Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2027
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1477
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1427
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 368
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 255.

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

Why Do They Enlist?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liar Liar Liar Liar Liar

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

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

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

Yep, that pretty much nails it.

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

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

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

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

Bad Fox, No Waffles for You!

After an acrimonious and destructive-to-the-neocons hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Der Monkey Fuehrer withdrew the nomination of Swift Boat Liars for Bush bankroller Samuel Fox to be ambassador to Belgium.

I guess Baby Doc finally saw the writing on the wall and did some damage control by getting his boy out of there. Better to have your nominee "spend more time with his family" than suffer any further humiliation by having him go down to ignominious defeat.

One of Fox's biggest Senate supporters, Missouri's "Kit" Bond (R-Hypocrite) said he was disappointed that "a capable and qualified candidate with bipartisan support has become a victim of a political vendetta."

Yeah, I'll stipulate that good ole Sammy Fox knows something about political vendettas, since he funded one to the tune of $50,000, and even at this late date refuses to show any contrition about it.

Fuck Sammy Fox. It's no big loss to the diplomatic community, and at least now we won't have to worry about having to go to war with Belgium.

Timetable Flipflop

Here's a couple of dueling quotes:

Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. [Source]

It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away. [Source]

Sadly, in both cases the speaker was our own Baby Doc Bush, Der Monkey Fuehrer. The first time he was talking about Bill Clinton's commitment of troops to Kosovo, the second time was just yesterday at the National Cattleman's Beef Association.

So just who is the flipflopper, Mister Bush? I guess it makes a huge difference who the decider is, doesn't it?

Impeachment.

Now.

500+ Democrats, 35 Republicans

That's how many political corruption investigations that all 93 US Attorneys have pursued since the BFEE took the reigns of power in 2001. I don't know the exact number, but these are close enough.

But I'm sure that it's just a coincidence. It's because those nasty Dems are just rife with corruption and the Rethugs are as pure as the driven snow. Nope, nothing political there.

Nor was it political that the attorneys most active in pursuing Rethug corruption were by and large the ones who were fired. Nope, just another odd coincidence.

Bullshit.

Impeachment.

Now.

Venal Political Corruption

As if we needed any more proof of the base corruption of the Bush Crime Family, it came out in a congressional hearing the other day that Lurita Doan, the head of the US General Services Administration, called a meeting of all of her underlings nationwide and at that meeting presented a slide show created by none other than our old buddy Karl Rove.

In the course of that PowerPoint presentation, a slide came up on the screen that listed the top 20 Democratic house members who are being targeted for "elimination" in the 2008 elections. A little later there was a companion slide showing the top 20 Republicans sheduled for protection.

For those of you playing along at home, this is a clear violation of the Hatch Act of 1939, which specifically prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities. Ironically, it was a Republican senate that enacted the harshest parts of the act, which have been obviously, patently violated here.

Doan ought to be fired and charged with multiple violations. Bet she won't be, though. The fuckers seem to have entrenched themselves so totally that it will take a general housecleaning to clean them out.

Which means impeachment.

Now.

Saving Money the Old-Fashioned Way: Cheating

You got to hand it to the bozos in the military, they've come up with a unique way to cut costs: Just discharge everyone you can under Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: "Separation Because of Personality Disorder."

For the soldier who just wants to get the fuck out of the service and out of Iraq, it's a strong siren song. By accepting a 5-13 discharge, it's a free ticket home, without all that pesky red tape to slow things down.

The only problem is that a 5-13 discharge puts a scarlet letter on your chest, and you'll have a snowball's chance in hell of ever collecting VA disability.

Take the case of Specialist Jon Town, chillingly described on the always-valuable VA Watchdog website.

Long story short, Town was flattened by an explosive ordinance round that hit about two feet above his head. After the blood stopped flowing from his ears, he took a 5-13 so he could beat feet out of Dodge. Now he's plagued with PTSD and a perpetual headache. The VA's response? Tough shit.

Pre-existing condition, they say, and Specialist Town is fucked.

Multiply this by the over 22,000 service members who have been discharged under 5-13 just in the last six years and you have a potential savings that run into the billions.

Sad to say, none of this surprises me. It's just another in a long list of horrible examples of how the BFEE treats its soldiers of empire when they are no longer capable of hoisting the flag of conquest.

A "Perjury Trap"?

Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzales has an aide named Monica Goodling, who has decided to take the Fifth Amendment instead of testifying before Congress on the whole US Attorney flap.

According to her lawyer, John Dowd, the hearings will amount to a "perjury trap" for Goodling. "One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," he said.

Hmmm, let's think about that: Scooter Libby was convicted of ... lying. Under oath. To a federal officer. Yep, sounds like a good ole perjury trap to me.

What's up with Goodling? All she needs to do is answer the questions truthfully. She does that, there's no perjury. End of story.

With so much at stake for Torquemada and indeed the entire BFEE, why in the hell would she do something that calls so much unwanted attention to her testimony? Could it be that the truth, if it comes out, would be so damaging, so devastating, that Baby Doc and his minions could never overcome it?

That's my guess. And now I am looking forward to a new "Monica Gate", but this time without all the salacious sexual details and a whole new level of evidence of venal corruption and rank incompetence.

Let the good times roll.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1033 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE ONLY ONE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Update: Little Georgie Bush, the son of Jebbie, has just enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He's going into the Officer Training Program, preparing to be ... an intelligence officer. Okay, obvious jokes aside, what are the chances he's ever going to see Iraq?

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't Jenna and Not-Jenna be more like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant. (Okay, I'll grant you they've got the partying/puking thing down, but come on...)

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Baby Doc to Congress: Go Fuck Yourselves

Citing, of all things, "constitutional issues", Der Monkey Fuehrer is stonewalling on letting Executive Branch evil mastermind Karl Rove, along with "coconut" (i.e. brown on the outside, white on the inside) Alberto Gonzales and "best person qualified for the Supreme Court" Harriet Meyers, testify at the congressional probe into the Pearl Harbor Day firing of US Attorneys.

Yeah, him citing constitutional issues is like the Ku Klux Klan agitating for civil rights for African-Americans.

And isn't it odd that the entire rightwingnuttery supporting him on this stupid decision are the very same ones who were howling just a short ten years ago that Clinton HAD to testify under oath, the president is not above the law, etc etc.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrite assholes.

If they have nothing to hide, why not let Rove et al. testify under oath? If it's not under oath, it's not testimony -- it's just a conversation.

Remember back in the good ole days of the Nixon Administration, when Tricky Dick tried basically the same thing, invoking "executive privilege" to provoke a constitutional crisis?

It didn't work then, and we shouldn't let it work now.

Unfortunately, it's my prediction that when it comes down to it, the BFEE-dominated Supreme Court will rule in favor of Baby Doc and that will be the end of it.

But we have another option: Impeachment and removal from office. Please drop by Democrats.com and sign the petition, if you haven't already.

Coincidentally (or not) Democratic Congressman and presidential contender Dennis Kucinich is considering introducing articles of impeachment. If he does, let's be of one voice: Remove the corrupt and evil bastards from office.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2019
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1470
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1419
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: 361
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 248.

It is still 691 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Tin-Foil Hat? Maybe Not...

Over the years since 9-11 I've tended to ignore the various "tinfoil hat" conspiracy theories that have been floating around, but a good friend of mine turned me on to this YouTube video of live news coverage from both NBC and Fox News of the Flight 93 crash site.

Take a look at it. It is disturbing that not only were there no fragments of an airplane found at the site, but the "impact" crater is something like ten by fifteen feet.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am no fan of the American news media. Nor am I a fan of the current maladministration.

So I'm starting to reassess my opinions of 9-11 after watching this video. Now I am going to take a another look at the evidence in the Pentagon airplane strike.

As with the Kennedy Assassination (both of them), there may be more here than meets the eye. More here than either our government or our news media are willing to tell us.

Four Years

Today marks the four-year anniversary of the BFEE illegal occupation of Iraq.

What's it all meant?

• 3218 dead US soldiers
• 258 dead coalition forces soldiers
• 600,000+ dead Iraqis
• 30,000+ wounded, many of them severely, who have to come home to the criminal squalor that is Walter Reed
• And a lifetime of agonizing distress for the estimated 30% of them who will suffer PTSD.

Not to mention the billions of dollars washed down a rathole in the desert with the blood of American soldiers.

Let's take a moment to reflect on the wasted lives that George W. "I'm-a-war-prezdint" Bush has thrown away, just so he can prance around and prove that his dick is bigger than his daddy's.

That and the insane and obscene profits being raked in by Halliburton, who is still making payoffs to Darth Cheney.

And the wingnuttery is STILL obsessed with supporting Der Monkey Fuehrer. Like I've said before, if there was a verified YouTube video of Bush and Cheney stomping kittens to death, the likes of Sean "My-hair-is-bigger-than-my-brain" Hannity, mAnn "My-adams-apple-is-bigger-than-yours" Coulter and Rush "I'm-an-addled-drug-addict-on-Viagra" Limbaugh would find some way to justify it: They were terrorist kittens, and terrorist kittens grow up to be terrorist cats.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1026 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2012
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1463
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1412
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: 354
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 241.

It is still 698 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Vietnam Veterans for What?

There's some malignant entity out there calling itself Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, and it first came to my attention in the 2004 election when it joined with the infamous Swift Boat Liars for Bush in spewing out baseless invective about the war record of John Kerry.

Now it is back in the "news", more or less, with a recent story on the rightwing Cybercast News Service, reprinted on a fundo Xian site calling itself Crosswalk, The Intersection of Faith and Life. There are also some articles originating with the VVAR on FreeRepublic and other sites of that ilk; you can pretty much tell where an "independent" organization lies by where they appear on the Internets.

The Fearless Leader of VVAR (and as far as I know, its only member), one dickwad "academic" named Leonard Magruder (who isn't even a Vietnam veteran!) is trying to shop around that same tired old lie that it was the media that "lost" the Vietnam War.

He also cites some 21 "standard histories and commentaries" to PROVE his allegations that the media snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

No, I have't examined the actual citations, but I'm pretty sure I don't need to. I am willing to bet good money, sight unseen, that they are of the same credibility and believability as those "scientific studies" that "prove" global warming is a hoax, a fraud, or worse.

My basis for this? Aside from its appearance only in wingnut media, this bogus outfit has, apparently, only one campus organization, and that at the University of Kansas.

You remember Kansas: Home of wacked-out homophobe Fred Phelps and a state school board that believes in fairy tales, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

And, the final capper on the reliability and trustworthiness of this fine organization? They are also pushing for the public school indoctrination of the scientifically bankrupt concept of "Intelligent Design".

Need I say more? Whenever you hear the words "academic reform", you can just about bet that it's another Orwellian-named entity that is actually pushing just the opposite philosophy.

So about the only thing I have left to say is this: Fuck you, Magruder, and your phony wingnut organization. If you're not a Vietnam veteran, you've got no business heading an organization called Vietnam Vets for Anything.

Kudos to Pete Stark

Just this last weekend a couple of my fellow Secular Humanist godless atheists and I were discussing the fact that an atheist is less likely to get elected to high office in this country than a member of Al Qaeda.

So it was an interesting coincidence to learn that Congressman Pete Stark of California has come out of the closet, so to speak, and announced that he is ... an atheist!!.

Naturally the fundo Xian media was all over this one, and I'm waiting for Bushdaddy to come out and say that Pete is not an American.

Now watch for the American Taliban to pour millions into the campaign coffers of Stark's opponent next year. Cain't have one o' them godless comonists elected to high office, no sirree bob.

The rest of us over here in the Reality-Based Community will need to keep an eye on this and maybe chip in a few bucks for Pete's campaign, if only to show those Xian motherfuckers that we're here, we have no fear, and we're not gonna take their crap any more.

Bitch-Slapping Darth Cheney

I know you've seen it already, since it's all over the blogosphere, but war hero and triple amputee Max Cleland smacked the shit out of Chickenhawk Dick with his "Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War?" tirade.

Note I said "blogosphere". So far the MSM/SCLM is strangely silent on it. Do a Google News search for "cleland cheney vietnam" and you'll see what I mean.

"Mistakes Were Made"

And that's pretty much all they've got to say about the US Attorney fiasco. Both Torquemada Gonzales and Baby Doc Bush used the same language, the very same phraseology. Mistakes were made.

Note the passive voice; translation: Although mistakes were made, WE didn't make them.

I work in state government and I can verify that that's the language of bureaucracy and avoidance. And the Rethugs call themselves the party of accountability, of personal responsibility.

Jesus...

Republican Family Values/Sancitity of Marriage Update

I heard on an Air America radio show last week (Rachel Maddow, I think) an interesting observation: Of those seeking the Rethug presidential nomination, three of the top four (Giuliani, McCain and Gingrich) have had, between them, eight wives.

Ironically, Mitt Romney, the Mormon in the race, has only one.

Weird.

A True Maverick Republican

Texas congressman Ron Paul just announced that he is running for president.

This is the same Ron Paul who penned in 2003 the infamous-in-Rethug-circles "We've Been Neoconned" article condemning the neo-con Stalinists who took over the Republican party.

Compared to John I-love-Jerry-Fallwell-so-much-I-kiss-his-sss-in-public McCain, who has spent the last couple of years sucking up to the Religious Right and pandering to the wingnut neocons, Ron Paul is a true maverick Republican.

I don't agree with a lot of his basically Libertarian positions on a number of issues, but it's really refreshing to see him enter the race. I wish him all the luck in the world and I might even send him a buck or two.

Just to keep the race interesting.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1019 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot: Word on the street has it that Jenna has written a book that she hopes will equal The Diary of Ann Frank. Jesus, give me a fucking break.

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189

Total coalition forces dead: 258
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2005
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1456
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1405
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: 347
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 234.

It is still 705 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

VA Backlog Now Six Months

The VA has a backlog of at least six months on disability cases, according to a new report.

That means that, unless he or she has some alternative means of support, the disabled vet has to go without even the bare necessities of life for half a year before the claim is even adjudicated. Actual payment will take even longer.

It's unconscionable, but it's not surprising. It's part and parcel of the Baby Doc Maladministration's shabby -- no, criminal -- treatment of veterans. It's that whole captalist-pig profit-driven positive-bottom-line people-are-raw-material mentality that has held the neocons in its grubby grip for years.

Take a look at what's happened to Social Security Disability: The first round of a claim is generally denied (over 90%!). Naturally a predictable percentage of these people accept their fate and go no further, for an immediate cost savings. Then, for the lucky few that are approved, finally, after they have slogged through an exhaustive appeal process, they finally get their money. If they haven't died or gone institutionally insane in the meantime.

And that lucky 10% who get their claims approved first time? Well, they find to their dismay that there is a five-month waiting period before they even get their first payment. And when that payment comes, there's no back pay for those five months.

Five fucking months?

Five months? Several years if you have to appeal? Who the hell can wait that long without an income? So what happens is that another large percentage of these people go back to work in spite of being disabled because they can't survive. Another huge cost savings for the system.

The VA disability program seems to be edging in this direction as well, all because this cheap-ass bunch of chickenhawk assholes refuse to honor this country's commitment to its veterans.

I've said it before, but I urge everyone to contact your elected representatives and demand that VA Health Care be a mandatory entitlement program, not subject to the budget whims of a veteran-hating president or a lip-service congress.

Radio Show Update

Today I was interviewed by phone for the PRI radio show Open Source. No guarantee that they'll use any part of the half-hour interview on next week's show, but I'll keep you all updated.

BTW, this came as the result of a reader post on this blog by the producer of the show. I guess none of us know who will see this stuff or what it will lead to.

Such is the Power of the People when it comes to the Internets. Which is why I have the sinking feeling that the Baby Doc Maladminstration is, even as we speak, trying to figure out ways to shut down all of us bloggers who are critical of Der Monkey Fuehrer's reign of error.

Famous Presidential Quotes

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The buck stops here.

-- Harry S Truman

Beware the influence of the military-industrial complex.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

-- John F. Kennedy

I'm the only president you've got.

-- Lyndon Johnson

I am not a crook.

-- Richard Nixon

Ouch. Who put that there?

-- Jerry Ford

Huh?

-- Ronald Reagan

Atheists are not Americans.

-- George H. W. Bush

I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

-- Bill Clinton

and finally:

They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.

-- George W. Bush

I'd say the level of presidential discourse has dropped somewhat over my lifetime. Whaddaya think?

Running Scared?

It's unusual enough to have just one US Attorney fired in the middle of a presidential term. When it's eight of them, and all of the fired on the same day, it ought to raise the red flags all the way from Hagåtña Guam to Eastport Maine.

With the Democratic takeover of congress in the last election, the BFEE knew that it was on the ropes. My guess is that these eight were targeted as being the most likely to entertain criminal charges against members of the Bush Crime Family.

So what to do, what to do?

Fire the lot of them. On, of all days, December 7, 2006.

Sixty five years to the day after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

And to make matters worse, one of the eight, David Iglesias of New Mexico, has testified that senator Pete Domenici leaned on him to influence a case he was pursuing.

It's gratifying to see that the Dems seem to be growing some spine in spite of themselves. These hearings will bear watching, if only to see Tony Snowjob do a lot of squirming in front of the White House Whore Press Corps when the truth finally oozes out.

BTW, it was another of those little hidden gems in the Orwellian-named Patriot Act that allowed Der Monkey Fuehrer to appoint "interim" US attorneys without Senate confirmation for an undefined -- i.e. indefinite -- period of time.

Jesus, it would have been nice if just a few of the fuckers in the House and Senate that passed this piece of shit would have taken just a little time to actually read it.

Taking It to the Streets

In 1981, during the late and unlamented reign of Saint Ronald, the VA health care system was in a shambles and had been for years. But the "trickle down" economic theories ("voodoo economics", according the description of one George Bush, who had a sudden epiphany to the contrary when he became St Ronald's sidekick) served to put the hobnail boots to it.

Descriptions of the VA hospitals in those days sound eerily familiar to today's readers: Moldy walls, dirty floors, a swarm of vermin, and complete denial by the administration that there was anything wrong.

Back then it took a catalyst to bring change. A man named Jim Hopkins, a real pissed-off veteran, drove his Jeep through the doors of the VA's Wadsworth Medical Center in LA and opened fire with an AR-14 into the photos of Reagan and Carter on the walls, and then to make it even more dramatic, also shot off a pistol and a shotgun.

Fortunately no one was injured, not even Hopkins when the police hauled him off in shackles. But he was shouting that Agent Orange was destroying his brain.

Back then we still had a media with some balls and a concept of investigative journalism. The Hopkins case turned into a national focus on the administration's denial of veterans, and specifically Agent Orange, PTSD and cuts in VA health care funding.

Hopkins died under mysterious circumstances in May of 1981, and his death sparked first a sit-in at the Wadsworth Center and then, after Reagan callously dismissed them as a bunch of whiners, it turned into a hunger strike.

When the strikers were ejected from the center by force, they regrouped in front of the White House and garnered international media attention that forced the world to focus on the shabby and unconscionable treatment of veterans in this country.

It was only after the embarrassment was too much for St Ronald that Congress negotiated a settlement.

And the result of that settlement as recognition of Agent Orange poisoning and PTSD.

Is it going to take another hunger strike on the part of this nation's veterans to bring about change to the VA health care system? Are we going to have to take it to the streets?

Oh, and you might want to remember the actions of St Ronald the next time one of your pinhead neocon reactionary friends tries that "Republicans take care of America's veterans" lie on you.

Source: See Killing Our Troops Slowly: Deja Vu All Over Again by Michael O'McCarthy.

Now Isn't That Special?

Today Paul Morin, the national kommandant of the American Legion, finally broke squelch and admitted that his hero in the White House, Der Monkey Fuehrer, along with his kool-aid drinking yes-men in the 109th congress, fucked up when it came to helping America's veterans:

"We are not pleased with the budget for the military and for the VA hospitals for our veterans," Morin said. "I blame the President and Congress for insufficient funding of the VA health care system."

Funny isn't it, that we have to read this on Think Progress, a leftwing blog. Funny isn't it that the SCLM is strangely silent on a potentially earth-shaking about face by the nation's largest veterans group. They didn't have any problems covering Baby Doc's speech to the American Legion convention, though, including the drumbeat flagwaving redmeat comments about freedom and democracy, blah blah blah.

And it's sad (but gratifying--don't get me wrong) that Paul Morin is finally fed up with his boy in the White House. Where was the outrage when the Swifties were viciously attacking John Kerry with venomous lies about his Vietnam service? Where was the concern over the last six years of continuing VA budget cuts and lying to the American people about the rationale for the Iraq War?

I'm tempted to tell Morin to fuck off (yet again), but it's probably best to welcome him over to the not-Dark Side with a little "better late than never" welcoming embrace. It's just too bad that it took something as blatantly unAmerican as the squalor that awaits the severely wounded in the Bush Crime Family war of agression against the Iraqi people.

Rumsfeld Knew About Walter Reed

Way back in fucking October Rummy's old lady, Joyce, saw firsthand the squalor and the degradation faced by American service men and women at Walter Reed hospital, according to a story in the The Australian:

Problems at Walter Reed have been known to officials at the highest level for some time. Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made a surreptitious visit to the hospital at the urging of a concerned friend last October.
She attended a support meeting for the wives and mothers of soldiers and heard their complaints. At the end of the meeting she asked a social worker whether her husband was getting the truth about conditions there or whether the soldiers he met were being hand-picked to paint a rosy picture. They were being hand-picked, the social worker replied.
When Walter Reed officials found out that Joyce Rumsfeld had been secretly invited, her friend - a frequent volunteer - was told she was no longer welcome at the hospital.

Go ahead and read the rest of it, and then ask yourself why we still have to get our important news from sources outside the SCLM in this country.

It's appalling. It's disgusting. It's fucking criminal. And motherfucking Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal who ought be frogmarched in front of the international court at The Hague.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 1012 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown, Argentina and god-knows-where-else to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Come on, you two. Do your patriotic duty. Your daddy is standing there with egg on his face. Think what your enlistment into the military could do for his poll numbers with the American people. Think what it could do help him get that "surge" he's wanting so badly.

And it's not just The Twins: NOT ONE SINGLE member of the extended Bush family has seen fit to volunteer for military service. Check out the Buzzflash analysis of the chickenshit Bush/Cheney extended family and see for yourself. There's even a photo taken in 2000 of the extended Bush family, complete with a whole lot of young fresh faces who seem to be of an age now to be eligible to enlist.

Bush and Cheney were cowards during Vietnam who sent other men off to die in their place. Now the next generation is doing its part, sending their own peers off to die instead of them.

It's fucking disgusting, that's what it is.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War) and Prince Prince Harry is now on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

The son of Senator John McCain has enlisted in the US Marine Corps. That means that as soon as he's done with his training, he's going to be on his way to The Sandbox. Now there's a role model right in their own political party for Jenna and Not-Jenna. Will they follow him?

No, they will not. They are fucking cowards like their father and their Uncle Dick(less) Cheney.

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

BTW, the twins are also still not pregnant with their own Snowflake Babies. If they can't join the service, the least they could do would be to get themselves impregnated with a couple of blastocytes that would otherwise go into the garbage. Remember what Farnsworth always says: Baste 'em, don't waste 'em.

More on Kerry

Not to beat a dead horse, but this quote caught my eye: "We should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country."

That was John Kerry talking.

Unfortunately, that was him talking way back in April 1971 about the Vietnam War..

He hasn't said anything similar to that in the last few weeks. Or years.

In fact, he told members of the Boston Chapter of Veterans for Peace that he would NOT vote against the Supplemental Appropriations bill, which would effectively start to begin to bring a slowdown to the Iraq War by reducing the amount of increase for war funding. Kinda hard to follow, isn't it?

Democrats need to step up to the plate on stopping the war. John Kerry and the rest of the Dems can't have it both ways. The war has to stop, and it has to be the Democrats that do it. They'd best not forget that many of them were elected because of an anti-war feeling among their constituents.

Unfortunately, so many of them are feeding at the same war-machine troughs as their Rethug counterparts.

The best thing we can do is Remember in November (it's only next year, folks) and vote out each and every pro-war candidate. Rethug or Democrat, it doesn't matter.

You politicians are on notice: Unless you actively and vocally oppose the Iraq war, you don't get my vote.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166

Total coalition forces dead: 257
Total Iraqi Dead: 600,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 1998
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1449
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1398
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: 340
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 227.

It is still 712 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.