Last week was a miserable Democratic failure and I gave 'em Hell for it. This week was much better. Democrats showed some ball. Clinton, Gore, and Kerry scored well and there was little Republican counterpunch. The weak faux outrage over the use of the word 'plantation' is not reminiscent of the Republican best and withered a news cycle later. And, just to throw a little more cold water on the Repubs' already shriveled weenies, Osama bin Forgotten pops up to remind the Chimp they are still joined at the hip. Shouldn'ta got all John Wayne on us 4 years ago because all anybody remembers is "Dead or Alive" and he still is.
So I ask you all; how does it feel? How does it feel to win one? How does it feel to see the Repubs back up a step? How does it feel to see that look in the bully's eyes after someone hits him back. "Hey, maybe I pushed this guy too far?" Because that's what the Dems did this week. They showed unity and strength and the Repubs had to shut up. Feels pretty good to me.
So I ask the Dems today, because it's Friday, are you gonna forget the lesson you learned this week by the time Monday rolls around? It's time to do the same with Alito. Stand up, say no, and take that idiot from Nebraska, who said he'd vote for Alito, out back and set him straight. Filibuster, I'm beggin' ya.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Long time, no see
(CNN) -- CIA officials believe an audiotaped message threatening the United States is from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who warns that plans for terror attacks are under way -- and also offers a "long-term truce."
...
Just the fact this guy is still breathing is grounds for impeaching the Chimp.
This guy's in biiig trouble...
Mrs G. sent me this in an e-mail:
Man, I wouldn't wanta be him!
A husband was in BIG trouble when he forgot his wedding anniversary.
"Tomorrow," his wife angrily told him, "there had better be something in our driveway that goes from zero to 200 in two seconds flat!"
The next morning, the wife looked outside and saw a small package in the driveway. She brought it inside, opened it .... and found a brand new bathroom scale.
Man, I wouldn't wanta be him!
Sharkey the Impaler
On a lighter note, the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages has an interview with the 'vampyre' who is running for governor up there.
Well, OK, sounds good, but, can he wrestle?
Sharkey: Let me put it this way. I wrote this on my [Iraq] war page. When I become president, Bush will be charged, tried, and if convicted of murder, I will impale Bush at the White House and enjoy impaling him as much I will [enjoy impaling] bin Laden when we get a hold of him.
CP: I see.
Sharkey: A normal, civil, sweet-hearted Christian doesn't have it in them to impale somebody, even bin Laden. There's a saying, fight fire with fire. Well, everybody has an evil side, but because of their personal beliefs they try to subdue it. While me, I'm not going to subdue it. At times, unleashing your evil part, especially in the type of world we're living in, is a good thing. I want criminals to fear me. I want bin Laden and all his al Qaeda buddies to think back to when their ancestors, the Turks, were trying to invade Romania, and Vlad Tepes, Dracula, impaled them for it. I want them to think they're dealing with another Vlad Tepes. I want them to think of me as the impaling governor-slash-president.
Well, OK, sounds good, but, can he wrestle?
Assisted suicide case shows the Administration's true colors...
...as if we needed more proof of their hypocritical disregard for compassion, the law, and 'state's rights' in the furtherance of their religio-political agenda. From Glenn Greenwald:
I'm particularly struck by this today because my brother-in-law died yesterday of leukemia at age 70. He deteriorated over several months due to cancer and pain. I don't know if he would have availed himself of this type of law, were it in effect in California. Probably not. Hope springs eternal, after all, but it would be comforting to have the option. Us old farts think more and more about this shit.
I have always admired Oregon (aka 'California's Canada') for being among the most progressive of states. They don't particularly care for federal intervention up there in matters they feel are theirs to decide, and for this I applaud them.
Rare kudos as well for SCOTUS, for not going along with pseudo-christian bullshit. In this case, at any rate.
In 1994, Oregon citizens approved legislation allowing doctors to assist terminally ill patients (i.e, patients who are reasonably certain to die within 6 months) who want to bring about a peaceful and painless death. In 1997, Oregon voters rejected a referendum to repeal the law. The democratic process in Oregon twice resulted in a judgment by its citizens that terminally ill individuals should be permitted to have the assistance of their physician in choosing a dignified and peaceful death.
So, Republican opponents of Oregon's assisted suicide law tried and failed: (a) to have Oregon's law repealed by referendum; (b) to induce the Justice Department to revoke the licenses of Oregon's doctors who assisted in suicide; and (c) to enact legislation in Congress giving the Justice Department the right to revoke the registration of doctors assisting in suicide. Again and again, these crusaders were rebuffed by the democratic and legal processes.
It cannot be overstated how reprehensible this is. Ever since September 11, the Bush Administration has insisted again and again that the threat of terrorism is an unprecedented existential threat. We are at "war," and must devote our full attention to capturing terrorists and winning the war, even if it means severely restricting our constitutional liberties and taking other extreme measures to fight this war.
And yet, less than two months after September 11, what was the Justice Department doing? What was the Attorney General's attention devoted to? Working in secret, and in violation of its promises to the State of Oregon, to figure out how it could trample on the democratic process and on principles of states rights which conservatives claim to believe in, all in order to block terminally ill people from choosing how to die because John Ashcroft and James Dobson think that it's immoral to exercise that choice. That's what Ashcroft's DoJ was doing in the weeks after September 11.
The Administration has skillfully used fear-mongering over terrorism to obscure the extent to which intrusive religious conservatism is shaping and molding almost every aspect of U.S. domestic policy. Agencies and sub-agencies which receive relatively little attention but which have great influence on domestic policies have, in many cases, been turned over to religious extremists, and the lack of light being shined on these bureaucratic crevices in Washington means that they are running wild, without any real restraint or opposition.
I'm particularly struck by this today because my brother-in-law died yesterday of leukemia at age 70. He deteriorated over several months due to cancer and pain. I don't know if he would have availed himself of this type of law, were it in effect in California. Probably not. Hope springs eternal, after all, but it would be comforting to have the option. Us old farts think more and more about this shit.
I have always admired Oregon (aka 'California's Canada') for being among the most progressive of states. They don't particularly care for federal intervention up there in matters they feel are theirs to decide, and for this I applaud them.
Rare kudos as well for SCOTUS, for not going along with pseudo-christian bullshit. In this case, at any rate.
Today's war story
A story in today's WaPo about U.S. Paratroopers in the Iraqi oil patch town of Baiji. Here's a little taste:
Fixer's the authority on explosives, but even my old grunt mind tells me that's a shitpot full. Certainly more than enough to blow up a Humvee. It appears the insurgents have an ample supply if they can use enough explosives to sink an aircraft carrier on a truck, fer chrissake. Can you say 'Al-Qaaqa', boys and girls? And the friendly Iraqis told the soldiers right where to find them. How nice of them.
It appears that the Iraqis are taking care of their own security problems. Us.
Let's get the fuck out of there.
The sheik was holding a large gathering and was unavailable, they were told. The American convoy tried to turn around, but Iraqi cars blocked the way and people waved the soldiers down an alternative, dirt route (my em) along the Tigris nicknamed "Smugglers' Road."
"It was weird," Bartlett recalled thinking. A few hundred yards down the road, bordered by fields, the convoy was hit by a massive explosion.
Behind the blast, Goudy jumped out of his Humvee and ran forward toward the huge cloud of smoke and debris. As it cleared, he was confused by what he found.
"I saw this big piece of flesh and thought it was a goat or cow. I thought, 'Wow, these guys put an IED in a dead animal,' " he recalled. He went on, hoping to find his men sitting in the truck. But as he got closer, he recalled, "I didn't see the truck. I started seeing limbs and body parts." Goudy tripped over what was left of one soldier. Then he found the only survivor of the five soldiers in the Humvee, blinded and screaming.
"It was horrible," Bartlett said. "We had to pick up body parts 200 meters away." The Humvee was "ripped in half and shredded," he said, by a monster bomb later found to contain 1,000 pounds of explosives and two antitank mines, with a 155mm artillery round on top (my em).
Fixer's the authority on explosives, but even my old grunt mind tells me that's a shitpot full. Certainly more than enough to blow up a Humvee. It appears the insurgents have an ample supply if they can use enough explosives to sink an aircraft carrier on a truck, fer chrissake. Can you say 'Al-Qaaqa', boys and girls? And the friendly Iraqis told the soldiers right where to find them. How nice of them.
It appears that the Iraqis are taking care of their own security problems. Us.
Let's get the fuck out of there.
Medicare Drug Plan Looks Like a Big Scam
LATimes
Keep in mind whose money the Republicans are swindling us out of - ours. They're not exactly doing our seniors any favors, either. They will never, repeat, never, pass any meaningful health care bills.
The time for health care for profit has passed. The medical industry knows it, too, but they are in business to make money. Actually helping people is pretty far down on the list. In order to keep them $100-dollar bills rolling in from their dope business, they have purchased a fine band of legislative accomplices to keep the gravy train on the rails for as long as they can.
Zwelling-Aamot is a private internist who accepts a limited number of patients but places herself at their beck and call. She and her staff have spent months helping her patients navigate the new benefit, a process that requires at least an hour and a half of research per patient (time for which she's not compensated by Medicare). Like many other health professionals who have become familiar with this program, she has come to see it not as a boon for elderly consumers, but as a scandal.
"As a patient, you are totally hoodwinked by this system," she told me. "It's not just an economic tragedy; it's a moral tragedy."
The Medicare drug benefit is shaping up as the single most cynical scam perpetrated by the Bush administration on American consumers. Designed to maximize profits for drug makers and health insurers, the program was launched so ineptly Jan. 1 that hundreds of thousands of patients have been prevented by computer glitches from filling their prescriptions. California and 25 other states have had to step in temporarily to pay for improperly rejected prescription claims.
It's worth remembering that the prescription drug program was born in an act of fraud. The Bush administration sold it to Congress in 2003 by estimating its cost at less than $400 billion over 10 years. Scarcely a month after its enactment, the White House issued a new estimate: $535 billion. That figure might well have killed the bill, which had passed the House by a razor-thin margin even with the lower price tag.
As written, the legislation complied with a drug industry demand that Medicare be prohibited from negotiating with manufacturers for lower drug prices. Among those helping the industry make its stand was Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), whose committee on energy and commerce oversaw Medicare. In an odoriferous development, Tauzin soon quit Congress to become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — Big Pharma's Washington lobbying group.
Keep in mind whose money the Republicans are swindling us out of - ours. They're not exactly doing our seniors any favors, either. They will never, repeat, never, pass any meaningful health care bills.
The time for health care for profit has passed. The medical industry knows it, too, but they are in business to make money. Actually helping people is pretty far down on the list. In order to keep them $100-dollar bills rolling in from their dope business, they have purchased a fine band of legislative accomplices to keep the gravy train on the rails for as long as they can.
Jane sez...
In its entirety:
Email Senator Reid and Dr. Dean and tell them of your support.
When John Murtha stuck his neck out to call Bush's war a fiasco, he must've known that he would be the next one to be Swift Boated. That no major Democrat has endorsed his plan or called out the Washington Post and others for legitimizing the attacks of GOP-funded "Cybercast News" is shameful.
A couple of nights ago a commenter here suggested that Murtha be the one to give the Democratic rebuttal to the SOTU address. It is usually a pretty lackluster affair and everyone agreed that having Murtha do it would really invigorate the event, throwing Commander Codpiece into sharp contrast with a genuine military hero who spent 37 years defending his country.
On a blogger conference call with Harry Reid yesterday, I asked Reid who was going to be giving the rebuttal and he wouldn't say. I think it would be a good thing for Reid and all the Democrats to know just how strongly we feel about Murtha and the courage he has shown, because I'm not sure they do.
Democratic Underground has set up a board dedicated to Murtha giving the SOTU address. I urge everyone to stop by and let the Democrat establishment know just how you feel about John Murtha.
(Note: the registration link on the Murtha page seems to be broken, so if you're not a registered DU member, you can do so here.)
Email Senator Reid and Dr. Dean and tell them of your support.
Supporting the troops
Just plain old props:
Real good. Fuck this lady, fuck her family, fuck the memory of her son, what's in it for me. But, like a good, brainwashed Ohioan:
Denial or stupidity, you decide. But good god, woman, the man murdered your son. His death wasn't sullied, his life was wasted. Hold the Chimp accountable for cryin' out loud.
...
The next day, May 5, 2004, an Army officer notified Buryj's wife and parents in Canton, Ohio, that he had been killed in a crash early that morning. Several days later, as the family pressed for more information, a casualty assistance officer said that Buryj also had been shot. A death certificate that arrived in July listed a gunshot wound as the cause of death, but provided no information about the circumstances.
Peggy Buryj asked everyone she could to help find out the details of her son's last hours. She even asked President Bush when she and other grieving parents met with him during a campaign stop in hotly contested Ohio. He promised to look into it. Soon afterward, she said, his campaign called and asked her to appear in a commercial for him, but she declined.
...
Real good. Fuck this lady, fuck her family, fuck the memory of her son, what's in it for me. But, like a good, brainwashed Ohioan:
...
Even today, 20 months later, Peggy Buryj -- a Bush supporter who believes strongly in the Iraq war -- is left with swirling questions, a shattered faith in the Army, and the unsettling feeling that her son's death has been sullied by partisan politics and international intrigue. [my em]
...
Denial or stupidity, you decide. But good god, woman, the man murdered your son. His death wasn't sullied, his life was wasted. Hold the Chimp accountable for cryin' out loud.
Link via Lambert.
Apropos
I hadn't played Pink Floyd's Have a Cigar for a while but I stuck the disk in on the way to work yesterday. Wish You Were Here struck me as very apropos for the times, though it was written in '73.
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
First, do more harm...
Paul Krugman at ToppleBush has more on Bush's health care scam:
Trust me -heh- there's more.
It's widely expected that President Bush will talk a lot about health care in his State of the Union address. He probably won't boast about his prescription drug plan, whose debut has been a Katrina-like saga of confusion and incompetence. But he probably will tout proposals for so-called "consumer driven" health care.
So it's important to realize that the administration's idea of health care reform is to take what's wrong with our system and make it worse. Consider the harrowing series of articles The New York Times printed last week about the rising tide of diabetes.
But it turns out that the U.S. system of paying for health care doesn't let medical professionals do the right thing. There's hardly any money for prevention, partly because of the influence of food-industry lobbyists. And even disease management gets severely shortchanged. As the Times series pointed out, insurance companies "will often refuse to pay $150 for a diabetic to see a podiatrist, who can help prevent foot ailments associated with the disease. Nearly all of them, though, cover amputations, which typically cost more than $30,000."
As a result, diabetes management isn't a paying proposition. Centers that train diabetics to manage the disease have been medical successes but financial failures.
he bottom line is that what the Bush administration calls reform is actually the opposite. Driven by an ideology at odds with reality, the administration wants to accentuate, not fix, what's wrong with America's health care system.
Trust me -heh- there's more.
The Medicare drug debacle
Excellent post at Crooks and Liars:
Gord touched on this last week too. It's unconscionable what they're doing to our seniors. And just a note, how come the 'news' media hasn't jumped on this I wonder?
...
"It is said only in hushed tones and not by anybody of prominence, but a few brave souls in the Bush administration admit it. President Bush's Medicare drug benefit that went into effect Jan. 1 looks like a political blunder of far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, these critics assign major responsibility to Karl Rove." [my em]
...
Gord touched on this last week too. It's unconscionable what they're doing to our seniors. And just a note, how come the 'news' media hasn't jumped on this I wonder?
Iran
Let's talk reasonably.
What the fuck are we gonna do? I mean, if it is found they're building nukes, just what the fuck are we gonna do? One word answer: nothing.
Know why? Because they have a lot of oil.
Have you heard all the saber-rattling over the past couple weeks? I hear words bandied about. 'Security Council', 'sanctions', 'instability in the region', 'regime change'. That's all it is, words. Have you noticed the price of oil going up over the past couple weeks; a 4 month high yesterday by the way? That's just because of the saber-rattling and one oil platform going down off the Nigerian coast. I'm not the only one who's noticed.
People see what's happened in Iraq, how the U.S. has botched the occupation and the response to the insurgecy. What do you think will happen if the Iranian fields meet the same fate as the Iraqi oil infrastructure? You'll see $5 - $7 dollar/gallon gas in no time, maybe going even higher. Do you think the American economy would survive that? I doubt it, the domino effect on other sectors would be catastrophic.
Bush might be an idiot, but his people must know what could happen should we (or the Europeans at our behest, don't laugh) attack Iran. I doubt you'll see anything more than toothless sanctions and a lot of bluster at the U.N. The war in Iraq has emasculated the United States and the Iranians (and the rest of the world) know it. Saber-rattling by the Bush administration means next to nothing anymore. If anything good has come out of Iraq, I believe, is that people might be a little more cautious before allowing their President to go to war for anything other than obvious national defense.
Update:
Digby's thinking is along the same lines.
What the fuck are we gonna do? I mean, if it is found they're building nukes, just what the fuck are we gonna do? One word answer: nothing.
Know why? Because they have a lot of oil.
Have you heard all the saber-rattling over the past couple weeks? I hear words bandied about. 'Security Council', 'sanctions', 'instability in the region', 'regime change'. That's all it is, words. Have you noticed the price of oil going up over the past couple weeks; a 4 month high yesterday by the way? That's just because of the saber-rattling and one oil platform going down off the Nigerian coast. I'm not the only one who's noticed.
People see what's happened in Iraq, how the U.S. has botched the occupation and the response to the insurgecy. What do you think will happen if the Iranian fields meet the same fate as the Iraqi oil infrastructure? You'll see $5 - $7 dollar/gallon gas in no time, maybe going even higher. Do you think the American economy would survive that? I doubt it, the domino effect on other sectors would be catastrophic.
Bush might be an idiot, but his people must know what could happen should we (or the Europeans at our behest, don't laugh) attack Iran. I doubt you'll see anything more than toothless sanctions and a lot of bluster at the U.N. The war in Iraq has emasculated the United States and the Iranians (and the rest of the world) know it. Saber-rattling by the Bush administration means next to nothing anymore. If anything good has come out of Iraq, I believe, is that people might be a little more cautious before allowing their President to go to war for anything other than obvious national defense.
Update:
Digby's thinking is along the same lines.
Democratic Corruption
I like Susie's take on it:
Links over there.
Gee, I dunno. Democrats lie about blowjobs and paying mistresses, and Republicans lie about serving in the National Guard, make up fake WMDs to start wars and cover up spying on civilians.
Is is just me? I'm a lot happier with Democratic corruption.
Links over there.
Perpetual Reform
Molly Ivins on campaign finance reform in the wake of the long overdue lobbying scandal:
We're tryin', Hon.
Barton's campaign manager told the Morning News, "It's just a normal fund-raiser. You've got to have a fund-raiser if you're going to raise money and have a campaign. Everybody does it."
That's always been one of my least favorite excuses, "Everybody does it." You can't find a mother who will let her 5-year-old get away with that, but politicians often whip it out as though it held moral water.
The corruption of Congress has reached such a noxious level, the country is simply falling down a hole. Tax cuts for the rich! Reckless spending on everyone but those who need it most! Not a grown-up in sight. There is no sense of responsibility. The Republicans' response is to elevate Mr. Blunt, a man who represents zero improvement. Talk about not getting it: Tom DeLay is losing in his own district, 36 percent to 49 percent for "any Democrat." Wouldn't you think Texas congressmen would sit up and take notice of something like that?
I think we can rely upon the Democrats to seize the moment and punt. Their best play, of course, is to take the reform issue and own it, to go long, for the whole reform package every goo-goo group in America has been agitating for years -- starting with public campaign financing for Congress. The package should include changes in House rules, lobby rules -- and even though it is done at the state level, proposals for non-partisan redistricting.
I can almost hear the condescending cynics: "You don't really think you can get the money out of politics, do you?" I guarantee you can do it for several cycles -- and do you know what happens when it starts to creep back in again? You reform again! Perpetual reform, a truly great concept. No human institution is ever going to remain perfect, they have to be watched and adjusted like any other mechanism. Why use that as a defeatist excuse for doing nothing at all?
What matters here is not what the Republicans or the Democrats do -- it's what you do before November. Sit up, join up, stir it up, get online, get in touch, find out who's raising hell and join them. No use waiting on a bunch of wussy politicians.
We're tryin', Hon.
Hackett calls 'em like he sees 'em
Soon-to-be Senator Paul Hackett in an editorial in the Columbus Dispatch:
Much more. Go read. My favorite quote, with which I wholeheartedly agree:
Amen, brother.
"The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world," he said. "The challenge is for the rest of us moderate Americans and citizens of the world to put down the fork and spoon, turn off the TV, and participate in the process and try to push back on these radical nuts - and they are nuts."
Much more. Go read. My favorite quote, with which I wholeheartedly agree:
Hackett said he opposes capital punishment - too much risk of executing an innocent person - for everybody except the fool who violates his family and home.
"Break into my house, we won't have to worry about the application of the death penalty. It's going to be a simple 911 call: Come pick up the body."
With succinct coherence, Hackett said: "I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-gayrights, I'm pro-gun-rights. Call me nuts, but I think they're all based on the same principle and that is we don't need government dictating to us how we live our private lives."
Amen, brother.
Purple Heartbreakers
James Webb is sort of a hero of mine. He was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and author of a coupla novels, one of which, "Fields of Fire", I've read three times. He was also Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, but I don't hold that against him.
Anyway, in today's NYTimes he goes off on this administration's contempt for the military , especially if they throw their hats in the political ring on the "wrong" side, and rightly so.
I'm ashamed of Pace for that.
Bloody fookin' roight 'e does, mate. Just for fun, the whole poem is here. Kipling knew. Some things never change.
A related article at Frameshop, "Swiftboaters are 'Gangs' in a Moral America", lays out how to deal with them.
Anyway, in today's NYTimes he goes off on this administration's contempt for the military , especially if they throw their hats in the political ring on the "wrong" side, and rightly so.
Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.
During the 2000 primary season, John McCain's life-defining experiences as a prisoner of war in Vietnam were diminished through whispers that he was too scarred by those years to handle the emotional burdens of the presidency. The wide admiration that Senator Max Cleland gained from building a career despite losing three limbs in Vietnam brought on the smug non sequitur from critics that he had been injured in an accident and not by enemy fire. John Kerry's voluntary combat duty was systematically diminished by the well-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in a highly successful effort to insulate a president who avoided having to go to war.
And now comes Jack Murtha. The administration tried a number of times to derail the congressman's criticism of the Iraq war, including a largely ineffective effort to get senior military officials to publicly rebuke him (Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was the only one to do the administration's bidding there).
I'm ashamed of Pace for that.
The political tactic of playing up the soldiers on the battlefield while tearing down the reputations of veterans who oppose them could eventually cost the Republicans dearly. It may be one reason that a preponderance of the Iraq war veterans who thus far have decided to run for office are doing so as Democrats.
A young American now serving in Iraq might rightly wonder whether his or her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now, in the next rendition of politically motivated spinmeisters who never had the courage to step forward and put their own lives on the line.
Rudyard Kipling summed up this syndrome quite neatly more than a century ago, writing about the frequent hypocrisy directed at the British soldiers of his day:
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
Bloody fookin' roight 'e does, mate. Just for fun, the whole poem is here. Kipling knew. Some things never change.
A related article at Frameshop, "Swiftboaters are 'Gangs' in a Moral America", lays out how to deal with them.
Tradin' punches
Here's a twofer fer ya. Truthout has "White House Whines About Responds to Gore's Speech" and Gore's Response to same on the same page.
"We must disenthrall ourselves..."
William Rivers Pitt on "The New Fascism":
Much more. A must read, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Say "fascism" to anyone you meet, and you will be greeted with the boilerplate response of the blithely overconfident: such a thing cannot happen here. This is the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave. Ours is a nation of laws, of checks and balances, of righteousness and decency. Our laws and traditions stand as a bulwark against the rise of totalitarian madness. It cannot happen here. Thus we are indoctrinated into the school of our own assumed greatness.
This new fascism is not fed only by lies, though to be sure the lies are there in preposterous abundance. This new fascism is fed by myths, our myths, the myths by which we rock ourselves to sleep. This new fascism is in truth an elemental fascism, reborn today by a confluence of events; the diligent work of the few, in combination with the passivity of the many, have brought forth this new
he manipulation of this population by fear has been ham-fisted, to be sure, but has also been cruelly effective. We do not want the evidence to be a mushroom cloud. Weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda in Iraq. Nuclear designs in Iran. Plastic sheeting and duct tape. Orange alert. Argument becomes tantamount to treason simply because everyone has been made to feel fear at all times. A frightened populace is easily governed, and governs itself; this lesson was well-learned in the duck-and-cover days of the Cold War. Those lessons have been masterfully applied once again. Today, the citizenry polices itself, and the herd moves as one body. Even the surveillance of innocent citizens by the state is brushed off as a necessary evil. Remember: you are being watched.
We must disenthrall ourselves from the idea that our institutions, our traditions, the barriers that protect us from absolute and authoritarian powers, cannot be broken down. They are being dismantled a brick at a time. The separation of powers has already been annihilated. It is a whispered fascism, not yet marching down your street or pounding upon your door in the dead of night. But it is here, and it is laying deep roots. We must listen beyond the whispered fascism of today to the shouted fascism of tomorrow. We must look beyond the lies and the myths, beyond the dogmas by which we sleep.
Much more. A must read, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Maybe they heard us?
As you know, I've been bitching about the Dems, and their chronic condition of soft-spine and zero-nut, for the last couple days. It seems someone has heard me or the big shots are actually seeing the same thing after a bunch of miserable failures last week. John Kerry came out yesterday on Wolfie's show and backed up what Hillary and Al Gore said in the previous two days. Good for him.
Seems to be working too because the Republicans have their panties in a wad. After Al, Hil, and John (sounds like there's a song in there) spoke out, the pundits were yapping like underfed Yorkies. You know they're worried when, in response to truth, all they can say was Hillary's use of the word 'plantation' in that context was racist. The mock outrage was laughable. Seems that Al Sharpton and all the other brothers and sisters who came to see Hil speak in Harlem on MLK Day didn't have a problem with it, in fact they cheered heartily. So, are the Repubs saying Hil is biased against whites? Shut the fuck up.
Next I hear the Repubs are putting McCain out there to 'take the high ground' in this ethics mess. Note to the GOP and John McCain in particular. There is no high ground left for you people. You are a crooked, criminal organization and parading McCain's ass around will do nothing to change that opinion. Not when that fat little troll Denny Hastert comes out and says 'we have to adjust the rules'. Asshole. The GOP has been adjusting the rules to suit them for 5 years and throwing McCain out there won't change that. No adjustment necessary, guys, just follow the fucking rules and things will be just peachy.
Five years ago, there was a different public perception of McCain. Now we know he's just suffering from battered wife syndrome. Has to be the way the Chimp has disrespected him and he still comes back for more. Five years ago he would have found support among Dems. Today, he's nothing but a White House fluffer. Time for the people of AZ wise up and send him to his retirement house in Sedona.
Ladies and gentlemen, the high ground is closed to the GOP unless we surrender it to them. Don't be fooled by McCain's 'reaching across the aisle'. We know where 'bipartisansip' has gotten us. We don't need an 'ethics deal' right now, we can wait until next January for that. The Repubs are the ones who need it to give them political cover come November. Let them swing and don't give them a place to hide.
In this Congress, there are no ethical Republicans. By their deeds it should be obvious. By their unquestioning support of the Chimp it should be obvious. Do not give them sanctuary by allowing them to 'adjust the rules'. Remember that when you see the bullshit coming in like the high tide.
Seems to be working too because the Republicans have their panties in a wad. After Al, Hil, and John (sounds like there's a song in there) spoke out, the pundits were yapping like underfed Yorkies. You know they're worried when, in response to truth, all they can say was Hillary's use of the word 'plantation' in that context was racist. The mock outrage was laughable. Seems that Al Sharpton and all the other brothers and sisters who came to see Hil speak in Harlem on MLK Day didn't have a problem with it, in fact they cheered heartily. So, are the Repubs saying Hil is biased against whites? Shut the fuck up.
Next I hear the Repubs are putting McCain out there to 'take the high ground' in this ethics mess. Note to the GOP and John McCain in particular. There is no high ground left for you people. You are a crooked, criminal organization and parading McCain's ass around will do nothing to change that opinion. Not when that fat little troll Denny Hastert comes out and says 'we have to adjust the rules'. Asshole. The GOP has been adjusting the rules to suit them for 5 years and throwing McCain out there won't change that. No adjustment necessary, guys, just follow the fucking rules and things will be just peachy.
Five years ago, there was a different public perception of McCain. Now we know he's just suffering from battered wife syndrome. Has to be the way the Chimp has disrespected him and he still comes back for more. Five years ago he would have found support among Dems. Today, he's nothing but a White House fluffer. Time for the people of AZ wise up and send him to his retirement house in Sedona.
Ladies and gentlemen, the high ground is closed to the GOP unless we surrender it to them. Don't be fooled by McCain's 'reaching across the aisle'. We know where 'bipartisansip' has gotten us. We don't need an 'ethics deal' right now, we can wait until next January for that. The Repubs are the ones who need it to give them political cover come November. Let them swing and don't give them a place to hide.
In this Congress, there are no ethical Republicans. By their deeds it should be obvious. By their unquestioning support of the Chimp it should be obvious. Do not give them sanctuary by allowing them to 'adjust the rules'. Remember that when you see the bullshit coming in like the high tide.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Jimmy's baack!
I think James Wolcott musta spilled some Viagra on his keyboard. Go read 'til your eyes hurt. Wonderful stuff.
Cronkite: Time for U.S. to Leave Iraq
OK, I'm showin' my age. Put a sock in it. Yahoo! News:
In those days there were only three network anchors and none of them were blowing the president.
Today there are maybe fifty and not one of them is "the most trusted man in America". Instead, we have a bunch of corporate shills who are scared pissless of offending Bush and losing their cushy jobs.
24/7 "news" might sell a lot of Preparation H, but it doesn't seem to do much about the human hemorrhoids that run this country.
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.
"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.
Now 89, the television journalist once known as "the most trusted man in America" has been off the "CBS Evening News" for nearly a quarter-century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.
Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.
Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
In those days there were only three network anchors and none of them were blowing the president.
Today there are maybe fifty and not one of them is "the most trusted man in America". Instead, we have a bunch of corporate shills who are scared pissless of offending Bush and losing their cushy jobs.
24/7 "news" might sell a lot of Preparation H, but it doesn't seem to do much about the human hemorrhoids that run this country.
Use your own body armor, lose your life insurance
Remember when the military couldn't provide up-to-date body armor for the troops, so their moms had bake sales to buy 'em some? From Soldiers for the Truth:
According to the article, the troops have been ordered to quit using "all" non-issue gear, but Dragon Skin is the only thing mentioned by brand name.
I guess Cheney and Rumsfeld have a lot of Point Blank stock. That's Pinnacle's competitor who manufactures the issue gear. Maybe the SEC should look into this.
Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.
According to the article, the troops have been ordered to quit using "all" non-issue gear, but Dragon Skin is the only thing mentioned by brand name.
One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up" and had to be enforced, the soldier said.
I guess Cheney and Rumsfeld have a lot of Point Blank stock. That's Pinnacle's competitor who manufactures the issue gear. Maybe the SEC should look into this.
I hope their rifles still shoot...
LATimes
When tradition in a tradition-bound service is thrown out the window, the jig is nearly up. If one platoon makes enough difference to justify that, my Marine Corps is in big trouble.
I guess I shoulda seen this coming: The cooks, bakers, and messmen have already been replaced with Halliburton, and the bandsmen and field musics are playing tunes on M-l6s and SAWs instead of instruments.
A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end.
The gates and crypts of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones at Annapolis have been guarded by Marine sentries since before the Civil War.
The military has now withdrawn Marines from that post and redeployed them to Iraq. The four dozen Marines will be replaced by Navy enlisted personnel.
When tradition in a tradition-bound service is thrown out the window, the jig is nearly up. If one platoon makes enough difference to justify that, my Marine Corps is in big trouble.
I guess I shoulda seen this coming: The cooks, bakers, and messmen have already been replaced with Halliburton, and the bandsmen and field musics are playing tunes on M-l6s and SAWs instead of instruments.
Jack who off?
Crooks and Liars
Believe it or not, C&L has video!
Clooney won a Golden Globe tonight for his performance as Best Supporting Actor in "Syriana," and thanked Jack Abramoff.
Clooney: I want to thank Jack Abramoff, you know, just because-I--I'm the first one out- lets get this thing rolling. I don't know why. Who would name their kid Jack with the last words "off" at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up. Ahh-alright I just got bleeped. Thank you very much...
Well so much for the RNC keeping Jack's name quiet. I'm sure there will be many downloads tomorrow as people who don't know already-will say, Jack who?
Believe it or not, C&L has video!
1776
As Gord wrote below, Gore made an excellent speech yesterday and I caught the highlights last night. Hillary also came out forcefully too, I hope it rubs off on the rest of them.
Over the past few days, I've been going over (reading and watching) a lot of historical information about the time of our revolution. It seems to me, none of us are cut out of the cloth our Founding Fathers were, especially our elected representatives. Same for the press. The people I see coming closest are the progressive bloggers.
The conservatives of the time were motivated by the same things they are today, money and power. They wanted to preserve the status quo and their 'peculiar institutions'. Say what you will about them, they've stuck to their principles, regardless of what they call their party.
Where are the progressives today? On Benjamin Franklin's birthday, where are they? Where are the Franklins, the Jeffersons, and especially the Adams'? Where are the agitators who will stand up in front of Congress and speak the truth? Where are the ones who will stand up and dare King George to silence them? I want to know the answers to these questions because the times are similar.
I want representatives who would rather be 'hanging on some far off British hill' instead of covering their asses and being unwitting tools of the 'monarchy'. I want people like Tom Paine in the mainstream press who will write of the crimes committed by our boy King. Our population has increased a hundred-fold in 230 years, where are all these enlightened folks?
You'll find them in the progressive blogosphere, mostly. There are a couple in Congress, and a couple in the press, columnists mostly, but where are our icons? Where is the 'voice'? Where are the eloquent writings of Jefferson? Where are the policy gurus like Franklin? And especially, where are the agitators like Adams?
As John Adams sang in the musical 1776, where are those with commitment? "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to cross the Rubicon and burn the bridges behind us. It is 1776 all over again and it's time to send our own King George back where he came from.
Over the past few days, I've been going over (reading and watching) a lot of historical information about the time of our revolution. It seems to me, none of us are cut out of the cloth our Founding Fathers were, especially our elected representatives. Same for the press. The people I see coming closest are the progressive bloggers.
The conservatives of the time were motivated by the same things they are today, money and power. They wanted to preserve the status quo and their 'peculiar institutions'. Say what you will about them, they've stuck to their principles, regardless of what they call their party.
Where are the progressives today? On Benjamin Franklin's birthday, where are they? Where are the Franklins, the Jeffersons, and especially the Adams'? Where are the agitators who will stand up in front of Congress and speak the truth? Where are the ones who will stand up and dare King George to silence them? I want to know the answers to these questions because the times are similar.
I want representatives who would rather be 'hanging on some far off British hill' instead of covering their asses and being unwitting tools of the 'monarchy'. I want people like Tom Paine in the mainstream press who will write of the crimes committed by our boy King. Our population has increased a hundred-fold in 230 years, where are all these enlightened folks?
You'll find them in the progressive blogosphere, mostly. There are a couple in Congress, and a couple in the press, columnists mostly, but where are our icons? Where is the 'voice'? Where are the eloquent writings of Jefferson? Where are the policy gurus like Franklin? And especially, where are the agitators like Adams?
As John Adams sang in the musical 1776, where are those with commitment? "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to cross the Rubicon and burn the bridges behind us. It is 1776 all over again and it's time to send our own King George back where he came from.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Band of Brothers
I just heard about Band of Brothers, an outfit formed to assist Veterans who are running for office in 2006. Their motto is "Veterans for a secure America".
Sounds good to me. Vets, and the rest of you, MOUNT UP*!
Band of Brothers is a new political organization formed to assist Democratic veterans running for elected office. We've already identified more than three dozen fighting men and women who need our help to challenge the current administration on its failed policies at home and abroad.
They are all strong, principled citizens who have had enough of the current direction of our country, and are ready to fight - as Democrats have always fought - for solutions to the problems of security, health care, and corporate and political corruption. Some have served in the current war in Iraq, some have served our country at other times. But each candidate supported by Band of Brothers must in turn support Our Values.
Sounds good to me. Vets, and the rest of you, MOUNT UP*!
* For those of you unfamiliar with this dreaded phrase, it means get off yer dead ass and on yer dyin' feet, shoulder your pack and rifle and move out.
Dr. King's Day
In the spirit of Martin Luther King Day, I offer the following by Geov Parrish:
Good rant. Saves me from having to do it. Read the rest.
Dr. King is gone, but a lot of what he tried to change is still here and still needs to be changed. Continue to speak truth to power.
Real story of Dr. King could inspire action; instead, we hear feel-good whitewash
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be 77 on Sunday. He has been dead for 38 years. As his living memory fades, replaced by a feel-good "I have a dream" whitewash that ignores much of what he stood for and fought against, it's more important than ever to recapture the true history of Dr. King -- because much of what he fought against is resurfacing or still with us today.
King is not a legend because he believed in diversity trainings and civic ceremonies, or because he had a nice dream. He is remembered because he took serious risks and, as the Quakers say, spoke truth to power. King is also remembered because, among a number of brave and committed civil rights leaders and activists, he had a flair for self-promotion, a style that also appealed to white liberals, and the extraordinary social strength of the black Southern churches behind him. And because he died before he had a chance to be widely believed a relic or buffoon.
What little history TV will give us in the next few days is at least as much about forgetting as about remembering, as much about self-congratulatory patriotism that King was American as self-examination that American racism made him necessary and that government, at every level, sought to destroy him. We hear "I have a dream"; we don't hear his powerful indictments of poverty, the Vietnam War, and the military-industrial complex. We see Bull Connor in Birmingham; we don't see arrests for fighting segregated housing in Chicago, or the years of beatings and busts before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. We don't hear about the mainstream American contempt at the time for King, even after that Peace Prize, nor the FBI harassment or his reputation among conservatives as a Commie dupe.
And we forget that of those many dreams King had, only one -- equal access for non-whites -- is significantly realized today. A half-century after the Montgomery bus boycott catapulted a 26-year-old King into prominence, even that is only partly achieved. Blacks are being systematically disenfranchised in our presidential elections, and affirmative action and school desegregation are all but dead. Urban school districts across the country these days are as segregated and unequal as ever, and the imminent confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court likely heralds a new era where employers and landlords can discriminate with near-impunity.
Opponents of affirmative action and racial equality can claim King's mantle and "if he were alive today" approval only because in 2006, pop culture's MLK has no politics. And, for that matter, no faith. For white America, King's soft-focus image often reinforces white supremacism. "See? We're not so bad. We honor him now. Why don't those black people just get over it, anyway? We did."
All that is a lie. Dr. King's vision is today as urgent as ever. While Jim Crow and the cruelties of overt segregation are now largely unimaginable, much remains to be done. And for those who carry King's banner, the challenges of apathy and official hostility remain the same: the FBI and NSA spying on peace groups, listening to phone calls, monitoring e-mails. An administration -- voted for by almost no African-Americans -- that reviles nonviolence and labels its critics as treasonous (rather than as communist dupes). And the moral outrage of Americans, that made King's work so politically effective? We don't do that any more. We can torture thousands of mostly innocent Iraqis and Afghans, in plain sight, and nobody is held accountable. It'd take a whole lot more than Bull Connor's police dogs to make the news today.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., nonviolent martyr to reconciliation and justice, has become a Hallmark Card, a warm, fuzzy, feel-good invocation of neighborliness, a file photo for sneakers or soda commercials, a reprieve for post-holiday shoppers, an excuse for a three-day weekend, a cardboard cutout used for photo ops by dissembling Cabinet members and ungrateful Supreme Court justices. Be sure to check out the Three-Day-Only White Sale at WalMart. Always lower prices. Always.
King deserves better. We all do.
Good rant. Saves me from having to do it. Read the rest.
Dr. King is gone, but a lot of what he tried to change is still here and still needs to be changed. Continue to speak truth to power.
Gore on C-Span
I just watched Al Gore give a speech on C-Span, sponsored by the Liberty Coalition, and I'm still awake!
The subject of said speech was the illegal wiretapping and the expansion and abuse of presidential power. Also the complicity of Congress in letting Bush do it, the culture of corruption, and the danger to the Constitution. He called for Congress to take back their equality as a branch of government.
It was a stirring speech. If he had spoken like that five years ago he'd be President today. I'm not particularly an Al Gore supporter, but it's obvious to me we'd be better off as a nation with him in the Oval Office. He dropped the ball big time in '00, but he seems to be getting a second wind.
It's too soon to get a link to this speech, but I'll keep my eyes open. You do the same.
Update:
Raw Story has the speech. Thanks, Sis.
The subject of said speech was the illegal wiretapping and the expansion and abuse of presidential power. Also the complicity of Congress in letting Bush do it, the culture of corruption, and the danger to the Constitution. He called for Congress to take back their equality as a branch of government.
It was a stirring speech. If he had spoken like that five years ago he'd be President today. I'm not particularly an Al Gore supporter, but it's obvious to me we'd be better off as a nation with him in the Oval Office. He dropped the ball big time in '00, but he seems to be getting a second wind.
It's too soon to get a link to this speech, but I'll keep my eyes open. You do the same.
Update:
Raw Story has the speech. Thanks, Sis.
Where are we?
This past week has made me sick. I'm sick of the Democrats. I thought the Repubs were inept. At least the Repubs can mount a propaganda offensive. In a week where opportunities abounded to kick the Repubs in the nuts repeatedly, what did the Dems do? They let every opportunity slip by. This is becoming a joke. I thought being a fan of the New York Mets was masochistic.
After the Dems' complete clusterfuck this week, it makes me want to pack it in. If it weren't for the fact the Repubs were so bad for this nation, I probably would. The Democratic Party is a captain-less, rudder-less ship, adrift and foundering because there is zero leadership, zero coordination. If we win back even one House of Congress in November, I'd be seriously surprised. Look:
Iraq
Katrina
The DeLay/Abramoff scandal
Illegal wiretaps
The economy
And the list goes on. It's like having a pile of ammo and rifles and they're still using a make-believe pistol with their thumb and forefingers.
Note to Dems: You're the only ones in a position to do something about the Repubs. If you don't want to fight for our country, just let us know. I'll put my house up for sale now and head off to Europe. I might be willing to fight to the death for this nation, but I'm not willing to commit suicide for it. I'm tired of being your cannon fodder when you won't even give us close air support, let alone covering artillery. I'm sure I speak for a lot of progressive bloggers who have just about had it with you.
Update:
And just so nobody gets the wrong idea, I ain't nowhere near ready to give up. There's a lot of fight left in me. If the Dems can't do it, we'll find somebody else, maybe take a page from Sharon's book and form a new party. I'm pissed at the Dems but for now they are our only hope.
After the Dems' complete clusterfuck this week, it makes me want to pack it in. If it weren't for the fact the Repubs were so bad for this nation, I probably would. The Democratic Party is a captain-less, rudder-less ship, adrift and foundering because there is zero leadership, zero coordination. If we win back even one House of Congress in November, I'd be seriously surprised. Look:
Iraq
Katrina
The DeLay/Abramoff scandal
Illegal wiretaps
The economy
And the list goes on. It's like having a pile of ammo and rifles and they're still using a make-believe pistol with their thumb and forefingers.
Note to Dems: You're the only ones in a position to do something about the Repubs. If you don't want to fight for our country, just let us know. I'll put my house up for sale now and head off to Europe. I might be willing to fight to the death for this nation, but I'm not willing to commit suicide for it. I'm tired of being your cannon fodder when you won't even give us close air support, let alone covering artillery. I'm sure I speak for a lot of progressive bloggers who have just about had it with you.
Update:
And just so nobody gets the wrong idea, I ain't nowhere near ready to give up. There's a lot of fight left in me. If the Dems can't do it, we'll find somebody else, maybe take a page from Sharon's book and form a new party. I'm pissed at the Dems but for now they are our only hope.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Is Abramoff the New Monica?
Frank Rich explains the Abramoff/Bush/DeLay/Republican Culture of Corruption very succinctly. At The Era via Tennessee Guerilla Women.
Read it. That's our Pop*!
THERE'S nothing this White House loves more than pictures that tell a story - a fictional story. And so another mission was accomplished when President Bush posed with the 13 past secretaries of state and defense he hustled into the Oval Office 10 days ago: he could pretend to consult on Iraq with sages of all political stripes - Madeleine Albright, yet - even if the actual give-and-take, all 5 to 10 minutes of it, was as substantive as the scripted "Ask the President" town hall meetings of the 2004 campaign.
But this White House, cunning as it is, can't control all the pictures all the time. That photo op was quickly followed by Time's Jack Abramoff cover and its specter of other images more inopportune than op. Mr. Bush's aides, the magazine reported, were busy "trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together." Translation: Could a Bush-Abramoff money shot as iconic as Monica on the rope line be lurking somewhere for a Time cover still to come?
But it's not only the genealogy of the Abramoff scandal that separates it from its predecessors. So does the distinctive odor of its possible criminality. In its financial shenanigans and some of its personnel, the Abramoff affair doesn't so much echo Teapot Dome as the business scandal that engulfed Mr. Bush's former No. 1 corporate patron, Enron, in our new century. The Abramoff scandal's pious trappings are sui generis as well. They adhere to the Karl Rove playbook that wraps every hardball White House tactic in godliness and exploits "faith based" organizations as political machines to deliver the G.O.P.'s religious right base.
Read it. That's our Pop*!
*According to That Colored Fella (no link, site is down today), anyway. Our Mom is Randi Rhodes. They're not married. At least to each other. That makes us their high-volume way vociferous really smart illegitimate offspring.
Polls
Zogby via Atrios.
Why is it the press gets all orgasmic when the Chimp's approval rating goes up a point, yet haven't said a word about this? Ya think maybe all of 'em are in the Republicans' pocket?
By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
...
Why is it the press gets all orgasmic when the Chimp's approval rating goes up a point, yet haven't said a word about this? Ya think maybe all of 'em are in the Republicans' pocket?
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Chinese Herbs and Clampers
The news today is mostly folks lamenting the poor performance of the Demowussies at the confirmation hearings for Bush's judge, and rightly so, but it's boring. I think it's a done deal, a dirty deed done dirt cheap, so while I'm waiting for another shoe to drop I'll post something light for your Saturday amusement.
Me 'n the Mrs. just went to the P.O. to collect our mail. It's a whole mile away. On the way we passed our town's freshly remodelled old Chinese Herb Shop, the only remnant of the Chinese population that built the transcontinental railroad that Whitey didn't burn down in retaliation for 19th-century outsourcing.
On the way back, we passed a whole bunch of Clampers, easily identifiable by their red shirts and black hats and vests, on their way to today's civic dedication of the old landmark as retail space. These guys are kind of an institution around here. They like to drink and put up plaques at historical sites.
Just read the links for fun. Later.
Me 'n the Mrs. just went to the P.O. to collect our mail. It's a whole mile away. On the way we passed our town's freshly remodelled old Chinese Herb Shop, the only remnant of the Chinese population that built the transcontinental railroad that Whitey didn't burn down in retaliation for 19th-century outsourcing.
On the way back, we passed a whole bunch of Clampers, easily identifiable by their red shirts and black hats and vests, on their way to today's civic dedication of the old landmark as retail space. These guys are kind of an institution around here. They like to drink and put up plaques at historical sites.
Just read the links for fun. Later.
Alone
Via Maru, an excellent post by Peter Daou:
...
This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists - positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war - face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called "liberal" media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle.
...
What did you expect?
LONGWOOD, Fla. Jan 13, 2006 - An eighth-grader was shot and wounded by a SWAT team officer in a school bathroom Friday after he pulled out a pellet gun that resembled a real weapon, authorities said.
He was shot after raising the gun at deputies. [my emphasis - Link via Skippy]
...
Please, please, please, no one yell 'police brutality'. One of the first things I learned about weapons is don't take it out unless you plan to use it. Don't point a pistol at someone unless you plan to kill them. Did you see the pellet gun the kid had? I dare anyone to tell it from the genuine article in the same situation. If I were the cop, the results would have been the same. He should be glad they didn't kill him.
Who cares?
------------------------------------------------------
MSNBC Breaking News
------------------------------------------------------
NBC: U.S. missiles target al-Qaida's No. 2 officer in Pakistan, sources say -
U.S. officials told NBC News on Friday that American airstrikes in Pakistan overnight Thursday were aimed at the No. 2 man in the al-Qaida terror organization - Ayman al Zawahri.
Okay, so? Do they really think this is gonna do something to the big picture? That's if it proves to be true. I mean, how many #3 guys have we killed? Look, kiddies, shiny things! Forget about all those scandals, look at this. When it comes to this administration, I believe nothing I hear and only half of what I see.
Update:
CNN is already backpedaling.
Friday, January 13, 2006
The Year of Living Dangerously
Somewhat related to my previous post, TomDispatch weighs in with a seven-course Tomgram.
Fat chance! Fixer'd kill me. Go read.
War, Trials, Leakers, Investigations, Packed Courts, and a Constitutional Crisis
2006 is sure to be the year of living dangerously -- for the Bush administration and for the rest of us. In the wake of revelations of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency, we have already embarked on what looks distinctly like a constitutional crisis (which may not come to a full boil until 2007). In the meantime, the President, Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, various lesser officials, crony appointees, acolytes, legal advisors, leftover neocons, spy-masters, strategists, spin doctors, ideologues, lobbyists, Republican Party officials, and congressional backers are intent on packing the Supreme Court with supporters of an "obscure philosophy" of unfettered Presidential power called "the unitary executive theory" and then foisting a virtual cult of the imperial presidency on the country.
On the other hand, determined as this administration has been to impose its version of reality on us, the President faces a traffic jam of reality piling up in the environs of the White House. The question is: How long will the omniscient and dominatrix-style fantasies of Bushworld, ranging from "complete victory" in Iraq to non-existent constitutional powers to ignore Congress, the courts, and treaties of every sort, triumph over the realities of the world the rest of humanity inhabits. Will an unconstrained presidency continue to grow -- or not?
Here are just a few of the explosive areas where Bush v. Reality is likely to play out, generating roiling crises which could chase the President through the rest of this year. Keep in mind, this just accounts for the modestly predictable, not for the element of surprise which -- as with Ariel Sharon's recent stroke -- remains ever present.
Fat chance! Fixer'd kill me. Go read.
The Bush Who Cried Wolf
Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine:
Read it.
Bush and the Republicans have screwed the pooch so badly that the only way for them to stay in power is to manufacture even more fear in the electorate and then continue to lie at them, "The sky is falling! We're the only ones who can protect you!".
It may not work, but Bush is betting that since he's already successfully pussified a majority of American voters, it just might. The corruption, anti-civil-rights scandals, and the emerging knowledge of the constant abuse of presidential power have to be overshadowed by fear to take advantage of Americans' ADD. It's their only chance.
The Republicans should change their name to "The Permanent War Party".
A word of caution to Bush&Co: You've screwed the military up so bad, you'd better think twice before going to war with Iran. They're just liable to be able to kick our ass. You'll end up having to nuke 'em and that'll be the end of the world as we know it. I know you don't care: the rest of us will have to live with it but you'll be nice and safe.
A word of caution to Congress: If you let him get away with stealing your Constitutional authority to declare an illegal war again, you're even more cowardly than we think you are. Somebody has to rein Bush in quick while there's still a chance to save our nation and, short of a coup d'etat, you guys are it, God help us.
The deteriorating international crisis over Iran is a direct result of the Bush's administration's ham-handed and mendacious Iraq policy.
Under normal circumstances - that is, under any previous U.S. administration - the battle over Iran's pugnacious effort in pursuit of nuclear technology would be amenable to a diplomatic solution. But, by insisting on a national security strategy of pre-emptive war, by illegally and unilaterally invading Iraq on false pretenses, and by hinting that the White House would tolerate an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear plants, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made a successful diplomatic resolution of the Iran crisis nearly impossible.
But the international community's justified fear that the United States is controlled by a war party seeking to attack Iran (my em) makes other states' diplomacy even harder.
Some Democrats - and even a fair number of moderate and libertarian Republicans - expect the November 2006 elections to take place against the backdrop of a failed occupation of Iraq. Instead, those same elections might take place in the midst of yet another crisis manufactured by the Bush administration.
Read it.
Bush and the Republicans have screwed the pooch so badly that the only way for them to stay in power is to manufacture even more fear in the electorate and then continue to lie at them, "The sky is falling! We're the only ones who can protect you!".
It may not work, but Bush is betting that since he's already successfully pussified a majority of American voters, it just might. The corruption, anti-civil-rights scandals, and the emerging knowledge of the constant abuse of presidential power have to be overshadowed by fear to take advantage of Americans' ADD. It's their only chance.
The Republicans should change their name to "The Permanent War Party".
A word of caution to Bush&Co: You've screwed the military up so bad, you'd better think twice before going to war with Iran. They're just liable to be able to kick our ass. You'll end up having to nuke 'em and that'll be the end of the world as we know it. I know you don't care: the rest of us will have to live with it but you'll be nice and safe.
A word of caution to Congress: If you let him get away with stealing your Constitutional authority to declare an illegal war again, you're even more cowardly than we think you are. Somebody has to rein Bush in quick while there's still a chance to save our nation and, short of a coup d'etat, you guys are it, God help us.
Bush's War on Drugs. And Seniors.
LATimes
Well, that's one way to kill off a significant bloc of voters. And decrease Medicare and Social Security costs at the same time. Way to go, Georgie.
SACRAMENTO - California officials ordered emergency action Thursday to cover drug costs for 1 million elderly citizens, many of whom have been denied life-saving medications or charged exorbitant amounts because of glitches in the new federal prescription drug program.
The action by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration capped a day in which the Medicare prescription drug program - one of President Bush's signature domestic policy initiatives - came under sharp criticism from members of Congress and governors of both major political parties.
Critics said the program, which Bush has touted as the most significant advance in Medicare in 40 years, was fast becoming a public health emergency (my em). California officials said that as many as one-fifth of the 1 million elderly, poor or disabled state residents who were switched into the federal program on Jan. 1 could be wrongly denied their medications because of flaws in the program.
Well, that's one way to kill off a significant bloc of voters. And decrease Medicare and Social Security costs at the same time. Way to go, Georgie.
Friday Cattle Dog Blogging
Princess Shayna looking for her friend across the street to begin the afternoon bark-a-thon.
Missing it
Jo looks back, realizing we missed something:
An excellent post and very true.
...
It looks like we should have paid more attention to his Harvard MBA, which was seemingly worth about as much as the coveted "flight status" given him by the Air National Guard, but a much more reliable indicator of his performance, or lack thereof. His lack of ability to even run a small business on a turn-key basis with the amazing credentials of being a Harvard MBA should have been a big-ass warning sign. I know it got some play, but nowhere near what his alleged "military service" got. All his failed business ventures have foretold his skill in managing any enterprise without intervention of capital and cover-up by family and friends his whole life. Unfortunately in the case of Iraq, no one is going to come to his aid now or ever ... he's failed there and he owns it, even Poppy can't fix it for him now or ever.
I guess that we also should have realized he wasn't actually joking about the how much easier it would be to run the government if he was a Dictator.
...
An excellent post and very true.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Throw the bum out...
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during Nixon's impeachment reveals the whys, whens and hows of ousting president Bush. From The Nation. There's a one-long-page printable version at Truthout.
There's a lot in betweenst all the quotes. She tamps his offenses into a neat brick. Read. Act.
More at ImpeachPAC. You'll want to bookmark this one.
Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush - not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.
The framers of our Constitution feared executive power run amok and provided the remedy of impeachment to protect against it. While impeachment is a last resort, and must never be lightly undertaken (a principle ignored during the proceedings against President Bill Clinton), neither can Congress shirk its responsibility to use that tool to safeguard our democracy. No President can be permitted to commit high crimes and misdemeanors with impunity.
A President can commit no more serious crime against our democracy than lying to Congress and the American people to get them to support a military action or war. It is not just that it is cowardly and abhorrent to trick others into giving their lives for a nonexistent threat, or even that making false statements might in some circumstances be a crime. It is that the decision to go to war is the gravest decision a nation can make, and in a democracy the people and their elected representatives, when there is no imminent attack on the United States to repel, have the right to make it. Given that the consequences can be death for hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of people - as well as the diversion of vast sums of money to the war effort - the fraud cannot be tolerated. That both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were guilty of misleading the nation into military action and neither was impeached for it makes it more, not less, important to hold Bush accountable.
It is imperative that a full investigation be undertaken of Bush's role in the systemic torture and abuse of detainees. Violating his oath of office, the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act would constitute impeachable offenses.
As awful as Watergate was, after the vote on impeachment and the resignation of President Nixon, the nation felt a huge sense of relief. Impeachment is a tortuous process, but now that President Bush has thrown down the gauntlet and virtually dared Congress to stop him from violating the law, nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy.
There's a lot in betweenst all the quotes. She tamps his offenses into a neat brick. Read. Act.
More at ImpeachPAC. You'll want to bookmark this one.
You can strip search him, too...
Tell your Senators that Alito is simply unfit for the position of Supreme Court Justice.
Pussies, cowards, and wimps
All names I have for the Republican Party and their supporters. Know why? Because they are. I mean the higher ups know what's going on, but the party rank and file are a buncha scared cowards. I read somewhere 37% of Republicans would concede to have their civil rights taken away to keep us 'safe'. Cowards.
To all you big Repub men, my wife has more testicle than you do. Looking out from her office, coming up from the Subway, going to lunch with a client, guess what she sees? The smoking hole in the ground they used to call the World Trade Center. Would any of you Repub pussies go back to work directly across the street after 9/11? I doubt it.
You're the ones screaming for extraordinary powers for the government to 'protect' us. What about all them guns you and your NRA buddies have? Haven't you beat the 2nd Amendment to death, waving it in front us when we try to enact some sort of controls on whom can carry? Hey, you got all them guns, what are you afraid of? Oh yeah, you're afraid someone might shoot back. Big men you are. Anybody can shoot the shit out of beer cans and mow down a deer with an AR-15, but it takes something to look in the eyes of another man an kill him, takes more to hang around while the enemy is shooting at you.
I've noticed those who yell loudest are the biggest wimps. Instead of going on with your lives out there in Podunk, you scream for the police state the Chimp is trying to make from our once-great nation. Let me just give you a heads-up. When the tranformation is complete, they're gonna come for your guns too. Let me know if you have the balls to stand up to ATF agents who will surely come for your stuff, or are you going to say the same thing your senile former leader says? "From my cold dead hands." Know what? That's exactly what's gonna happen, because if you don't give up your shit they're gonna kill you and take it. Do you think they would take the chance of the population being armed?
Wake up, Repub pussies. Liberals ain't your enemy, your own people are. You'll learn that soon enough.
And BTW, Blondie speaks well on the subject also.
To all you big Repub men, my wife has more testicle than you do. Looking out from her office, coming up from the Subway, going to lunch with a client, guess what she sees? The smoking hole in the ground they used to call the World Trade Center. Would any of you Repub pussies go back to work directly across the street after 9/11? I doubt it.
You're the ones screaming for extraordinary powers for the government to 'protect' us. What about all them guns you and your NRA buddies have? Haven't you beat the 2nd Amendment to death, waving it in front us when we try to enact some sort of controls on whom can carry? Hey, you got all them guns, what are you afraid of? Oh yeah, you're afraid someone might shoot back. Big men you are. Anybody can shoot the shit out of beer cans and mow down a deer with an AR-15, but it takes something to look in the eyes of another man an kill him, takes more to hang around while the enemy is shooting at you.
I've noticed those who yell loudest are the biggest wimps. Instead of going on with your lives out there in Podunk, you scream for the police state the Chimp is trying to make from our once-great nation. Let me just give you a heads-up. When the tranformation is complete, they're gonna come for your guns too. Let me know if you have the balls to stand up to ATF agents who will surely come for your stuff, or are you going to say the same thing your senile former leader says? "From my cold dead hands." Know what? That's exactly what's gonna happen, because if you don't give up your shit they're gonna kill you and take it. Do you think they would take the chance of the population being armed?
Wake up, Repub pussies. Liberals ain't your enemy, your own people are. You'll learn that soon enough.
And BTW, Blondie speaks well on the subject also.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Third Wheel...
We've all heard about Governor Schwarzenegger doing a face-plant off his sidecar rig. Steve Lopez has a humorous editorial about it:
He's not. It's a motorcycle. I guess he figures he has 'Constitutional authority' to break the law.
Note to Lopez: The back seat you're about to ride in ain't gonna be in no limo, and them 'illegal' fatties better be tobacco!
More about sidecars in The Fixer & Gordon.
Who the heck has a motorcycle with a sidecar?
I hadn't seen or heard about one since Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" fame. But there was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the other day, tooling along like an overgrown kid and not properly licensed, with his 12-year-old son in the sidecar.
Up in the hills of Brentwood, he kissed a car backing out of a driveway and ended up with a fat lip and stitches.
Geez, I got into trouble with my wife this week for buying our daughter a creampuff. Imagine if I'd sported her around town in a sidecar plowing into Volvos.
The Schwarzenegger administration trotted out some cockamamie story about him not needing a motorcycle license because the sidecar means he's exempt.
He's not. It's a motorcycle. I guess he figures he has 'Constitutional authority' to break the law.
No speaking for three days, the doctor told him after sewing his mouth.
"My wife said, 'Make it seven!' "
If you're up for it, I see us starting down a new path together. You on the Harley, me in the sidecar, smoking a couple of illegals the size of Cuban missiles.
License, officer? We don't have to show you no stinking license.
Note to Lopez: The back seat you're about to ride in ain't gonna be in no limo, and them 'illegal' fatties better be tobacco!
More about sidecars in The Fixer & Gordon.
OK then, you're ugly and yer mother dresses ya funny...
In his speech yesterday to a post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (of which I am a Life Member), Bush denounced certain kinds of critics (of which I am a Life Member). Yahoo News.
Lemme see if I got this straight: It's OK to criticize and question what Bush did in Iraq, unless we criticize and question the actual reasons and what he actually did. If we do that, then we're traitors. Is that about it?
Please, Georgie, come to my house and call me a traitor to my face. Please. I'll evendrag your unconscious body into the house before I call 911 invite you in for a cup of coffee.
Bush, who has faced a barrage of criticism over his handling of Iraq, said Americans know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being handled "and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people."
Lemme see if I got this straight: It's OK to criticize and question what Bush did in Iraq, unless we criticize and question the actual reasons and what he actually did. If we do that, then we're traitors. Is that about it?
Please, Georgie, come to my house and call me a traitor to my face. Please. I'll even
Bushprop
Go read what a former State Department employee, who resigned in protest of Bush's foreign policy, has to say. From Press Action.
I'd like to see Bush and his whole bunch "undertaken". Someday. Then I'll piss on their graves.
I think what the American public is increasingly discovering is that the current administration sees foreign policy as just one more way to mold American domestic opinion. The White House doesn't really distinguish between home and overseas propaganda, contrary to the spirit of the Smith-Mundt Act 1948, which prohibits the dissemination to domestic audiences of USG-produced or supported overseas information products.
There is a strong anti-propaganda tradition in the United States, so I don't think the American public will continue to accept what I've described as Bushprop. The Iraq mission, it has become all too clear, was not "accomplished" as the administration boasted. Indeed, it should never have been undertaken.
I'd like to see Bush and his whole bunch "undertaken". Someday. Then I'll piss on their graves.
The Alito Shuffle
Maureen Dowd weighs in on Alito at Donkey O.D.
Problem is, if he gets confirmed, and it looks like he might, he will be on SCOTUS for many years after the "Bush era" is long gone. Gone, but not forgotten. A legacy of right-wing evil.
About the judge's memory lapses, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, drolly noted, "And I hope you'll understand if any of us come before a court and we can't remember Abramoff, you'll tend to believe us."
You don't have to know the difference between horizontal and vertical stare decisis, or between emanations and penumbras, to see that the man who could take Sandra Day O'Connor's seat and yank back women's rights was, in a word, shifty.
Or in three words, shifty, sapless and sighing.
Judge Alito has supported imperial powers for the presidency, not strong checks and balances; he approved the strip search of a 10-year-old girl but is not probing too deeply into what the executive branch is doing. That's W.'s philosophy, too - a pre-emptive right to secretly do everything from war to torture to snooping.
Like the president, the judge loves baseball. Mr. Alito once vacationed at a fantasy baseball camp (O.K. fielder, hopeless hitter), wearing the red and white Phillies uniform. W. has spent five years in fantasyland on Iraq, on occasion donning military costumes.
His fingers in his ears, W. didn't want to hear that we had too few troops in Iraq - ignoring advice from Viceroy Paul Bremer and Gen. Eric Shinseki - or that the troops didn't have enough armor. But the president continues to fling blame outward. In a speech yesterday before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he warned the Democrats that they should take care not to bring "comfort to our adversaries."
Judge Alito was evasive, disingenuous and deferential. He fits the Bush era like a baseball glove.
Problem is, if he gets confirmed, and it looks like he might, he will be on SCOTUS for many years after the "Bush era" is long gone. Gone, but not forgotten. A legacy of right-wing evil.
Warnings
This troubled me when I heard it:
There's tougher, more totalitarian language coming out of 1600 lately. When the leader of a nation begins to marginalize the folks who disagree with his policies, it shows one of two things. One, they're desperate and see the writing on the wall. Two, they already have enough control over the process they feel they are untouchable. Both scenarios worry me.
The first, because desperate men resort to desperate measures. The second, because it portends freedom and civil liberites will be further curtailed.
The same President who insists he has the authority to wiretap "enemies" without warrants, imprison "enemies" without hearings or lawyers or even notifying families, even torture "enemies," said today that YOU are an enemy.
...
There's tougher, more totalitarian language coming out of 1600 lately. When the leader of a nation begins to marginalize the folks who disagree with his policies, it shows one of two things. One, they're desperate and see the writing on the wall. Two, they already have enough control over the process they feel they are untouchable. Both scenarios worry me.
The first, because desperate men resort to desperate measures. The second, because it portends freedom and civil liberites will be further curtailed.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Father of 'Squiggly' turns 100
Yahoo News
Well, motorcycles were invented for transportation, too. Who knew going fast could be fun? Didn't take long to find that out either!
Happy Birthday, Al. Hey, you're melting...
GENEVA - LSD is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug and was its first human guinea pig is celebrating his centenary Wednesday — in good health and with plans to attend an international seminar on the hallucinogenic.
"I had wonderful visions," Albert Hofmann said, recalling his first accidental consumption of the drug.
"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," he told the Swiss television network SF DRS. "What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."
The United States banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.
Hofmann maintains that was unfair, arguing the drug was not addictive. He has repeatedly said the ban should be lifted so LSD can be used in medical research, and he took the drug himself — purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest — for several decades.
But he added a note of caution.
"The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug," he wrote.
Well, motorcycles were invented for transportation, too. Who knew going fast could be fun? Didn't take long to find that out either!
Happy Birthday, Al. Hey, you're melting...
DeLay's still calling the shots...into his own foot
From Fired Up America:
DeLay may be the worst person that was ever in Congress. His moral values and sense of priorities are truly evil, but there's nothing wrong with his balls. Either that, or he actually thinks he's gonna get out of this (long overdue) predicament. I guess delusion and denial are handy tools.
In an unusual piece of protocol, DeLay informs Hastert that he will be replacing Rep. Duke Cunningham on the House Appropriations Committee [1].
"I will also be reclaiming my seat on the Appropriations Committee when the second session of the 109th Congress convenes later this month."
Since when does a member tell the Speaker of the House which committees they will be assigned to? Is Tom DeLay still calling the shots in the House?
But more importantly, only in the GOP House Caucus would you replace a member of the Appropriations Committee who has pled guilty to accepting bribes for steering public moneys to favored business interests, with someone under the kind of ethical cloud that DeLay now finds himself under.
DeLay may be the worst person that was ever in Congress. His moral values and sense of priorities are truly evil, but there's nothing wrong with his balls. Either that, or he actually thinks he's gonna get out of this (long overdue) predicament. I guess delusion and denial are handy tools.
Even More Alito
Fixer's right: Alito is a dangerous sonofabitch. From the Boston Globe:
"Leadership and profiles in courage". Yeah, if Hell had ice water...
Note to Dems: If you're ever gonna grow some sack, now's the time. In fairness, there's a few - Reid, Boxer, Pelosi, Kennedy, Dean et alia - but not nearly enough. A lot of 'em remind me of a guy who won't hit back when he's punched for fear of angering his opponent. I got news for ya - the way you deal with a bully, in this case the entire Republican mob, is to smack him as hard as you can and keep doing it until he's no longer a threat, just like in the schoolyard of yore. You're already gettin' your ass whipped - what have you got to lose? Everybody thinks you're a buncha pussies anyway, show 'em different.
Who knows, maybe you'll kick their ass a little and like the feeling. We got other problems you could deal with, you know, like saving this country from a buncha criminals.
AT THIS moment in American history, it would be hard to find a worse Supreme Court nominee than Samuel A. Alito Jr. His ideology captures everything extremist about the Bush administration. If confirmed, Alito would serve as Bush's enabler. He would give Bush effective control of all three branches of government and the hard-right long-term dominance of the high court. His confirmation or rejection will depend on the gumption of the Senate Democratic leadership and independence of a few Republicans.
Oddly, while Alito favors an almost monarchic executive, he believes the federal government has limited powers to protect the health and safety of Americans or safeguard the environment. Alito and and his compatriots in the Federalist Society are critical of the Supreme Court's holding since 1937 that Congress, under the Constitution's commerce clause, may regulate to assure everything from a safe and healthy workplace to honest financial markets. According to University of Chicago professor Cass Sunstein and the watchdog group People for the American Way, Alito has written the largest number of dissents of any judge sitting on the conservative Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and over 90 percent of his dissents were more conservative than those of his colleagues.
With the Bush administration running roughshod over individual rights, Alito has tended to support prosecutors and corporations over individual citizens and employees, in cases involving civil liberties, civil rights, workplace rights, and reproductive freedom. In 1985, he wrote that he thought the Constitution ''does not protect the right to an abortion," flatly contradicting Roe v. Wade. And with corruption scandals festering in Washington, Alito conveniently forgot his pledge to recuse himself from cases in which he had a personal financial interest.
Yet, in their weakened condition, it's not clear that Republicans could muster the votes to go nuclear. Moderate Senate Republicans may just welcome a chance to distance themselves from Bush's extremism -- if Democrats lead. Alito epitomizes everything dangerous about George W. Bush (my em). Unlike Bush, he would not be gone in three years. With some leadership and profiles in courage, we may yet be spared an extremist high court.
"Leadership and profiles in courage". Yeah, if Hell had ice water...
Note to Dems: If you're ever gonna grow some sack, now's the time. In fairness, there's a few - Reid, Boxer, Pelosi, Kennedy, Dean et alia - but not nearly enough. A lot of 'em remind me of a guy who won't hit back when he's punched for fear of angering his opponent. I got news for ya - the way you deal with a bully, in this case the entire Republican mob, is to smack him as hard as you can and keep doing it until he's no longer a threat, just like in the schoolyard of yore. You're already gettin' your ass whipped - what have you got to lose? Everybody thinks you're a buncha pussies anyway, show 'em different.
Who knows, maybe you'll kick their ass a little and like the feeling. We got other problems you could deal with, you know, like saving this country from a buncha criminals.
More Alito
From Digby:
This guy will be dangerous if he makes it to SCOTUS.
...
This is the same guy who wanted to keep women out of Princeton. Presumably, they wouldn't have "felt comfortable" there. But that's not what made that statement so revealing. It's this notion of smart and privileged people "behaving irresponsibly."
I think it's fairly certain that he's not talking about branding frat boys' asses or getting drunk and stealing Christmas Trees. He's talking about anti-war protestors, feminists etc. And like so many campus conservatives of that era, he sounds like he's still carrying around a boatload of resentment toward them.
Roberts apparently came out of all that unscathed. Confident in his own abilities and social prowess, he didn't appear to have this puny, pinched view of liberalism as a threat to decency and morality. (He may have it, but it didn't show --- or he was smart enough to hide it in his hearings.) Alito is one of those other guys. You know the ones: [my ems]
...
This guy will be dangerous if he makes it to SCOTUS.
Monday, January 9, 2006
Bush's Phony Photo-op
Tennessee Guerilla Women has MoDo's op-ed about Bush's fake meeting with former Secretataries of State and Cabinet members.
I hope Ms. Dowd never gets the ass at me!
James Baker, Svengali and Sphinx, must have been thinking: "I told your dad not to let you in here. I could tell you how to get of Iraq in 10 minutes, but you're too under the sway of that nutball Cheney to listen."
It may seem disturbing at first, that with several hundreds of years' worth of foreign policy at his elbows, and a bloody, thorny mess in Iraq, Mr. Bush would devote mere moments to letting some fresh air into his House of Pain.
Sure, he has A.D.D. But he just spent six straight days mountain-biking and brush clearing in Crawford. He couldn't devote 60 minutes to getting our kids home rather than just a few for a "Message: I Care" photo-op faking sincerity?
"We all went into the bubble and came out," one of the wise men noted.
The only thing that would have made the photo even more utterly phony was the presence of that vintage warmonger, Henry the K.
I hope Ms. Dowd never gets the ass at me!
If there's a better reason not to confirm Alito, I haven't heard it...
Reuters
Falwell, Santorum, and Dobson are for Alito's confirmation. Filibuster? Hell, yes! If they get tired, just dress me like a Senator, crank my ass up, and lead me to the floor. I'll talk 'til they all fucking starve!
Christian conservative leader Rev. Jerry Falwell said on Sunday that confirming Federal Appeals Court judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court would be the biggest victory for his constituency in three decades.
"In other words, the kind of jurist our founders hoped for to preserve the principals of our great country," Santorum said.
James Dobson of Focus on the Family told the audience that Alito's confirmation would mean the end of a Supreme Court that has imposed its will on the American people in deciding cases involving religion.
Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a telephone interview that the rally on Sunday was more about power than justice.
"They want a judiciary system that lock, stock and barrel follows the religious doctrines of the Falwells and Dobsons of the world," Lynn said.
Falwell, Santorum, and Dobson are for Alito's confirmation. Filibuster? Hell, yes! If they get tired, just dress me like a Senator, crank my ass up, and lead me to the floor. I'll talk 'til they all fucking starve!
Attacking Iran as Cover
William Rivers Pitt on just why Bush might do something as insane as going to war with Iraq, and the ramifications.
Read the whole thing. A little tinfoil-hattish perhaps, but food for thought.
The question must be put as directly as possible: what manner of maniac would undertake a path so fraught with peril and potential economic catastrophe? It is difficult to imagine a justification for any action that could envelop the United States in a military and economic conflict with Iraq, Iran, Syria and China simultaneously.
Unfortunately, all the dangers in the world are no match for the self-assurance of a bubble-encased zealot. What manner of maniac would undertake such a dangerous course? Look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
George W. Bush and his administration have consistently undertaken incredibly dangerous courses of action in order to garner political power on the home front. Recall the multiple terror threats lobbed out by the administration whenever damaging political news appeared in the media. More significantly, recall Iraq. Karl Rove, Bush's most senior advisor, notoriously told Republicans on the ballot during the 2002 midterms to "run on the war." The invasion of Iraq provided marvelous political cover for the GOP not only during those midterms, but during the 2004 Presidential election.
What kind of political cover would be gained from an attack on Iran, and from the diversion of attention to that attack? The answer lies in one now-familiar name: Jack Abramoff. The Abramoff scandal threatens to subsume all the hard-fought GOP gains in Congress, and the 2006 midterms are less than a year away.
Is any of this a probability? Logic says no, but logic seldom plays any part in modern American politics. All arguments that the Bush administration would be insane to attack Iran and risk a global conflagration for the sake of political cover run into one unavoidable truth.
They did it once already in Iraq.
Read the whole thing. A little tinfoil-hattish perhaps, but food for thought.
Munich
A good post up at Loaded Mouth:
...
"Yet, in that era, I don't recall a legitimate movement to reduce Constitutional rights in order to increase public safety." Of course, in this era, we see the Constitution eroding before our very eyes, and those causing this damage all parrot the same reason: 9/11. But if times are relatively sedate now compared to the 60's and 70's, why should we let politicians tell us that our worries should destroy our rights?
...
Men at work
Shakes has this up, which made me think (you're welcome for the straight line):
You know, say what we will about DeLay but he knows what it's like to work for a living. Unlike Preznit Brush Clearer who has yet to put in an honest day's work in his life. For the Chimp to look down his nose at the Bug Man is laughable. Not saying much, but DeLay is twice the man Bush is. At least DeLay worked for what he achieved (rightly or wrongly), not had it all handed to him. It's why Bush is uncomfortable around DeLay, and others like him. He feels inadequate to an exterminator and all 'working men'.
And just another thought, for a couple guys who did their best to avoid military service, Bush and Cheney do love dressing up in military gear, don't they? You make the connection, I'll just say this; dressing up in green clothes doesn't make you a soldier.
Bush may be the president a thin majority of Americans would most like to have a beer with, but he doesn't want to have a beer with them. Time reports he and his closest cronies have never been especially fond of Tom DeLay's, uh, earthiness: "He may have had an unmatched grip on the House and Washington lobbyists, but DeLay is not the kind of guy - in background and temperament - the President feels comfortable with. Of the former exterminator, a Republican close to the President's inner circle says, 'They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with.'"
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You know, say what we will about DeLay but he knows what it's like to work for a living. Unlike Preznit Brush Clearer who has yet to put in an honest day's work in his life. For the Chimp to look down his nose at the Bug Man is laughable. Not saying much, but DeLay is twice the man Bush is. At least DeLay worked for what he achieved (rightly or wrongly), not had it all handed to him. It's why Bush is uncomfortable around DeLay, and others like him. He feels inadequate to an exterminator and all 'working men'.
And just another thought, for a couple guys who did their best to avoid military service, Bush and Cheney do love dressing up in military gear, don't they? You make the connection, I'll just say this; dressing up in green clothes doesn't make you a soldier.
Caveats
Or, I's be da King:
Like Gord says: "...The Republicans must be crushed, torn to shreds like the Third Reich..."
The entire Republican Party is a criminal enterprise and should be put out of business. In my book, they're worse than Hamas in Palestine and Sinn Fein in Ireland. At least those organizations look after their own people.
When George Bush signed the defense appropriation bill containing John McCain's amendment removing torture and other human rights violations from the official repertoire of the armed forces, he added his own little amendment: "Unless I say otherwise." The vehicle through which he reserved the option to break the law is called a bill-signing statement, and as Knight Ridder's Ron Hutcheson revealed on Friday, the McCain bill was far from the first victim of the practice: Bush has used it some 500 times since taking office. [Link via Atrios]
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Like Gord says: "...The Republicans must be crushed, torn to shreds like the Third Reich..."
The entire Republican Party is a criminal enterprise and should be put out of business. In my book, they're worse than Hamas in Palestine and Sinn Fein in Ireland. At least those organizations look after their own people.
Sunday, January 8, 2006
"Jist back up to this hyar stump, Honeybun..."
From MediaGirl:
Watch out after 'the change', gals. You might end up as hamburger.
"Pro-life" legislator likens women to cows
When Rep. Gordon Howie, R-Rapid City, mentioned cows and women in the same breaths at the Chamber of Commerce pre-legislative crackerbarrel last week, it didn't sit well with some of the folks who were there.
"We place value on life in South Dakota, and even with a mother cow, as soon as you can demonstrate she is pregnant, an even higher value is placed just because she is pregnant," Howie said.
No, he says it like he means it. I'm sure he believes women are more valuable than cows. But his meaning comes through loud and clear: Women are heifers and the government is the rancher.
Moo.
Watch out after 'the change', gals. You might end up as hamburger.
The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot Straight
Daddy Frank on wiretapping, secrecy, the presidential power grab, and blame-shifting.
Much more. A good Sunday read, and it's free.
That the White House's over-the-top outrage about the Times scoop is a smokescreen contrived to cover up something else is only confirmed by Dick Cheney's disingenuousness. In last week's oration at a right-wing think tank, he defended warrant-free wiretapping by saying it could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Really? Not with this administration in charge. On 9/10 the N.S.A. (lawfully) intercepted messages in Arabic saying, "The match is about to begin," and, "Tomorrow is zero hour." You know the rest. Like all the chatter our government picked up during the president's excellent brush-clearing Crawford vacation of 2001, it was relegated to manana; the N.S.A. didn't rouse itself to translate those warnings until 9/12.
Given that the reporters on the Times story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, wrote that nearly a dozen current and former officials had served as their sources, there may be more leaks to come, and not just to The Times. Sooner or later we'll find out what the White House is really so defensive about.
If the Bush administration did indeed eavesdrop on American journalists and political opponents (Ms. Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, was a foreign policy adviser to the Kerry campaign), it's deja Watergate all over again. But even now we can see that there's another, simpler - and distinctly Bushian - motive at play here, hiding in plain sight.
That motive is not, as many liberals would have it, a simple ideological crusade to gut the Bill of Rights. Real conservatives, after all, are opposed to Big Brother; even the staunch Bush ally Grover Norquist has criticized the N.S.A.'s overreaching. The highest priority for the Karl Rove-driven presidency is instead to preserve its own power at all costs. With this gang, political victory and the propaganda needed to secure it always trump principles, even conservative principles, let alone the truth. Whenever the White House most vociferously attacks the press, you can be sure its No. 1 motive is to deflect attention from embarrassing revelations about its incompetence and failures.
Much more. A good Sunday read, and it's free.
The Battle for Florida
Not that I know anything about the mechanics of the voting process and statistical analysis makes my eyes roll back in my head, but Susie directs us to a sober interview with a guy who actually does study the stuff. He makes some good observations:
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Unfortunately, the history of democracy is that leadership philosophy is eroded as the competition between elites becomes more intense. That's what happened with Athenian democracy; that's what happened in the Roman Republic. So you look at our system today; you see our elites doing it, and you know we're in big trouble. It's in my lifetime that this has happened, that elites have begun to put winning ahead everything else, ahead of truth and country.
When Watergate was prosecuted, there were Republicans in Congress that were after Nixon. They thought what he was doing was unconscionable, and today that's not the case. Today, Democrats stick with Democrats, and Republicans stick with Republicans. They don't care what their party leaders have done. Just in my lifetime, I've seen this civic culture go from something that's respectful of democracy to something that is manipulative of it. The problem is if you let this go uncorrected, the Democrats are going to do something worse later, and then the Republicans. It's just an arms race almost, and it will just tend to degenerate.
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Screwing the seniors
The Medicare Drug Plan is working so well:
We have come to the end of the first week under Bush's medicare drug plan. I'm sure you remember this plan, it's the one that DeLay strong-armed through the house. It's also the same plan that allows the pharmaceuticals to charge the higest prices to seniors, negotiations for lower prices will not and cannot take place. It is the Bush administrations way of killing off the eldery. And what has happened this first week hopefully will change very quickly.
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Impeachment rally
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A bill of indictment will be delivered to the White House in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006 at 1:30PM charging the President of the United States and other named individuals in his administration with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Go see Ed for details.
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