Scalia Lite?

...or maybe not so lite, since the newest nominee to the Supremes has a record that sounds more like Torquemada than O'Connor, the justice he'll be replacing.

Here's what I think has happened here: The Mayberry Machaivellians orchestrated the whole thing starting a couple of months ago when they saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that somebody in the Baby Doc Maladministration was going down.

So what do they do? They have their Meat Puppet nominate someone so far out of left field as to be in the next county, little Harriet Miers, as a stalking horse until they needed a diversion. As soon as it became fact that indictments were coming -- and soon -- the good soldier Miers graciously stepped aside.

Scooter was indicted Friday. Today Baby Doc nominates neo-fascist Scalia-mini-me Alito to the court and all of a sudden the focus is off the worst political crime since Watergate and on to the court nominee.

Clever, these Repugnican motherfuckers. I'll give 'em that.

And he will probably be confirmed, even if the Dems can manage to dig up enough balls to stage a filibuster -- I just heard on NPR Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Religious Cult) threaten the "nuclear option" if the Dems filibuster.

So, while it might be fun to watch the Senate implode, as seems likely, in the long run it will not be good for the country or for our democracy.

Like I've said before, we're fucked.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 528 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.

It has now become The Question: If it is such a noble cause, why aren't the Bush Twins in uniform and in Iraq? We will ask it every chance we get, at every place Bush speaks, to anyone who will listen.

Remember The Question! And 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.

Brit Hume to Juan Williams: Someone Needs to Hose You Down

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse over at Faux News, Brit Hume, their chief "news" caster, tells Juan Williams, a black man, someone needs to hose you down!

Now I know Brit has to be old enough to remember the civil rights era, when black people were routinely hosed down with fire hoses on the streets of Alabama. It's more than an unfortunate choice of words -- Brit Hume is a racist motherfucker who can't stand the thought of an uppity Negro talking back to him.

Brit Hume can get hosed himself; fuck him and fuck all of Faux News. Every day in every way they continue to show their true colors, and I cannot believe that anyone still watches that pathetic display of newsertainment. And yet they do, even people I know who are otherwise intelligent individuals but who have a giant blind spot when it comes to the unfair and unbalanced drivel that spews out of the slack jaws of those mouthbreathers of the right.

Why I Refuse to Join VSOs -- Reason # 566

Take a look at the Radical Veteran website to see a ludicrous attack on the part of an anonymous VFW post somewhere in the world of wingnuttery.

Gunny Sergeant Guy Johns (USMC-Ret, so he claims) is the author of the nomination for their "idiot of the month" award because of certain unspecified statements on the Radical Veteran website that "embarrass all military veterans".

The award winner will have the prestige of having his/her face printed on a urinal strainer so the inmates of the VFW club, if they can find their way through that alcoholic fog to the bathroom, can demonstrate their contempt for the award recipient.

Previous winners have been Ted Kennedy, James Carville, Susan Estrich, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and Howard Wolfson, so the award winner will be in good company.

Check it out on the Radical Veteran guestbook page and be prepared to laugh at Gunny Johns' imbecility while you are shaking your head at his arrogance.

It's the Democrats' Fault. Naturally.

That didn't take long. Alreay on Faux News, good old Ben Stein, Repugnican moron, says that the Libby indictment was nothing more than a political vendetta.

Yeah, right. A political vendetta by the Dems, concocted and orchestrated by a Republican, under a Republican administration. Think about that for a while. The Democrats would have to be so fucking uber-Machaivellian that they would outdo the Repugs at the very zenith of their malevolent evil.

Watch for more of this theme on Faux News. Well, not literally, since I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Unless he was a Democrat. But I don't seem to develop any Democrat enemies.

But I digress... Instead of actually watching Faux News, do what I do and check in with News Hounds every day (motto: "We watch Fox News so You Don't Have to").

The Libby Squeeze Play

The Scootster is going down! Obstruction of justice and perjury, just for starters. Those charges carry about a 30-year sentence, I believe.

But to my disappointment, Karl Rove was not on the indictment list. Yet.

Here's the deal: I think Fitzgerald is throwing the max at Libby with the idea of squeezing him to give up Rove. There's no fucking way that Rove wasn't involved in this, and with Libby facing what could prove to be the remainder of his life in the graybar hotel, there's a good chance that he's going to sing like a canary.

And he won't be squealing on just Rove. Watch for Cheney to feel the sting of the lash as well. Any bets on him retiring due to "health reasons" in the next few months?

We all need to stay tuned. This could be more fun than Watergate.

Friday Cat Blogging

Miers Out -- Attila the Hun In?

Harriet Miers has "withdrawn" from consideration of appointment to the Supreme Court. On the advice and consent of the wingnut booboisie, the Hezbollah wing of the Repugnican party, Baby Doc's "best person I could find" nominee for the Supremes is out.

It's a Hobson's choice, actually, since Baby Doc is on notice that he can't fuck with "the base" and ignore the needs and desires of the far right. Watch for his next nominee to be someone to the right of Attila the Hun. Watch for the weak-kneed Dems, so happy that cronyism is out, to welcome in the next justice with open arms and bared necks.

I guess I sound kind of bitter, don't I?

Waiting for the Other Shoe

Jeez, this is worse than waiting for Xmas morning and the Santa gifts. We just know that indictments are coming down and Turdblossom is finally gonna get what's coming to him, but the waiting is just killing me.

I've been distracted all day, continually checking Google News for the announcement (I can't get any other news sources inside the building where I work, not even local radio -- it's a government job, need I say more?) and it just hasn't been forthcoming.

Now I hear that it may not be until Friday. Jesus, I just can't stand it. Rove, Libby and two "players to be named later" is the latest buzz. As pleasing as that will be, it's still going to be ultimately unsatisfying, unless ... the two unnamed indictees turn out to be Baby Doc and VP Crashcart.

Is it too much to hope for? I don't think so.

2000 Dead Americans -- 2000 Too Many

It's official. Today's casualty numbers show that we've hit the 2000 mark for dead Americans in Iraq.

Please take a moment to grieve for the dead and for the families who have lost sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. It was all so unnecessary and so futile and so stupid and so useless.

There will be vigils everywhere in the country this week. Go to the Moveon.org event page and find one near you. If one is not listed near you, please consider starting one in your town.

And take a moment to view the Paul Fusco photo montage of 27 military funerals for our dead soldiers from Iraq. It is one of the most moving pieces of Internet multimedia that I have ever seen.

Two thousand is two thousand too many.

Baby Doc to Wounded Veterans: Suck it Up, Wussies

This one came by while I was recovering, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows about it. Our wounded troops are returning home to the worst conditions for disabled veterans since the Vietnam War. In addition to the appalling state of our underfunded Veterans Hospitals, the severely understaffed Veterans Administration, and the long waiting lists just to get in to see a doctor, our returning veterans are also being dunned for nickle-and-dime pay adjustments that in most cases hover on that fine line between immoral and irrational.

In one documented case, a wounded soldier languished for months in an Army hospital after being airlifted out of Iraq following a bombing, only to be assessed an "overpayment" of $6200 as he was processing out of the service. Among other things, he was expected to pay for the gear he was wearing when he was wounded: his Kevlar helmet, his rucksack -- even his fucking suspenders!

Obviously the bean counters who have come up with this shit have never been in any kind of combat situation. As anyone who has actually been there knows, the very last thing on anyone's mind when you are dealing with a wounded soldier is to keep track of his goddamn equipment. This is so appalling that it would be gallows-humor laughable if it were not such a tragic -- and trenchant -- commentary on our whole Iraq misadventure, the "Mess-o-potamia", as fellow pissed-off veteran Jo Fish calls it.

Don't Think of Canada as an Escape Hatch

It's a time-honored tradition for us in the lower 48 to think of our neighbor to the north as some kind of safe haven for American dissidents. Time was when that was true -- I knew several draft dodging Americans back in the day who skipped out to Canada rather than allow themselves to be inducted into that immoral war in SE Asia -- but that door has been slowly swinging shut.

Case in point, disabled Army veteran Steve Tuck, injured in a parachuting accident, used morphine and other drugs for a number of years in an attempt to kill the constant pain. Unfortunately for him, he also used so-called Medical Marijuana, which seems to be higher on the DEA's list than heroin, crack cocaine or LSD, and that got him into trouble.

Despite the fact that California, where he was living at the time, had its own Medical Marijuana laws on the books, the Repugnican DEA and DOJ decided that state's rights don't really mean state's rights when they state tries to do something that the feds don't like. Steve was forced to flee to Canada in 2001 as a "pot war refugee".

So far so good, until earlier this month when Steve was glommed onto by the Mounties, dragged bodily out of a hospital and hauled to the US border with a urinary catheter still sticking out of his poor bladder. US authorities scraped him up and threw him into jail in Seattle, where he languished without medical care for five days, still attached to the catheter, and without even a medical examination.

What the fuck is up with this? My advice: Stay out of Canada if you are a refugee of any kind. That's also the hard lesson learned by the main character of Dawn Blair's chilling and prophetic and highly recommended America 2014: An Orwellian Tale. Buy it, read it, and prepare yourself for what just may come to pass in the next few years if this haunting dystopian vision turns real.

Oh, and what about Steve? He was finally released from jail last Thursday to seek medical treatment, but he has to go back to Northern California to answer to the drug charges.

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

WTFU!

Over at the Progressive Leader blog, there's a call for everyone to adopt a new acronym: WTFU -- Wake the Fuck Up!

"Aintgonnatakeitnomore" (the blogonym of the site's owner) says that it is time for us all to WTFU to what's been going on. He has links to a lengthy analysis by a retired AF colonel concerning the orchestrated panoply of lies coming out of the administration.

For all the mindless masses out there, read what the good Colonel Sam Gardiner (USAF, Ret.) has written, where he has meticulousy identified 50 false news stories created and leaked by a secretive White House propaganda apparatus, also known as WHIG (White House Iraqi Group -- Dick Cheney, Condolezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Lewis Libby, Karl Rove and other playmates).

Now, WTFU and consider the hell we have reaped because of it.

What's a Little Perjury Anyway?

Perjury. Such an ugly term. So negative. Such a part of the liberal "blame game"... Instead let's call it the "criminalization of politics" -- a little lying under oath, well that's really nothing to get worked up about, is it? Not according to Faux News (Motto: We Lie It and You Buy It). Not according to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - Bitchweasel).

Yep, it's just one of those pesky legal technicalities. Unfortunately, one that is punishable by five years in prison.

Too bad about those legal technicalities. The right wing has been kvetching about them for years, about the so-called "bad guys" getting off because of them. Turns out they work both ways -- those technicalities can actually bite you on the ass, Mister Repugnican Liar.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 521 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.

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 the Bush children to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

I'm Back!

It's been a long haul getting back to a point where I can think clearly again (of course, there are those who say that was a lost cause from the beginning...), but I think I can safely say now, in that enduring Mark Twain phrase, that the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Thanks to all of you who expressed sympathy and other "hang in there" types of comments, both on the blog and by email. I appreciate all of you.

So now it's back to taking on the chickenhawks, the Repugnican hypocrites, the wingnut morons and the bloviating rightwing noise machine. Not to mention starting up again my now-famous Bush Twins in Uniform Watch.

Post Surgery Update

Today marks one week since my surgery, so it's time for another update.

I've been in constant moderate-to-severe pain for one week now, much more than I expected to have. So I asked the doctor about it and he said that I'd had four separate surgical procedures in one session on the table (i.e., straightening a deviated septum, radio-wave shrinkage of nasal turbinates, surgical removal of the uvula and most of the soft palate, and radio-wave shrinkage of excess tissue at the base of my tongue) -- each of those procedures, by itself, causes extreme pain. I got the full meal deal, so it's no fucking wonder I haven't bounced back the way I thought I would.

But today I finally have the nudging thought that I might eventually be able to rejoin the world of the living. I can swallow pills now (no more trying to choke down that nasty awful throat-burning nose-squirting oxy-codone-in-suspension semi-liquid syrup every three hours), and I'm starting to get the beginnings of an appetite back. I've been living -- if you can call it that -- on one piece of milk toast, one Slimfast shake, and two popsicles a day since last Wednesday. And I still can't talk out loud because of the pain. The pills manage to take the worst edges off, but the pain is still there.

On the positive side, I have lost over 10 pounds, but it is not a diet I would recommend.

I'm hoping to be back to my old self by Monday.

Dark Since Wednesday

I had some corrective surgery performed last Wednesday and it's really put me out of it; I expected to bounce back faster than this, but I haven't.

It's true -- you really can't recover as quickly as you used to be able to do when you were in your 20s.

Hope to be back to posting in a few days.

The Crime that Dare not Speak its Name

Impeachment! It wasn't even thinkable a year ago, and yet here is a new poll that says fully 50% of the American people agree that "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

So we already know that he lied. Can Articles of Impeachment be far away? Elect Democrats next year in sufficient numbers to take back our Congress, and the truth will make us free.

Even the Air Force?

In another not surprising development, the elite, we're-above-all-that-nasty-ground-pounding-stuff, US Air Force is getting pressed into action to do some of the down and dirty work in Iraq.

Since there aren't enough people in the Army to do all the shit work, and nobody is rushing the recruitment offices, Uncle Donny and the Pentagon are getting pretty stretched to find people to do the unpleasant jobs, like guarding jails, protecting convoys, and interrogating prisoners.

So, if you can't recruit 'em off the streets, just cannibalize the other services. Now a bunch of Air Force personnel are in Iraq doing interrogations, guarding prisons and riding along as "shotgun" on supply convoys. A bunch more are in training down at my old stomping grounds in Fort Huachuca, AZ.

So all this shit duty isn't exactly what those effete snobs enlisted for, but they're doing it nevertheless. Even 40 years ago, those of us in the Army resented the Air Force for their airs of superiority, their arrogance -- and also for their goddam comfortable innerspring mattresses. Even back then we considered them elitist snobs, so in many ways it's gratifying to see them actually have to "work for a living".

But on the other hand, why should they have to do this shit? Why should anybody? We shouldn't even fucking be there.

Noble cause, my ass. Why aren't the recruiters knocking on that White House door and signing up those lazy-assed slacker daughters of our Boy-King? If this is such a fucking noble cause, they need to be in uniform.

Subway Terror Alert a Hoax? Say it Ain't So.

In yet another not surprising development, the NYC subway alert turns out to be so not true. In other words, a hoax. A prevarication. A lie.

Remember what I've always said about them instilling, nurturing and keeping a constant state of fear in the populace, to keep us off balance and distract us from their real plans and actions? Here's yet another example of it.

An interesting line from the Hitchhiker's Guide went something like this: The president of the galaxy has no power -- the only reason he exists is to distract our attention away from those who do have the power. Douglas Adams, who died much too soon, had it right on the money all those years ago when he first wrote the book.

They are sure to keep up the fake terror alerts, those cheap magic act diversions, while all the while trying to consolidate their corrupt power. The 2006 elections will tell the tale: If, after everything we do to bring down this corrupt and evil empire, they are still in power in the Congress, it will be time to think about making some "alternative lifestyle" plans.

Like living it somewhere else.

You Just Can't Make This Shit Up

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: Reality trumps fiction. Every time. I'm a novelist, and even I couldn't come up with this kind of crap.

"Pickles" Bush says that the resistance to Harriet Fuck-the-Constitution Miers is due to "sexism"... I kid you not. Here's the link to the Reuters story.

Poor Pickles. Imagine what it must be like to be married to Baby Doc. She deserves all the sympathy...well, that she deserves. Which is none. She must have known what she was getting into, and if the wants to keep on being the Stepford First Lady, far be it from me to call bullshit on it. She is an educated woman, a librarian, for chrissake. Surely she has to know what she's gotten herself into. She's like Kay, the Diane Keaton character in The Godfather, but without her final steely resolve. Come on, Laura, grow a spine. But we know you won't -- you'll just drink the Koolaid with the rest of the members of the BFEE.

In the meantime, we can avoid all those inconvenient and pesteringly dull arguments about Miers' lack of qualifications, her lack of judicial acumen, her lack of personal judgment ("the most brilliant man I've ever met..."), etc. by saying that all of the resistance to her nomination is due to... sexism.

Yeah, that's gonna work. Go with that, Pickles. If I were you, I'd be off working on my "Nuremburg" defense -- you know, where you take the Albert Speer ( the "good Nazi") approach: You were just doing your job and you didn't really know what was going on.

What Happens When Baby Doc Meets a Real Journalist

Remember that famous incident with Carole Coleman, the Irish journalist who had the nerve to ask Baby Doc those unnerving questions that our press corps ought to be asking? The one who actually had the effrontery to do her job? The one who, for her trouble, got a complaint lodged against her with her own embassy?

Yeah, we all remember her with a fond you-go-girlfriend attitude.

She has a book out now about her experiences covering the US for the Irish television network. An excerpt from that book is now available on the Sunday Times-Review (UK) website. Check it out for an excellent perspective on our Boy-Warrior-King that you won't get from the obsequient bootlicking ass-kissing administration lackeys in our own media.

With Friends Like These...

Our old buddy Joementum (aka Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Weasel) recently attended a 50th birthday bash for, of all things, the National Review. And, according to our double-secret super-duper deep-cover source, not only did the turncoat rat-bastard attend, he actually sat at the head table with William F. "Watch My Vocabulary" Buckley and my favorite windbag, Rush "It's Not Illegal When I Do It" Limbaugh.

Before we forget and it becomes ancient history musty with age, recall if you will that Buckley pretty much assured Joementum's election over the liberal (though nominally Republican, certainly more liberal that Lieberman) Lowell Weicker with his own election-year shenanigans.

So Atrios over at Eschaton thought we ought to see a little historical perspective on the National Review and what it stood for just a few short years ago.

Excerpt from a 1957 Nat Rev editorial:

The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by meerely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced ace. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.
...
The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could.

Joe, you tell on yourself by the company you keep. Why don't you just go ahead and officially join the Repugnican Party. We don't need you hanging around stinking up ours any more.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 507 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.

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 the Bush children to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

Civics Lesson

A student in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, as part of a class project on the Bill of Rights, created a poster by pinning a picture of Baby Doc to a wall with a thumbtack through his head and then holding the classic "thumbs down" pose with his own hand while he had someone take a picture of the whole thing.

It was supposed to be a poster that illustrated our right to dissent. So far so good, but he made the mistake of taking the film to his local Wal-Mart for developing, where an employee, a good citizen/Gestapo agent working in the photo department, saw the picture and called the local cops, who in turn called in the Secret Service.

Yes, the Secret Service. Who came to the high school where the student is a senior and took the offending poster into custody. Alternet has the complete story.

That kid got a lesson in the Bill of Rights, all right, but it wasn't the one the teacher wanted him to get.

And there's a lesson in it for all of us. I have argued in this space before that we are seeing one "isolated incident" after another of our Constitutional rights being trampled, abrogated, ignored or destroyed, with the sum total effect being one of subtle and not-so-subtle intimidation.

Well fuck 'em. I won't be silenced and I won't shut up on my own. We still have some rights left and I won't give them up without a fight. I advise you to do the same.

And don't shop at Wal-Mart. Like we needed another reason for that.

Strict Constructionist?

Yeah, the rightwing wants judges who are so-called strict constructionists on the court, intent-of-the-founders and all that crap. Unless it suits them to act otherwise.

Case in point: The Wall Street Journal (!) has a story on a little known-incident during the 2000 Presidential Race that sheds some light on Harriet Miers' judicial philosophy.

At the time I wondered how Baby Doc and The Dickster could be on the ticket together because I remembered that there was something in the Constitution that precluded a president and vice-president being from the same state. Turns out it was that pesky 12th Amendment, the one that sets up rules for the Electoral College, that says that the electors can't vote for candidates for these offices who are both from the same state as themselves.

So there was that little problem of Incurious George being the governor, so the argument couldn't be made that he wasn't from Texas, and the inconvenient fact that Dick Cheney was living in Dallas, with a job in Dallas, owning a house in Dallas, being registered to vote in Dallas, having a Texas driver's license which allowed him to drive his cars registered in Texas, and paying taxes in Texas. So the electoral votes from Texas wouldn't -- couldn't -- be counted. That was the basis of an obscure lawsuit, Jones v. Bush, filed by three Texas voters.

What to do? What to do?

Well, enter Harriet Miers, acting as defense attorney, who skillfully dodged all those important Constitutional issues by having Cheney say that he was really a citizen of Wyoming. With the connivance of Republican-appointed judges, the lawsuit was thrown out, both at the state level and on appeal at the Fifth Circuit.

Case closed, and strict constructionist my ass. Like I say, only when it suits them. The arrogance and hypocrisy of the Repugnican party knows no end.

21 Dead Americans in One Week!

In one fucking week we've had 21 dead Americans, but would you know about it from reading the newspapers? Watching the network news? Watching Faux News? No, you would not.

The MSM/SCLM have grown tired of covering the Iraqi War. Nothing new is happening, and the stories coming out of there are now showing all the leaden sameness that spells ratings death for the media outlets. The Iraq War (along with other "boring" news stories) is now relegated to trivia questions on TV quiz shows.

Besides, it's not like the children of anyone important are bleeding and dying over there. Don't look for a lot of media coverage unless, oh, say, the Bush Twins suddenly get patriotic and enlist in the Noble Cause.

Yeah. Uh-uh...

In the meantime, you can see scenes like this only in the Blogosphere:

God Speaks to Baby Doc

You talking to god is a sign of faith. God talking to you is a sign of insanity.

Nevertheless, it appears that god is indeed talking to Baby Doc. It was god who told him to invade Iraq. Reminds me of that old Flip Wilson routine, where he appears in drag as Geraldine, whose signature excuse for everything was "The devil made me do it".

Naturally one of the Palestinian officials to whom he said it claims that he didn't take it literally. Jesus, who in their right mind would take it literally, in what you would think was a normal conversation with the Leader of the Free World?

The White House official spokesliar, Scotty McClelland, of course, says Baby Doc didn't say it. Bullshit. Every time anyone in this administration opens his piehole a stream of lies comes pissing out.

So if god tells Baby Doc to pull the nuclear trigger, will he do it?

Stupid question -- damn straight he will do it. The neocon wingnuts have wanted to bring on Armageddon since at least the Reagan Administration (and probably before -- I seem to recall a National Review slogan from the late 60s that went, in that famously ostentatious William F. Buckley parlance, something like "Don't let THEM immanentize the eschaton").

And this time we don't have Christopher Walken to put a stop to it.

The Fear Factor. Again.

Baby Doc, facing plummeting poll numbers and sniping attacks from all sides for his latest careen into incompetent cronyism, suddenly spouts off that he personally is responsible for thwarting ten Al Queda plots against the forces of truth and justice and the American Way, including three right here in our own country, and disrupting plans in five more cases.

As usual, he is lying. Did I say as usual? I meant as always.

On of these three cases involved Jose Padilla, who is still in custody without having been charged with a crime -- probably because there really isn't a crime that they can charge him with. Even the law enforcement people who were interviewed for an LA Times story on the case say that the " hadn’t found any evidence… that the plot had developed into any kind of operational plan." It's pretty hard to call that a plot thwarted, I think.

Two more of them dealt with 9/11- associated "plots" to use airliners on the West Coast as weapons, but even the Justice Department says they that never got beyond the purely theoretical stages -- hard to even call them plots, I think, plus the plotters abandoned the plans themselves, so how can we call them "thwarted"?

Local cops in California, scene of many of these "crimes" are scratching their collective heads over the details in Bush's speech.

But never mind all that factual stuff. As this maladministration has shown us time and time again, the facts do not matter. All that matters is whipping up the fear in the American people to distract them from the rampant corruption and deliberate crime taking place in the White House.

Friday Cat Blogging

The Senate Grows Some Balls

By a truly lopsided vote of 90-9, the Senate last night voted to add an anti-torture section to a $440 billion military spending bill, despite a White House threat to veto the bill if the language was added.

Veto the bill??? What is up with that?

Senator John McCain, who knows something about torture and its effectiveness, spearheaded the drive to add the language to the bill. It was endorsed by Colin Powell and 28 other retired senior military officers. Senate Majority Leader Bill "Kitty-Kervorkian" Frist, in typical fashion, flip-flopped on it, first leading the opposition and then finally voting for it -- this fucker thinks he can be president?

But I digress -- now we're back to this: Veto the bill???!!!! What the fuck is up with that?

Roberts Shows His Colors. Already.

It didn't take very long for our newest court buddy, Chief Justice Frenchfry Fuck-You-Veterans Roberts, to make his first stand. First case out of the gate and the bug-eyed-boy starts grandstanding.

Not surprisingly his position was not the true conservative position.

The case stems from an Ashcroft Justice Department challenge of Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law. Funny isn't it, how the so-called "conservatives" (who are actually anything but) are such big talkers when it comes to Federalism and States Rights, but when the chips are down and it's time to show your hand, they will consistently take the path of Big Brother and Big Government at the expense of The People.

Roberts turns out to be an enabler for the power-drunk empire-building rights-suppressing prisoner-torturing playground-bully swaggering Baby Doc and his Executive Branch who wouldn't know a truly conservative position if it bit them on the ass.

Yeah, I'm surprised. How about you?

New Mier Revelations

Jeez, I hate to keep harping on the same theme, but the hits just keep on coming. Now we learn that Harriet Miers was present when Baby Doc got his now infamous pre-9/11 briefing about Osama Bin Laden.

She was also on the team that put together the fascist-inspired Patriot Act.

Like the bad old days of Stalin in the former Soviet Union, the chief qualifications for appointive office in the Bush Politburo are unquestioning loyalty and blind obedience. Harriet has both of those in excess ("the most brilliant man I've ever met").

On the Supreme Court, she will be a reliable voice for the further consolidation and expansion of Executive Branch power, at the expense of the other two branches. We do not need this. The Executive Branch is already too powerful -- with the obsequious acquiesence of the Congress -- and only the Court can do anything to reign it in. Not likely with these Bushevik appointments, and the course of empire marches on.

How did we manage to get to this sad point in our history? Like Jack Nicholson said in Easy Rider, "This used to be a great country; what happened?"

Send More Cannon Fodder

Well, here's a suprise. The Army, falling desperately short of its recruiting goals yet again, has decided to lower the bar a little and allow people that it previously turned away the distinct privilege of enlisting.

Jeez, nobody saw this coming? Just watch for that bar to get lower and lower until they are actively recruiting the profoundly retarded and the clinically insane. And when even that doesn't work, they are going to start talking the D-Word again. As in Draft.

Imperialism can go only so far without its legions, and four more wars will take a much larger military force than we have available. The only saving grace is that Baby Doc is now such a fucking lame duck that even Bill Frist is saying, "Hey, I barely know the guy", and having already squandered all of his political capital, he will not be able to continue his reckless expansion of the empire.

Like the Mafia

Remember Tom Hagen, the character played by Robert Duvall in The Godfather? He was the Corleone Family consiglieri, whose job it was to clean up the untidy loose ends left lying around after the family did its business. Remember the horse's head in the bed? That was the work of Tom Hagen.

Fast forward to Texas a few years ago, when Baby Doc was governor and thinking about a run for higher office, and that's exactly the role that Bushevik consiglieri and Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers played in the Bush Crime Family.

Turns out, big surprise, that little Harriet was a major player in the coverup engineered by The Family to eliminate those annoying little factoids that could have a negative effect on Baby Doc's Prezdintin' aspirations. Like that small fact that he deserted from his National Guard unit, even after his influential father, Don Georgio, pulled any number of strings to get him into it.

This is historical fact. No reasonable person has been able to refute it, even though there has been upwards of $10,000 reward waiting for a couple of years for anyone who can prove that Baby Doc was in that guard unit when he says he was there.

So Harriet, the dutiful soldier, scrubbed the records, Baby Doc is now Prezdint, and she reaps her reward.

It boggles the mind. And what boggles it more than anything is that they aren't even trying to hide this shit. They don't care.

Next Up for the Supremes

So who the fuck is Harriet Miers and why does she deserve a seat on the Supreme Court? She's Baby Doc's personal attorney, and her next claim to fame was being the titular head of the Texas Lottery Commission. I guess that's experience enough to get a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land, the court of William O. Douglas, John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Earl Warren.

But this appointment just has to be because she's the next one in line, since Republicans don't believe in Affirmative Action... Do they?

So, putting aside the fact that she doesn't know how to spell her own name and the fact that she's not even a judge, never sat on the bench, never tried a case -- the Bushies are defensively making the weak argument that other Supreme Court judges haven't been on the bench (however, those justices were highly qualified in other fields, something that seems to have escaped Mier) -- etc etc., exactly what is it it that makes her the most eminently qualified jurist available to replace Sandra Day O'Connor?

Beats me, except for this: She is a loyal Bushevik who once called Baby Doc the most brilliant (or smartest or some such nonsense) man she's ever met. And that's the kind of judgment she's going to bring to the Supreme Court???

She's 60 years old and never been married, and I am sure that, since she is part of the rightwing pro-God cultural values crowd, she's also not only never been pregnant, but has never even had sex. And probably not even an orgasm.

There you go, sisters. You're going to have a Supreme Court justice who has never had sex ruling on your reproductive rights. How do you like them apples?

Oh, and there is just one more thing: She will be another reliable vote on the Court to overturn Baby Doc's inevitable conviction on all those pesky criminal conspiracy, corruption, and human rights abuse charges that just won't go away...

Watch for it, and remember that you saw it here first.

Google Captured by the Right Wing?

On today's Google News, the US section had a headline that read "Dems have criminalized politics". A couple of sentences pulled from the lead of the Chicago Sun-Times story give no indication as to who wrote the article. Not until you clicked on the link and got taken to the website would you discover that it's a link to an opinion column, penned in hell with a quill dipped in venom, by the traitorous Prince of Darkness himself, Bob Novak.

And this was the top story in the US section. Sorry, Google, but that's not news. It's slanderous commentary by the most reactionary of wingnut columnists, a man who is guilty of treason.

That particular headline was gone the next time I looked, about an hour later. Maybe somebody called them on it, but this is not the first time that Google has catered to the Bush Maladminstration. For example, just try a Google Image search for "Bush Twins Naked" -- you will get zero hits, even though we all know that there have to be dozens of porn sites with the faces of Jenna and Not-Jenna photoshopped onto other women's bodies.

See also: Google kills ad critical of Bush, lets pro-Bush ads continue running for another take on the right-wing Google.

And no, I don't have an answer. I still prefer Google to search, but now I know that it isn't dishing up the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And I would never consider installing the Google Desktop search, nor would I have my email provided by Google.

Call me paranoid, but I don't trust them.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch -- 500 Days!

It has now been 500 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.

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 the Bush children to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

Monumental Arrogance

One of the things that I got a chance to do when I was in DC the weekend before the protest was to take a look at the new monuments that have been erected since my last visit.

The only monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC, that has the name of the sitting president who was in office when the monument was dedicated is the WWII Memorial.

Guess who's name is on it:

The little shit deserted his own National Guard unit, and he has the balls to put his name on a military memorial.

Monumental arrogance indeed.