It Can Happen Here

From It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935):

Congress shall, immediately upon our inauguration, initiate amendments to the Constitution providing (a), that the President shall have the authority to institute and execute all necessary measures for the conduct of the government during this critical epoch; (b) that Congress shall serve only in an advisory capacity, calling to the attention of the President and his aides and Cabinet any needed legislation, but not acting upon same until authorized by the President so to act; and (c) that the Supreme Court shall immediately have removed from its jurisdiction the power to negate, by ruling them to be unconstitutional or by any other judicial action, any or all acts of the President, his duly appointed aides, or Congress.

Get it, read it, and tell me if you don't think it IS happening here.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 798 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.

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

BTW, they 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 or waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571
Total coalition forces dead: 229
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1781
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1227
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1187
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: 165
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 10.

It is still 927 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!

Friday Cat Blogging

Oppose "Sunset Bills"

The Vietnam Veterans of America just issued a press release decrying two House bills, HR 5766 and HR 3282, which under the guise of federal "reform" would create a federal review commission to evaluate and recommend the abolishment of various federal agencies and the elimination of many federal programs.

Both bills have been "fast-tracked" for a vote in the House, and both of them deserve to die a quick but painful death.

This is yet another trick that the neocon fascists have up their sleeves to get rid of a lot of those pesky and inconvenient New Deal/Democratic programs that have stood us well over the last 70 years or so.

While veterans benefits and VA funding are not specifically mentioned as targets, this maladministration and its lapdog lackeys in congress have made no secret of their desire to stick it to America's veterans, and the various programs that serve vets are in danger of being declared "obsolete" or "inefficient".

Please contact your congressional representatives and tell them to vote NO on these two potential travesties.

Hands Across the Border

David Cline, current president of Veterans for Peace recently went to Castlegar, British Columbia, where he was a workshop leader and speaker at the Our Way Home Reunion.

The event was intended to honor the the contributions made by American draft-resistors and military deserters who went to Canada during the Vietnam War, and to offer recognition to the plight of the current crop of soldiers who have had enough of the illegal occupation of Iraq and are seeking asylum in Canada.

After seeing the list of guest speakers (George McGovern, Arun Ghandi) and musicians (Country Joe McDonald, Buffy St Marie and Holly Near), I'm sorry I missed it, but I say good for David Cline, and good for at least a small part of Canada for recognizing that the American war machine is still in the business of killing our children for no good reason.

Read the story of the conference, As Iraq Burns, Haunted by Vietnam, on the website of BC's independent alternative daily newspaper, The Tyee, and support independent media.

Christian Reconstructionists

Chances are you've never heard of Christian Reconstructionists, or if you have it's under their associated name, Dominionism. Either way, they're a scary lot, the true American Taliban.

Long story short, these assholes want nothing less than doing away completely with American democracy and substituting in its place a fundo Xian theocracy that believes in slavery ("it's in the Bible!") and stones to death all unbelievers, abortionists, homosexuals, fornicators and pornographers (just for starters). They also believe that democracy is heresy, public schools are satanic and evolution is demonic. And they call for the assassination of "tyrants" -- which under their definition I suppose would include public school teachers, "activist" judges, Democrats, liberals, film producers, nuns, agnostics, ACLU-ers, etc etc.

Ordinarily they'd be considered way out on the lunatic fringe on the American religio-political scene, right up there with the Branch Davidians and the Ramtha cult, but these fuckers have some powerful allies at the top of the Xian Right: James Focus-on-the-Fetus Dobson, world champion strongman Pat I-Can-Lift-a-Sherman-Tank Robertson, Jerry Tinky-Wink-is-a-Homo Falwell, among others.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (of which I am also proud to be a card-carrying dues-paying member) has an excellent article on the Reconstructionists in the July-August newsletter, which can also be viewed on line.

My advice is to check it out so you can see just how powerful and connected this splinter group is. There have been several calls lately for a constitutional convention for the purpose of forcing the so-called Gay Marriage Amendment into our US Constitution, but if that convention ever does get called (two-thirds of the state legislatures have to agree to call one--a difficult but certainly not an insurmountable number), it will be wide open. Anything goes. The entire thing can be shredded.

If that convention ever takes place, you can watch these Stone Age Mosaic Law troglodytes infiltrate the various state delegations in a shameful and disgusting attempt to completely do away with the Bill of Rights, the separation of church and state, in fact, even our entire system of government.

While I'm tempted to quote the character Scotty at the end of 1951's classic sci-fi movie The Thing from Another World: "Watch the skies! Watch the skies!", I think the line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that Edward R. Murrow used at the close of the now-famous See it Now televised dismantling of Joseph McCarthy (immortalized in the must-see film of last year, George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck), is more appropriate: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves"...

And it will be, if we let it happen. If the constitutional convention issue comes before the legislature in your state, contact your representatives and senators and tell them "NO!"

Former POW Speaks Out

Phillip Butler is a 1961 Annapolis graduate who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965. He spent eight years as a POW, so his opinions ought to carry some weight.

He has an excellent opinion piece on Military.com about his POW experiences at the infamous Hanoi Hilton, and the fact that, despite the lies spewing forth from a small group of rightwing ideologues among his fellow POWs, the truth was that their captors never told them about John Kerry's anti-war activities. Butler was in the Hanoi Hilton with three former POWs who now claim the opposite.

"I remember. I was there," Butler says, echoing the statements made by the Swifties during the 2004 campaign against John Kerry (the difference being, of course, that Butler really was there).

Excerpts:

As a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, I read with great sadness a recent article authored by retired Air Force Col. George E. "Bud" Day, and released from the "Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation," a group that was formerly known as the infamous “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." They may have changed their name, but they have not changed their tradition of lies and distorted facts.

* * * * *

[We were] stunned and sickened to see a small number of our former cellmates enter the political fray with the negative Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry. Regretfully, many of us remained silent as a multi-million dollar political smear campaign diminished and denigrated Kerry's service in Vietnam.

I agree with Butler: Those fuckers in Swift Boat Liars for Bush or whatever the fuck they are calling themselves these days DO NOT speak for me, and they DO NOT speak for the vast majority of the Vietnam veterans I know. Even John McCain has called the Swifties and their ilk "dishonest and dishonorable".

BTW, I am proud to note that Butler is also a fellow member of Veterans for Peace. If you are a veteran who is fed up with the war machine and everything that goes along with it, please consider joining us. Not a veteran? No problem, we'll take you, too.

VA "Care" for Traumatic Brain Injury Cases?

It's pretty much non-existent. A USA Today story describes the grief associated with long-term care for vveterans suffering the "signature combat wounds" of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've long said that we are seeing a quantum increase in the number of severely disabled veterans, who are coming home alive -- if you can call it that -- but suffering from wounds that would have been fatal nearly 100% of the time in Vietnam.

And the VA, overworked and underfunded by the evil BFEE, still doesn't quite know what to do with them. They deal with them by running them through the VA facilities as quickly as possible and then dumping them out into nursing homes.

It is a travesty that this administration is treating wounded veterans this way. But I guess once you're disabled, you are no longer of use to The Empire. Get out of the way, cripple, and make room for more cannon fodder.

If you haven't read Dalton Trumbo's troubling anti-war masterpiece, Johnny Got His Gun in a while -- or if you've never read it -- I suggest you do so. It was written in 1939 and described the horrors experienced by a severely wounded WWI infantryman.

And the more things change, the more they remain the same...

Having it Both Ways

If you didn't believe up until now that the veto of the Stem Cell Bill was anything more than cynical political posturing, Tony Snow's backpedaling on Der Monkey Fuehrer's position ought to convince you otherwise.

IF he truly believed that the extraction of stem cells from a few of the over 400,000 blastocytes currently in deep freeze was immoral, was in fact "murder", his veto would be at least understandable.

But now Snow has been put in the position of claiming that Baby Doc didn't really mean it, that Snow had "overstated" his position.

Fuck that. Either he meant it, or his veto was meaningless, a red-meat pandering to the radical Christianist religious right, what with all that photo-op posing with the so-called Snowflake Babies (so named because "no two of them are alike and they're all white" -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show).

And still, Snow didn't back off all the way, even after putting Josh Bolten in the awkward position of trying to defend the veto on Sunday's Meet the Press, where he was left floundering over the issue; on Monday Snow said that using federal funds to aid stem cell research was wrong because it involves "the destruction of a human life".

Unlike, I guess, sending over 2560 American soldiers to their deaths in the Quagmire in the Sand.

If Bushco truly believes that stem cell research caused the destruction of a human life, then why don't they ask their lapdog congress to pass a law outlawing all stem cell research? Instead, Snow last week went into a rambling monologue about encouraging private investment in firms that conduct stem cell research. To make money.

Market-driven morality? They are trying to have it both ways, and falling flat on both sides.

In the meantime, it has been 6 days since their father vetoed the Stem Cell bill in favor of widespread adoption of Snowflake Babies, and the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with their own little Snowflakes. Baste 'em or waste 'em.

A "Constitutional Crisis" in the Works? Duh!

Der Monkey Fuehrer has noted (in crayon, no doubt) something like 800 so-called "signing statements" to be appended to laws he's signed, all of which say, in effect, "fuck you" to congress.

All 42 previous presidents together issued only 600 of these signing statements in the entire history of our republic, mostly to give a presidential spin on the law as a guide to SCOTUS when (and if) the law ever comes before them.

But not our Baby Doc. He thinks he can pick and choose which laws to enforce, which laws to follow, and which laws he can blithely ignore.

We used to have something called Separation of Powers in this country. But no more. We have an administration that is increasingly out of control, drunk on power and spending like a swabbie on shore leave in Manila.

Even the staid American Bar Association has now had enough. Today the ABA issued a strongly-worded warning that resulted from a special task force set up by the ABA to examine the presidential signing statements.

"We will be close to a constitutional crisis if this issue, the president's use of signing statements, is left unchecked," ABA President Michael S. Greco, a Massachusetts attorney, told the Washington Post.

IHMO we are already in one, and have been for several years. And as the evil minions of the BFEE slowly close their grip on our collective throats, we keep inching from an Imperial Presidency towards a fascist dictatorship, with only those of us out here in the wilderness of Left Blogistan trying to call bullshit on it.

So the ABA report is more than welcome, a beacon of hope that somewhere, somehow, people are starting to pay attention.

I just hope it's not a case of too-little-too-late.

Rice Now Calls for "Urgent" Mideast Ceasefire?

Day after day since the conflict began we have been told by our own media that the Baby Doc Maladminstration, under the clumsy hands of Kindasleazy Rice at State and John "Walrus Man" Bolton at the UN, will not call for an immediate ceasefire between the Israeli Irrationals and the Hizbollah of Horror. Various non-reasons were given for this reluctance, none of them reasonable or reality-based.

So then what are we to make of the statement by Kindazleazy herself to reporter Sabra Lane, reported in the Australian media, that "on a stopover in Ireland, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for an urgent ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, conditional on both sides addressing the root cause of the conflict"?

And what are we to make of the fact that this statement was reported widely in the international press, but I have yet to find a squeak about it in the American media? Even after it was widely reported just last week that Rice said "no ceasefire" was in the administration's plans.

Liberal media, my ass. They are nothing but a bunch of out-of-touch lapdog lackeys for this sad excuse for a government, refusing to call the motherfuckers on anything. If it's an inconvenient fact that the Baby Doc Maladministration doesn't want publicized, the sycophantic stenographers in the suckup press pool just ignore it.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 791 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.

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

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558
Total coalition forces dead: 228
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1775
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1219
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1179
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: 158

It is still 934 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!

Friday Cat Blogging

Snowflake Babies and the Bush Twins

Der Monkey Fuehrer, never one to pass up a good photo op, posed with a group of so-called "snowflake babies" when he exercised his first and only veto yesterday on the stem cell research bill.

Snowflake babies, for those who don't know, are "pre-born" frozen blastocysts that have been "adopted" out of the deep freeze and implanted into decent Xian women (others need not apply) who then bring them to term. Now this is all fine and good, and the photo ops are fun, but I really don't think the administration is doing a very good job of promoting this option among the faithful.

Like I said yesterday, there just doesn't seem to be a big rush on the part of the faithful followers of the cowboy messiah to adopt these pre-borns into their own uteruses.

What's needed is a good PR campaign, and I suggest that the Bush Twins, since they apparently have no plans to enlist in the military to show their support for their father's war, ought to be at the head of the line at the deep freeze to get a little snowflake shot from the turkey baster. Think what a coup that would be for the Little Dictator, to have your own daughters leading the charge to save these otherwise doomed pre-borns.

And, since we know that the entire Bush family consists of nothing but devout Christianists who believe in abstinence before marriage, Baby Doc and Pickles could be blessed with grandchildren without their own sweet virginal daughters getting soiled with all that nasty and messy sex stuff.

But there's no reason to stop there. Deadeye Dick Crashcart and his lesbian-sex-hack-novelist wife also have two daughters, both of whom would make more than suitable receptacles for their own little snowflakes. It doesn't matter that one of them is a lesbian -- I'm sure that, since according to the current Rethug thinking on the matter homosexuality is curable, all Little Mary really needs to do is get pregnant and those womanly hormones surging through her butch body will turn her back to the path of decency and righteousness.

So how about it, you girls? Do the right thing and save at least four frozen embryos -- pre-borns who would otherwise end up being flushed down the toilet. Since Repug women's sole function in life is to get pregnant and bring more little Repugs into the world, it is your duty to do this.

In fact, I really don't know how you can live with yourselves if you don't volunteer your otherwise sadly empty bodies for this noble cause.

Bush Exercises First Veto

In yet another non-surprise, Baby Doc finally found a bill out of the rubberstamp congress that he could veto. The Stem Cell Research bill made it out of both houses with a good strong majority -- but not one that is veto-proof -- only to get rejected as "immoral" by the Magic Christian at the helm of the listing ship of state.

So the Rethugs once again have pulled a cynical manipulation in an election year. The ones who voted for the bill can go home to their constituents -- two-thirds of whom support the legislation -- with an "I tried" excuse, the Christianists can claim a victory since it was vetoed by their cowboy messiah, and the progress of science is once again thwarted.

What is missing in this whole "immoral" argument is the ultimate fate of those frozen embryos. They are going to be destroyed anyway, and I don't see any upsurge among the life-begins-at-conception (or before conception, actually, since they are also opposed to the so-called Morning After pill, which actually prevents that conception from happening) crows with offers to turn over their precious gift-from-god uteruses as human incubators for these thousands of pre-borns.

Nope, so all of them will be destroyed. And we're back to the question I asked a while back: If you are a supporter of the rights of the pre-born (or the pre-pregnant) and you are standing outside an in-vitro fertilization clinic when a fire breaks out, and you can save either 20,000 frozen embryos or one live baby, which would you choose?

Uh-huh.

Hypocrites.

More Unconstitutional Arrogance

Another installment of News That Doesn't Surprise Anyone: Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales admitted to congress that Der Monkey Fuehrer blocked a review by the Justice Department of the domestic spying program by refusing necessary security clearances for the lawyers doing the review.

Admitted it! As in stated flatly that Baby Doc personally intervened to prevent the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates charges of misconduct inside DOJ, from having access to the records, even the program itself.

This is what used to be called, back in the days when we had a constitutional republic and leaders who did not consider themselves above the law, obstruction of justice.

The list of impeachable offenses just keeps getting longer and longer, and yet the kool-aid-drinking congress just keeps letting it happen. They just keep rolling over, taking it up the old wazoo, and whimpering, "thank you, sir, may I have some more?"

So the only way out is to elect Democrats in sufficient number to put the skids to this illegal maladministration, this criminal conspiracy. But the more I consider the increasing numbers of Diebold voting machines being deployed all across the country, the less confident I am in the results of the fall elections.

And the corrupt, evil or stupid motherfuckers in congress don't seem to care very much that any powers they voluntarily give up to their Repugnican Thug president will devolve to the next Democratic president. They must believe -- or somehow know -- that the GOP will retain the presidency in 2008. Otherwise, the thought of a President Hilary Clinton with the vast unconstitutional power that Baby Doc Bush has arrogated to himself ought to make them piss their pants.

Neener Neener

It with more than a little glee that I learn that admitted shitweasel Ralph Reid has lost his bid to become Georgia's Lt Governor. By a resounding ten points in the Georgia primary held today.

Can we dare hope that the Xian Coalition is coming apart at the seams? That the long dirty skirts of JACK AbramOFF have also deposited some nasty porno-theater residue on the smarmy little shit?

That the knuckledraggers in the Old South are finally coming to their senses? I certainly hope so.

And in the meantime, let's all enjoy this little frisson of schaudenfraude. I believe I'll just pop open a bottle of special Fish Tale IPA I've been saving for a special occasion.

The Battle of Long Tan

Here in the good ole USA we tend to forget that a number of other nations had forces in Vietnam, but there were troops there from several other countries, including Australia.

Now a group of Australian veterans of the now-almost-forgotten Battle of Long Tan are petitioning their government for medals honoring the bravery and sacrifice of the Diggers of Delta Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, as the 40th anniversary of that battle approaches. The Australian forces were outnumbered by at least 20-to-1, yet fought steadily over a two-day period to repel an advancing force of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong guerillas.

The Australian government has steadfastly refused to honor their service with appropriate medals for bravery, even though later firefights that were less costly and more routine resulted in medals for the participants.

The History Channel has scheduled a documentary about the Battle of Long Tan for August 16th -- it ought to be worth watching, to get another view of the Vietnam War.

I picked up a copy of the book when I visited the Australian Vietnam Veterans Museum when I was in Australia in early 2004, and it is a fascinating read.

BTW, the Diggers, like their American counterparts, also had extreme difficulties in getting their own PTSD issues recognized by the government, as demonstated in yet another book I picked up in Australia, The Battle After the War, by Ambrose Crowe.

The Australians unfortunately have a long history of being used and abused as the instruments of Empire -- you don't have to look any farther than The Battle of Gallipoli for proof of that.

So it would seem from all this that veterans everywhere have a hard time getting the proper respect and acknowledgement from their own governments.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 784 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?"

Greed is Not Good

"Greed is good." -- Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Steet

How precocious, way back in 1987, to make that trenchant observation on the American condition. Of course that was at the end of the Reagan Years, but no one could have predicted the absolute mess we have today in an economy built entirely on greed.

You'd have to go back well over 100 years, to the so-called "Gilded Age", to find an equivalent set of economic circumstances in American history, the age of the Robber Barons, the age of brutal suppression of the working classes, the age of corruption in politics and the spoils system in political appointments.

Kind of sounds like today, doesn't it. That's not a coincidence.

It was a combination of things that eventually ended the Gilded Age: Theodore Roosevelt and Progressive Movement; WWI, the various recessions/depressions in the economic cycle, culminating with The Great Depression, the New Deal and finally the societal changes resulting from WWII.

The neocon post-industrialist fascists who are now in charge of things have made no secret of the fact that they want to roll back each and every one of these advances and reforms, at least back to the way things were before the New Deal (and even farther if the truth were known).

And sadly we're well on our way down that road. The minimum wage hasn't been increased in nine years, and it looks like there's no chance for an increase with the current party in power. They'd like to do away with it altogether but they haven't figured out quite how to get away with it. The gap between the richest people and the rest of us has grown every year, and the "great economy" touted by Bushco isn't so great for those of us toiling away at the bottom of the ladder.

Greed is not good. As Molly Ivins argues in her July 11 column, the capitalist system will not be destroyed by "communists" or any other outside force -- it will destroy itself through its own self-consuming greed.

An economy is really nothing more the value of the goods and services that are in motion within it. What is beyond me is who these new post-industrialist Robber Barons think that they are going to peddle those goods and services to if the people creating them are being paid slave wages, with only enough cash for food and shelter.

Henry Ford, for all his faults (anti-Semitism, anti-unionism, etc), instinctively "got it" -- he doubled the pay of his factory workers, on the theory that a man who was building his cars ought to be able to afford to own one.

Today's corporate execs, in a race to the bottom when it comes to the wages, hours and working conditions of their employees, patently don't "get it". I don't know what it will take before they get it, but if we can survive long enough to avoid World War III, we'll have to figure out a way to make them get it.

In the words of Chairman Mao, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".

It doesn't have to come to that. Our only hope now is to put back into power the party of The People. The Democrats, in the meantime, have to come up with some non-nuanced sound bites that will get the attention of the Moron-American voting bloc and stop allowing the Repugs to run on their tried-and-true good ole boy "god, guns and gays" platform, convincing people to vote against their own economic self-interest.

Supporting Veterans -- Republican Style (Redux)

A couple of months ago I ran a piece about Supporting Veterans and how the DAV rated the votes of each member of congress when it came to supporting veterans' issues. It came as no surprise to me that the Repugs were at the lower end of the scale and the Dems were at the higher end.

The info was cited from the VA Watchdog website, and it was just a list by state. It made it a little hard to read and to extract the telling information, so all props to Theo over at Theo's Impressions & Such for doing the tedious job of copying the information and putting it into an easily-digestible spreadsheet table, arraying the members from lowest score to highest score.

The stark differences between the two parties now leaps off the screen at you. It ought to be totally embarrasing to the Repugs, but by now these guys are just incapable of embarrassment.

Nevertheless, this is good information to arm yourself with this fall when each and every one of the veteran-hating motherfuckers in the House -- and a lot of them in the Senate -- is up for reelection. Tell your friends and neighbors about your Repugnican congressman's dismal voting record on veterans issues, and let's all throw the bastards out!

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546
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": 1768
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1212
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1172
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: 151

It is still 941 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!

Friday Cat Blogging

Rove Leaked, Rove Leaves

The Prince of Darkness, aka Bob Novak, finally spilled the beans about Karl Rove, and verified that he was one of his sources for the Plame Leak.

Way back when Baby Doc said that the person responsible for the leak would be fired. Remember that?

So I guess it's safe to say that Rove has been asked for his security clearance, his entry badge into the White House and his key to the executive washroom, right?

What's that? No? He's not being fired?

Imagine that.

One Generation of Warriors to the Next

My nearest big-town newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has an editorial today about the outreach efforts by Vietnam Veterans of America to the next generation of veterans, the newly-formed Veterans of Modern Warfare, which encompasses the veterans of the wars since Vietnam, including the "sideshow" conflicts in Grenada and Somalia.

When my generation returned from Vietnam to the scorn of an ungrateful nation, we swore, individually and collectively, that we would not allow another generation of veterans to go through what we went through, so I am proud and gratified to see that we are reaching out to our brothers and sisters of the next generation.

"Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another," said Rick Weidman, executive director of Vietnam Veterans of America. (BTW, Rick W. is also, along with me, a founding member of Veterans and Military Families for Progress.)

Psilocybin Study

Those who read this blog regularly know that I am not a religious person, so it's with an odd combination of hope and doubt that I view the news story about some recent controlled experiments with the 60s psychedelic drug psilocybin (the active ingredient in so-called "magic mushrooms") wherein the participants experienced some kind of religious transport.

The volunteers were all "religious people" to some extent or another, and they all experienced some kind of "deep mystical experience" while under the effects of the drug. The fact that the participants were all religious immediately and automatically makes the experiment bogus -- and unnecessary, since it seems to replicate the famous 1962 Marsh Chapel Experiment at Harvard Divinity School. I'd like to see it done again, but this time with a representative cross-section of the population as volunteers.

That said, however, I can tell you from personal experience (you knew that I came of age in the 60s, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to you) that there is something about the psilocybin experience that transcends the typical psychedelic trip. Since I am not religious, there was no mysticism involved (we are all prepared to see and feel what we are programmed to), but I did experience a definite mind-body disconnect and entered what I have referred to ever since as "the realm of pure thought". Which I guess can be mistaken for a "mystical" experience by those who are so inclined.

Now that I am rapidly approaching my dotage, I don't really feel like going up in the flying saucer any more, so this is all pretty much academic. However, if the government would ever lighten up on the Draconian drug laws we have in this country, maybe a group of reputable scientists could do some valid experimentation with the so-called "dangerous drugs" that we have in abundance (magic mushrooms grow wild in my area, and sprout up like dandelions in my yard every fall, and marijuana grows wild in pretty much every state in the union) and they might find that they do have some socially and psychologically positive attributes.

But like with so much else, I'm not holding my breath.

Dereliction of Duty

Veterans Administration Secretary James Nicholson (R-Crony) visited my home state of Washington last week. Now a reasonable person like you might assume -- as I did -- that Nicholson, as long as he was in the neighborhood, would manage to find a little time to drop by the VA Center of Excellence for Limb Loss Prevention and Prosthetic Engineering in Seattle, a clinic that is in the forefront of treatment for amputations and such. But maybe not, since Nicholson's boss, Der Monkey Fuehrer, has proposed slashing the VA funding for prosthetic research by $13 billion.

Or that he would manage to sneak in a side trip to the Veterans Hospital at American Lake, south of Tacoma, which specializes in the treatment of PTSD suffered by returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

But no. You would be wrong if you assumed that. Instead Nicholson was here primarily to campaign for a fellow Repugnican and congressional wannabe Doug Roulstone in Washington's 2nd Congressional District.

To be fair, Nicholson did manage to show up for a quick press conference in Walla Walla with Rep Cathy McMorris (R-Moron, up for re-election this year) where he tried to finesse the mostly hostile crowd of veterans concerned about the possible closure of a local VA hospital that serves some 69,000 veterans in Eastern Washington, NE Oregon and Idaho.

Walla Walla was on the chopping block a couple of years ago until Washington's Senator Patty Murray, a longtime friend to veterans, managed to keep it open.

Murray, by the way, was not invited to the press conference. Big surprise there.

Joel Connelly, a columnist for the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper, hit it on the head in his column: "Nicholson's primary constituent group ought to be young veterans undergoing treatment for loss of limbs -- not candidates for Congress," and Nicholson's politically-motivated visit to Washington State amounted to a "dereliction of duty".

Well put, Joel.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 777 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?"

A Little Perspective

E. J Dionne has an amazing column in todays WoHoPo comparing the election in Mexico to the US election in 2000.

Imagine the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on Scream Radio and Faux News if the Mexico election had the same elements: The governor of a pivotal state being the brother of one of the candidates; the votes in that state not completely counted because the recount was stopped by a crony court; a ridiculous system that gives undue influence to smaller states, with the result that the loser of the popular vote turns out to be the winner of the election.

If that happened in Mexico -- or any other country in the world -- the outrage would be palpable. On both sides of the political spectrum. Funny, isn't it, how putting on the other guy's shoes can change your own perspective?

So why did we allow it here? Why are we continuing to allow it? The 2004 election was stolen just as surely as the 2000 election -- the election fraud in Ohio was unmistakeable and undeniable.

Demand voter-verified and recountable paper ballots! It is the only way that we can restore faith in our election process.

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540
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": 1761
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1205
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1165
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: 146

It is still 948 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!

Even More Dueling Quotes

"We will follow the money as a trail to the terrorists and freeze the money to disrupt their actions."

-- Baby Doc, September 24, 2001

"If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And the fact that a newspaper [i.e. The New York Times] disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

-- Baby Doc, June 26, 2006

I guess presidentin' is such hard work -- hard work! -- that the stupid monkeyboy can't remember what fucking planet he's on, let alone that he blew his own whistle five years earlier, on the official White House website!!! So does that mean the the wingnuts over on Scream Radio and Faux News who were screaming treason at the tops of their lungs will now turn on Der Monkey Fuehrer and demand his head on a platter? I'm not holding my breath on this one, either.

And while we're at it, let's all just completely ignore the fact that the print media's semi-official arm of the administration, the Wall Street Journal, published the same goddamn story! Where was the outcry at that hotbed of terrorists sympathizers and fifth-columnists?

(Thanks again to Bartcop for the quotes and links.)

And Speaking of Midland, Texas...

...and Baby Doc's avoidance of the Vietnam War, here is a link to the list of casualties in the Vietnam War from Midland, Texas, and Casper, Wyoming.

They are, respectively, the hometowns of George W. "Shrub" Bush and Dick "Crashcart" Cheney. Because our two fearless leaders had "other priorities" and couldn't be bothered to allow themselves to be drafted into the service, two other guys went instead.

So, which of these guys died in your place, Georgie? Which of them died in your place, Dickie?

That's the question you wingnuts asked Clinton when you accused him of being a draft dodger. How about some equal time for your own leaders?

Yeah, that's what I thought. Hypocrites.

A Geographical Coincidence?

Turns out that Steven Green, the ex-Army private who will likely be charged in the Iraqi rape-and-murder rampage, grew up in, of all places, Midland, Texas (see map).

Odd coincidence, that. Midland, Texas, may I remind you, is also the "hometown" of one George W. Baby Doc Bush who, although he managed to avoid service in his own war (Vietnam), is responsible for his own mass-scale rape-and-murder rampage in Iraq.

What is it, something in the fucking water down there? Too much crude oil residue in the air? So flat you can't get perspective?

Anyway, I've just given Green's lawyers the perfect excuse, the Texas Oil Patch version of the "Twinkie Defense". So, when y'all get that movie deal, just remember that you heard it here first...

Osama Bin Who? Don't Ask the CIA

In the news is a report that the CIA has dissolved the special unit set up nearly ten years ago to hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

What with Der Monkey Fuehrer saying -- since 2002(!) -- shit like "I don't really think about him very much", plus the fact that it just has to be personally embarrassing to admit that you can't find a 6 foot 5 inch Saudi hooked up to a dialysis machine, the news doesn't surprise me.

Now that the guy has gone missing for 1760 days, they have probably come to the conclusion that even if they put his face on a milk carton, they aren't going to find him.

But still. If it is true that Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11, then don't you think that it (in the words of the Bush Maladministration) "sends a message to America's enemies" that we are "soft on terror"?

How much hypocrisy is one adminstration capable of? How much hypocrisy are we going to take from this pack of jackals? I thought we'd have reached our limit by now, but I guess you can't underestimate the ability of the Moron-American voting bloc to swallow as much shit as the BFEE can shovel in. I guess it isn't hypocrisy if the president does it.

The 14 Points of Fascism

On this July 4, when we pretend to celebrate American freedom and independence, it is worth taking another look at the 14 points of fascism and see if any of them ring a bell.

Lawrence Britt, writing for The Secular Humanist and its Free Inquiry magazine, outlined in scholarly fashion a few years back what he considered to be the 14 signal -- cardinal -- elements of fascism, based on his study of the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet.

Here are the 14 points identified by Britt:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.


2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.


3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.


4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.


5. Rampant sexism.


6. A controlled mass media.


7. Obsession with national security.


8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.


9. Power of corporations protected.


10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.


11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.


12. Obsession with crime and punishment.


13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.


14. Fraudulent elections.

See the complete text of Britt's article here, and follow up with a collection of news articles dating from the start of the Bush presidency, divided into topics relating to each of those 14 points, put together by the Project for the Old American Century.

And have a happy Fourth.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 770 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?"

Tracking Terrorists, California Style

Today's LA Times has the story that the Schwarzenegger (R-Dumbfuck) Administration has spent good tax money tracking "potential terrorists" among animal rights groups protesting Canadian seal slaughter, an anti-war demonstration featuring as a guest speaker US Representative George Miller (D-Naturally), and a gathering of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Santa Barbara to protest the arrest of a 56-year-old woman anti-war protestor.

Yeah, those are exactly the events that attract homegrown Al Qaeda sleeper cells, intent on destroying our 'Murrican Way of Life.

This is what happens when we are not paying attention, people.

We need to keep alert and watch the fuckers every minute, because they're watching us.

Veteran Arrested for Thoughtcrime

Vietnam War Navy Corpsman Mike Ferner was arrested the other day for the heinous -- nay, treasonous -- crime of drinking a cup of coffee in the Chicago VA facility while wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt.

It's the little things. They just keep piling on, bit by bit, eroding our freedoms inch by inch, and most people can't see that we are sliding into a fascist dictatorship. This is appalling, and it'll be worth watching to see if Mike Ferner ultimately prevails. I don't see where he has a legal defense fund set up yet to help defend himself against this travesty, but it'll be worth contributing a few bucks when he does.

See more on Mike Ferner's activism here and here, and remember, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.