Fundamental Bush Developmental Disability--No Sense of Irony

When the Germans are shaming your country about its detention camps, maybe it's time to reevaluate the policy, wouldn't you say?

There is widespread skepticism in Germany about the way the United States is fighting its "war on terror," compounded by the recent scandal over the CIA's abduction and detention of German citizen Khaled el-Masri -- later acknowledged to be a mistake.

Oops! Yes, and we're the beacon of liberty around the world. And we don't torture...unless the president says we can even though he signed the McCain bill against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, but you see, he had his fingers crossed...

Bush Signs with Fingers Crossed: "King's X!" he declares. Too bad we're not in the schoolyard any longer.

The Chimperor, after realizing that being the lone holdout against a ban on torture was beginning to darken his already shit-and blood-stained legacy, grudgingly signed the McCain bill banning cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment. However, not being of sufficient intellect to deal in nuance and debate whether the interstices left between the definition of "torture" and "cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment" as his buttlicking minions have started to do, Bush resorted to another of his childish responses to real-world politics.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

That's right, he pulled the old, "Naw, naw, naw, naw nad--King's X! Doesn't count!"

The real force behind it all, of course, is Dick "Champion of Evil" Cheney who made his belief in the Emperor of the USA mode of rule even clearer:

Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, ''I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president."

You know, maybe I should agree with this, because imagine that some opposition party--I can't think of one, but just humor me--was voted into power after a successful campaign against the abuses of the Bushit administration. The new president then wouldn't have to bother with justice or legislative issues. In the interest of national security--and who is a bigger threat to it than the Bush-Cheney cabal of evil--he could have the former leadership remanded to a military prison by the power of his or her "strong, robust executive authority," and then, by God, let the games begin!

I always wanted to be an interrogator.

The Disgusting Spin of Chris Matthews

There is something very fishy about Chris Matthews' support and spin of the Bushits and the Republicans in general. Yesterday, he claimed that the Abramoff scandal "wasn't partisan," which fits nicely into the right-wing spin that is being used to try to defuse this huge bomb of a scandal. The tactic is to make it a Congressional scandal rather than a Republican scandal, which it clearly and exclusively is, at least according to the way Abramoff spread his largesse around. From Bloomberg News on December 21:

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.

So why would Matthews join in the spin game in the face of hard facts of the dough distribution by now-convicted felon Jack Abramoff, claimed as a "best friend" by Tom "Giant Flying Cockroach" DeLay?

Well, over at Americablog, John Aravosis has stitched together the details of an event planned for an Abramoff-related charity that would have had Matthews as a host. And, surprise! surprise! this charity was as crooked as Abramoff's other endeavors:

In its first four years of operation, the charity has collected nearly $6 million. A gala fundraiser last year at the International Spy Museum at one point attracted the Washington Redskins' owner as its chairman and was to honor the co-founder of America Online.

Records for GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths, and federal investigators are looking into how large amounts of money were funneled through the nonprofit group to support Abramoff's interests.

Once again, we find the media "watchdogs" aiding and abetting interests that they then claim to objectively report. Shouldn't Matthews have disclosed his connection to Abramoff before passing on opinions (falsely supported) of bipartisan corruption in this scandal?

No, I guess not. If you drink the yellowing spooge from the peckers of lying scum, then you can't be anything different yourself. Understand, of course, that the reason for this tactic is that the Repugs know that they're fucked because Abramoff is going to sing his ass off, and I imagine he has a paper trail to support every contention. So as they have done in the past when faced with irrefutable evidence of their corruption, the Repugs will try to dilute the charge by turning it into "everyone does it," and "business as usual" while at the same time running like hell from any association to anyone indicted. The only thing more certain than Republican corruption is Republican turncoating. "Jack who? Tom who?" And you can bet that Chris Matthews will take his finger out of Chimpie's ass long enough to test the winds and shift accordingly.

And if it is true that this is "business as usual," then the whole stinking thing needs to be taken down, regardless of politics. If any Dems were stupid enough to succumb to this selling out of the American people, I hope they end up rotting in a federal prison right next to DeLay, Hastert, and the rest. Maybe it's time for a true revolution in the political order.

The New Slogan for 2006

Happy New Year to all of you!

This is the year to Rise Up.

This is the slogan of the year: Rise Up!

Here is reason # 1 to rise up:

The same report, by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center, and United for a Fair Economy, a group seeking to narrow the gap between rich and poor, found that in 2004 the ratio of C.E.O. pay to worker pay at large companies had ballooned to 431 to 1. If the minimum wage had advanced at the same rate as chief executive compensation since 1990, America's bottom-of-the-barrel working poor would be enjoying salad days, with legal wages at $23.03 an hour instead of $5.15.

Is the work done by minimum wage employees more important or less important than that done by most executive level leadership? Which group, were they to go on strike for two weeks, would paralyze the country more?

Unite, workers! Rise Up!