Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2472 2489
Total coalition forces dead: 226
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1734
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1177
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1137
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: 118

It is still 956 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall!

Is Ann Coulter Insane?

It certainly looks that way, after she called a group of New Jersey 9-11 widows "witches" and "harpies" in her new book and on the Today Show, among many other venues. If a dog exhibited similar dissociative behavior, he would be shot and his head would be removed for a diagnosis of potential rabies, a/k/a "mad dog" syndrome.

"Mann" Coulter (next time she's on one of those talking head shows, check out that Adam's apple and those man-hands -- yikes!) has made her own cottage industry out of being a stridently weird wingnut, but this time the consensus is that she's gone too far. Even Faux News pundits Bill O'Reilly and Mike Straka are trying to distance themselves from her after her frothing rant about the 9-11 widows who are now professional victims enjoying a little too much the fruits of their husbands' deaths.

So, in honor of Crazy Ann Coulter, here's another rehash of a song parody from last year, this one to the tune of Springsteen's Spirit in the Night:

Fear it in the Night
© 2005 Dennis Mansker

Ann "Thrax" Coulter held her steely dan
Clutched in the fingers of her strong right hand.
She has to use it 'cause she can't get a man,
Even drunk on Saturday night.

Well, Annie likes to slam the Democrats,
She calls 'em traitors and then she calls 'em rats,
She looks like a vampire hangin' out with the bats
Lookin' for a neck to bite.

Along with Mushy Rushie and Shammity,
They'll strip away our freedoms and take our liberty,
We have to fight, but we better fear it in the night (all night),
In the night (all night),
Oh, you don't know what they can do to you.
Fear it in the night (all night), in the night (all night)
If you're a liberal Annie will shoot you.

Ann Coulter is a crazy bitch,
If you're not Republican and you're not rich,
She'll kick you in the head and knock you in the ditch,
Leaving you alone to die there.

Annie wrote "Slander" and it was a lie,
Fox News sang her praises and never asked her why,
Then she wrote "Treason" and they gave her another bye,
And liberals aren't supposed to care?

Crazy Annie would be dancin' on our graves,
There wouldn't be a liberal that she would want to save,
She's such a fright, and you'd better fear it in the night (all night),
In the night (all night),
Oh, you don't know what she can do to you.
Fear it in the night (all night), in the night (all night)
Stand up for the left she'll shoot you.

Ann "Voter Fraud" Coulter

After spouting her unforgiving brand of Xian philosophy for years about how the rule of law is supreme, criminals ought to receive the maximum penalties blah blah blah, it is with such a delicious feeling of schadenfreude that I read the news that she is apparently guilty of felony vote fraud in Florida.

Her only response so far is that the liberal elections board in Palm Beach County is suffering from brain damage due to syphilis.

Read the whole story and then follow up with Steven Leser's commentary on it.

Like Leser says, try counting the ironies. Dee-licious.

So all she needs to do now, to be consistent with her own beliefs and statements, is to plead guilty and demand that she be given the maximum prison term for her crime.

Uh huh. That's gonna happen right after blowhard neofascist gasbag Rush "Just-one-more-oxycontin" Limbaugh asks for jail time for HIS felony.

Hypocritical assholes.

The CIA-Nazi Connection

Here's news that, sadly, does not come as a suprise. The CIA was instrumental in concealing the identities and the whereabouts of top Nazis following WWII in a desperate and cynical attempt to use those Nazis as double agents against the Soviets.

Even Adolph Eichmann was a beneficiary of this misguided largesse. The CIA knew as early as 1958 where Eichmann was hiding, and even what name he was using. But they sat on this knowledge because they were afraid that Eichmann, if he were captured and brought to justsice, would blow the whistle on his buddy, Hans Globke, who was working for the US in Germany coordinating anti-communist activities.

Never mind the fact that Eichmann was the commandant of Auschwitz, personally responsible for the deaths of millions of people. That fact evidently paled in comparison to keeping Globke's skirts looking clean. Even when Eichmann was finally discovered and apprehended by agents from Israel, the US was able to exercise its considerable influence on Israel to keep Globke's name out of the proceedings.

Jeez, doesn't it seem like they could have done that anyway and given up Eichmann to Israel when they first knew his location?

No, I guess that makes too much sense. After all, we're dealing with that 1950s CIA mindset that dicated that the communists in the Soviet Union were so much worse than the German Nazis, who were apparently just "misunderstood".

After all, as we now know, even Prescott Bush, Baby Doc's own grandfather and the founder of the BFEE, made his fortune from his business dealings with the fascist corporatists in the Third Reich. He apparently didn't have any qualms about any untidy and unprofitable concepts such as human rights.

Back to Somalia?

Tromp tromp tromp, the boots of The Empire keep marching. Now it's back to Somalia, but not for revenge (after all, the Black Hawk Down events happened under Clinton's watch -- even though it was Poppy Bush who first sent troops there, another inconvenient fact forgotten by the Repugs when they were howling for Clinton's head over the incident) but to prevent the new government, the Islamic Militia, from creating a "safe haven" for Al Qaeda.

Baby Doc said as much yesterday, if you read between the lines, in a thinly-veiled threat to the new leaders of the country.

Naturally Baby Doc and his minions and handlers in the BFEE weren't at all happy that an Islamic force overthrew the warlords and ended years of lawless slaughter in that benighted nation. And that kind of puts us in the awkward position of supporting the very criminals who were in charge of Mogadishu when the body one of our own soldiers was dragged through the streets for the benefit of international television.

It's a funny world, isn't it? Black is white, up is down, war is peace, and freedom is slavery.

Jim Webb for Senate, Virginia

On Friday I received a telephone call from my good friend Tom Keefe, who was the National Field Director for Veterans for Kerry. Tom lives in the state of Virginia and is now active in the US Senate campaign of James Webb (www.webbforsenate.com). Jim Webb is a fellow Vietnam veteran, fellow Vietnam author and former Secretary of the Navy who is running against a guy named Harris Miller, a professional lobbyist, in the Virginia primary election, which is coming up just next week, on June 13th.

If any of you live in Virginia please help Jim win the primary; if you have friends or relatives living in Virginia, you might want to give them a call or send them an email to urge them to vote for Jim Webb.

And please consider making a donation to the Webb campaign -- his primary opponent, being a professional lobbyist, has lots of money and Jim Webb doesn't. Even $10 will help. Please do it quickly, since there are only seven days remaining until the election.

Here are some of the reasons why Tom Keefe and I, along with many other veterans, are supporting James Webb:

·He has the courage to stand up and lead.
·He has the unique ability to bring "Reagan Democrats" and others, who have drifted away from the Democratic Party back home, to the party of Wes Clark, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine.
· He is not a life-long, career politician or lobbyist, like Harris Miller. Instead, Jim Webb is a patriot who cares first about the country for which he almost gave his life in Vietnam. As proof of this, Webb gave up a life he loved in order to run for US Senate, simply because he was deeply concerned over the nation's direction.
·As a former Navy Secretary, Jim Webb has tremendous national security experience and credibility in this post-9/11 world.
·Jim Webb alone had the guts to speak out against the Iraq War before the invasion. This shows character and the type of leadership we can expect from Senator Webb. Contrast this with Harris Miller, who continues to refuse to answer whether he would have voted for the resolution that gave the President a blank check to invade Iraq.

Thank you for any support that you can give to Jim Webb in this crucial race.

God, Guns and Gays

Let's see... An illegal occupation of Iraq that keeps dragging on with no end in sight, no "victory" possible, and an American death toll of over 2400 and counting. Children going to bed hungry. Fifty million people without health care. A Walmart economy that continues to add jobs that don't pay a living wage while at the same time "outsourcing" real jobs to India and China. Record high gas prices coupled with record high profits for Big Oil. A ballooning deficit that should be a firebell in the night for the so-called party of fiscal responsibility. A federal government that is out of control and spying on innocent Americans. A culture of corruption that has taken over Congress and the Executive Branch.

Yep, wo do have some real problems in this country. So what's the GOP's answer to all this? Why, it's simple: Remove the so-called "death tax" (which currently affects only those who die with assets in excess of four million dollars, or 0.5% of the American populace), and of course deal with those old tried-and-true issues of gay marriage and flag burning, to be corrected by passing Constitutional amendments to ban them.

Cynic that I am, I can't help but see all of this is some more of that good ole god, guns and gays posturing by the Repugnicans who are anxious to deflect the attention of the Moron-American voting bloc away from the real problems by getting them to focus on those "values" issues that the GOP is so good at exploiting.

But hey, it's a post-9/11 world out there, and if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists. Yikes, there goes one now! It's a flag-burning faggot out to marry your brother, confiscate all of your guns and tax your death!

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 742 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst in April and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2463 2472
Total coalition forces dead: 223
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1728
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1170
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1130
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: 111

It is still 963 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall!

Is Haditha Arabic for My Lai?

The body count is smaller, but the similarities are overwhelming. Unarmed civilians, mostly old people, women and children, slaughtered by a force of American soldiers. A massive coverup by the American brass. When the truth finally emerges, massive denial by everyone in a position of authority.

Like so many other similarities between the quagmire in the jungle and the quagmire in the desert, the massacre of civilians at Haditha has a disconcerting resonance with the infamous My Lai massacre of forty years ago.

A notable difference is that this time the Army brass was not able to cover it up for more than a year before the truth came out. But they didn't have good-soldier Colin Powell to help out this time around (Powell was in the Americal Division and helped to cover up the My Lai Massacre -- an almost-forgotten inconvenient fact that I believe was integral to his decision not to run for higher office).

Predictably the wingnuttery are squawking out about the massacre with their usual "we're at war, shit happens" crap -- and oh by the way it's all the fault of the liberal media for reporting it. And of course, Clinton for...well, just being Clinton, I guess.

Once again some low-level grunts will bear the burden -- as they should, if the reports are accurate, as they seem to be -- but those above them who created the climate of violence and the opportunity for murder will go untouched. Instead, the military is instituting something they call "core values" training.

Baby Doc the other day at West Point presumptuously (and preposterously) compared himself to Harry Truman, but he ought to recall one of the things that Harry Truman was famous for: A desk sign that said "The Buck Stops Here".

Der Monkey Fuehrer and his flying-monkey lackey Rummy Rumsfeld are at the top of the heap in America's military. Bush likes to keep reminding us that he's the commander-in-chief and, as The Decider, is keeping Rummy on the job.

That makes both of them responsible and complicit in the deaths at Haditha. When the news of My Lai finally crept to the surface and saw the light of day, it was a turning point in the minds of most Americans who up to that point had either supported the war, or didn't oppose it (those people who "didn't have a dog in the fight" -- i.e., had no one they knew in uniform and over there), and the anti-war movement picked up both mass and velocity as a direct result of My Lai.

Here's hoping that the complacent attitude on the part of those same uninvolved Americans will change with the continuing revelations about Haditha. Call me cynical, but I'm not counting on it. Not when those same people can be lulled to sleep with the belief that Little Lynndie England, The Tiny Terror of Baghdad, was solely responsible for those highly inventive torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib.

Complete the Mission?

That's what Der Monkey Fuehrer said yesterday when he laid the traditional Memorial Day wreath at Arlington National Cemetery. And he said it without a trace of shame or embarrassment that he personally had sent over 2460 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to their deaths in the bloody sand of Iraq.

Thanks once again to Bartcop for this
picture of Baby Doc, made up using the faces of the men he sent to death.

It is a slap in the face to every serviceman and woman, every veteran, to see that fucking draft dodger swagger out at our premier national cemetery and do that smirking chimp impression while telling us to "complete the mission".

Complete the mission.

Not once, however, has he been able to articulate clearly either exactly what that mission is or what it will look like when it is completed.

We're on the same path in Iraq as we were in Vietnam. Henry Kissinger sold out the Saigon government and every American on the ground in Vietnam when he secretly told China -- in 1972 -- that a communist takeover in Vietnam was "acceptable" if the US could have a "decent interval" to withdraw troops so it wouldn't look like we lost the war.

Indecent interval is more like it. Exactly how many Americans died after that conversation? I don't know and I'm too fucking outraged to do the research myself.

But I do know this: The same thing will happen in Iraq, and how many more Americans will have to die between now and the time we can successfully extricate ourselves from the quagmire in the sand, because we don't want to "lose face"?

Lose face???!!! I'd rather have my country admit that it was wrong and lose face than have any more of my brothers and sisters lose actual eyes, ears, limbs and lives over this fucking mess.

Complete the mission. Yeah, I agree -- if the mission is to bring our troops home.

Now.

How Many Veterans Records? All of Them

In response to my earlier post on the stolen VA records, Anonymous has a good point. How many veterans were discharged from the military since the alleged cutoff date of 1976 cited in the original stories?

I don't have that figure, but according the 2000 US Census, out of a population of 208.1 million civilians age 18 and older, 26.4 million were veterans. Even given that a number of vets have died in the meantime, plus another bunch have been discharged and have become veterans, it looks like the data that was stolen includes just about every fucking veteran out there, going back for-fucking-ever -- not, as we were initially informed, only those discharged since 1975.

I ought to have done this verification myself. That 26 million figure should have just leaped out at me. Innumeracy -- it can even bite the pros.

It would behoove all of us to check and keep checking our credit scores on a regular basis. Who knows how big this could get?

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 735days 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 to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The 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), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Illegal Occupation of Iraq: 2454 2463
Total coalition forces dead: 222
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1721
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1163
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1123
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: 104

Number of days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration: still 970 days

Pay No Taxes!

According to Denny Fatboy Make-That-Three-Triple-Cheeseburgers Hastert, Squeaker of the House, the Marie Antoinette of American politics, and fulltime Repugnican prick, "well, folks, if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two, you don't pay any taxes. So you probably if you don't pay any taxes, you are not going to get a big tax cut. Now, if you earn $1 million a year, you are going to pay about $400,000 of taxes. Maybe you'll get a $40,000 tax cut ..."

Okay, I make somewhat more than $40,000, so I guess I'll have to pay taxes only on that amount over $40,000. So I am going to go right down to my payroll office and have them adjust my withholding. And I'm going to write to the IRS and ask for a refund of all the taxes I've paid in excess over the last five or seven years or how-the-fuck-ever-many years you can go back. I'll tell 'em Denny Hastert sent me.

Guilty Guilty Gulty!!!

Breaking news: Kenny-boy Lay and Jeffy-boy Skilling found guilty on charges of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and making false statements. Off to jail for up to 45 years for these two oligarchs of the new economy.

Baby Doc, who originally gave Lay the nickname "Kenny-boy" has been backpedaling his friendship with the little frogfaced motherfucker ever since he was first accused. But now that his own polls are plummeting out of sight, it won't be long before Kenny-boy himself will be saying, "hey, I barely knew the guy".

Rolling Back the Clock on Mine Safety

To the oligarchical fatcat pigs who now hold the reins of the presidency, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, labor is just another commodity, a raw material to be used up, worn out and thrown away. It's like all of the advances of the last 100 years -- Teddy Roosevelt's Trust Busting, sometimes called the Square Deal, his cousin Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in particular -- didn't happen.

Can anyone remember a more self-absorbed out-of-touch bunch of assholes being in positions of power in this country? You'd have to go back over 100 years, to the 1890s, the hey-day of Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the American oligarchy to find this kind of thinking.

This is exactly what the powers behind the throne are attempting to do: Roll back the clock to the "good old days" of child labor, no minimum wage, no health and safety guarantees, and twelve-hour workdays, with zero regulations to reign in the fatcat corporatists who think it is their god-given right to rule us lesser mortals with an iron fist of greed.

We already see the results of deregulation in the mining industry. We have had 26 coal mine deaths already just this year. While it's not yet anywhere near the 3,242 deaths that occurred in 1907, the highest year for mining fatalities, it's on track to surpass the 29 deaths in 1998, the lowest year on record.

Mining remains dangerous work, and it's incumbent on us as a society to make that work as safe as possible. This becomes extremely more difficult when the Baby Doc Maladminstration, as it has done time and again with regulatory agencies, has appointed one David Lauriski, a mining industry executive, to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

It's a scary time for this nation and its people. And we have to fight these dirty bastards every step of the way. Join a union if you can -- for those of us who work for a living, unions are the only entities who are concerned with the lives and health and safety of the workers. If you think you can rely on the goodwill largess of an employer for the betterment of your wages, hours and working conditions, then you are a fool.

Hacking Diebold

According to a May 19 article on the InfoWorld website, by one Robert X. Cringely, it is about as difficult to hack into a Diebold voting machine as it is to steal the prize out of a Cracker Jack box.

Yes, that's very comforting to know, now that fully half of the states will be using electronic voting this year. Blackbox Voting has a full report on the liabilities inherent in using the machines, and it's not a pretty sight.

The machines are easily exploited by using "back door" entries that are -- get this -- a feature of the machines, installed in the software to allow easier upgrading.

So anyone with a half a degree in computer tech can, if they know what they are doing, hack into any Diebold machine and install a routine to, say, count five Republican votes for every four Democratic votes. Nothing blatant, no red flags, no flashing lights, just a few extra votes on the side that "deserves" to win. Unplug the machine and the count vanishes into the ether. No muss, no fuss and no Republicans left on base.

"What they’re proposing as a vulnerability is actually a functionality of the system," spokesman David Bear said, predictably. "Instead of recognizing the advantages of the technology, we keep ringing up 'what if' scenarios that serve no purpose other than to confuse and in some instances frighten voters."

Well. How about that. I say we ought to be frightened, and not let these smarmy snake-oil salesmen charm us into relinquishing contro of our voting system.

Optically scanned paper ballots. That's the only way to go, and I urge everyone to contact your state voting officials and let them know that using these infernal machines is an unacceptable method of counting our votes.