Outrage Upon Outrage

This is how the Bush Maladminstration is making you, me and everyone safer. The Nation is carrying the David Cole story in its current edition of NYU graduate student Mohammed Yousry, who took on the thankless job of translating Arabic for the lawyers representing blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the first WTC attack.

For his trouble, Yousry has now been convicted of "supporting terrorism" and faces a twenty-year stretch in the graybar hotel. And, from all anyone can tell, all he did was translate at the direction of Rahman's attorneys.

But since one of the attorneys involved, Lynn Stewart, was also charged and convicted, I guess the federal prosecutors figured anyone else involved had to be guilty as well. (Stewart's conviction was bogus as well -- naturally -- but Yousry was and remains, in all respects, an innocent victim of the jackbooted thugs, the evil minions of the BFEE.)

Read the full story on the Nation website and tell me again how people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Not in Bushco Amerka, it appears.

Thirty-one and Dropping

According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, Der Monkey Fuehrer's approval rating has dropped to yet another new low, 31%.

To put it in perspective, thanks to Political Arithmetik, here are the record low percents for the previous ten presidents:

• Truman, 22%, 14 Feb 1952 (all-time low).
• Eisenhower, 48%, 1 Apr 1958
• Kennedy, 56%, 17 Sep 1963
• Johnson, 35%, 12 Aug 1968
• Nixon, 23%., 7 Jan 1974
• Ford, 37%, 13 Jan 1975 and 31 Mar 1975
• Carter, 28%, 2 Jul 1979
• Reagan, 35%, 31 Jan 1983
• Bush (GHW), 29%, 2 Aug 1992
• Clinton, 37%, 6 Jun 1993

So at this point Baby Doc has a lower approval rating than all but four of the last ten presidents, and he's been losing an average of one point per month since January 2005. But it's early in his second term, and those numbers can only go lower -- barring some "unforeseen" circumstance (like attacking Iran) that will result in an irrational rally-'round-the-flag boost.

As it is, he is at the lowest point ever recorded for a president at this point in his second term. I can't wait for him to hit that magic number of 21%. At one percent per month, it'll be ten more months until it happens, but when it does, I'm buying the beer.

How Many More Days Until it is Officially a Police State?

An active duty general as head of the CIA? Even some Republicans are balking at the nomination of Air Force General Michael Hayden as CIA director. Hayden, as director of the NSA, was instrumental in the widespread advance of wiretaps and other invasive surveillance techniques on American citizens.

Once again Baby Doc is demonstrating, publically, unabashedly and blatantly, his disregard for individual liberties and personal freedom.

Jimmy Carter's CIA Director, Stansfield Turner (himself a retired Navy admiral) says about General Mikey, "If he interprets the law as he appears to be interpreting it, I think it's bad for the country to have the chief of intelligence having telephones in the United States monitored without somebody else approving it."

At least some in Der Monkey Fuehrer's own party are digging their heels in on this one.

Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says Hayden "is the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time." And Susan Collins (R-ME) says that Hayden at least should resign or retire from the Air Force and "put to rest questions about whether an active duty military officer should lead the CIA at this time."

No question of that happening, though. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte (previously famous for being an unindicted felon in the Iran Contra scandal) says Hayden "has no such plans and calls him a 'very, very independent-minded' individual who wouldn't bow to any Pentagon pressure."

Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my ass.

Out of Control and Out of Touch

It's with an odd mix of incredulity and astonishment that I read the story that the "high point" of Baby Doc's dictatorship presidency has been ... wait for it ... [drumroll] ... catching a seven pound bass!

As if we needed any more proof that this is a man who is totally out of touch with reality, but here it is. Catching a fucking fish out of his own lake on his own ranch! That's his "high point"? Catching a fish that was no doubt released there the day before, starved to the point where it would go for anything that remotely resembled food? Which is about the only way he could catch a fish.

Of course a large number of the administration-whore media outlets in the SCLM/MSM are trying to pass it off as a "joke". Naturally, since they can't stand the thought that the man they annointed and put into office in 2000 would be so shallow, so out of touch, so out of control that he would seriously claim that the high point of his entire presidency was catching a fish.

Bullshit. That's what I say. He said it and he meant it.

And since he LOVES that fucking ranch so goddam much, let's send his sorry ass back there permanently.

AIDS Test for Everyone?

That's what's in the works for everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 (why those particular cutoff ages were chosen isn't clear) if the Center for Disease Control gets its way, according to yesterday's news.

Okay, I'm all for making every possible -- and reasonable -- attempt to stop the transmission of the HIV virus. And testing everyone could go a long ways towards achieving that laudable goal.

BUT... my biggest concern is this: What will be done with that information?

Apparently there's no provision for counseling people who are discovered to be infected and did not know it. Will the information be available -- either officially or unofficially -- to employers? To health insurers? Others? I do not want to allow employment discrimination (hiring, firing, promotions) based on whether someone test positive for HIV, and I sure as hell do not want the already corrupt and inhumane insurance companies to have access to that information. They are already out of control and we don't need to enable them any further. They already have a policy that routinely denies lifesaving medical care whenever possible, and access to an individual's HIV status would give them the green light to just refuse coverage -- for health care, for life insurance, even automobile insurance.

I would like to see some ironclad safeguards in place to prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands before I could support this proposal.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 714 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

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

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst last month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

Those of you who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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

It's About Time

The chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Larry Craig (R-ID), is sponsoring a bill that would rescind a rule dating from the Civil War that prohibits attorneys from being paid more than $10 to assist veterans with claims against the government.

The Army Times has the story on the particulars of SB 2694, the Veterans’ Choice of Representation Act.

I urge everyone to contact your senators and urge them to get behind this bill. It's long overdue, and veterans have too long been left to the whims of the VA and the biases of the various VSOs, such as the American Legion and the VFW (both of whom would be, let us say, less than charitable towards radical veterans such as yours truly).

"This overdue change will significantly improve veterans’ access to the VA and expedite just outcomes," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is cosponsoring the bill with Craig.

Amen to that. And props to these two Republicans who are willing to buck the tide when it comes to veterans' needs that have been up to now ignored by their cohorts in the party in power.

Cynic that I am, I am sure it being an election year has absolutely nothing to do with it...

Feds: Don't Count on Us

In the event of a bird flu pandemic, the federal government is already creating a plausible deniability scenario. As reported in the Seattle Times, the White House released a report that tells state and local governments to make their own preparations because "all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic".

Thanks, but after the Katrina disaster -- which is still occurring, not that you'd really know that from the SCLM/MSM -- I don't think we really want the feds in here fucking things up more than they will be already.

As usual, we're on our own, and even more so out here on the left coast, in Blue State Paradise.

So I'm stocking up on more non-perishable food and jugs of drinking water. I already had a small supply that I put up after the earthquake of 2001, but I'm increasing the total amount, in anticipation of quarantines and travel restrictions. Better safe than sorry. Plan ahead. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Etc.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq War Illegal Occupation: 2412
Total coalition force soldiers dead: 214
Total Iraqi Dead: 100,000+

It has been 1697 days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive".
It has been 1142 days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began.
It has been 1102 days since "Mission Accomplished".
It was only 1347 days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII.

It is still 991 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration -- unless we impeach the whole sorry lot of the corrupt and criminal bastards. Vote Democratic this fall!

Friday Cat Blogging

It Had to Happen -- After All, They Are Republican Crybabies

Now Baby Doc and his minions, followers, hangers-on and assorted wingnuts are angry over Stephen Colbert's "assault" on him and his maladministration, and their lapdog media lackeys, at the White House Whore Press dinner at the Hinckley Hilton the other night.

Waaaaaah! Somebody called the waaaaaahmbulance! They all got their little feelings hurt when someone had the audacity, the nerve, the balls to make a series of clever and pointed jokes at the expense of the Codpiece Monkey, The Simpering Chimperor, the Empty Sleevejob.

Talk about people with absolutely no sense of humor. Where was their outrage when Bill Clinton was verbally attacked -- violently, egregiously, slanderously -- by the notorious "shock jock" Don Imus at a similar function a few years back?

Nowhere, that's where. They were rolling in the aisles, just so long as their own sacred cow -- i.e., themselves -- wasn't getting gored.

Piss on the whole lot of them, the bunch of wimpy-assed crybabies in the maladmininstration and their wussy-weenie lackeys in the SCLM/MSM.

Dan Froomkin has a lengthy column in the WaHoPo on the Colbert fallout that's well worth reading, and you might drop by Thank You Stephen Colbert to post your well-wishes for his incisive observations on Baby Doc and the deplorable state of the media.

Let's let Jon Stewart have the last word: Colbert "...was under the impression they had hired him to do the thing he does on TV every night..."

Imagine that.

You Can't Make this Shit Up #284

Guess who said this: "It's important for there to be fiscal discipline in Washington D.C. if we want to keep this economy strong."

Bill Clinton? George H. W. Bush? Ronald Reagan?

Nope, it was Baby Doc himself, apparently thinking that he's still doing that "self-mockery" comedy routine at the Whore Press Dinner.

Without a trace of irony, Baby Doc is threatening a veto -- his very first, if he really does it -- over a congressional emergency spending bill that is inching up to $109 billion.

Baby Doc wants it kept at $92.2 billion (plus some bird-flu earmarks that will push it to around $94.5 billion). I haven't seen the bill, but I'm willing to bet good money that it's heavily larded with pork for Repugnican home districts. An actual veto would be not only in order but long overdue.

But the fact remains that the Empty Sleevejob has been spending money like a foretopman on shore leave since he slithered his way into the presidency, and now all of a sudden he's a born-again fiscal responsibility-er? Keeping this house-of-cards-built-on-sand economy strong?

Give me a fucking break.

Separation of Church and State Alive but on Life Supports

In a story out of San Francisco, the 9th Circuit has ruled that a county social services department does not have accommodate the beliefs of a radical christianist who thinks he has the right -- no the duty -- to evangelize, to proselytize others at his workplace

This is a county department. There is such a thing as separation of church and state. Not that it matters to Daniel Berry, the plaintiff in the case, a glassy-eyed bible-thumping true believer. And, interestingly enough, not that it matters to the US Equal Employment Commission, who encouraged Berry in this ridiculous behavior. Berry "should be allowed to discuss religion with 'receptive' clients and display a Spanish-language Bible and 'Happy Birthday Jesus' sign in the cubicle where he counsels them".

These are the fucking people who are supposed to be looking out for our rights! What the fuck is the matter with them? I work for a state agency in Washington State, and the last thing I need when I go to work is to have to put up with some lame-brain bible-thumping moron trying to cram Jesus down my throat. And it makes it so much worse that Berry is also shoving Jesus up the ass of the people he is counseling.

I don't know what kind of counseling he is doing, but I will bet good money that his clients are most likely poor, under-educated, and desperate. Exactly the kind of mix that will make them appear to be "receptive" to the Right Reverend Berry because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they did not put up a receptive-appearing front.

Screw Daniel Berry and his proselytizing. If I want Jesus, I know where to find him. At this point, thanks to the televangelists who spew their drivel into the airwaves (take a drive through the rural south some time; them and draft-dodging oxycontin-addict and confessed drug criminal Rush Limbaugh are about all you can hear on the radio for long stretches), so does everyone who lives on this goddam planet. We don't need Berry and his bible-thumping morons to tell us.

Screwing the Vets -- Again

Over at Main and Central, there's a link to a blog post on Low and Left that contains some shocking information:

Lt. Gen. Terry Scott (U.S. Army, ret.), who is Chairman of the Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC), wants to study vets who get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) as well as VA compensation. The goal is an offset (reduction) in payments to veterans. The VDBC's charter doesn't allow this, so, in an unconstitutional move, he asked Congress to interpret their own law, to give him permission to do this. And, unbelievably, he's got that permission. Veterans...it's time to get angry.

Thanks for serving your country, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out to your freeway onramp with your "disabled vet will work for food" sign. Fuckin' A it's time to get angry. These fuckers think they can get away with anything and the veteran community will just roll over and take it.

Fuck them. This is a bunch of bullshit and we're not going to take it.

You can reach General Scott by email at veterans@vetscommission.intranets.com, or by phone at (202) 756-7729. Let's show the bastards that we still serve our country and our fellow veterans.

Cruel and Unusual -- and Barbaric -- Punishment

It took nearly 90 minutes of invasive poking and prodding for a team of inept state-employed killers to find a suitable vein in the body of convicted murderer Joseph Clark before they could finally inject enough chemicals to snuff him.

Clark reportedly cried out in pain during the excruciatingly tedious procedure, and at one point said, "It don't work."

The death penalty, as I have argued before, is both cruel and unusual -- if not in its fequency, in its application. And, as Clark said before he died, "it don't work".

It is especially cruel in a case like this. It is also barbaric, and it has no place in a civilized society. It does not do what it is allegedly supposed to do, which is deter others from committing similar crimes. If it did, Texas ought to have nobody on death row, since that state is the king of killing, the earl of executions, the duke of death... and so on.

But it evidently hasn't stopped the murders and other death-penalty crimes in Texas, has it?

It's about time we recognized it for what it really is: Revenge killing -- a concept that was personally known to and accepted by the "founding fathers" at the time this country was established, but has long been outlawed for people like you and me -- which our own government gleefully perpetrates on what seems like a weekly basis somewhere in this country.

Let's put a stop to it. Not that it's going to stop as long as the party of god, guns and good ole "family values" is in power. Yet another reason to elect progressive Democrats to congress this fall.

RFID, Privacy and Room 101

Less than 20% of Americans have even heard of RFID. That in itself is a shocking statistic, since RFID has the potential of becoming the Big Brother tool that everyone has been wary of -- or should have been wary of -- for years.

When we adopted the cats, the animal shelter wouldn't let them go without an ID chip implanted in the backs of their necks. And that's what I thought we'd eventually come to with people: Parents would be convinced, after an epidemic series of bogus "missing child" alerts, that it would be to their panicky benefit to have their children chipped, and after a couple of generations it would be second nature to everyone except the lunatic fringe, who would still complain about their privacy concerns.

Well, it turns out that "they" can do it surreptitiously, clandestinely, without any kind of invasive procedure, by just planting so-called "inventory control" RFID tags in our clothing.

The Levi Strauss Company is just the latest corporation to jump on the RFID bandwagon, which bodes ill for me, since there is not a time that I can recall in my now-lengthy lifetime when I did not own at least one pair of Levi jeans.

Oh, sure, the technocrats behind the whole RFID movement continue mouthing the usual platitudes about protecting our privacy, blah blah blah, but as we all know, if a technology -- or anything else -- can be used for evil, it will be used for evil.

Evil in this case being Big Brother tracking our every movement with radio frequency detectors, following us wherever we go, using the tags in our clothing. And the neocon koolaid drinkers on the right see nothing wrong with this: If you aren't doing anything wrong, why worry about someone watching you? Just like they say they don't care that Baby Doc is listening to their conversations because they are not saying anything "wrong".

And that is the mindset that has allowed our freedoms to be chipped away, eroded, destroyed, bit by bit over the last several years. It's the classic frog-in-boiling-water syndrome. Our water has been heated up so slowly that most people can't recall what it was like to have those personal freedoms and liberties that have been stolen quietly away from us.

Only those of us out here on the lunatic fringe can remember, and we're all destined for Room 101, sooner or later.

The King of Schmucks

A zillion thanx to Bartcop for this one!!!

Colbert Slam Dunks Baby Doc

Not only Baby Doc but the entire White House Whore Press Corps. In case you missed it, Larry Colbert was the final speaker at the annual White House Press black tie dinner, and boy oh boy did he ever give it to the pResident and the whores in the press pool.

I can't do justice to it -- you just had to see it.

So, in case you missed it, here's a link where you can see for yourself.

Incredible. And Colbert is so smooth that I doubt whether Baby Doc even got most of the jokes. Pickles did, though -- watch her face as she is leaving the dais at the end of part three. She looks pissed.

Too bad.

Three Years, 2400 Dead Americans

Exactly three years ago today, Baby Doc staged that ridiculous photo-op off the coast of San Diego, when he landed on the deck of the carrier and strutted around under the banner "Mission Accomplished" with a gym sock rolled up in his crotch, looking like a monkey wearing a codpiece.

Yesterday the number of Americans who have died in this illegal war crime we call the Iraq War reached 2400.

Two thousand four hundred dead Americans. And for what? For fucking what?????

He can't give Cindy Sheehan an answer to that question. He can't give the other 4798 mothers and fathers of those dead Americans the answer to that question. He can't give us the answer to that question.

Why in the hell is he still president? It's an embarrassment, an abomination, that this man is in office, the most powerful leader in the world. And he's fucked it up beyond all recognition. Beyond all belief.

I used to think that anyone who got into office wouldn't really be able to fuck things up all that much because he would have advisers, the party would install "keepers", the congress would apply the brakes, etc etc. Things that would keep the guy in line.

Now I see that was wrong. Turns out it was crazy talk. If we let him, the megalomaniacal fucker will plunge us into WWIII.

Yeah, we'll probably "win" it. Like that'll mean anything. In the words of the old Barry McGuire song, "there'll be no one to save with the world in a grave"... Yes, I believe we are truly now on The Eve of Destruction.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 707 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

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

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduated from Sandhurst this month and could be on his way to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

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