Fascism in Fifteen Parts

I just found this series of articles by David Niewert of Orcinus. It's two years old but probably a good primer in how the state of affairs in our country has come to be. I haven't read it all yet as it will take several sessions, but I'm going to make the attempt. Join me.

Irony marches on

Bush with the Romanian president:

"Iran . . . is a non-transparent society . . ."

Who was on the Dickster's Energy Task Force again?

Also, Bush is bandying U.N. resolutions around again, with regard to Syria this time ("Syria must abide by 1559"). We'll be attacking shortly.

Stretched thin

No, this time it's not the U.S. military, it's me. I've been realizing over the past couple weeks that I have a lot of commitments, some that have to be dealt with sooner than others.

One is the book I've been writing over at creativity. That's fallen by the wayside and I'd like to get it finished because it's next up in line after Technocracy, the 8th in my epic series of pulp drivel whose publishing deadline is rapidly approaching. I'm starting to get serious hate mail from my regular readers, who've been waiting since November '03 for the next episode. I still have a little more work to do there before it gets shipped off.

Also, there's The Fixer & Gordon which I've let suffer, the contributing I do over at The Seventh Cross, and the administration of this blog, which is taking more and more time thanks to the increased traffic (thank you all who come by here and I'm not complaining). Then, most importantly, there's the reduction of quality time I'm spending with Mrs. F and the Princess thanks to all these commitments. Never mind work (my real job of keeping the cars in my section of Long Island's North Shore running).

So, I'm trying to figure out what to do. Since my books mean income, those naturally take priority. Though I've tried, blogging and writing just aren't working for me. I know others can do it, but I've found I can't. My brain goes to completely different places and it's a walking and chewing gum thing for me. My blogging will be reduced in the coming weeks, that's a given. How much is still a matter of consideration. Whether it'll be a complete hiatus for a couple months until the work on my books is done, or just a once in a while thing, I don't know yet. I'm also debating having a guest blogger until my hiatus is over, but that's for further, private, discussions between Gord, KR, and me. If someone is interested in filling in temporarily, email me and I'll take it into consideration. I'll still be doing the 'behind the scenes' work here regardless.

So that's it. Nothing Earth-shaking, just that you'll be seeing a little less of me here over the next couple months. No great loss really, I know y'all like Gord and KR better than me anyway. Ha!

Shock and Awe

Bubba's got a great post up that I meant to link to the other day:

I thought "shock and awe" was just a clever tagline dreamed up by Rumsfeld's PR people. In fact, it is the title of a 1996 report to the Pentagon on "achieving rapid dominance."

[. . .]

Jawbone of an ass

WTF? I thought the Saudis were Bush butt-buddies? Seems that Bush is Bandar's bitch. First, we pull American troops out of the Kingdom and now oil prices are heading upward again. I thought we had some leverage?

[. . .]

Oil prices held close to $55 a barrel, within sight of all-time highs, as late wintry blasts in the United States reignited demand and a tumbling dollar drew more investors into energy markets.

U.S. light crude for April rose 2 cents to $54.61, nearing the record high of $55.67 hit in October last year. Rising oil prices have raised concerns that higher energy costs will pinch corporate profits and curb consumer spending.

[. . .]

So I ask again? Who's in charge around here? Bandar or Bush?

Sturm und Drang, was macht nichts

From Melanie:

[. . .]

Let me say a few things that should be blindingly obvious by now. Europe was not bamboozled by Bush/Condi's charm offensive last month. If anyone had any reason to doubt his "sincerity" (whatever the hell that means) as a multilaterist/internationalist, that little moment has gone down in flames. Bolton's appointment to the UN is a massive "Fuck you" to the rest of the planet. What Bolton doesn't understand is that the world's view of the US has undergone a substantial revision since we completely screwed up our little middle-eastern adventure. We are now nothing more than a bully with nothing left to back it up and everybody knows it. Have a wonderful time at the United Nations, Mr. Gutless Wonder Bolton. And you are one of the prime movers who got us here, loudmouth.

I love it when she's pissed.

Morning thoughts

Pilfered from Champollion at Rising Hegemon:

The minimum wage bill is hung up in the Senate where there is no agreement in sight to raise the minimum wage over $5.15 an hour.

WASHINGTON - The Senate defeated dueling proposals Monday to raise the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage — one backed by organized labor, the other salted with pro-business provisions — in a day of skirmishing that reflected Republican gains in last fall's elections.

And remember, the Republicans have also made it easier for employers to allow comp time in lieu of time-and-a-half when an employee goes over 40 hours in a workweek.

We are so third world. Cue up Lee Greenwood, please.

Indeed. After 4 more years of Bush, all America will be known for is cheap labor and bad government. I guess it's a way to solve the immigration problems. The illegals will look somewhere else for better-paying employment opportunities.

American Wahabbis

From Mother Jones, an alternative lens for viewing the Ten Commandments cases.

In the United States as in the Middle East, the core of this Puritanism stems from a nostalgia for an imaginary past – in our case, a belief that the U.S. was a wonderful place when it was peopled mostly by pioneers who came from good northern European stock, who knew right from wrong, and weren't afraid to back up their beliefs with a gun, or by going to war, if they needed to.

Yeah, like slavery and them pesky blanket-asses, huh?

The founding fathers, of course, had a very different vision. They had seen the damage caused by the arcane disputes which triggered the religious wars of the seventeenth century. They preferred the ideas of the secular enlightenment, which instead of forcing men to accept the religious interpretations of other men, provided the space and security for each man to seek God in his own way.

Good article. Go read.

Sheep

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream. - Sheep, Pink Floyd

Keeping and bearing

I'm not one for firearms. I never felt the need to own one after I left the military. I don't hunt. Just never felt like shooting anything that didn't pose a threat to me, and I have a soft spot for animals. I don't condemn hunting, I got friends who do, religiously. They enjoy it, more power to 'em. I'll go target shooting with friends once in a while, just to assure myself I ain't lost it (qualified marksman consistently in the military, even got a ribbon, with oak leaf cluster and star device, for it), but I never felt the need to own a gun.

Until now.

More below the fold . . .

Letter From Canuckistan

Thank goodness (sometimes) for slow news days. As I sit here with my fingers in my ears waiting for something truly earth-shattering (it could happen, under this administration) to come across my wires, occasionally I run across a jewel to share with you. This letter to Condiliezza appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. Thanks to 42.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

Gee, whatta buncha commies, eh?

Disgusting

NYT via Kos:

[. . .]

But the delays were only beginning. The initial misstep, as well as other previously undisclosed problems, show that the Pentagon's difficulties in shielding troops and their vehicles with armor have been far more extensive and intractable than officials have acknowledged, according to government officials, contractors and Defense Department records. In the case of body armor, the Pentagon gave a contract for thousands of the ceramic plate inserts that make the vests bulletproof to a former Army researcher who had never mass-produced anything. He struggled for a year, then gave up entirely. At the same time, in shipping plates from other companies, the Army's equipment manager effectively reduced the armor's priority to the status of socks, a confidential report by the Army's inspector general shows. Some 10,000 plates were lost along the way, and the rest arrived late. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

What was that? Oh yeah fuck support the troops.

Depleted uranium

The Sister:

Let me just reiterate this one more time: things like 9/11 don’t happen in a fucking void. Our actions have consequences.

Link. [video] Warning: Very graphic.

Watching the clip, it reminds me of the Hell many of those in Japan went through for generations after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

The deficit

Ya see why I harp on this? This ain't just my idiotic ramblings. From the lips of somebody who knows something:

Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, yesterday launched a vitriolic attack on the US government for failing to take effective action to reduce the country's trade deficit.

[. . .]

"A country that is now aspiring to an 'ownership society will not find happiness... in a 'sharecropper's society' " But he says that just such a demeaning outcome is "where our trade policies, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us."

It's time for a little pain, though this Congress cringes at the mere thought of it. It's time for a tax increase, before the debt gets out of reach. It's time for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts a few years ago. We cannot sustain this pace of spending, especially using the fuzzy math (big-budget items off-budget) the Bush administration is. It's time for the White House to be brought to the bar, and it's time for the 'paleo-conservatives' to do it, if any of 'em actually exist anymore.

Link via Corrente. You really should read The Farmer's post too.

Banktruptcy

. . . You know a lot of people don't realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Those are the people. The credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence . . . [my emphasis]

Go read the whole post and understand how this horrible bankruptcy bill is being shoved through.

Update: 15:30:



Found this here. Thanks to Oliver Willis.

Update:16:30:

Stolen in full from Froggy:

The Republican controlled government is coming after anyone who isn't rich now, and they are making very little effort, except in how they name their bills, to hide the fact that the real war is not on terrorism, but the working class. You think I'm kidding? This is what we get because the red states are full of poor, god-fearing people who ought to be more afraid of the Republican party than any god of any religion.

ANWR . . . again

Travis has an excellent post on the shenanigans over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In their continuing attempts to ruin as much of the world as humanly possible while their guy still has office, Republicans have figured out how to avoid a filibuster on legislation allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by tacking provisions onto a budget bill . . .

Death sentence

I commented on this Friday. Gillard goes farther.

[. . .]

This is from US training, which stresses fire and protection first and foremost. Car doesn't stop, blow it away. That's what happened in Tal Afar when the troopers from the 25th ID blew away a family. Speeding? Be a kid with a machine gun waiting for a car bomb and donkeys speed. Instead of conspiracy theories. one should be asking how many times do US troops kill Iraqis just like this. I thought driving while black was bad, now driving while Iraqi can be a death sentence.

Ah-nold: Girly-man Gubernator

James Wolcott does it again.

"[T]he Governor is so used to browbeating the press that he thought he could do the same to the California Nurses' Association (CNA), one of the most militant unions in the country, with 60,000 members and representing registered nurses at 171 health facilities throughout the state. Schwarzenegger has been trying to roll back the union's gains on nurse/ patient ratios, safety standards and kindred issues.

"On February 15, when Schwarzenegger and his platoons of body guards and flunkies trooped into a screening of Be Cool, 300 nurses demonstrated. Kelly DiGiacomo, 46 years old and 5'2", a nurse at a Kaiser hospital near Sacramento, had a ticket. She ensconced herself in the fourth row, wearing her nurse's scrubs.

"A bodyguard rushed up, and under the pretext of a possible meeting with the governor, led her to a room with a California Highway Patrol cop at the door and began to grill DiGiacomo. A few days later a CHP investigator called. DiGiacomo asked why she should be considered a threat. The investigator replied, 'Well, you were wearing a nurse's uniform.' 'Oh, sure, the international terrorist uniform,' DiGiacomo scoffed. Californians scoffed with her when they saw the news stories. At least Bush and Cheney can claim they're being targeted by hairy men from the dark side of Mecca. Here's Arnold hiding behind his goons from the woman who cares for you when you're in the hospital."

Some "tough guy", huh?

Martha's Lesson

There's been a lot of verbiage this week about Martha Stewart. As everybody knows, she just got out of the can after five months, a billion dollars richer and probably infinitely wiser. Good for her, I say. Before all this happened, I couldn't have gave a shit less about her one way or the other. I still don't, other than I think she got royally screwed by the government. Think on this:

Ms. Stewart got five months in a federal joint and five months house arrest for lying to the government about a crime that she was never charged with, a crime that arguably never occurred, over an insignificant amount of money from the sale of her own stock, that ain't a drop in the bucket compared to what Enron and others blatantly stole from everybody with administration help. What I take from that is this:

It's OK for the president and the government, cops, politicians, preachers and corporations to lie to, or steal from, you and nothing happens to them. Nothing, except maybe praise for doing their job well and being on the bandwagon of power.

However, if you lie to them without being on their IOKIYAR list, or for being an uppity broad, or for not paying enough protection money in the form of campaign contributions, you're in big trouble. It's the Amerikan way: pay up or pipe down. Or we'll knock you down.

I'm not going to even say that this is unfair, because that would just be whining. Of course it's unfair. It was engineered that way and it works well. Someday the tables will turn and I hope I'm there to grind my heel in their face. Now that's fair.

Questions

A good one from the Ghost:

[. . .]

Why is a book, possibly anywhere from twenty-five hundred to two thousand years old, of dubious and questionable authorship, with notable historical inaccuracies, inconsistent logic, unprovable positions and overt factual errors, the so-called basis of an open, democratic, scientific and technologically advanced society?

[. . .]

WTF?

I seem to be on a foreign policy thing today, so lets talk about Syria's announced pullback from Lebanon. It offers hope for a people under occupation for 30 years.

BEIRUT, March 5 -President Bashar al-Assad of Syria refused on Saturday to comply with President Bush's demand that he withdraw all of his country's troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon, telling the Syrian Parliament that he planned instead to order a gradual pullback to Lebanese territory near Syria's borders.

[. . .]

Bashir Assad, Syria's president, isn't the model for integrity. You know Syrian intelligence won't leave that quickly, even if the troops do. But this is a hopeful sign. So why is the White House taking such a hard line?

More below the fold . . .

The stench of hypocrisy 4

Via the King:

Suppose that Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Canada and announced that the United States was retreating from its principles of freedom since the World Trade Center attack. The United States, he might have said, has denied due process of law to some American citizens. It has established a concentration camp in Cuba. It has tortured prisoners, indeed often and in many places. It denies aliens the right to trial by jury -- indeed, it acts like the only ones who have Mr. Jefferson's inalienable rights are American citizens, and not always.

Then he says, while I'm at it, there are a lot of flaws in your democracy. You certainly don't think your Electoral College is democratic, do you? Neither is your Senate, with its disproportionate representation of smaller states. Rhode Island is as big as California? Gimme a break!

[. . .]

Did he expect Putin to accept his insult and promise to do better? Did he think that the Russian people would say that it was time for the Russian leadership to shape up in response to the criticism of an American president? What good would come of his criticism? Why did he bother to make such a big deal out of it?

[. . .]

Why not be rude and crude and patronizing? Why not act like an evangelical minister preaching to South American heathens? Why not act like the campus evangelist who tells Catholics that they are not Christian? Why not act like a Catholic bishop refusing the sacraments to a political candidate?

Story.

These clowns who are running the show in Washington don't have a clue about diplomacy, also witnessed last week with regard to Canada opting out of the Missile Defense Shield. We have a foreign policy run by five year olds.

Up is down

Well, mostly. Pauly and his Little Sister have some fun with numbers.

We're #49!

Unlike the Retard Right (© Gordon) who look at our position in the world through Bush-colored glasses, this is where we really stand in comparison to the rest of the world:

More below the fold . . .

Wolcott on Greenspan

We have to cross the mighty mountains to go shopping this A.M., so I'll be brief. Read the article, but here's the punch line:

Alan Greenspan, pompous hack. Harry Reid, blunt hero.

Sometimes even wordy ol' Wolcott cuts through the shit.

Hmmm . . .

This via RDF at Corrente:

In a case with implications for the freedom to blog, a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company's upcoming products.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg refused to extend to the Web sites a protection that shields journalists from revealing the names of unidentified sources or turning over unpublished material.

[. . .]

Makes you wonder, especially after hearing this earlier in the week [link via Sis]:

In just a few months, [Bradley Smith, one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission,] warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

[…]

The Repubs know we're standing between them and their complete takeover of the media and the information services. While they have us watching Social Security, they're working on destroying free speech. Watch.

As for trying to collect fines from my ass. Good luck. As the sign says: 'Hell with the dog, beware of Owner.'

Saturday Cattle Dog Blogging

Dad, I have to go OUT!!!!!

Ha!

Rook.

Cannon fodder

WASHINGTON, March 3 - The Army is so short of new recruits that for first time in nearly five years it failed in February to fill its monthly quota of volunteers sent to boot camp. Army officials called it the latest ominous sign of the Iraq war's impact on the military's ability to enlist fresh troops.

"We're very concerned about it," Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday when asked about recruiting shortfalls in the active-duty Army and Army Reserve. "When people ask you what you worry about the most, I say there's just two words: people and money."

[. . .]

Link via Melanie.

Guard and Reserve recruiting has been down for months. Now the active duty folks can't fill their quotas. So, are they gonna extend tours again? What if the influx of new recruits continues to drop off? Ya think they're gonna pack it up and leave Iraq? Me neither. Hey Gord, get yer wrenches ready to travel. If Harry and I get there first, we'll save a rack in the tent for ya. And one last question. Ya think Jonah Goldberg will finally sign up for duty?

Hey, Seventh Cross, Listen Up!

Go read A Fascist America by Justin Raimondo at AntiWar.com. You folks can do more justice to this one than I can, and besides, I'm tired.

Perceptions

I don't care who was wrong or right. This:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was injured and another person killed on Friday when "multinational forces" fired on a speeding automobile at a military checkpoint in Baghdad, the Pentagon said.

makes us look like a buncha fucking idiots.

Reid Blasts The 'Span

In today's WaPo:

"I'm not a big Greenspan fan -- Alan Greenspan fan," Reid said when asked about the Fed chairman's testimony this week urging Congress to deal quickly with the financial problems facing Social Security and Medicare. "I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."

"Why doesn't he respond to the Republicans and tell them the big problem here is the debt that this administration [has] created?" he said. "We had a $7 trillion-dollar surplus when Bush took office. Now we have a $3 or $4 trillion-dollar deficit. That's, in fact, what Greenspan should be telling people."

In his first months as successor to former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), Reid has proven to be a pugnacious and sometimes unpredictable leader. He has given the administration no quarter, and his comments sometimes have caused an uproar among fellow Democrats.

An uproar of approval, at least to this pajamahadeen. For a kid from from East Slagheap, Nevada, Reid seems to be going in the right direction. Keep punchin', Harry.

Neocon Amorality

Here's a good article in our ongoing discussion of "moral values" as a distraction for the unwashed masses and how this administration actually uses them. From the Consortium News.

For a government that wraps its actions in moral absolutes about good versus evil, while deriding liberal relativism, the Bush administration may rank as the most committed in modern American history to an ends-justify-the-means ethos.

Indeed, to understand the administration’s neoconservative foreign policy, one must recognize how this moral framework works: First, it sets out worthy-sounding goals – freedom, democracy, security – and then it applies whatever tactics are deemed necessary – torture, murder, unprovoked invasions – along with an aggressive propaganda strategy at home.

Next, when events take a positive turn, the neoconservatives claim credit, even if they had only a minor role or the events were largely coincidental. Criticism of the bloody means is washed away by celebration of the virtuous ends. Mainstream commentators join in, cheering the neocons’ farsightedness. Those who opposed the original actions are pushed to the political margins.

Go read. I'm only finding un-fucking-believably long in-depth stuff today, it seems. It's giving me a lot of practice in reading without moving my lips.

De Col' Wind Be Comin' Closah.....

Feel that cold breeze on the back of your neck? That's a draft. Philip Carter and Paul Glastris make a case for it in a Washington Monthly article. Agree or disagree, they make some good points. Go read. Pack a lunch, it's a long one.

The only effective solution to the manpower crunch is the one America has turned to again and again in its history: the draft. Not the mass combat mobilizations of World War II, nor the inequitable conscription of Vietnam—for just as threats change and war-fighting advances, so too must the draft. A modernized draft would demand that the privileged participate. It would give all who serve a choice over how they serve. And it would provide the military, on a “just in time” basis, large numbers of deployable ground troops, particularly the peacekeepers we'll need to meet the security challenges of the 21st century.

America has a choice. It can be the world's superpower, or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can't do both.

It's gonna dazzle ya how much good shit is Below The Fold.

Deficits and Deceit

Paul Krugman on Greenspan and Bush's lies about Social Security and the deficit.

To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."

According to starve-the-beast doctrine, right-wing politicians can use the big deficits generated by tax cuts as an excuse to slash social insurance programs. Mr. Bush's advisers thought that it would prove especially easy to sell benefit cuts in the context of Social Security privatization because the president could pretend that a plan that sharply cut benefits would actually be good for workers.

The best bet now is that Mr. Bush will manage to make the poor suffer, but fail to make a dent in the great middle-class entitlement programs.

And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.

Krugman is a smart guy who knows this shit inside and out, and has the balls to call 'em like he sees 'em. You should read him religiously. Print his op-eds, put them in a binder, and refer to them often. He does "talking head" duty on TV occasionally and is well worth watching. I liked it the time he went toe-to-toe with Bill O'Reilly and didn't give an inch to that big pussy bully.

More draft

One more before I fade into incoherency. A level-headed article on the case for a draft:

[. . .]

All this for a war that most planners consider to be a medium-sized conflict—nothing like what the United States faced in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War. And while threats of that magnitude aren't anywhere on the horizon, there are plenty of quite possible scenarios that could quickly overwhelm us—an implosion of the North Korean regime, a Chinese attack on Taiwan, worsening of the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, or some unforeseen humanitarian nightmare. Already we have signaled to bad actors everywhere the limits of our power. Military threats might never have convinced the Iranians to give up their nuclear program. But it's more than a little troubling that ruling Iranian mullahs can publicly and credibly dismiss recent administration saber-rattling by pointing to the fact that our forces are pinned down in Iraq.

[. . .]

Not that I'm clamoring for a draft. I'm for a foreseeable endgame to Iraq. I talked about this the other day too.

[. . .]

The dollar is getting weaker and our military is stretched thin. Were I an opposing general, I'd say America is almost ripe for the picking. What say the Chinese attacked Taiwan? What say the North Koreans attacked South Korea and Japan? What if both scenarios occurred at once? In what position would that leave our military and our economy? Could we afford it? Could we field the army required? Looks like with 45% of our troops in Iraq being Guards and Reserves, we can't. Not if we're faced with an army that doesn't respond to 'shock and awe' the way the Iraqi army did. My dad fought the Chinese and they were formidable 50 years ago. Now they have nukes. So do the Indians and Pakistanis, so do the North Koreans.

[. . .]

Good

Here, via Sis.

Light blogging for me today. I got an abcessed tooth and I'm turning to chemistry to get me through until I see that thieving dentist of mine tomorrow. In a few minutes, I'll make even less sense than usual. I can't even be a whiny little bitch about it because Mrs. F. is in Hartford and the dog don't give a shit.

Maybe An Aircraft Carrier In Lake Michigan Would Help...

An interesting, but inconclusive, article on illegal immigration in Truthout.

Some eleven thousand guards patrol the length of the country's border with Mexico, a true sieve. George W. Bush's plan, studied this year in Congress, seriously divides the Republicans. Talk about immigration in Washington does not follow the usual fracture lines of the political parties: Democrats are torn between humanitarian arguments and those of Labor Unions; Republicans are divided between pro-business lobbies that want the cheap labor and the Republican base that fears a "Hispanization" of the country. From Tucson.

She would like to see "50,000 soldiers on the Mexican border and 50,000 on the Canadian border." The traitors in her eyes: the American government, which "rolls out the red carpet for illegals."

How do you say "coyote" in French? What a ninny!

"If there's anything I've understood as far as immigration is concerned, it's that you can tell me where someone lives and what their party affiliation is, but I can't deduce his position on immigration from that," summarizes Pastor Robin Hoover.

There are many sides to this problem. Leave it to the Frog who wrote that to put it in such a succinct fashion.

Solvency

[. . .]

In other words, the markets have caught on to the fact that Bush is nothing more than economic smoke and mirrors. He continually hides the ball or figures out ways for other people to pay for his mistakes.

Because the US has not effectively dealt with its trade or federal budget deficit, other nations appear to be making the initial moves to get away from the dollar.

[. . .]

Enlightening post in the Kos Diaries via Corrente. Eventually, our creditors are gonna cut us loose to founder on our own. When that happens, we'll see another Depression.

NWHM

Hah . . . what, you say? It's National Women's History Month. Refresh what you learned in history class. (Especially with all the fiesty wimmins runnin around in Left Blogstonia.) Thanks to Pandagon for the link.

Huh?

[. . .]

"So long as health-care costs continue to grow faster than the economy as a whole, the additional resources needed for such programs will exert pressure on the federal budget that seems increasingly likely to make current fiscal policy unsustainable," Greenspan said.

He again threw his weight behind the notion of restructuring the Social Security retirement system to include private investment accounts -- an idea President Bush is pushing in speeches around the country.

[. . .]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Chairman of the Federal Reserve isn't supposed to be a PARTISAN-FUCKING-HACK like his PARTISAN-FUCKING-WIFE.

Skank

From Campus Progress comes the announcement of the winner of the "Name Ann Coulter's Next Book" contest.

The rules for the contest were simple: The book title had to be the same format as Coulter’s books—a single word, followed by an explanatory subtitle.

The winner:

“Roosevelt: Wheelchair-riding, America-hating terrorist”

Many more. My submission:

"Sailorpussies: How I Fucked the Seventh Fleet 'Til It Ran Out Of Seamen"

Tearing down the press

From Eric Boehlert in Salon. May require free site pass. This is a must read.

The White House and its media allies, echoing a deep-rooted conservative antagonism toward the so-called liberal media, say they are simply countering its bias. But critics charge that the White House, along with partners like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting, organizations whose allegiance to the Republican Party outweighs their commitment to journalism, is actually trying to permanently weaken the press. Its motivation, they say, is twofold. Weakening the press weakens an institution that's structurally an adversary of the White House. And if the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts -- the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate.

Suskind notes, "If you believe there is no inherent value to public dialogue based on fact, then that frees you up to try all sorts of things other people in power wouldn't have ever thought of. And we're seeing the evidence of that now."

What evidence? Secrecy, lies, misbegotten imperialistic foreign adventures, domestic division, soaring deficits, rampant cronyism and creeping fascism? You call that evidence? Pah!

Reefer Nat'l Park

In our ongoing series on illegal immigration, and the possibility that some of us may have at some time or another been exposed to the sickening-sweet odor (I know, I know, but that's how it's always described) of Cannabis Sativa/Indica, at a distance of course, I offer this article on AlterNet. It's an odd juxtaposition (for some reason, all juxtapositions seem to be described as odd) between illegal immigrants and an illegal product grown by American citizens who let the mojados take the rap and often rip them off as well.

"Some of them don't even know they were hired to grow marijuana until they get to the park," the agent said.

But the land owners don't keep their promises to the field workers. Many undocumented farmhands never see their money, either because they get arrested before getting paid or because their bosses disappear with all the drugs, the agent said.

A fine example of the exploitation of people who can't bitch by their supposed ethnic allies.

This just one park. It goes on all over the state, and we have a lot of parks. Marijuana is California's number one cash crop, and one of its most popular exports.

Reporter Uses Blogs For First Time

Here's an interesting article by Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry magazine, about his first experience doing research via blogs. Via AlterNet. Read, but here's his conclusion:

And here's the nut of it: In the blogosphere, it's often asked, on both the left and right, "Why can't the mainstream media get to the bottom of these scandals like the blogs sometimes do?" Of course, one of the reasons is, they are simply too timid. But I understand another part of the answer now: No single news outlet has anywhere near the army of workers who toil, unpaid, at odd hours, for the larger blogs. To compete in this regard, Gannett would have to shut down some of its local papers and put their news staffs to work for USA Today. Then USA Today could throw a battalion of reporters at a hot issue – like some blogs now can, and do.

I do this because it's fun and keeps me off the street and out of trouble. If I had to do it for a living I have no idea what would happen. Probly get my ass canned forthwith.

It appears to me that some of the horse n' buggy media might benefit from having a coupla researchers primarily to check the blogosphere. All these outfits have websites, so they have computer-savvy people. How hard could it be to train a reporter to surf the blogosphere? On second thought, it might be easier to train the 'puter guy to be a reporter.

Production

Al-Jazeera via Melanie:

As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".

[. . .]

Currently, at near maximum production, Saudi Arabia is producing about 9mbpd, though recently they claimed they could potentially produce 12mbpd or even as much as 20mbpd. A claim Simmons called "pie in the sky".

"The faster you pull a reservoir, the faster you pull out all of the easy-to-produce oil," explains Simmons. "What happens is that you lose massive amounts of what the oil industry calls oil-left-behind still inside the field. These issues, as you can see, have been known about for years."

[. . .]

If the glass is half-empty, we've got real problems. Prepare for an energy crisis that'll make '73 and '79 look like a walk in the park.

The assault begins

On free speech. Via Media In Trouble, via World O'Crap:

[. . .]

In his first lengthy address since becoming attorney general in early February, [AG Alberto] Gonzales said people who distribute obscene materials do not enjoy constitutional guarantees of free speech.

"I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively," he said to a Washington meeting of the California-based Hoover Institution.

[. . .]

Personally, I don't think this should be a federal issue at all, since obscenity laws are usually states' issues, if I'm not mistaken. Why the fuck is the AG's office worrying about this anyway? Shouldn't they be working on actually convicting one or two of the people we've had incarcerated since we went into Afghanistan.

Ladies and gentlemen, everyone enjoys the right to free speech, even pornographers. I wonder who it'll be next.

Some sense?

So we are civilized after all.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday abolished the death penalty for juveniles, an important victory for opponents of capital punishment in the only country that gave official sanction to such executions.

The Rude One:

We live now in this world of Bush where every day we are confronted with the myriad ways in which this administration and its hellish minions attempt to strip rights, dignity, and humanity in favor of a world of unchecked corporate greed-seeking and governmental repression in the guise of parental protectiveness. So it's always blindsiding to hear news that affirms something akin to human dignity. Let us mark the day, because there are precious few.

'Splain to me this free speech, Comrade

Glen points this out. It especially chaps my ass because as an author (pulp fiction), I've written shit that, under this standard, I qualify as a terrorist:

[. . .]

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

[. . .]

You read that and you think 'uh. oh, another Columbine in the making', right?

[. . .]

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

[. . .]

Yes, the next terror threat facing our nation are ZOMBIES, RISEN FROM THE DEAD!!!!! This kid's just the next Stephen King. But no, the White House has every one so scared:

[. . .]

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

[. . .]

His own grandparents turned him in for doing his HOMEWORK!!!! My God, what has this country become?

Blogger sucks OUTRAGEOUSLY today.

On torture

Gillard writes a letter to Jonah 'Failed Abortion' Goldberg:

[. . .]

Jonah,

How's your feather collection? Probably enough to vein some faux-marble? Maybe do a mural of a chickenhawk in flight?

So, when did the OSS torture people? I mean, when did they walk into POW camps and starting giving the Germans what for? When did the Counter Intelligence Corps torture Germans? You mean they didn't? When the allegations of torture following Malmedy were raised in the trials of the SS murderers in 1948, guess who condemned it? Joe McCarthy, your patron saint of corrupt fear mongering.

Why didn't the US torture German POW's? Because the Nazis would do the same to US flyers and did to US evaders and escapers. Ever hear of the Great Escape? I know you have. But what you may not realize is that Hitler's order to kill 50 escapers scared the shit out of the Luftwaffe, because they were afraid the Brits would line up 50 of their men and blow them away. One day, Americans may be subjected to brutal deaths because of torture already commited by the US.

Do you think the US has allies in Pakistan after stories of Gitmo makes the rounds off the jury rigged deportations. If people didn't languish in jail for years and weren't beaten shitless, the methods used to round them up would be comical. In many cases, they were sold to SF and the CIA by bounty hunters. Abusing the innocent only aides Osama "the man who's name cannot be spoken" Bin Laden.

I would say Jonah needs to cover the war in Iraq and see if his appetite for torture diminishes.

Because he's a fucking idiot. You know when all those folks we subjected to rendition walk into a US court, it will be hard for a jury to convict them, or to even allow any evidence against them.

I wonder if Mr. Goldberg would like to be subjected to the things he thinks are fit for others.

[. . .]

Just this

Will Michael Jackson please just DIE already and get OFF my fucking TV.

Nuke 'Em, Danno...

This strains even my cynicism. From The Carpetbagger Report:

Not content with one venture into Mess O’ Potamia, at least one Republican lawmaker seems anxious to start another – this time, with nukes.

This is so twisted, it’s hard to know where to start. Which of these is the most outrageous part of this story?

* That a sitting member of Congress is bragging about his desire to drop nuclear weapons?

* That Johnson has shared this idea with the president?

* That Johnson’s favored approach to non-proliferation is an unprovoked nuclear attack?

* That this speech was delivered in a church?

* That Johnson’s audience “roared with applause"?

Is there some sort of IQ number you gotta come in under in Texas to get elected to public office? Or to vote there? Or maybe just to live there. Yeesh.

Hey, Sarge, My Check Bounced. I'm Outta Here...

From DefenseTech.org:

Give us more money, or soldiers aren't going to get paid. That's the cynical game the Pentagon's leadership has been playing with the Army's budget in recent months. And now, it's crunch time.

Since the fall, Rumsfeld & Co. have been dipping into the Army's day-to-day funds -- like money for soldiers' paychecks -- and then daring Congress not to make up the difference with a second, "supplemental" pile of cash.

The tab comes due this Spring, Defense Daily reports. The Army needs $41 billion of that supplemental kitty by then, or else it is going to go broke, without cash left to pay G.I.s.

But key members of Congress, like Sen. John McCain, are getting increasingly fed up with this backdoor effort to add tens of billions to the defense budget by essentially holding G.I.'s livelihood hostage. Sooner or later, things are going to come to a head.

Them brass hats got brass balls to stick up Congress this way. It would be foolish of them not to pay heavily armed, pissed-off GI's. I think there'd be enough unpaid C-130 pilots and ship captains to give 'em all a ride home.

I'd love to see a demonstration like the "Bonus Army" of 1932 that got FDR elected and gave rise to the WWII GI Bill. This time, I don't think the cops could throw 'em out of DC. I'd love to see 'em try.

Why?

Is it always the Jesuslanders?

"We feel dismay, anger, devastation, utter shock and disbelief. The very foundation of our faith is shaken." ~ Gerald Mansholt, bishop of the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which was the church that the suspect in the BTK killings belonged to.

The Christians just love killin'; their own kids and their neighbors. And we're worried about the Madrassas in the Middle East?

BTW, Blogger sucks wet monkey ass again this morning.

Satan In a Skirt

If you think The Culture Ghost and Shakespeare's Sister were a little rough on that old Polack Pope last week, as linked to in Fixer's post, well, I'm here to tell you that they are the soul of kindness and political correctness compared to the self-professed True Christians at Landover Baptist Church.

Of course, priests’ reactions may be different to the passing of this particular pope, since Pope John Paul II recently spoke against homosexuality- outside of the Catholic Church. “I guess it is OK for sodomy to go on inside St. Peters and every parish church from here to Timbuktu until you feel like those folks in Sodom got a raw deal,” dryly observed Mrs. Judy O’Christian, Landover’s diplomatic envoy to the Vatican, “Just not out by the Coliseum where everyone can see it. While some may think the Pope’s condemnation a little timid, we applaud the courage that even that meek message must have taken. I mean, the Pope speaking out against homos is like Nelson Mandela condemning blacks. You just don’t expect folks to turn on their own kind like that.”

Go read. There's a cool photo of the Pope investigating allegations of child molestation. We have to learn from experts wherever we can.

Hate State

[. . .]

Anyone speculating about which state is the most homophobic in the nation probably needs to look no further than Alabama. My wife Kate, a native Alabaman, escaped from the nightmare, and even she couldn't believe the depth of the hatred and homophobia exposed by this article, including the heinous statistic that 44% of gay Alabamans are physically beaten and assaulted -- by their own family members. It's truly upsetting, and depressing. You wish the queer community would just get the hell out of there, but as with all stories like this, there are those that still want to stay and fight for their rights. I would consider this an almost insurmountable mountain of intolerance that runs both deep and high -- and all the way to the state house.

[. . .]

From Pam's Kos Diary. Strongly recommended. Via Froggy.

Checks and balances

It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.

[. . .]

Even the near absence of checks and balances is not enough for W. Not content with controlling the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and a good chunk of the Fourth Estate, he goes to even more ludicrous lengths to avoid being challenged.

The White House wants its Republican allies in the Senate to stamp out the filibuster, one of the few weapons the handcuffed Democrats have left. They want to invoke the so-called nuclear option and get rid of the 150-year-old tradition in order to ram through more right-wing judges.

[. . .]

MoDo in NYT. I got more on this over at The Cross.

Remember Scott Ritter? 2

In case you don't, he's the former U.N. weapons inspector who screamed loudest that Iraq didn't have WMD. Via Bob Harris:

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

[. . .]

Story.

I'm floored

In a congratulatory post to G.D. Frogsdong (No I'm not kiddin'. That's his name and he's blogging over at Skippy's with Pauly.), Mimus Pauly had some very nice things to say about us:

[. . .]

And I thank the two of you, Gordon and Fixer of The Alternate Brain, very much also. As with Spontaneous Arising, your blog doesn't receive the attention and credit it deserves either. However, I think I see the reason why: The Brain is too up-front, too honest, too unvarnished, and too politically incorrect for too many people. Know what I think? Joke those fluffy bunnies if they can't take a fuck! If they can't handle Gordon's vicious wit or Fixer's righteous rage, they must not be worthy. I'm in your camp, Fixer and Gordon, and I ain't defecting (although I do have one whiny question -- what does it take to get Knox Rover to leave a comment around here?)...

Thanks, Pauly, it means a lot. And I second what you said about Michael Hawkins.

Thought For The Day

I was skiddin' the net (that's what us old motersickle racers do instead of 'surf') and got linked to Scrutiny Hooligans from That Colored Fella. This quote is on their masthead:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams

Those old guys knew their shit, nez pas?

Realignments

What the wingnuts don't get and, it seems, neither does the White House, is that opening conflicts in Afghanitstan and Iraq have caused other nations to take a look at their security situations. I commented over at another blog (I forget which; short-term memory thing) on this the other day.

Many nations see the U.S.' conflicts for what they are, essentially a land grab in the heart of Middle East. Nobody but the 51% of us believes this 'spreading democracy' bullshit. They know that Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Tajikistan are all jumping off points for the U.S. military to impose Washington's will in the region.

More below the fold . . .

Updated: 15:50

They don't want you to know

So, you're a typical NewsMax reader: out of shape, working a minimum wage job, shunned by women, always getting beat up by street punks and Iraqi terrorists, and generally having a sucky life. And whose fault is it? Obviously, the Left's!

[. . .]

World O'Crap.

Warning: Swallow your coffee first before heading over there.

Erectus reduxus

Gord pointed this out last night, but I had to pin it to the wall here. Excellent cartoon.



Hint to the media and the Retard Right. DARWINISM!!!!!

Saturday Cattle Dog Blogging

Another baby pic, courtesy of Mrs. F.

You Ain't Gonna Believe This...

About five minutes ago, Mrs. G got home with the mail. She said, "Wait'll you see what you got!"

What it was, was an 8x10 copy of a pen-and-ink portrait of George W. Bush, from the Republican National Committee, thanking me for my support of the Chimp and asking for a donation! Boy, did they get their signals crossed! It's a good sign of how screwed up they are, I guess.

I turned the "limited edition" (Ha!) portrait over and wrote 'em a "thank you" note:

I hate that Nazi son of a bitch. I don't know how you got my name, but you got screwed. Good.

Bush is an attention-deficit-disordered, dyslexic dry drunk and a son of privilege with a mean streak, born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.

I have been doing everything I can to get that lying sack of crap out of the White House and will continue to do so.

You people in the Retard Right are a bunch of hypocritical, intolerant, ignorant, lying, un-American, corporation-blowing assholes.

Take your phony 'moral values' and shove 'em up your ass. By the way, that was not a request for a date with Mehlman. Maybe JimmyJeff can oblige him.

And I get to send it back to them in a postage-paid envelope.

Maybe it isn't nice of me to send that, knowing that some lady somewhere will open it and see it. Tough shit. It may be the only time I get to do that, and it feels good!

Public Service Announcement

From AlterNet:

Don't miss tonight's NOW!

Looking forward to your internet costs skyrocketing to $100/month? If not, be sure to check out tonight's episode of NOW (airing tonight and again on Sunday) exploring the issue of community internet -- the hottest debate you haven't yet heard about. Then when you're good and pissed go to Free Press to learn more and to take action.

Blogus Erectus

Go see this.

But, What If They Breed...?

Think Progress posts about Sean Hannity's new right-wing dating service.

If you’ve always been curious about romance, right-wing style, here’s what you’ve been missing:

I went and read some of their horny, creepy profiles and some comments. Here's one that made me fall out of my chair:

[All I want from this is to kill deer with Ann Coulter someday]
Well, you’d have to swing her over your head real fast, but I bet you could get up enough speed to bring a deer down with her…

Comment by Tommy

I swear folks, even my demented muse (thanks for helping identify my inner demons, CultureGhost) couldn't make that one up.

Go read. Have fun. Laugh out loud. Keep this in mind: These people are all way repressed. They think you should be repressed too, that it's normal, probably that it makes you a good American. This may be one of the reasons the Retard Right is trying to curb our freedoms. Repression breeds repression.

I wish I were rich. In the interest of their mental health and our Constitutional rights and the future of our Nation, I'd hire 'em all a gal (or guy) with a tight leather suit to go over and spank 'em, or whatever. Make 'em smile. Keep 'em off the streets and out of my shit for a while. I think I'd start with Karl Rove. I Love Karl Rove. Oh, never mind. He's already got JimmyJeff.

Iraqiranistan

Via Laura Rozen:

Fresh intel suggests that Tehran is trying to expand its influence over whatever government emerges in postelection Iraq. According to U.S. officials familiar with the latest intelligence, the Iranian government has been secretly directing its agents inside Iraq to plant themselves in influential positions throughout the Iraqi government-into agencies that handle economic affairs, like the ministries of Oil, Public Works and Finance, as well as departments like the Interior Ministry that handle national security. The Iranians also are directing their agents to infiltrate Iraqi security agencies on the "working level" by taking jobs in regional or local government offices and particularly local police forces. According to the most pessimistic U.S. analysts, the ayatollahs' ultimate goal: "Taking over the government of Iraq." A less pessimistic view is that the latest intel merely shows an ongoing campaign of "classical espionage" by Tehran against Iraq.

[. . .]

Link.

I wrote about this yesterday. When the dust settles over there, we'll find that Iran has a great deal of influence in Iraq. We knew this was gonna happen. I'm just waiting to see how it plays here.

Gov' Meathead

Only in California would Archie Bunker's son-in-law, Meathead, be thinking about running for governor against Conan the Barbarian.

Seriously, though, I like Rob Reiner as an actor, a director, and an individual. And while Ahhhnold, as governor, hasn't been bad (for a Republican), his mouth and behavior leave a lot to be desired and are costing him his popularity.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

This is what.

I used to take the intentions of these reich-wing crazies with a grain of salt because I thought there were too many rationally minded people in this country to tolerate such nonsense, especially when it came to privacy and personal liberty. I don't think that anymore. The idea that some lunatic Christian politician could someday (soon) access my medical records for whatever purpose and perhaps make them public scares the hell out of me. It's like living under the SS or the KGB.

Resources

Via TCF. You know when I tell you to bitch to your elected representatives? Well, here's a Senate email list. And I went and found one for the House. Bookmark 'em, dammit.

No-fucking-shit

But no question, whether it be in America or anywhere else, the sign of a healthy and vibrant society is one in where there’s an active press corps. Obviously, there has got to be constraints. There’s got to be truth. People have got to tell the truth, and if somebody violates the truth, then those who own a particular newspaper or those who are in charge of particular electronic station need to hold people to account. - (p)resident Dicknose yesterday via Hesiod.

He's got balls, that's for sure.

Update: 13:15:

The Sister's got a good take on this.

Kicking the handicapped

Via Jill at Skippy:

With little fanfare, the Bush administration is proposing to stop financing the construction of new housing for the mentally ill and physically handicapped as part of a 50 percent cut in its housing budget for people with disabilities.

More below the fold . . .

Simple wisdom

From the newest addition to RUFNKM:

[. . .]

Let 'em say what they want. We can't keep up with them, they're sick, awful, miserable robots with nothing beautiful in their lives. Do you think Ann Coulter is happy? Of course not! If she gets what she thinks she wants, she will still be miserable, and then she'll die. It's sad. For her.

Let 'em 'eff up social security and ban abortion. Let 'em pass a constitutional amendment to stop "the gays" from marrying, restrict our speech and tap our phones. Until America tastes the pain "the right" will bring there will be no revolution, there will be no revelations and there will be no peace.

[. . .]

I don't know if I agree with lassez faire opposition, but Klipper has a valid point and the last sentence sums it up. Until 'average Americans' can look back at the Clinton years as 'the good old days', the majority (the 51% of us who voted for Bush like sheep) won't stand up to the assholes running this country. Until they can look back and say "Look what we've lost thanks to these idiots", Bush will continue to do the Devil's work with relative impunity.

Shameless blogflogging

I told you last week about a project a bunch of us were kicking around. Well it's almost done, just a few technical details left behind the scenes. Great thanks to Eponymous for making it work. The Seventh Cross is now reality and my first post is up there. When you take a look at the contributors list, you'll know why I'm honored to be in such great company.

Gonzo From The Grave

There's been a lot of articles about Hunter S. Thompson since he croaked himself last week. I'm a big HST (both of 'em!) fan, so I rounded up a few for you.

More Below The Fold

Rummy TV

Ariana Huffington has a few suggestions for shows on the new Pentagon Channel. Via Working for Change:

So fire up those TiVos, disinformation fans; Rummy TV is coming soon to a flat screen near you. "If you hate the truth, you'll love DoD TV!"

"Pimp My Humvee." Xzibit, Mad Mike, Big Dane and the "Pimp My Ride" crew lend a helping hand to American soldiers forced to scrounge through junk yards in an effort to outfit their vehicles with the armor the military has failed to provide -- hooking our troops up with protective plates, as well as slammin' paint jobs, state-of-the-art sound systems, and spinning tire rims able to detect the roadside explosives responsible for so many U.S. casualties. The Humvees go from wimp to pimp while the soldiers go from sitting ducks to Mac Daddies.

There's more where that came from. Go read.

Now you think about this?

Juan Cole:

Al-Hayat has a long interview with an "informed Iraqi source" who is close to US officials in Iraq. He maintains that the US officials there were astounded that the United Iraqi Alliance did so well, and that they felt helpless and resigned as the process unfolded. He says that they are now asking privately if the US shed so much blood and treasure in Iraq to help fundamentalist Shiite allies of Iran take over Baghdad. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Tell me who, aside from the Repub true believers, had any doubt this was going to happen? WTF? I knew it as soon as the Chimp started talking about elections. Let's see if it bothers them enough to find the excuse to have new elections. It's more and more apparent that the Bush administration was played for fools, by Chalabi, by Iran, and by the Shi'ites in Iraq. Worst of all, they played themselves, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that could only end in failure. If a theocratic, anti-American/pro-Iran government emerges in Iraq, Bush's 'base' are gonna drag him out the White House and string him up on the Mall.

Hearts and minds

Bush's idea of fence-mending: Cancel the 'town hall' forum scheduled in Mainz, Germany with the local folks. From the King:

During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice. Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week? . . . .

The Germans, though, insisted that a free forum should be exactly that. Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's Ambassador to the United States, explained to the New York Times last week: "We told them, don't get upset with us if they ask angry questions." [my emphasis]

Does the Chimp administration think the Krauts are a bunch of red-staters? They lived through Hitler and they haven't forgotten. There are still ruins all over the place from that war. My aunt's house still has a half-inch wide crack running up one of the walls that was made by an American artillery shell landing in the backyard. They remember the Nazi years and they see something similar coming down the pike in the U.S.

What they said . . .

CultureGhost:

FUCK THE POPE! FOR THOSE A LITTLE HARD OF HEARING: FUCK THE POPE!

Shakespeare's Sister:

[. . .]

Bite me, old man.

And when you’re done chomping on my juicy bum, you can get in your popemobile and drive into the twenty-first century, where people who give a shit about other people refuse to be beholden to your culture of fabricated good and evil, delineated by distinctions that are predicated not on whether what one does has an ill effect on others, but whether it undermines the fearmongering upon which you depend to keep your ignorant adherents putting their tithes in your precious baskets every week.

See ya when you get here, you pompous old bigot.

Nuff said.

Liberty Bell

I keep a Farmer's Almanac in a strategic location for (hopefully!) daily perusal. Here's the entry for today:

Liberty Bell developed final irreparable crack after tolling for Washington's birthday celebration, 1846.

I'll be surprised if, during this administration, it doesn't fall all the way apart and disintegrate into sintered metallic powder.

Fish Story

It's funny sometimes how stuff you've been thinking about pops up right in front of you. In Fixer's post, and mine, we discussed health care for illegal immigrants. I was reading this story in the LATimes, heart-warming, maybe a little sad, of a dad taking his kid to Redondo Beach pier to go fishing as a reward for going to the dentist and ran across this:

Pulido, 37, was born in Michoacan, where his mother sold their home to pay for the move to the U.S. In a Tijuana bar she met a man who agreed to ferry them across the San Diego border.

It was 1974, and Pulido was only 6 but still he remembers crying from the loud music until his mother whispered: "Shhh, hijo. In America, they will fix your legs."

In the 'comments' section of my post, I said I didn't think health care was an attraction to illegal immigrants. I think I stand corrected. A mother's love knows no borders.

On a personal note, when I was a kid in L.A. my uncle would take me deep-sea fishing at Redondo Beach. We didn't fish off the pier. We were rich, so we went high-line and paid a buck and a half (each) to ride the boat out to anchored fishing barges. There were three of them, probably a mile or so apart, and you could go from one to the other all day. We caught mostly mackerel and they put up a good tussle for a 12-year-old. My uncle had several orange trees, and he buried the mackerel in a circle around them.

You haven't lived until you've enjoyed a greasy, fish-scale-covered fishing barge cheeseburger eaten with anchovy-smellin' hands! I think of those days even now as some of the best times of my childhood.

Gay Navy

Via Pam:

Five years after Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military, the Royal Navy has begun actively encouraging them to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do.

The navy announced Monday that it had asked Stonewall, a group that lobbies for gay rights, to help it develop better strategies for recruiting and retaining gay men and lesbians. It said, too, that one strategy may be to advertise for recruits in gay magazines and newspapers.

[. . .]

This is fantastic. I've served with gays (closeted, of course) and never once felt uncomfortable or put upon. Our unit morale was strong and those guys were excellent troops. There were two in my flight, and I dare any of the freepers to get in their faces, although I'd love to see 'em get their ass handed to 'em by a couple fags.

Many of us were pissed at the 'homosexuality is illegal' rules in force at the time. It also forced many career folks into marriages to 'cover' their orientation, and that produced a whole other set of problems. It's good to see the Brits finally being proactive.

And while we're on the subject of gays and the military, I'm nominating Pam for a Bronze Star for actually heading over to the Free Republic (no link, I refuse) and collecting quotes from these Neanderthals. A yeoman's job, darlin':

"Thus the great Royal Navy morphs into the pink fleet. Osama and the gang must be laughing and tossing turbans in the air now. But hey - let's give three cheers for the great defender of "freedom" Tony Blair, the ruler of Cool Britannia! MTV special coming up!"

"I guess Britain's days of having perhaps the second or third best military in the world are numbered. And I don't mean that the presence of homosexual per say will do it, but rather this whole mindset that deems it necessary to actively recruit them and make them feel comfortable. You'd think the military would have other things on their mind."

"The real damage will be seen in the recruiting effort when mentally healthy men will forego enlisting so they won't have to put up with the pooftas. We are witnessing the ned of England's Navy. They'll never meet a recruitment goal again."

Mentally healthy men will judge the recruits on their ability, not their orientation.

More on Los Mojados

I disagreed with some comments Fixer made in his post on illegal immigration, so I thought I'd jot down down my rebuttal in an awe-inspiring work of fact and logic. As I researched this deal, what turned out to be awe-inspiring was the sheer volume of material on it: There's websites, blogs, books, movies (dramas and comedies both), organizations, opinions pro and con, government and civilian, good and bad, caring and hateful, agreeing with me and disagreeing with me, in English and Spanish. There's even a board game. God only knows what I didn't run across. Absolutely amazing. Anyway, there was so much stuff out there, I decided to go with my carefully thought-out opinions like I was gonna do in the first place.

More Below The Fold

Reality-based Europeans

While the Republicans will be welcoming their conquering hero home from Europe on his fence-mending mission, the Europeans know you can't polish a turd:

[. . .]

Resistance to Bush's plans to promote democracy abroad was strongest in France, with 84 percent saying the United States should not play that role, according to the polling conducted for the Associated Press by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

About as many Germans took that position, 80 percent, while two-thirds of those in Britain said they didn't think the United States should be exporting democracy. Just over half of those in Spain and Italy felt that way.

"It's hard to believe our allies are indifferent to the spread of democracy," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. "But they obviously don't feel comfortable with George Bush as the self-annointed spreader of democracy."

[. . .]

My old aunt can still remember all the shenanigans I pulled when I spent summers in Germany when I was young. Take it from me, the Euros have far longer memories than the morons in this country. If Chimpy thinks he can spend a few days over there and mouth a few platitudes, and the Europeans will just roll over and forget about Iraq, he's sadly mistaken.

Update 18:00:

Via Blondie:

WHEN JOHAN VANDE LANOTTE, Belgium's Vice Prime Minister, goes to the toilets today, he finds the urinals in the offices of his ministry decorated with stickers. They show an American flag and the head of George W. Bush. "Go ahead. Piss on me," the caption says . . .

Sign here please

Got an email from Rep. Slaughter today. She's the one who's grabbed this Gannongate thing by the horns along with Rep John Conyers. Well, she's got a petition up and is looking for signatures.

The independence of the free press from interference and manipulation on behalf of the government is a sacred check & balance, enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that democracy continues to serve the free people of the United States.

In light of recent revelations about White House "reporter" James Guckert, a.k.a. Jeff Gannon, and a series of Administration policies to promote Republican policies, and numerous instances of what the General Accounting Office has described as "illegal covert propaganda," it appears that this important Constitutional principle is under siege.

Consider the source

Via Dave Johnson. That bloated sack of shit Cal Thomas has some really great sources:

[. . .]

One of the best portrayals of the way a sleeper cell operates is in the hugely popular Fox TV show "24" Monday nights. This season, the show depicts a Muslim family living quietly in a middle-class neighborhood until it is "activated" in a plot to gain access to America's nuclear power plants and stage simultaneous meltdowns.

[. . .]

Hey, if it's on Fox, it must be realistic, right? What a fucking turd.

Private accounts

Kevin Drum talks about real-world experience with them around the country:

[. . .]

When Nebraska's state and county workers were given do-it-yourself accounts, they made so many investment errors that they ended up making less than colleagues with fixed-benefit pensions — and less than what analysts have said is needed for old age. Their poor performance led the Nebraska Legislature two years ago to junk the accounts for new employees.

[. . .]

Charlie Rangel said Chimpy's SSI 'reform' is DOA. Let's hope he's right.

One small step

Since we've been on the subject of illegal immigration over the past few days. Found this via Corrente:

A war of words continued this week between border activists and the United States Border Patrol.

The activists say they are exercising their rights while helping stem the tide of illegal immigration.

"What I don't need is the help from a bunch of folks from all over the country coming down here and spotting," explained Tucson Sector Chief Michael Nicley of the United States Border Patrol, referring to the activists.

[. . .]

Article.

This is why I say we need some sort of immigration reform. These 'vigilante' groups are popping up in towns all along our southern border. How long before these people trade in their binocs, NVGs, and UAVs for long rifles? Why do I get the feeling we're just one small step away from seeing bodies floating down the Rio Grande? The Border Patrol can't handle the problem in its current form, undermanned, underfunded, and underequipped, and these yahoos are jumping in to fill the vacuum. How long before we read about skirmishes between them and our Border Patrol?

Innocent people are going to get hurt because of our incoherent policy. Illegals whose only crime is wanting to do better for their family, and American citizens thanks to mistaken identity. Either let them in or not, but do something before this situation gets completely out of hand.

Reich Redux

Go see what I stole from Shakespeare's Sister.

Time to kick grandma

From Josh Marshall:

[. . .]

Over the headline: "The REAL AARP Agenda", the ad has, on the left, a picture of a soldier in desert fatigues with a big 'X' crossing him out and on the right a picture of two men (in tuxes and obviously just married) kissing each other. The gay newlyweds have a big green check mark over them.

[. . .]

See it here.

The folks putting out this ad are the same ones behind the Swift Boat Liars. They're gonna try to mug the old folks because AARP is against (p)resident Dicknose's Social Security bait and switch. It's gonna get ugly.

Coded Winks?

Go read Wolcott on Gannongate. Read your way down to it. It's all Good Stuff.

Also, CBS News raises the possibility of a 'Rove-Gannon Connection'. Those three words produce a disturbing, hilarious visual, but that's just me.

Bush to poor: Drop dead

See if you can discern the subtle pattern in Bush's budget proposal. Will Durst makes it a lot easier for us dense types.

What are we now: The Gorgar People? Let's just cut to the chase. You hit 65, we ship you to the Aleutian Islands and place you on an ice floe with matches and a pointy stick. If you are a Republican, we take away the stick, because it's considered an entitlement.

Thanks Will. I'm beginning to get it.

Immigracion? No! Cheap Labor? Si!

Ever since Fixer's post on immigration, I've been thinking about the subject with an eye towards doing my own. The more I think about the subject, the more complex it becomes and I'm trying to distill my thoughts down to a semblance of coherence. It'll happen forthwith, after this pesky three-day weekend is over. All our readers' comments are very helpful, I would like to add.

In the meantime, read Cynthia Tucker's piece on immigration policy and the lack thereof. This gal has somehow got into my head and used some (but not all) of my best stuff. Via Working For Change.

They're not intended to deal with illegal immigration, either. Not really. To deal effectively with illegal immigration, the GOP would have to crack down on its major patron: business. If a few business executives went to prison for violating federal law, fewer would risk hiring illegal workers. And if Latino workers knew they'd be unlikely to find jobs here, fewer would endanger life and limb trying to get in.

But the fact is that the United States has never had a consistent policy of punishing employers. Indeed, for the past 20 years, the unofficial policy of the federal government has been to accept illegal workers with a wink and a nod.

That's too bad. In addition to national security, there are several good reasons to try to get a handle on illegal immigration. For one thing, illegal immigrants tend to drive down wages for legal laborers. For another, it's exploitative to use undocumented workers for their cheap labor while refusing to give them benefits. It violates America's sense of itself as a land of fair play.

Go read this one.

Stand up!

Oliver Willis:

[. . .]

Ignore the right-wing echo chamber's mindless handwringing about "obstructionists". Even some Republicans don't want the lunatics running the asylum. Stand up for what's right. No to privatizing social security. No to tax evasion laws that saddle our future with debt. Stand the hell up.

A Culture of Secrecy, Lying, and Fear

Since we're on the case of media fellating the lying White House and our accelerating slide into Buscism, here's an article by Charles Lewis of The Center for Public Integrity that you really ought to read and print for reference.

"Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." – George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Sometimes the persuasion becomes less subtle. For example, when the Center for Public Integrity obtained and prepared to publish online the secret, proposed draft sequel to the USA Patriot Act, known as "Patriot II," we got calls from the U.S. Justice Department beseeching us not to publish.

More Below the Fold

Parallels

Tom Tomorrow:

When I visited the museum at the former Dachau concentration camp, many years ago, there was an exhibit of photographs intended to viscerally illustrate the sheer inhuman brutality of life in the camp. One of these photos showed a prisoner hanging from a tree by his wrists, which were tied or cuffed behind his back--one of the more painful positions into which the human body can be forced, according to the exhibit's accompanying text.

I hadn't thought of that image in several years--until I read this:

An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA (news - web sites) interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

[. . .]

Tell me again how what we're doing to these people is moral?

Another pass

[. . .]

He [(p)resident C-student] refused to answer reporters' questions about his past behavior, he said, even though it might cost him the election. Defending his approach, Mr. Bush said: "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

[. . .]

NYT

I guess the Christians are gonna give him a pass on this too.

I'm in a place called Vertigo

[. . .]

So what can Mr. Bush do? Well, he can clear up some confusion about America's basic beliefs. Americans are overtly devout. And yet Europeans, who inhabit a more secular world, give more per capita than Americans to what the Bible calls "the least of these" - the world's poor. The United States is in 22nd place, last in the class of donor nations. (Add private philanthropy and it's up to 15th.) Europeans see the discrepancy, and they smell hypocrisy.

[. . .]

Bono of U2 in the NYT. Link via Melanie.