Olaf's New Face

My new look. Hope you like it.


The Reign of the Moronic Chimperor has finally gotten to me. Trust me, I feel worse than I look. Time to return to Berlin for a rejuvenatory vacation.

Oh, Barack Obama! Whither Thou Goest?

This is for my friend MB:

I was as excited as anyone to see Mr. Obama elected to the Senate two years ago. Dick Durbin has always been one of the few true Democrats and adding Mr. Obama as the junior senator was something to make every Illinois citizen proud. But something has happened to him since he's arrived in Washington, and it's the same disease that has destroyed the Democrats as an opposition party. Here's an example in today's press.

In a speech last month that drew fire from liberal bloggers and raised eyebrows in Washington, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., warned that far-right conservatives like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would continue to hold sway unless the Democratic Party competes for the support of evangelical Christians and other churchgoing Americans.

"We make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy," Obama said.

Here's the problem--a modern, pluralistic democracy cannot exist without a strict separation of church and state and there's a damned good reason why: bending public policy to fit the superstitions of people of "faith" rather than reason and experience is destructive. Any examination of history shows that faith-based or faith-influenced government (and that includes ideological "faith" as well--fascism, Stalinism, cults of personality) always, ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism and disaster.

Religion should be free from government intervention and government should be free from religious intervention. Until Obama quits catering to fanatics who believe their mumbo-jumbo should dictate our lives, he's a loser in the Democratic Party. Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson are power-mad charlatans, con men, and anti-democratic fringe fanatics who, were it not the usefulness they provide to the fascist wing of the Republican Party, would be raving on a street corner somewhere in shit-stained smocks. They are not to be catered to, or even acknowledged as contributors to any discussion of how our democracy should operate. They believe that invisible beings speak to them and through them. I call that mental illness, not leadership.

Shame on you, Mr. Obama. Compromising with the likes of Falwell, et. al. does nothing for the progress of democracy; in fact, it inhibits it. We cannot "reconcile" foolish superstition with self-governance based on reason and experience. One if absolute fantasy, and the other is all that saves us from the more malevolent exploiters of such fantasy, like Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson.

So You Still Don't Think It's All About Oil?

Click and learn. If we could just pull that needle out of arm and develop alternate energies, conserve, and be good global citizens, all this shit would be entirely unnecessary.

But then, who is the biggest exporter of arms to the world? Who spends fully half of all worldwide monies on military expenditures? Who selectively attacks and props up equally repugnant regimes in the mideast, including those (Pakistan) who sell nuclear technology abroad? And ultimately, whose "standard of living" is most at risk from its loss of control over the oil-rich regions?

Neocons desire perpetual war, absolute oppression of the people, and plutocratic control...and we're just letting it happen.

Goodbye, America. It was a nice experiment.

What Our Greatest Ally's People Think of the U.S.

Think of this on Independence Day--we are held in lower esteem by our greatest ally than during Vietnam. And as far as the majority of Britons are concerned,

People in Britain view the United States as a vulgar, crime-ridden society obsessed with money and led by an incompetent president whose Iraq policy is failing, according to a newspaper poll.

Sounds about right, I'd say. And I hope Chimpie takes it very, very personally. They hate him, man.

With much of the worst criticism aimed at the US adminstration, the poll showed that 70 percent of Britons like Americans a lot or a little. President George W. Bush fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a "great leader" against 77 percent who deemed him a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader.

And how is it that so many Britons see through this bastard's rhetoric by good ol' Americans continue to be fooled again and again and again.

More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.

I'd say that the British know a little something about imperial power, wouldn't you?

Oh, the irony! Happy 4th of July!

Where We're Headed if the People Don't Wake Up

That Cheney is the real power in the executive branch may be debatable, but his philosophy is the guiding one, and it in turn is guided by a relatively unknown dude, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington. Read the New Yorker piece and then have a stiff drink. What historical parallel does this follow? As I've written before, the path to dictatorship is often through the legal system, by legitimizing what ought to be outrageous and illegal, like torture, secret prison camps, domestic spying, and an untethered executive. Reading this article was like revisiting the Berlin "Topography of Terror" exhibit that sits atop the old Gestapo headquarters. To wit:

Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside.

And what have we gained by allowing this erosion of law and basic humanity?

Yet, almost five years later, this improvised military model, which Addington was instrumental in creating, has achieved very limited results. Not a single terror suspect has been tried before a military commission. Only ten of the more than seven hundred men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo have been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

A nation of 300 million faces a dreadful future. This is a far more desperate situation than Americans realize, because it's secretive, corrosive, and slow enough not to be felt until it all falls into place, and by then it is far too late to turn back. Ask a Berliner about the years from 1932 onward and you may hear a story shockingly similar to our own as it progresses now.

The most chilling bit of this article is this about Addington's beliefs:

In meetings, he argued that officials in charge of the military commissions should be given maximum flexibility to decide whether to include such evidence. “Torture isn’t important to Addington as a scientific matter, good or bad, or whether it works or not,” the Administration lawyer, who is familiar with these debates, said. “It’s more about his philosophy of Presidential power. He thinks that if the President wants torture he should get torture. He always argued for ‘maximum flexibility.’ ”

"Maximum flexibility"--sounds pretty totalitarian to me. Is that what our brave men and women are dying to protect?

Democratic Towers of Jello

These are the Democratic senators who think a piece of multicolored cloth trumps the First Amendment.

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Dayton (D-MN)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Stabenow (D-MI)

I can understand the Republicans (with three exceptions, amazingly enough) voting to further squelch expressions of political dissent, but for these thirteen Democrats to play to the worst impulses of voters makes me puke. I'll burn some extra flags in their names for emphasis.

Opposition party my crusty ass.

On the Fourth of July

The Fourth of July used to be my favorite holiday--completely secular, celebratory, firecrackers, picnics, parades, and sack races. But now that's it's really nothing more than a jingoistic jerk-off festival for chickenshit chickenhawks, wannabe fascists, and soccer moms who think SUVs are their divine right by God, I think maybe I'll do something different.

Given the great threat to our way of life that the US Senate is now bravely confronting, I'm going to do something that only a true patriot would do.

I'm going to burn the flag, right after I flush a Bible down the toilet. Join me, won't you, in asserting the First Amendment before these assholes flush it down the toilet with their idiotic amendment.

Trust me--it will make you feel a whole lot better.

And as to This Other Piece of Human Excrement...

Oh Jesus. Read Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo today. Good God.

Your president. Your president. Your president.

Liar, Scum, Enemy of Democracy?

What else can you call Dick Cheney? I am so apoplectic I can't see straight to type, so give me your favorite names for this disgusting piece of dung wrapped in phlegm surrounding by a thick coating of hairballs. "I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered," this said. What? Has he been in fucking sedation since 2002?

Or is he a liar, scum, and/or enemy of democracy? Hard to say, but I imagine you all have some opinions on the matter.

How to Tell That Chimpie and the Chimpettes Are Desperate

Look, the mainstream media would have you believe that Chimpie is having a good week because:

Chief strategist Karl Rove did not get indicted.

Chimpie had to secretly sneak into the Green Zone in Baghdad wearing 25 lbs of body armor and a helmet

They manage to kill the umpteenth "Number Two Man" in al Qaeda.

Hardly a call for a victory dance, but spin isn't spin unless it's constant and high-speed. Is there really any good news for this gang of incompetent thugs? If it wasn't for the rosy veneer of the corporate-owned media, there would be riots going on over this shit.

Chimpy in Charge and Doin' a Heckuva Job

Do you feel safer now that 2500 GIs are dead? Was their sacrifice to George W. Bush's vision for the world worth the improved security? Oh, wait. It's not just me, apparently who thinks that (a) the "Global War on Terror" is a bullshit cover for creeping fascism, and (b) that if there really was a true war on terror, these incompetent idiots are the last group you'd want running it. Don't take my word for it, because I'm a raving lunatic. However, it's a lot harder to dismiss everyone as a moonbat who believes that the Global War on Terror is thus far a fucking failure.

Foreign Policy, a journal that is hardly some partisan rant fest, did the study of 100 foreign policy wonks from all sides. The good news:

A bipartisan majority (84 percent) of the index’s experts say the United States is not winning the war on terror. Eighty-six percent of the index’s experts see a world today that is growing more dangerous for Americans. Overall, they agree that the U.S. government is falling short in its homeland security efforts. More than 8 in 10 expect an attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade.

The top threat, in their view, is loose nukes. The most startling thing from this report is that 71 out of 94 CONSERVATIVES disagree with Chimpie that we're winning the war on terror.

Imagine that--old Olaf agrees with 75 percent of conservative wonks. Methinks that if the news media would get off its kneepads and take Dick Cheney's cock out it its mouth long enough to dictate some objective reporting, the entire political climate would undergo seismic change. But, you see, there's an election in November, and if the Congress shifts radically, all those party invitations, golf gaggles, and hooker-serviced poker parties at the Watergate courtesy of the Republican majority are going to end. I mean, who'd fuck a Washington Times or Fox "News" journalist unless it was for money, right? A lot of money.

This Week's Second No-Shit-Sherlock Award!

Surprise! Surprise! The genius of our elected representatives has discovered that Americans want universal health care.

Imagine that: health care as a right in the world's wealthiest country. What are these people? God-damned socialists? What's next? Clean air? Water? A free and independent press? The right to protest outside a "free-speech zone"?

The commies are coming! Be scared! Be very scared! Oh, and don't forget that gays are wanting you to get divorced, burn flags, and marry illegal aliens of the same sex.

Leadership? I like what Ed Abbey said: "Adults don't need leaders."

While the Decider and the Republican Cohort Were "Defending" Marriage...

A nice collection of severed heads was found in Iraq, where we're "winning the war on terror."

Fifty folks were kidnapped by gunmen in central Bagdad, where we're "winning the war on terror."

Six thousand Iraqi citizens have died violently in Bagdad, the center of our continuing success in "winning the war on terror."

The hurricane season has commenced and New Orleans remains vulnerable.

The stock market shudders downward.

The U.S. dollar collapses.

Interest rates have hit a five-year high, squeezing everyone.

We are rather short of vaccine in preparation for the avian flu.

Two more American soldiers killed in our other "winning the war on terror" venue, Afghanistan.

Thanks to "winning the war on terror," gas prices are terrific!

And finally, as of today, the average American's individual share of the national debt has risen to over $28,000!

None of this matters, of course, if gays get the chance to destroy marriage by wanting to participate in it, or if Jesus decides the time has come and returns to earth to kill liberals, Prius drivers, vegetarians, and poor people.

I'm so glad it's Chimpie in Charge. He's the Decider.

And the No-Shit-Sherlock Award Goes To...

That wonderfully prescient and oh-so-competent Secretary of Defense, Donald "I Promise to Totally Fuck Up All Branches of the Military" Rumsfeld. To wit,

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday he is concerned that the war in Iraq could alienate people in Southeast Asia's Muslim nations, where he will travel next week.

The man's a fucking genius, ain't he? I'm so glad he's keeping us all secure, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Not Dead Yet

So sue me. I haven't posted in nearly three weeks and I've got no excuse. Well, except maybe that things are even worse now than three weeks ago, and how much more could I say that hasn't already been said here and elsewhere many times over starting long ago, like when Chimpie got sworn in and decided to go for the world record in bringing down his own nation. I am simply silenced by the continuing horror of Iraq, the accelerating deficit, the economic assault on the shrinking middle class, the demagoguery over immigration, Iran, and gay marriage used for distraction, the absolute willing impotence of mainstream media endlessly servicing the cock of power as if the bubbleheads in network news are going to give birth to the next messiah, etc. etc.

I feel ill even thinking about it, let alone writing about it. But there's one thing that lifted my spirits. Al Gore.

Yes, I know I left the Democratic Party after he blew the 2000 election--yes, it may have been stolen, but should it really have ever been close? A half-wit governer of a dismal state whose only claim to anything has been his family name should never have even made it through the first primary, let alone to a national election, but the incompetence and corruption of both parties enabled it. Now we pay the price.

Anyway, Al Gore may be our answer to FDR is what I'm saying. Maybe he could ride the back of this global warming issue into the limelight and finally demonstrate who he really is, and why we need someone like him in the White House to turn us back from the precipice that we are now speeding toward.

Is it possible, or is the news just so fucking bad that even Al Gore looks like some kind of savior?

If John Kerry starts looking attractive again, shoot me. Then I'll know we're really fucked.

Why ex-KGB Officer Vladimir Putin Is Laughing

Of course, you recall how last week Champion of Democracy and Peace Dick "I Shot the Motherfucker in the Face" Cheney lectured the Russians about using threats against their neighbors in what may have been the gold standard of irony. Well, it just gets better and better.

You see, back during the Cold War, old Olaf was, well, a cold warrior involved in intelligence gathering. There was a joke in fashion about the level of surveillance on the eastern side of the Berlin wall that went like this: What's the Soviet recipe for concrete? One-third sand, one-third cement, and one-third microphones. Post-Cold-War documents released by former Stasi (state security apparatus) in East Germany and other former communist-rule states revealed just how extensive the network of bugs and informers was, and it met even the most paranoid standard for intrusive government snooping.

Now we get this in today's USA Today:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

I guess we've in essence adopted the Soviet recipe.

Let's not forget, by the way, that when the fact of NSA spying on citizens came out a while ago, King Chimpie said it only occurred when one end of the calls was overseasm, which--surprise! surprise!--turns out to be another bald-faced lie.

Keep in mind that Clinton (and I was no fan of his, either) was impeached for his lie about receiving a little oral gratification from the zaftig Ms. Lewinsky. So how are the Senate and Congressional investigations going into the many, many lies and failures of this administration? Answer: there aren't any. Not only that, not one single liar or incompetent has been fired for the Iraq disaster.

Let me refer you to an opinion far more strident than my own about what should be done at this point. A sample:

George W. Bush lied when he said NSA's spying wasn't a domestic program. It is exactly a domestic spy program and what's more AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon have been assisting the Bush government in creating what is being described as, "[T]he largest database ever assembled in the world," and the goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within America's borders.

This is by definition, TYRANNY. Therefore, the Congress of the United States of America -- especially Republicans within the Legislative Branch -- has but one choice: Impeach George Walker Bush IMMEDIATELY.

In a nice homage to the Declaration of Independence, the author of this peace, A. Alexander, shows us what our RESPONSIBILITIES are as citizens...if we truly care about asserting our rights, that is. Otherwise, we can be like the poor folks I witnessed in East Berlin in the 1970s--angry, fearful, impotent, and utterly subservient to their paranoia.

The choice is clear. The time is now. What more will it take? Or will the USA fill up the vacuum of tyranny left by the collapse of the Soviet Union? Putin must be really cracking up--the fall of Communism brings on the fall of the US.

I guess it's pretty funny if you're a Russian.

Flying Monkeys' Jobs Threatened!

If the Wicked Witch of the West had had these, she would have ruled the world.

Are flying monkeys eligible for unemployment compensation? Will our own President Chimpie be eligible once he's impeached and standing in the dock in the Hague for war crimes? I say yes to the former and an emphatic NO! to the latter. The monkeys, at least, are capable of learning a useful skill in their down time.

The Chimpie Legacy

I've been telling friends lately that my belief for Chimpie's presidency is that he will exit the office as an international laughingstock and that even revisionist Republican historians won't be able to resurrect him to any level of respectability. He will be forever viewed as the worst president in history to be sure, but something far worse for someone with such a thin skin, Oedipal problems, and no sense of humor--he will be regarded only as a joke Americans played on themselves which cost them countless lives, money, prestige, and respect. And as bad as that is, and it is very bad, in ten years, in fifty years, in one hundred years, the term President Bush will become Millard Fillmore, Nero, Caligula and Merkin Muffley (of Dr. Strangelove) all rolled into one. He will eternally be the Idiot President.

Go and read Dan Froomkin's column on this. His recap and comments on the press corps reaction to Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert's savage and funny (if you're not Chimpie or his bootlickers) attack at the Correspondent's dinner last Saturday.

Too bad that so many have suffered so much for so long.

The Irony Meter Needle Breaks

In yet another act of either knowing, arrogant hypocrisy or unimaginable cluelessness, Dick "I shot the motherfucker in the face" Cheney has criticized the Russian government for using its oil and gas as "blackmail" against its neighbors.

"No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation," he said.

As opposed to using tactical nuclear weapons as tools of intimidation or blackmail, oil and gas seem rather benign. Remember, nukes are not "off the table" with regard to Iran, and scorching innocent civilians alive as "collateral damage" is the height of civilized behavior for this administation, so I simply can't understand Cheney's pique at Putin and the Rooskies.

You gotta hand it to him, though--he'll go all the way through his war crimes trial in the Hague as adamant as Zacarias Moussaoui did at his trial, right up to the moment they put the hood over Dick's head and the noose around his tender neck.

The Smell of Victory Sadly Still Sour

When even the news organization with its tongue the furthest up Chimpie's ass says he's at 33 percent in the polls, then you know there is panic in the White House. When Karl Rove is indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald, Chimpie's numbers will slide to below 30 percent, leaving only the most extremely ignorant and delusional theofascists in his corner, and if we're lucky they'll put on their black Nikes, lie back on their bunks, and eat their laced pudding to join the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the promised land.

The trouble is that these motherfuckers are still running the executive branch and both houses of Congress, and if they think they're going down, there is no reason to think that they won't incinerate the planet if it would give them even a ghost of a chance to save their greedy, wrinkled asses. So while I'm selfishly happy to be proven right over and over again at the incredible combination of corruption and incompetence of those in power, they're still in power, god damn it, and until 100 million Americans pour into the streets and surround the White House and the Capitol and demand the bastards out, they're going to hang on grimly for as long as possible to extract every last dime from the people's treasury into their own pockets, no matter who has to die for it.

Make no mistake--these are criminals with no conscience or shame, no different from any other gangsters who have no care for human suffering so long as it is not their own. Whether genetically or by choice sociopathic, they are utterly ruthless, and they will not yield power--it must be taken from them. Let's hope that the law prevails through the agency of Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald. If not, then the smell of victory will be only from the fires of revolution, and that will not be a benefit for the country as a whole, however necessary.

Let's hope for an orderly collapse.

Do You Really Believe in America?

A simple test: which is more important--free speech or respect for religion?

If you answer the former, welcome to the country we were meant to have.

If you chose the latter, then you are a religio-fascist. Congratulations. George Chimpie Bush is your pal, along with Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, and the other theo-Nazis who are evil precisely because they have the intelligence to know better, yet choose to believe that their opinions about creation, divinity, and life and death entitle them to control all of our lives. They are easily the most dangerous people threatening what is left of the freedoms we are pledged in the Constitution.

In the next election, I hope that every candidate who dares drag God into his campaign gets his ass whipped and handed to him or her on a Melmac platter. That shit should be private.

I have spoken.

Understatement of the Decade

From little Scottie McClellan when questioned about the lies over bioweapons trailers:

"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," McClellan said.

Two words: no shit.

What? Chimpie Lied? No Way!

Yes, I know how hard it is to believe that El Presidente might have been a bit late on the uptake of information generated by his own fucking administration, but it happens. Remember this?

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

There was one little problem, however.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

Is there anything that these bastards won't lie about? Anything? Anything? Please, post your examples of truth telling in the comments section. I'm really at a loss here.

Let Chimpie Show Them

So the Incompetent in Chief is headed to northern Virginia today to try to convince seniors there (a hand-picked crowd, no doubt) that his idiotic Medicare presecription drug plan isn't another bureaucratic disaster designed to siphon public money into private pharmaceutical and insurance corporate pockets.

Here's my humble proposal. Give Chimpie a laptop and tell the motherfucker, "All right, Mr. President. Set up your mom's prescription health plan."

Do this on national TV, no warning to the Chimperor, and let's see how goddamned easy it is for a Harvard MBA (admittedly a gimme for his family's contributions).

Talk about a compelling reality show.

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?