Dem Frontrunners Stumble on Iraq

I didn't actually watch the Dems debate in New Hampshire tonight, but I did read a wrap-up of it, and I am appalled that the three so-called "front runners" -- Clinton, Obama, Edwards -- refused to commit to bringing the troops home from Iraq. By 2013!!

As if I needed any more reasons to support Kucinich. Oh, and you wanna know the truth as to why they are so much ahead in the polls?

A friend of mine passed on this bit of wisdom: He was recently called on the phone to ask his presidential preference, Clinton, Obama or Edwards. He answered, "Kucinich."

Pregnant pause, and then the answer: "Who?"

Jesus, that's why he's so far down in the polls -- he isn't even on some of them!

So we've got the three top Dems going along with Baby Doc's war plans and the Dems in the House and Senate curling up like whipped dogs in the face of those mean Rethugs -- maybe it is time for a new party. I've just about had it with the Dems who, after all, ran on -- and were elected on -- an antiwar platform in 2006.

It's way past time to get out of Iraq, and maybe way past time to rely on the Democrats to do it for us.

Maybe it's time for a new political party that reflects our values. Which I believe are the true American values, not those perverted versions being trotted out by the likes of the top-of-the-crop presidential contenders and their lackeys in Congress.

Silent on Blackwater

Guess who's campaign for the presidency has remained strangely silent on Blackwater.

Give up? It's Mitt Romney's (R-Cultist).

No surprise there, given that Romney's chief advisor on counterterrorism and foreign affairs issues is none other than Cofer Black, vice-chairman of Blackwater USA.

Back in April the Romney had this to say about Black joining the campaign circus:

I am pleased to welcome Cofer Black to our campaign. He has a long and impressive career dedicated to making America safer and more secure in the world. Our country faces a new generation of challenges and Black’s experience at the forefront of our nation’s counterterrorism efforts will be a tremendous asset.

A "tremendous asset", Romney says. Yeah, if running an out-of-control and completely unaccountable private army is an asset, then Black certainly brings that.

Come to think of it, Romney is a Rethug, so Black would be a tremendous asset. How about nominating him for Secretary of Defense?

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1210 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and 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.

Blame the Media

It was entirely predictable. When things go wrong, blame the media. After all, it worked with Vietnam, why not with Iraq?

A US top general, Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division, says the war is "winnable" if only the media would cooperate.

If the media would "cooperate"? I guess he means that if the media became even more of a rooter for Der Monkey Fuehrer and the illegal occupation of Iraq, and ignore their public charge to bring truth to power.

The ridiculousness of Lynch's charge is shown in his list of media "hit-men" who are apparently out to sabotage the military: NBC, CNN and ... Faux News!

It's a sure sign of the bankruptcy of the Baby Doc Misadventure when the generals start blaming Faux News for things going wrong.

Now they are starting to eat their young.

Jim Webb -- Major Disappointment?

As much as I like the guy, he's been a disappointment to me.

It's true that he deserved major kudos for the Webb Amendment, even though the Rethugs conspired to kill it.

But he's also cast a couple of troubling votes recently: First he sided with the fascists to prevent the return of habeas corpus, the cornerstone of individual rights in this country, and then he sided with them again in the meaningless vote to "censure" MoveOn.org for its full-page NY Times "Petraeus/Betray us" ad (and remember where you heard that first?).

The guy was a lifelong Republican himself, so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise, but it does, and if he's now slowly repositioning himself, now that he's been elected as a Dem, back to the Right, then maybe we all made an error in supporting his candidacy and sending him money to get elected.

I sure as hell hope not. What I am hoping is that these votes were just a couple of cynical calculations designed to keep him in good with the local yokels in Virginia. Maybe, but he will bear watching.

"Mandela's Dead"

Those were two of the words of wisdom that spilled out the mouth of Baby Doc at his "news" conference a couple of days ago.

It must have come as a real surprise to the 89-year-old Nelson Mandela, who is still very much alive, and to his family who now, instead of planning a family reunion, will have to plan a funeral.

As if we needed another reminder that the giggling murder monkey is so out of touch with reality that a comatose Terry Shiavo was more aware than he seems to be.

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795

Total coalition forces dead: 299
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2195
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1677
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1577
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: 526
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 515.

It is still 486 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

It's STILL Clinton's Fault!

Over on my hometown newspaper's website, there's a lively discussion about my congressman, one Brian Baird, who is nominally a Democrat, but who has now shifted position on the war and is siding with the BFEE. It woudn't surprise me to find some bloodstained dollars from Halliburton, et al. in his reelection war chest.

But I digress. On that discussion page some poor ignorant readers are still trying to blame Bill Clinton for the attacks on 9/11. Take a look at it, and then take a look at the incisive analysis Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts over at Truthout.org.

It's appalling that people are still stumbling over themselves in their pathetic attempts to continue blaming Bill Clinton for everything that's gone wrong in the last six years. Sorry, people, get over it. Admit that you are complicit in the crimes of the BFEE as long as you continue to support that giggling murder monkey currently squatting in the White House.

More Supporting the Troops, Rethug Style

The Rethugs in the US Senate ganged up to hand the Webb Amendment back to the Dems without passage. In a bit of arcane procedural maneuvering, they managed to filibuster the issue and leave Webb, along with several Republicans who are also veterans and who supported the amendment, standing flat-footed.

Leaving aside the fact that the Dems seem to be unwilling to treat their counterparts across the aisle with the same disdain that they received from them when they were in charge, the saddest part was seeing aging and pathetic war horse John McCain side with the thugs who are refusing to grant our troops in the field a minimum time home before returning. Instead he's teamed up with lame-duck John Warner to offer up a "sense of the senate" resolution that would encourage the maladministration to do what the Webb law would have required. Without any teeth that could bite the BFEE on the ass if they didn't comply.

John McCain. It's sad in a way, watching the old fool doddering around and still nursing the idea -- which was remote at first and is now impossible -- that somehow he'll be the annointed one to carry their presidential banner next year.

Welcome to Police State

I'm sure that by now everyone has seen the videos (scroll down and watch the "long version") of University of Florida college student Andrew Meyer getting a close-range Taser treatment from the campus police when he had the temerity to ask John Kerry (D-Loser) a couple of questions.

Questions that those of us who put in long hours and hard cash in 2004, only to see our hopes dashed by Kerry's whipped-dog capitulation the morning after the election when he conceded Ohio want to ask. Ohio, by the way, was rife with voting "irregularities" that just happened by coincidence to fall the way of the Rethugs.

So this brash kid gets up and starts questioning Kerry about why he gave up, and when the cops close in on him, he starts asking about Kerry's membership in Skull and Bones -- the same secret society that Baby Doc belonged to when he was at Yale.

Okay, the kid was being a bit obnoxious, but isn't that what college students are supposed to be about? Questioning authority and being assholes about it?

Nevertheless, the campus police were all over this guy, and I can't tell, from the three different videos that I saw, why they felt they had to overreact this way. It's beyond me. At one point three cops are pinning him down at the back of the lecture hall and he can clearly be heard telling them that he "will walk out of here" if they get off of him. A second later they give him the close-order drill with the Taser and he can be heard screaming for five or six seconds after that.

And for what? A bunch of burly police officers are holding him down, and not a single one of them can get cuffs on the guy? What is wrong with the campus cops? Why would they do that, especially when they knew that at least four cameras were on them, and with the expansive growth in personal electronics, there were probably a hundred cell phones with video capabilities in the room?

Maybe Meyer thought he was at Florida State. He was wrong. It's Police State.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1203 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and 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.

Descent into the Maelstrom

Being the author of a Vietnam War book of my own, I've always been a big fan of any and all Vietnam War fiction. Some of it is great, some of it ... ah, not so much. But one thing I've found is that there is precious little out there that deals with the aftermath of the war, specifically the phenomenon now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even though the experience has haunted soldiers forever (consider the Iliad, with Achilles sulking in his tent -- that's as perfect a description of PTSD as any), whether it was called "soldier's heart" after the Civil War, "shell shock" ater WWI, or "combat fatigue" after WWII.

Now that dearth of fiction dealing with PTSD has been alleviated by the republication of Mike Venuto's terrifically readable novel, Flashback. What starts out seemingly as a standard post-war narrative by a Vietnam combat veteran slowly verges into paranoia and finally madness. Along the way we get, among other things, an incisive portrayal of a VA medical facility mired in bureaucratic quicksand and a description of a smoke-filled American Legion hall that is so right-on that you can feel the stickiness of the sloshed beer on the bar top.

This is a powerful statement on both the war itself and more importantly on its aftermath. It is especially timely now, given that we are getting many untreated PTSD Iraq War veterans returning home. This book should be required reading for anyone who has a coworker, friend or family member returning from the battles in the Middle East.

A Presidential Election "Reform" Act in CA?

Living on the Left Coast as I do, I always watch California politics with more than a casual interest, so it's with some alarm that I view a well-financed attempt to wrest some presidential election political power away from the Dems and give it to the Rethugs.

On the ballot in California's primary election next spring is the Orwellian-named Presidential Election Reform Act, which would end the winner-take-all selection of Electorial College electors (the law in most states), and substitute a congressional-district allocation, based on which candidate won that district.

On the whole, it's not really a bad idea, but it needs to be put into place nationwide at the same time, and we don't see those assholes on the right agitating for that, do we? Could it be that their safely "red" states all of a sudden wouldn't be so safely red if all those liberal votes in the urban districts actually counted for something?

But as it stands in California, it's nothing more than a backhanded attempt by wealthy Rethugs to get what they can't get using the usual process, and that's more electors for whoever the Rethug candidate turns out to be. Something like 22 districts carried Baby Doc in 2004, and if those numbers hold true for next year, in a close election those 22 electoral votes could make the difference in who is the ultimate winner.

The only problem with it is that it seems to be unconstitutional -- not that it matters in the long run, because that constitutional crisis decision would ultimately be decided by ... the US Supreme Court, which sadly is packed with Baby Doc appointees and others who are beholden to the BFEE. You don't have to look any farther back than the same Supreme Court that overrode Florida state laws and appointed their own fair-haired moron to the presidency.

So all of you who live in California -- and all of you who have friends and family who live there -- be alert to this travesty and work actively to defeat it.

That's the best course of action to take now, until we finally decide to get rid of the patently unfair Electoral College, once and for all.

It's Not Just Me

Last week I wrote about the troubling deaths of two of the authors of the scathing critique of Baby Doc's war, War as We Knew It.

In that blog post, I raised the "just asking" spectre that these deaths were not coincidental. Turns out I'm not the only one asking that question.

The mother of SGT Omar Mora, one of the authors who died in a vehicle accident, is also asking the same question.

So when are we going to get some answers. Never mind that the first answers will be standard military bullshit. When I was in Vietnam, one of my jobs was to compose condolence letters from our company commander to the families of our men who died, whether it was due to "hostile causes", or from "non-hostile causes", such as suicide, vehicle accidents, or being caught in the crossfire during an abortive MP raid on a Saigon whorehouse suspected of harboring Viet Cong infiltrators.

And I can tell you from my personal experience that those letters were maybe 20% truthful and 80% bullshit. But we justified it by saying that the families needed "closure" and needed to hear that their sons, husbands, etc., were "heroes".

So how about a congressional investigation into the "accident" that claimed the lives of Mora and SSG Yance Gray? The whole "letter to mom" thing doesn't seem to be cutting it any more, and Mrs. Mora needs the truth. Let's give it to her.

Baby Doc is Afraid of Ghosts

The disturbing news about the mental facilities of Prezdint Sweatsock just seems to keep coming at us.

Today I learned that Draper's new book about Der Monkey Fuehrer, Dead Certain (ironic title, that), contains a description of Baby Doc actually claiming to have seen a ghost, in the halls of the White House.

This was back when Papa Doc was Prez, and Baby was spending the night, for some unknown reason -- probably hiding out from creditors. He had allegedly long since quit the drinking, doping, whoring, etc., destructive behaviors, so we can't lay it on that.

Imagine that. Seeing ghosts. In the White House!

Someone needs to jack up his thorazine. Otherwise the ghosts of the 3780 dead Americans, slaughtered in the Quagmire in the Desert by the injudicious and irresponsible decision to go to war in Iraq, will come popping out of the paintings and rattling their M60 machine gun bandoliers like the ghost chains of ancient lore.

On the other hand, maybe that's a good idea. Let him see the true cost in human terms of the terribly destructive policies that have earned him -- not only now but in the judgment of history -- the title of Worst President Ever.

Maybe then he'll think twice about his overarching desires to bomb Iran and spread the destruction throughout the Middle East.

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780

Total coalition forces dead: 298
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2188
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1670
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1570
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: 519
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 518.

It is still 493 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Fact-Checking Der Monkey Fuehrer

Jeez, it didn't take very long, but Editor & Publisher already has a fact-check page, compiled by the Associated Press, of the litany of outright lies, misstatements and plain old spin in Baby Doc's speech.

For example:

BUSH SAID:
"Anbar province is a good example of how our strategy is working," Bush said, noting that just last year U.S. intelligence analysts had written off the Sunni area as "lost to al-Qaida."
FACT CHECK:
Early Thursday, the most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq was killed by a bomb planted near his home.
The killing of a chief Anbar ally hours before Bush spoke showed the tenuous and changeable nature of success in Anbar and Iraq at large.

The list goes on and on, in a sad and frightening reminder of just how out of touch with reality the president really is.

Which is why I am still supporting impeaching the whole sorry lot of them, before they stumble is into yet another war of Empire, this time against Iran.

War As We Saw It Authors Killed

Last month the NY Times published a well-written and incisive op-ed piece called "War as We Saw it" by seven NCOs from the 82nd Airborne. It was written by "boots on the ground" infantry soldiers who, presumably, were in a position to know what they were talking about:

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

. . .

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Predictably the right wing noise machine leaped on this like flies on shit, and criticised the soldiers for being "too close to the action" and not knowing what they were talking about.

And now, buried somewhere in the MSM, comes the news that two of the soldiers who wrote this piece have been killed in Iraq.

SGT Omar Mora and SSG Yance Gray died this week in a vehicle accident.

Vehicle accident? As much as I don't what to believe it, could this be another "friendly fire" incident, designed to stifle dissent and serve as a warning to others to keep their fucking mouths shut if they can't "support" the president?

I'm just asking.

And I'm also asking why the MSM is refusing to cover this story. Do a Google News search and you'll find precious little in the way of coverage, and once again it's the foreign media who seem to be covering it, and by and large not the SCLM in this country.

Could it be that they don't want to cover what they didn't want to cover last month, and that is the sad fact that after they steadily beat the drums of war leading up to the illegal invasion and occupation of a country that had not attacked us on 9-11, the uncomfortable truth that American soldiers are dying in that quagmire in the sand is too much to bear? So they hide their heads in the sand and ignore the tragic reality on the ground -- the soldiers themselves are questioning the whole sorry misadventure, dreamed up by Dickless Cheney and Baby Doc Bush.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1196 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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.

Osama Spin Laden

Jeez, does it get any more convoluted than this?

When the new Osama video started hitting the Internets, a stark reminder that he's still with us, over two thousand days after The Smirking Chimp swore he'd get him, "dead or alive", what does Der Monkey Fuehrer do with this bit of video political theater?

He says that it's "a reminder of the dangerous world in which we live"...

Yeah, dangerous it is, Monkey Boy, because you didn't follow through on that empty Texas windbag threat six years ago. Osama is still out there, and from what I could see on that sketchy video, he's tanned, fit, rested and ready. With even a brand new cheesy-looking dye job on that funny-looking beard of his.

You'd think that at some point the Shrub and the rest of the BFEE would actually get embarrassed that Osama hasn't been found. But no, they just use the video as a new source for "stay the course" spin on an old and tragic dilemma.

This is the bumper sticker that I've had on my
Jeep Wrangler for the last two years.
I made it myself at Makestickers.com

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760

Total coalition forces dead: 298
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2181
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1683
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1583
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: 512
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 511.

It is still 500 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

Yep, it appears to be true that our old buddy Larry Craig (R-Closeted Gay) is starting to get some cold feet over the whole thing. Now he wants to recant his guilty plea to the misdemeanor charge and fight the whole arrest thing, presumably because he was "entrapped".

Okay, Larry, you go right ahead. The longer you stay in the Senate, the longer you'll be poster boy for Republican sexual hypocrisy, and the longer we'll be able to point to you and say, "This is what you are getting when you vote for Republicans."

Go for it, Larry. It's not really like the Rethug Party can actually do anything to you if you don't resign. As much as they'd like you to, what are they gonna do, have you removed bodily from the Senate Chambers?

No, they'll piss and moan about it, but in the end, when you are found guilty in a court of law, after your trial that will take up lots of space in the MSM, you'll still be hanging around, being an embarrassment to a party that is hanging by a thread as it is.

Go, Larry, go!

Replenishing the "Ol' Coffers"

It's shocking, ugly and disgusting, but in a new book entitled Dead Certain by Robert Draper, Baby Doc is quoted as saying that, after he's no longer president:

I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers ... I don't know what my dad gets -- it’s more than 50-75 [thousand dollars a speech] ... Clinton’s making a lot of money ... I've got God's shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot.

Jesus, so do we, Mister Prezdint, so do we.

So is it just me, or does it appear to be more than a little ... unseemly ... for the Leader of the Free world to come off as being so crass, so moneygrubbing, piloting the BFEE ship of aggravated wealth on the backs of the dead soldiers he's sent to die in an illegal, unwanted and unwarranted war? What about the families of the dead and broken Americans, who I am sure would like to have something warmer than these cold, hard cash calculations from someone who already has a net worth of something to the tune of 20 million dollars?

Like I say, it's disgusting. And, in a just world, Der Monkey Fuehrer would have a hard time delivering those expensive speeches in prison-orange overalls at The Hague while he's shackled at the bar of justice for his war crimes.

Okay, I can dream, can't I?

Oh, and one more thing: As of today, there are only a handful of news stories that mention the "ol' coffers", and most of them are from out of the country. Why is that?

Labor Day 2007

Today is the official day set aside to honor and celebrate the labor movement in this country. And we find it in a state of disarray.

I was a union member for most of my working career, from the Retail Clerks to the Laborer's International to the International Woodworkers Union to the Electrical Workers to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, even when membership was not a requirement, and I never resented for one minute the union dues that I paid all those years.

If you enjoy your weekend off, your rate of pay, your working conditions, the protections provided you by your government, then thank the Labor Movement, because it was due to the hard work, the activism, the sacrifices, and yes, even the deaths of union members that made all of those things possible.

Unfortunately we've now had a series of presidents who have, in turn, treated the union movement with hostility (Reagan, Bush 1), benign neglect (Clinton), and open warfare (Bush 2). These guys, aided and abetted by the rightwing noise machine and its lackeys not only at Faux News but also in the MSM/SCLM, have tried -- succesfully in many cases -- to make the American union movement a minor irritant, reduced to nipping at the heels of the oligarchical pigs who now seem to be in complete charge of the economy.

David Podvin over at Makethemaccountable.com has an interesting think-piece on Labor Day that's worth reading, wherein he takes to task both the Democratic and the Rethug parties for their lackluster support for organized labor.

And he's basically right in many respects. The Dem frontrunners Clinton and Obama make the all of the appropriate pro-labor noises, but with Clinton leaping around from center to right to center to far right like a jumping bean on a hot skillet, Obama's unconsionable support for the Orwellian-named Bakruptcy Reform Bill, and the whole Democratic party's apparent refusal to roll back the obscene tax cuts for the über-wealthy, it's hard to see the real support for labor in nearly any of them.

But Podvin ignores the one Democratic candidate who has, by his record, consistently been a friend to organized labor and the working class in this country: Dennis Kucinich.

It's our country -- let's take it back. Support Dennis Kucinich, and support only those candidates who support you, your ideals and your values. All politics is local, so if your own representative does not support these things, look for a candidate who does and throw the bastards out. Not until we do this will we have the kind of country that our Founding Fathers envisioned.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1189 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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.

The Surreal World of Tom Coburn

This is beyond bizarre. Okie from Muskogee and fringe-firing gun-nut Senator Tom Coburn (R-NRA) is blocking a measure that passed unanimously in the House and was sent to the Senate that would mandate suicide screening for all returning vets.

Today's combat veterans have a suicide rate that is double what it is for their peers who stayed home, and everyone agrees that they need help and they need it now.

Everyone except Tom Coburn. And wait till you hear his reason:

He's afraid that the returning vets will be unable to purchase ... handguns!

It boggles the mind. Even if it were true -- which is far from obvious -- don't you think that a person who is prone to committing suicide might benefit from a reduced ability to get his or her hands on a pistol?

Even the fucking NRA -- who has backed Coburn with campaign contributions, naturally -- ought to back off on this one. All it would take would be a phone call to their lackey in the Senate and he'd back down.

What makes this even more disgusting, if that's possible, is that Coburn is a fucking doctor! A doctor who apparently has forgotten the Hippocratic Oath that he swore to when he became a doctor: "I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required ... I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure." And don't forget the Primum non nocere, a precept that is also taught in all medical schools: First do no harm.

Doesn't really sound to me like Old Doctor Tom is on the same page with his colleagues, does it. Except for that notorious expert in video diagnosis, Bill Frist (R-Asshole). At least he's gone from the senate and unable to inflict his medical malpractice long distance on poor victims like Terry Schiavo. Doctor Tom is still around and making trouble.

Here's hoping that his fellow senators will call him into the cloakroom for some percussive persuasion and change his mind about this travesty.

Even More Rethug Hypocrisy

Jeez, I kinda feel sorry for the guy. You know who I mean, Senator Tappy McWidestance, aka Larry Craig (R-Hypocrite). Here is a deeply-closeted gay guy who had the sad misfortune of aligning himself with the wrong political party, and has had to live a life of secrecy ever since, even to the point of having to marry a woman to throw off the scent of gay-ness.

But ultimately his own self-loathing and the profound emotional wreckage from hiding his true colors were the cause of his self-outing -- I mean, gay sex in a public airport bathroom. Really.

That seems to be the problem with a lot of these closeted gay Rethugs -- they managed to get themselves ensconced in a political party that hates them and hates their "gay lifestyle" (whatever the fuck that is).

On the other hand, they knew what the Rethugs stood for when they joined the party. And if they had not only been deep in the closet, but also hiding under a rock while they were there, they had to know immediately that their new buddies hated them. Not them personally, of course, since they didn't really know the real them, but nevertheless...

In short, when you guys first joined the Rethug party, "What the fuck were you thinking????"

And the hue and cry went out over all the land from the Family Values and Sanctity of Marriage crowd calling for Craig to resign his senate seat.

It's probably presumptious for me to ask this question now, but where in the hell was all the self-righteous indignation, the heated furor, the shrill calls for resignation, the lynch mob mentality, just a few short months ago when another senator, one David Vitter of Louisiana, got caught with his own pants down, so to speak, committing adultery against his wife, with a female prostitute?

Nowhere, that's where.

And why is that? First, Vitter at least had the good sense to commit his own extra-marital sexual misadventures with a member of the opposite sex. Second, if Vitter would have resigned, the Democratic governor of Louisiana would have no doubt appointed a Democrat senatorial replacement. Not so in the now Not-So-Private Idaho, where word on the street has it the Rethug governor has already decided on a Rethug replacement for Tappy.

And all of this from the party of so-called Christian values.

Jesus wept.

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738

Total coalition forces dead: 297
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2174
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1676
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1576
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: 505
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 504.

It is still 507 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Election Drumbeat Update

How many times have you heard this: "I'd vote for _______ but he has no chance of winning"? I proudly voted for John Anderson in 1980, despite the fact that people said that very thing.

And after Saint Ronald spent eight long years fucking up everything that the progressive movement had fought for since the Great Depression, a lot of people were regretting their votes.

I believe that if everyone who said that about Anderson had actually voted for him, he would have won the presidency.

Now we have the same thing with Dennis Kucinich. I noted a few weeks ago that if you leave the names out, a huge margin of voters preferred the politics of Dennis Kucinich over all of the other candidates combined, when you talk just about the issues that mean something to Americans.

But still we hear that Kucinich "can't win". Instead, take a look at the field. The Dem frontrunner is also a candidate that can't win.

Yes, I'm talking about Her Highness herself, Lady Hillary Clinton.

And here's why she can't win: She goes into the race with a 49% disapproval rating, just for starters. The entire race will be fought over something like 1.5% of "undecided" voters. Plus we'll be saddled with the storm surge of Rethug voters who probably would have stayed home but the for the fact that they will be able to cast their vote against her -- and by extension her husband, the devil incarnate, Slick Willy, whom they have never (and will never) forgive for "sullying" the office of the president.

So instead of following our own minds and supporting the candidate that most represents our values and our ethics, we will once again become sheep who can't think for ourselves and vote for another power-hungry corporatist who has moved to the right so fast she'd be up for a Silver in the Standing Side Jump.

Bullshit. Support the candidate who will support you and who will work for the ideals and values and ethics that you support.

And that would be Dennis Kucinich.

Gonzo Gone -- Hooray!

You really can't blame the fucker. He has not been the kind of standup guy the nation's chief law enforcment officer should be and he's been under constant attack on all sides except by his masters in the White House; he's also the one who authorized torture, calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint", injected base political partisanship into the DOJ, committed perjury before Congress...well, the list goes on and on.

But in several ways it's too bad that he decided, after steadfastly refusing to even countenance the idea for months, to Cut and Run.

It means that, most likely, he's hoping to dodge all those pesky subpoenas from Congress and avoid the sure conviction for perjury that would result if he stuck around.

Plus it'll make the Dems relax a bit. And if they relax, it will tend to make them lose the edge they've been honing for many months. Which means it'll make Baby Doc more secure against impeachment.

Unless the Dems continue to hold Gonzo's feet to the fire and make him man-up on the illegal shit he's pulled. I think they ought to drag his bespectacled ass back before as many congressional hearings as possible and force him to give up his bosses or go to jail.

I know, it's a pipe dream. Baby Doc would just pardon his sorry ass and send him back to Texas anyway.

But it's going to be interesting to see who The Giggling Murder Monkey tries to put up for AG. It'll be another political crony for sure (I heard Chertoff's name being bandied about earlier today), since anyone with a speck of integrity who becomes AG will start firing his artillery at the corruption in the Offal Office. But a crony will have to run the gantlet of the Dems, who, if they grow some balls, will stop the nomination of every BFEE lackey who is put up.

Here's hoping, and don't forget to contact your congress if it's someone you don't want to be AG. They do listen if enough people contact them.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1181 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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.

More on the Ghost of Vietnam

I note with a certain amount of arrogant liberal smugness that now the New York Times, flagship of the SCLM and one of the chief drumbeaters for the lead up to the illegal Iraq occupation, has an editorial that among other things calls Der Monkey Fuehrer's recent references to Vietnam "surreal".

If Mr. Bush, whose decision to inject Vietnam into the debate over Iraq was bizarre, took the time to study the real lessons of Vietnam, he would not be so eager to lead America still deeper into the 21st century quagmire he has created in Iraq. Following his path will not rectify the mistakes of Vietnam, it will simply repeat them.

And Robert Parry over at Consortium News has a long and thoughtul piece about the Iraq-Vietnam connection entitled Bush's Bogus Vietnam History Kills in which he expands many of the arguments I made a couple of days ago about the false lessons to be learned from the historical revisionism of the Vietnam War:

It is often said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But a much worse fate may await countries whose leaders distort and falsify history. Such countries are doomed to experience even bloodier miscalculations.

And finally, it might behoove us to read Max Cleland's 2003 analysis, Mistakes of Vietnam Repeated with Iraq:

Unfortunately, the people who drove the engine to get into the war in Iraq never served in Vietnam. Not the president. Not the vice president. Not the secretary of defense. Not the deputy secretary of defense. Too bad. They could have learned some lessons.

Read the whole thing. Even back in 2003, four years ago (longer than the US took to win WWII), Cleland called it.

If only someone in the BFEE had actually listened to him. Instead their end game seems to be to play out the clock and turn the mess over to the next president so they can blame the Dems for "losing" Iraq.

Typical. But how many more of our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, even our grandparents, are going to have to die so that can happen?

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725

Total coalition forces dead: 297
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2167
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1669
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1569
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: 498
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 397.

It is still 514 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Postcards from Idiot America

I missed this when it first came out way back in Nov 2005, but Charles P. Pierce has a story over at Esquire called Greetings from Idiot America. It's worth checking out, just to see how totally fucked-up-nutsy a good portion of this nation really is.

You know, the ones who believe that the creation story in Genesis is historical fact, that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, and who flock to something called The Creation Museum in rural Ohio to view a pre-fall Adam who is biblically-correct naked, but seems to be lacking something important -- a penis.

Check it out. It's scary and funny at the same time.

And these people not only walk among us, but they are trying to make our schools teach this shit.

The answer: Get involved with your local school board. Attend their meetings, look at their agendas, and when it comes time to vote for school board candidates, hold their feet to the fire and demand that they not infuse religious dogma into our public school children.

Hell, if that's what it takes, run for the school board yourself. A lot of stellar political careers started at local school board elections. If it weren't for some prominent skeletons in my own closet, I'd have a political career of my own, and running for the school board would be a great place to start.

The Ghost of Vietnam

Der Monkey Fuehrer stated before the full crowd at the annual VFW convention in Kansas City that we should learn the lessons of past conflicts -- including the Vietnam War -- and apply them to the current "War on Terra^tm".

Big talk from someone who just couldn't be bothered by going into the service himself back when he had the chance, and who essentially went AWOL -- no, deserted -- when he did manage to use Poppy's influence to get him into the Texas Air National Guard. How dare he? How fucking dare he?

Yeah, I think we ought to take the real lessons of Vietnam to heart: We got into a war that we had no business being in and we were fighting the wrong enemy at the wrong time in the wrong place.

That's the lesson to be learned from Vietnam. That and the fact that we killed something over two million Vietnamese during our ten-year adventure in their country, and the fact that after we left, the number of Vietnamese killed dropped precipitously. Yes, there were retributions and boat people and "re-education" camps, as happens after the end of most wars, but no one can prove that the Vietnamese people were better off while we were there than they were after we left. And don't forget that the last US ground forces were out of the country a long time before the war ended.

But you still have revisionist historians and war-loving dilettantes claiming that we would have "won" in Vietnam but were stabbed in the back by the media and the college students on the various campuses that were in flames in the US. As I've said before, that's sounds a lot like what went on in Germany in the Weimar Republic after WWI: The Nazis gained their power and influence by convincing the volk that the war was lost by the treacherous Jews and godless Communists back home while the flower of German manhood was laid waste in the trenches of the Western Front.

Jesus, am I the only one who can see these parallels?

And why can't the VFW and the American Legion (next point on the Baby Doc tour) see it themselves? Why are they willing to swallow this shit from a draft-dodging National Guard deserter?

Rove Still Claims Innocence

In a word, bullshit!

No less a personage than former New York Times reporter and current Time Magazine writer Matt Cooper says so.

Not in so many words, of course, but if you read between the lines, that's what he's saying:

Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn't know about it or that this was all the leak...by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

And there you have it. Rove is a fucking LIAR!!! (Yeah, like that's news...)

But that won't matter in the long run. Or even the short run. Turdblossom is busy writing his own book, which -- watch for it to see if I'm right -- won't be published until days after the 2008 election. In the meantime, instead of "spending more time with my family" he'll be joining one of those high-priced high-octane K Street lobbying outfits. Who has better access to Der Monkey Fuehrer than Turdblossom himself? He ought to be pulling in some big bucks at that.

Assuming that the smiling evil genius isn't already behind bars by then. He still has to answer that subpoena and face the music for contempt of congress.

Let's hope the Dems have the balls to follow through and frog-march the little fucker into jail.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1173 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?

And I see in the news that little Jenna is engaged to a joker named Henry Hager. Wanna bet that he won't be wearing a uniform anytime soon? Like ever? Unlike both husbands of the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, both of whom went into the service and were sent to Vietnam.

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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705

Total coalition forces dead: 297
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2160
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1662
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1562
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: 491
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 386.

It is still 521 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Light Load

In case you are wondering about the decrease in posts, we have two grandchildren visiting with us for the next two weeks. They are 14-year-old boys and, needless to say, they are a handful. We will be taking them lots of places and doing lots of things, so I won't be posting as much as I ordinarily would.

I have a lot to say about Rove resigning to "spend more time with my family" -- yeah, that's believable -- but not enough time to say it.

So I'll just leave it by posting the song "Turd Blossom Special" (to the tune of "The Orange Blossom Special"):

Look a yonder comin'
It's a political hack,
Democrats are runnin'
And they are not lookin' back.
It's the Turd Blossom Special,
And he's on the attack.

Outed an undercover agent
Couldn't wait to tell the news,
He gave her up to Novak,
He's got the Valerie blues,
He's the Turd Blossom Special,
Should be quakin' in his shoes.

"Say man, when you gonna get sent to prison?"
"When I'm gonna get sent to prison? Won't go, don't reckon I ever will."
"Ain't you worried about gettin' your Bush man in trouble?"
"He don't care if do-lie-do-lie-do-lie-do-lie."

I think you better listen,
I think that he's run out of hope,
I think he's goin' to prison,
He will not be able to cope,
Poor old Turd Blossom Special,
When he's playing drop the soap.

© 2005 Dennis Mansker

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1166 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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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.

GOP Hypocrisy Number Umpteen Million and Something...

I have to admit, I missed this one. It wasn't until I started perusing back issues of Buzzflash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week series that I saw it.

Remember when the Rethugs went ballistic over the left wing's criticism of the Scooter Libby "pardon"? The first thing they brought up was Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich. Remember that?

I guess they'd forgotten that Poppy Bush (#41) had, as one of his first official acts, pardoned everyone in sight who could have pinned the tail on him as bagman for the Iran-Contra treason.

But wait, that's not the half of it.

It turns out that Mark Rich availed himself of one of the most-connected lobbying firms on K Street to help in his seeking of that pardon. In fact, he got himself one of the most-connected, high-power lobbyist attorneys on K Street in those days.

That attorney's name?

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby!

So how do those rabid Busheviks who were so quick to point the finger of indignation at Mark Rich justify that Scooter, that sterling example of American patriotism and straight-shooting honesty, was instrumental in getting the Rich pardon?

And how do they justify that Rudy "No-Lips" Giuliani (R-Mafia Thug) was the one who sought Rich's conviction, decried his pardon, and NOW says that Scooter should have been pardoned?

Answer: They're the Rethugs. They don't have to justify anything!

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 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683

Total coalition forces dead: 297
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2153
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1655
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1555
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: 484
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 379.

It is still 528 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Baby Doc Quote of the Week

"How do you know if you don't measure if you have a system that simple suckles kids through?"

Feb 16, 2000, on the need for educational "accountability".

Hmmm. Maybe that explains why blow jobs aren't considered "sexual relations" by the younger generation (and some of the ...ahem..."older generation"; see Clinton, Bill, x-ref Lewinsky, Monica).

They got suckled without measure, all the way through school...

Who Was Lavena Lynn Johnson and Why Should You Care?

While Pat Tillman's obvious murder and its subsequent coverup has been all over the news -- after all, he was a celebrity before he joined the Army -- many other crimes against service members have been more or less ignored by the media. Crimes such as the rape of female soldiers in Iraq, which became so commonplace that many women refused to use the latrine after dark, and consequently came home with bladder and kidney disorders, some of them severe.

But it's not just rape. It's also murder, and one horrendous example has come to my attention recently.

PFC Lavena Lynn Johnson was murdered in Iraq over two years ago, and the coverup has beenboth more brazen and far worse than the Tillman coverup. For example, the allegedly right-handed Johnson managed to shoot herself in the left side of her head, a straight-on head wound, using her left hand both to balance her M16 and pull the trigger.

Hmmm, nothing more to see here; move along...

Over at Mirror on America, the Angry Independent has a series of posts on the incident and the coverup.

BTW, don't bother searching the MSM for this story. You won't find it.

But there's also a Lavena Johnson Blog where you can sign a petition to the congressional Armed Services Committees demanding that they investigate the death of PFC Johnson.

Oh, and did I mention that Lavena Johnson was black? Making more sense now why the MSM/SCLM isn't covering it?

Style Over Substance

Here's an interesting survey result. Some 67,000 individuals were asked their opinions on a variety of topics, including the war in Iraq, health care, the environment, the Patriot Act, etc. They were not asked about potential candidates for the presidency.

Then those opinions were compared to the stated positions on these issues taken by the Democratic candidates.

Guess who came in first. By a wide margin.

Dennis Kucinich! By a HUGE margin, 53% of all respondents had opinions on the issues that were the closest to those of Kucinich.

In contrast, "front runners" Clinton, Obama and Edwards came in with dismal percentages, all of them below 4%.

But the conventional wisdom is that he is a "marginal" candidate who can't win the Big Kahuna. And sadly, in our media age where the depth of Clinton's cleavage and the cost of Edwards' haircuts are more newsworthy than the Iraq death toll, the CW is probably right.

It's been said that if Abraham Lincoln had to run today, he would be unelectable -- not telegenic enough for today's voter-audience. And sad to say, that is correct.

See the whole story, complete with links to the survey results.

...and Speaking of Big Brother

The new FISA Absolute Power Act passed with the votes of 41 whipped-dog House Democrats. And did you know that now Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales, of all people, can legally eavesdrop on any telephone conversations made by Americans to any foreign country?

That includes Canada and Mexico. And, since the long-distance rates to those countries are way lower than calls to Europe or Asia, it might be a fun investment of time and a few coins to dial numbers at random and say something cryptic and mysterious, like "the dog is on the cake" or "the mule has left the kitchen" before hanging up.

But if you have some extra cash, calls to pretty much any Middle Eastern country would be even better.

But I'd advise doing it from a pay phone. Do it from your home phone and you'll be off for a nice one-way all-expenses-paid orange-jump-suit-provided tropical vacation.

And Speaking of Democrats

At the moment I'm more than a little pissed at the Democrats in congress for their caviling stomach-crawling egg-sucking-dog attitude towards the Rethugs in the Baby Doc Maladministration when they passed the whole Big Brother we-can-spy-on- Americans-and-there's-nothing-YOU-can-do-about it law on the last night before their "vacation".

And these are the same people that criticized the Iraqi parliament for going on vacation in August! And Tony Snowjob actually defended the whole Iraqi vacation thing by saying it was "too hot" in August in Iraq.

Too hot? Tell that to the troops on the ground. They aren't getting a vacation.

Anyway, back to the Dems. What with their caving in on impeachment, their refusal to defund the war, and now their unbridled support for more Big Brother, I'm thinking that I am on the verge of actually leaving the party.

But what's wrong with that is that there really isn't any other viable party. Maybe if I had another 20-30 years, I could get involved in building a new party, but that's an uphill battle that history shows is nearly impossible to pull off. There hasn't been a viable new party created since the Republican party was born out of the ashes of the Whig party just before the Civil War.

So I guess I'm stuck with the Dems, but the best way to improve things is to work from the inside. As the fundo Xians proved a few years back by inserting their sleeper-cell cadre into the Rethug party at the local level, it works if you have a number of like-minded progressive activists who are willing to take up the fight for the long haul.

And all those Dems who voted along with the Rethugs for the new and improved Big Brother? Well, all the ones in the House are up for reelection next year.

Wanna bet that a lot of them will have challengers in the primary, challengers representing the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?

Questions for the Dems Tonight

Tonight marks the big-audience Soldier Field "debate" amongst the Democratic candidates for the presidency in 2008.

Jeff Cohen over at After Downing Street has a series of very pointed and useful questions that should be asked of each candidate.

Whether they will be asked -- and answered honestly -- is another story.

The "Other" Casualties

They are the ones that don't show up in any official tally of the victims of this stupid war. They are not among the 3679 dead Americans that make up the usual casualty statistics.

But they are victims and casualties nonetheless.

They are the ones who came home suffering from untreated PTSD, to an uncaring government and a VA health care system that is underfunded, understaffed and politicized for the furtherance ot the aims of the Bush Maladministration.

They are the ones who couldn't take it any longer and killed themselves. And, as was true for the Vietnam War, they are dismissed and vilified as being somehow not sane enough(!) in the first place to go to a foreign country and kill people for The Empire without feeling regret.

The warriors are being blamed instead of the system that crushes them in its iron fist.

Amy Goodman has a column on one of these hidden casualties of the War on Terra, U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey.

It's worth the read, even if it will simultaneously sadden you and piss you off.

Especially if it will piss you off.

Bring the troops home. Now.

The Faith-Based Pentagon

It's a trend that's been building for a while, what with the fundo-evangelicals at the Air Force Academy and the disgusting antics of General Jerry Boykin, but now a group of general officers is being called to task by the Inspector General for appearing, in uniform and on duty, in a video filmed by something called Christian Embassy (which is affiliated with the notorious fundo organization, Campus Crusade for Christ).

Truthout.org has the whole story, along with a streaming video copy of the actual video. It's appalling to see what I consider to be a clear violation of the separation of church and state, and it's especially disturbing to have it come from the Pentagon.

I guess the next step will be "faith based" combat, where you pray that god will smite your enemies.

It kind of reminds me of a joke from the movie The Pursuit of Happyness: A guy is in the middle of the ocean without a boat, he's treading water, and another guy in a boat comes by and asks him if he needs help. "No, thanks," the water-treader says. "God will save me." A few hours later another boat comes by and the same thing, "god will save me." So finally the guy drowns and when he gets to heaven he askes god why he didn't save him.

The answer: "You freakin' moron, I sent you two boats!"

So I encourage everyone to join with me in supporting Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It's the premiere watchdog group that is instrumental in preventing this nation from becoming a fundo-Xian theocracy under the repressive iron heel of the American Taliban.

An Ignoble Anniversary

Lest we forget, it was six years ago today that Preznit Shrubby received in his grubby little hands a presidential briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in US".

And what did he do? Nothing.

Just stayed down there on the ole Texas ranch, pullin' up brush and chawin' terbakky, he did.

And now it's been six years and we've lost 3677 American lives, poured into the sand in Iraq where their blood will mix with the oil that Halliburton will pump out and which, eventually, you and I and everyone will burn in our gasoline-powered motorized dinosaurs.

Like I say, an ignoble anniversary.

Bribery for the Soldiers of the Empire

I see that the Army is offering a $20,000 bribe to potential enlistees if they agree to ship out to basic training within 30 days. Now that's a lot of money to its target audience, the poor and unschooled who are working for minimum wage in the WalMart economy. It's a strong persuasion for someone who most likely has never seen that kind of money and who probably thought he or she never would.

And it's a clear indicator that the military is in trouble. Enlistments are down because no one in his or her right mind is going to be willing to be sent to Iraq over and over and over again, just to further the goals of the Evil Empire.

It wasn't enough, apparently, to relax the admission standards so that the borderline retarded and convicted felons could join up. Now they have to sweeten the pot with some cold hard cash.

It reminds me of a poster back in the 60s: What if they gave a war and no one came?

Looks like we're getting pretty close to that now.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1159 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 Guerra de las Malvinas (aka the Falkslands War) and 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.

I'm Back

Okay, it was a little longer than I expected, but after my Friday night retirement party I decided that I would test out the whole retirement concept of Doing Nothing.

Which I did, for nine whole days. I think. Without the stabilizing influence of having to get up and go to work five days a week, I think I lost a day or two in there somewhere.

But now it's Monday and I am secretly -- okay, not so secretly -- smirking at my former fellow employees who had the misfortune of being born too late and having started work too late to join me in retirement.

But there are trade-offs. Instead of dodging the boss at work, I am now dodging She Who Must Be Obeyed, who has the traditional Honey Do list clutched behind her back where she thinks I won't see it.