Are You Rapture Ready?

With Iran going nuclear and Chimpie calling Seymour Hersh's claim of war planning "wild speculation" but not wrong, I thought it was high time to check out the Rapture Ready Index to see how soon all the Christians would be leaving us to our flaying, boiling, and general suffering at the hands of the winged demons. For those of you unfamiliar with the RRI, here's the basic breakdown, from the good folks at Rapture Ready:

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.

The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture.

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

Today that index stands at a grab-your-scrotum 156. And for those of you who expect to be whisked away from this future bubbling cauldron of pain that the earth will become, RR provides a nice real estate guide to how you'll be living in Jesus' neighborhood. If I were going to heaven, I'd really want something like that Struggling Believer Mansion or the Wood, Hay, and Stubble Mansion--no need to hire help to maintain the facility, two minutes a week to vacuum, and low energy costs, particularly judging by the tropical setting of the latter model.

The Discussion We Aren't Having About Immigration

Here's the crux of the argument: America--corporate America and the American consumers themselves--depends on cheap, exploitable labor. At the same time, the racist elements of the the country require rhetoric that claims to want to protect our borders. So what are the corporate lackeys in the Democratic and Republican parties to do to have it both ways? Well, you're seeing it.

Look, securing national borders is not rocket science. While we may have an official policy regarding immigration and technical classify some people as "illegal" immigrants, the fact is that our borders are porous specifically because there are high-level decisions in the federal government to keep them porous because without a large illegal, cheap, exploitable, unquantifiable pool of labor to suppress wages, our economy would be unsustainable in its present form.

Do you want to pay $5.00/lb for tomatoes? Then don't bitch about migrant laborers. You want to be able to get a hotel room for under $100/night. Don't bitch about migrant laborers. You like getting that 99 cent special at McDonald's? Don't bitch about migrant laborers.

Democrats and Republicans alike have underfunded the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in conscious service to maintaining a surplus supply of labor to keep the wheels of the American economy turning. The whole stinking mess is balanced on the backs of all those poor, hard-working people who will risk anything just to get a lousy job doing stoop labor in the fields or scrubbing toilets in office buildings or hauling away trash from construction sites for new stucco fucko McMansions in the suburbs of Phoenix and Albuquerque or slicing up steer carcassess in slaughterhouses in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Two things are required, both morally and practically to fix this "problem." One, pay a fair livable wage to EVERY worker in the United States. Second, accept the real cost of things. We all turn a blind eye to the misery that supports our lifestyle and persecute the poorest among us when things go a little sour.

We are a miserably hypocritical society, and when I hear these fat white bastards crying about the threat from south of the border even as then jerk off to pay-per-view porno in their immigrant-cleaned hotel suite on their immigrant-laundered sheets, I want to strip them of their birth certificates and send them to a border slum in Sonora, Mexico, for a few years to learn some lessons in fundamental economics.

Veneral Disease in the White House

I don't know how else to diagnose a Leaky Bush and a Leaky Dick. That drip, drip, drip is a sure sign of gonorrhea, along with this burning sensation the nation has in its collective urinary tract. Often characterized in men by a "white, yellow, or green pus from the penis with pain," this diagnosis explains a great deal about the emanations from the mouths of Dick and Bush as well as little Scottie McClellan's pus-packed proclamations last week before the ever-prostrate White House press corps.

More later. Sorry for the long outage--I've been living in a state of despair and shock that the people haven't risen up and gotten into the streets over this shit. Over immigration, sure, but over the hijacking of the government as a whole? No fury. I don't get it.

The Torture Test

Despite the claims by El Chimperor that "We do not torture," people at the Pentagon, perhaps conscious of the war crimes implications of the work they've been doing at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and elsewhere through proxies via "extraordinary rendition," have decided to make official that evidence derived through torture cannot be used in military tribunals.

There's just one little problem--it still hasn't been determined what torture is. And I, naturally, have a suggestion as to how to come to the definition of torture.

Let's take Rush Limbaugh, for example, who has said that what happened at Abu Ghraib was no more than fraternity pranks. We will install him in a five-star hotel, feed him all the mutton and tongue sandwiches he wants, and let ex-girlfriend Daryn Kagan, a CNN "reporter" in to service him as required. (Yes, I don't want to think of it either.) Pay him a million dollars too. And give him a little OxyContin now and then.

Here's the test: if, during an interrogation by the military, the question comes up, "Are we torturing this guy?" Limbaugh is taken into the basement area especially equipped for this exercise (scrubbable tile, floor drain, steam hose, and a surgeon's tray with various implements). Let's say that the interrogator at Gitmo wants to punch the detainee a little. Okay, so smash Limbaugh in his fat puss. "Hey, Rush, is this torture?" If he says no, then beat up the detainee.

Chain Limbaugh to the floor in a stress position for twenty-four hours, naked, in a room lowered to 45 degrees Fahrenheit until he shits himself. "Hey Rush, is this torture?" If he says no, then lock that sucker detainee in Gitmo down.

Hook Rush up to some electrical wires on his fingers, or his balls, or one in his mouth and one up the rectum. Turn on the juice. "Hey Rush, is this torture?" If he says no, then crank that generator up and fry those motherfuckers at Abu Ghraib. Pull out Rush's fingernails, let the attack dogs on his ass, rape him with a nightstick. "Hey Rush, is this torture?"

Of course, in that last case he might say, "Please don't stop!" You run that risk.

I think that this is a great system, because we have an individual who thinks that (a) torture IS justified in these cases and who (b) doesn't believe that real torture actually occurs. And we shouldn't limit it to Rush. There are plenty of candidates: Rumsfeld, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzalez, and even Chimpie himself, just in case someone dies from the "fraternity pranks." Anything one of these torture-lovers can stand is a reasonable treatment for a detainee. Simple, effective, cheap (no lawyers needed), I think that both conservatives and liberals could get behind this idea.

Please tell your friends.

What More Is There to Say?

Chimpie holds a press conference. Chimpie lies. Dick "I haven't shot anyone in the face for three weeks" Cheney gives an interview. Cheney lies. The war drags on. Wealth shifts more and more to the wealthy. The environments declines. Chimpie lies. Cheney lies. The Constitution has more text crossed out. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina remains unaddressed by those paid and entrusted to deal with it. American coffins continue to slide into Dover AFB, unphotographed and unreported. Chimpie lies. Cheney lies.

Still 33 percent of Americans polled still will themselves to believe and to celebrate this corrupt and incompetent regime. Twice that number now have stopped giving any more benefit of doubt or good intentions.

What more can be written? What more can be said? The "opposition" Democratic party wets itself in the corner wondering if it's okay now to disagree with El Presidente. They are no different than the Republicans, cowards and enablers all, deserving nothing but contempt and gobs of phlegmy spit in their faces.

Without a voice, people have only one course of action remaining. There is a mass of anger broiling in this country, none of it finding expression and alliance within our alleged free press. Frustration builds. Patience thins. Elections are suspect. Hope is drained from the people. Those in power now have only power to wield, absent the consent of the governed. The Declaration of Independence addresses this condition.

I fear it is going to be a very hot summer.

If Justice Exists...

...this will be in our future.

The Cowardice of Punditocracy

I had the displeasure to endure yet another interview with Frances Fukayama on NPR this morning because he, along with David Brooks of the New York Times, Byron York of the National Review, and other chickenshit chickenhawk lickspittles can no longer escape the disasters that they have been cheerleading for years. Their cowardice knows no bounds. Listening to them or reading them scrambling to fog their past declarations about the invincibility and intelligence of George W. Bush and his hand-picked criminal cabal, one can only think of collaborators of an occupying power suddenly stripping off their armbands, growing beards, and dressing down before escaping to friendlier zones. The true believers, of course, at least do the honorable thing and put a bullet into their own skulls, but these are the most cowardly of cowards, who align themselves with power, inflate and falsify their virtues, and could never proclaim loudly enough how tasty Chimpie's anus was.

Editor and Publisher reveals the brown stain beneath the brown shirt of David Brooks, the one he so quickly has shucked off now that his love object is sliding around the mouth of the historical sewer. Read it. It would be funny if the suffering he and his ilk have enabled wasn't so terrible and going to plague us for so many years even after Bush's stink is cleared out of the White House.

Space and Time, Somewhere...

Yes, I've been remiss in blogging lately, partly due to several unhealthy obsessions, one or two of which I'll confess, but also because I'm standing in front of the radio with mouth open in a silent scream as things go from bad to unimaginably bad with the country. Finally, I reached Chimp exhaustion, turned everything off, and focused on regaining a healthy sense of outrage.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage visiting Dependable Renegade, which always makes me laugh. Water Tiger is one witty, sharp-tongued woman, wrapping truth in a delicious sauce of irony and satire.

Here's some unsolicited advice. Never, ever start getting G.A.S. aka Guitar Acquisition Syndrome, and then have a guitar made by Bill Collings in Austin pass through your hands. Rather than blogging, I've been staring at guitar porn, and not just Collings, but also Bourgeois out of Maine, and a few Martins, and maybe a de Jonge or two. Still, I maintained control, didn't spend any money, but of course am now determined to land a first-class instrument one way or another.

Now if only I could actually play worth a damn. But that's not what GAS is all about.

The other obsession is that of vocational choices, which you'd think would be a good thing to have, but which actually is torment until suddenly all choices are gone. Now that I'm rendered back to a rather more predictable, but not absolute, notion of what I'll be doing for a few more months, I have turned those energies into fantasies of moving to Berlin again. Aside from the obvious reasons like impending martial law, national bankruptcy, and theofascist hegemony in the institutions of government, we face a more pressing crisis right in our own homespace. In our part of the country, moisture has been scarce for a record period of time and come summer it's going to be at flashpoint. So, while Chimpie is burning the Constitution, torching the economy, and hot-footing US allies with his petulant ignorance and incompetence, the forces of nature or God are going to punish this corner of the land by turning it all into ash if some idiot so much as tosses a cigarette out his car window. Frankly, we're terrified. We may find ourselves cut off from the very nature we are blessed to have surround us because the National Forests will be closed, and so all that will be left to us is hanging around coffee shops bitching about the state of things and getting on each others' nerves.

So maybe your truly should at least take a month or two and immerse himself back in the once-divided city on some pretense, like a language immersion program, or maybe just some time in a sanatarium.

Anyway, my apologies for the long gap.

And to my friend in Nebraska, Howdy-hi! I'll be visiting the library tomorrow.

Over and out.

Chimpie: Spreading the Love

Most hated man on earth? You decide.

About 5,000 personnel including snipers, commandos and U.S. marines using helicopters, bomb detectors and electronic jammers will protect President George W. Bush during his visit to India this week, officials said on Monday.

Wherever he goes, it's a war zone.

A day before U.S. President George W. Bush arrives here, Delhi's Maurya Sheraton Hotel is all decked up and ready to play host... The hotel, which now resembles a fortress, has an all-time high security cover and is also witnessing an intensive beautification drive that has ensured trimmed bushes and white sheets stretched across the green area opposite the premium luxury hotel.

While the visiting American team has booked all 600 rooms in the hotel, the authorities here claim that they aren't making any special arrangements or changes in menu for the visiting President.

Meanwhile, other hospitality industry experts prepared their welcome for the Chimperor.

"We emphatically oppose the forthcoming visit... President Bush is the topmost official of U.S. imperialism, leading enemy of the sovereignty of nations and the peoples of the world today. He is the leader of the imperialist quest at neo-colonial world domination. He is certainly not welcome in India... " the Committee consisting of the Left, the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Indian Justice Party said in a joint statement.

I'd recommend staying quietly in his room. Order the chicken vindaloo. It's excellent.

Chimpie: Architect of Peace

Oh Christ. Even National Intelligence Director John "Death Squad" Negroponte (do a Google search on Negroponte and his record in Central America) thinks that Bush has brought us closer to World War IV than anyone could have dreamed.

A civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other...

Chimpie, you're doin' a heckuva job.

What have we done as a nation to deserve this? Was it Vietnam? Anyway, it gets better. Chimpie decided to impart his fathomless wisdom in interviews and speeches today.

President Bush condemned the surge in violence and said Iraqis must make a choice between "a free society or a society dictated ... by evil people who will kill innocents."

Yeah, El Presidente, we all know the feeling. I just never expected to be facing the choice inside the borders of my own damned country.

Later, in an interview with ABC News' "World News Tonight," he said he did not believe the escalation of civil unrest would lead to a general civil war.

No, of course not. Why should he start listening to anyone in touch with reality now?

Chimpie: Torturer in Chief

Every American should read this piece by Fred Branfman, "On Being Good Americans in Time of Torture," because he makes two points that should give every single one of us a bad conscience. (1) Bush, unlike any other leader in modern history, has officially reserved the right to torture people at his discretion, and (2) We have all been witnesses to this declaration, despite his bald-faced lie, "We do not torture." In fact, even as he signed the recent defense bill with John McCain's amendment against torture (which passed 90-9 in the Senate, and which Bush threatened the entire defense bill over), he also signed a statement reserving his right to do whatever he saw fit under the guise of protecting America against terrorism. In other words, Chimpie maintained that he had the power to order torture if he personally deemed it necessary.

So Bush has crowned himself Torturer in Chief, and we all know it. The blood and suffering is on our hands, on every American's hands, if we do not bring this monster to justice.

Here's One Reason I Didn't Make the Military My Career

Unbelievable, but sadly understandable. This explains why we have civilian control over the military, but when you get a bunch of ideologically fascist, lying, incompetents running the civilian side, the military gets it in the neck. Zogby has the numbers:

-- Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll shows just one in five troops want to heed Bush call to stay “as long as they are needed”
-- While 58% say mission is clear, 42% say U.S. role is hazy
-- Plurality believes Iraqi insurgents are mostly homegrown
-- Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11, most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks
-- Majority of troops oppose use of harsh prisoner interrogation
-- Plurality of troops pleased with their armor and equipment

What the fuck? How is it possible that long after no one except Dick Cheney and Orrin Hatch claim that Iraq was involved in 9/11, that 90% of our GIs think that's why they're there?

That's why I did my hitch in the military and got out. The mixture of propaganda and willful, rationalizing self-delusion makes it a world totally alien to anyone who truly believes in the First Amendment. Of course, once you've got soldiers in the breach, you've got to keep them motivated by any means necessary. The tragedy here is that the fundamental reasons for the war were bogus, the fucking Chimpie administration knew it, and they killed 2300 of our sons, daughters, moms, and dads along with a hell of a lot of innocent Iraqis whose only crime was to be living in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now we're reaping the whirlwind on all fronts.

Impeach Bush, Cheney, then indict them in the International Criminal Court. Ditto for Rumsfeld, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Hadley, Rice, and the rest of the criminal cabal.

And for those in the press who rah-rahed us into this mess, take the honorable way out and resign your positions. Go do something useful for society, like volunteer work in New Orleans or in the worst sections of Washington D.C. See if you can help to develop a generation of journalists who know the difference between truth and running their tongues up the anuses of people in power just because they want to maintain their invitations to the President's Ball.

Cowards and sycophants are what make liars into leaders.

Suddenly, Nobody Loves Chimpie

I want to say "I told you so," and so I'm going to.

Told you so. Bush is, without question (and I've been saying this for 5 fucking years) the absolute most corrupt and incompetent president this nation has ever had, with an administration aligned along those standards. Too bad it took 2200+ American lives in Iraq, thousands more from Katrina, a nation more at risk than ever to terrorism, and an economy headed for the precipice to clue the rest of America in, but better late than never. Here are the latest poll numbers showing that all but the most drug-addled, deluded, or ideologically fascist have stopped loving Supreme Commander Bunnypants:

The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high...

In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall.

Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.

For the first time in this poll, most Americans say the president does not care much about people like themselves. Fifty-one percent now think he doesn't care, compared to 47 percent last fall.

Just 30 percent approve of how Mr. Bush is handling the Iraq war, another all-time low...

Half of Americans say they disapprove of how he's handling the war on terror, while 43 percent approve.

Here's the real screamer in my book. The very best news for Chimpie is that people are sick of hearing about Cheney's marksmanship.

Chimpie's Most Devastating Abandonment

Question 1: To what matter does the following quote refer?
Question 2: Who wrote it and in what publication?

And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

Now go read the article and see why Chimpie and the Chimpettes are browning their Dr. Dentons tonight.

More of Chimpie's Heckuva Job

Well, Iraq is just doing great, doncha think? Maybe it's time to rotate our soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen out of there. I'd say that the Iraqis have things well in hand--civil war eliminates the need for Americans to shoot at now that Sunnis and Shiites have finally decided to start blowing up mosques and execute innocent journalists.

Then we have the nuclear deal with ally India going south, again thanks to Chimpie's dynamite diplomatic style. And our relationships with the Muslim world just keep getting better thanks to the arrogant ignorance of Condoleezza Rice, promoted to Secretary of State after being asleep at the switch for 9/11 as National Security Advisor.

But Chimpie can take comfort in the effect of his charm on his Republican Party cohorts, as they run screaming from his insider deal with the United Arab Emirates that ought to further fatten the wallets of the Bush family empire. And White House competence at organization will certainly be enhanced by their new review of the Katrina response by the agencies that they reorganized into the Department of Homeland Security and staffed with select, ultra-qualified cronies like Michael Chertoff and Michael "Drownie Brownie" Brown.

I don't want to bring too much happiness to my friends this morning, so I'll just give out one more tidbit for adoration of our Fearless Leader Who Is Never Wrong, and that's this wonderful news for middle class Red Staters who worship Fearless Leader without questions because he likes to quote the Bible: your standard of living, although slipping, is going to a good cause, which is fattening the backsides of the Cheney, Bush, and Saudi Royal families. That's a sacrifice I know the loyal Republicans are always cheerful to make. Your incomes have dropped 2.3% since 2001, which I don't want to denigrate, but surely you can do better than that. After all, think of all the therapy Uncle Dick is going to need now that he's gone and shot his friend in the face.

Cheney's Motive? Here's One

You may wonder why Deadeye Dick shot a fellow Republican. Oh, sure, it was an "accident." But of all the Republicans that Cheney has gone hunting with (Antonin Scalia among them), isn't it simply fascinating that the one that got a faceful of birdshot was Mr. Harry Whittington? Here's a hint why:

Harry Whittington is, pardon the expression, a rare bird: a liberal Texas Republican. He is not a religious fanatic, nor is he a "string-'em-up" law and order man. On the contrary, he's been campaigning for years to clean up the Texas prison system and prevent the execution of the mentally disabled. He's a reformer all round - an old-fashioned social activist whose distaste for government corruption crosses the usual party lines.

It must have been the government anti-corruption stuff that pushed Cheney over the edge, or maybe it was the opposition to executing the mentally disabled. Of course, after his war crimes trial, that means Chimpie will only get life imprisonment.

Oh well.

Ballistics and the Cheney Lies

I'm still looking for ballistics information specific to 28 gauge shotguns and the loads Cheney was using. I don't buy that 30-yard range bullshit, but that's just because we're dealing with a congenital liar. I'd like some hard data on the penetration capability of birdshot from a 28 gauge at 30 yards.

In the meantime, here's a very interesting webpage for your examination.

Cheney at Folsom Prison

Oh man, is this funny!

By the way, I think that's a Martin D-18 Golden Era sunburst that he's playing.

Privacy Disappears Before Our Very Eyes

You thought there was going to be an investigation into the NSA domestic spying program, didn't you? Oh, all right, let's be fair, the "terrorist surveillance program" that just happens to spy on loyal Americans within the borders of the United States. In fact, even some Republicans were upset that this program existed outside of the FISA law and wanted to get to the bottom of it, denying that the president had some inherent authority to spy on Americans in the name of security.

Yeah, well if you thought that crack-licking Republicans of any stripe were immune to blackmail, coercion, or a faceful of birdshot, think again. The Washington Post tried to bury this on page A03, but it's there, and you had better be scared.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week's closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. "It's been a full-court press," said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background -- as did several others for this story -- because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees' work.

One Democratic senator knows what sort of arm twisting is going on.

John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the Senate intelligence committee's vice chairman, has drafted a motion calling for a wide-ranging inquiry into the surveillance program, according to congressional sources who have seen it. Rockefeller declined to be interviewed yesterday.

Sources close to Rockefeller say he is frustrated by what he sees as heavy-handed White House efforts to dissuade Republicans from supporting his measure. They noted that Cheney conducted a Republicans-only meeting on intelligence matters in the Capitol yesterday.

I'm beginning to see the pattern. Cheney shoots a dude in the face. Cheney convenes a meeting of Republicans only. Cheney holds up a photo of Harry Whittington's hamburger puss.

"You motherfuckers want some of this, huh?" Cheney says.

The senators and representatives look at one another.

"N-n-n-n-n-no, sir!"

"Good little bitches," Cheney says, chuckling. He looks at the picture of Whittington and smiles his twisted smile. "Good little bitches. Now get back to work."

"Yes, sir!" roar DeWine, Snowe, and Hagel. "May we lick your balls, sir?"

"Yes, yes, that would be good. Clean 'em up before I have my interview with Brit Hume this afternoon. He likes my balls clean."

Why You Know No Truth Is Coming from the White House on the Cheney Shooting

Interesting, isn't it, that Rove needed to speak to the one eye witness to Cheney shooting Harry Whittington in the face with a shotgun.

"Chief of Staff Andy Card called the president around 7:30 p.m. to inform him that there was a hunting accident," a statement released today by the White House said. "He did not know the vice president was involved at that time. Subsequent to the call, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with Mrs. Armstrong. He then called the president shortly before 8 p.m. to update him and let him know the vice president had accidentally shot Mr. Whittington."

I guess he had to be sure Ms. Armstrong had the right script and was going to stick to it.

"Hey, Katherine, it's Karl."

"Hi Karl. God, it's just awful, awful."

"You got grandchildren, Kathering, right?"

"Huh? Well, yes. Why?"

"Do you know if they're safe right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Lot of danger out there, lot of random violence, kidnappings, ritual murder..."

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Prositution, forced labor, just endless suffering for those poor kids..."

"Listen, Karl, the Vice President shot Harry in the face!"

"You love your grandkids, don't you Katherine?"

"Well, yes, of course."

"Now what happened on the ranch? In your own words of course. You say there was an accident?"

Or something like that.

I Guess the National Rifle Association Is Right:

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.

Mommy, Is It Treason Yet?

Hot from Raw Story:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Now if, as is alleged, Cheney directed Scooter-boy to out Plame as payback to Joe Wilson's truth telling--or for any reason, for that matter--then he should fry. Especially given the brouhaha over Iran now.

Is there anything on earth these motherfuckers can't make worse? Anything?

Also, was Cheney drunk when he shot his buddy? Is that a crime in Texas, or is that a requirement?

Irony Meter Off the Charts Yet Again

Coming just two days after Dick "Straight Shooter" Cheney missed getting his own personal kill, rather than using US military proxies in Iraq, First "Lady" Laura Bush had this pronouncement about rioting Muslims:

"If we resort to violence, it's very, very difficult to have any sort of dialogue," she said.

This from a woman who shares a roof and maybe a bed with a man who has launched the most idiotic war in recent American history for reasons that all turned out to be lies, and then managed to conduct that war in an unimaginably incompetent manner. Oh, yeah, and he thinks torture is as much fun as blowing up frogs with firecrackers.

Would someone send that bitch a fucking dictionary?

The Face of Fascism

Truthout.org explains how you're looking right into it. The excerpt below speaks volumes.

Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former administration officials.

The officials work or had worked in the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council in a senior capacity and had direct knowledge of the Vice President's campaign to discredit Wilson.

In interviews over the course of two days this week, these officials were urged to speak on the record for this story. But they resisted, saying they had already testified before a grand jury investigating the leak of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and added that speaking out against the administration and specifically Vice President Cheney would cause them to lose their jobs and subject their families to vitriolic attacks by the White House.

The officials said they decided to speak out now because they have become disillusioned with the Bush administration's policies regarding Iraq and the flawed intelligence that led to the war.

They said their roles, along with several others at the CIA and State Department, included digging up or "inventing" embarrassing information on the former Ambassador that could be used against him, preparing memos and classified material on Wilson for Cheney and the National Security Council, and attending meetings in Cheney's office to discuss with Cheney, Hadley, and others the efforts that would be taken to discredit Wilson.

Remember, Wilson was an ambassador who had been highly decorated by Bush Sr., had personally faced down Saddam Hussein before the first Iraq war. He was a valuable public servant, as was his wife, Valerie Plame, who had undertaken dangerous missions in antiproliferation of WMD.

But woe behold you should you criticize the Chimpettes with the truth.

Cheney is a traitor, a fascist, and a disgrace.

Ah, the Stunning Reality of Bushworld

This really galls the shit out of me, because I worked as a contractor to NASA many years ago--best job I ever had. Anyway, this little twerp, George Deutsch, was appointed to be a public affairs officer at NASA. His qualifications? He worked on Chimpie's campaign in the "war room" as a fucking intern. So this little twerp does the following, according to the New York Times:

In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.

And that's because Deutsch is an expert in the subject, seeing as he has a mighty BA in Journalism from Texas A&M.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

Okay, are you getting nervous yet? The key words here are "factual information."

Well, you know, it turned out that this twerp's mighty BA in Journalism from Texas A&M wasn't exactly "factual information." Oops!

The Times and the scientificactivist.blogspot.com Web site reported that Deutsch, who worked on President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, lied about his college degree.

And how did this deeply guarded secret get spirited out of its little hidey-hole? Well, you know, it was real cloak-and-dagger stuff, nothing you'd expect our terrific mainstream media to do or the White House, for that matter, because it's a really dangerous, complicated investigation to undertake. Nick Anthis, the good citizen who uncovered the twerp's little problem, explains:

[H]ow did this guy, who already had dubious qualifications, make it into NASA with such an obvious lie on his resume? To work for a federal agency, including NASA, extensive background checks are usually required. If I was able to uncover the truth about Deutsch in one phone call, then he must have been placed in his current position without any investigation, due to his loyal service on the Bush presidential campaign.

He uncovered the truth in one god-damned telephone call!

And that's why Wolf Blitzer is such a megastar on cable news. He'd never sully himself with such underhanded snooping of a Chimpie appointee.

Damned bloggers! Ruining it for kneepad journalists everywhere!

Nick Anthis--now, there's an American hero.

No Such Thing as Blasphemy

Let me state a position at the onset: no freedom is more important than freedom of expression. If there is anything that can keep totalitarianism at bay, it is the right of information to pass among people, and that the expression of that information be given as free a range as possible. If it offends, it offends.

We have two ways of dealing with our differences: dialogue or violence. And if we are to fully exploit dialogue in the avoidance of violence, then its field of expression must be as broad as possible. Whether it's "Piss Christ"--Anthony Serrano's piece that had Christians in a froth--or Mohammed in a bomb turban, or Vishnu giving it in the hindquarters to Buddha, or L. Ron Hubbard licking Zoroaster's teabag, or Larry Flynt's portrayal of Jerry Falwell's fond remembrance of drunken sex with his mother, it is protected speech. Burning the American flag in America is protected. Invoking God's name in vain, or the gods' names in vain is protected. Throwing a pie in Che's face is also protected. In fact, if it offends, all the more reason it needs to be protected, because we don't construct meaningful dialogue on unitary agreement.

Conflict through dialogue, offensive cartoons, skewered saints, brutal satire, mean-spirited diatribes is where it's at. Cluster bomb units, bullets, bludgeons, guillotines, napalm, depleted uranium warheads and the like pale by comparison for really resolving our differences.

Violence is for dummies.

Gasoline on the Fire at the White House

Valerie Plame was protected by the CIA as a NOC (non-official cover). That makes leaking her name criminal, treasonous, and disgusting, and anyone who assisted in the cover-up should be fired, indicted, tried, and if convicted, jailed. Primary candidate:

The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June—before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby's trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections.

Oh wait, Dick--wouldn't someone harming the interests of our nation be committing some form of terrorism? In that case, no indictment, no trial, and no acknowledgment of their disappearance. Just a nice cold cell in an undisclosed location, punctuated by whatever Alberto "Tortureboy" Gonzalez says is permissible, which means, as I recall, any infliction of pain up to the point of organ failure. And since Tortureboy will be in Congress next week to defend some other illegal practices, why not get him to renew his declaration that torture is necessary--if fact, it's the greatest pleasure he ever experienced since coaching Chimpie when to throw the switch on Texas' death row inmates.

That's what this should be, IF, that is, the Democrats don't do their usual complete retreat, duck and cover on impeachment and if the rest of the mainstream media does its usual thing and gives endless airtime to administration hacks who will spin this to mean that well, even if the CIA said she was a covert agent, it doesn't really mean that if Chimpie or Cheney thinks otherwise.

Courage or gutlessness? Placing any bets?

If It Were a Drinking Game, We'd Be Dead

It drives me absolutely nuts. Every time Chimpie says, "What the American people gotta understand..." or, "What you gotta understand is..." I need a drink, because the idea that this half-wit could explain anything to any thinking person is (a)absurd on its face, (b) impossible since likely he doesn't understand what he purports to explain, (c) exemplary as to how completely disconnected from any constructive criticism he is, and (d) proof that although his daddy bought him an MBA from Harvard, he doesn't know shit about management.

This last point really galls me, because the one big no-no in negotiation or in mediation is that you never, ever claim to be the authority on anything. A leader never, ever demeans his audience by telling them how ignorant they are, assuming only he can explain away their deficit of knowledge. And finally, the idiotic grin he takes on, the way he leans forward, and the thrusting of his hands out in front all belie the self-proclaimed expertise--he is clearly a man out of his depth, desperately (and badly) pretending to be someone he doesn't even know he can never be, and buoyed only by a lifelong safety net of daddy's friends and his own toadying lackeys and powermad fascists like Karl Rove who keep him from smashing badly on the rocks of his own stupendously baseless arrogance.

Even worse, of course, is having to listen to the crack-tongueing acolytes in the press trying to make sense out of his yawping. They should know better, but of course as whores always understand, you don't make the john feel bad about himself, even if he doesn't know where to put his dick.

More Confidence in Our Election Process

Oh...my...God. If Ohio doesn't scare you, today the Republicans even rigged their own internal election for Majority Leader.

The election was marked by confusion for a time when it appeared that the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of eligible voters by one.

We're...so...fucked.

Look to Ohio to Show Us the Way: First in Fascism!

If you aren't scared now, then you're either comatose or rubbing your hands with glee at the coming clampdown. From The Free Press in Columbus, Ohio, a little taste of election "reform" soon to visit your state:

Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature has passed a repressive new law that will gut free elections here and is already surfacing elsewhere around the US. The bill will continue the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party.

Coming with the swearing in of right-wing extremist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it marks another dark day for what remains of American democracy.

Called HB3, the law now demands discriminatory voter ID, severely cripples the possibility of statewide recounts and actually ends the process of state-based challenges to federal elections---most importantly for president---held within the state.

In other words, the type of legal challenge mounted to the theft of Ohio's electoral votes in the 2004 election will now be all but impossible in the future.

Liberty my ass.

Late Night Study of Interest

Now why does this finding not surprise me? (from a study presented at a Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference last week):

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

Of course, you know those academics--bunch of commie, minority-lovin', Murka-hatin' elitists.

Hmm, Perhaps the GOP Wife Story Is Fishy

You know, as I think of it, doesn't the ousting of a GOP wife (see previous post immediately below) seem awfully convenient if it occurred after Cindy Sheehan was removed and arrested? After all, Ms. Sheehan was arrested, while Ms. Young was only removed.

Your "balanced" media spinning the news for the regime again?

Proof of 1st Amendment Death: GOP Wife Ousted from SOTU

Oh, man, but this is good. It's not just Cindy Sheehan who gets tossed, but anyone with any kind of writin' on her t-shirt.

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom."

C.W. Bill Young is a Republican, mind you, so his wife was nice and cozy in the Chimperor's inner circle.

She was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.

I have to hand it to Ms. Young--she went right to the heart of the problem with the whole damned administration.

"They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, "Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.'"

ABC News did not make it clear whether or not this was directed at the president, his wife, advisor Karl Rove, or any other administration shithead.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

"Chimpie, You're Doin' a Helluva Job"--Part Deux

So you hate me because I think that George W. Bush is the greatest fraud, failure, incompetent, and crook in the history of the US presidency? I keep hearing the talking heads on TV repeat that Bush's strength, despite all else, is his war on terror. Well, Bob Geiger analyzes that effort using Homeland Security's own data.

Remember, failure is success, slavery is freedom, and Chimpie is the Great Leader.

The Crushing of Free Speech

First Cindy Sheehan is hauled out of the gallery of Capitol building before the State of the Union bullshit for simply wearing a t-shirt that said "2242 Dead. How Many More?" She did nothing but take her jacket off. You see, in a place that is owned by the American people but ruled by Chimpie, it is now illegal to silently wear a message that contains nothing but a statement of fact and a simple question. It wasn't hostile, didn't call Bush a half-witted sociopath, didn't name Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez and Rice as war criminals, it didn't do anything offensive. But Ms. Sheehan was yanked from the gallery, even though she had a valid ticket, and then detained for four hours.

Meanwhile, Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri are running loose and al Qaeda gains strength worldwide. Good job boys! You got that Sheehan woman corraled. As we all know, SHE'S the REAL THREAT to the Chimperor.

And now there are stories of the Pentagon brass demanding retraction of a political cartoon. I can't vouch for them yet (I just read it on Americablog) but while they are certainly entitled to their opinion of Tom Toles' cartoon, to call for suppression of unsettling but nevertheless valid observations of Donald Rumsfeld's regard for how the instrument of our military is used are as protected under the 1st Amendment as wearing a t-shirt without obscenity or proscribed incitements in a public place.

Bit by bit, the fascists chew upon the liberties of the people. And the people continue to sleep and dream.

Another Step Toward the Totalitarian State

Well, thanks yet again to gutless Democrats who voted for cloture, the Bushits now have their loyal lackey on the Supreme Court. I speak, of course, of the confirmation of Samuel Alito, who is probably at this very moment swearing his allegiance to the person of George W. "Chimpie" Bush in the tradition of Roland Freisler.

Disgusting. Fifty-nine million suckers vote for a half-wit president. Now not even the courts can save us from his delusions.

I May Be Lazy or Just Worn Out

My apologies. I just can't get up the energy to rant or rave or analyze or anything lately. Part of it is a rotten cold that just won't go away, and the other part is that the tidal wave of evidence of criminality of the Chimperor administration still hasn't mobilized the kind of resistance and demonstrations nationally that I would have thought would have occurred. After participating in a massive demonstration against war in Iraq in 2003 in San Francisco, I would have thought that layering on torture, secret prisons, domestic spying, Katrina's aftermath, and every other example of malfeasance and incompetence on top of this idiotic war would have surely toppled any administration.

But I was wrong. Yes, the media is complacent or complicit in the fostering of this apathy, but I have to think that the trouble really does lie with us as individuals. Do we as Americans deserve this bastards and what they're doing to what's left of our republic?

Maybe we do. Maybe it's our turn to suffer the humiliation of downslide into the fascination of history along with Rome, Napoleonic France, and the British Empire, all done in by arrogance and overreaching and a failure to understand that the world is bigger than we are.

Maybe we do.

When in Doubt, Go Stupid

This is Bushit tactic # 13, when denial, refutation, and magic sideshows don't suffice. Remember Condi (I'm So Fucking Incompetent!) Rice said that no one could ever imagine anyone flying planes into buildings? Or that the title of that report, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States" didn't set off any alarms in the then-National Security Advisor's head?

Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to today's News York Times we have Chimpie clearly emulating the Rice model.

A Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, "Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."

The internal department documents, which were forwarded to the White House, contradict statements by President Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, that no one expected the storm protection system in New Orleans to be breached.

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," Mr. Bush said in a television interview on Sept. 1. "Now we're having to deal with it, and will."

Apart from the startling lack of confidence he shows in his own administration, this is an outright lie, something like #349 by my count. And yet his popularity remains above single digits. Are there really so many wingnuts/clueless dummies/religious crazies out there? Are 38 percent of the people still convinced that Bush is anything but an utter disaster for the country?

Yeah, who is truly stupid here?

History's Brutal Lessons

I've hesitated to broach this angle on the subject of executive power, but the relentless assaults by the Bush administration on our civil liberties under the excuse of wartime necessity is pushing us dangerously close to the brink of a precipice from which there is no recovery without disaster and mass suffering.

Last year, I returned to my onetime home of Berlin, Germany, to revisit a city which hosted me for over four years. It had been nearly 30 years since I had been there, and the Cold War had ended, the country was united, and Berlin had reclaimed its status as an international capital city.

It was a marvelous reunion, but I'll leave the tourism and cultural report for another time. What I was most struck by were two exhibits, one entitled "The Topography of Terror," and the other "Legalized Robbery." The first covered the manner in which the Nazi regime legitimized its oppression, imprisonment, and execution of dissidents, all the way to the extreme of genocidal attacks on Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and other groups. The keyword here is "legitimized."

We'd all like to think of the Nazis as just a bunch of gangsters who illegally seized the power apparatus and then ran amok. But that was hardly the case. Hitler was elected. Then he used the apparatus of the state to dismantle all checks and balances and concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands. When the Gestapo kicked down a door and dragged a family to interrogation and then concentration camps, it was all done with the legal authority of legislation and the blessing of courts packed with sympathetic justices. One of the most striking images for me was a photograph of black-robed judges giving the Nazi salute as they swore allegiance to the fuhrer. Remember that judges were supposed to be independent arbiters of legality under the constitution, just like here in the US.

The other exhibit, "Legalized Robbery," was as heartbreaking as it was informative. Relics of Jews whose names had been lost were on display: letters, combs, household articles, locks of hair, rings, photographs. Again, what was most striking was the careful explanation how it was under legal authority that these people were dispossessed of their personal property, and then charged, tried, imprisoned, and exterminated, all with the blessing of law. The paperwork was filled out properly and duly signed by empowered authority. Courts jammed with crony judges presided over trials and appeals processes.

You know the rest. I just wish we could heed the warnings of history about executive authority claiming greater and greater power for fear of external threats, and now a perpetual war against a concept of terror, rather than a specific enemy. This vagueness is no error, for in attempting to constitute unlimited authority it is necessary to keep the rationale as vague and shapeless and fearful as possible.

Yes, they claim that this time it's different. But if we did not have to yield so much of our civil freedom during the Cold War when the Soviet Union had the means, method, and motivation to lob thousands of nuclear warheads upon our heads, and also permeated our society with spies, then why is it that disorganized bands of religious fanatics require even more stringent restrictions?

The reasons are clear, and it has little to do with protecting American citizens. This is about power and its seizure by dangerous people, just as it was in 1933 in central Europe. The Germans aren't afraid to face their own horrible past. Why are we so frightened to benefit from those same lessons?

More Fuel for Chimpie's Pyre

From an article in The Texas Monthly, rightly entitled "The Pimping of the Presidency":

Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Rotten from the head down, from the tail up, from the spleen out, from the skin in. Dirty, filthy, stinking, rotten.

You're Doin' a Heckuva Job, Chimpie

More good news for those who keep insisting on a war on terror that should "last the rest of our lives," since their own actions seem to be creating yet more of what they claim to want to stop.

President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to the Middle East have strengthened Islamists across the region, posing fresh challenges for the United States, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and democracy experts.

Islamist parties trounced secular opponents in recent elections in Iraq and Egypt.

Isn't that swell? Of course, in Bushworld, up is down, democracy is tyranny, and torture is affection, so I guess Islamist victories over secular candidates is, what? The triumph of American values?

If you're Pat Robertson or Sen. Tom "Kill the Abortionists" Coburn of Oklahoma, then yes, indeed, theocratic fascists rising to power must be something to really celebrate. And perhaps that reveals what may be the Bushit secret agenda to roll out in the Mideast what they desire for this country--a totalitarian state run by clerics of a certain fanatical Christian persuasion.

Or it could be another case of the marvelous and stupefying incompetence of these idiots. It's hard to know. Diabolical or stupid?

Probably both.

Time for a Diaper Change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Proof of torture, bribery scandals, admissions of illegal spying, lies leading to a horrible war, low poll numbers--on and on it goes, and still Chimpie and Company claim that everything is cool and they are going to resolutely stay the course until the country is finally trashed into the oblivion of history. But something passed under my eyes from Zogby that should have the Bushits crapping their pants. Why has the Chimperor's job approval rating slipped back below 40 percent?

The deterioration in the President’s numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. And the problem is the Iraq war – just 34% of respondents said Mr. Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38% approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October.

Yes, folks, the investor class has at long last realized that national bankruptcy, unlimited defense expansions, and imperial wars are perhaps not going to fatten their 401Ks quite as much as the peaceful 1990s did. They're slow, to be sure, but they do catch on, and when they do and all those low-tax-lovin' quasi libertarians realize that their privacy is pierced, their sex lives will be judged by Pat Robertson and their kids are going to be working minimum-wage jobs for managers out of Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, suddenly the crypto-fascism of the Bushits does have a price too high to pay, no matter how much wealth it means they can pry from the tightening fists of the underprivileged everywhere else.

Tightening fists of rage against the US. To wit, according to Forbes,

Socialist Michelle Bachelet won Chile's presidential with 53.5 pct of the vote and a seven-point lead over her rival, according to partial results with most of the ballots counted.

Where have you gone, Augusto Pinochet? No, it doesn't look like good times are coming for US companies in Chile, or in the rest of Latin America. I guess decades of supporting right-wing death squads are finally completing the karmic circle, not to mention supporting an attempted coup against a legally elected leader in Venezuela, and God knows what other shenanigans are in the works to try to destabilize Bolivia, Brazil, and any other nation that decides to look after its own people instead of US business interests.

The virtue of business is that it has only a single virtue--making money for the investors--and its pretty good at it, all the way to the point of influencing/coercing the military and espionage arms of government to do dirty work for it. But when that government is run by a bunch of half-witted ideologues who also happen to be almost perfect incompetents in everything they attempts, well, the business community, under which stands the "investor class" gets rather pissed off. The Bush policies have made it popular to boycott American products, have virtually ensured the death of the US auto industry, pushed the health care system to the precipice, and failed to do anything smart about immigration, among other idiocies, that are making the moneymakers very, very nervous.

And the investor class, baby, it wants to get paid. I know--I'm one of 'em. Give me my pound of flesh you Chimpite motherfuckers!

Why I'm Proud to Be a Swedish Boy

I am so grateful for my Swedish heritage when I read something like this. Swedes rise up and declare your secular militancy!

Swedish logo designer Bjorn Atldax did something that even the American ACLU could not do: He made walking advertisements among young Swedes for an anti-Christian message.

I don't know if it's really anti-Christian. It seems to me more as play with symbols. Also, if you're a gnostic and believe that Christians are mistaken in worshipping the current God (because Satan really took over at the crucifixion) then what could be more Christian than upsetting the current dogma? Anyway...

In tragically hip Sweden, where churchgoing has been declining for decades, Bjorn Atldax is seen as something of a folk hero. Secular Sweden is far more concerned about maintaining free speech.

Imagine that! A country that values free speech!

Go Ingrid! Go Jonas! Go Astrid, Ingemar, and Olaf! Go Sweden!

Out On a Limb: Olaf Predicts

(Holding the envelope to my forehead, a la Karnak the Magnificent)

"And the answer is California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher."

(Tearing open the envelope at one end, flexing it slightly, blowing in to open it. Pulling out the paper inside.)

"Who will be one indicted congressional representative in the Abramoff bribery scandal?"

Now how would old Olaf, aka Karnak, know that, or guess it at least? Easy. Just read who's making excuses, the lamest excuses, for Abramoff, who was a Republican operative for decades and who has now pleaded guilty to numerous felony counts.

"They're portraying Jack as a monster. I see him more as a good person who's done bad things and has to be punished for doing bad things," Rohrabacher, a longtime friend of Abramoff, said in a phone interview.

Don't you just love that? "A good person who's done bad things." I'm sure that's true for most of your villains in the world, you know. They're just poor, tortured, misunderstood people who make themselves and their buddies rich by preying on others. But they're good people. Good people. Good people.

Hmmm. You'll recall how Chimpie is fond of that phrase: "He's a good person," or "They're good people," when speaking of his allies.

Now I know exactly what that means.

The Devil's Gouty Foot

Dick Cheney has been reported to be walking with a cane, and now has had to be checkedout for shortness of breath resulting from treatment for a "foot problem." It sounds like Dear Dickie is suffering from gout (yes, I'm exercising my Bill Frist option on long-range diagnosis). How perfect, how just like the aristocrats that once tyrannized France and England, so overfed on red meat and rich desserts that they reach a state of excessive uric acid in the bloodstream which manifests itself as pain in joints like the big toe. Overfilled with uric acid--how perfect is that? And even an old atheist like me begins to believe that Satan is real when I read Cheney's medical history.

McBride said the foot condition was not related to surgery last September to repair aneurysms behind both knees or the 64-year-old vice president's lengthy history of heart problems. He has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant a special pacemaker in his chest.

I mean, what's keeping this guy alive? Must be...Satan!

And what could a report of Dickie be without a quote from the Chimperor himself, who seems to be stuck in a groove when it comes to job assessments.

"The vice president's doing a great job on behalf of the American people," [Bush] said. "He's a very important member of the team."

Sounds like the end of the line for Dickie-poo, since the last time Chimpie gave such a ringing endorsement for an administration official, New Orleans was under water. Where's Brownie now?

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!

This Week's Best Description of the Bush Strategy

From Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone:

Up until now this president's solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding to this first serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the same way they always have -- with a fusillade of silly, easily disprovable bullshit. Bush and his mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and cloud the issue of why we're in Iraq, and they do so not only selectively but constantly, compulsively, like mental patients who can't stop jacking off in public. They don't know the difference between a real problem and a political problem, because to them, there is no difference. What could possibly be worse than bad poll numbers?

Right on the money. The money shot, so to speak.

Someone Who Knows About War Crimes

Last night I watched a rerun on C-SPAN of a panel presentation at Georgetown Law School regarding the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two. What particularly struck me were some of the fundamental principles that had been set down in 1945-46 for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court, to which agreement there are now over 100 nations. The United States, however, is not one of them.

Mr. Benjamin Ferencz, one of the prosecutors at Nuremberg, has a terrific website, and has devoted his life to international law. If you don't yet subscribe to the idea of the Bush regime as a collection of war criminals, I would ask you to consider that the invasion of Iraq was done without United Nations authorization (unlike the 1991 Gulf War) and on the basis of "pre-emption." Here's what Mr. Ferencz has to say about that after he had obtained convictions for war crimes of Nazis by their own admission

The twenty-two defendants in the Einsatzgruppen case were selected on the basis of high rank and education. Many held doctor degrees -- six were SS Generals. The principle defendant, General Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, patiently explained why his unit had killed about 90,000 Jews. Killing all Jews and Gypsies was necessary, said Ohlendorf. as a matter of self-defense.

According to Ohlendorf, it was known that the Soviets planned total war against Germany. A German preemptive strike was better than waiting to be attacked. It was also known, said Ohlendorf, that Jews supported the Bolsheviks - therefore all Jews had to be eliminated. But why did he, the father of five children, kill the little babes -- thousands of them? The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany. Long range security was the goal. He lacked facts sufficient to challenge Hitler's conclusions. It was all very logical -- according to General Dr. Ohlendorf.

Please note how a kneepad press might contribute to the dissemination of such beliefs.

I had not called for the death penalty, although I felt it was richly deserved. I simply asked the court to affirm the right of all human beings to live in peace and dignity regardless of race or creed. It was "a plea of humanity to law." The three experienced American judges concluded that a preemptive strike as anticipatory self-defense was not a valid legal justification for mass murder. If every nation could decide for itself when to attack a presumed enemy, and when to engage in total war, the rule of law would be destroyed and the world would be destroyed with it.

As to those 100 nations who do support the International Criminal Court, the signatories include our European allies from WWII as well as Germany itself. Mr. Ferencz makes this final point that is perhaps what should have the Bushits running scared most of all:

Aggression, according to the Nuremberg judges and other precedents, is "the supreme international crime" since it includes all the other crimes. There can be no war without atrocities and unauthorized warfare in violation of the UN Charter is the biggest atrocity of all.

I encourage you to visit this site and look over Mr. Ferencz's writings in which he lays out a convincing case of the ICC, the UN, and the need for law instead of war. When we, as a nation that spends more on its military than all other nations combined, fail to adhere to international law, then it is clear that our ideas need reexamination, paricularly regarding the means by which we wish to spread these ideas.

Question of the Day

Joe Conason, one of the true journalists still standing, poses a question worthy of speculation in this paragraph posted today in an article on the requirement for impeachment of Bush:

Why would the President instruct the Attorney General not to seek warrants from the FISA court, as the statute requires? What did he and his aides fear from that court's conservative judges -- appointed by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- who have routinely approved all but a tiny percentage of the warrants presented to them by this and other administrations over the past quarter-century? Which wiretaps did he expect those pliable judges to reject?

Wiretaps on people from his enemies list? Wiretaps on journalists who badmouth his administration? You have to wonder that when a FISA warrant can be obtained after the wiretap has been ordered, and when the FISA court has rejected almost none of the 19,000 requests made since the law was enacted, just how outrageous were the wiretaps that El Presidente wanted?

At home my telephones sport stickers that say "This phone is tapped," and it was originally meant as a joke. Little did I expect that it would turn out to be an accurate assessment of the violation of the Fourth Amendment by the criminals that continue to assault the Constitution in the name of security.

Assault on the First Amendment

Those-who-wish-to-be-tyrants despise a free press. Of course, if we really had a free press, I wouldn't be to worried about what is happening when Bushito summons New York Times and Washington Post editors for some strongarming on truths they might care to tell. You see, although the First Amenedment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a free press, it does not guarantee the existence or availability of a free press, particularly within an environment so controlled by strictly commercial interests (GE owns NBC, Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns CBS, etc.) whose leadership hobnobs and begs favors from the political establishment. So this revelation is all the more chilling by its secrecy.

Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on Americans and others within the United States without court orders.

But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them but are not authorized to comment because both sides had agreed to keep the sessions off the record. The White House had no comment.

You see, now we not only have to depend on leakers to get the truth out about what goes on in the White House, we have to have leakers to find out what goes on in the press when it deals with the White House.

If these meetings had occurred three years ago, or even one year ago, do you think that Keller and Taubman would have had the courage to run the stories Bush was trying to suppress? Well, we already know that the Times sat on the NSA domestic spying case for a year.

Free press my fucking ass.

Mythology of Terrorism

Do terrorists exist? Yes, of course, and they exist in many guises. Do some of them want to do us harm? Unquestionably! It's a fact of life in any civilization, and 9/11 brought it home in spades to the U.S. (but let's not forget domestic terrorism like McVeigh in Oklahoma City, or Eric Robert Rudolph in Atlanta and Birmingham).

But the way the Bush administration wants to cast what is really a highly fragmented and variegated collection of terrorist groups into some monolithic threat on the order of the Cold War Soviet regime is a lie on a scale so massive that it can only have a single purpose. The so-called "War on Terror" has been fabricated so that under this phony blanket of fear the fascist-minded zealots can keep chipping away at limits to their power, visibility into our own government, and our very rights as citizens.

The War on Terror is a marketing scheme, designed to collect any threat or act anywhere and put it into the pot of rationalization that this group of thugs keeps stirring and serving up as a gruel of repression. Quit eating this shit! Quit using the term. Start talking about the war on Al Qaeda, or Indonesian bombers, or Islamic extremists in Spain. Get specific.

The reason for this is that how we use language to describe what must be done reveals whether or not we understand--or intend to explain--what our plan is for dealing with the situation. If the police simply talked about our "war on crime" every time a robbery occurred, wouldn't you be asking who did it, where, with what, and how? And yet our news media doesn't seem to want to delve any deeper than the thin porridge of platitudes that Chimpie's gang serves up in steaming bowls.

The threat of terror is real, but it is no more or less than it was four years ago, or ten, or twenty, or fifty. It's a fact of life, but rather than effectively dealing with terrorists, the game is now played to hold up terrorism as a justification for acts by government that are much more of a real threat to our way of life.

Don't be conned. Demand specifics, and demand specific actions. The next time someone says "War on Terror," ask where that war is being waged, with what means, and against whom. These are not phantoms or supermen or boogiemen. And we don't have to surrender to fascist fear-mongering to effectively deal with them. Unless, that is, you're running a corrupt and incompetent evil empire of your own.

The Belly Laugh

Last night on The Late Show with David Letterman, I had myself a truly purging release through laughter. Dave introduced a segment called "The Late Show Response to Bush Spying" (or something like that), bringing up stage manager Biff Henderson, who was standing next to a telephone.

Dave: Take it away, Biff.

Biff: All right, Dave. (Picks up telephone receiver.) Hey Bush. Mind your own fucking business. (Hangs up.)

Dave: And there you have it.

I think I had an abdominal rupture or something after that.

Another chant for the season.

Oh My, More on Impeachment

Go to this Editor and Publisher issue for a great piece on this subject. And they answer the accusation that the MSM is still largely a gargling nest of bum-slurpers:

When Washington Post pollster Richard Morin finally answered the "I" question in his online chat, he said, "We do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion -- witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in '08 are calling for Bush's impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls."

Oh, WaPo, how far you've fallen since Nixon.

Told You So

My relatives, even my wife, have long considered me to be wild-eyed and prone to overstatement with regard to the Bush administration. Two years ago I was severely taken to task for referring to them as a "criminal enterprise," and when I was hollering for impeachment on the basis of the many, many offenses committed against the U.S. Constitution and international law, again my various in-laws told me I was nuts. There was no way that was going to happen, what with a Republican controlled Congress, blah, blah, blah.

Well, friends, the word "impeachment" has now reached a level of play that even the mainstream media is afraid to ignore, and when even those sycophants rise up far enough from their kneepads to clear their throats of Cheney's cock and cough out the "I-word," then things must be in a state of panic inside the White House.

Howard Fineman of Newsweek, who I must grudgingly respect as he seems to have remained an actual journalist instead of an eager-to-swallow stenographer for the Official Word of Emperor Bush, has put the issue front and center.

For months now, I have been getting e-mails demanding that my various employers (Newsweek, NBC News and MSNBC.com) include in their poll questionnaires the issue of whether Bush should be impeached. They used to demand this on the strength of the WMD issue, on the theory that the president had “lied us into war.” Now the Bush foes will base their case on his having signed off on the NSA’s warrant-less wiretaps. He and Cheney will argue his inherent powers and will cite Supreme Court cases and the resolution that authorized him to make war on the Taliban and al-Qaida. They will respond by calling him Nixon 2.0 and have already hauled forth no less an authority than John Dean to testify to the president’s dictatorial perfidy. The “I-word” is out there, and, I predict, you are going to hear more of it next year — much more.

And Patrick Fitzgerald is still working on the Karl Rove treasongate issue too.

It's getting to feel a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Hee-hee-hee.

Time to Impeach, and then Indict

Am I missing something? Here's the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now here's George W. Bush, presidential impostor, lying about how he has authorized violations of this law, from the White House's own website, from April 20, 2004:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Further on in the speech, however, he was frighteninly candid about how far he and his criminal gang were prepared to go:

. And we needed to change the whole attitude about how we protect the homeland. We'll do everything we can to stay on the offensive.

Apparently, even to the point of tossing out the Constitution. Who needs to fear Osama (still on the loose, by the way) when we've got our own domestic forces destroying our protections?

Chimpie Clobbered by Conservative George Will

This is a first for me, I think, but I absolutely must quote George Will in today's Washington Post:

The president's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language. Assuming that urgent facts convinced him that he should proceed anyway and on his own, what argument convinced him that he lawfully could?

I think the answser to this is that he, or his controllers, were convinced that he could get away with it. "Urgent facts" or "facts" in general are not anything that this administration feels are relevant to any action they take. Given the timidity of the mainstream media to call him on his blatant lies in his news conference yesterday, I can understand why the Chimpie criminal gang continues to believe that they can violate the law of the land, jeopardize our liberties, and do so with impunity and no fear of prosecution.

Welcome to the North American Banana Republic of the United States. All that is lacking is a flashy uniform with giant epaulets and a gold-braided high-peaked cap for El Presidente.

Chimpie: No Irony Gene?

If you're a Seinfeld fan, then you'll remember the episode where the four characters split up in the subway--Jerry to head to Coney Island, Kramer to pay some fines, George to interview for a job, and Elaine off to a lesbian wedding. At one point, Elaine says to a woman, "That's ironic." The woman says, "What do you mean?" Elaine begins to explain why what she has said is ironic. The woman stops here. "No," she says, "what does 'ironic' mean?"

Don't you imagine a similar conversation with Chimpie Bush if you tried to explain the following as ironic:

After initially refusing to discuss whether he had authorized domestic spying without court approval, President Bush decided to come clean. He acknowledged over the weekend that such spying had taken place, much as it was described in Friday's New York Times. He argued that it was vital to thwart an enemy that knows no boundaries.

And which enemy would that be? Well, the greatest threat to my constitutionally protected personal liberties seems to be a presidential imposter who considers himself completely above the law, who personally, repeatedly, ordered the National Security Agency to spy on citizens, which they could legally do by simply getting a secret court to authorize them. This court, created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which almost never refuses such requests (in fact, it has approved over 15,000 of them!), and was instituted to give some oversight to such extraordinary measures, which is all fair and good. But even that little bit of bother is too much for the Chimperor who must at all costs maintain his fantasy of monarchic power, missing the days when he could regularly sign death warrants and rule like Caligula, which may be fine in Texas, but ought not to be considered anything but criminal behavior on the national level.

"An enemy that knows no boundaries." Was he pointing a finger at his temple and winking when he said that?

To My Faithful Readers...

You may have noticed a dearth of postings these past two weeks. I have no excuse other than a kind of exhaustion of rage against increasingly outrageous behavior of the Chimpie Criminal Empire. Even when the whole world cries "Liar, Thief, Criminal" at Cheney, Chimpie, Rumsfeld, and company, they forge ahead, stripping our nation of respect, protection for the individual, sovereignty of nations, sanctity of life, and compounding their lies with an unimaginable level of hypocrisy. Their minions in the national legislature and in the exectutive continue an unrelenting assault against the environment and the working person, education, expression, sexual freedom, and separation of church and state. And on and on it goes.

I'm tired of ranting and raving and marching and carrying signs. It's not enough, at least for now.

So I'm taking a little break over the holidays. I hope you'll check back in in a week or two when perhaps I'll be refueled with anger and bile. But for now, I'm turning to some self-indulgent reading and musical enjoyment.

Have a great holiday season. May all your dreams come true.

Condi Rice to World: We Are the Torturers and Mighty Proud of It

Berlin may be my favorite city on earth, and it just galls me that Condoleezza Rice is not persona non grata there as a principal liar and handmaiden to war crimes for the Bush administration. She's appearing in Europe essentially to bully the Europeans into keeping quiet about our torture policies lest they lose our "protection" for them in the overhyped and underplayed "war on terror."

European governments have expressed outrage over reports of a network of secret Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe where detainees may have been harshly treated and reports of CIA flights carrying al-Qaida prisoners through European airports.

Several countries have denied they hosted such sites. If the United States did operate such prisons, or is still doing so, the information would be classified. The Bush administration has refused to answer questions about it in public.

"Were I to confirm or deny, say yes or say no, then I would be compromising intelligence information, and I'm not going to do that," Rice told reporters on her plane to Germany. Before leaving Washington, Rice told reporters that fighting terrorism is "a two-way street" and that Europeans are safer for tough but legal U.S. tactics.

If there are any Europeans reading this, I'd like to know your views on whether or not you're safer because my country is now cheerfully and energetically engaged in cruel, inhumane, and degrading practices for interrogation to the point that even language in a Senate bill outlawing such practices is grounds for Chimpie's first veto of his entire administration. And don't forget Dick Cheney's sexually charged defense of the practice. I know it's harder to get it up when you're married to Lynn and have heart trouble, but having innocent people beaten, shocked, chained to the floor in their own feces and forced to perform homosexual acts for the camera is a kind of pornography he should be shy of admiring in public.

You see, these war criminals don't deny such charges against them; rather, they seek to reclassify torture and unprovoked invasions of sovereign nations as legitimate enterprises. The slippery slope that that unrolls is a terrifying one indeed. Maybe that's the "war on terror" they should be studying for a change.