British Royals and the Military--Setting an Example

The British Royal Family, unlike the Bush family, has a long tradition of proud military service going back centuries.

Most recently, Prince Andrew, younger brother of Charles, the Prince of Wales and third in line for the throne, was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerra de Las Malvinas (aka the 1982 Falklands War), Prince William, heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's equivalent to West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduates from there in April with a commission as a cavalry lieutenant. He very well could be sent to Iraq as a regular member of the regiment he is joining, which is scheduled for deployment.

The princes are setting a sterling example for their nation, and for their relative counterparts over here across the pond, the twin princess daughters of King George.

So how's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? You're not gonna let a couple of wimpy-assed cheddar-eating warm-beer-drinking funny-talking effete English royal snobs show you up, are you? Enlist now. Recruiters are standing by at www.goarmy.com.

Constitutional Protection? It's Hard Work. Too Hard.

What is this, some kind of talking-points litany, some kind of leitmotif, for the entire Baby Doc Maladministration? We can't do it because it's "hard work"? That's what Torquemada Gonzales says is the reason why they haven't bothered to even try to get FISA court approval for all those warrantless wiretaps.

After listing a mind-numbing panoply of "difficulties" with doing the right (i.e., the legal, the Constitutional) thing, mostly involving annoyingly legalistic attorney types, Torquemada Boy summed it up with the complaint that "... and finally, as attorney general, I would have to be satisfied that the search meets the requirements of FISA."

Imagine that. He'd have to be satisfied that governmental actions meet the requirements of the law. Can't have that. We surely don't want the Attorney General of the United States -- the Top Cop of the USA -- to have to break a sweat, to have to actually do anything so he can be certain that those actions are -- gasp -- legal and Constitutional.

Yeah, looks like, bottom line, it's just too much of a fucking hassle having to adhere to those pesky and bothersome Constitutional protections. Just too much work. Hard work. After all, the Constitution is just a fucking goddamn piece of paper.

Plus, as Baby Doc himself says, "we don't want to tip off our enemies". Tip them off to fucking what? To the fact that we have a government of laws, that even the president is subject to the Constitution, that we are wiretapping conversations? That part they already know, Baby Doc.

Jesus, you'd think they'd at least try to come up with some justification that could pass the straight-face test, but it looks like they just don't give a shit. And that's the scary part.

No Win Situation for Baby Doc

It's obviously no way out for The Chimperor and those pesky photos of him with Abramoff that he refuses to release. He says he won't give 'em up because he doesn't want them used "for political reasons" -- which is evidently, then, not the reason those photos were taken in the first place...

So, if he doesn't release them, it's ammunition for those liberal media assholes who are so obviously out to get him, with their ludicrous demands for the people's right to know, and their unprecedented demands for public access to public documents.

If he does release them, then it's red meat for the rightwing religious zealots who would be shocked -- shocked -- to see those compromising photos -- which of course do not exist -- of the Monkey Boy with Abramoff's circumcized Blunt Boener stuck so far up his Cheney that his tonsils are brown.

No wonder he's in complete denial: "I don't know him", he says, without a single trace of personal embarrassment sticking to his imitation-leather shitlicker boots.

Like I say, it's no win for Baby Doc. Kinda feel sorry for the little fucker, doncha now?

Two Days to Stop King George

Listen up, people. We have just two days to stop King George's court-packing scheme. Alito must not be confirmed.

Please contact your senators and tell them to support the filibuster. I don't give a shit if you're in a blue state or a red state, let them hear from you!

The more people who call and let them know how we feel, the more likely it is that those wavering fence-sitting mugwumps will finally come down on the side that stands for democracy and freedom. And those who still insist on wearing the Darth Cheney Imperial Storm Trooper uniform...well, they still need to hear from you, because every telephone call they receive telling them to support the filibuster represents one vote against them in the next election if they don't listen to you. After all, these fuckers work for us, and they had goddam well better represent our interests.

Filibuster Would Make Dems "Look Bad"????

Andy Ostroy over at The Ostroy Report has a good take on the potential Alito filibuster.

It seems the White House is advising Democrats that they might want to forego the filibuster, lest it "make them look bad".

Make them look bad?????!!!!!!

So we are supposed to take image advice from the worst corrupt bunch of evil asshole motherfuckers since the Caligula Administration? Because it would make us look bad????

If you saw this bullshit on a television show, it would have to be a lame-ass sitcom.

Check out Andy's full blog post and you'll just sit there silently shaking your head.

Friday Cat Blogging

John Kerry to Filibuster Scalito!

He must have been listening to those of us out here in the blog wilderness. Just one day after I posted my "John Kerry, you piss me off" entry, he stood up and said he will lead the filibuster of Scalito!

Now it's up to the rest of us to contact our senators and tell them to stand up with John Kerry and filibuster Alito. This is a nomination that cannot go forward, and we need to tell them that we stand behind the filibuster.

Go to contact your congress and make a phone call to your own senators.

Also, Save the Court has put together a list of critical senators who need to be contacted. Surf on over to that website and fax these senators. Please help in any way you can.

And while you're at it, send an email to John Kerry and thank him for standing up.

And finally, take a look at this Google news search for the phrase "Kerry filibuster Alito". Any doubts you might have had about the SCLM/MSM being "liberal" should be immediately put to bed when you count up the vast majority of completely negative stories criticizing Kerry.

The Five Dwarves

There are five senators who have expressed an interest -- or who are widely believed to have an interest -- in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination:

Evan Bayh (IN)
Joe Biden (DE)
Hillary Clinton (NY)
Russ Feingold (WI)
John Kerry (MA)

So far none of these five has taken a leadership role in keeping Scalito off the bench.

So my question for these five dwarves is this: How in the hell do you think you can lead this country if you can't step up to keep this rightwing fuck off the Supreme Court?

I'm waiting for an answer, but I don't think it's going to be forthcoming. And if one of these hapless morons happens to be the lucky nominee in '08, well...

But things have a way of working themselves out. There's still a primary season to go through before they can lock up that nomination, and I'll be god damned if I will vote for -- or give money to -- any of these spineless fucks if they don't filibuster Scalito.

Period, end of story.

Goddammit John, Just Say "No"!

John Kerry, you piss me off. I donated all of the profits from my book sales to your 2004 campaign, I was in a leadership position of the Veterans for Kerry Steering Committee in my state, and I worked my fucking ass off trying to get you elected.

You pissed me off when you refused to stand up to the Swift Boat Liars for Bush. You pissed me off when you didn't go for the jugular in the debates. You pissed me off when you caved in like a two-minute egg on the day after the election.

And now you're gonna piss me off one more time when you won't stand up and lead the filibuster against Alito. Way back in June 2003 you said "I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary, any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on a woman's right to choose or the constitutional right to privacy, on civil rights and individual liberties and on the laws protecting workers and the environment." (full story)

John, if that ain't Alito to a "T", then I'm a neo-nazi skinhead. So now the question is this: Are you going to keep your word and do it, or are you going to turn tail and slink away?

It's time, John. Put up or shut up.

Google Backs Down in China -- USA Next?

Just as I've been singing Google's praises for standing up for freedom and democracy, I learn that it backed down in China and caved into the Chinese government's demands that it filter its search results to prevent Chinese web surfers from finding subversive information on, for example, Tibetan independence or the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

It's all driven by the almighty dollar, of course, and with the competition (e.g. Microsoft and Yahoo) having already caved in to the Chinese, it makes good business sense for Google to do the same.

But it bodes ill for Google's principled stand against our own government. Do the honchos at Google really think that the BFEE can't bring enough subtle and not-so-subtle economic pressure to affect Google's bottom line? Once that happens, I'm predicting they'll bend over and spread 'em faster than a ten-dollar hooker.

Too bad, too, since we need more people and organizations willing to stand up and stick a finger in the all-seeing eye of the BFEE's New World Order.

An Interesting Juxtaposition

Ordinarily it wouldn't have caught my attention, but in the course of less than 24 hours two of the major carmakers announced layoffs in an attempt to maximize profits and minimize losses.

What was interesting in this is that Ford is closing plants and laying off 30,000+ workers, while Daimler is also laying off people -- but in their case it's 6,000 managers.

Those of us who have spent any time at all in manufacturing (and I did my term as a wage slave in several factories in my youth, thank you) won't have to guess which strategy will be successful.

If I were in the market for a new vehicle, guess which manufacturer I would choose.

Call Your Senators & Demand a Filibuster

It's six minutes to midnight on the last day of democracy and only you can stop the clock.

Go to Contacting the Congress and make a phone call to your senator to demand that he or she filibuster Alito.

The stakes are too high and the Dems need to grow a spine. They need to hear from us that we don't want someone on SCOTUS who will be a rubberstamp for the Imperial arrogations of the Bush Family Evil Empire.

Only you can make a difference. Please take a few moments to call your Senators.

Do it now.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 615 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.

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?"

Osama Been Forgotten

I guess the skinny little guy has been out of the spotlight long enough, so now with the '06 elections coming up, it was time for him to trot out his Message of Fear to help his good buddies in the BFEE.

Al Jazeera calls it thusly: Bin Laden’s propaganda- Valuable gift to Washington.

Of course the fact that I even reference an Al Jazeera story on this blog -- let alone link to it -- is pretty much a guarantee that I'm now on the "watch list" for sure, if I hadn't landed there already for some of my rash comments in this space and elsewhere.

In the meantime, you gotta wonder, if this is the most powerful nation, blah blah blah, and we could put a man on the moon and rovers on Mars, they why in the hell can't we "smoke 'em out" of those caves in AfghanaPakistan? Rough terrain, my ass. We've fought a lot of wars on rough terrain, and that never stopped us before.

It has to be that we just don't have the will, the resolve, to hunt down and capture one man who is hiding in a cave, but we are more than happy to invade a non-combatant third country and pour all of our wealth and lives into what was a losing proposition from the get-go.

BTW, it has now been 1549 days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama "dead or alive". It was only 1347 days from Pearl Harbor to the end of WWII.

Playing Hardball over at the Daily Kos

Who does this sound like to you?

They are vehemently against abortion, they resist progressive woman's rights. They view homosexuality as a crime against nature and God, some advocate the death penalty as an option for it. Separation of Church and State is despised by these folks; they insist the nation is founded on the principles of their religion, and they work hard to bring that de facto theocracy about. They deplore strong language, gay characters, and sexual content on TV and in the media. And they ignore the Geneva Convention when it suits their ideological purposes, including provisions against torture or due process. They're anti-stem cell research, pro-creationism, and generally distrustful of science. These folks are easily whipped into a state of frenzy with ideological manipulation to the point where they will commit violence, or at least tacitly endorse that violence is acceptable, if it advances their Divine agenda. They then take great pains to justify that violence, including unprovoked attack of civilian areas, under certain conditions, with convoluted theological gymnastics. They are almost to the man pro-death penalty ... Am I railing against the religious right again?
Could be, but my target here is actually Al Qaeda and related fundamentalist Wahhabism; the source of terrorism, the scourge of our planet, the Axis of Evil.

Read the rest of this commentary on the Daily Kos blog. It's choice, in addition to being right on the money.

Ron Kovic on the Iraq Wounded

Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July, was wounded in Vietnam in 1968 and has spent the years since that time as a wheelchair-bound paraplegic.

He knows something of the horrors of war -- and of the horrors of surviving it. He has a moving and disturbing commentary on the Huffington Post website about today's wounded coming home from Iraq. Here's an excerpt:

They are alone in their rooms all over this country, right now. Just as I was alone in my room in Massapequa. I know they're there--just as I was. This is the part you never see. The part that is never reported in the news. The part that the president and vice president never mention. This is the agonizing part, the lonely part, when you have to awake to the wound each morning and suddenly realize what you've lost, what is gone forever. They're out there and they have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives and children. And they're not saying much right now. Just like me they're just trying to get through each day. Trying to be brave and not cry. They still are extremely grateful to be alive, but slowly, agonizingly they are beginning to think about what has really happened to them.

Three Simple Words

The next time some Repug wingnut Baby Doc apologist tells you that the BFEE was perfectly justified in spying on Americans, intercepting our phone calls, etc., and that the inherent power of the presidency allows the president to do anything he wants and ignore any laws he thinks he doesn't have to obey, just say these three simple words:

President Hillary Clinton.

Will they still be blindly supporting the arrogation of Imperial power to the presidency when that august office is occupied by Hillary Clinton?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Fucking hypocritical assholes.

Friday Cat Blogging

Violating Two Rules

I love the way freeper troll assholes can hide behind the anonymity of a blog post. I've got my own freeper fan now. Check out his moronic musings in response to this week's Bush Twins in Uniform Watch.

He signs his posts "impeachchimpy", but it's unlikely that reflects his true colors. I've told him "fuck you" a couple of times now, but he still won't answer the question: If this "war on terror" is so goddamned important, then why aren't the offspring of the class that benefits the most from it doing any of the fighting?

He can't answer the question. Instead he bullshits his way through some puffed-up bona fides about his West Texas (yeah, go figure) family tree and history of service, tosses a couple of ad hominem grenades in my direction, tries to insult my military service, yada yada yada.

I've told him to identify himself if he wants any further dialog with me. He could be Dick Cheney's pet turd for all I know. Chances are he'll stay in hiding and won't show himself.

Anyway, in my dealings with this prick I've already violated two of my basic rules:
1. I don't respond to anonymous assholes, and
2. I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

Google and the Government -- Watch Out

I guess the illegal wiretaps and email intercepts and covert suveillance weren't enough. Now the BFEE Department of inJustice has issued a subpoena to Internet search giant Google ordering them to cough up one million random web addresses and -- here's the important part -- a record of all Google searches for a one-week period.

So what are they looking for? Al Qaeda sleeper cells? Nope. For people looking for the plans to make a dirty bomb? Nope. How about the formula for cooking up methamphetamine? Nope.

Give up?

Pornography. They want to know what "pornography searches" people are conducting. Like this is the most pressing of all possible problems facing this country. Jesus Christ, we have people in our own country dying because they can't afford health care, children going without food and shelter, soldiers being murdered in Iraq, lobbyists literally buying congressmen, and all they can think of is fucking pornography?

These people have some real issues. We did know that, of course, way back when AG Slashcroft covered up those nakedly disgusting female breasts on that DOJ statue, and sadly that fundamentalist quasi-Xian narrow-minded neo-Puritan non-philosophy is still running rampant through the echoing halls of the Imperial Palace.

Google, to its credit, is resisting this unnecessarily invasive governmental intrusion.

It had better, seeing as how it's already on the privacy hotseat for prior questionable practices. We can only wait and watch, to see if they ultimately cave in and crawl on their bellies like whipped dogs to avoid the lash of the Imperial Storm Troopers.

This one is all over the Internet -- watch it and see what happens. This could be a watershed event in the world of privacy protection.

Swiftboating: A Republican Veteran Fights Back

But is it a case of too little, too late? James Webb, fellow Vietnam vet, fellow Vietnam war novelist, former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, and a Republican, had a great op-ed piece in today's New York Times:

Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.

There's a lot more. Drop by and check it out. There's also an active thread on this piece over at the Daily Kos.

Let's hope that he is right, and that it does hurt the Republicans. Maybe then the cooler heads on the conservative side will prevail and they can wrest control of the GOP back from the religious fundos/neocon thugs/Mayberry Machiavellis that have seized control of it.

What I can't understand is why anyone with a half a brain and any sense of recent history can still be a Republican after what has happened to the party that used to stand for limited government, fiscal responsibility, and avoiding foreign entanglements.

I just don't get it.

Candidate Veterans in the Crosshairs

Last week's swiftboating of John Murtha was just the beginning. Of course we should have known that. It turns out that the website that first hosted this travesty is a wholly-owned subsidiary of wingnut media gadfly and fulltime asshole L. Brent Bozell -- yeah, big surprise there. Watch for more bullshit pretending to be news coming out of that slime factory -- sorry, Brent, if I want to get a whiff of wingnut media crap, I'll just watch Faux News.

Anyway, Helen Thomas (remember her, the little old lady that makes Baby Doc shit his pants in fear whenever he sees her?) has an excellent piece on veterans stepping into the crosshairs when they become political candidates.

The way 2006 is shaping up, it's going to be Swifties squared when it comes to that appalling political creature, the Democratic veteran. Let's all be prepeared to counter those lies and attacks that we know are coming, and do all we can do to elect those Democratic veterans across the country.

Needed: A Democratic SCOTUS Swat Team

Our new SCOTUS buddy, Sammy-the-Mouth Alito, now says he really didn't mean it all those years ago when he made some positively obsequious comments about his good buddy, Robert "Savonarola" Bork, calling him "one of the most outstanding nominees of the century'' and "a man of unequaled ability, understanding of constitutional history, someone who had thought deeply throughout his entire life about constitutional issues and about the Supreme Court and the role it ought to play in American society.''

But now that he's been called to task on this crap by the Dems, he's back-pedaling so fast that I half expect him to say something like what Willie Horton said about Michael Dukakis after the trouncing he received in the 1988 election: "Hey, I barely knew the guy!"

Our Sammy now says it was all just a big misunderstanding, that he was just expressing his personal support for Bork as a person, and not as a Supreme Court justice, yada yada yada.

Yeah, uh-huh. And when Charles Manson is standing in the capitol rotunda in Sacramento, brandishing an AK-47 and yelling for everyone to get down or he'll kill them ... well, he will just be exercising his free speech rights by expressing in his own way his support for The Gropinator, and it'll all be just a big misunderstanding. Tell that to the SWAT team.

What we really need is a Democratic SWAT team that will zero in on the half-truths and the "inoperative statements" and the dissembling and the misdirection and the lies on the part of each and every wingnut asshole that the Repugs can throw up for these lifetime SCOTUS appointments. Zero in on them and hold their feet to the fire.

But with a bunch of weak-kneed lilly-livered Dems like Lazy Di in the Senate, I guess that's just too much to ask for.

What's Eating Diane Feinstein?

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Wimp) said that she would vote against Sammy "The Liar" Scalito, but that she wouldn't support a filibuster.

Feinstein has a reputation of being a strong supporter of women's rights -- including their reproductive rights -- but she is on record as saying something extraordinary concerning the Alito vote before the senate:

He is clearly qualified and...I am very impressed with his abilitiy to maintain a very even demeanor during this entire thing and his ability not to specifically answer any questions.

Uh, Senator... isn't that a good reason to filibuster the dissembling asshole? The very fact that he won't come clean on Roe -- practically the only issue he was unwilling to discuss his views on -- ought to be a gigantic red flag.

So what's eating Diane Feinstein? Could it be that her husband is a big-time defense contractor?

Just asking.

A Military Flyover -- On MLK Day???

It will have to go down as one of the most egregious slap-in-the-face stunts of the Smirking Chimp Maladministration. At the height of a huge Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally in San Antonio, the Air Force did a flyover of the crowd using a couple of T-1A Jayhawk training jets.

A show of military force, on the very day set aside to honor the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and America's most vocal spokesman for peace and non-violence.

Think about that.

It has to go beyond simple ignorance. It has to go beyond "just an error in judgment, my bad, ha-ha". This has to be deliberate, a slap in the face to the legacy of Dr. King and a warning to all of us "peaceniks" on the ground that maybe next time we'll get an application of that old napalmolive skin lotion.

Well I've got news for you flyboys and your puppetmasters all the way to the upper reaches of the White House: We will not be intimidated and we will not be frightened down some fucking rabbit hole.

We shall overcome.

Even "Uncle Walter"?

In a statement so eerily reminiscent of his 1968 call for the end of the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite, for several generations the most trusted name in television news, has called for an American withdrawal from Iraq.

Now 89 and slowing down -- but still going strong where it counts -- Cronkite has added his voice to those of us who have been calling for an end to the Iraq misadventure in empire-building.

Because of his still olympic status as the dean of the world's newsmen, Cronkite's word will have momentum and reverberation and resonance far beyond the limited audience of television critics.

Naturally, the SCLM/MSM and their lackeys on the right will call for his head on a platter, and the old "Cronkite is a Communist" canards will be pulled out and dusted off.

But I hope that those cries will fall on deaf ears. To those of a certain age, Uncle Walter remains the conscience of the American media. Let's hope that this will be the start of a sea change, and the media will finally, at long last, admit that they have been buttfucked by an administration that cares about nothing except its own survival.

BTW, note that link above: It goes to a website in the UK -- we'll see if any of the SCLM/MSM have the balls to pick it up.

President Gore Speaks Out

This is must read. President Al Gore, giving a speech at the appropriately-chosen venue of Liberty Hall, compared the surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. to the wiretaps of today.

Read the entire text of his speech on the Raw Story website.

This should be required reading in every high school in the nation. In every college classroom. In every workplace.

So what are the chances that the SCLM/MSM are going to slam it, denigrate it, incorrectly report it, and trivialize it? I'd say, given their record with Al Gore, those chances approach 100%. Watch the news and see for yourselves.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 608 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.

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?"

Clutching at Straws?

Yeah, that's what I might be doing here, but Arlen Specter said to George "The Weasel" Stephanopoulos this morning that impeachment could be a "remedy" for the crimes of Baby Doc.

That might be a weasel-word on the part of Specter, but it might also be a sort of trial balloon to gauge the sense of the nation on the issue.

Sadly, though, it seems that the "sense of the nation" is focused on the NFL playoffs (go Seahawks!) and tonight's two-hour opener for season five of 24, and not on the high crimes and misdemeanors of the BFEE Maladministration.

Anyway, as interesting as it is to hear Specter raise the issue, the Senate really has no say in whether the Smirking Chimp gets impeached -- that's the job of the House, and until we elect enough Democrats with spines and balls this November to make it happen, the criminally-insane Baby Doc will continue to plunder the freedoms and liberties that many people have, up to this point, taken for granted.

Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating water, it's time to jump. A good step toward that jump would be for the Dems to filibuster Alito, but it looks like they are not going to do it. He'll get his sacred "up or down" vote, and this nation will be fucked for a long time -- maybe forever. But I repeat myself...

The Swiftboating of John Murtha

It had to happen, I guess. A couple of wingnut assholes on a website called Cybercast News Service have hatched a long piece that calls into question Congressman Murtha's Purple Heart medals -- he wasn't entitled to them, blah blah blah, same old shit.

Cited as a source in this personal attack is a political foe of Murtha's from Pennsylvania, one Don Bailey (formerly a Democratic congressman and a fellow Vietnam vet who lost a primary election to Murtha -- no potential for personal revenge in this attack, no sir), who claims that in an emotional conversation on the floor of the House Murtha said that he did not deserve the medals.

I guess it's one thing when a Democrat says that he didn't deserve his Purple Heart, and something else entirely when a Repugnican does it: None other than Bob Dole made the same claim for his first Purple Heart award, and where was the hue and cry from the hypocritical motherfuckers on the right? No where, that's where. They were strangely silent on that issue. Imagine that.

Well, it's obvious to me that these two chickenhawk pricks have never spent any time around decorated combat veterans. Many of those veterans also feel that they didn't "deserve" their medals, and many will admit it in an "emotional conversation".

I personally heard fellow Vietnam vet Paul "Buddy" Bucha, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, say essentially the same thing last year, also in an "emotional conversation". He said that as a company commander he fucked up and got some of his men killed, and the Army gave him a medal for it. He now carries it around in his pocket as a constant reminder of what he did to those he calls "my boys".

But watch for the rightwing noise machine to pick up on this Murtha Swiftboating story and spread it far and wide to the Moron-Americans who listen to Limbaugh and Hannity and Savage and all the rest of their ilk who continue to pollute the public airwaves with their obnoxious filth.

And watch the SCLM refuse to counter these lies. Just like the cowards they are.

Orwellian Language from the SCLM/MSM

The Baby Doc Maladministration has been notorious for its use and extension of Orwellian language -- No Child Left Behind is actually No School Left Standing, Clear Skies is actually Polluted Air, and so on, and the SCLM/MSM* has steadfastly not only refused to call them on it, but they have been active co-conspirators with the BFEE in their steady march towards fascism.

Case in point: Now, almost without exception (even NPR is doing it!), the SCLM/MSM are referring to the current drift towards total presidential power as the "Unitary Executive". Sounds sort of vaguely ecumenical, like one of those nondescript Protestant religions that no one pays any attention to any more, doesn't it?

This is a handy way to avoid calling it what it really is. Such truly descriptive terms as "capitalist oligarchy", "unconstitutionally usurped power", or "fascist dictatorship" apparently aren't on the "approved" list handed down from on high.

"Unitary Executive" sounds so much more benign, doesn't it? Too bad that no one is speaking up about this except for those of us all the way out here in Left Blogistan.

In Germany, first they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me … and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-- Pastor Martin Niemoller

* So-Called Liberal Media/Main Stream Media

Friday Cat Blogging

Town Hall Meeting Shocker

I just got home from a "town hall" type of meeting with my congressman, Brian Baird (Washington 3rd). He's a smart, personable, even-tempered guy who's good at thinking on his feet, which I guess is why he keeps winning elections. He and I have disagreed over the years on some issues (e.g., Terri Shiavo, flag burning), but he's in the forefront of fighting for veterans' benefits, supporting veterans' issues and funding veterans' health care, so by and large he's way better than whatever knuckledragger the Repugs have thrown -- or can throw -- up against him.

But he told an absolutely appalling story about what happened when he and his wife attempted to travel to Kuwait to make a personal visit to a group of National Guard troops from right here in this district who had been deployed to Kuwait and were on the verge of going into Iraq.

He contacted the commanding general of Task Force Olympia and was told that they would not allow him to make an official visit as a congressman and not be able to ask questions of the troops because -- get this -- That fat bastard, the Squeaker of the Hose, one Denny Fat-boy Clogged-arteries Supersize-me Make-that-three-triple- cheeseburgers Hastert issued an edict that no Democratic congressman could speak to the troops without a Repugnican sewer rat being present.

And people still wonder why we need to get that slavering pack of corrupt GOP bastards out of there.

Now We're Scared of...Quakers???

Steve Gilliard over at The News Blog has the unsettling details on a case out of Baltimore where the NSA actually admitted -- in court -- that they had mounted a massive spying effort on a peace group.

A Quaker peace group, at that. I guess you just can't trust those non-violent types. They are just SOOOO fucking likely to go all Timothy McVeigh on us and the next thing you know those so-called "Friends" are your sworn enemies, evil incarnate, ready to choke you to death on their insidious oatmeal.

Jesus Christ, this is just too much. Now I suppose all of us who are active in various peace groups will start looking a little more skeptically at that new guy who doesn't say much but who looks like his bowtie is really a camera, a little more cautious towards that ancient granny in the muu-muu who just might have a copy of Masters of Deceit, with that Junior G-Man built-in voice recorder, stashed away under her hand-knitted shawl.

And that's exactly what they want us to do. They want us to get paranoid and start suspecting those around us. It'll take the heat and the focus off of them, so they can blithely go about their evil business of Empire.

Don't fall for it. Paranoia will destroy ya, in the words of the song. Let's all stay focused. All of the groups I belong to are open and transparent (like the Quakers). If the Gestapo motherfuckers want to go double-oh-seven and spy on something that they could see anyway, just by walking by, let 'em.

Le plus ça change...

Guess who said this -- extra points for when:

The biggest threat to America today is not communism; it's moving America towards a fascist theocracy and everything that has happened during the ______ administration. Is steering us right down that pipe...When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view and if that code happens to be very, very right wing almost toward Attila the Hun.

Give up? It was Frank Zappa, talking about the Reagan (you remember him, old guy, drool cup, couldn't zip up his own pants?) Maladministration on Crossfire in 1986. Twenty years ago. And during the course of the interview, he told then-resident wingnut John Lofton "you can kiss my ass".

Over at the Crooks and Liars video blog they have the full story, plus a video of Zappa's appearance. What a loss to us all when he died.

The more things change...

A Bush Bounce in the Polls

Looks like the Smirking Chimp got a little boost in the polls -- he's now up in the 40s somewhere depending on the pollster, from an all-time low of around 34 per cent.

Of course, those polls are being taken for the most part by telephone, so people might be thinking twice before they go on record with the NSA listening in that they don't like the job he's doing...

Funny thing, too, I've never been polled about what I think about him. I'll bet you haven't either. I woudn't mind telling the pollster a thing or two about the Monkey Boy -- and that's probably why they haven't asked me.

Teetering on the Brink

The Alito Hearings kind of creeped up us, but there he is, the smarmy motherfucker, lying his ass off to the rubber-stamp Senate about his judicial "philosophy", and trying to hide his glee -- and that of his Monkey Mentor, Baby Doc -- that the fragile balance of the Supreme Court is about to shift mightily to the right and we will be fucked for a generation. Or more. Maybe forever, if the Imperial Presidency isn't reigned in. And sadly the Court is the entity who has the last word.

While I am all for the preservation of a woman's right to choose, I think that the long-term issue is the balance of power and the collection of a vast array of powers in the person and the office of the President of the United States. It supersedes all others, and all others will be rendered moot if this consolidation continues.

Alito has given no indication -- in fact, quite the opposite -- that he is interested in the true conservative philosophy of limited government, etc.

A court with the unholy alliance of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito riding roughshod over the "liberal" wing will surely do what it can to roll back most of the advancements in civil rights and individual liberties that we have fought for and won over the last 70 years. And that "what it can" means pretty much everything.

Read an examination of the issue at the always-incisive Consortium News and tell me that you don't agree.

If the Dems don't filibuster his ass out of there, then they might as well pack up and go home. Let the Boy Emperor, like Caligula, elevate horses to the Senate. There's already a horse's ass in the White House.

Bitch-Slap a Repugnican Talking-Points Liar

One thing we need to point out, and keep pointing out to the end of this year's election, is this: Not one Democrat took money from Jack Abramoff. Not one single Democrat!

Every time one of your Repugnican "friends" tries to say that the Dems are just as guilty as the Republicans in this scandal, just point out that inconvenient little factoid to them. A few, it is true, took money from the tribes, but it is an important distinction that it was not Abramoff money.

This was -- and remains -- strictly a Repug corruption scandal. Read the details at MyDD and lay a bitch slap on every fucking Repugnican asshole who tries to pull that shit on you.

What the Fuck???

Wow, here's one that flew under the radar. Last week Baby Doc signed a bill that makes "annoying" someone on the Internet a federal crime if you don't disclose your "true identity"...

I guess that makes me in violation of the law. You all have probably guessed that "Farnsworth" isn't really my name. On the other hand the more astute readers of this blog (i.e. Democrats and other liberals, who are smarter than the knuckledraggers in the GOP) have likely already figured out my "true identity" -- I haven't taken any great pains to hide it.

C|net News has details on this travesty. So I guess all of you "anonymous" posters to this blog and others are in deep shit as well, if your purpose was to annoy.

Yeah, so I guess I'll be tracking your ass down. Just as soon as I get back from Gitmo, since a big part of the reason why I started this blog in the first place was to be an annoyance to the Repugnican assholes running this sorry excuse for a government.

Blunt Boener for the House

This is too easy. The two Repugs who are snarling at each other like a couple of retarded Shitzus in a competition to replace the disgraced Tom Delay are named Roy Blunt and John Boener.

I say let them share it, and the House Repugs can continue slipping us what they already have been for the last eight years...

Darth Cheney's Health Problems

Big Dick Cheney was in and out of the hospital last night but he claims there's nothing serious wrong with him. Just a little shortness of breath (wouldn't it be great if he actually started sounding like Lord Vader?) and an unspecified "foot problem" -- he probably had to have it surgically separated from his glottal tissue after all of those serious Iraqi foot-in-mouth-disease problems he's had over the years ("greeted as liberators", "last throes of the insurgency", "definite WMDs", "linked to Al Qaeda", etc etc etc).

Bush says he "has no doubts" about Cheney. That's really close to "Heckuva job, Dickie -- now don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out." Except of course that Cheney has nowhere to go and the Boy King really couldn't function without his regent/meat-puppeteer.

Still, I've said before that I look for The Big Dick to beat an eventual retreat "for health reasons", and it sure looks like they are preparing us for that possibility. I'm hoping that it's kind of like back when Agnew resigned -- he had to get out of the way before the Congress could march ahead on the impeachment of Tricky Dick, because nobody could accept a President Agnew. Ditto here -- no one will feel much inclined to impeach the Smirking Chimp if it means Evil-Overlord-and-Left-Hand-of-Satan Darth Cheney would be publicly and visibly in command of the Empire.

This could get interesting.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 601 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.

One of the more memorable cadence chants at the September protest in DC went like this: "Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters."

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.

Oh, and be sure to see the commentary from a student at the University of Virginia on last week's Bush Twins in Uniform Watch, containing what appears to be an open letter to fellow student Philip Alito, son of the current nominee to SCOTUS.

The Madness of King George

In only eight days, 30 Americans have been killed in Iraq. This is the highest average daily death toll (3.75) since January of 2005 (4.1).

I guess we're still in those "last throes" of the insurgency -- who knew that they would last for years?

Over at The Radical Veteran, you can see the casualty numbers climb, and there's no end in sight.

We have to end the madness of King George. He must be impeached and removed from office. Sadly, this will not happen until next year at the earliest, and then only if we replace the corrupt and venal members of Congress (i.e. the Republicans -- but I repeat myself) with Democrats with the spine and the balls to do the right thing.

In the meantime, let's all hope that the crazy little fucker and his meat-puppet-handlers don't manage to bring on that Armageddon that they all seem to want so badly.

Buzzflash Hypocrite of the Week

Be sure to check out the Buzzflash GOP hypocrite of the week -- one Baptist minister from South Tulsa, Lonnie Latham by name, just got popped for propositioning a male police officer for ... oral sex!

This is the same Lonnie Latham who supports whole-hog the Baptist tenet that homosexuals can be cured by Jesus. Latham, it goes without saying, is married with a family. He says he was "pastoring to the police" and apparently it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Like Buzzflash says, "mistakes do happen, but not many police officers get fellatio confused with preaching on behalf of Jesus"...

Funny, isn't it, how the most vocal of opponents to the "homosexual agenda" seem to have a deeply closeted one of their own. Or, in Lonnie's case, maybe not so deeply closeted.

Friday Cat Blogging

The Abramoff Plea

So the lying greedy fucker pleads guilty. Big deal. A few lower-level politicos will be burnt as sacrifices, but part of the deal was that the little fish would get fried in exchange for the big fish getting away.

Abramoff does a little prison time at some country-club digs like Lompoc, where he can work on his golf game and make new contacts, the minor players will do some community service, and the rest of the stalwart members of congress can make a big deal of giving back to Abramoff some of those nasty dirty bribes contributions -- a false, empty & counterproductive gesture, I must say, since it will only serve to let the fucker to pay off his attorney fees with someone else's money.

In the meantime things will roll along as normal in neo-fascist Amerikka, and the weak sheep who vote Repugnican will make lame-assed excused for their boy or girl in congress: "Oh, s/he's not like that, wouldn't take bribes, didn't know, etc etc etc. ad naseum)

I guess I'm just too cynical to believe anything that comes out of that cesspool of sleaze known as the Repugnican congress (and yes, I know that some Dems are "innocent victims" of the Abramoff largess Update 1-9-6: Turns out that the Dems took tribe money, but NO Abramoff money), and let's keep it real: It's been a Repug operation since 1994, and they are the ones who have fostered the culture of corruption that is now rampant in those hallowed halls.

Nothing new under the sun? Rightly said (Ecclesiastes 1:9-14).

Barbie Promotes "Gender Confusion"?

Jesus, what the religious right won't sink to. First it was Tinky Wink, Lenny the Shark and Sponge Bob who were pushing the "gay agenda" off onto our children. Now it's, of all toys, Barbie!

Yes, Barbie, kids. That icon of big hair and bigger boobs is actually a conscious agent of the homosexual conspiracy. Seems that an outfit called Concerned Women for America is up in arms because the Barbie website asks visitors their gender, with the choices being "I am a girl", "I am a boy", and -- here's the kicker -- "I don't know".

That's it. Obviously that promotes something called "gender confusion" -- which leads to bisexuality which leads to homosexuality and the next thing you know your little pigtailed darling is blowing up the grade school, taking the principal hostage and heading to the tower to burn a flag while at the same time killing everyone in sight.

Jesus, people. We have real problems facing this nation. If these women are so fucking concerned about America, maybe they should focus on the real problems -- poverty, racism, fascism, hunger, etc etc etc.

Thanks to AmericaBlog for this story.

An Oath to Defend...

You'd think a history buff ought to know this, but apparently Baby Doc doesn't seem to recall that he did not take an oath to defend the people of the United States, despite what he says. Instead he took an oath to defend the Constitution:

Article II Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

His oath is right there, in the Constitution itself. That "goddamn piece of paper".

In and of itself this signals that George W. Bush has committed an impeachable offense. He has violated the provisions of the US Constitution by spying on American citizens without court approval, he has engaged in illegal searches, he has violated the rights of the people to be secure in the homes and their personal effects -- and if those lying motherfuckers in Congress, those hypocritical bastards who were SO quick to impeach Clinton over a lousy blowjob, had half a fucking testicle between them, they'd vote articles of impeachment on the crooked evil bastard.

But I guess it makes a big difference which political party is in office, doesn't it.

Motherfuckers.

Wishes for a Happy New Year

Thanks to the ACLU for this -- I am proud to be a card-carrying member.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 594 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.

One of the more memorable cadence chants at the September protest in DC went like this: "Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters."

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.

A History Buff???

Jesus, out of all of the ludicrous statements that have been puked out the vapid faces of the White House mouthpieces, this one just has to be at the top of the official Stupid-For-All-Time list. I was planning on going dark until after the holidays, but this one just plain forced me to break squelch.

Turns out that Baby Doc -- according to White House spokesliar Trent Duffy -- is a "history buff" whose vacation reading includes both the Patricia O'Toole study of post-presidential Teddy Roosevelt, When Trumpets Call, and Imperial Grunts, Robert Kaplan's account of the daily lives of US soldiers.

It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. We're supposed to swallow, without choking or laughing, a bald-faced statment that our own Baby Doc, who has never once given the slightest indication that he even has a passing acquaintance with the basic concepts of history, is all of a sudden a history buff??? And, to make it worse, that he is reading about Theodore Roosevelt, the very embodiment of Progressive Republican politics? Let's hope that Pickles will at least read some of the Roosevelt book to him. A "history buff" like Baby Doc ought to be able to absorb at least some of the lessons of the Progressive era and some of the ideals that Teddy stood for. Ha ha.

Give me a fucking break. My bullshit detector is on full red alert and yours ought to be as well. We are talking about someone whose last known reading material was a My Pet Goat, someone who can't even read a fucking daily newspaper, someone who has to have read to him even the single paragraph of the daily presidential briefing memo.

I can't believe what blatantly transparent lies the fuckers are still trying to cram down our throats, and the sad thing is that so many people are still willing to swallow their daily ration of White House shit.

Holiday Greetings

I'm going dark until after the holiday, so have a merry Xmas, everyone -- except for you, Bill O'Reilly; you have a "happy holiday"...

See you next week.

Friday Cat Blogging

Enemies List

So the question is kind of left hanging there: Why did he do it?

Why did Baby Doc engage in wholesale spying on American citizens without even attempting to go through the mainly pro-forma process of taking the issue before the double-super-secret Star Chamber FISA court? Keep in mind that the court has routinely in the past rubber-stamped every request for covert action that the administration has brought before it. So why did he not even bother to ask before he did it?

It has to be that the fuckers have been spying on enemies of the administration, and not just "routine" enemies of the state. In other words, they have a Nixonian enemies list, and they knew that if they brought this list before the FISA Court, even David Sentelle, the yes-man Repugnican hack who headed the court, would choke on allowing spying on people like Cindy Sheehan, Howard Dean and John Kerry.

I used to joke about it: A cousin of mine made it onto Nixon's list, and I used to say that I wanted to make it onto Bush's list. Given my active participation in the anti-war movement and my public rants -- here and elsewhere -- about the fascist maladministration of Baby Doc and the BFEE, it turns out the joke was on me.

Apparently it IS Just a Piece of Paper

The always-on-point Billmon over at The Whiskey Bar has a pair of dueling quotes, one from Baby Doc prattling about the "obligation" to protect our "civil liberties", blah-blah-blah, followed by this one from the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union:

Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.
The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

This, if you recall, was at the height of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. It was just a "goddamned piece of paper" to Joe Stalin and the Politburo.

As you know, Baby Doc (along with his ventriloquist sock-puppeteers in the BFEE) truly believes -- and has said as much -- that our constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper. With the willing compliance of the courts, the congress and the so-called liberal media, the Bush Maladministration is striving to emulate the worst excesses of the Soviet Union. They think they can ignore at will the protections provided to our citizens by our own constitution.

Let's all show them that they are wrong-wrong-wrong. Demand impeachment now!

And the Survey Says...

Okay, so it's not a scientifically or statistically valid poll, but over at MSNBC they are running a survey, and as of right now the numbers are running 88% FOR impeachment.

Drop by and take the poll yourself. The more numbers we can rack up, the better we'll all feel.

Where is the Outrage???!!!

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"If a Coke Dealer Has Your ID, it Doesn't Look So Good"

In an exposé in Radar, we learn that a prominent downtown DC coke dealer has made a videotape in which he brandishes Jenna Bush's UT-Austin ID card and implies that the two of them had more than just drinks at the notorious Happy Ending bar in Chinatown.

And not only does he brandish it, we learn from the anonymous source that he actually holds it up close enough to the camera so that the presidential liability-in-chief can be readily identified.

Okay, so it's not a smoking gun and fake IDs are as common as tornadoes in trailer courts, but as anyone knows who has read this blog since the very beginning (the very first post, in fact), I'm not a huge fan of the slackerbabe Bush twins, and given Jenna's predilections for hard-charging partying down, is it really so unbelievable that she'd be "hanging out" with this guy?

Or maybe Words Have Power called it right when he said that she was just doing some community service work, helping to clean up bars and coke dealers…

Oh, and that quote in the headline? It's from Radar's unnamed but evidently knowledgeable source, and it's one you can't argue with.

In the meantime, this story has legs sufficient that the Secret Service is looking into it. We'll keep an eye on it ourselves and report out if we learn anything of substance.

The Bill of Rights: A Worthy Cause

Amid all the battles over the display of the Ten Commandments on court houses, city halls and the like, mostly in the south, a guy in Arizona has come up with a great idea.

Chris Bliss has started something called the Foundation Foundation, and the goal is to place in public places in each state a copy of the Bill of Rights. They are starting with the states that have the Ten Commandments already on display, so people can do some "comparison shopping" and see which of the two sets of laws is truly representative of the rule of law we have in this country.

To make it even sweeter, they are starting in Austin, Texas, which if you will recall was the location of that now infamous decision by the Supreme Court that it was perfectly okay to display blatantly religious graven images (i.e., the Ten Commandments) on the publicly-owned grounds of the state capitol.

See the details on the Foundation website at mybillofrights.org. They are accepting donations -- nothing over $100 -- and I think this is a worthy cause. I know it's Xmas and you're all strapped for cash, but this is an ongoing project and they'll still need donations in 2006. It's something to keep in mind, and even a token amount, ten bucks or so, would be greatly appreciated.

And a special thanks to Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio for the heads-up on this.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 578 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.

One of the more memorable cadence chants at the September protest in DC went like this: "Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters."

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.

Baby Doc to America: Fuck You

It's not as if we needed any more evidence, but yesterday's admission to high crimes and misdemeanors by Baby Doc raises the level of Bush Maladministration arrogance to a new height, and it ought to fuel the fires of impeachment.

In case you missed it, the little fucker actually admitted, to a national audience on his weekly radio show, that he violated the law and ordered domestic spying on American citizens.

And it's not as if the law is so restraining that he couldn't have gotten the secret court order for the wiretaps. (If you want to look it up, it's the FISA from 1978 -- admittedly a lo-o-ong time ago, but it's still the law of the land).

However, there are certain individuals in the Maladministration who are claiming, with a straight face, that the president does not have to obey any laws he doesn't want to obey (Dick Cheney was one of the original proponents of this theory back when he worked for Tricky Dick, and we all know how that worked out for them).

The way this argument goes, forcing the president to obey a law passed by congress would mean subordination of the executive branch to the legislative branch, and therefore it would be unconstitutional.

Got that? Unconstitutional. I can't fucking believe that there are actually so-called legal experts in constitutional law who would seriously support such a nonsensical interpretation. And none of these renowned scholars can explain away that pesky little clause about "high crimes and misdemeanors" -- if the president is not subject to the law, then there can't be any committing of crimes. Carrying it to its logical extreme, the president could commit murder and get away with it.

Wait a second... Uh-oh. Well, I guess the president can commit murder and get away with it -- 2155 dead Americans, 201 dead coalition force soldiers and 100,000+ dead Iraqis can't be wrong.

Never mind.

More Dueling Quotes from Baby Doc

1. Asked by head Faux News Whore Brit Hume if he thought Tom Delay was innocent: "Yes, I do."



2. Asked by just about everyone if he thought Karl Rove was innocent: "I can't comment on an ongoing investigation."

Hmmm. Kinda makes ya wonder, doesn't it...?

"They Hate Our Freedoms"

Way back in the heady days following 9-11, Baby Doc made the statement that the so-called fanatical radical Islamist followers of Osama Bin Laden (remember him?) attacked us "because they hate our freedoms". To combat this, he and his neocon handlers then set about to dismantle, remove and destroy those very freedoms that they hated so much.

Case in point: A student at UMass Dartmouth was visited a couple of months back by US agents because -- get this -- he requested a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book (better known as Quotations from Chairman Mao) through interlibrary loan at his university.

Why the fuck this ever even came up on the Homeland Security radar, let alone trigger an investigation that prompted a personal visit from two armed agents, is beyond me. All over something that is available from Amazon.com for less than ten bucks.

Read the whole chilling tale on the South Coast Today website.

So the master plan for victory must be this: As soon as we've lost all of our freedoms, then everything will be okay again. They won't hate us any more and peace will rule the world.

Uh-huh.

A Bad Week for Baby Doc

It's been a bad week all around for Baby Doc. First he had to admit in public that "mistakes were made" in the analysis of intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Then, if that weren't enough, he lost face big-time by having to capitulate to his nemesis (in his own party!) John McCain on the torture issue. I guess our little TANG deserter really didn't have the street cred to go up against a tortured POW war hero.

And finally, to put the icing on the cake, responsible voices in the Senate put the brakes on the headlong rush to make permanent the more odious provisions of the National Socialist Neo-Stalinist Quasi-Stasi Police State Act (aka The Patriot Act). Faced with a cloture-proof 52-47 vote on continuing the filibuster, the White House had to back off from its demands that the Patriot Act was necessary because "national security" and the War on Terra^tm trumped personal freedom and individual liberties.

Even Republicans like Idaho's Larry Craig are seeing the light and realizing, finally and at long last, that there is nothing in the BFEE Maladministration that can, in the wildest stretch of the imagination, be considered "conservative".

And it's about fucking time.

Friday Cat Blogging

Torture: It's Not Just for Enemy Non-combatants Any More

There's an absolutely harrowing piece by Debra Davies of the Information Clearing House, posted over on Jack's Straight Speak.

Titled Torture Inc.: America's Brutal Prisons, the story is an exposé of the inhumane treatment that goes on right here in the good ole USA.

This doesn't really come as news to anyone whose ever known someone -- or who has been there themselves or has had a family member incarcerated -- living as a "guest" of the Department of Corrections, but it ought to be mandatory reading for everyone else, especially you assholes on the right who strut around chattering shit like "prison's nothing but a country club for felons" and "they have their own cell keys" and "they get to watch HBO all the time" and so on.

Sorry, folks, but prison is not a vacation -- the horror stories related here are all too common.

Too bad there's not a Geneva Convention covering domestic imprisonment and torture. But I guess that wouldn't make much of a difference, since we'd ingore it as well.

Yeah, Here's Another Surprise: Domestic Spying Rears its Ugly Head

Back in the 70s, everyone knew that the Nixon Administration was engaged in domestic spying. Everyone was appalled by it. I knew people who had gotten swept up in the paranoia of the times, and a cousin of mine actually made it onto the now-infamous "enemies list".

Something else that we knew coming out of that long nightmare was that in a democratic republic such as ours, domestic spying on peace activists, anti-war protesters, etc., who are no threat to the common good is not tolerated.

At least not until now. Last night's NBC News had a story on a Pentagon database showing several domestic peace groups were the subject of surveillance, including a Lake Worth FL group meeting at a Friends Society Meeting House.

So it's come full circle, and we're back to the dark old days of the Nixon years. Well, if that's what the Repugs want, I say -- in the words of their pantywaist fuhrer, "Bring it on!"

Don't they remember how the Nixon nightmare ended, with the presidency in tatters and their own fuhrer resigning in shame?

So let's keep the historical parallels going for just a little longer. Just long enough to impeach the lying crooked bastards.

Planespotters: The Scourge of the CIA

Okay, I'll have to admit up front, I'd never even heard of "planespotting", but it doesn't surprise me that it exists. Nor that it apparently first cropped up in the UK, where "trainspotting" was born.

Like its cousin, trainspotting, planespotting consists of documenting the sighting of airplanes, observing landings and takeoffs, & recording their registration numbers; they also take photographs of the planes. And also like trainspotting, it's an obsessively fervent hobby to its adherents.

Unfortunately for the American fascists busily engaged in offshoring prisoners to foreign gulags for torture, those obsessive-compulsive hobbyists have documented a number of flights that were supposed to be "off the books".

It took a lot of hard work and a lot of sifting through mind-numbingly boring data to do it, so those intrepid souls who dug out the connections are to be congratulated.

Read the full story on the UK Guardian website.

Prussian Blue: Racism is Alive and Thriving

Coming of age in America in the early 60s, I supported both the NAACP and SNCC; not only did I have an enormous amount of respect for Martin Luther King, but I also applauded the fiery rhetoric of Malcolm X.

Back when I was young and stupid (unlike now, when I am old and stupid) I foolishly believed that true racism existed only among those who were many years older than me, and I thought that if we could just wait them out, and the day the last of those old fuckers died off would signal the end of racism.

What a fucking moron I was.

And nothing drives that point home better than the egregiously racist tunesmithing of Prussian Blue, a singing duo consisting of twin Aryans, 13-year-old Lamb and Lynx Gaede, a couple of Bakersfield admirers of Adolph Hitler, whose songs glorify the dominance of the so-called white race over all others and who play video games in which they vicariously kill black people.

You can Google the vicious duo, but The Black Commentator has the best take on the evil twins and their compliant friends in the media, especially those with Time, Inc.

This is a must-read.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 571 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.

One of the more memorable cadence chants at the September protest in DC went like this: "Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters."

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.

"Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper" -- WTF?

In an absolutely appalling display of treason -- and there's no better word for it -- Baby Doc called the US Constitution "just a goddamn piece of paper".

The incident happened last month when a group of congressional Repugs paraded into the Oval Orifice to discuss the renewal of the (Un)Patriot Act. One aid said during the meeting that some provisions of the Act undermine the Constitution.

Bush, according to three witnesses, screamed back "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

And there you have it. If you had any doubts before that the BFEE doesn't give a shit about us, about our laws, about our democracy, they should be dispelled by this. There's no possible scenerio that can explain away this outburst.

When I was in the service -- and when George W. Bush was sworn in as President -- we took a solemn oath to protect and preserve and defend the Constitution. To call that very document just a goddamned piece of paper, after swearing such an oath, should be an impeachable offense.

See the full story on the Capitol Hill Blue website.

Baby Doc is a traitor and he should be impeached. It's that simple.

Friday Cat Blogging

Death of the Triple X

Once again what was originally a good idea has been trampled into the dirt by the Falwellista morons, members of something called Concerned Women for America, apparently a group of religious-fanatic women who know absolutely nothing about the Internet and the way the web works, but who nonetheless are capable of writing over 6,000 cut-and-paste form letters to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to prevent them from establishing a new doman, ".xxx", for the exclusive use of pornographers.

The idiots over at CWA evidently feel that this is a bad idea, establishing a domain solely for the use of pornogaphy. Why isn't exactly clear, but they've obviously scored a victory with ICANN. It's beyond me why these people would agitate for something on the web that they would never tolerate in the real world. The only people this ruling benefits are the pornographers themselves, who I am sure were not in favor of being relegated to a triple-x ghetto. Had the proposed new domain been approved, it would have been a simple matter for parents to "screen out" all access to any triple-x domain. But no, that's not good enough for the little-old-lady bluenoses over at CWA.

Now the Law of Unintended Consequences comes into effect. What would have been a neat and tidy way of establishing cyber "Red Zones" on the Internet has been cast aside, and, to continue the "real world" examples, you will have X-Rated movie theaters moving in next door to churches and grade schools. Is that such a great idea?

As with so many of the lame-assed half-baked ideas trotted out by the religious right, it kinda makes you wonder what their real intent was.

And me? It makes me want to shake them by the shoulders and scream "What the fuck were you thinking???!!!" into their vapid cowlike faces.

Flag Burning. Again? Stop it, Hillary!

Jesus Christ, I expect this kind of crap from the Repugnicans. After all, they've caused all the problems we are facing, so anything they can do to take the Moron-American voter's focus off the fucking mess they've created will help them. But a Democrat? Moreover, one of the front-running-but-as-yet-unannounced candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination?

Hillary Clinton, of all people, is sponsoring a bill to outlaw flag burning. Yes, flag burning. As I've stated before in this space, this is a solution in search of a problem. With all the other real and pressing issues facing us, why in the fuck would we even be thinking about something like this?

Is it because Hillary wants the attention off her vote for the Iraq War -- and her refusal to admit that it was a mistake -- or is it because she has the presidential ambition bug so bad that she's moving to the right in the hopes that she can siphon off votes from the middle, running as a Republican Lite?

Either way, it's reprehensible and unconscionable. I'm not a single-issue voter, but there are certain core values that I hold near and dear: I am against the death penalty, and for a woman's right to choose; I am against unjustifiable wars of nationalistic aggression and for the United Nations; I am also for religious freedom (including freedom from religion), full veterans benefits, civil rights for all persons, and free speech -- which includes the freedom to express yourself by burning a flag.

This is why I belong to such organizations as the ACLU (proud to be a card-carrying member), Veterans for Peace, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights.

If a candidate takes positions -- or sponsors bills -- that are in opposition to these core values, then s/he will in all likelihood not get my vote. It's that simple.

Hillary, you won't be reading this, but someone may read it and pass it on to you: If you want to have any chance at taking the White House back for the Democrats in 2008, give up on this flag-burning bullshit.

Democrats won't be a power party again until we go back to our roots, back to our base. Stop this blatant move to the right, this abortive attempt to carve a new constituency out of the middle. It might have worked some for your husband, but it was due to the Big Dog's immense personal charm and charisma that he won those votes, and not because of his slide to the right. Note also that he didn't have particularly long coattails, and the rightwing Contract on America happened on -- and because of -- his watch.

No one likes "lite" beer, and no one likes "lite" Republicans. If I'm going to vote for someone who acts and talks like a Republican, it won't be a nominal Democrat. Forget about it. Hillary, you need to do what the Repugs have always been good at: Play to your base.

Most of us are still liberal and proud of it, but we may not be willing to vote for the lesser of two evils many more times. I am coming close to going back to "throwing my vote away" on marginal third party candidates again rather than just donate it to someone who does not share with me a dedication to most of these core values.

Action Item: National Call-In Day Today

Congress Members get back to DC today, so let's welcome them. Please call, e-mail, or fax both of your senators and the congressional representative from your district to ask for an end to the war in Iraq.

The purpose of this National Call-In Day -- organized by Democrats.com, Progressive Democrats of America, and After Downing Street, together with United for Peace and Justice and many other peace organizations -- is to flood Congress Members' offices with our message for bringing this war to a close.

The message is simple: "I am calling to let Rep. ______ know that I think the Iraq war is wrong and all our troops should be brought home immediately!"

You can call the Capitol toll-free at 888-818-6641.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 564 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.

One of the more memorable cadence chants at the September protest in DC went like this: "Not our sons, not our fathers. If you want war, send your daughters."

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.

Dueling Quotes from Baby Doc

"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."

-- The Smirking Chimp on June 3, 1999, criticizing
Clinton for not setting a timetable in Kosovo.

"Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a message across the world that America is a weak and an unreliable ally. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies—that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends."

-- The Smirking Chimp on November 30, 2005.

You all saw this flip-flop contradiction reported in the SCLM, didn't you? What's that? No? You didn't?

Funny, neither did I.

Holy Sheepshit, Batman!

As if the lying weren't enough, as if the dissembling over abortion rights weren't enough, the LA Times has a story about Scalito that ought to make your blood run cold.

While he was a Reagan administration lawyer, Scalito wrote yet another in a series of memos that ought to be personally embarrassing (but aren't), this one stating that police were justified in shooting in the back an unarmed teenager who was fleeing a crime scene -- and it probably goes without saying that the teenager was black.

Signifcantly, the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision eschewing Alito's reasoning, used that very same case to establish a precedent on the use of "extreme force".

Justice Byron White, writing for the majority, said, "It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape."

Of course all that can -- and will -- change when Scalito joins his fascist brethren on the bench.

Like I've said before so many times, we are so fucked.

Worst President Ever, Dog Bites Man

Here's another in a series of "dog bites man" stories, but this one has some interesting bullet points.

Presidential historian Richard Reeves, writing from Paris, outlines in excruciating detail the reasons why Baby Doc will go down in history as the worst president ever, worse even than James Buchanan, whose brief maladminstration led directly to the Civil War.

Citing a poll done among professional historians by the History News Network at George Mason University, Reeves notes that the vast majority of those who responded think that Bush 43 is a failure.

Excerpt:

This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:

• He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;
  
• He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;
  
• He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;
  
• He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign

If anyone had any doubts about the real Bush historical record, this article ought to dispel them completely.

Friday Cat Blogging

WTF???

A little over a year ago, the House Repugnicans quietly killed a provision in a bill that would have provided for training for a large number of new sky marshals to ride the nation's airplanes and protect us from airborne terrorists.

Now these assholes, it seems to me, ride airplanes a lot more than the rest of us, so why would they want to make flying less safe? It doesn't make any sense.

Unless it's one of three things:

(1) There's something in it for them -- some kind of under-the-table off-the-books kickback, but I can't imagine what that would be.

(2) They've drunk the Koolaid^tm so much that they don't care if the plane they are riding on flies into the Sears Tower as long as they've cut back on all domestic spending, or

(3) They know something we don't know about air safety and terrorists. Like there aren't any terrorists riding American planes, 9-11 was a setup, like the infamous Reichstag fire, and Osama is an active agent of the Repugnifascist conspiracy.

Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?

Jack Dalton: The Bendermans Need Our Help

Like me, some of you may know Jack Dalton. He is a disabled Vietnam vet and peace activist who lives in Portland, OR. He has his own tales of horror and despair about his own dealings with the VA and the military establishment, but today he is issuing a call to all of us that Kevin and Monica Benderman need our help.

Here's the full story on Jack's blog, complete with Monica Benderman's mailing address.

The Bendermans would not ask for help for themselves, so it's up to people like Jack to do the asking for them. Anything we can do to help out will be greatly appreciated.

"I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the 'art' of killing."

-- Sgt Kevin Benderman, Conscientious Objector

Let's all show some holiday spirit and generosity and help out the Bendermans.

Thank you.