Gingrich is a Catholic Now?

Directly from our WTF? file is the news that our old buddy Newtie G. converted to Catholicism on Sunday.

Yeah, I thought it was a joke at first myself, something out of The Onion ("the news" in general is now so bizarre that it threatens to drive The Onion out of business), but no, there it is.

This three-times-married and two-times-matrimonial-loser, former corrupt Speaker of the House, full-time Georgia cracker and self-described "historian" apparently had to make that fatal leap into the arms of the Great Whore of Babylon because his current squeeze, third wife Callista, stopped putting out unless he submitted to the will of the Pope. I'm just saying...

And almost simultaneous to his conversion, Newtie started railing against Notre Dame for having the fucking nerve to invite the President of the United States to deliver its commencement address.

Plus it turns out that Newt is a Twit. Okay, we knew that already, but he has, of all things, a Twitter presence, wherein you will find this deathless piece of prose:

It is sad to see notre dame [sic] invite president obama [sic] to give the commencement address Since [sic] his policies are so anti catholic [sic] values.

Okay, come on. I realize that the rules of English have been relaxed somewhat with the advent of texting and such crap, but this fucker is supposed to be smart. I mean he supposedly has a PhD for crissakes. Anyone who commits that many errors in a single sentence is desperately in need of some remedial education.

And it kind of makes me wonder what ghost writers he used for those books he supposedly wrote himself. And his doctoral dissertation? If he can't write a single declarative sentence without fucking it up this bad, then he had to have a ghost writer for that as well.

But back on topic. How is Newtie, if he really plans to run for president, going to justify this leap of bad faith to the Fundo-Xians who make up the core of the Rethug base? After all, no lesser a personage than über-evangelist John Hagee has been making the claim for years that the Catholic Church is, in fact and in prophecy, the Great Whore of Babylon.

I just don't see it happening that the Fundos will ever, when the chips are down, elevate the Newtster to the exalted status of Rethug standard bearer and banner boy.

So what the fuck is really going on here? Can it really be so simple, can it really be that presumptive presidential candidate Gingrich is willing to throw away his only chance to become president because the old lady has cut him off from sex until he was willing to take on the mantle of Catholicism?

Actually, given his past history with women and his insatiable inability to keep it in his pants, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Tonight's the Night

You may recall that a week ago I called on everyone to just say no by turning out the lights on Saturday March 28.

That's today.

Earth Hour has already started in many parts of the globe. For those of you in the USA, depending on where you live, you still have anywhere from an hour-and-a-half to four-(or five- ... I get confused with all those farflung outlying possessions; you know, like Alaska and Hawaii...)-and-a-half hours to make it happen. At exactly 8:30 in each timezone turn off your lights.

Of course it has been snowing all afternoon (yes, I said snowing!!!) here, so I may have to remind She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed how much she likes winter camping in order to make it happen on schedule...

What Kind of Liberal Are You?

These things are always kind of fun. Drop by Guide to Liberal Breeds, take a short quiz, and it will tell you what kind of liberal you are.

My score: I am a "Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite ... a proud member of what's known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme."

Be prepared, though, for a disgusting image to be pressed into your brain. If you are a visual person (like me), it may haunt your dreams.

The image? Okay, here goes. One of the questions is "If you could pile any three people into a naked pyramid, who would you choose?" One of the choices is "Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh" ...

Now that's just fucking sick...

Yeah, This is Smart...

Lawmakers in at least eight US states are considering legislation to force the weak, the poor and the disaffected, who are also the economically, socially and legally disenfranchised (i.e. those on welfare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc) to take mandatory drug tests in exchange for receiving that massive amount of largesse from the state.

Okay then. Let's look at this with the jaundiced eye of reality. Let's say one of these poor saps flunks the test because he has marijuana in his system. He's immediately cut off whatever poor excuse for a living stipend that he has coming in, which means that in order for him to get some money to make up for that loss, he'll most likely turn to crime of some sort (if it's a male, it's usually burglary and if it's a female it's usually prostitution, but sometimes they go to something more hostile and with more potential for mayhem, like armed robbery) to make up for it. Immediately you have created a real criminal where only a "paper" criminal existed before.

And to go a step further, let's say that his neighbor is smart enough to know that marijuana stays in your system and is drug-testable for something like four weeks. So, knowing that he's going to be drug-tested in order to keep his unemployment benefits, he turns to something that metabolizes and disappears out of the system in 24 hours or less. Something like crack cocaine or heroin. He gets to keep his benefits as long as he's more than one day away from the test (and who isn't smart enough to pull that one off?).

Now it comes down to this: Who do you want living next door to you? That pot smoker who is always laid back and groovy, or the guy on the other side who's cranked up on crack cocaine and thinks that your dog is working for the CIA and your cat is taking secret spy-camera x-ray photos of his testicles?

This is what the so-called War on Drugs has gotten us after 40 years: A bad investment in time, money and resources. If you ask me, we should just do what Paul Harvey (yes, that Paul Harvey) suggested about Vietnam, also 40 years ago: Declare a victory and get out.

I don't know how many billions of dollars, all told, are squandered on this phony "war", but it's a hell of a lot when you count up all of the time and equipment and salaries and man-hours squandered in the areas of Coast Guard interdiction, on-land law enforcement, the overworked court system and the overcrowded prison population. We'd have a much small budget crisis if we diverted all that cash into something where we actually had a chance of making the money work for us. Like universal health care or expanded Head Start programs.

It's about time that we realized that after 40 years of stalemate, the so-called War on Drugs is over. We lost. It's time to take a new direction, and penalizing the poor, the weak and the disaffected even more is a losing proposition from the get-go. Legalize drugs, tax the hell out of them, and recognize finally that no one -- I repeat NO ONE -- has EVER died from a marijuana overdose.

Because there ain't no such thing...

And While We're On the Subject of Gay Marriage...

... here's a heartfelt apology from Portia DeRossi, who is taking the responsibility for all of those people who were harmed -- really harmed! -- by her marriage to Ellen:

Vermont "Gets It" -- Catholic Bishop, Not So Much

Up in its little corner of the US Northeast, tiny Vermont "gets it".

The Catholic bishop of Burlington doesn't.

I'm talking about the legislation that is about to become law in Vermont which would allow so-called "same sex marriages".

Here's what the good bishop had to say about the whole thing in his testimony before the Vermont legislature prior to their vote:

The union of husband and wife is a distinct vocation and using the law to alter or to redefine marriage is an injustice to those who have embraced this state in life and negates its long history of benefit to society and the justified acknowledgment that it has received from the very beginning of history.

A fucking injustice! Got that? All of you gay people out there who want to get married: What the fuck are you thinking? Don't you fucking know that if you do, it will be an injustice to me and everyone else who is married to someone of the opposite sex? What is wrong with you people?

Okay, back to reality. I'm willing to bet that no one asked the good bishop for some details on exactly how this "injustice" would affect people like me. The whole "defense of marriage" thing is a fraud from the Religious Right, aided and abetted by their allies in the Catholic church (whose members, of course, from a Fundo-Xian point of view, are slaves of the Great Whore of Babylon -- but the fundos are not above using the Catholics when it serves their purposes, such as opposition to gay marriage and abortion).

Like I've said before, a REAL defense of marriage would include all of the Biblical requirements, including shit like no divorce ever, the woman (and the woman only, naturally) has to be a virgin, etc etc etc.

It's kind of too bad that I live in a liberal bastion here on the Left Coast, where both of my senators and my congressman are all strong Democrats who are on record as supporting civil rights. Otherwise I could have some fun at one of their "town meetings" asking them to support a real Defense of Marriage Act and then watch them squirm.

From Our "Nut Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree" Files

These are my grandchildren. Need I say more?

Update: A good friend of mine said that this video was "amusing and disturbing"... I asked her what part of the nut not falling far from the tree didn't she understand, since that describes me to a "T".

The Post-Rapture Emails

Ya gotta hand it to those Fundo-Xian folks. They're nothing if not thoughtful -- downright thoughty, as my old Granny used to say. They even have a website where the faithful can have a post-Rapture email sent to their friends and family who are "left behind".

Here's the URL: http://raptureletters.com/letter.html -- I didn't make it a clickable link because I don't want to drive up their Google stats. In it you will see the following:

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world. The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.
This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven.
Etc etc etc blah blah blah

They promise to send out this letter on the first Friday following the Rapture, and every Friday thereafter until...well, I guess until Hell freezes over. Or whatever. And, of course, "free will donations" to the cause are gladly accepted (checks, cash, major credit card or PayPal).

I'm pretty sure I won't be needing to add the email addresses of my friends and family to that list. I'm also pretty sure I won't be getting any post-Rapture emails myself.

But look on the bright side. The vast majority of those self-designated Rapture-ites have oodles of money that they suddenly won't be needing, some plush luxury cars they won't be driving, and some fancy cribs that they won't be living in. For those of us who are "left behind" there ought to be a huge post-Rapture dividend.

Except that the Xian Bible does say that only 144,000 souls are going to get into heaven, so maybe that dividend won't be so big after all.

BTW, the whole concept of The Rapture is a fairly recent one, as these things go, the first usage of the word having been invented for the world's enlightenment no earlier than 1738.

The word "rapture" itself occurs nowhere in the Xian Bible, in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Not in the "regular" King James Version, and not in any of the modern translations. Nowhere. And that in itself is pretty odd, since it seems to be an English transliteration of the Latin raptus, "borne up, taken away" (hence raptor).

But I digress. It must be the former English teacher in me.

Anyway, the fact that "The Rapture" is mentioned nowhere in the Xian Bible is a handy comeback for that IBIL* of yours who tells you that the phrase "separation of church and state" occurs nowhere in the US Constitution.

Besides all this, I much prefer the Blondie version of "Rapture"...

[*IBIL = Idiot Brother-in-Law]

Earth Hour: Because It Has to Start Somewhere

...so why not with you and me?

I'm talking about Earth Hour, taking place next Saturday, a week from today, March 28 2009, at 8:30 in the evening. See the video:

Please join me and the millions of other people across this country and around the world who will be participating.

Like I say, it has to start somewhere... Let it be with us.

[Thanks and a hat tip to my friends Becky and Gary at EvolveFish.com for getting me involved -- please, drop by their store and show your support for fellow progesssives by buying something; they have a ton of neat stuff and their prices are great.]

It's Official: Hell Has Frozen Over

That's how my good friend BAC over at Yikes! calls it, and she's gotta be right.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican HMFIC of the Roman Catholic Bioethics Council, aka the Pontifical Academy for Life, overruled the Brazilian Big Guy Church Dude who excommunicated a couple of Brazilian doctors for ... get this ... performing an abortion.

In this unfortunate case, the girl getting the abortion was nine years old(!) and had been impregnated with twins by -- who else -- her stepfather. The poor little girl weighed only 80 pounds herself, and for her to be forced to carry this abomination of a pregnancy to term would have resulted in the untimely death of both the girl and the twins inside her.

That didn't matter, of course, to the local Brazilian archbishop, one José Cardoso Sobrinho by name, who excommunicated pretty much everyone in sight, including not only the doctors involved but also the girl's mother for authorizing the abortion. But, interestingly enough, not the girl herself. And I wonder about that...

Anyway, back to reality. This marks, I believe, the very first incidence in which the official Catholic hierarchy has even attempted to come to terms with what the rest of us out in the Reality Based Community have known forever: Abortion very often comes down to a choice between the already-born and the not-yet-born. As much as the Religious Right wants to pontificate, to strut and fret their hour upon the stage, to puff their collective feathers over it, the bottom line is that abortion is a decision to be made between a woman and her doctor. And no one else.

So this whole thing gives me some hope that, in spite of that tall-hat former Hitler Youth Pope Guy going around saying shit like condoms cause AIDS and reinstating that Holocaust-denying bishop, the Catholic Church may -- just may -- end up on the side of reason after all.

Okay, you're right. I won't be holding my breath...

The Dismal Science

Economics has been know for eons (i.e., since 1839) as "the dismal science" -- I mean really, who the fuck wants to digest all of those ugly mathematical statistical formulas and shit? Okay, I'm there...but for this: We ignore it at our peril.

I, along with a lot of my fellow citizens, tended to doze through Econ 101 in college. Who can really grasp the intricacies of all that wages plus demand minus supply times the square root of what-the-fuck-ever crap?

And that, pretty much, is what the fuckers in charge of our economy are counting on. The average American is as economically-literate as the average Bushman. That is how the Rethugs can still, to this day, get away with invoking Saint Ronald to the great unwashed, and that invocation -- amazingly to those in the Reality-Based Community -- covers a multitude of sins.

Don't believe me? Check out Why the GOP Nurtures Lies and Myths about Ronald Reagan over at the always-valuable Existentialist Cowboy and get yourself a little education on the subject.

Shocker of the Week: Some Gitmo Prisoners Are Innocent

Yeah, you coulda knocked me over with a fender (in the words of the late and much lamented Jane Ace) when I learned that a former high-level official with the NKVD Bush Administration came out and admitted -- shock, shock! -- that so many of the "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay detention were, in fact, "non-enemy non-combatants".

In other words, fucking innocent of the "crimes" for which they were being detained.

I dunno, but sometimes it feels like those of us over here in Left Blogistan have been, on so many fucking occasions, the only ones in the whole fucking country to see this kind of shit. I mean what the fuck is up with that? I have in my life had neither the desire nor the impetus to become a political pundit -- and for that matter, I probably lack the requisite skillset, which is to be wrong 98% of the time -- but even I predicted this early on in the game.

Why has it taken so long for the rest of the US to catch up?

The New White Face of Crime

Here's The Daily Show's Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore on last night's show:

Whazzzzup???

Here's TJ and JC in another of the Blog Against Theocracy video spots:

What Happens to the Jews?

Ted Maher asks Tod Hagee in this video:

Hagee doesn't reply. Of course, the two aren't talking face to face, but it's still a valid question: After the big guy in the sky comes back at the End of Days and the fundos get their way, what happens to the Jews? (Hint: They all die and go to hell.)

Please join the Blog Against Theocracy April 10-12, 2009.

"A Gay and Secular Fascism..."

That was the Newtster himself, Newt Gingrich, in this excerpt:

Please join the Blog Against Theocracy coming up next month, April 10-12.

And thanks to my blog buddy Blue Gal for the video. Watch for more in the coming days.

New Online Poll

Normally I don't think a whole lot of online polling. It's too easy to skew the results with repeat voters, you're not getting a scientifically valid representative sample, etc etc etc.

Okay, that said, I'm willing to pass along this URL to the MSNBC poll which purports to be a President Barack Obama scorecard/grade report.

As I say, ordinarily I don't put a whole lot of stock in these things, but when it appears that the Rethugs are doing exactly the kind of thing I abhor about these polls -- stacking the deck, so to speak, with multiple votes -- then it's time to do something about it.

Short of hunting them all down, smearing their genitals with lard and setting them free in a forest full of bears, the best thing we can do is to stack the deck the other way. So everyone, feel free to drop by the poll and, in the timeless words of somebody, vote early and vote often...

Oklahoma Takes Baby Step Towards (Gasp!) Gay Rights

Longtime readers of this blog know that I spent some of my formative youthful years in rural Oklahoma, so I tend to watch the goings-on in my sort-of-home-state.

Which leads me to this story: It seems that Oklahoma, like every other state, tends to open government meetings with a prayer. Yeah, big surprise there. Okay, putting aside the whole church-state issue, recently the Oklahoma House of Representatives session was opened with a prayer by United Church of Christ minister Rev. Scott H. Jones, of the Oklahoma-city based Cathedral of Hope.

The prayer itself -- which you can read here -- was one of those typically namby-pamby jobs calling on the big guy in the sky to bless the poor, help the homeless, cure the sick, blah blah blah, pretty much a by-the-numbers mainstream Xian prayer for a secular occasion. You've heard it all before.

So the ink wasn't dry, so to speak, on the prayer before several members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives started falling all over each other in a rush to keep the prayer from becoming part of the official record of the Oklahoma legislature.

Why? Well, it couldn't have been the content of the prayer itself (aside from the fact that it was one of those prayers that evoked that wimpy forgive-your-enemies Jesus, not the the Jesus of the flaming cross smiting the unbelievers...you know what I mean), so what was it?

Maybe -- and I'm just speculating here -- just maybe it was because the prayer was given by (gasp!) a gay minister!!! Who was asked to give this invocation by (another gasp!) the only openly-gay member of the Oklahoma legislature, Rep. Al McAffrey (D-Oklahoma City).

Naturally the theocrats were all over this like flies on shit, to the point of Rep. John Wright (R-Broken Arrow) calling for a vote on the prayer's inclusion in the official record. However, I am happy -- and proud -- to note that the final vote was this: 64 representatives voting to include the prayer, 20 opposing it, and 17 abstaining.

Sidebar: Of special note in all this was our old buddy, noted fundo-xian/gay basherRep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) who, naturally, voted in favor of exclusion.

Yeah, like keeping it out of the "official" written record is going to undo all the "damage" that this single prayer has done to the great state of Oklahoma.

Sorry, folks, the cat is already out of the bag, the damage has been done, and the fact that 64 Oklahoma state representatives can stick their necks out and vote for the inclusion of this prayer makes me feel good about one of the reddest states in the redstate continiuum. And about my home state.

Sunday Funny

Here's a video of notorious octomom Nadya Suleman giving birth:

Sometimes ya just gotta laugh...

Stewart 99, Cramer 0

I didn't know how else to score it. When full-time television financial guru and professional moron Jim Cramer came on The Daily Show last night to "set the record straight", Jon Stewart owned him.

Check out the full video over at The Daily Show and then ask yourself this simple question: Why does it take a comedy show host to be ask the kinds of questions that professional journalists used to ask, before they were completely co-opted by their slavemasters in the CPM*?

* * * * * *

[* CPM = Capitalist Pig Media]

SCOTUS Shocker

Regular readers know that I'm kind of a Supreme Court groupie, and that I am not a big fan of Justice Clarence Thomas.

So the shocker is this: Thomas stood up to his fellow wingnuts on the court in Wyeth v. Levine, a case dealing with the ability of victims to sue drug manufacturers, siding with the court's liberal wing and even writing the majority decision himself!

And it's not the first time that Thomas has carved his own way, distancing himself from his erstwhile mentor, Antonin "Tony Quack-Quack" Scalia. Here's hoping that we haven't seen the last of this heretofore almost hidden "liberal" streak in Clarence Thomas.

In fact, nothing would please me more than to see him come out from under that cloak of pseudo-conservatism and do what so many other SCOTUS justices have done, surprise their appointers and supporters and turn liberal when the country really needs it.

Okay, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. But you never know.

Class Warfare

I know, it's not a pretty term, and it's been thrown around with some abandon, especially during the last presidential campaign. "Class War" is, in case you didn't know, is a code word phrase used by the wingnuttery rightwing to denote Communism. Or its little brother, Socialism. Obama is still being excoriated for his so-called "socialist" views and ideals (a Google search for "obama socialist policies" gets you 1, 430,000 hits!).

But Class War is exactly what the US Chamber of Commerce is engaged in when it comes to the Employee Free Choice Act. Somehow I managed to get on their national mailing list (best guess, probably because I'm on record as the owner of a "small business" in the state of Washington), but I'm glad that I did. It gives me a lot of insight into what they are up to.

In the last couple of days I've received emails from a couple of big-time honchos at The Chamber:

Things are really heating up in Congress.
First, U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue appeared on This Week with George Stephanopolous to voice the Chamber's positive vision for getting the economy moving again.
Tom's positive economic outlook was brightened even further when his fellow This Week guest, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), announced with regard to Big Labor's dangerous "Card Check" bill, "I'm not sure that we have the votes [needed]."
That bill might be introduced as early as today - and Big Labor is desperate.
They're so desperate that they even unleashed their protesters to picket outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters.
Big Labor's back is up against the wall - and now they're trying to intimidate the U.S. Chamber into dropping our support for their dangerous bill?
So fitting - since its "Card Check" would rob American workers of the secret ballot and allow Union organizers to force them into Union membership using coercion and intimidation.
Don't let Big Labor intimidate Americans into passing the "Card Check" bill - click here to TAKE ACTION. [-- Bill Miller, VP for Political Affairs]
...
Bill was right. The misnamed-Employee Free Choice Act (aka. Card Check) was introduced in the House and Senate yesterday.
As Randel Johnson, U.S. Chamber Vice President said in our press release, "We are pleased this legislation has finally been introduced so we can put a stake through its heart."
We need your help right now to stop Card Check. Click here to join the Chamber and support the fight. This is our #1 priority. [-- Gretchen Deo, Executive Director]

Okay, fair enough. Let's fight back and make the passage of this legislation, so important to "Big Labor" but even more so to "small labor", our #1 priority.

Contact your people in Congress and tell them that you support the Employee Free Choice Act. Don't let these anti-labor anti-worker pigs get away with putting "a stake through its heart".

Life Without Water

No, I don't have some big revelation or theory that we as a species can exist without water. I'm just whining that I have to exist pretty much without it for the next week.

We have a broken water line coming from the main into our house, and the plumber can't fix it without first getting the lay of the land, where the electrical, gas and cable are underground. We live in one of those tract-house neighborhoods where all those unsightly utilities are safely tucked away under the sod. Which means if one of them fucks up, you have to call the "experts" in from god-knows-where to plot out the location of each of them before you start digging.

That's a good thing, I guess, since I wouldn't want someone accidentally clipping my gas line -- or even worse, my television/internet cable...

And naturally it takes time to get the expert out here, and for some reason all of the plumbers in town are heavily busy.

So we go almost totally without water for a week. We can, however, take showers and flush the toilet once a day, if I go out and turn on the water at the meter, and then turn it off right away. Some water is still getting to the house through the broken line -- but who knows how long that will last?

You know that old saying, you don't miss the water till the well runs dry. So true.

Rusty Limpdick another "Hanoi Jane"?

God, I love it when the rightwing starts to devour itself -- for example see my previous post about the McCain daughter attacking mAnn Coulter.

Now over at the Huffington Post, Frank Schaeffer, a former wingnut evangelical Rethug and now fulltime member of the Reality-Based-Community, tells it like it is when it comes to the current state of affairs in the Party:

How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson's and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!
With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party -- you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today's fifth column sabotaging American renewal...
When your new leader Rush Limbaugh calls for President Obama to fail he's calling for more flag-draped coffins. Limbaugh is the new "Hanoi Jane."
For the party that created our crises of misbegotten war, mismanaged economy, the lack of regulation of our banking industry, handing our country to rich crooks... to obstruct the one person who is trying to repair the damage is obscene.

Go ahead and read the whole thing. It's a very telling examination of the new Rethug Party. Of course Schaeffer will be excoriated as a "traitor" himself -- it's really all they have now to fall back on.

McCain Attacks Coulter!

Okay, it's not the senator. That would be asking too much. But it's almost as good. It's Grampaw's 24-year-old daughter Meghan who has come out on the attack:

Everything about her [Coulter] is extreme: her voice, her interview tactics, and especially the public statements she makes about liberals ... Maybe her popularity stems from the fact that watching her is sometimes like watching a train wreck.. . . Does she really believe all Jewish people should be 'perfected' and become Christians? And what was she thinking when she said Hillary Clinton was more conservative than my father during the last election?

Wow, you go, girlfriend!

If the Rethugs have been wondering, by the way, why they are turning off young people in record numbers, maybe they should listen to one of their own.

Yeah, It's That God Damn Liberal Media Again!

John Yoo, author of the We Love to Torture People memos to the Bushco Maladministration, is now whining that it's all that goddam media's fault.

Taken out of context, he says. Specifically this line "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully"... [emphasis added]

Okay, Little Johnny, why don't you tell us exactly what context that could be in so it wouldn't say what it so clearly says?

No. Instead Little Johnny is too busy singing "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" to a dwindling crowd of even his own supporters. How much longer until this fucker does the frog march before a congressional committee and is called to answer for his fascist advice to the fascist-in-chief, Baby Doc Bush?

The Chucktatorship

I'm certainly amazed at this. Thanks to Buzzflash, I've now learned that has-been "actor" and full-time-ugly man Chuck Norris is the president-elect of the Republic of Texas, and he says that we're not living in a democracy. No, it's a "Chucktatorship".

Jesus, I could have sworn when I read this that it was a spoof out of The Onion or the National Lampoon or something similar, but it's not.

So I guess we'd best prepare for an armed insurrection. Probably this Friday.

In which case, can I presume that alternate-side-of-the-street parking will be suspended?...

If This Isn't Conduct Unbecoming an Officer...

...then I don't know what could be. A lieutenant in the US Army, in Iraq, has allegedly joined a lawsuit filed in the state of California over Barack Obama's putative US citizenship.

Talk about the story that refuses to die. It's been clear since Day One on this mess that it's a non-issue, and Obama would have no reason to conceal it, had he actually been born out of the country, since his mother was, inarguably, an American citizen at the time of his birth, which automatically made him an American citizen. Just as John McCain being born in Panama to American parents made him a US citizen. Period. End of story. These fuckers on the wingnut fringe who keep bringing it up know this, but they are counting on the idiocy of the dittohead great unwashed to buy into it.

Which brings us back to this dickwad lieutenant, Scott R. Easterling, who calls the president -- and his commander in chief -- an "imposter" and a "usurper". Publicly and ferociously, it appears.

So, unless things have changed a whole lot since I was in the service, this is a textbook case of conduct unbecoming an officer, and Easterling ought to be up on court-martial charges so fast it would make your head swim. (See, for example, Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, for starters.)

Especially when you look farther into his story and discover that up until 2005 he was a KBR (i.e., Halliburton) "contractor" in Iraq, who left his undoubtedly lucrative contracting work to join the Army. Hmmm, that in itself kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

See that Easterling link to the Military.com story and scroll down tothe comments section. Some of them will curl your toes and straighten your hair:

· OMG hahaha. I KNEW this was gonna happen. So yep the new world order has happend [sic]. They let a black man in the building and all three branches are behind it.
· Well his grandmother said he was born in Kenya. I agree that this "poser on chief/muslim radical" is a fraud. Dad a muslim, madrasa schooled, converted to christianity because of political expediency, and said "The most beautiful thing I've ever heard is the muslim call to prayer at sunset" Osama's a muslim manchurian candidate.
· Wow, you people really disgust me. All of your rhetoric truly makes me question your morality. Some of you say that this LT needs to be reprimanded in this way or that, but what you people forget to see through your blinders is that this LT is still fighting the fight, no matter what. He still is part of the reason you have the right to say the things you do. He still believes the American way of life is still precious and should stay that way no matter what.And whether he chooses his God given freedom to voice that God given right is up to him.

And there's more. Lots more. This is a story that will be worth following, just to make sure that this asshole gets what's coming to him. Despite all of his defenders who are taking great stretches to support him (see that last comment for example) in his indefensible behavior.

Still No Justice for LaVena Johnson

A year and half ago, back in August 2007 I posted a blog entry entitled Who Was Lavena Lynn Johnson and Why Should You Care?.

LaVena Johnson, in case you don't recall, died in Iraq in 2005 and her death was ruled a "suicide". By military investigators. Who were on the scene and presumably were in a position to know better. Despite the fact that the right-handed Johnson apparently managed to shoot herself in the left side of her head, a straight-on head wound, using her left hand both to balance her M16 and pull the trigger. Despite the fact that the autopsy photos showed that she had been beaten and her body mutilated perimortem. Despite the fact that lye had been poured into/onto her vaginal area...

This death, incredibly, is still listed in official records as a "suicide".

This official story, like most of them, is of course arrant bullshit. She was murdered, and someone has gotten away with it, and someone else -- probably a whole bunch of someones else -- is guilty of covering it up.

But this a story that needs to be repeated, a story that demands justice, a story that insists on an independent congressional investigation into the incident and the subsequent coverups.

Please join me in contacting your congressional representatives and senators to demand justice for LaVena Johnson, as well as all of the other unknown victims of rape and murder in our armed forces.

And it's not too late to sign the petition over at Color of Change -- those signatures will be sent to Rep Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and it can't hurt to have a veritable avalanche of names going out to him, but I think it's always better -- and gets more personal attention -- to send your own personalized request to your representative and senators as well.

BTW, back in July '07 I noted that there weren't any news stories on LaVena Johnson in any of the media formerly known as the MSM. Sadly, that is still the case. Only AlterNet has a new story on this tragedy, but hopefully, with the help of all of us out here who still care, this story will not die until there is justice for LaVena.

See also the LaVena Johnson website for the latest news on the fight for justice.

Jon Stewart Takes on CNBC

After CNBC "reporter" Dick Rick Santelli had that famous Howard-Beale-like meltdown at the Chicago Merc, it was inevitable that he'd be the butt of humor. And sure enough, here's the Daily Show look at Santelli, CNBC and whole financial crisis in a nutshell:

It's kind of sad -- and troubling -- that a "professional financial news" network missed the financial meltdown by so much. And that we have to get our "real news" from a comedy program.

Yassuh, Toby Be Good...

In a disgusting yet telling display, newly-anointed GOP "leader" Michael Steele was forced on bended knee to kowtow to the real leader of the Rethug party, Rush Limbaugh, after he made some "unconsidered" remarks about the Fatboy Dopehead.

Jeez, given all of the racial problems that the Rethugs have had over the last forty years or so (ever since Tricky Dick's "Southern Strategy" starting circa 1970) -- and especially given Limbaugh's own problems with black people -- you'd think that this would be the last thing they'd want the American public to see.

But no, there it was, for all America to see: Poor Michael Steele, looking like he just stepped out of a scene from Roots, having to figuratively -- and almost literally -- lick his master's boots.

And now I hear that there are rumblings that the Fatboy himself may be considering a run for the Offal Office in 2012.

Really? In that case, bring it on! I can't imagine a candidate on the right who would be better for the Democrats, unless it was Sarah Palin.

So imagine this: A Palin-Limbaugh ticket in 2012.

Of course that's not gonna happen. It would have to be Limbaugh-Palin -- ole Rusty just couldn't stand the thought of having a woman on top...

Rush Limbaugh Gay? (Not that there's Anything Wrong With That...)

Ah, the wonders -- the miracle -- of Stumble. Do a Google search for "Jeff Christie" and see what you get.

It seems that our ole good buddy -- and of course one of my favorite whipping boys -- professional blowhard (I use the term advisedly--read on) fat-boy drug-addict draft-dodging chicken-hawk multi-millionaire and multi-married Rush Limbaugh was once fired from Pittsburgh radio station KQL, where he worked under the pseudonym of Jeff Christie, after soliciting ... gay sex!

It's also been widely reported that he had a brief but heated "affair" in college (before poor Rusty dropped out) with a guy named Elliot Sanders, who says that Limbaugh is so gay that he didn't -- couldn't -- consummate any of his four marriages; it's also fairly common knowledge that when Limbaugh worked in Sacramento radio, his friend and "mentor" was flamboyantly gay Norm Woodruff (who later died of AIDS).

There's a lot more circumstantial evidence out there. Naturally Rusty is claiming that it's all lies, made up by "liberals" who hate him and want him to fail. You know, like it was all lies when he was first accused of being a drug addict. Like it was all lies when it became public that an ingrown hair on his ass kept him out of Vietnam. Like it was all lies when ... well, you can fill in the blanks. His whole public persona is built up from a series of lies, untruths, half-truths and prevarications.

Okay, so why am I, a person long-known for championing gay rights, coming down on criticizing this poor sexually-confused pathetically-closeted fat-assed windbag for being gay?

After all, as the Seinfeld TV show had it, "not that there's anything wrong with that"...

Unless you are Rush Limbaugh and you have built an entire -- and disgustingly lucrative -- career working the wingnut side of the aisle, denigrating and demonizing gay people, abominizing gay marriage, and sucking up (damn, there I go again) to the bible-thumping holy rollers of the world (including, dare I say it, Ted Haggard? Hmmm ... but I digress). Then it becomes the height, the very pinnacle, the textbook definition, of rank hypocrisy. Imagine what is going to happen when (or IF -- we're still dealing with the CPM* here) this story goes mainstream and his poor duped dittohead knuckledragging mouthbreathing white-guy-victim listeners find out the truth about him. If you'll recall, it almost came out back in 2006, when he was arrested for possession of Viagra after a "boys only" trip to the Dominican Republic (the western hemisphere spot notorious as a magnet for child-sex tourism).

It's kind of sad ... in a bent, twisted worm-caught-on-a-hot-sidewalk kind of way.

Okay, not really, but if he hadn't been such an arrogant fucking obnoxious lying liberal-hating asshole all these years -- and continues to be one -- then I might actually feel a little sorry for the guy.

Yeah, probably not. After all, he'd still be Rush Limbaugh.

* * * *

* CPM = Capitalist Pig Media