New Mother of Twins -- at Age 60???

More news from the world of the wacky: This week a 60-year-old woman gave birth to twins in New Jersey.

Sixty??? Twins???

So why would she do that?

It's not like she suddenly missed a couple of periods and turned up pregnant. She actually had to go to South Africa to have in-vitro fertilization (presumably because no rational fertility doctor in this country would countenance it).

It's also not like she didn't already have children -- the twins join a happy family of 33, 29 and 6-year-old siblings

What it is apparently all about is sending a message: She says she was on a mission to let women know they have choices(!).

Jesus, I'm all in favor of empowering women to do what they want, to be all they can be, etc etc, but having twins at 60 to prove a point is a little much.

It's also more than a little selfish. And stupid. When those twins get to the "evil teenager" stage in 14 years or so, this woman -- if she's unlucky enough to still be alive -- will be 74 years old.

And if she does die before they get there, they will be warped by the "untimely" loss of their mother.

I have often railed about men my age -- people I know even -- going insane and fathering children late in life, so it's not her gender that is at issue. It's about selfishness and irresponsibility and what is best for a child. It's hard enough for people in their thirties and forties to raise children -- I can't imagine what it would be like at my age.

Children, in order to survive and thrive, need -- have to have -- two strong and active parents in their lives (completely regardless of their marital status, race or gender). These poor kids will sooner rather than later have neither, and it will devolve to their older siblings to raise them after the parents check out an early age due to the stress of keeping up twins. And it will create resentment in them to be saddled with this task by their own irresponsible parents.

I feel the worst for the twins. No matter what happened, those two are pretty much screwed up from the get-go.

"Mistakes Were Made"

Jesus, that's starting to sound like a leitmotif with the BFEE. That and "I don't recall" or my favorite, "I don't recall remembering that"...

So little Monica Goodling, one-time rising star in the Justice Department, and graduate of the Fundo-Xian Regence University "law" school, basically said that in her testimony today.

"I may have crossed the line" when it came to questioning applicants about their political beliefs.
And that's pretty much as close as she came to admitting anything even marginally illegal.

So I've got to wonder, why the big deal about taking the Fifth? Why the bargaining for limited immunity if this is all she's got? Yeah, she did break the law in erecting that litmus test, but she claims she didn't do it intentionally, she thought they were "rules", etc.

Well, that may be all of it, but I doubt it. I'm guessing that there's a lot more, and she is stonewalling.

After all, in the minds of the graduates of Regence University, this nation is in the grip of Satan and it's their job to wrestle the devil for the soul of the nation. What's a little perjury when it's done for the greater good.

Read the excerpts from her testimony over at Think Progress and see what you think.

And remember, Monica is not the only member of the current maladminstration who is a product of that fine academic instution -- there are some 150 others, all in impossibly high posts in the federal government, acting as sleeper cells for the Xian Revolution.

It's pretty scary stuff, and if they succeed in their goals of turning this into a Xian theocracy, people like me will be disappeared.

Sir! No Sir!

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Sir! No Sir!, an excellent documentary on the anti-war movement within the military during the Vietnam War, and I highly recommend it, not only to those who were there and those who only watched it on tv, but especially to those who weren't alive yet and who have been spoon-fed a fake history of the Vietnam War Resistance movement.

It was on the Sundance Channel, and I hope they will show it again. If not, it's on DVD and you can request your local video outlet to order a copy, if they don't have one already. Or even buy your own copy -- it's worth having in your collection.

These days, with the wholesale rewriting of the history of the Vietnam War (spitting on returning veterans, we could have won if it hadn't have been for the wimpy peacenik protesters/the media/the Democrats/name your villain) that has occurred over the intervening years, it's a refreshing look at the volatile anti-war movement that was taking place inside the military, beginning with, of all people, Green Berets, very early on. And it will amaze some and shock others to learn how widespread the anti-war movement became as the war ground on.

I'd like it to be mandatory viewing for all high school students, especially those in history class who are studying the Vietnam War.

Get it, see it, share it. It's worth the time.

NSPD 51, and Why You Should Care

You gotta hand it to the fuckers in the BFEE, for the most secretive maladministration in memory, they can be pretty upfront and above-board with a lot of their unconstitutional grab for power crap.

Take for example, May 9th's National Security Presidential Directive 51 (it's right there on the White House website) containing within it the Orwellian-named Enduring Constitutional Government (ECG), which is defnined as meaning "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers".

Get that? "Proper" respect for the separation of powers. Under whose definition? Well, that would be The Preznit himself, and we've seen the respect he shows for the separation of powers. And what's "cooperative" mean? If they don't want to cooperate, is it off to the stadium to prepare for a trip to Gitmo?

The directive would kick in basically any time Baby Doc feels it is necessary; all he has to do is declare a "Catastrophic Emergency" -- which by definition in the directive itself means "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

Now how fucking vague is that? A hurricane in Mexico? An ice storm in Canada? Pakistan dropping the big one into the men's room at the Taj Mahal? Even a precipitous drop in the value of the dollar against the Euro.

Any and all of these can be interpreted within the broad confines of this directive.

Note that it doesn't have to be on American soil. Anywhere on the planet (and probably off of it) is fair game for this far-reaching directive.

This goes way beyond the end-run around habeas corpus codified in the so-called Patriot Act.

This is nothing less than a blueprint for instituting martial law in the United State -- with Der Monkey Fuehrer himself at the top. Even Tricky Dick Nixon didn't go this far with his infamous Houston Plan, which provided for, among other things, extra-legal wiretaps, agents provocateur, and the rounding up of potential "subversives".

Call to action: call your congressman and your senators and tell them to take steps to nullify this blatant attempt to subvert our democracy and install officially the theocratic fascism of the Bush Family Evil Empire.

We can do no less.

Dropping the F-Bomb: Bye-bye Johnny

Jesus, what the fuck is it with these family-values Rethugs? First Darth Cheney unloads a big "fuck you" on Pat Leahy on the floor of the Senate, and now John "I'm-Not-Really-a-Madman-I-Just-Play-One-on-TV" McCain tells fellow senator -- and fellow Rethug -- John Cornyn "fuck you".

Poor John McCain. I could almost weep a small tear for the fucker, if I thought he deserved it. Mister Straight Talk has turned into Mister Dirty Talk, and it's painful watching him demolish his political career like this.

Live and direct, only on Pay-per-View, the self-immolation of John McCain. See it now.

So goodbye, Johnny. You are a pathetic shell of that swaggering jet pilot POW who came home from years of torture and built a political career on it. I used to have a modicum of respect for you, back in 2000 when you appeared to be the last best hope for keeping the nation out of the grasp of the BFEE.

But when you rolled over and took it in the ass from Der Monkey Fuehrer, after what Karl Rove and the Bush Crime Family evil minions had done to you in the 2000 primaries, I lost all respect for you.

And you only made it worse when you started pandering to the Jerry Falwells on the religious right, in an ignoble flip-flopping humiliation to somehow try to pry loose some of that Xian cash. Like you actually could.

Now you're just an embarrassment. Get off the stage before they bring in the vaudeville hook and drag you off.

Oh, and Johnny: Try going to the VA to get some PTSD counseling, and while you're at it, take an anger management class.

You've got some serious problems, dude.

Offshoring the News

If this wasn't making the rounds in a bunch of legitimate news sources, I'd assume that it came out of someplace like The Onion.

In little old Pasadena, California, the online news source Pasadena Now has outsourced its local reporting to, of all places, India.

Yes, that's local reporting. No, I don't know how it's going to work, how they will cover the city council meetings, for example, or the smell of sewer gas in the library, or the pothole question.

But I suspect that this is just the first step in another outsourcing surge. I'm sure that Big Media is watching carefully, to see if they can start outsourcing their own news.

And, come to think of it, why not? What's left of the Fourth Estate in this country is, by and large, is nothing more than release-reading sycophant mouthpieces for government flacks like Tony Snowjob. Why not get some poor Hindi to do that for a dollar a day rather than paying some high-priced administration-ass-kissing hack like...well, like pretty much on the staff of Faux News?

It wouldn't surprise me if Rupert Murdoch, after he scoops up the Wall Street Journal to add to his China-appeasing dead-white-girl-flogging liberal-baiting "news" empire, starts hiring offshore news anchors.

But, since he is in love with Red China, it'll probably not be East Indians that he hires.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1089 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: 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.

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, the 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 the Twins 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, until the decision was made not to send him, was on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. But even though he's not on his way to The Sandbox, he's still in uniform

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409

Total coalition forces dead: 274
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2076
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1576
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1476
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: 397
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 302.

It is still 634 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

A-Hah!!! JFK Assassination Conspiracy

Although I'm not one to adopt tin-foil-hat theories easily, I have been a student and critic of the JFK Assassination for 42 years, almost since it happened.

I bought the Warren Report when it was released in 1965 (though sadly not the accompanying multiple volumes of evidence) and I was immediately struck by the total unlikelihood of the now-infamous "magic bullet theory".

So it is with great satisfaction that I note in the news that top scientists -- including the FBI's own metallurgist -- have concluded that the bullet fragments at the scene most likely came from three or more bullets.

Three bullets = more than one shooter. For those who are familiar with the assassination and all of its evidence, it can't happen any other way.

More than one shooter? Conspiracy.

3400 Dead Americans

This can't wait for my regular Friday feature, Friday by the Numbers.

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Report reported today that the American troop death toll just reached 3400.

That's 3400 American families who have lost a son, a daughter, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, even grandparents, to this stupid and senseless occupation of Iraq.

When is enough enough? When will we say "no more"?

Bring the troops home.

Now.

The VA -- Just When You Think it Can't Stink More

A few days ago I railed against the bonuses for VA officials that totaled some 3.8 MILLION dollars. I was outraged enough over that, but now it turns out that a lot of those very same officials sat on review boards that recommended the bonuses.

Jesus, what is it with these people? Has the stink of corruption and cronyism gotten so bad that nobody can smell it any more?

And yeah, yeah, VA Commissar Jim Nicholson says there's no conflict of interest, blah blah blah, and the bonuses are needed to keep the top people, yada yada yada.

At the risk of sounding like an obsessive-compulsive parrot with Tourette's, BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHT!

Public service is a calling -- it's not supposed to be a way to suck extra money out of a VA system that is already operating in the red, that takes months to process a claim, that is overworked and understaffed at the local VA hospital level.

Nicholson can take his weak-assed explanation and shove it. If it sounds like bullshit and looks like bullshit and stinks like bullshit, it's bullshit.

Prince Harry -- No Iraq for You

So it turns out after all that Prince Harry will not be going to Iraq with his regiment. According to a Guardian Q&A, the situation in Iraq is too dangerous and Harry would have been a prime target for insurgent kidnappers.

Well, yeah, that's true. That and the fact that Iraq is also too dangerous for the rank-and-file troops that are already there, and the "surge" has created more violence.

Hmmm, surge...more violence. Did anyone besides me think that throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out was maybe the wrong idea?

So back to Harry. I blame the obsessive paparazzi news media more than anything else. They would be all over the place trying to cover each and every move the young troop commander would make, and all the bad guys would have to do to score points would be to start lobbing explosives into the middle of a gaggle of media hypes. Chances are Harry would be in there somewhere.

So I basically agree with the British Army's decision, especially since they are now in the stealth process of trying to disengage while still saving face. The Coalition of the Willing Bribed has been distancing itself from the illegal occupation of Iraq for months now. Pretty soon it's going to be only US troops sacrificing themselves for the advancement of the Oil Empire.

Thank You, Buzzflash

I suddenly got a ton of comments on my Weekly Bush Twins in Uniform this week, and I wondered why. Turns out that Buzzflash, my favorite news site, featured it on their front page yesterday.

Naturally most of the comments are anonymous and a lot consist of vicious attacks on my personal character (one pathetic loser even accused me of "spitting on veterans").

In the words of Fearless Leader, "bring it on".

Just remember, though, that I have only two rules: (1) I don't respond to anonymous sniper blowhards, and (2) I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1082 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: 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.

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, the 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 the Twins 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 -- it's now official -- is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387

Total coalition forces dead: 273
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2069
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1569
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1469
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: 390
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 295.

It is still 641 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Middle East Wrap-up

A flurry of interesting stories came out of the Middle East in the last couple days:

· Darth Cheney made a surprise visit to Baghdad to bully the "independent" Iraqi government into not going on vacation this summer. While he was there, a mysterious explosion resulted in ALL of the reporters being herded into an underground bunker. This happened after Cheney made an off-th-cuff remark about how nice it will be to get away from them. Conicidence?

· So what the fuck is Darth Cheney even doing there? It's not just to throw his weight around with the cowering Iraqis. Oh, never mind. I just noticed that stops in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are on the itinerary. Could it be that the surprise visit to Iraq is just window dressing to cover for VP Crashcart stopping by to check on his future home in the UAE when he "returns" to Halliburton, and showing up in Riyadh to genuflect to his oil masters in Saudi Arabia?

· GOP "moderates" had a meeting with Der Monkey Fuehrer to tell him that the maladministration has to show some gaines in Iraq or the GOP would be in trouble next year. Gee, ya think? With his approval rating at 28%, watch the flood of defectors trying to distance themselves from him. Too bad for them that it's too little, too late.

· The Iraqi parliament voted on a "non-binding" resolution that would direct the US to get out of their country. This passed with a majority vote. Would you know it from reading the American "liberal" media? Nope.

"Individual Augmentation"

No, it's not what it sounds like (I know, I get those emails all the time...). Instead it's a little-known program in the armed services that allows the occupiers of Iraq to get more boots on the ground without having to call up even more National Guard units.

Basically what it does is to "allow" Navy personnel the "opportunity" to get off the water and onto the sand in Iraq.

According to a recent Stars and Stripes article, sailors are given 12 days training in weapons, IEDs, basic warfare, convoy duty, urban operations, land navigation and first aid.

Twelve days???

When it takes at least four months to train the average ground soldier (counting basic training and advanced training)?

And there are an estimated 10,000 sailors in this great program, with 7,000 actually on the ground in Iraq. Most of them ill-trained in battlefield survival.

Once again the Baby Doc Maladministration shows its utter contempt for America's fighing men and women, and if I hear one more time about how the Rethugs "support" the troops, I'm going postal.

Gonzo to Stick Around: Good

Even though he said he didn't remember a total of sixty times before the Senate (BTW, my favorite Gonzo line from the Senate hearings: "I don't recall remembering that..."), and odds are even that he will break that record when he testifies before the House, Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales said today that he won't leave.

I say good. The longer he sticks around, the more of an albatross he'll be around the necks of the Rethugs, and the more fodder he'll be for the Democratic candidate next year to show why we need a change at the top.

So keep it up, Torquemada. Keep up that feisty fighting spirit, maintain that arrogance, and keep rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

So Much for the "Bush Economy"

You don't have to look any farther than Wal-Mart to see the handwriting on the wall. Despite the praises of the wingnut talking heads on Faux News about how great the economy is doing under the grasping monkey-fingers of Baby Doc Bush, the news today is that Wal-Mart, that bastion of corporatist capitalism, is having its worst sales in 27 years: 3.5% decline just in April.

I wonder how they'll spin this. Never mind, I know.

It's Clinton's fault.

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."

-- May 25, 2004

VA Disability? Financial Problems? Direct Deposit? You're Screwed

Supposedly your VA disability payments, along with your Social Security, are secure from garnishment by bill collectors.

Supposedly.

But in a case out of Alabama, Mrs. Viola Sue Kell got her bank account frozen while debt collectors garnished her money.

All of which was from Social Security disability payments. Illegal, yeah, but apparently it happens with disgusting -- and alarming -- regularity.

Larry Scott over at VA Watchdog has the full story, and it's not a pretty one.

Banks, who ought to know better, don't tell the collectors that what they are doing is illegal. They just blithely go along with it, apparently because it's such a money maker for them. They can charge a fee -- to the account holder -- of $100 just for putting the garnishment on the bank account. And then, for the unwary customer who goes on writing checks for daily living expenses, they can charge an additional overdraft fee for every check that they bounce.

Jeez, what a cash cow this could be. No wonder they won't tell their customers.

So evidently this is a process that will continue. If you have a VA disability or Social Security payment that is deposited directly into your bank account -- and these days who doesn't opt for that convenience? -- you should be aware that if you have any financial problems that could result in your assets being frozen and garnished, you really need to consider stopping that direct deposit and go back to getting hard-copy checks snail-mailed to you.

It'll be inconvenient as hell, but at least you'll keep getting your money.

Not Registering for the Draft (that Doesn't Exist)

Jesus, the outrages just keep coming at us. A 16-year-employee of the VA in San Francisco is going to be fired because he didn't register for the draft.

Before he was 26 years old. Which happened way back in the 1990s.

Chris Freking, now 39, was born in The Philippines to an American citizen father and a local woman. He didn't even come to this country until 1990.

The law is severe: If you didn't register by the time you were 25, you are barred from pretty much all Federal benefits. Including Federal jobs.

Freking has been an outstanding employee for the VA health care system -- caring, professional, dedicated, and well-liked by the veterans he cares for -- so it just fucking figures that they are going to fire him.

And apparently there is no appeal process, and no way to "make it better", since he's now 39 and too old to register. His career is down the toilet

Like I say, it's another outrage. Why are we making young men (and only young men!) register for a draft that doesn't exist, and then punish them for not registering, especially when they don't go to high school here and don't know the requirements?

Here's a choice bit from the SF Gate article and a quote from bureaucratic asshole Kerry McTigue of the US Dept of Personnel Management:

All eligible males are presumed to be aware of their registration requirements. And eligible males who fail in that responsibility are presumed to have done so knowingly and willingly unless they can prove otherwise.
"We're going to put the burden of proof, so to speak, on the person who hasn't registered that they're not a draft dodger, because it's more difficult for the government to prove the other side."

Got that? The burden of proof is on Freking, who now has to "prove" his state of mind at the time he did not register.

So much for innocent until proven guilty. But I guess that's a quaint idea, along with such nonsense as freedom of speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure, freedom from torture, etc. etc. etc.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1075 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: 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.

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, the 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 the Twins 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 -- it's now official -- is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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.

Performance Bonuses for VA Officials???!!!

It's got to be the top story in the outrage department. It appears that certain top officials in the Dept of Veterans Affairs get fucking bonuses, up to the tune of some $33,000.

This is in a time when there is a backlog of disability applications that can result in some vets waiting up to a year or more just for a determination of eligibility.

How dare they? How fucking DARE they give themselves bonuses? Who the fuck else in government service gets BONUSES? I certainly don't, and I wouldn't expect one. Public service is a calling, and those who enter it do it for reasons other than monetary.

At least that's the way it's supposed to be. With this pack of crony-capitalist motherfuckers in charge, all bets are off.

It's to the Dems' credit that they are expressing the same kind of outrage, and are busy looking into it. One promising threat is that they will suspend the bonuses until the veterans are taken care of.

Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., will be introducing legislation to place a hold on this year's bonuses. "It is shocking and scandalous even by the VA's own low standards that top officials at the VA would get performance bonuses when there's a backlog of over 600,000 cases," Hall said.

This is another "watch list" item. When he submits it, let's all contact our congressional representatives and tell them we support it.

Another Veto in the Works?

The House passed an expanded "hate crimes" bill that adds to existing Hate Crimes legislation extended coverage to people victimized because of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Naturally the Rethugs are up in arms, and Baby Doc is threatening another veto -- which would be only his third -- if it comes to his desk.

They are falling back on that tired old "special rights" argument that was patently absurd in its infancy and hasn't gotten better with age. It's all bullshit pandering to the American Taliban, and our old pal James Dobson, of Focus on the Family (aka Focus on the Fetus) -- or, as Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes call it, Focus on Your Own Damn Family -- is right in the middle of it.

The real purpose of the bill is "to muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality".

In other words, it's another one of those horrible liberal/godless-atheist plots to prevent Xians from their "free speech" rights.

I guess so, if your definition of "free speech" extends to murdering the Matthew Shepards of this world.

Which, when you get right down to it, is what they want. They want to set up their Xian theocracy based on "biblical principles" -- which means, first and foremost, the slaughter of homosexuals.

Their bible contains a lot of pretty scary shit, and you need to lay hands on a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which spells out in terrifying detail and accuracy what these fuckers are really up to.

Dawkins' thesis is that belief in god is a psychiatric condition, a psychological delusion that has resulted in more murder, starvation, genocide, child abuse, dehumanization of women, etc, than anything else in the history of this world. And when you take a look around at the likes of Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the rest of their cohort of evil minions, you can't help but think we're very close to a religious meltdown in this country.

That's why I am proud to support Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I urge you to get involved in these organizations as well. It will take a concerted effort from what I suspect is an angry but committed minority of non-believers in this country to roll back the fundo inroads these assholes have made into our secular democracy.

Speaking of Kent State

I don't know the details or the provenance, but the news is full of stories about an audio tape of the Kent State shootings that has been languishing in a safe deposit box for the last 37 years.

Allegedly the tape contains a National Guard officer giving the order to open fire on the student demonstrators.

If true, this sheds new light on what really happened that day. Unfortunately, the guy who is peddling the tape, Alan Canfora, who was wounded that day, has apparently made himself kind of a "professional victim", a Kent State survivor who hasn't shut up about the shootings for the last 37 years. Naturally when you get to be controversial, your evidence can be seen as suspect -- or be painted as tainted by your enemies.

This one will be interesting to follow.

Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings

On this date in 1970, a group of out-of-control National Guardsmen, brought in to quell an incipient student riot at Ohio's Kent State University, shot and killed four individuals and wounded nine others.

This was one of many low points in the Nixon Administration and the event was immortalized in the great CSNY song "Ohio".

Okay, so now fast-forward to the most recent college campus shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech.

You assholes on the right who say that it wouldn't have happened if the students had been armed: Would you say the same thing about the Kent State massacre? If the students had been armed, there wouldn't have been the slaughter of innocents that took place? That there would have been a peaceful standoff with no bloodshed and no loss of life?

Yeah, I didn't think so. Fucking hypcrites.

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 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358

Total coalition forces dead: 272
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2062
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1562
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1462
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: 383
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 288.

It is still 648 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Four Years Since "Mission Accomplished"

Jeez, time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? Seems like just yesterday Prezdint Codpiece was prancing around on the carrier deck in front of that big-assed sign with a gym sock stuffed down the front of his flight suit.

Four years, and what has it meant?

Only 3,352 Americans dead, 272 Coalition Forces dead, 600,000 Iraqis dead, and no end in sight. Der Monkey Fuehrer is going to veto the Iraq spending bill because Congress has the nerve -- the unmitigated gall -- to do what the people who elected them to office want them to do, end the illegal Occupation of Iraq.

But he can't really do that yet, since there's been a few little glitches in the neocon wet dream to suck the oil out of the desert and give it to Halliburton.

Glitches like that pesky "last throes of the insurgency" that's been going on now for three fucking years.

Oh, yeah, and today he said that US withdrawal from Iraq could turn it into a "cauldron of chaos"... WTF? If it isn't chaos already, then I don't want to see real chaos.

The only answer is impeachment. To paraphrase Rethug/neocon secret hero George Wallace when he made his infamous stand in the schoolhouse door, "Impeachment now, impeachment tomorrow, impeachment forever!"

Yeah, I know some asshole is gonna start whining, "He was a Democrat" -- well, so was Strom "The Rapist" Thurmond back then, so bite me.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1068 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: 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.

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, the 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 the Twins 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 Harry -- it's now official -- is on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Will the Bush Twins follow his example?

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 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337


Total coalition forces dead: 270
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2055
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1555
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1455
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: 376
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 281.

It is still 655 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Raising the Bar on Impeachment

I've long maintained that the Clinton impeachment was pure politics, undertaken with only one goal in mind: Raising the bar so high that subsequent Democratic congresses would wither under the wingnut attacks that they were impeaching a Rethug president only to "get even" for them impeaching Clinton.

When you think about it, it's the only scenario that makes sense. They knew, after laying the groundwork by, for example, the excision of upwards of 90,000 black voters from the rolls in Florida and speeding up the privatization of the voting process by awarding voting machine contracts to Rethug enablers like Diebold, among other nefarious means, that their boy Georgie Porgie would be the next president. They knew that he would ride roughshod over the Constitution, that he would put industry executives in charge of regulating their own industries, that he would do everything he could -- both legally and illegally -- to enrich the already bulging coffers of the capitalist oligarchy.

They also knew that eventually Congress would say "enough" and try to impeach him.

By impeaching Clinton first, they could take the high ground and be able to point fingers at the Dems if they tried impeaching Chimpy. It's just retaliation, they would say. It's politics at its worst. Impeaching Clinton was an insurance policy against the eventuality that the Chimperor would come under the scrutiny of congress.

Sadly, it seems to have worked. Dennis Kucinich is pretty much alone in his crusade. No co-sponsors, no one with his back, no one even mouthing platitudes of vapid support.

I hope it will get "The I Word" out there anyway, and maybe start people thinking about the corruption and graft and greed and incompetence and pure evil that has signified this maladministration.

Impeachment now!

Kucinich Slammed by NBC

Yeah, this doesn't come as a suprise. NBC, the flagship of the MSM, has in effect called Kucinich a hypocrite because he didn't support the Clinton impeachment.

Jesus, give me a fucking break, already. The Clinton impeachment was, no matter how you look at it, a purely political act. Clinton did not commit the Constitutionally-required "high crimes and misdemeanors" that the current bunch does daily, with impunity.

This is another example of the SCLM in action. Watch for this to be a talking point from the right wing, stridently repeated ad nauseum whenever the impeachment is mentioned.

You'd expect this kind of shit from Faux News, but I'd like to live in a world where the major media was doing its job and truly acting as the Fourth Estate instead of a bunch of drooling suckups whining at the jackbooted feet of their overlords in the administration.

And they wonder why the level of trust in the news media has declined over the years.

Go Dennis Kucinich!

Cleveland US Rep and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Darth Cheney.

At first it might seem odd, to go after the Vice President instead of the man at the top. But in this case, the target really is the man at the top. Der Monkey Fuehrer is just a meat puppet, doing the bidding of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group, both of whom are found wrapped up in that bundle of slag known as Dick(less) Cheney.

Plus people have a much more visceral dislike of Cheney, and no one really wants to see a President Cheney, which we would have if Baby Doc were impeached.

Ah, but many are the crimes, and hopefully this will be just the first step. It's like a bumper sticker I saw the other day: Impeach Cheney First!

Let's do it.

Jessica Lynch Speaks Out

In her testimony before the House Government Reform Committee, in the hearing on the Pat Tillman "friendly-fire" clusterfuck, Jessica Lynch told the true story of what really happened when she was the first American POW to be rescued since WWII.

Hint: It ain't what the BFEE Maladministration said it was.

Jessica says that she is not a hero. The true heroes were her friend Laurie Pestewa, who died in the attack, and the people that came to rescue her.

Never mind that the "rescue" was itself completely bogus, she was never in any danger, had not been shot (despite what we were told) and was being cared for by Iraqi medical personnel.

Never mind that the rescue itself was postponed for 24 hours so the Army could get a video crew there to film it.

It was all pure propaganda, part of the time-honored Bushco traditon of the Big Lie.

But Jessica was wrong about one thing. She is a hero, for having the guts to stand up to the assholes in the Maladministration and the Pentagon.

Way to go, Jessica!

Rove Isn't Out of the Woods Yet

As much as I tend to slaver over the possibility of Karl Rove doing hard time, I'd almost given up on it. The fucker seems to be made of Teflon.

But I just saw a news story today that gave me some hope.

Seems little Karl is the subject of an ivestigation by something called the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is set up to investigate violations of the Hatch Act.

As I've argued before, so goddam much of what is going on in the BFEE has seemed to me to be a clear set of Hatch Act violations.

So it's hats off to Scott J. Bloch, head of the US Special Counsel, and his crew. Here's hoping that they will finally be able to nail little Karl's feet to the floor.

Cheney Blasts McGovern, McGovern Shoots Back

When Darth Cheney gave a speech in the Windy City(!), he blasted the Democratic party as having "reverted" to the party of 1972.

George McGovern fights back in an op-ed piece in the LA Times that's well worth the read.

Excerpt:

The Democrats' 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

So what's wrong with that? If that's "reverting", then bring it on.

All it shows is that the Democratic Party at its core cares about the same things in 2007 that they did in 1972.

Can you say that about the Rethugs? I didn't think so.

Postal Rate Hikes to Crush Small Publishers

Jeez, this one came out of left field. The Post Office is hiking rates next month, and we all knew about that. But one thing I didn't know is that the new rates are set by something called the Postal Service Governors, and that is a hand-picked crowd of political cronies appointed by Der Monkey Fuehrer.

So what do they do? Like every other government advisory board jammed with hacks, they never met a large corporation they didn't like, and they bought off on -- swallowed whole -- media giant Time-Warner's plan to raise the rates on a lot of "little" magazines, while keeping theirs low.

Read the open letter from the publisher of The Nation to one James C. Miller III, the chairman of the Postal Board of Governors and be prepared to get pissed. (BTW, check out Miller's biograph and tell me if you don't think he's a poster boy for Rethug cronyism.)

Plus he's just an asshole: "[My budget employees] are the kind of people that run over dogs. [Pause] I meant that in the best possible way."

So back to the topic. When magazines like The Nation are being crippled it's become a freedom of the press issue, but you also know it's big when even shithead wingnut publishers like the National Review and the Weekly Standard are crying foul.

As it stands now, it's a done deal. It's going to happen.

But we can stop it.

Contact your federal representatives and tell them to roll back the postal rate increase for magazines.

Imagine a world in which only Big Media exists. It's like a world in which only Big Oil exists, in which only Wal-Mart exists, and it is not pretty. But we can do something about it.

As Thom Hartman says, the press was the ONLY private enterprise or business named in the US Constitution.

Think about it and make that call.

And you can drop by Freepress and sign a letter to Jimmy Miller III and tell him what you think.

Some Perspective on an Isolated Tragedy

While the record-setting killing spree at Virginia Tech is horrible beyond belief, a little perspective is in order.

The day before, six bombs exploded across Bagdad and killed 160 people. That's more than five times the number killed in Virginia, but the slaughter in Virginia gets the headlines.

The week before, coincidentally, 33 Americans were also killed in Iraq. No headlines there, either. Just the slaughter in Virginia.

That's because it's an isolated tragedy. The 160 dead in Bagdad, the 33 dead Americans in Iraq, well, that's just another day on the street for life during wartime. Scaling our population to theirs (we're roughly 10X their figure), if the US had a death toll similar to Iraq's, we would have to lose 1600 people.

Sadly we've gotten inured to the continuing violence in the Iraq Illegal Occupation because it doesn't really touch us in any significant way. It's just an irritant to be dealth with dismissively. It's like the way we build up calluses on our toes. A constant but basically unnoticed irritation creates a hard shell to protect our skin.

Now, after four years of war, we hardly take note of the latest victims of our continuing folly of bringing "democracy" to the Middle East at the point of a gun. But let that gun show up in the hands of a deranged young man and the media is all over it.

Back in my day as an aspiring hack reporter, we had a saying that was only half a joke: "It it bleeds, it leads."

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1061 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, the 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 the Twins 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.

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 3245 3266 3299 3316

Total coalition forces dead: 268
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2048
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1498
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1448
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: 369
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 274.

It is still 662 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

It's Not Just Imus

I heard some wingnut talk radio over the weekend, and all of the venom-spouting pundits are up in arms about their boy Donny being fired.

In the words of the Immortal Bard, "methinks thou protesteth too much" (Shakespeare, page 9).

Those guys have got to be running scared about this time, since they are seeing -- and rightly so -- that the Imus flap is a sea change in public discourse over the airwaves.

When you have people like inflated gas-bag drug addict Viagra-popping blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career out of hurtful comments (calling 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton "the White House dog", for example), or gay-baiting Michael Savage, who has called gay people "homos" on the air, or mad-dog frothing-at-the-mouth Neil Boortz referring to Hilary Clinton as a "raving bitch", still on the air, they've got to be shaking in their boots.

Unfortunately when it came right down to it, it was the bottom line that dictated the Imus firing, not some deathbed conversion to standards of decency. When the advertisers pulled out, Imus was toast.

But hey, that's capitalism, folks. If we don't buy the crap that the advertisers are pushing on these hurtful radio shows, they won't be sponsoring them, and those windbag assholes will be off the air and the next time we see them, they'll be showing up as a Trivial Pursuit question.

Just where they belong.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1054 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, the 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.

Will the Bush Twins enlist? 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.

A Catch-22 for the New American Century

Remember in Catch-22, where the generals kept increasing the number of missions the bomber crews had to fly before they could go home? Every time Yossarian got close, they'd raise the number.

Now the troops in Iraq have been told the same thing. You get to stay in The Sandbox for 15 months instead of 12. And when that 15 months rolls around and we still haven't won the War on Terra^tm, when we have lost even more American lives, whaddaya bet they'll increase it again?

If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

BTW, Catch-22 didn't just mean a no-win circular-logical situation, such as Orr being crazy to fly more missions, but the only way he could be grounded was to ask for it, which meant he wasn't crazy, so he would have to fly more missions, and so on.

At one point an old Italian woman says "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

And that's what we've got going on now. It truly is a Catch-22 for the New American Century.

It's Almost Quaint, Isn't It?

Below you will find some quotations taken directly from the official platform of a major American political party. Guess which one and when.

Honest Government
"Trust, pride, and respect: we pledge to restore these qualities to the way Americans view their government."

Keeping Intelligence Free of Politics
"Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments. A Republican administration working with the Congress will respect the needs and quiet sacrifices of these public servants as it strengthens America's intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities…"

Diplomacy and Maintaining Allies
"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration's diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries."

Endless Military Missions, Exit Strategies and Troop Readiness
"The current administration has casually sent American armed forces on dozens of missions without clear goals, realizable objectives, favorable rules of engagement, or defined exit strategies."

"Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness. When it comes to military health, the administration is not providing an adequate military health care system…"

Restoring the Rule of Law and the Justice Department
The rule of law, the very foundation for a free society, has been under assault, not only by criminals from the ground up, but also from the top down. An administration that lives by evasion, coverup, stonewalling, and duplicity has given us a totally discredited Department of Justice. The credibility of those who now manage the nation's top law enforcement agency is tragically eroded. We are fortunate to have its dedicated career workforce, especially its criminal prosecutors, who have faced the unprecedented politicization of decisions regarding both personnel and investigations."

Gas Prices
"Today, gas prices have skyrocketed, and oil imports are at all-time highs....By any reasonable standard, the Department of Energy has utterly failed in its mission to safeguard America's energy security. "

Give up?

Okay, it's the Republican Party platform.

From the year 2000.

That was the Clinton Administration being taken to task, and BTW, gas was only $1.50 a gallon back then.

I guess nothing more needs to be said.

[Thanks to Progressive Democrats of America for this one.]

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 3245 3266 3299

That's 33 in a single week!

Total coalition forces dead: 264
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2041
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1491
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1441
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: 362
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 268.

It is still 669 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Unfit for Duty -- Revisiting 9-11

Much has been written, some of it false, over the last 4 1/2 years about Baby Doc's reaction -- or lack thereof -- on the morning of 9-11, but I ran across a tidy little wrapup story by Hal Brown on the Capital Hill Blue website.

It's called Unfit for Duty: Bush's "Pet Goat" Minutes, and it's worth a look -- be sure to read the length posts at the end of the story.

They run the gamut of conspiracy theories, from "Bush Did It" to "Cheney Did It and Didn't Tell Bush" to "The Jews Did It", but the most likely truth, which Hal Brown identifies, that Baby Doc is so cognitively impaired that he was literally unable to process the information.

There is also a link to the full five minute video (courtesy of The Memory Hole of Baby Doc's face after Andrew Card told him, essentially, that the US was under attack and we were at war.

If you haven't seen the full thing, if you've only seen the ten-second-interval stills (which are also on that site), or even the fairly lengthy version in Fahrenheit 9-11, be sure to watch it.

It's frightening that the so-called leader of the free world looks like he's sitting there pissing his pants. Frozen. Unable to act.

Because for the first time in his life, there was no one there to bail him out, no one to tell him what to say, no one to tell him what to do.

Return to the Days of the Czar

I see in the news that Der Monkey Fuehrer is having trouble finding a "czar" to take over the overall administration of the Iraq-Afghanistan battle zones.

Maybe it's the use of the word "czar" that's causing him difficulty. Remember, the root of the word czar, like that of the word kaiser, is the Latin word Caesar.

And a cursory exmination of the history of Western Civilization will show that when the free citizens of the Roman Republic went with their ultimate leader/dictator, Julius Caesar, it spelled the end of the republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

Haven't we really had enough of autocratic tyrants?

Maybe not. We seem to be allowing it -- even encouraging it -- here.

Return to the Days of the Czar

I see in the news that Der Monkey Fuehrer is having trouble finding a "czar" to take over the overall administration of the Iraq-Afghanistan battle zones.

Maybe it's the use of the word "czar" that's causing him difficulty. Remember, the root of the word czar, like that of the word kaiser, is the Latin word Caesar.

And a cursory exmination of the history of Western Civilization will show that when the free citizens of the Roman Republic went with their ultimate leader/dictator, Julias Caesar, it spelled the end of the republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

Haven't we really had enough of autocratic tyrants?

Maybe not. We seem to be allowing it -- even encouraging it -- here.

And Speaking of Gonzo

Today the House Judiciary Committee issued what will, I am sure, prove to be only the first in a long line of subpoenas to Torquemada Gonzales over the political firing of the US Attorneys.

The subpoena is seeking hundreds of pages of records that the Justice Department has been dragging its heels over providing.

Enough is enough, already. Stop the stonewalling and kick loose with some answers. As we learned during the days of Watergate, even the Attorney General is not above the law.

Even Newt Gingrich Agrees

Jeez, when even conservative stalwart Newt "Multiple-Marriages=Family-Values" Gingrich says Torquemada Gonzales should step down, I'd say it's pretty much game over.

All that we're waiting for now is the announcement that Gonzo wants to "spend more time with my family".

Oh, and don't forget the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That seems to be Baby Doc's standard reward for people in his maladministration who fuck up beyond all belief.

I guess Gonzo can forget about that Supreme Court position now. Too bad. Back to Texas with you, agujero de asno. I'm sure that one of those BFEE-connected law firms in the Lone Star state will snatch you up and pay you more than you are worth.

Especially since what you are really worth is the 11¢ per hour that we pay prisoners to stamp out license plates.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1047 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, the 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 the Twins 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.

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 3245 3266

Total coalition forces dead: 264
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2034
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1484
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1434
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: 355
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 261.

It is still 676 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

What is Wrong With this Picture?

After it became clear the Swift Boat Liars for Bush bankroller Sammy "The Fixer" Fox was not going to be approved by congress for that waffle-chomping cream-ale-drinking french-fry-eating job as ambassador to tiny Belgium, he "voluntarily" withdrew.

But to prove you can't keep a bad idea from becoming reality, Baby Doc just about pissed his pants waiting to appoint the fucker to the post as a congressional "recess" appointment, which means he's got the job anyway and will have it until the next congress is seated.

In 2009. After Baby Doc (we hope) is gone from office.

Someone needs to put a stop to this crap. While technically it appears to be legal, it is in violation of the spirit of the constitution, which provides that the president can appoint his own people to these various jobs only with the "advice and consent" of the congress.

Fox does not have the consent of the congress. He shouldn't be there.

This is bullshit. This loophole needs to be closed. If it is clear that a nominee will not pass muster and get the constitutionally-required consent and he is appointed anyway, then congress needs to be able to put the skids to it.

As you will recall, the same thing happened with child-molester-lookalike John Bolton, with his walrus moustache and eyes of an unsuccessful rapist, at the UN.

Jesus, what will it take for the congress to put a stop to the imperial presidency and the dictatorship of the Bush Crime Family? At least Democratic presidential contender Chris Dodd is making a squawk about it.

More power to him!

More Monica Goodling and her Fifth Amendment Gambit

Heard on the Stephanie Miller show: Once again we're faced with an administration in trouble.

A woman named Monica can be instrumental in bringing charges against a sitting president.

Only this time it's for keeping her mouth shut.

More Supporting the Troops, Rethug Style

Buried amidst the cyclone of accusations against Albert "Torquemada" Gonzales and the firing of the US Attorneys is this little bit of trivia: New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias was cited for being an "absentee landlord" because he had missed work too many times.

Yeah. The only problem is that Iglesias is a captain in the Naval Reserve, and the days that he missed work were days that he spent on his required active duty.

Now that's what I call supporting the troops. In the meantime, it's a clear violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which bars employers from taking action against National Guard and reserve members who have to be gone from work due to their military obligations.

Yet another brick in the impeachment wall.

When Even the Mormons Turn Against You

When even the politically conservative Mormon youth turn on you, we can just stick a fork in you 'cause you're pretty much done.

Darth Cheney is the subject of a student protest at, of all places, Mormon-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

In the news today, more than 200 protesters are quietly making their feelings known that they do not want Vice Prezdint Crashcart to be their commencement speaker.

Now watch for Rethug money frontrunner Mitt "Flipflop" Romney to try to distance himself from the mouth-breathing shrubbery lurker.

It's Not Good to be First

John Walker Lindh, a/k/a Johnny Taliban was sentenced to 20 years at Colorado's "Super Max" prison just for being a member of the Taliban when the Americans arrived in Afghanistan. You remember all the news stories at the time, nearly every single one of which belabored the fact that he was a product of "liberal" Marin County, California.

Now with the slap-on-the-wrist treatment of Australia's David Hicks, who will be released after just nine months, Lindh's parents are petitioning Der Monkey Fuehrer to pardon and release him.

Good luck with that. Baby Doc is too busy expanding presidential power into all kinds of areas where it doesn't belong to utilize the one single power that he has that is constitutionally unlimited -- the power of the pardon.

But Baby Doc has never once in his entire history of fucking up shit as a chief executive (businessman, governor, president) shown the slightest evidence of a lean towards compassion.

Compassionate conservative my ass.

So my guess is that since John Walker Lindh was the first, he will continue to serve as an example, far beyond the line that demarcates between justice and retribution, between fairness and revenge, for most if not all of his term.

Oh, the Sweet Smell of Hypocrisy

So Baby Doc and his flying monkeys are criticizing Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for going to Syria, eh?

Okay, but where was that criticism when Repugnican members of congress visited Syria, and in fact also met with Hezbollah leaders?

Where is it today, since a Rethug delegation is actually boots on the ground right now in Syria?

But I guess that's okay; they are probably just getting ideas from the Hezbollah on how to institute a dictatorial theocracy in the US. No big deal.

Oh, and BTW, check out the news coverage of Pelosi's trip and the White House criticism of it. You'll have to look under rocks to see any mention at all of the Rethug Syrian vacations.

God, I'm so glad we have a "liberal media" in this country.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1040 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, the 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 the Twins 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.

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 3245

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": 2027
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1477
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1427
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: 368
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 255.

It is still 683 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Why Do They Enlist?

A few days ago a poster in response to my Saving Money the Old Fashioned Way blog entry asked the question "I know all about the first-hand accounts of medical malfeasance, why can't/won't our 18-19-20-year-old tech-savy generation figure this out as well and stop enlisting? Some of these kids were 14-15 when this debacle started; they should KNOW better!"

Good question, and one that needs a full response at the top level.

The situation is not a clear black-and-white issue, but here's what is happening as I see it: First, enlistments have fallen off, to the point that the services have had to not only increase the minimum age for enlistment (was 35, now 42!) but also reduce the threshold for both intelligence and "moral character" Many convicted felons have been given special consideration -- "moral waivers" -- to allow them to enlist; these are criminals who never would have been allowed to enlist in the service just a couple of years ago. (For example, committing a minor felony was one of the many ways people of my generation avoided the draft in the 1960s.)

We have also had for many years now an economic draft that targets the poor and the uneducated, the very people who are not "tech savvy".

Take a look at the demographics: The vast majority of service members come from the bottom rungs of the economy, and most of them see military service as a way out from their lives of quiet desperation, faced with a future of minimum wage service jobs without retirement or health care. By going into the military, they can "get job training and save money for college". That little piece of wisdom is straight out of the GoArmy recruiting ads.

And let's not ignore the huge numbers of National Guard and Army Reserve units that have been called up and sent to Iraq, many of them several times. Once again, it's an economic draft -- another backdoor draft -- at work. These billets in normal times represent in many parts of the country good part-time jobs with good pay where regular civilian jobs may pay only $5.15 per hour for less than 40 hours a week with no benefits and no health care.

Unfortunately there's still a belief among many of the new recruits that they are needed by their country in the War Against Terra^tm, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. And don't forget that an 18-year-old seems himself as invicible -- when I think back of all the near brushes with death that I created for myself through sheer arrogant stupidity, it gives me the willies. And finally, the aura of power it can give to a dumb kid out of the lower rungs to be able to carry a weapon and throw his weight around on the streets of the Third World. It's heady stuff.

Meanwhile, for those to whom much has been given (i.e. the children of the wealthy), nothing is expected in return. We've come 180 degrees from the idea that was common in this country just a generation or so ago, basically that the wealthy had gotten that way on the backs of the poor, and it was incumbent on them to commit to some kind of service to their country as a way of paying back for the incredible advantages they had received.

Thus Washington DC was full of "dollar a year" men during World War I, the Great Depression and World War II. Thus the WWII military services swelled in ranks with the enlistments of such scions of wealth and privilege as the Kennedy clan, many Hollywood movie stars and the sons of Franklin Roosevelt.

Now it's every (rich) man for himself, and a hearty "fuck you" to the rest of us. We've lost track of the whole concept of the Social Contract, and we will be the poorer for it until we can regain our way and go back to the original precepts of the founders of this experiment in democracy.

Liar Liar Liar Liar Liar

Kyle Sampson pretty much torpedoed his boss, Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales, in his "voluntary" testimony before a senate committee this morning.

Calling Torquemada's earlier testimony "not entirely accurate", and IDing Gonzo and Harriet Miers as the "deciders", Sampson essentially pulled the rug from under the elaborate house of cards erected by the BFEE over the US Attorney firings.

If Gonzo's testimony was not "accurate", did that mean that it was, in actuality, a LIE?

Yep, that pretty much nails it.

Perjury. It is a nasty word, but that's the charge when you lie under oath (see Clinton, Bill cross-referenced with Lewinsky, Monica, with a subnote at Job, Blow).

Now if someone would only grow a set sufficient to bring charges against Gonzo I would be a very happy man.

But I kind of feel sorry for Sampson. Loyalty is prized far above anything else in the Bush Crime Family, so how long before poor Kyle ends up on the wrong end of an "accident"

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli." -- Peter Clemenza