Sideshow Politics

John Kerry's bad and bumbled joke and the insane Republican reaction (is McCain really that stupid, or is he really such a Bush asslicker?), Ted Haggard's meth-sniffing, sex-for-pay play, Mark Foley's predilection for teenage boys--why don't I ever write about these things? A friend asked me this today. Yes, it is a conscious decision during an election period because while these episodes are wonderfully salacious, juicy, and reveal the depth and gravity of right-wing hypocrisy, it's still not relevant to the exercise of power in this country. We have one huge problem in this country that must remain our focus, and that is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal that is still desperately trying to establish a tyranny in this country, and who has no moral code, no admirable ideology, and virtually no competence beyond smearing opponents and intimidating dissenters. In the actual administration of power they are an utter and complete disaster.

A totalitarian mentality mixed with incompetence is what creates the perfect storm of national disaster, and our ship of state is still steadily on course for BOTH Scylla and Charybdis with a monstrous iceberg and a couple of sea dragons to boot.

If Pastor Haggard likes to dust his nostrils and then take one in the booty, well bully for him--he's gotten his just desserts for his hypocrisy as a leader against gays and non-Christians. If Mark Foley is a slimey chickenhawk cruising for buff butts, he too is now paid for his hubris in trying to simultaneously push through child protection laws. And the fact that John Kerry is an egomaniacal dope without the sense to even avoid humor that will always fall flat does not overcome the intentional or intentionally feigned stupidity of those who claim he has insulted the military--that just reveals how desperately thin their basis is for even being appointed to scrape dog shit off our cities' sidewalks.

Eyes on the ball--we face totalitarian, amoral, sociopathic megalomaniacs trying to destroy our country for reasons that defy explanation. Such is the poison of power.

The Good News?

You know that the situation in Iraq has really hit the shitter when the following is the good news coming from the U.S. military:

The chart does note some positive developments. Specifically, it notes that “hostile rhetoric” by political and religious leaders has not increased. It also notes that Iraqi security forces are refusing less often than in the past to take orders from the central government and that there has been a drop-off in mass desertions.

Three and a half years after Chimpie McFlightSuit declared "Mission Accomplished" on the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the best news coming out to counter the 100+ dead Americans in October is that religious nuts are toning down their rhetoric? Oh joy! We're on the road to victory now! And lower mass disertion rates among the Iraqis who will allow us to "stand down as they stand up." Boy, I sure feel better. Smells like...catastrophe.

I have to hand it to the Bushits--they managed to stir the pot in Iraq precisely to the point where we can't fix it but can't in good conscience abandon it either. Who pays? Our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers serving in the military, whose fate lies in the hands of idiots and megalomaniacal madmen. And keep in mind that not one single civilian associated with this disastrous policy has been fired, let alone been shackled, hooded, waterboarded (a "no-brainer" per Cheney) and then dropped into the dock at the Hague for war crimes trials.

Okay, so what to do? Congressman John Murtha made these suggestions last year on November 17:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

I'd be delusional to think that "Mission Accomplished" Chimpie and his gang of thugs would do anything like this in the runup to the election, but I predict that if they lose both houses of Congress next Tuesday, they will be carefully positioning themselves to engineer exactly such a plan and then blame the Democrats in 2008 for "losing Iraq." That's like setting your house on fire and then blaming your neighbor for failing to put it out once it's already mostly ashes.

Let's Go for a Swim, Dickie

A "dunk in water" did NOT refer to waterboarding, which in turn, is NOT torture. As a return to Dick Cheney's offer to take me pheasant hunting, I'd like to take him to my favorite water park (Scroll down for pictures). You can do this at home, kids!

Another Possibility: the Genius of the Bush/Cheney Plan

In the previous post, I posited that the Chimperor and his gang had essentially contributed to a worsening of situations across the board, and the commentary got pretty heated. What if there is something both we, the so-called "Bush-haters" and their opposite, "the Bush-crack-lickers" had all gotten wrong?

What if total chaos is the overriding goal of this gang of miscreants? After all, even I wouldn't argue that Bush and company actually tried to fuck up on every single thing they touched. No one wants to be a total incompetent all the time. Or do they?

If you have investment interests in oil, or in armaments suppliers, or in shipping, or in security firms, or in big pharma, then destabilization of currencies, energy supplies, governments, security, travel, and the creation of a more fearful world are going to make you very, very wealthy.

If you own stock in Lockheed-Martin, the Carlyle Group, General Dynamics, and Northrop-Grumman, which is better: a quick, efficient victory, followed by a stable transition to new governance, and then a rapid withdrawal, or a quick, efficient victory followed by a meatgrinder of civil and sectarian strife that bogs down the world's most powerful military machine for a decade or longer?

Cui bono?

Those bastards may have outsmarted all of us on both sides.

More Americans Enter Reality-based World

When only 16% of the nation thinks that the Chimperor's administration is truthful about what happened on 9/11/2001, that's some deep doodoo, to quote the elder Bush. And speaking of Bush 41, he and his cabinet members now must bear the burden of the idiot son, Bush 43, completely fucking up the Middle East and generally weakening the United States in every arena. And they knew it was going to happen, emphasizing again how these mandarins always put their power over the national interest.

"Everyone knew how Rumsfeld acts," another key 41 assistant said. "Everyone knew 43 didn't have an attention span. Everyone knew Condi [Rice] wouldn't be able to stand up to Cheney and Rumsfeld. We told them all of this, and we were told we don't know what we're doing."

That any American still naively believes that politicians act out of conscience is frightening, but that they can be so utterly bamboozled by power-mad fiends with no conscience at all is even more frightening.

We've got to quit acting like children looking for a daddy or a mommy to make our world safe. Democrats, Republicans, independents, all politicians are corrupted by the electoral process, and owe their offices to focused special interests, not to the people who elected them. Politicians respond to the will of the people only when they fear the people. That's how power works.

And yet, despite the debacle we have entered thanks to arrogant power, we do not see people in the streets.

When I was in Leipzig, Germany, earlier this year, I spent some time in the Stasi Museum which documents the abuses of that internal security mechanism against the citizens of the state. The Stasi was perhaps the most efficient and widespread internal security operation in history. In October of 1989, however, the people got fed up. A paving stone in the town square commemorates the event when the people surrounded the secret service headquarters that now houses the museum and began chanting, "Stasi raus!" The Stasi officers barricaded themselves inside the building, genuinely fearing for their lives.

You know the rest of the story. On November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. Less than a year later, the East German regime ceased to exist.

The memorial, that paving stone, is simply the impressions of different pairs of feet. Feet on the street. That's how people take back their power.

Olaf and the White House Agree!!!

My wife is an optimist. She believes that no matter how bad the break between people, deep down somewhere there is an accord of some kind, an issue on which they can agree. And from that agreement, it is possible to build bridges to more common understanding, and ultimately achieve compromise, and maybe someday...harmony.

Well, I don't know about all that, but on one thing apparently the White House crooks have been in the closet when they could have been out front hangin' in solidarity with old Olaf Rotkohl. From MSNBC last night on Keith Olberman's Countdown, we learn something from the former #2 man inside Chimpie's Office of Faith-based Iniatives, David Kuo:

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

And yet the Bushits won something like 95 percent of the evangelical vote, and even more astonishingly, they did it by actually spending $20 million a year LESS than Clinton on the "nuts." How did they pull this off?

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims, with organizations friendly to the administration often winning grants.

More pointedly, Kuo quotes an unnamed member of the review panel charged with rating grant applications as saying she stopped looking at applications from “those non-Christian groups,” as did many of her colleagues.

Hahahahahahahahaha! Suckers! I told ya so! You and the rest of the 59 million who "reelected" these criminals in 2004 are now being shown that the only thing that matters to the Chimpie and Cheney syndicate is power, and there is no one they won't sell out, lie to, maybe even kill, to get it and keep it.

And to all of those who were conned? Both the White House and I enthusiastically say: Fuck you, fools.

Why Some People Shouldn't Do Drugs

The Hillbilly Heroin Homeboy hits one out the park! Those Democrats--so diabolical that they set up a ten-year sting operation to get Republican Mark Foley to troll for teenage boys.

Of course, there's another Republican theory on the talking points list too--that Mark Foley was in deep cover as a Democratic plant, set to embarrass them at just this moment.

Of course, applying Occam's Razor to this outrage, it would appear to simply be that Mark Foley--REPUBLICAN--is just a creepy old man with no regard for age-of-consent laws or power differentials in working relationships.

Your First Amendment Rights...

...as interpreted by your Vice President's office. You see, he is a dictator, immune from any contradictory comments. Mr. Howardss fuckup was that he didn't say "reprehensible" to Chimpie the Hand Puppet. The Chimperor would have taken it as a compliment, slapped Howards on the back, and said, "We'll repre-insulate those evildoers and killers over there so we won't have to repro-masturbate them over here."

Chimpie Indirectly Admits His War Criminality

Watch Jack Cafferty on yesterday's CNN spot.

Bush knows he's in the shitter if the Congress flips...and if the Dems have the guts to do what's right and ship his--and Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, Wolfowitz's, Rice's, et alia's--ass to the Hague for prosecution.

Death penalty for certain war crimes under the Geneva Convention--I like that, particularly since we still execute people--even retarded ones--in this country, so Chimpie hasn't got a rock to hide under, especially in Texas.

Welcome to Tyranny

Mind you, this comes from the highest law enforcement official in our nation, who also seems to forget that we have three branches of government, one of which--the judiciary--is to ensure that our rights are preserved. But Alberto "Tortureboy" Gonzalez must have been snorting coke with Chimpie that day in law school.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime.

You see, Tortureboy doesn't believe that judges should participate in judicial processes if it contradicts a mad-as-a-hatter and dumb-as-a-rock president.

"Judges must resist the temptation to supplement those tools based on their own personal views about the wisdom of the policies under review," Gonzales said.

Even judges aren't exempt from little waterboarding.

Welcome to Amerikkka. James Madison was too prescient.

Must-see YouTube!

Oh my goodness, this is funny! Viva iMovie!!!

How Can Anyone Support This Buffoon? A Theory...

I think that anyone left who supports Bush-- and Rasmussen's poll claims that includes 40% of my fellow Americans--must do so now only out of (a) total embarrassment, (b) total separation from the reality-based universe, or (c) a traitorous intent to destroy the United States from within by continuing to enable a combination of ill-educated fuckwads, greedheads, and Christofascists to loot the treasury, convert democratic rule to autocratic theocracy, and descend into a Caligulopoly.

Caligulopoly, you ask? Well, "Caligula" originally meant "little soldier's boot," a nickname the original Caligula acquired as a boy and always hated, sort of like "Shrub" or "Nitwit Son." And while, perhaps, Chimpie's personal habits do not descend to the (actually unprovable) depradations of Caligula, his insistence on the right to torture, invade countries, detain without cause anyone he deems his enemy, and declarations like "I'm the Decider" coupled with the childish tantrums of late (he said he won't allow ANY interrogations of terror suspects if Congress won't give him his way on torture), have pushed him into at least the outer circle of Cal's camp in terms of leadership style and megalomania.

And I should apologize for using a word like "buffoon" for Bush. He's too malevolent to be a mere buffoon. What he is is a fucking disaster.

9/11: How Mass Murder Gets Turned into Media Exhaustion

I really hope that no national holiday gets created for 9/11. Already, before the Madison Avenue juggernaut has really had a chance to fully exploit this day, exhaustion is overpowering me, and perhaps others, because the collective media melded mindset simply cannot approach the subject with anything like an original or critical intent. God help us when five more years pass and we start having ad blitzes like this:

We're exploding prices on our 2011 SUV line!

We're terrorizing high prices!

Osama may still be on the loose, but you can catch our 9/11 end-of-summer sale and beat the terrorism of high prices!

You get the idea.

In addition, of course, the criminal empire that is BushCo. is inventing new levels of ghoulishness by parading the animated corpse of Dick Cheney onto "Meet the Press" and ordering Condi Rice to repeat her mantra, "No one could have imagined [fill in your fuckup here]." In all this masturbation, politicking, and ass-covering, the people who deserve to be able to reflect on their own and actual experiences are having their memories blighted or obliterated by the media onslaught, to wit, "Your experience is meaningless unless it is filtered through OUR lens."

It's the ultimate tyranny--now you can't even experience your own tragedy, unless Auntie Katie or Uncle Bryan read it to you over the teleprompter. Those who died and those who loved them are still under attack by an engine of commerce that knows no limit to avarice and has no inkling of shame or reflection. By turning this event into the carnival of thumbsucking that it has become--just another means to sell toilet bowl cleaner and skin care products--the greed that drives everything ultimately triumphs any pure opportunity for uncovering truth, because it just might cause the traffic in goods and services to stumble for a moment and notice the gaping chasm that our culture is hurrying toward, arms clasped full of worthless shit heads full of simplistic answers.

Chimpie Wants to Remember Anniversaries, eh?

Well, let's cast back 5 years and 1 month to August 6, 2001, to a presidential daily briefing given to El Presidente. What was the title of said briefing?

Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Today's presidential "speech" should have had him laughed off the lectern, but the bootlickers, sycophants, enemies of liberty, and scum of what passes for political and media life in the United States actually broadcast and applauded this idiot.

What fucking country am I living in? It's like a perpetual bad acid trip through a totalitarian nightmare commanded by morons and incompetents.

I'm sorry not to be posting more but it's hard to write when you're running the house screaming, "Shit!!!! Shit!!!! Shit!!!!"

So Jenna and Barbara Are Enlisting When?

Oh boy. El Presidente met with families of those slain on 9/11, in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Am I so cynical to believe this has something to do with disaster in his foreign and domestic policies and his correspondingly plunging ratings (except for the true wackos who could be plunged in boiling oil and claim it refreshing if Dick Cheney told them it was a hot tub)? You bet your sweet ass I am. From way up north in Maine:

One anti-war widow said she used the opportunity to voice her objections to Bush's policies.

"I said it's time to stop the bleeding," said Hildi Halley, whose husband, Army National Guard Capt. Patrick Damon, died June 15 in Afghanistan. "It's time to swallow our pride and find a solution."

She said Bush responding by saying "there was no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war."

So if discussion of the war is just reduced to hypotheticals, let's suppose Chimpie's two progeny enlist in the Marine Corps and volunteer for Iraq. He shouldn't object to that since it's all just philosophical jerking off. I'm sure those Marines are countering the premises of IEDs on the roadside with agile rhetorical wizardry.

The progress of Chimpie's philosophy:
--My decision to invade was based on sound evidence of WMD.
--My decision to invade was based on flawed intelligence.
--My decision to invade was the right one, even if there weren't any of those things there
--My decision to invade is not to be challenged except by terrorists and their sympathizers
--Don't blame me for the decision to invade. Who could have forseen this shit?
--The decision to invade was just a philosophical exercise. Next issue? Oh yeah, and I'm really sorry your kid/spouse/parent is dead. They died for a great neocon philosophy.
--Can I go for my bike ride now, Karl?

The Future of Advertising

Love those crazy Berliners! Once again, the city has inspired acts of resistance that could spread like a virus, in fact, ought to spread like a virus. My favorite artistic inspiration:

At 5:37 a.m. on April 2, 2002, the Parisian artist Zevs kidnapped a 10-meter (33-feet) model advertising Lavazza coffee from one of Berlin's main squares, Alexanderplatz. To be sure, the ad slogan "Express yourself!" was asking for trouble. Within a few hours, Zevs had cut the lady from the ad and left a note: "Visual Kidnapping -- Pay now." Zevs then issued a written statement demanding a €500,000 ($638,694) ransom. Just to make it clear he wasn't fooling around, he severed one of the model's fingers and mailed it to the company headquarters in Turin. Before the police could catch him, he escaped to Sweden.

From then on, Zevs toured the art galleries of Europe with a documentary film about his "kidnapping" and the kidnapped model itself, rolled up for convenient transportation. Two years ago, he asked visitors of Berlin's New Society for the Visual Arts (Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst) to take a vote about whether the model should be "executed." Last year, he finally returned her to the Lavazza company, following a sham ransom payment. Zevs is on a mission.

So if you're getting bored with your summer...

When Credibility Croaks, or, Rather, Gets Croaked

Zogby poll: "Rating down despite foiled terror plot and Lebanon cease fire; Democrats hold generic Congressional lead."

Why? Read my previous post on returning from Europe. Nobody can believe the Bushits anymore when it comes to terror warnings or declarations of making things safer. Terrorism and the "war" thereupon are first and foremost political tools for Team Bush. William Greider, writing for The Nation, has it perfectly articulated.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with alarming news. A monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme measures taken to tighten security.

The White House men wear grave faces, but they cannot hide their delight. It's another chance for Bush to protect us from those aliens with funny names, another opportunity to accuse Democrats of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This has worked twice before. It could work again this fall unless gullible Americans snap out of it. Wake up, folks, and recognize how stupid and wimpish you look. I wrote the following two years ago during a similar episode of red alerts: "Bush's ‘war on terrorism' is a political slogan--not a coherent strategy for national defense--and it succeeds brillantly only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical."

Then Greider asks the key question.

Where is the famous American skepticism? The loose-jointed ability to laugh at ourselves in anxious moments? Can't people see the campy joke in this docudrama called "Terror in the Sky"?

Now inevitably, some dickhead is going to accuse me of not taking terrorism seriously. Echoing the Donald Rumsfeld mode of Q&A, do I believe terrorism exists? Yes, of course. Do I understand that there are people who think nothing of killing thousands to make a point about their particular superstitious belief in invisible cloud beings and rewards after death? Absolutely. But do I think that the actual, measurable, and preventable acts of terrorism that truly threaten us have been responsibly addressed? In a word, no. Looking at actions versus rhetoric on the issue, I can only conclude that Bush and company care primarily for terrorism as a tool for the acquisition and consolidation of power and any protection of the people a fortunate coincidental occurrence.

After all, how many innocent people have been killed in Iraq? Has that action reduced the threat of terrorism? Are our ports better controlled? Are our borders secure? Where's Osama? Any word on those anthrax attacks four years ago? Are there fewer or more young Muslims ready to embrace the mythical 70+ virgins in martyr's heaven?

Good job, Georgie!

Detecting Bullshit in Berlin

Although I've been back since late Saturday night, it's taken me a while to get my thoughts together on the past week. Since my wife and I had to fly through London's Heathrow Airport from Berlin back to the US, we took acute interest in the alleged terror plot "uncovered" last Thursday. As I write this, our bags are still sitting somewhere in London, among more than 20,000 others, due to cancelled flights, broken screening machines, and the other effects of the alert. By some stroke of luck, we arrived at our ultimate destination in the United States less than two hours behind schedule, and even though our bags remain in limbo, I have to commend the British Airlines employees who worked so hard to keep things working. I'm very impressed with their diligence and calm in a rotten situation--they were universally helpful, understanding, remarkably good-natured, and I'll cheerfully fly British Air on my next trip back to the Old World.

On Thursday night, we came back to our apartment after a lovely dinner in a Mitte restaurant near Oranienburger Tor, and before turning bellies toward the ceiling to aid digestion, I flipped on the TV, hoping to catch another cool German detective show to help my admittedly poor language skills. On a German news channel, there was coverage of a terror plot uncovered and the effect it was having on air traffic through Heathrow. We switched to the BBC, needing to fully understand the implications for our return home, and received a calm and detailed report of what was known about the situation as well as information about what to expect as air travelers--delays, tight restrictions on carry-on baggage (i.e. none), and a rapidly developing situation.

Then over to CNN. The mantra: "Total chaos." This was repeated ad nauseum over shots of frustrated travelers, crowds of people at Heathrow, airplanes on the tarmac, and so on. "Total chaos." We would be flying home on Saturday, so this was not welcome news. "Total chaos."

On Saturday, fortunately, our flight Berlin-London was not one of many that were cancelled due to the situation. As we had learned from BA's website, we could carry only our identification papers, money, keys, and prescription meds--everything else had to be checked, including my little travel guitar which, alas, was not in a hardshell case but only protected by its gigbag, lush though its padding is. "Ah, die arme Guitarre," a young German man said behind me. Yes, the poor guitar indeed. Oh well--it was the risk I took hauling it around. Better to be secure.

But something about the distinct hysteria of CNN compared to coverage of the BBC and the German networks was sticking in my throat. While I was happy to shed myself of all material possessions in the interest of airline safety, there was something fishy here. My wife didn't think so--so many people arrested, such a profound set of restrictions suddenly imposed on air travel, so many flight cancellations, etc., she felt this had to be something imminent and very real. Call me cynical at this point, but when a terrorist "attack" is uncovered following a really shitty week for the Bush administration--ally on war Joe Lieberman defeated in the Democratic primary in Connecticut and much criticism on failing to act early in the Lebanese situation plus Dick Cheney's accusations of al Qaeda sympathies for anti-Lieberman voters--it's become rather natural to consider a political rather than a security motive.

Well, surprise, surprise! From the London Times today, we find this interesting piece.

“This is the busiest airport in the world at the busiest time of year,” said Heathrow’s chief executive officer Tony Douglas. “To suggest we could continue as if nothing had happened is frankly ludicrous.” Except, actually, nothing had. Not at Heathrow, anyway. No suspected terrorists were apprehended at or on the way to the airport, no bomb-making material was found on airport land. It never is. Look at the clear plastic box on display at every security checkpoint. Nail files, scissors, corkscrews, pen knives. No guns or bombs. Shortly to be joined by paperback books, cuddly toys and a litre of Buxton’s finest. But still no bombs.

Today, Britain’s state of alert will be downgraded from “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” to “Is it me or is that bloke with the beard sweating a bit?” which means small hand luggage will be allowed, but no liquids. Water bottles being the new shoes — remember Richard Reid, when everyone was under attack from Hush Puppies? — it is absolutely vital that we do not take liquid refreshment on to planes. Trains, fine: because, of course, whoever would think of targeting the rail network in Britain? Not this year, anyway. Well, I’m certainly feeling safer.

Now this doesn't mean that there wasn't a terror plot unfolding. It's just that it hadn't really unfolded so far that the British wanted to spring the trap.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

So why did the British pull the trigger when they did? Here's an Australian take on what I wish I was seeing on US network news. Why isn't this making its way into our mainstream media outlets?

BRITISH and American authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on suspects in the alleged plot to bring down US-bound airliners, US reports suggest.

A senior British official told NBC News on Saturday that British police were planning to continue surveillance for at least another week as the suspects had not yet bought airline tickets and some did not even have passports.

In contrast to previous reports, the unidentified official told NBC an attack was not imminent, but the US pressured British police to move in. The source did say police believed one British-based suspect was ready to conduct a "dry run". British authorities had wanted to let him continue with part of the plan, but the US baulked, the report said.

Isn't it sad when kneejerk reactions like mine, which are admittedly biased by my disgust with this regime, keep turning out to be true?

Anyway, more on the trip later. Only problem--my notebooks are in London with all the other stuff--not a ballpoint pen, nor a notebook could be carried onboard. Still, kudos to British Airways. Now, if they just deliver that guitar in playable condition...

Off the Grid for a Couple of Weeks

Olaf's off to Berlin on his first vacation in fourteen months, so the postings will likely be very thin for the coming weeks. However, if I find a friendly internet cafe and a little inspiration, perhaps I'll post from abroad. Those damned European keyboards are mapped differently, though, and can really confound these old American fingers, so if my spelling or punctuation goes to hell, please cut me some slack.

I'll be back, my friends, bigger and badder and uglier and madder than ever.

All the best!

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?