bashing quotes put together by the Fox News reporter covering the Kerry campaign.

[. . .]

And Tom Tomorrow:

[. . .]

. . . The gulf between what I observe when watching Bush and what the media report has just grown too wide . . .

[. . .]

Update: 12:45:

Media Matters factchecks Republican operative . . . er, NBC reporter Lisa Myers:

In an October 1 segment on NBC's Today show devoted to fact-checking assertions by both candidates at the September 30 presidential debate, NBC News senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers distorted Senator John Kerry's statements to cast them as misleading.

[. . .]

My tinfoil hat

Here's a good one as I watch MSNBC. Do you think the Bush administration arranged for Mt. St. Helens to erupt to suck the oxygen away from Kerry's debate win? Could happen, couldn't it?

Yet another

I wasn't gonna add any more on the debates because Gordon said all there needs to be, but I saw this over at TBogg:

I don't want anyone to tell me that George Bush should be president because he's a regular guy who is just like their neighbor. I don't want my neighbor to be president (actually I don't even want him to be my neighbor.) I want someone capable of speaking for more than two and a half minutes on anything. Anything at all.

Remember this: he actually spent the week studying up for this. Imagine that.

Personally, I did think Bush was smarter than he looked last night, but I guess Rove usually does have his arm up President Moron's ass, making his lips move.

Vanishing Alaska

Excellent and disturbing article on global warming in this week's Time magazine.

The fate of one stubborn little village normally wouldn't make much of a splash. But Shishmaref and other Alaskan settlements are attracting national attention because scientists see them as gloomy harbingers. "Shishmaref is the canary in the coal mine — an indicator of what's to come elsewhere," says Gunter Weller, director of the University of Alaska's Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research.

It must be said that if Shishmaref sinks beneath the waves, it won't be much of a loss to global tourism. The village is so remote that no road connects it to the outside world. The occasional barge unloads fuel after the ice breaks up, and when the weather is good, battered bush planes ferry in DVDs and cartons of Cheetos from the Sam's Club in Fairbanks. Visually, this village is nothing like the romantic images of Eskimos in igloos from old National Geographic magazines. Weathered clapboard houses, surrounded by rusty engine parts, sit helter-skelter along muddy paths. Indoor plumbing is rare, and drinking water collects in plastic buckets under rain gutters. Empty Coke cans and cigarette packets litter the streets. In the ramshackle town hall, a sign reads, CITY OF SHISHMAREF BINGO WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING ANY MORE PERSONAL CHECKS. Another warns against siphoning gasoline from the village fire truck.

Sounds like my kind of place. Around here, they keep the fire truck locked up.

Still, like many of Alaska's native villages, Shishmaref clings to its subsistence culture. The town supports 10 dog teams, and a local musher, Herbie Nayokpuk, is known statewide as the Shishmaref Cannonball for his top-place finishes in the Iditarod race. Walrus-tusk carving is taught in school, along with the Inupiaq language. And if the town itself is ugly, it is balanced by the desolate beauty of the slate-colored sea, the ducks flying in formation over the lagoon and the musk ox roaming in emerald meadows dotted with wild cotton. Some two-thirds of the local diet still derives from hunting and fishing. In the diamond light of late summer, whole families forage for salmonberries, which the elders eat mixed with grated caribou fat. ("Eskimo ice cream," they call it.) The kids prefer it with Cool Whip.

"This is our grocery store," says Tony Weyiouanna, pulling shimmering white fish from his gill net.

The prospect of relocating whole Eskimo villages — global warming's first American refugees — is gathering political support. Last January, Shishmaref citizens voted to move to a site called Tin Creek, 12 miles away, across a lagoon. And last June, Alaska's powerful Senator, Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, convened federal, state and local officials for a two-day hearing in Anchorage to hear impassioned pleas from village leaders who want help repairing their infrastructure or relocating. Among the most eloquent was Eningowuk, 54, a mother of six who heads the Shishmaref Erosion and Relocation Coalition. "Shishmaref is where it is because of what the ocean, rivers, streams and the land provide to us," she testified. "We are hunters, and we are gatherers. We have been here for countless generations. We value our way of life. It provides for our very existence."

Whatever the solution, the Inupiaq are looking for it to be paid for by the folks who sent them global warming in the first place. And who would that be? "The Nalauqmiu — white people," says Eningowuk with a rueful smile.

Sounds about right. The only hunting and gathering likely to produce global warming is hunting for profits and gathering dollars in mass quantities.

Please read the whole article.

Smile? More Like A Shit-Eatin' Grin

On the debate by E.J. Dionne in Working For Change:

On Friday morning, Democrats all over the United States emerged from their homes with a new spring in their steps. After the presidential debate the night before, many of them had a new experience: It was possible to be for John Kerry and not just against President Bush.

Personally, I've been for John Kerry since the day he announced his candidacy. Having said that, I'd have been for Yosemite Sam if I thought he could beat Bush.

The Bush forces will no doubt try to find some way to spin this debate into a Bush victory. I could be wrong but, honestly, I think that may be beyond the talents of even Karl Rove. That's why Democrats, finally, are smiling.

Senator Kerry did this country a solid by a) showing himself to be presidential, and b) showing Bush up for the un-prepared, arrogant, do-what-I-say-and-not-what-I-do-I'm-right-and-you're-not-and-facts-don't-matter miserable failure as President that he is.

I'm smilin' so hard my face hurts. The trick now is not to get cocky and complacent. The time you get in trouble is when you think you're safe, as all (older and still alive) motorcyclists know.

It's still an upward climb, but it may have flattened out a little.

More on DeLay

From today's Washington Post:

The House ethics committee admonished Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) last night for offering a political favor to a Michigan lawmaker in exchange for the member's vote on last year's hard-fought Medicare prescription drug bill.

After a six-month investigation,(my emphasis) the committee concluded that DeLay had told Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) he would endorse the congressional bid of Smith's son if the congressman gave GOP leaders a much-needed vote in a contentious pre-dawn roll call on Nov. 22.

They must have spent the six months kissing DeLay's ass and apologizing to him in advance.

The ethics panel, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, said it would take no further action in the case.

"My, my, what teensy little balls you have, grandma!"

"The better not to rock the boat, Little Red Riding Hood. Now be a good citizen and go play."

The Blogosphere

Been through the Liberal Blogosphere this morning, checking out the first takes of the debates last night. My opinion? Next to my man Gordon . . .

[. . .]

Kerry was poised, forthright and strong. He didn't sweat or sigh. He kicked Dubya's ass.

Bush was fumblin' an stumblin'. He sighed. As far as I'm concerned he fucked up by the numbers.

[. . .]

. . . the mighty Josh Marshall has the best one:

Now comes the hard part: winning the spin.

John Kerry made a good start of it tonight. But it is absolutely critical for his campaign and his supporters, formal and otherwise, to hit the ground running with a plan to use the grist from the debate to shape perceptions in the final weeks of the campaign.

As I said earlier, I think Kerry did himself the most good tonight simply by belying the Bush campaign's portrayal of him as weak-willed flip-flopper.

[. . .]

There was an air of prickliness and entitlement about the president that Kerry's surrogates should play up too. If you notice, one of the president's major attacks on Kerry through the debate was his claim that Kerry's criticism of the president's own war policy made him unfit to be president.

That's extraordinary -- certainly a set of rules that would put Kerry in something of a bind if he followed them, no?

And that's the best he could come up with: say I've made a mistake in Iraq and you're letting down the troops.

Notice the structure of the president's thinking: The point isn't whether he's made mistakes or screwed things up. But saying he has is bad.

Again, denial. Refusal to see what's happening. Lost. Adrift.

Transcript

Debate transcript via Pandagon is here.

Good Job, John

The first "debate" is just over and here's my impression:

Kerry was poised, forthright and strong. He didn't sweat or sigh. He kicked Dubya's ass.

Bush was fumblin' an stumblin'. He sighed. As far as I'm concerned he fucked up by the numbers.

I'm certainly no expert, and I'm just the teeniest bit biased.

Update, 10:20pm OWT*

I've been watching the post-game show on MSNBC. Right after the debate, it was nearly unanimous that Kerry had "won". Within an hour, however, the spin had started as the Bush people found their footing again. I'm surprised that it took them that long: Kerry must have indeed done well.

Whaddya wanna bet that, by Monday at the latest, a good percentage of the media will reverse the outcome and declare Bush the "winner"?

We will see.

*Out West Time

What Do Women Want? Oh, No....

Margaret Carlson now has a weekly editorial in the LATimes. This one is disturbing.

Freud, on his deathbed, asked, "What do women want?" The improbable answer, it now seems, may be George W. Bush.

Now, if they wanted BUSH on his deathbed, that'd be a good choice.

Remember Bush 41, taunted for rightly resisting calls to charge into Baghdad and ridiculed as a lap dog, a wimp and every woman's first husband. To me the first Bush was every woman's second husband, the one you chose after you had all the false bravado you could stand from Bush 43

Once again, all the good shit is between the quotes. Read. Enjoy.

"Justice" Dept. v. 1st Amendment (Again)

Editorial in the LATimes

There's a new front in the Justice Department's war on terror — a battle against press freedom.

Duh.

It is now up to a federal judge to remind the Justice Department that an independent press won't long survive if reporters lose their ability to protect the confidentiality of their sources.

Double Duh.

The press

From Kevin at Lean Left:

[. . .]

The press in this country is so ineffective, so wedded to the idea of "balance", and so cowed by the right wing that it simply cannot give the public an accurate and clear picture of the situation. The information is there if you hunt for it, but this kind of equivocation and faux objectivity muddles the waters and gives people willing to lie brazenly the advantage. If the Bush says 2 + 2 = 5, the Washington Post would then write a story containing the line "But some Democrats maintained that 2 + 2 is actually 4." That is not balance or objectivity. It is aiding and abetting a falsehood. Just as the article above does.

You know, it's ridiculous. It's not just the press, it's everybody in this country. Nobody has the nuts to call a spade a spade anymore. What is it, just guys like my partner Gordon and me, and the guys I work with, who'll tell someone they're a liar, or a fucking asshole. Nobody has the balls to call anyone on anything anymore. When someone spouts drivel to you about a subject they know nothing about, do you say, 'you're an idiot, shut up'? Parbly not. I've seen guys do nothing when some other asshole says something rude to their wives. You get in my wife's face while I'm standing there, I'm gonna put you on your ass. Where are the real guys? And I'm not just talking men. Everybody's gotta be so PC because they're afraid of getting sued.

That's the way our press is. President Moral Failure lies (no, not misleads, lies) and the press eats it up. Call a lie a lie, godammit. Hell, even if you want to call it misleading, show some fucking outrage at least. If they'd let me within shouting distance of Bush, I'd call him a lying sack of shit to his face. Ya think one member of the WH press corps would say, 'but Mr. President, you know that's not true' after he throws another falsehood out there? When I watch one of the cable news networks, I take it for what it is, a regurgitation of the Republican talking points. When I watch a press conference, I see a bunch of slackers asking questions. I see a big waste of my good air.

What happened to the business when the Paragon of Journaism, Cronkite's Heir Dan Rather, is too lazy to properly source out a story? If I did my job as half-assed as the press does theirs, Harry would have pushed my toolbox into the street and kicked me to the curb long ago, friend or no friend. If Harry would run his buisiness the way the press runs theirs, he wouldn't have a business.

The press is supposed to be part of the checks and balances built in to our democracy, the voice of the people. The Founding Fathers specifically indicated a free press, the eyes and ears of the people on the system. Instead, we have a government propaganda machine reminiscent of Josef Goebbels. The press has been cowed by the right wing, so much so that they are merely vassals. At least you can hand it to Fox, they might say fair and balanced, but they make it easy enough that any moron can figure out where they stand. They are straight up about that.

And I have another question. Are reporters actually that stupid? Are the people who decide what gets reported? I mean, I'm a mechanic, people expect me to be a high school dropout and a little rough around the edges. I expect reporters et al, with their high-priced degees, to find out what's really going on, not worry about whether one candidate is wearing a red tie, or the other one sweats profusely. I expect reporters to ask Bush, what exactly is his plan for Iraq. What are they afraid of? Aren't journalists supposed to sacrifice everything for the story? Aren't editors there to separate the wheat from the chaff, calling something bullshit when they smell it instead of presenting it a fact. Jesus H. Christ, Iraq is a mess and they're still giving Bush the benefit of the doubt over his rosy outlook on the war. Can just one of them say, 'President Bush lost his grip on reality today when he said things in Iraq are going swimmingly'?

No, because they've gotten fat and lazy and they're scared that Bush might take it all away from them. You think any of 'em have the balls to sacrifice a job and report honestly? And if they are actually as stupid as Wolf Blitzer and Paula Zahn seem, what the fuck are they there for in the first place? And if they are as partisan as Bill Schneider and Howie Kurtz seem, why do they still have their jobs? I mean if it's supposed to be entertainment, say so. If it's supposed to be objective reporting, then do your fucking jobs. I mean, if people went to a comedian to get their car fixed instead of to me, it would sink in real fast that I was doing something wrong. Guys, more people look to The Daily Show for their news instead of the news networks. Guess what? Time to get on the ball. You got a little over a month to cover the most important election since FDR the right way. Get on it, before people start getting their news from Jerry Lewis.

Debate, Schmebate

There is an awful lot in the papers today about tonight's pseudo-debate (as Keith Olbermann of MSNBC calls it), but I'll spare you most of it, "out of kindness I suppose" (ref. "Pancho and Lefty" by Townes Van Zandt.)

For some Facts About Iraq v. What Bush Will Say, see this from Center For American Progress.

Here's a bunch of debate cartoons from Slate.

I was gonna get the whole 32-page "Memorandum Of Agreement" between the candidates from the LATimes in case you are so pissed off after the show that you need something boring to read to help you get to sleep, but it wouldn't come up. Boy, when something puts a computer to sleep, now THAT'S boring.

Get 'Em, Red!

Ariana has come a long way from being married to a rich Republican gay guy who couldn't buy his way into Congress. She's seen the light. Besides, she's a babe. She writes in "God, Country, And Perpetual Fear":

The latest dirty blows are a contemptible one-two combination with which Team Bush has portrayed John Kerry as both the enemy of God and, if not exactly the ally of al-Qaida, then at least the terrorists' candidate of choice. To hear them tell it, a vote for Kerry is a vote against God and Country. Talk about hitting way, way below the belt.

What's next, a photo of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sporting a Kerry-Edwards campaign button?

This "terrorists for Kerry" routine is as laughable as it is loathsome. Why in the world would the terrorists want to get rid of George Bush? He is their dream president, after all: a man who has alienated our allies, isolated us and united the Muslim world against us.

What a load of gutless garbage. As Thomas Jefferson made clear, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." But Bush can't seem to grasp that this country is too strong to be endangered by the truth -- and that, indeed, hiding the truth, the hallmark of his administration, is what is making us weaker and less secure.

Besides going off on the Bushies about fear-mongering and low-life political tactics, she has quite a bit to say about their use of religion and the Bible. Go read the whole thing. Get 'em, Red!

He Must Not Be From Texasshire

How Tony Blair Handled it, from today's NYTimes:

Watching Tony Blair is always instructive for Americans, and sometimes the source of envy. He faces much the same political conundrum as President Bush - a war gone wrong in a charged political season - with the added fillip that he followed Mr. Bush's lead into Iraq. But Prime Minister Blair has acknowledged the validity of the criticism he faces, and he is also not pretending that things in Iraq are humming along on schedule. "I entirely understand why many disagree," he said at the annual meeting of his Labor Party on Tuesday.

To some extent, Mr. Blair had no choice. His party is far more critical of the war than the Republicans who cheered Mr. Bush at their convention in New York. And he did not go quite so far as to invite a broad debate in Britain about the necessity of the war and the bungling of the occupation. At Brighton, Mr. Blair's official line about the false intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq was: "I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam." That raises a lot of questions, but at least the words "apologize" and "wrong" were put on record, and his critics were not called unpatriotic.

Mr. Blair's hope at the Labor conference was to shift the focus away from Iraq and onto his domestic agenda in anticipation of an election next year. In fact, the largest protests around the conference were against a planned ban on fox hunting. But it was obvious that Iraq still casts a dark shadow over British politics. Regardless of how Mr. Blair's decision to join the United States in the invasion of Iraq plays out in his bid for a third term, at least he showed respect for his constituents by not glossing over the war and by not scorning those who consider it a terrible mistake.

There must not be a "cowboy mentality" in England. Maybe Blair doesn't have an inferiority complex. Maybe he doesn't have to listen to conniving, evil advisers. Maybe he's got some balls.

I think it's too late for Dubya to grow a pair, but I do wish he'd learn to tell the truth.

Texas Babe Strikes Again

This must be ladies' day. I don't care who puts this stuff out as long as it gets out, but Molly Ivins is my favorite. She's definitely got a burr under her saddle.

Fixer'll like this one. Molly drives a Ford pickup. A good part of this is a follow-up to one of Fixer's posts.

This column is not about the presidential debate. It's about Other Stuff. Particularly eye-catching are the updates on the price of gasoline, your overtime pay, why the company most likely to hold the mortgage on your house could go broke, why you're getting peanuts from new tax cuts just passed by Congress and how the government is kicking hundreds of thousands of kids off health insurance while promising not to. Cheer all around.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has just put out a new study showing that the five biggest oil companies (ExxonMobil, Total, Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco) reported a $5.5 billion, or 16 percent, increase in profits during the first half of 2004 compared with the same period last year, which was no slouch either. Both ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco posted record second quarter profits in 2004.

When the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and moi are in perfect accord, it either means the End Times are near or we're both right for once. Accounting irregularities at Fannie Mae, the nation's largest backer of home mortgages, may force a "restatement of earnings," a lovely phrase meaning, "Oops, we cheated and got caught."

Once again, I left out the good parts to tempt you to go read the article.

Molly Ivins is widely read (and lusted after in some quarters) but she's not exactly mainstream media. Why aren't the mass media cuttin' through the shit like she does? Could it have anything to do with the phrase "Corporate America"?

Who's in charge around here?

As a Jack Daniels' devotee, this chaps my ass:

September 28, 2004 -- JACK Daniel's has sparked outrage among serious drinkers by unceremoniously lowering the proof of its famous Tennessee Whiskey from 86 to 80. The change — which means the hooch has 3 percent less alcohol — has riled those still smarting from the "betrayal" of 15 years ago when the company lowered the strength of its 90-proof, 138-year-old original recipe, to 86 proof. . .

The Elixir of the Gods must not be corrupted any more!

Scott Muni dies

A sad day. Scott Muni dies at 74. The Professor played the soundtrack to my youth on WABC 77 AM, WNEW 102.7, and WNXQ 104.3

The best line of the day

The Talking Dog on the debates:

[. . .]

Dubya, actually a reasonably intelligent and articulate (though mediocre and a n'er do well) New England Brahman scion, prep schooler and Ivy League graduate, has mastered the art of appearing to be a mentally retarded Texan. . .

War, and winning one

It seems to me that the American public (and our President) has a serious disconnect between war and the consequences of it. I listen to people who believe our campaign in Iraq is a just one. That eventually we will pacify the place, install a democratic government, and eventually make it the 51st state. And then I listen to the folks who want nothing to do with the war at all. And they say we should pull out, say 'sorry, no hard feelings', and give 'em back their country.

To the latter, I say no. If we up and split, abandoning Iraq, we'll be just as bad as that idiot (President Mission Accomplished) who began the war in the first place. As soon as the first American boot crossed into Iraq from Kuwait, we owned the place. Good, bad, indifferent, it's ours. As Americans, as the people we believe we are, we cannot cut and run. Our stature in the world has been reduced as it is with Bush at the helm, let us not sink lower. We have to leave a viable nation behind when we depart. Anything less would be inexcusable.

To the former I say, look around at the news coverage from Iraq, and Afghanistan to some extent, the dead, the wounded, the homeless. This is what war is and, had this one been not so badly planned, more would be dead. More Iraqis anyway. Ask the folks from the 'Greatest Generation' what it took to bring Japan to their knees. Read history, people. You could compare WW2 Japan to the Middle East today. At least the fanatical Japanese mindset of the time. Look what it took. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was after almost every Japanese city was firebomed beforehand. A hundred thousand died in Tokyo in one night. That's how we won, folks, by killing so many of them they couldn't go on. That's what war is.

War isn't some touchy-feely shit, a threat to be leavied lightly. War is killing more of the other guy's guys than they kill of yours. Destroying more of his cities and his infrastructure until he says, no mas. You don't go into a country expecting to be greeted as liberators. You go in expecting to kill as many of them as possible in the shortest amount of time to destroy their will to resist. This war in Iraq was initiated for profit, period. One of the wrong reasons to go to war. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for the next twit who is debating going to war instead of buying a red sports car.

But, as we all know, we are at war. Over a thousand U.S. troops are dead, over twelve thousand wounded, and God knows how many innocent Iraqis. Know what? We have to fight this like a war or our kids over there will be targets for years. The answer in Iraq is double the troops and break out the B-52s.

As you all know, I'm a 'kill 'em all and let God sort out the mess', kinda guy. The little use I have for Bob MacNamara, he said something once that always stuck with me. He said 'if the Americans had lost WW2, we would have been charged with war crimes for what we did to Japan.' When you are fighting a fanatical mindset, i.e. people who are willing to die for their cause, you have to break their will before you build them schools.

Now, to me, war is the most horrible thing one group of people can do to another. It should be the last choice of an enlightened leader. But if you're in one, you'd better be prepared to win it. We're in one, folks. Our fearless leader made the wrong choice to begin with, but next to cutting and running, we're going to have to make the best of it. We're going to have to seal Iraq's borders and begin door-to-door shakedowns. Get the weapons off the street (as they did in Germany after WW2) and do some serious policing. Once law and order is restored, then you can start building shit for the locals. All Bush and his cohorts thought was 'easy oil', and hoped the Iraqis would accept 'anything is better than Saddam'.

Bush is always talking about 'these terrorists respect strength'. Well we haven't shown much. Do you know how these folks have been fighting wars for the last million years or so? When they used to go invade another place, they'd kill just about everybody in it. Whoever's left are slaves. Do you think the shit we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is a show of strength to them? Have you forgotten about the Russians in Afghanistan? Guess what's happening again over there while we're fucking around in Iraq? They see the same commitment on our part as they did on the Russians'. World opinion is about the same too. One day, young cadets at West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs will have to study the Iraq War as a case of how not to fight a war.

We can't afford four more years of Bush's strength.

Oh, the humanity

I grabbed this from Kos, but everybody's jumping on it.

Al Lorentz, a non-commissioned officer with nearly 20 years of service under his belt, penned this column explaining why the US bound to lose in Iraq. And given his vantage point -- he's currently in Iraq -- the piece has added salience.

[. . .]

Now, the Army wants to court-martial this guy for violating Article 134 of the UCMJ and the liberal/progressive blogosphere is up in arms. Oh, how can they do that to this man who is only telling the truth? They ask. I say, have at him. I give Ol' Sgt. Lorentz credit for having a set of cojones and speaking out, but he did violate the law. Sorry, you might have spoken the truth, but as a senior NCO, you should have known better. Maybe he did and doesn't give a shit about his retirement, but I signed the same papers as he did and they say you're not allowed to speak out against your Commander-in-Chief in your capacity as a soldier.

Sorry, you do the crime, you do the time. If ya ain't prepared for that, keep your mouth shut.

First laugh

A new Bush/Cheney '04 poster. From WTF Is It Now??

Last laugh

A cartoon via Skippy.

There's Good Sense In Them Thar Hills

The NY Times has this from the Crawford, Texas, newspaper, The Lone Star Iconoclast. That's the only time I've seen the word "paperweight" right after "George W. Bush". They may be on to something there. Well, it's his home town. They'd know.

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda,'' the newspaper said in its editorial. ``Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry

The Iconoclast's publisher and editor-in-chief, W. Leon Smith, said the newspaper is sent to Bush's ranch each week. ``But I don't know if he reads it,'' Smith said

You don't see very much in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it.

That one made my day.

Not so easy, is it?

Via Kos from USA Today:

Fewer than two-thirds of the former soldiers being reactivated for duty in Iraq (news - web sites) and elsewhere have reported on time, prompting the Army to threaten some with punishment for desertion.

The former soldiers, part of what is known as the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), are being recalled to fill shortages in skills needed for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites).

[. . .]

"The numbers did not look good," said Lt. Col. Burton Masters, a spokesman for the Army's Human Resources Command. "We are tightening the system, reaching the people and bringing them in."

[. . .]

Several of those who received recall notices have already been declared AWOL (absent without official leave) and technically are considered deserters. "We are not in a rush to put someone in the AWOL category," Masters said. "We contact them and convince them it is in their best interests to show up. If you are a deserter, it can affect you the rest of your life."

You'd better show up or we're gonna fuck up your life!

With a force that generals say is stretched thin, the Army is considering $1,000-a-month bonuses to ex-soldiers who volunteer to return for overseas duty.

But we'll bribe ya if we have to. Incredible. And you know Bush has already figured out how to get that bonus money back. Yeah, boys, now ya gotta pay for your own ammunition.

63? Where'd The Time Go?

Newsweek has this interview with Bob Dylan.

Does he look like he just snuck across the border, or is it just me?

Consumer confidence

Pfft! From Jesse at Pandagon:

Let's deal with a measure of public opinion that doesn't have to keep oversampling one group in order to shore up eroding support for their apparently preferred candidate - consumer confidence. It's fallen for the second straight month, because the American people are pessimists who don't believe in the President's plan for strong economic growth and have nothing to offer besides pessimism and criticism.

[. . .]

So, consumer confidence is falling, people think Iraq is a quagmire, they think Bush has the country on the wrong track, yet according to the latest ABCNews/WaPo Poll, 51% of the people are gonna vote for him. Am I missing something?

Come On, Zelda!

Will Durst nails it!

That's right, God took time from His/Her busy schedule of tempting potential sinners and answering the prayers of body-painted football fans to throw down a 7.1 temblor because we buy a higher percentage of the buttless chaps sold in this country. And all across the land, you heard muffled harrumphs of agreement from the faithful

Apparently God will not be satisfied until Katherine Harris is where she belongs: in prison for her crimes of stealing an election and the excessive use of hair products. And if not, repeat after me: Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane. Not to mention an endless series of shots of reporters in raincoats yelling at unseen cameramen tethered to concrete posts.

Durst has more balls than a bowling alley! PLEASE go read it. I left out the good parts so you would.

When we get to Gitmo, I'm gonna shake his hand! He's from Frisco, so I'll look at it first.

Did They Get A Comp Buffet, Too?

No matter what you think about Indian gaming, this tribe's lawyers take the fucking cake. From the Washington Post:

-- making money by sticking it to the tribe, then making even more by promising to undo the damage -- takes the tale to a new level of avarice and duplicity.

If anybody ever deserved to get staked to an anthill, it's these assholes.

Next time, don't use Whitey's dice, Tonto.

Scrap the Constitution, Clyde

Paul Krugman in the NY Times says cable news may give the debates to Bush for his Clint Eastwood imitation and body language.

Nonetheless, on Thursday night there will be a temptation to revert to drama criticism - to emphasize how the candidates looked and acted, and push analysis of what they said, and whether it was true, to the inside pages. With so much at stake, the public deserves better

The only "body language" I want to hear about involves Senator Kerry's foot and Dubya's ass.

Brown Acid

For those of you in my generation, when you hear those two words, you immediately think Woodstock. No kids, the real Woodstock. And I've been saying that somebody's been eating the stuff in Washington. To me, it's the only plausible explanation of why shit's so fucked up. Normal people don't put the fate of a quarter billion people at risk for profit. Kevin at The American Street agrees.

A day in the life

From Tom Tomorrow. Stuff you should thank Liberals for.

Hmmm . . .

Just put gas in my pickemup truck this morning on the way to the train station with the Mrs. I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled up to the pump. Regular gas was $2.03/gallon. Some of you might look at me like I'm nuts, but this is New York and that's the lowest it's been since Memorial Day. Now this morning, on the business report, I heard that oil futures are 48 cents short of $50/bbl.

Wait a second.

At any other time, the price at the pump would follow the futures market. The futures price goes up one day, the price at the pump goes up the next. Except for now. What's the deal? Ya think Bush has his friends at Big Oil keeping the price of gas artificially low until after the election? I sure do. Maybe somebody with a few more connections than I have should look into this? After all, I'm just an idiot mechanic.

Welfare states

From Kos:

We have already discussed it at length, but you can never point out enough that it's the RED states -- the ones that vote Republican -- that take the most from the federal government, while it's the BLUE states -- those that vote Democratic -- that support their deadbeat asses.

[. . .]

Hey Gord, guess where our states stand? Yeah, 9th and 10th from the bottom. I was wondering where that pain in my nether regions was coming from.

Promises or the Three Lies

One of the few decent things in Bush's speech at the Republican Convention this month was his promise of $1 billion in new funds to provide healthcare to uninsured children. Inevitably, when Bush promises money for something, you have to look for the way he is simultaneously undercutting his own promise. In this case, he has ordered the withholding of $1.1 billion in unspent funding for the same children's health insurance program he promised to fund, meaning that if his promise of future funding is ever kept (they rarely are), his new funding will still represent barely 90% of the money he could provide right now if he chose to do so.

[. . .]

From Kevin T. Kieth at Lean Left.

If Bush is fucking our kids this way, can we call him a pedophile?

Debate Rules

Bob Harris at Tom Tomorrow:

Just came across the actual rider signed by the John Kerry and Delusional Monkey campaigns in arranging their upcoming "debate," which will actually be (like most U.S. "debates") more of a joint press conference.

[. . .]

Go read.

Update: 18:30:

As Gord reminds me, you heard it 1st here.

And while we're talking about leadership

This, via The Talking Dog:

About 800 members of the 98th Army Reserve Division from Rochester, New York will begin a year-long mission in Iraq next month.

The unit, which normally trains reserve and active-duty soldiers in the U.S., will find itself training Iraq’s new army.

The 98th is a non-combat unit that doesn't even have its own weapons or vehicles.

"This is a hard war and we, frankly, inside the Army Reserve have been not properly prepared for it,” said Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve.[my emphasis]

To quote Monty Python:

Whatcha gonna do, bleed on me?

Lessee, you're sending a unit into a combat area to teach folks who are regular targets for suicide bombers, and they're going in unarmed? What the fuck is going on around here? How the fuck . . . I mean are they . . . (Looking around) You know, I think, for the first time in my life, I'm speechless. Hey, why don't you draft me and my partner Gordon back in and give us fucking slingshots? It would be just as effective. I don't know what to say. It's good to see that the 3-star is speaking up, but Jesus H. Christ, how long are the generals and admirals gonna put up with this? It boggles the mind that we haven't begun impeachment hearings.

Update: 17:10:

Go read Skippy too.

Update: 19:30:

And DemVet:

Since they are going to Courts-Martial PFC England, can't we have Preznit Lucky Sperm and Rummy join her in the dock?

Where's the leadership?

Via Jesus General from Animal Planet:

Sept. 22, 2003 — The U.S. military has launched an investigation into the alleged shooting by a U.S. soldier of a rare Bengal tiger at the Baghdad zoo, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Lieutenant George Krivo, said Monday.

[. . .]

Adel Salman Musa, the head of the zoo, said Sunday that the tiger was killed last week during an apparently drunken party between U.S. soldiers and a group of Iraqi police officers.

"One of the soldiers, who the Iraqi police said had drunk a lot, went into the cage against the advice of his colleagues and tried to feed the animal, who severely hurt his arm," he explained to AFP.

The tiger tore off one of the soldier's fingers and mauled his arm. One of the other soldiers immediately fired at the animal and killed it, he said. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

So, I ask this question again. Where were the officers? I don't know about the grunts or the jarheads, but I sure as hell wouldn't be under arms if I was drinking. Once more we see that what passes for leadership in Iraq is sorely lacking. Sure, all us enlisted weenies bitched about the officers, but generally, most officers were good leaders. What we have here is bullshit. How this situation, let alone what went down at Abu Ghraib, happened points to a failure of leadership from the top. Not just the officer corps, but the civilian leadership in the Pentagon and above. This is fucking criminal. If that asshole were in my squad, he'd have been tiger shit if I had anything to say about it. I would have giggled my motherfucking ass off as the big cat turned him into a warm meal. Asshole.

Fascists

See, when I first started calling Bush & Co a bunch of Fascists and Nazis, everybody screamed that I was too 'out there'. Well, now the rational folks are seeing what I did then. I guess I have the benefit of my mom's stories of growing up in Nazi Germany to help me spot it earlier than most. See Xan at Corrente, the epitome of rational, and Lambert has more too.

This definition from Ornicus. If the foo shits . . .

"Fascism is a poisonous ideology that grows and adapts to its circumstances -- Eurofascism reflected European vices; American fascism is similarly home-brewed. Therein lies the challenge in identifying it and combating it. Fascism always wraps itself in the flag, always seeks absolute power, always brands opponents as traitors, always relies heavily on propaganda for dissemination of its ideas, always invokes subversive enemies (at home and abroad), always embraces militarism and permanent war, always favors politicizing of police functions (and expanding them and the surveillance state), always scorns intellectuals, artists, and bourgeois democratic values, always is hostile to leftist and labor movements, and is obsessed with idealized images of a mythic "better time" of the past (while at the same time destroying that past, and the nation as a whole).

Which just goes to prove that people don't read enough about history. Everybody should have spotted this when I did. Especially the folks of 'The Greatest Generation' many of whom are eager to follow Bush into Hell.

And while I'm at it

Since I started out today pissed off at irresponsible dog owners, it's only natural that this should end it. From Xan at Corrente:

Lambert notes here how the US Forest Service has been politicized. A group called the NPS Retirees.org, formerly about as political as a head of lettuce, has for some time been trying to call attention to the same thing happening in the National Park Service.

Remember how they hid the contract that sent private mercenaries in as torturers at Abu Ghraib by having it "managed" by the NPS? That's almost a trivial irrelevance to the havoc they're wreaking at one of the oldest, most-respected operations the Federal government has ever run.

[. . .]

Sources inside the NPS indicate that the political appointees within the DOI and the Bureaus in Washington DC have established their own “chain of command” and meeting protocols. These meetings occur frequently and totally exclude career employees from the Bureaus. Often decisions are made that favor the political interests of those involved and not in the best interests of the missions of the Bureaus. Generally there are no records of the meetings or decisions, and decisions and actions are carried by “word of mouth.”

[. . .]

Yes, Virginia, there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. There's a common factor that ties it all together. Wouldn't you know that the guy who's seen it most clearly, and talked about it most bravely, is getting set to "retire"?

[. . .]

This is outrageous. Amateurs displacing the career folks, the ones who know how things work, to work toward President Strip Mine's reelection. These people are entrusted with some of our most valuable natural resources and they're dicking things up the way the Pentagon fucked up Iraq. It's like the Political Officers assigned to Soviet military units, assuring the loyalty of the troops to the leadership. What the fuck is this country coming to when the Forest Service is being corrupted like this? I just hope Kerry can straighten all of it out. Seems like an insurmountable task.