Bad Fox, No Waffles for You!

After an acrimonious and destructive-to-the-neocons hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Der Monkey Fuehrer withdrew the nomination of Swift Boat Liars for Bush bankroller Samuel Fox to be ambassador to Belgium.

I guess Baby Doc finally saw the writing on the wall and did some damage control by getting his boy out of there. Better to have your nominee "spend more time with his family" than suffer any further humiliation by having him go down to ignominious defeat.

One of Fox's biggest Senate supporters, Missouri's "Kit" Bond (R-Hypocrite) said he was disappointed that "a capable and qualified candidate with bipartisan support has become a victim of a political vendetta."

Yeah, I'll stipulate that good ole Sammy Fox knows something about political vendettas, since he funded one to the tune of $50,000, and even at this late date refuses to show any contrition about it.

Fuck Sammy Fox. It's no big loss to the diplomatic community, and at least now we won't have to worry about having to go to war with Belgium.

Timetable Flipflop

Here's a couple of dueling quotes:

Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. [Source]

It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away. [Source]

Sadly, in both cases the speaker was our own Baby Doc Bush, Der Monkey Fuehrer. The first time he was talking about Bill Clinton's commitment of troops to Kosovo, the second time was just yesterday at the National Cattleman's Beef Association.

So just who is the flipflopper, Mister Bush? I guess it makes a huge difference who the decider is, doesn't it?

Impeachment.

Now.

500+ Democrats, 35 Republicans

That's how many political corruption investigations that all 93 US Attorneys have pursued since the BFEE took the reigns of power in 2001. I don't know the exact number, but these are close enough.

But I'm sure that it's just a coincidence. It's because those nasty Dems are just rife with corruption and the Rethugs are as pure as the driven snow. Nope, nothing political there.

Nor was it political that the attorneys most active in pursuing Rethug corruption were by and large the ones who were fired. Nope, just another odd coincidence.

Bullshit.

Impeachment.

Now.

Venal Political Corruption

As if we needed any more proof of the base corruption of the Bush Crime Family, it came out in a congressional hearing the other day that Lurita Doan, the head of the US General Services Administration, called a meeting of all of her underlings nationwide and at that meeting presented a slide show created by none other than our old buddy Karl Rove.

In the course of that PowerPoint presentation, a slide came up on the screen that listed the top 20 Democratic house members who are being targeted for "elimination" in the 2008 elections. A little later there was a companion slide showing the top 20 Republicans sheduled for protection.

For those of you playing along at home, this is a clear violation of the Hatch Act of 1939, which specifically prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities. Ironically, it was a Republican senate that enacted the harshest parts of the act, which have been obviously, patently violated here.

Doan ought to be fired and charged with multiple violations. Bet she won't be, though. The fuckers seem to have entrenched themselves so totally that it will take a general housecleaning to clean them out.

Which means impeachment.

Now.

Saving Money the Old-Fashioned Way: Cheating

You got to hand it to the bozos in the military, they've come up with a unique way to cut costs: Just discharge everyone you can under Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: "Separation Because of Personality Disorder."

For the soldier who just wants to get the fuck out of the service and out of Iraq, it's a strong siren song. By accepting a 5-13 discharge, it's a free ticket home, without all that pesky red tape to slow things down.

The only problem is that a 5-13 discharge puts a scarlet letter on your chest, and you'll have a snowball's chance in hell of ever collecting VA disability.

Take the case of Specialist Jon Town, chillingly described on the always-valuable VA Watchdog website.

Long story short, Town was flattened by an explosive ordinance round that hit about two feet above his head. After the blood stopped flowing from his ears, he took a 5-13 so he could beat feet out of Dodge. Now he's plagued with PTSD and a perpetual headache. The VA's response? Tough shit.

Pre-existing condition, they say, and Specialist Town is fucked.

Multiply this by the over 22,000 service members who have been discharged under 5-13 just in the last six years and you have a potential savings that run into the billions.

Sad to say, none of this surprises me. It's just another in a long list of horrible examples of how the BFEE treats its soldiers of empire when they are no longer capable of hoisting the flag of conquest.

A "Perjury Trap"?

Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales has an aide named Monica Goodling, who has decided to take the Fifth Amendment instead of testifying before Congress on the whole US Attorney flap.

According to her lawyer, John Dowd, the hearings will amount to a "perjury trap" for Goodling. "One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," he said.

Hmmm, let's think about that: Scooter Libby was convicted of ... lying. Under oath. To a federal officer. Yep, sounds like a good ole perjury trap to me.

What's up with Goodling? All she needs to do is answer the questions truthfully. She does that, there's no perjury. End of story.

With so much at stake for Torquemada and indeed the entire BFEE, why in the hell would she do something that calls so much unwanted attention to her testimony? Could it be that the truth, if it comes out, would be so damaging, so devastating, that Baby Doc and his minions could never overcome it?

That's my guess. And now I am looking forward to a new "Monica Gate", but this time without all the salacious sexual details and a whole new level of evidence of venal corruption and rank incompetence.

Let the good times roll.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1033 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE ONLY ONE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Update: Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has just enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq?

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't Jenna and Not-Jenna be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. (Okay, I'll grant you they've got the partying/puking thing down, but come on...)

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Baby Doc to Congress: Go Fuck Yourselves

Citing, of all things, "constitutional issues", Der Monkey Fuehrer is stonewalling on letting Executive Branch evil mastermind Karl Rove, along with "coconut" (i.e. brown on the outside, white on the inside) Alberto Gonzales and "best person qualified for the Supreme Court" Harriet Meyers, testify at the congressional probe into the Pearl Harbor Day firing of US Attorneys.

Yeah, him citing constitutional issues is like the Ku Klux Klan agitating for civil rights for African-Americans.

And isn't it odd that the entire rightwingnuttery supporting him on this stupid decision are the very same ones who were howling just a short ten years ago that Clinton HAD to testify under oath, the president is not above the law, etc etc.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrite assholes.

If they have nothing to hide, why not let Rove et al. testify under oath? If it's not under oath, it's not testimony -- it's just a conversation.

Remember back in the good ole days of the Nixon Administration, when Tricky Dick tried basically the same thing, invoking "executive privilege" to provoke a constitutional crisis?

It didn't work then, and we shouldn't let it work now.

Unfortunately, it's my prediction that when it comes down to it, the BFEE-dominated Supreme Court will rule in favor of Baby Doc and that will be the end of it.

But we have another option: Impeachment and removal from office. Please drop by Democrats.com and sign the petition, if you haven't already.

Coincidentally (or not) Democratic Congressman and presidential contender Dennis Kucinich is considering introducing articles of impeachment. If he does, let's be of one voice: Remove the corrupt and evil bastards from office.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2019
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1470
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1419
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 361
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 248.

It is still 691 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Tin-Foil Hat? Maybe Not...

Over the years since 9-11 I've tended to ignore the various "tinfoil hat" conspiracy theories that have been floating around, but a good friend of mine turned me on to this YouTube video of live news coverage from both NBC and Fox News of the Flight 93 crash site.

Take a look at it. It is disturbing that not only were there no fragments of an airplane found at the site, but the "impact" crater is something like ten by fifteen feet.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am no fan of the American news media. Nor am I a fan of the current maladministration.

So I'm starting to reassess my opinions of 9-11 after watching this video. Now I am going to take a another look at the evidence in the Pentagon airplane strike.

As with the Kennedy Assassination (both of them), there may be more here than meets the eye. More here than either our government or our news media are willing to tell us.

Four Years

Today marks the four-year anniversary of the BFEE illegal occupation of Iraq.

What's it all meant?

• 3218 dead US soldiers
• 258 dead coalition forces soldiers
• 600,000+ dead Iraqis
• 30,000+ wounded, many of them severely, who have to come home to the criminal squalor that is Walter Reed
• And a lifetime of agonizing distress for the estimated 30% of them who will suffer PTSD.

Not to mention the billions of dollars washed down a rathole in the desert with the blood of American soldiers.

Let's take a moment to reflect on the wasted lives that George W. "I'm-a-war-prezdint" Bush has thrown away, just so he can prance around and prove that his dick is bigger than his daddy's.

That and the insane and obscene profits being raked in by Halliburton, who is still making payoffs to Darth Cheney.

And the wingnuttery is STILL obsessed with supporting Der Monkey Fuehrer. Like I've said before, if there was a verified YouTube video of Bush and Cheney stomping kittens to death, the likes of Sean "My-hair-is-bigger-than-my-brain" Hannity, mAnn "My-adams-apple-is-bigger-than-yours" Coulter and Rush "I'm-an-addled-drug-addict-on-Viagra" Limbaugh would find some way to justify it: They were terrorist kittens, and terrorist kittens grow up to be terrorist cats.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1026 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2012
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1463
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1412
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 354
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 241.

It is still 698 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Vietnam Veterans for What?

There's some malignant entity out there calling itself Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, and it first came to my attention in the 2004 election when it joined with the infamous Swift Boat Liars for Bush in spewing out baseless invective about the war record of John Kerry.

Now it is back in the "news", more or less, with a recent story on the rightwing Cybercast News Service, reprinted on a fundo Xian site calling itself Crosswalk, The Intersection of Faith and Life. There are also some articles originating with the VVAR on FreeRepublic and other sites of that ilk; you can pretty much tell where an "independent" organization lies by where they appear on the Internets.

The Fearless Leader of VVAR (and as far as I know, its only member), one dickwad "academic" named Leonard Magruder (who isn't even a Vietnam veteran!) is trying to shop around that same tired old lie that it was the media that "lost" the Vietnam War.

He also cites some 21 "standard histories and commentaries" to PROVE his allegations that the media snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

No, I have't examined the actual citations, but I'm pretty sure I don't need to. I am willing to bet good money, sight unseen, that they are of the same credibility and believability as those "scientific studies" that "prove" global warming is a hoax, a fraud, or worse.

My basis for this? Aside from its appearance only in wingnut media, this bogus outfit has, apparently, only one campus organization, and that at the University of Kansas.

You remember Kansas: Home of wacked-out homophobe Fred Phelps and a state school board that believes in fairy tales, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

And, the final capper on the reliability and trustworthiness of this fine organization? They are also pushing for the public school indoctrination of the scientifically bankrupt concept of "Intelligent Design".

Need I say more? Whenever you hear the words "academic reform", you can just about bet that it's another Orwellian-named entity that is actually pushing just the opposite philosophy.

So about the only thing I have left to say is this: Fuck you, Magruder, and your phony wingnut organization. If you're not a Vietnam veteran, you've got no business heading an organization called Vietnam Vets for Anything.

Kudos to Pete Stark

Just this last weekend a couple of my fellow Secular Humanist godless atheists and I were discussing the fact that an atheist is less likely to get elected to high office in this country than a member of Al Qaeda.

So it was an interesting coincidence to learn that Congressman Pete Stark of California has come out of the closet, so to speak, and announced that he is ... an atheist!!.

Naturally the fundo Xian media was all over this one, and I'm waiting for Bushdaddy to come out and say that Pete is not an American.

Now watch for the American Taliban to pour millions into the campaign coffers of Stark's opponent next year. Cain't have one o' them godless comonists elected to high office, no sirree bob.

The rest of us over here in the Reality-Based Community will need to keep an eye on this and maybe chip in a few bucks for Pete's campaign, if only to show those Xian motherfuckers that we're here, we have no fear, and we're not gonna take their crap any more.

Bitch-Slapping Darth Cheney

I know you've seen it already, since it's all over the blogosphere, but war hero and triple amputee Max Cleland smacked the shit out of Chickenhawk Dick with his "Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War?" tirade.

Note I said "blogosphere". So far the MSM/SCLM is strangely silent on it. Do a Google News search for "cleland cheney vietnam" and you'll see what I mean.

"Mistakes Were Made"

And that's pretty much all they've got to say about the US Attorney fiasco. Both Torquemada Gonzales and Baby Doc Bush used the same language, the very same phraseology. Mistakes were made.

Note the passive voice; translation: Although mistakes were made, WE didn't make them.

I work in state government and I can verify that that's the language of bureaucracy and avoidance. And the Rethugs call themselves the party of accountability, of personal responsibility.

Jesus...

Republican Family Values/Sancitity of Marriage Update

I heard on an Air America radio show last week (Rachel Maddow, I think) an interesting observation: Of those seeking the Rethug presidential nomination, three of the top four (Giuliani, McCain and Gingrich) have had, between them, eight wives.

Ironically, Mitt Romney, the Mormon in the race, has only one.

Weird.

A True Maverick Republican

Texas congressman Ron Paul just announced that he is running for president.

This is the same Ron Paul who penned in 2003 the infamous-in-Rethug-circles "We've Been Neoconned" article condemning the neo-con Stalinists who took over the Republican party.

Compared to John I-love-Jerry-Fallwell-so-much-I-kiss-his-sss-in-public McCain, who has spent the last couple of years sucking up to the Religious Right and pandering to the wingnut neocons, Ron Paul is a true maverick Republican.

I don't agree with a lot of his basically Libertarian positions on a number of issues, but it's really refreshing to see him enter the race. I wish him all the luck in the world and I might even send him a buck or two.

Just to keep the race interesting.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1019 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot: Word on the street has it that Jenna has written a book that she hopes will equal The Diary of Ann Frank. Jesus, give me a fucking break.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2005
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1456
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1405
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 347
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 234.

It is still 705 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

VA Backlog Now Six Months

The VA has a backlog of at least six months on disability cases, according to a new report.

That means that, unless he or she has some alternative means of support, the disabled vet has to go without even the bare necessities of life for half a year before the claim is even adjudicated. Actual payment will take even longer.

It's unconscionable, but it's not surprising. It's part and parcel of the Baby Doc Maladministration's shabby -- no, criminal -- treatment of veterans. It's that whole captalist-pig profit-driven positive-bottom-line people-are-raw-material mentality that has held the neocons in its grubby grip for years.

Take a look at what's happened to Social Security Disability: The first round of a claim is generally denied (over 90%!). Naturally a predictable percentage of these people accept their fate and go no further, for an immediate cost savings. Then, for the lucky few that are approved, finally, after they have slogged through an exhaustive appeal process, they finally get their money. If they haven't died or gone institutionally insane in the meantime.

And that lucky 10% who get their claims approved first time? Well, they find to their dismay that there is a five-month waiting period before they even get their first payment. And when that payment comes, there's no back pay for those five months.

Five fucking months?

Five months? Several years if you have to appeal? Who the hell can wait that long without an income? So what happens is that another large percentage of these people go back to work in spite of being disabled because they can't survive. Another huge cost savings for the system.

The VA disability program seems to be edging in this direction as well, all because this cheap-ass bunch of chickenhawk assholes refuse to honor this country's commitment to its veterans.

I've said it before, but I urge everyone to contact your elected representatives and demand that VA Health Care be a mandatory entitlement program, not subject to the budget whims of a veteran-hating president or a lip-service congress.

Radio Show Update

Today I was interviewed by phone for the PRI radio show Open Source. No guarantee that they'll use any part of the half-hour interview on next week's show, but I'll keep you all updated.

BTW, this came as the result of a reader post on this blog by the producer of the show. I guess none of us know who will see this stuff or what it will lead to.

Such is the Power of the People when it comes to the Internets. Which is why I have the sinking feeling that the Baby Doc Maladminstration is, even as we speak, trying to figure out ways to shut down all of us bloggers who are critical of Der Monkey Fuehrer's reign of error.

Famous Presidential Quotes

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The buck stops here.

-- Harry S Truman

Beware the influence of the military-industrial complex.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

-- John F. Kennedy

I'm the only president you've got.

-- Lyndon Johnson

I am not a crook.

-- Richard Nixon

Ouch. Who put that there?

-- Jerry Ford

Huh?

-- Ronald Reagan

Atheists are not Americans.

-- George H. W. Bush

I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

-- Bill Clinton

and finally:

They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.

-- George W. Bush

I'd say the level of presidential discourse has dropped somewhat over my lifetime. Whaddaya think?

Running Scared?

It's unusual enough to have just one US Attorney fired in the middle of a presidential term. When it's eight of them, and all of the fired on the same day, it ought to raise the red flags all the way from Hagåtña Guam to Eastport Maine.

With the Democratic takeover of congress in the last election, the BFEE knew that it was on the ropes. My guess is that these eight were targeted as being the most likely to entertain criminal charges against members of the Bush Crime Family.

So what to do, what to do?

Fire the lot of them. On, of all days, December 7, 2006.

Sixty five years to the day after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

And to make matters worse, one of the eight, David Iglesias of New Mexico, has testified that senator Pete Domenici leaned on him to influence a case he was pursuing.

It's gratifying to see that the Dems seem to be growing some spine in spite of themselves. These hearings will bear watching, if only to see Tony Snowjob do a lot of squirming in front of the White House Whore Press Corps when the truth finally oozes out.

BTW, it was another of those little hidden gems in the Orwellian-named Patriot Act that allowed Der Monkey Fuehrer to appoint "interim" US attorneys without Senate confirmation for an undefined -- i.e. indefinite -- period of time.

Jesus, it would have been nice if just a few of the fuckers in the House and Senate that passed this piece of shit would have taken just a little time to actually read it.

Taking It to the Streets

In 1981, during the late and unlamented reign of Saint Ronald, the VA health care system was in a shambles and had been for years. But the "trickle down" economic theories ("voodoo economics", according the description of one George Bush, who had a sudden epiphany to the contrary when he became St Ronald's sidekick) served to put the hobnail boots to it.

Descriptions of the VA hospitals in those days sound eerily familiar to today's readers: Moldy walls, dirty floors, a swarm of vermin, and complete denial by the administration that there was anything wrong.

Back then it took a catalyst to bring change. A man named Jim Hopkins, a real pissed-off veteran, drove his Jeep through the doors of the VA's Wadsworth Medical Center in LA and opened fire with an AR-14 into the photos of Reagan and Carter on the walls, and then to make it even more dramatic, also shot off a pistol and a shotgun.

Fortunately no one was injured, not even Hopkins when the police hauled him off in shackles. But he was shouting that Agent Orange was destroying his brain.

Back then we still had a media with some balls and a concept of investigative journalism. The Hopkins case turned into a national focus on the administration's denial of veterans, and specifically Agent Orange, PTSD and cuts in VA health care funding.

Hopkins died under mysterious circumstances in May of 1981, and his death sparked first a sit-in at the Wadsworth Center and then, after Reagan callously dismissed them as a bunch of whiners, it turned into a hunger strike.

When the strikers were ejected from the center by force, they regrouped in front of the White House and garnered international media attention that forced the world to focus on the shabby and unconscionable treatment of veterans in this country.

It was only after the embarrassment was too much for St Ronald that Congress negotiated a settlement.

And the result of that settlement as recognition of Agent Orange poisoning and PTSD.

Is it going to take another hunger strike on the part of this nation's veterans to bring about change to the VA health care system? Are we going to have to take it to the streets?

Oh, and you might want to remember the actions of St Ronald the next time one of your pinhead neocon reactionary friends tries that "Republicans take care of America's veterans" lie on you.

Source: See Killing Our Troops Slowly: Deja Vu All Over Again by Michael O'McCarthy.

Now Isn't That Special?

Today Paul Morin, the national kommandant of the American Legion, finally broke squelch and admitted that his hero in the White House, Der Monkey Fuehrer, along with his kool-aid drinking yes-men in the 109th congress, fucked up when it came to helping America's veterans:

"We are not pleased with the budget for the military and for the VA hospitals for our veterans," Morin said. "I blame the President and Congress for insufficient funding of the VA health care system."

Funny isn't it, that we have to read this on Think Progress, a leftwing blog. Funny isn't it that the SCLM is strangely silent on a potentially earth-shaking about face by the nation's largest veterans group. They didn't have any problems covering Baby Doc's speech to the American Legion convention, though, including the drumbeat flagwaving redmeat comments about freedom and democracy, blah blah blah.

And it's sad (but gratifying--don't get me wrong) that Paul Morin is finally fed up with his boy in the White House. Where was the outrage when the Swifties were viciously attacking John Kerry with venomous lies about his Vietnam service? Where was the concern over the last six years of continuing VA budget cuts and lying to the American people about the rationale for the Iraq War?

I'm tempted to tell Morin to fuck off (yet again), but it's probably best to welcome him over to the not-Dark Side with a little "better late than never" welcoming embrace. It's just too bad that it took something as blatantly unAmerican as the squalor that awaits the severely wounded in the Bush Crime Family war of agression against the Iraqi people.

Rumsfeld Knew About Walter Reed

Way back in fucking October Rummy's old lady, Joyce, saw firsthand the squalor and the degradation faced by American service men and women at Walter Reed hospital, according to a story in the The Australian:

Problems at Walter Reed have been known to officials at the highest level for some time. Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made a surreptitious visit to the hospital at the urging of a concerned friend last October.
She attended a support meeting for the wives and mothers of soldiers and heard their complaints. At the end of the meeting she asked a social worker whether her husband was getting the truth about conditions there or whether the soldiers he met were being hand-picked to paint a rosy picture. They were being hand-picked, the social worker replied.
When Walter Reed officials found out that Joyce Rumsfeld had been secretly invited, her friend - a frequent volunteer - was told she was no longer welcome at the hospital.

Go ahead and read the rest of it, and then ask yourself why we still have to get our important news from sources outside the SCLM in this country.

It's appalling. It's disgusting. It's fucking criminal. And motherfucking Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal who ought be frogmarched in front of the international court at The Hague.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1012 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

It's fucking disgusting, that's what it is.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

More on Kerry

Not to beat a dead horse, but this quote caught my eye: "We should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country."

That was John Kerry talking.

Unfortunately, that was him talking way back in April 1971 about the Vietnam War..

He hasn't said anything similar to that in the last few weeks. Or years.

In fact, he told members of the Boston Chapter of Veterans for Peace that he would NOT vote against the Supplemental Appropriations bill, which would effectively start to begin to bring a slowdown to the Iraq War by reducing the amount of increase for war funding. Kinda hard to follow, isn't it?

Democrats need to step up to the plate on stopping the war. John Kerry and the rest of the Dems can't have it both ways. The war has to stop, and it has to be the Democrats that do it. They'd best not forget that many of them were elected because of an anti-war feeling among their constituents.

Unfortunately, so many of them are feeding at the same war-machine troughs as their Rethug counterparts.

The best thing we can do is Remember in November (it's only next year, folks) and vote out each and every pro-war candidate. Rethug or Democrat, it doesn't matter.

You politicians are on notice: Unless you actively and vocally oppose the Iraq war, you don't get my vote.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166

Total coalition forces dead: 257
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1998
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1449
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1398
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 340
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 227.

It is still 712 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Kerry "a Hero", Faux News Ignores It

Yesterday a story came out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nomination of a rightwing asshole named Sam Fox. Fox was -- surprise -- a big fundraiser for Baby Doc during 2004, and these types are generally rewarded with some minor diplomatic post somewhere where they can't do much harm; this time it's ambassador to Belgium.

So in the hearing John Kerry -- with a fighting spirit we did not see in 2004 -- ripped the guy on his $50,000 donation to the Swift Boat Liars for Bush. And he wrung out of him an admission that John Kerry was, in fact, a Vietnam War hero.

Bob Geiger over at OpEdNews.com has reprinted a lengthy excerpt from the interchange between Kerry and Fox.

Here's a link to all of the news stories covering the hearing, and in the vast majority of them, the "you're a hero" quote is prominently mentioned.

Not on Faux News, though. Here's a link to their coverage. No hero status for their favorite political victim from 2004 in their coverage, thank you very much.

Oh, and Sam Fox's excuse for donating the cash to the Swifties? "I didn't know about it and besides, everybody else was doing it."

Jesus, what is this, third grade? Kerry is right -- this guy has so many ethical shortcomings that he should be a candidate for remedial social studies, not for representing our country as fucking ambassador, for crissakes.

What's Wrong With Our Schools?

They never had this kind of thing when I went to school (of course when I went to school, we had to bring a tote-sack full of coal each morning for the stove and we did our figures with chalk on slates).

Anyway, up in Methuen, Massachusetts on the New Hampshire border, at the alternative high school, they've recreated a part of the sixties: Vietnam War protesters, counter-protesters, even a mock arrest.

Read the full story for a peek into the kind of learning that wasn't available to us back in the day. And apparently isn't available except to a so-called "alternative" high school.

One of the problems with Education Inc. in this country is that they are failing to engage our youth in anything meaningful. It's kind of bound up in the whole testing-our-students-failing-our-schools No Child Left Behind (aka No School Left Standing) crapola, but if "regular" schools were able to engage students the way alternative schools do, we would be a whole lot better off.

One size fits all doesn't work at the mall, doesn't work at the auto repair shop, doesn't work at the pizza parlor, and it certainly doesn't work in our schools.

Return of the Swifties. Again.

Just to show you that you can't keep a bad idea down, members of the infamous Swift Boat Liars for Bush are sticking their pointy snoots into the marketplace of ideas again, this time to discuss something they are calling "The Left’s Repeated Campaign Against The American Soldier".

Yeah, like it was "the left" that mismanaged the two-war-front, that sent men into battle without proper equipment, that underfunded the VA, that allowed Walter Reed to fall into such shameful state, etc etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseum.

Our good buddy George Bud (aka "The Liar", aka "Brain Damaged from NVA Torture") Day is again in the forefront of this movement, as is one US Rep Sam Johnson of Texas, who made a speech just the other day basically calling any attempt to curtail funding for the Iraq war "treason".

Apparently ole Sam just plumb forgot that he was one of the "traitors" of the right who supported withholding Bosnia funds in 1995. Yeah, he's a BIG supporter of "the troops", all right. Like I've said before, it all depends on who's yer preznit.

Fuck these assholes. They are beneath contempt, but the sad thing is that they are luring many of my fellow veterans into their snare, just like they did in 2004 and the Kerry smear campaign of lies.

The only thing we can do is fight back against the motherfuckers with everything we've got. You know, the way Kerry didn't fight in 2004.

Assassination Attempt? Yeah, Right.

So we're being told that the Taliban attempted a suicide-bomber assassination of VP Crashcart while he was making an unscheduled overnight stay at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

How convenient -- how fucking convenient -- that the Taliban had this guy already in place, armed and primed, locked and loaded, ready and waiting for his prey to show up. Waiting for years before his intended victim appeared on the scene.

And how unfortunate -- how fucking unfortunate -- for them that the poor fucker couldn't even get past the main gate and had settle for blowing himself up there.

Okay, does anyone else think this story stinks? First of all, take a look at Bagram Air Base and see how far away the front gate is from everything else, including any reasonable place where Cheney might have been at the time of the explosion (hint: the front gate is way down there at the lower left corner).

Of course the Taliban is taking credit for it, strutting around like Flight-deck Dubya, but is it truly believable that the intended target was Darth Cheney? I don't think so.

Once again, it's pure bullshit, political theater to show the Moron-American voting bloc how dangerous the world really is, how much the Democrats don't "get it", and if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1005 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney crowd and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who allowed other men to go off to war and die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

It's fucking disgusting, that's what it is.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Harry will soon be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna.

Will they follow him? The other Bush children? No, none of them will. They are all fucking cowards like Baby Doc Bush and Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

As The Yellow Elephant continues to ask, "It's their war -- why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1991
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1442
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1391
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 373
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 220.

It is still 719 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

A Gathering of Eagles?

Word on the street has it that a gang of veterans calling itself a Gathering of Eagles is going to show up at the Vietnam memorial on March 17, the day of the 2007 March on the Pentagon. Wearing armbands.

Their stated purpose is allegedly to keep the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Jane Fonda from spitting on Iraq veterans again and throwing paint on the Vietnam memorial. This "story" is all over the wingnut Internets, including a blog calling itself ProgressiveU(!). Take a look and tell me what is so fucking progressive about this Faux-News-watching Rethug-sucking talking-points-spouting Kool-aid-drinking knuckle-dragging asshole.

Okay, enough name-calling. Back to the point: We've all beaten the whole "spitting on veterans" meme to death on this blog already, but throwing paint on the Vietnam memorial? That's a new one on me.

I don't believe that it has ever happened -- there was red paint (symbolizing blood) poured on the steps of the capitol building as I recall during the last demonstration, and back during the Vietnam War protests, actual blood was poured on occasion -- see for example, the Berrigan Brothers pouring blood on the draft records in Baltimore. But as far as I know, the Vietnam memorial has not been splattered with anything.

So my question is this: Can anyone seriously picture Cindy Sheehan, of all people, (or even Jane Fonda, for that matter) actually spitting on an Iraq veteran? Throwing red paint on the Vietnam memorial?

The answer is no, no rational person believes that. So just where are these bogus threats coming from?

From the diseased, weak-minded and insane imaginations of that good ole vast wingnut conspiracy, of course. And from the thinking-impaired socially-retarded shrunken-head brains of a bunch of can't-get-over-it Vietnam vets who still blame Jane Fonda for losing the Vietnam War. Never mind that inconvenient and pesky fact that 99% of the Hanoi Jane stories are PROVEN to be false. In short, they are lies that are still being circulated by the rightwing We-Hate-Jane crowd.

But back to the gathering storm of eagles. I think these self-described "eagles" actually just want to show up and strut around in their armbands and jackboots to intimidate people, kind of like a bunch of other guys I can think of, who also were notorious for suppressing free speech and calling anyone who disagreed with The Leader a traitor...

Gathering of eagles? Uh-huh. More like a Konvocation of Kleagles.

A Royal Offspring to Spring Off to War?

I've had a regular feature on this blog since the very first day, my Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform Watch, where I have maintain a countup of the days that have elapsed (now 999)since the poster girls for the slacker set graduated college.

Now persistent news stories out of the UK are claiming that Prince Harry, bad-boy royal and third in line for the throne of England, is scheduled to ship out with his regiment to Iraq as early as next month.

Time Magazine (which I otherwise hardly ever even glance at, for reasons that should be obvious) has a good story, When the Windsors Go to War, that's worth taking a look at.

All of the critics who claim that having the Bush twins in uniform would just serve as a distraction, a liability, potential targets for enemy combatants and don't-calle-it-a-civil-war insurgents ought to read the article and see what Andrew, the previous owner of the title of Bad-Boy Prince, had to say about his experience as a chopper pilot in La Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War).

Now all we need to do is get those twins and the other able-bodied chickenhawk yellow elephants off their lazy asses and into uniform.

Bookends

I see that Der Monkey Fuehrer spent President's Day at Mount Vernon, home of the person he referred to as the "first George W."

Give me a break from the arrogance already. But it does make an interesting set of bookends: The first president, who could not tell a lie, and the last president, who cannot tell the truth.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 998 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Quotes from the American Taliban

I've ranted and raved before in this blog about the American Taliban, but I just stumbled onto a terrific website that brings together a large number of quotations from the various spokesmen of the most frightening political phenomenon since the Salem witch hunts.

A few samples:

"Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed"

-- mAnn Coulter

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed."

-- Randall Terry

"Democracy originated in the mind of a rational being who has the deepest hatred for God."

-- Robert T. Lee

There's a lot more from this scary bunch of motherfuckers -- check it out.

We must remain vigilant and keep that wall of separation between church and state. We relax our vigilance at our own peril. These assholes are playing for keeps.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1984
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1435
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1384
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 366
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 213.

It is still 726 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Timetables? We Don't Need No Stinking Timetables.

My oh my, how things can change. More from our Department of Dueling Quotes.

Here's one from 1999:

Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. [source]

Got that?

Okay, fast forward to yesterday:

There will be no timetable set... And the reason why is because we don't want to send mixed signals to an enemy or to a struggling democracy or to our troops [source]

You have probably guessed it already, but the speaker in both cases was our very own Baby Doc Bush, who seems to have been born, as Ann Richards had it, with silver foot in his mouth.

Makes a big difference when the president is a Rethug, doesn't it?

Republican War Veterans Lead Defense of Bush

At least that was the headline for the International Herald Tribune story.

Several members of the House who are veterans are sticking by Der Monkey Fuehrer through thick and thin, it appears, having drunk the Kool-aid early on and are now addicted to it. It's all over the whole "nonbinding" Iraq resolution issue.

One Geoff Davis, a West Point graduate (naturally) says, "this nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats' political base and lowering morale in our military."

This was quickly countered by the Majority Whip, James Clyburn of South Carolina: "The victory to be won in Iraq is not a military conquest."

I'm still with Jack Murtha on this one, who wants to forbid the Pentagon from sending more "unless they have adequate training and unless they have adequate equipment.".

It's time to redeploy. Over the horizon.

The Dollar Coin Makes (Another) Comeback

I'll admit it, I'm a big fan of the dollar coins. I tend to buy them by the roll so I can have them handy in my pocket change. Unfortunately they never caught on with the general public, and here's the main reason why: There are still dollar bills being made. People are creatures of habit and by and large won't change their ways until they have to.

The only way to get public acceptance of the dollar coin is to stop making the dollar bill. This happened in Canada and Australia, where the smallest bill is the $5 denomination. Same thing in the UK with the demise of the pound note.

But I've got a feeling that that will happen about the time we adopt the metric system. People are too resistant to change. It's a good thing that not everyone feels that way. Otherwise we'd never have developed vaccinations ("My father died of smallpox and it's good enough for me!") or put the first man on the moon.

BTW, a new email is going around about the new dollar coins is that they are part and parcel of the secular humanist attempt to drive god out of government: The motto "In God We Trust" is alleged to be missing from the coins.

As usual with this kind of crap, it's total bullshit. While I personally would much prefer that the motto be banished from public discourse, in this case I don't get my way. It's still on the coins, but it's on the edge, along with the usual e pluribus unum and the year of issue. See the Snopes article for the facts.

Nebraska Vietnam/Korean War Museum Hoaxer Busted

I'd never heard of this story, but the attorney general for the state of Nebraska has reached an agreement with one Kyle Kopitke over multiple attempts to defraud the veterans of Nebraska (and apparently Mr. Kopitke has been a very busy boy, trying to set up other bogus veterans museums in other states as well).

Long story short, Kopitke has admitted defrauding veterans, has returned various items of memorabilia, and was slapped around royally by the state attorney general: "Mr. Kopitke is a professional con-artist who made a living off the sacrifices of Nebraska veterans ... He can never take advantage of another veteran in Nebraska again."

Sadly, the fucker spent all the money he collected and the state chose not to get a judgment against him for the cash. Okay, so beating a dead horse won't do anything for the horse, but it can make you feel better. I say get the judgment anyway -- you never know, he might win a lottery, have a rich uncle die, marry into wealth, etc. You just never know.

Restoring the Constitution 2007

Okay, so it's an election year and part of it may be just posturing, but Christopher Dodd, Democratic senator from Connecticut (which happens to not be one of my favorite states right now) is introducing something called the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 which, as the name implies, would restore at least parts of the Constitution that have been in major part abandoned by the Baby Doc Maladministration.

But cynical political ploy or not, it deserves our support. Please contact your senators and representatives and tell them that you support the bill.

Keep Your Fucking Nose Out of It

John Howard, the conservative PM of Australia, stuck his nose into American politics over the weekend, claiming that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for Al Qaeda.

What a sorry joke he is, even among his own people. I spent a month in Australia in early 2004 and I didn't meet anyone who actually liked him, who actually supported him. But they've got that weird parliamentary system down there, so the only people who actually have to like and support him are those in his home district. They keep reelecting him, and the majority party keeps appointing him Prime Minister. (However, one likely scenario has him losing his next election -- his home district demographics are changing to work against him.)

Anyway, I think Obama had the right response to the fucker: "If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home. It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices."

In the meantime, Mr. Howard, you can keep your fucking nose out of American politics. With The Poodle still in the UK, you don't have a dog in this fight and we don't give a fat rat's ass what you think about our elections.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 991 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

The Most Important Anniversary You Never Heard Of

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's Everson v. Board of Education decision, wherein something unique and, viewed from today's vantage, rather strange happened.

The entire court, while splitting 5-4 on the merits of Everson, came together to enunciate -- unanimously -- the following position on the Establishment Clause of the US Constitition:

The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation' between Church and State.

And there you have it, in stark black and white: The entire US Supreme Court, liberal and conservative alike, in complete agreement that there is, in fact, a "wall of separation" between church and state.

Remember that the next time one of your fundo Xian buddies starts yapping about putting "god" back in government and misrepresenting the "intent of the framers" about whether this is a nation founded on religion.

It's startling -- and alarming -- to realize how far we have drifted away from what used to be settled case law, and how fragile that wall of separation has become with the recent rash of Scalia-clone Supreme Court justices.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118

Total coalition forces dead: 256
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1977
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1428
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1377
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 359
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 206.

It is still 733 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

40 Years for Porn? More WTF

Jesus, what the fuck is it with Connecticut? As if re-electing Joementum Lieberman wasn't embarrassing enough, now there's the Norwich teacher porn case that reeks -- stinks to high heaven -- of an egregiously outrageous miscarriage of justice.

You can read the whole story and its followup article, but briefly Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in a middle school (it wasn't even a fucking grade school), was the victim of a porn cascade.

A porn cascade, for those not in the know, used to occur with alarming regularity in the days before popup blockers, firewalls, virus shields and the like. Without you knowing really what had triggered it, suddenly your computer would be taken over by porno zombies and start popping up screen after screen after screen of pornography. Every time you shut one down, two more would pop up.

So our poor sub was victimized by this. And not only victimized by this, but subsequently by the school board and the county prosecutor, along with a jury whose members were apparently so fucking stupid that they believed the prosecutor's lies about computers.

Without going into a long diatribe about it, I've worked with computers for the last 25+ years and I can tell from the prosecutor's arguments that either he's never seen one before, or he has a hidden agenda to run for statewide office on a get-tough-on-crime-and-let's-start-with-pornography ticket.

One of the prosecutor's arguments that apparently held sway with the jurors: You have to click on the links to get the pages.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit. I'm actually surprised that anyone would really believe that. But, on the other hand, maybe these people have never actually seen or heard of a porn cascade. After all, with modern equipment and software, they don't happen very much any more.

Modern equipment, modern software.

But do I really need to point out the fact that the computer in question was running a system so old as to be an antique: Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5, no popup blockers, no virus protection, no spamblockers and no firewall?

And that's the fault of the school district, not this poor sub who tried to prevent the students from seeing the screen while she panicked out and tried to make it stop. The prosecutor's argument? She could have just unplugged it. So that's the bottom line? She's facing 40 years in the graybar hotel with a cellmate named Butch for not unplugging it????

The friends and family of teacher Julie Amero have set up a website at http://julieamer.blogspot.com for contributions to her legal defense fund. Please drop by and give a few bucks for a worthy cause.

Let's all stand up for what is right and help overturn this outrageous injustice.

Apparently Size Does Matter

No one had a problem with Denny Make-That-Three-Triple-Cheeseburgers Hastert having a Pentagon jet in which to commute between DC and Chicago. It was deemed necessary and expedient for someone who is, after all, second in line to the presidency, to have secure transportation.

But what happens when the Dems take control and the Speaker of the House is suddenly a liberal? A woman? From San Francisco?

The House Rethugs are suddenly all over her for having the fucking nerve to expect the same thing her predecessor had: An airplane that can fly her non-stop from DC to her home district.

Their main objection? The size of the plane. The one she's asking for is bigger than Hastert's.

That's it. Never mind the fact that it has to be bigger since it has to fly farther. Oh, no.

Thankfully for the humor community, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Dickwad) has now rung in on the size issue. The headline: "Boehner Stiffs Pelosi".

Now if only Roy Blunt (R-Moron) would join him, the headlines could read "Pelosi Gets Blunt Boehner"...

Do Your Fucking Job. Again.

More people are refusing to do their jobs. A news story today reveals that many doctors not only do not advise patients about things that the doctor has issues with, such as birth control or abortion, but they also don't refer those patients to other health care providers who might be more liberal in their treatment options.

Like cab drivers, pharmacists and others who are licensed to operate in the public good, these people have no goddam business imposing their weird religious beliefs on people who rely on them for the services they are licensed to provide.

Once again, do your fucking job or get a different one.

Starting the Discussion on the "T" Word

I'll admit up front that since the 2004 VP debate, I'm not a big fan of John Edwards. His dismal nonperfomance in that puppet show marked one of the lowest points in a Democratic campaign that was nothing but low points.

That said, though, props to Edwards for bringing up the dreaded "T" word. Every responsible analyst/economist agrees, maybe not in public, that the only way to turn around this country and start paying off the horrendous debt that the BFEE has saddled us with is to ... raise taxes.

Health care is a good place to start. Something HAS to be done with the health care system in this country, and it's a source of international shame that we are the very last industrialized nation that hasn't instituted some kind of national health care system.

Edwards' proposal is actually a fairly decent one, and a good place to start the discussion.

And Speaking of Iran...

Here's something we need to see before we start dropping bombs and launching missles.

Make sure your speakers are plugged in and turned on.

Remember the ... QM2?

You know the saying everything old is new again.

"Remember the Maine" got us into the Spanish American War. The sinking of the Lusitania got us into WWI.

I see that Cunard's new luxury liner, the Queen Mary 2, has Dubai as one of its regular ports of call. (Cunard was also, BTW, the owner of The Lusitania)

Dubai, for those who are still geographically challenged, is INSIDE THE FUCKING PERSIAN GULF. You have to go through the infamous 21-mile-wide Straits of Hormuz to get there.

The Persian Gulf. Only one of the hottest spots on the planet for things-that-can-go-wrong. And the US is steadily increasing its naval presence there. Which is why there's an admiral in charge (see my previous post on this question).

So can't anyone see that a luxury liner registered in a nation that is part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing"
might just turn out to be a target of convenience for every whirling dervish Al Qaeda hashashin with access to a sea kayak and a backpack full of C4?

Or for a double-super-secret agent under the control of the BFEE to sabotage in a floating version of the Reichstag Fire, in order to provoke an attack against ... Iran.

Think about it.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 985 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And everybody else, be sure to check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 -- That's 62 in just two weeks!

Total coalition forces dead: 253
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1970
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1421
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1370
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 352
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 199.

It is still 740 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

And Even More on Spitting

Coincidentally, as I was composing the previous blog entry, I got a post on my old "spitting on vets" post. Someone who prefers to hide behind anonymity cites a reference to an alleged CBS news story from December 1971 that "proves" that Vietnam vets were spit on. And based on this single citation he claims that "hundreds" of Vietnam vets were victims of expectorant attacks.

Okay, I'll bite. I looked at the source. Just as I suspected, it is not a documented contemporary account. It's just some guy saying after the fact that he was spit on at the Seattle airport on his way back from Vietnam. There were no arrests, no incident reports filed by airport security or local police, no contemporary newspaper accounts, nothing. Just one guy's after-the-fact claim.

Some proof.

Saying so does not make it so. When I came back from Vietnam in 1969, we landed at Travis Air Force in California. Then we were loaded on busses and carted off to the Oakland Army Terminal for processing out. Finally I took a taxi to the San Francisco airport and caught a flight to Seattle.

So I went through both of the airports that figure prominently in most of those "spitting on veterans" stories, without incident. So did my fellow Vietnam vets; out of all the veterans that I know -- and I know a lot of them -- NO ONE has reported that they were spit on.

And when you think about it, just how would anyone know you had just returned from Vietnam? Why were no other soldiers, sailors or Marines in uniform spat on? If they were, why haven't they reported it? It seems to me that those rabid leftwing pinko-commie antiwar protesters full of spit and looking for a place to explode wouldn't be that discerning.

After I returned I went back to college and became active in the anti-war movement. No one I ever met in the movement called me a baby-killer or spit on me. Quite the contrary, returning vets held a special cachet because it was felt that we had been there and seen it all, and we could speak with authority. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in the early days before the ideological split, were honored with prominent spots in the antiwar rallies and demonstrations.

Ironically, it was the warhawks who dissed the Vietnam vets. I've said before that we were made to feel uncomfortable in the American Legion and the VFW -- they looked at us as losers, slackers and stoned-out druggies who were unable to win our own war the way they had won theirs.

So if anyone was routinely disrespecting Vietnam vets, it was not the anti-war movement. Let's get that straight once and for all.

Okay. But let's just say, for argument's sake, that the CBS story is correct, and he actually was spit on by an anti-war protester at the Seattle airport.

So what? One incident proves nothing. One incident is just that, one incident. It certainly does not serve as the basis for the blanket statement you see everywhere, that Vietnam vets were routinely spit on when we returned.

It's easy to see why the rightwing wants to promote this canard. But it's sad to see so many of my fellow vets buying into it and manufacturing false memories of it happening to them.

Remember, there is ZERO evidence that these spitting incidents ever occurred. None. Not a single arrest, police report or newspaper/media account contemporary with the event.

If you can find one (and not some bogus after-the-fact reminiscence), send it to me and I will eat my words.

Spitting. Again.

Jesus, will it never end. As I've said before in this blog, claims of spitting on veterans has become a shorthand way to denigrate anti-war protesters. Only problem is, it never happened to troops coming back from Vietnam and it isn't happening now.

One-legged Iraq War veteran Private Joshua Sparling, however, seems to be proud of the fact that he has been a one-man spittoon. Sparling has claimed that on numerous occasions he's been spat upon by protesters.

At the risk of sounding like a parrot, bullshit bullshit billshit.

Sparling is a professional Rethug agitator who hangs out with the likes of Sean Hannity and Ann "Thrax" Coulter. He shows up belligerent and obnoxious at anti-war rallies, actually trying to provoke someone into spitting on him. Trouble is, no one will actually do it, so he's reduced to just making shit up. Hey, they eat that up over in rightwing cuckoo-land.

One of the problems with his whole shtick, though, is that it only serves to resurrect the completely discounted urban legend about Vietnam veterans being spat on. In airports. On their way home from Vietnam.

Remember that not one single case of a Vietnam veteran being spat upon has ever been documented. But that doesn't matter, since proof and evidence are the province of the reality-based community. It still shows up in any simple Google News search.

Check out the full story of Joshua Sparling over at AlterNet. It's not a pretty sight, but someone needs to call out the fucker on his lies. And he can stop waving that bloody stump around -- he hasn't sacrificed nearly as much as 3085 of his fellow soldiers.