The Thinking Man's Blog

Mission Accomplished

2008-05-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

Gas prices are over $4 a gallon, the economy is in a recession, oil companies are turning record profits, people are loosing their houses to foreclosure based on bad loans, and the "war" is still going on with no end in sight. Yep...you did it G Dub and the Repubs, Mission Accomplished. You managed to take the United States from super power to one of the least desirable places to live. Way to go.

we're through

2008-01-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

HUCKABEE has won the primary???!?!?!?

How many drugs are you people on! How many times were you dropped as a baby!

That's it. We're done here. There will be no more postings to this blog. The people of this country are too stupid for the truth.

sign #2 that Bush has dropped the ball

2007-12-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

...and the hits just keep on comin"!

Question: why isn't this news on any of the major American news networks today?

Another sign that Bush has dropped the ball

2007-12-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

...as if you really needed more proof.

Keep in mind that this is a part of the world where the mandatory second language in schools used to be English.

Travel Alert: Foreigners Stay Away

2007-11-02T12:57:00.001-07:00

Innocent until proven guilty...wtf is that? We've never heard of it. (And what's more, we will believe anything that anyone tells us. Yes, we G-men really are that stupid.)

Is it any wonder that nobody wants to visit the United States anymore? Now if you're a chickens**t who is afraid of all foreigners, you probably think this is good news, because all foreigners are suspect terrorists by default, so the less of them around, the better. But I'm here to tell you that your figures are wrong. Less visitors means less tourist dollars being spent in the US buying US goods and US services. So less visitors is bad for the economy. And supporting something which is bad for the economy means that YOU PEOPLE are the real haters of America.

Believe me, we need more money these days. In the 7 years since Bush has taken power, the US dollar has been sliding against every other currency in the world. Even the freaking CANADIAN dollar is valued at $US 1.06 now. Why do people insist on thinking that this prezdidnt is good for the economy???

I will repeat the travel alert. Foreigners, stay away please. It is more for your protection than ours. If you come here, you might get tasered. You might get thrown in prison. You might get tortured. You might get shipped to another country against your will. You might get killed. Thank you, this has been a public service announcement.

Russia to America: BACK OFF!

2007-10-30T17:02:00.001-07:00

Okay, first it was China telling us not to hit Iran, and now it is Russia's turn because we clearly aren't listening.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, carried out a delicate balancing act last night during the first visit to Tehran by a Kremlin leader since Stalin, by warning the US against military strikes against Iran while continuing to withhold nuclear fuel from the country's sole reactor.

[jump]

But earlier, Mr Putin said: "We should not even think of making use of force in this region," as Russia joined a declaration by Caspian Sea leaders that warned outside powers against using their territories for launching military action, in a veiled reference to possible US use of Azerbaijan as a staging post.

Now, some of you might be reading only that 1 sentence in the first paragraph and thinking to yourselves: "Russia is withholding nuclear fuel from Iran's sole reactor? Why, clearly the Russkies think they're terrorists too!"

Wrong. First of all, Iran is still eight years away from developing the nuke, so the Russians could only be selling them commercial grade nuclear material for running commercial grade nuclear plants for creating commercial sector electricity.

(Here's a fact for comparison: America has more than 100 operational nuclear power plants. If terrorists really wanted to nuke American soil, don't you think it would be easier for them to take one of ours, instead of smuggling one over here or launching it with an inter-continental ballistic missile? Just a thought.)

No, what most Americans don't seem to get is the fact that Russia and Iran are long-standing business partners. Just like China and Iran are long-standing business partners.

[ ] Moscow's relationship with the Shah was founded on commercial interests, with a total trade turnover of approximately US$ 1 billion by the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

[jump]

The cornerstone of Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran is at Bushehr -- a power plant construction deal worth eight hundred million dollars to Russia (with more mooted for new projects upon completion).

[jump]

Arms sales, trade including oil and gas, Caspian sea delimitation, transport links, Israel and broader strategic geopolitical considerations all form part of the complex Russia-Iran relationship. Russia is the second largest arms supplier in the world after the US and its arms contracts with Iran in the 1990s had significant impact on relations at a time when Russia badly needed the hard currency.

[jump]

More widely, Russia is involved in gas exploration in southern Iran, an Iranian satellite programme and Iranian civil aviation -- resulting in bilateral trade hitting $2.4 billion in 2005.

Some impressive dollar figures, eh? And you think the Russians would just let us walk in and destroy that entire market, and threaten the lives of over 1000 Russian citizens and engineers living and working in Iran? The Chinese aren't exactly a bunch of feckling cowards or dummies, either. And they have pretty much the exact same trading-partner setup with Iran that Russia does. How many other superpowers need to threaten us before we get the message to leave Iran alone?

In the final summary, before we reverse our course of insanity, how many nations of the world will align themselves in a giant coalition against the United States? Will it become a situation of America versus the rest of the world? It is certainly starting to feel that way.

Get them out. Now.

2007-10-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

A new weapon has materialized in the hands of the insurgents.

In southern Iraq, where U.S. troops and the remnants of the multinational coalition wage a low-intensity war against militant factions themselves at war with each other, soldiers say one of the enemy's weapons has blown their confidence more than all the others. So called EFPs, or Explosively Formed Penetrators, have become the weapon du jour among the Shi'ite fighters. The devices cap a tube or pipe full of explosives with a solid copper disk that, due to the force and heat of the blast, transforms itself into an armor-piercing slug. EFPs can destroy Humvees and disable even the Abrams tank. U.S. officials insist the weapons are made or at least designed in Iran but have so far failed to produce a direct link. And while EFPs are only a small fraction of the bombs used by opponents of the U.S., news reports say that they caused 23 of the 69 U.S. fatalities in the month of July. To the soldiers who face the threat on a daily basis here, it doesn't really matter whether EFPs come from Iran or are made in Iraq. They just hope and pray they can find them and disarm them before they explode.

Get the troops out of Iraq now. Not just the American ones. End the war like yesterday.

Every EFP that is detonated kills 2.5 soliders. Humvees, body armor, and tank armor notwithstanding.

An EFP can be built into an object as small as a jar of peanut butter and then buried in the dirt. I know you're thinking "metal detectors?" but you have no idea how many tiny scraps of metal are to be found on the roads, how much metal the tanks and convoy vehicles and troops are carrying, now many EFPs will not be found in time. Besides, are you really going to stop the whole convoy EVERY time you get a metal signature?

And suddenly, this sort of news makes a whole lot more sense.

Bring them home. Now.

Get them out. Now.

End the war. Now.

The whole war is illegal. Here's the law.

2007-10-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

Seriously, this piece lays out everything in detail:

Mistakenly, many Americans still believe President Bush’s war on Iraq is justified because Congress supported it and funds it.

Yet, as international legal authority Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois points out, President Bush got congressional backing by lying that Hussein had W.M.D. and that Hussein was connected to 9/11. That’s fraud, probably the bloodiest, costliest lie in White House history.

Also, to start a war, a country needs UN Security Council approval, which Bush failed to get. Otherwise, a nation can fight only in self-defense when attacked.

By attacking Iraq, Bush violated the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, the UN Charter, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals, and the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles, Boyle said.

As all treaties become the supreme law of the land under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, the Bush-Cheney presidency is guilty of breaking all of the above, warmongering in spades.

In testimony defending U.S. soldiers who have refused to fight in Iraq, Boyle noted that, under Nuremberg, "a soldier has a right to absent himself or herself from committing international crimes." In short, if given a criminal order, the defense used by Adolf Eichmann, Hitler’s master killer, that he was only doing his job, is a phony.

Boyle testified that First Lt. Ehren Watada had the right, "if not the obligation," to say, "I don’t want to participate in this." Watada faced an army court martial for not deploying with his unit for Iraq. Watada won a victory when the judge ruled a mistrial.

Boyle believes, "A soldier has an obligation to disobey illegal orders," which he says is printed in black-and-white in the Army’s Field Manual(AFM) 27-10.

Without Security Council authority, President Bush’s war is "a crime against peace," Boyle says. That’s also written in paragraph 498 of the AFM.

"Any person, whether a member of the armed forces or a civilian, who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment (as)…crimes against peace," the AFM reads.

This broad definition would seem to include trigger-happy private contractors in Iraq. And since the U.S. has committed war crimes in Iraq, U.S. soldiers are legally within their rights not to serve there, Boyle said.

Of course a solider has an oblivation to disobey illegal orders. I watched A Few Good Men, I trust Jack Nicholson to know these things.

But seriously...some of you are now going to scream "who the hell is this Francis Boyle, and what the hell does he know, just another tough-talking leftie pinko commie I'll bet" and think this is a good counter-attack. It's not.

Who knew????

2007-09-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

What an amazing concept...driving out a good percentage of your customers and workers out of town is very bad for the local economy. I am shocked...shocked to the core of my being that anything so unpredictable as cause & effect could turn out this way. Shocked, I tell you. I might even faint.

(Psst. Hey, you dumbass GOP mo-fos. Yeah, I'm talking to you. It's called supply and demand. Pay more attention in Economics 101 next time.)

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Is the lesson clear yet? Is the point driven home yet? This is the reason why America has always been the Great Melting Pot of multi-culturalism for the whole world to follow and admire. We shut out no one. (Or at least, we aren't supposed to.) "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Where the hell would YOU be today, if your parents or grandparents had been turned away from Ellis Island? (Only Native American Indians don't need to answer that question.)

Think about that for a second.

Now here's the second part of that same lesson. It's one thing to allow immigrants to immigrate...but it's another thing entirely to discriminate against them when they arrive in their new nation, block them off from jobs and resources that everyone else gets, and just generally treat them like slaves or scum or second-class citizens.

Where the hell would YOU AND YOUR FAMILY be today, if your parents or grandparents had not been allowed to start businesses and take jobs and thrive in America? Where would your education and health care have come from?

Think about that one for a second, too.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget.

Oh yeah...forgot to consider that, didn't you? Those pesky inconvenient laws. So unfair. They should be re-written so that only white Christians will be allowed to work and to live here and to own property, is that it? Everyone else gets shipped out to prisons or concentration camps, and you keep their stuff. Is that your idea of fairness?

I'm sure that the Nazis would have agreed with you.

Idiots. The laws are written they way that they are for a reason. A lot of good reasons. Maybe you could try reading a few of them (the federal kind) before you try passing illegal ones at the State level next time. Just a thought.

Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

Wimps! Blame-America-firsters! Y'all just enabled the enemy and helped the turrists! Stay the course, stay the course, stay the course!

Wait...what does the immigration scene in America have to do with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan?

That's very simple. You need to respect the brown people here, so you can learn to respect them over there.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

A lot of Americans don't think past the next ballgame or the next episode of Lost. But hey, that's Americans for you.

War: the only way that Americans learn about geography.

But while Riverside’s about-face may repair its budget, it may take years to mend the emotional scars that formed when the ordinance “put us on the national map in a bad way,” Mr. Conard said.

Translation: We were stupid, we did not know we were in the wrong until we were mocked before the whole world, and now we're very sorry that we did it.

That's another thing the immigration scene in America has in common with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Because someday we will be saying the same thing about those two wars.

So...you admitted you were wrong...great. That's only half the battle to reach the point of full redemption.

What else are you going to do in order to repair the damage, Riverside?

Some have adapted better than others. Bruce Behmke opened the R & B Laundromat in 2003 after he saw immigrants hauling trash bags full of clothing to a laundry a mile away. Sales took off at his small shop, where want ads in Portuguese are pinned to a corkboard and copies of the Brazilian Voice sit near the door.

When sales plummeted last year, Mr. Behmke started a wash-and-fold delivery service for young professionals.

“It became a ghost town here,” he said.

A ghost town...huh. How strange...I'm getting the weirdest sense of deja vu...

Oh yeah, now I remember. People are still using that phrase to describe New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Hilton, the former mayor, said some of the illegal immigrants have already begun filtering back into town. “It’s not the Wild West like it was,” he said, “but it may return to that.”

And wouldn't a certain cowboy president just love to see that?

And here's the emotional plea...

2007-09-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Please watch both of these videos.

Nothing more need be said.

2007-09-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

This should probably be the final post on this blog. A new study shows that liberals and conservatives have radically different brain structures. Man is indeed a political animal. We are not swayed so much by personalities or ideologies as we are by genetics.

So this means that...all of the work that we've been doing in here, trying to convince the mule-headed that King Bush the Second is not the best president that this country has ever seen, was probably pointless. Because it has now been proven that you people don't listen well to reason. The only thing that could change your minds is some kind of emotional plea.

The answers may surprise you. Or, they may not.

2007-08-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder what the deal was with those post-9-11 anthrax scares?

One set of laws for them, one set for the rest of us

2007-08-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

Congress sucks...this is nothing new.

The only thing different these days is that we now have a White House that is equally corrupt and contemptuous of the law. So now every Congressman feels that he can felonize and hypocritize all he wants to -- the President will pardon him. And the converse is also true. Congress won't impeach or censure the President, they need his protection just like he needs theirs.

Which leaves the judicial branch all alone as being the sole standard of morals and propriety under the law. (I am not including the Department of Justice in that statement because it is an executive Cabinet run by Alberto "Abu Gharib" Gonzalez.) And now you understand why everyone in the government is attacking the judges.

R.I.P. American Constitution, 1787 - 2007

2007-08-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

On Friday, what was left of the American federal Constitution passed away. It was 220 years old. Despite the ravages of the last 7 years, it enjoyed a fairly long and robust life. It leaves behind no successors. It will be remembered fondly.

I say this because Friday Congress overwhelmingly approved Bush's new version of the FISA law without edits, which will have the unfortunate side effect of removing all remaining civil liberties and giving our government (excuse me, I should say our executive branch) vast unchecked power in the ability to spy upon anyone, anywhere, anytime, and for any reason known or unknown, stated or unstated.

Yeah...reasons for cops and jackbooted thugs to do the things they do is *such* an antiquated concept, anyhow. I mean, who needs reasons to break down doors and seize personal property and punch people in the face? And those pesky civil liberties...surely we are all just so much better off without them in the way.

It is also official that both parties suck in equal measures, and consequently neither one is worth supporting or defending.

So perhaps it will come as no surprise, to some of you, that we do not actually live in a democracy after all. No, what we are experiencing is actually called a plutocracy. A government by the wealthy, in eternal dominion over the poor. I don't entirely buy into everything that is written in that linked page, but it sure goes a long way towards explaining what the Democrats are doing these days. Sucking up to Republicans only makes them look like Republican suck-ups. I'm just sayin'.

Memorial services for the Constitution will be held today in the hearts and minds of all true patriots of this once great country. If you wish to donate, please send checks and money orders to the ACLU. This has been a public service announcement.

Lost and (Not) Found

2007-08-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

It was reported in the Australian press today (for some reason, the truly damning stories like this one never wind up in the American press) that the Bush administration lost approximately 190,000 weapons in Iraq. No, I don't mean lost due to the damage of being used in war. I mean lost, as in one second they were here in a military-controlled warehouse all stacked up nicely in crates, and then the next second, they weren't. Strange.

This is in addition to and on top of losing 363 tons of $100 dollar bills in Iraq (estimated to be worth twelve billion) and losing 380 tons of explosives in Iraq.

Who's really aiding and abetting the terrorists?

House says "No" to Bush on eliminating funds for Public Broadcasting

2007-07-19T01:08:00.000-07:00

Monkey boy is at it again. This time he wanted to curb the spending in government by eliminating the funding for Public Broadcasting. Ol' G-Dub figured that he could solve the budget problem by cutting out that $420 million that is being spent. The House, rightly so, told him and the few that supported the measure to go fuck themselves.

I got an idea for you, Chimp of the Change-Purse. Why don't you bring our troops home from Iraq and stop wasting all that money there. Then use some of that money you get back to fund catching bin Laden in Afghanistan so those troops can come home sooner. In 6 months to a year, you will save hundreds of billions of dollars AND catch the most wanted man in the world. Oh right....you can't do that because that would be thinking and heaven forbid we have any of that going on.

The rumor on the Internets is that Bush tried to axe PBS because of the "Frontline" series of investigative news programs, and the sheer amount of untold political damage this series was causing to Bush and his cronies. Just look at some of these titles...or better yet, watch them.

Holocaust Survivor Leaving US

2007-07-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Copied and pasted directly from this page because it's too good to leave up as a simple link.

One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).

He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled, nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.

I gotta tell you - it was chilling. I let him talk, and the whole time, my gut was churning, like I had mutated butterflies in my stomach. When he was finished, he shook my hand, gripping it really hard, until his knuckles turned white and he was shaking. He looked me in the eyes, hard, and said, "I will pray for your family and your country." He let go of my hand and hobbled away.

I have related this event to you in the hopes it will serve as a cautionary anecdote about the state of our Union, and to illustrate the path we Americans are being led down by a group of fanatics bent on global economic and military dominion. When a man who survived the fruits of fascism decides its time to leave THIS country because he's seeing the same patterns that led to the Holocaust and other Nazi horrors beginning to form here, it is time for us to recognize the underlying evil inherent in the actions of those who claim they work for all Americans, and for all mankind. And it is incumbent upon all Americans, Red and Blue, Republican and Democrat, to stop them.

Something to think about, during tomorrow's holiday.

And heeeere's the pitch...

2007-06-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

Israel prepares for war on Iran.

They are offering to take the lead on this war because America doesn't want to be viewed as a warmonger superpower. But make no mistake: once the Israelis get into it, we Americans will join them. It's almost like we have no say in the matter.

We have blogged about this before.

And that is another reason why this blog goes quiet at times. We're getting tired of repeating ourselves.

Despair

2007-06-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Americans
are
stupid.

STUPID!!!!!

And that is why there is no one intelligent left to stop another unnecessary war.

Another reason why this blog goes quiet at times.

2007-05-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Because the power structure of this country doesn't give a damn about us...and by us, I mean normal average everyday American citizens.

Republicans suck, this is true. But Democrats also suck. The former is full of corrupt criminals. And the latter is full of spineless lackwits who can't stand up to the corrupt criminals. (Are the Republicans bribing Democrats to soft-pedal the war and never bring impeachment charges?) From any sector of our government, there is no hope for change, there is no hope for true representation of the people's interests, and that means there is no real government.

In case some of you thought that this blog was solely created to bash the GOP, I just had to say that, and prove you wrong. We are not truly anti-GOP so much as we are pro-democracy. We just detest the Republicans slightly more than the Democrats because they do more to block the representation function of our government. But make no mistake, both parties suck.

Congratulations to the happy mothers!

2007-05-23T14:47:00.001-07:00

This just in...

Dick Cheney's lesbo daughter and lesbo daughter-in-law have given birth to their first child! The two moms are doing fine and Dick Cheney is reportedly very happy with the new addition to their traditional family.

Overthrow Saddam? Be careful what you wish for.

2007-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Please note the date on this article.

Then ask yourself who in the MILITARY structure, other than Rumsfeld, was supportive of invading Iraq.

It was done for the oil.

Republican grassroots vs. Republican leadership - Round One

2007-05-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

The famous GOP blogger site, RedState.com, has issued an ultimatum to its readership, asking them not to vote for Republicans until the party stops putting immoral scumbags (those with a history of corruption) up for candidates.

This includes boycotting any and all GOP candidates for President in 2008.

Let the fires of truth spread.

If you are reading this blog, then you are a terrorist.

2007-05-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

So says the states of Alabama and Virginia, as well as the FBI.

News that isn't news

2007-05-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

They don't make any mention of it, but every politician named in this article is a Republican.

Are you surprised? At all?

This is what's wrong with our country.

2007-05-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

Sick. Just sick.

I don't know about you, but I get a little bit creeped out when I read in the news that fathers and daughters are getting dressed up for attending lavish un-wedding ceremonies where the whole purpose is to invite guests, hold a ball, stage a banquet, trade VOWS and SPECIAL JEWELRY and forever swear to remain sexually true to one another. Until marriage do they part, either the daughter getting married or the father getting re-married to someone not the child's mom.

Am I the only one who finds this just a tad incestuous??????

Besides, abstinence does not work. Swearing to remain chaste and true until marriage does not work. The failure rate is 88 percent.

Navy Still Unprepared For Anti-Carrier Missiles

2007-03-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

Read the report and weep.

To my mind, being vulnerable and unprepared for even one of your enemy's weapons means being unprepared for war. Period.

Because we will lose.

You see, unlike the person who wrote this article, we here at TTMB don't need to speculate on whether or not Iran has equivalent anti-ship missile technology. We know they do.

Cause and Effect

2007-03-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why Republican rule is such a failure?

First you should check out this piece, which lays out the case why government cannot operate purely from a foundation of ideology.

Donald Rumsfeld has been axed. Tom DeLay cut and ran. “Scooter” Libby stands convicted. Michael “you’re doing a heck of a job” Brown was tossed. Newt Gingrich disgraced himself. And now the clueless Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is surely the next to go.

Why this confederacy of dunces? The conservative National Review cover asks plaintively, “Can’t Anyone Here Play this Game?” Time Magazine puts conservative icon Ronald Reagan on its cover, a tear rolling down his face, reporting on “How the Right Went Wrong.” But it’s not incompetence or corruption—although both abound—that fostered the misrule of this conservative administration. And Reagan would feel not dismayed, but right at home with the follies and crimes. Remember: Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese, was disgraced. His national security advisor copped a plea. Oliver North stood convicted. His defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, would have been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice if George Bush the first hadn’t issued a preemptive pardon.

What is it about conservative administrations that lead them into disgrace and indictment? Incompetence isn’t at the core of these scandals—ideology is.

Conservative presidents—from Nixon to Reagan to Bush—believe in the imperial presidency. They assume that in the area of the national security, the president operates above the law, or as Nixon put it, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” They operate routinely behind the shield of secrecy and executive privilege, with utter disdain for the law. So Reagan spurned the Congress when it cut off funds for his loony covert war on tiny Nicaragua. And Bush trampled the laws to set up the torture camps in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere. Each would seek to keep their lawlessness secret; and that would foster lies, obstruction of justice and ultimately disgrace.

Second, conservatives are acutely aware that they represent a minority, not a majority, position in America. From Nixon to Lee Atwater to Karl Rove, they play politics and exploit America’s divides with back-alley brass knuckles—from Reagan’s welfare queen to Bush’s impugning the patriotism of Georgia Senator Max Cleland, a Vietnam War hero who literally sacrificed his limbs in the service of his country. They excel in the politics of personal destruction, as Democratic presidential candidates Michael Dukakis and John Kerry discovered. And in the grand tradition of the establishment in American politics, they are relentless in seeking to suppress the vote, particularly of the poor and minorities who would vote against them in large numbers.

Gonzales’ imbroglio is a direct expression of this. At its core is the run-up to the 2006 elections with the Republicans under siege for the most corrupt Congress ever. The White House and Republican politicians grew exercised at Republican prosecutors who they considered too lax in exposing potential Democratic corruption, too avid in pursuing Republican crimes or too slow in prosecuting reports of “voter fraud,” the GOP code for using investigations to disrupt minority registration and get out the vote programs, and to intimidate wary black and Latino voters. Justice was ranking U.S. attorneys based on whether they were “loyal Bushies.”

The axing of David C. Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, is the archetype. With New Mexico up for grabs, Iglesias was being pressured directly and shamelessly by Republican Sen. Pete Domenici and Mickey Barnett, the attorney representing the Bush campaign in New Mexico to hustle up indictments on alleged incidents of voter fraud. (Iglesias found no evidence of any program designed to influence an election.) Vulnerable Rep. Heather Wilson lobbied him to bring indictments against state Democratic officials before the election to help make the point that when it comes to corruption, everyone does it. When Iglesias refused to respond, he was targeted despite glowing performance reviews. The firings took place as an object lesson for U.S .attorneys headed into the donnybrook that will be the 2008 election. As Iglesias put it , “main Justice was up to its eyeballs in partisan political maneuvers.”

Gonzales will surely be the next administration official to fall on his sword. Republican legislators are already questioning his ability to serve the president effectively. We’ll see more stories about White House mismanagement and incompetence. But don’t be misled. Bush and Rove know how to play this game. They play by their rules, the rules that conservative administrations have followed since Nixon. And that’s the real lesson. The phrase “conservative misrule” is a redundancy. The two words mean exactly the same thing.

All emphasis added by me. Hat tip to TomPaine.com for the opinion piece. Go check out the original for links to the news articles that prove every single one of these points.

Next, read this piece for a glowing review (not) of the various Republican candidates for president in the 2008 race. This opinion piece was written by a Republican. But you know it's not a good sign when the article concludes like this:

Several other lesser lights have announced that they will run but I doubt if any of them can get the nomination. To tell the truth, it seems rather obvious that although any of those named would be a better president than George W. Bush, none of them have the characteristics of an Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt (Teddy or FDR), Lincoln, Washington, or Clinton. More and more people are realizing that Clinton was a pretty good President.

[jump]

I, personally, think the Republican Party has lost it because of their support of the Iraq War, going into its fifth year today, with over 3,200 Americans killed, nearly 25,000 wounded and are not receiving proper care in many instances, and probably 75,000 (one estimate) Iraqis killed, with millions having fled their country and creating problems in nearby lands.

But there have been other major failures of the Bush Administration, such as withdrawing from international treaties, torturing of captives, not caring for the poor, firing prosecutors, etc. I am sorry for those who trusted him and have tried to support him, like Gonzales, and have found their jobs in jeopardy. The worst thing of all, however, has been invading a sovereign nation without proper plans for winning, not understanding Islam, using misleading intelligence that was not proven, and sending our troops into harm's way without proper materiel and no idea how to get them out and with no sense of regret or understanding. Where will it all end? I am afraid to speculate. God bless America.

This is a classic example of cause and effect. The cause: Neo-con ideology. The effect: everything that is wrong with America today. No, I'm sorry, the time has run out on the logic of blaming Clinton for everything that's wrong with America today. There was a statute of limitations on that excuse and you guys blew it. Who had rule of our government for the last 6 or 7 years?

What Bush has done to the image of the US abroad, in pictures

2007-03-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

Hey Bush, heard that you just got back from Brazil...how was it over there?

Lots of cute Latina honeys in bikinis crawling all over you?

Oh wait...I know! They were topless honeys on those topless beaches...right?

Four More Wars!

2007-03-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

So it's apparent that Afghanistan was not enough to sate the war appetite of this administration...and neither is Iraq, since we are now rattling sabers at Iran...and even that still won't be enough, because now we have to think about forcing a regime change in Pakistan too.

THE US has indicated for the first time that it might be willing to back plans by elite echelons of the military in Islamabad to oust Pervez Musharraf from power, as the Pakistani President was beset by major new difficulties over his attempts to sack the country's chief justice.

[jump]

The US report suggests a growing disenchantment towards General Musharraf in Washington and indicates that the longstanding view that the alternative to his regime would be chaos and a takeover by extremist Islamic mullahs is no longer ascendant.

The US officials say hardline Islamists have usually not done well in elections in Pakistan and that if General Musharraf were removed, a doomsday scenario would not necessarily follow.

The report could be an attempt by Washington to pressure General Musharraf to take stronger action against militants in Pakistan's border areas near Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa'ida are operating. But it might also indicate the President's allies in Washington are about to pull the rug from under him.

Right, we really need to be doing this because, you know, Osama is still hiding somewhere in Pakistan, and you know exactly how important that is to the White House...also, if we don't take out Pakistan, that means the terrorists will have won.

Conservatives on History

2007-03-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

We all know that conservatives lie to get their way, but it is so rare for them to get busted on film doing it. In this case, it's about history and who sent troops where and when. You see, to them, if your party sent troops into the last war the US was fighting, you should support your party again. In fact, you should never change your position. I would like to thank the Canadians for not changing their position on the war despite what conservatives say and think.

Enjoy their high priestess getting busted on the facts.

Happy Monday

2007-03-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

We're still counting and the clock until 1/20/09 continues to tick.

Death Before Dishonor

2007-03-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

This post is presented in memoriam to a soldier who was a true officer and a true gentleman. The U.S. Army program to train Iraqis as policemen is a scam, an operation designed to put tax dollars in the pockets of private contractors, weapons in the hands of death squads, and "war = success" talking points in the mouths of politicians. And of course, any military officer who cares more about his career than his country is going to side with the contractors and the politicians, and turn a blind eye to all of the corruption -- American and Iraqi alike -- and claim that things couldn't be going better and that everything is rosy rosy red. And the politicians will probably give these lying officers a medal for it.

This is the story of one officer who could not participate in those lies, and decided to take his own life instead of aiding and abetting the corruption. We salute this man.

Bush is breaking America

2007-03-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you read a personal account of the war...and there is nothing that you can do about it...nothing that you can say to make it better...nothing that you can add to its narrative to make it less painful to the narrator.

All that remains is to pass it on for others to read. Read, and understand. Read, and remember.

Remember...so that such wars will never be fought again.

GOP still not supporting troops? Why are you surprised?

2007-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

Please read this piece and then ask yourself:

-- who really supports the troops, and

-- who really doesn't support the troops.

You might be surprised to learn that the correct answer is not the Republicans or the right-wingers...in fact, the correct answer seems to be anybody BUT the Republicans and the right-wingers. But never let it be said that we made a scathing broad-sweep attack without having the facts to back it up. Let us now examine some of that evidence.

Perhaps you might have heard something in the recent news about current and former outpatients of veterans' medical facilities experiencing problems with quality of care at those facilities. Or perhaps you might not have heard or seen anything about this...it would probably depend on the size of the rock that you live under. I simply couldn't imagine what else might be causing right-wing pundits to go on the offensive and try to depict the problems at Walter Reed as being the fault of the media and the Democrats. You'd almost think that they were scared of these reports or something. You'd almost think that they had something to hide in regards to their true attitude towards the troops. I'm just sayin'.

Next, there is another story in the news about punishment and retaliation against the troops who are patients...by their superiors themselves. Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media. Furthermore, they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters. Which automatically begs the question: if the Republicans really HAVE been behind the troops 110% ever since the war started, then shouldn't the results be obvious and speak for themselves? Don't you right-wingers want the "biased" media to report on how wonderful the health care for returning veterans is? But this kind of order smacks of a cover-up. I'm just sayin'.

To further prove there is something wrong with this picture, even some of the typical GOP supporters are getting angry over this news (much like the guy in the very first link at the top), and are loudly demanding answers. Even bigshot talkshow radio host Don Imus is reporting that administration officials will only let him take a limited AND guided tour of the facilities. Quote: “They will cherry pick some places for me to go look at, but they don’t want me just going down there looking at the entire facility. I’m not interested in having that.” Neither are we, Mr. Imus, neither are we. For once, the left and the right are in agreement.

And if that wasn't enough, here is a video of Veteran Administration Secretary Jim Nicholson downplaying the high numbers of veterans returning from wars and requiring all sorts medical care. He claims that a lot of veterans simply "come in for dental problems." Just dental work, eh? Mister Secretary, I need you to take a look at some of these photos and tell me again how minor this Marine's surgery and rehabilitation has been.

Finally, here is a tragic story about three men who died at the Minneapolis Veterans Home after neglect or medication errors. And this was only last month, too. The exact same time frame on the breaking news of deplorable conditions at Walter Reed. Gee, what a coincidence. You don't suppose this widespread shoddy treatment would have anything to do with rumored plans of the Bush administration to slash funding for veterans’ health care as soon as Bush is gone from office, do you? I'm just sayin'.

Get one thing straight, people. That whole "Support Our Troops©" craze? Nothing more than a sound bite. A political meme. A talking point. A slogan for the ignorant and the weak-minded. A good selling campaign for the Republican Party. They have never cared about the troops, and they never will. I have documented all of the evidence for you above. Go read it again if you're not convinced.

Even right-wing supporters like Don Imus are angry with the government over this. Like the blogger-man said, how come none of the big-name right-wing bloggers are linking over to this piece and spreading the news of this latest outrage of the Bush administration against the average American citizen? Are you Keyboard Kommandos scared? Does the truth frighten you? Are you ashamed of your figureheads? Are you incapable of accepting the fact that your leaders can do wrong...lots of wrong? Are you really that insecure? Is having a "perfect leader" figurehead in your life 24/7 really that important to you? I'll bet that none of you have ever colored outside of the lines or broken a single speeding limit, either.

I label all of you wimps. Except for Don Imus and the guy who wrote the blog in the first link. They alone have guts enough to call it like it is. But anyways, I digress. This piece is supposed to be about the troops, not their bubble-headed cheerleaders.

I wonder if the troops would appreciate some other form of support other than empty and meaningless cheering. We have written about this subject before (see previous link), so the news doesn't really come across as a big surprise to us. After all, we ARE talking about the famously immoral GOP. When have they ever given a rat's ass about people who don't make more than six figures a year?

what can we do

2007-02-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

If the blog gets quiet sometimes, it is because the authors sometimes also feel exactly like this.

Overwhelmed by a sense of futility.

Caused by not knowing how to get our glorious and honorable country back. Not knowing who should be fired for chipping away at the civil liberties that the Founding Fathers died for. Not knowing how to convince one-third of Americans that Bush was not the better choice than Gore, and not even a better choice than Kerry. We have all of the evidence to prove this, right here, at hand. The facts have shown that the track record of this administration is not impressive and deserves an F. But you'd rather listen to talking points instead of news. You'd rather put more faith in George Bush than in Jesus Christ. You'd rather kill the Muslim than turn the other cheek. And by preaching war and hate, you transform my country into pre-Nazi Germany and damn all of us collectively to hell in the process. Why can't you admit that you were wrong in 2000 and 2004? Why do you refuse to admit that you've been lied to, and used like a ten-dollar whore? Why do you keep hoping that things will improve in Iraq...when you know damn well that they won't? (This White House cannot even fix New Orleans years after Katrina. What makes you think that it could run TWO wars simultaneously?) Why do you insist that stem cell research is murder...when you know damn well that it's not? Why do you worship and defend everything GWB does...when you know damn well that he wants to be king and dictator? Why do you vote for the GOP in every election...when you know damn well who's been stealing your money?

What needs to be done to change your minds? How can we make you (all of you) see the error of your ways? We've tried logic...that's clearly not working.

The Truth Hurts

2007-02-21T15:25:00.000-08:00

Here is a study which shows that terrorism around the world has increased by a factor of 7 since the US invaded Iraq.

That's multiplied by 7. Gone up 700%. Not diminished. Not stayed roughly the same. But proliferated like cancer. Spiked. Gone through the roof.

To everyone who has ever claimed "we need to fight them over there in order to not fight them over here" or "we fight them in one place to make the rest of the world a safer place" I have several things to say:

You don't know as much about war and politics as you think. In fact, it's a safe guess that you people know nothing about terrorism, the Middle East, Islamic culture, or corruption, beyond what you've seen in movies or picked up on each other's morning talk shows.

You were wrong. Wrong as the dude in Indiana Jones 3 who made the poor choice and drank from the wrong cup and did not receive immortality but died instantly. You were wrong, and you need to admit it before we can respect your reasoning and decision-making again. Until you admit this, you are suspended.

If you attacked your critics as being America-haters, blame-America-firsters or anything un-American, you also owe us an apology. All of us. Because we were right, and you were wrong. We knew that the Iraq war would only bring more chaos and dissolve world peace and push us closer to WWIII. But you didn't want to hear our reasons, you liked your own. And you attacked the messengers when you couldn't stand the message. So apologize already.

If you are still supporting Bush at this late date, you need to check yourself into some kind of rehab to get the dumb out.

Fox still cannot do comedy

2007-02-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

Please stop. It's embarrassing. You people are embarrassing yourselves, all news programs, all comedy shows, and this country.

I thought they would have learned a lesson from this, but nooooo.

The Ultimate Valentine's Day Gift

2007-02-13T14:56:00.000-08:00

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BREAKING NEWS: STEM CELLS CAN BE USED TO INCREASE BREAST SIZES
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Send this link to everyone that you know...especially those who are against stem cell research.

And while you're at it, send them this link too.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

2007-02-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Given the sudden ratcheting-down of testosterone from both Iran and the US, it would seem to appear that we have managed to push back the imminent arrival of World War Three.

Seemingly, of course.

I don't say this with caution because "one can never know the future"...one can ALWAYS know what a neo-con is going to do next.

Rather, I say this with caution because I don't believe that we've avoided going to war with Iran 100%. Those two presidents are still on a head-to-head collision course. We didn't keep the peace so much as we agreed to lob missiles at each other later than initially planned.

Why do I say this? Because the US still wants to make war with Iran.

Why another war? Because our oil happens to be sitting under their sand.

(Not that I actually believe this statement. It's just something that I happened to see on a wingnut's bumper sticker.)

We are still staring down the barrel of WWIII -- it's just that our jailer has grown bored with tormenting us, and we will resume playing Russian Roulette at some later date. And you know how the old saying goes: That light which you see at the end of the tunnel usually turns out to be the light of an oncoming train, nine times out of ten.

And all the King's men

2007-02-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

...couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

This time, the broken egg is America.

Learning the hard way

2007-02-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

There were things that we were supposed to learn, back in the disconnect between reality and the media's portrayal of Iraq in the days/weeks/months leading up to our invasion. There were things that we were supposed to learn about this disconnect. There were things that we were supposed to point out as being obvious ~~edits~~ ~~white-washing~~ differences between what Americans believed about Iraq, and what was the actual situation over there. There were things that we were supposed to learn as being media manipulation tricks played by our media and our government, and we were supposed to highlight these techniques, to ensure that we would never fall victim to them again. (Fool me once...) There were things, back in 2003. And we were supposed to learn from them.

So with that in mind, here is a list of those things.

How the press can prevent another Iraq

[jump]

You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority

-- Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.
-- Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.
-- Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.
-- Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.

Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War

-- War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. --- Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.
-- Demand to know what happens if the war (or tactical strike) doesn’t go as planned?
-- Demand to know what happens if it does? What happens after “victory”?
-- Ask them: Isn’t it possible this will make things worse, rather than better?

Be Particularly Skeptical of Secrecy

-- Don’t assume that these officials, with their access to secret intelligence, know more than you do.
-- Alternately, assume that they do indeed know more than you do – and are trying to keep intelligence that would undermine their arguments secret.

Watch for Rhetorical Traps

-- Keep an eye on how advocates of war frame the arguments. Don’t buy into those frames unless you think they’re fair.
-- Keep a particular eye out for the no-lose construction. For example: If we can’t find evidence of WMD, that proves Saddam is hiding them.
-- Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge.

Don’t Just Give Voice to the Administration Officials

-- Give voice to the skeptics; don’t marginalize and mock them.
-- Listen to and quote the people who got it right last time: The intelligence officials, state department officials, war-college instructors and many others who predicted the problem we are now facing, but who were largely ignored.
-- Offer the greatest and most guaranteed degree of confidentiality to whisteblowers offering information that contradicts the official government position. (By contrast, don’t offer any confidentiality to administration spinners.)

Look Outside Our Borders

-- Pay attention to international opinion.
-- Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?
-- Keep an eye out for how the international press is covering this story. Why should we be so different?

Understand the Enemy

-- Listen to people on the other side, and report their position.
-- Send more reporters into the country we are about to attack and learn about their views, their politics and their culture.
-- Don’t allow the population of any country to be demonized. All humans deserve to be humanized.
-- Demand to know why the administration won’t open a dialogue with the enemy. Refusing to talk to someone you are threatening to attack should be considered inherently suspect behavior.

Encourage Public Debate

-- The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate.
-- Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.

Write about Motives

-- Historically, the real motives for wars have often not been the public motives. Try to report on the motivations of the key advocates for war.
-- Don’t assume that the administration is being forthright about its motives.
-- If no one in the inner circle will openly discuss their motives, then encourage reasonable speculation about their motives.

Talk to the Military

-- Find out what the military is being told to prepare for.

That's so 2002

2007-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

Well isn't this just surprising...not.

[T]he frenetic activity at the desert enrichment plant in Natanz may be mostly about political showmanship.

The many setbacks and outright failures of Tehran’s experimental program suggest that its bluster may outstrip its technical expertise. And the problems help explain American intelligence estimates that Iran is at least four years away from producing a nuclear weapon.

[jump]

What the Iranians are not talking about, experts with access to the [International Atomic Energy Agency’s] information say, is that their experimental effort to make centrifuges work has struggled to achieve even limited success and appears to have been put on the back burner so the country’s leaders can declare that they are moving to the next stage.

To enrich uranium on an industrial scale, the machines must spin at very high speeds for months on end. But the latest report of the atomic agency, issued in November, said the primitive machines of the Iran’s pilot plant ran only intermittently, to enrich small amounts of uranium. And the Iranians succeeded in setting up just two of the planned six groupings of 164 centrifuges at the pilot plant.

“It looks political unless they’ve made progress that we don’t know about,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a weapons analysis group in London.

So...let me get this straight. Iran is actually still several years away from producing its own nukes, despite whatever its government might say. So why are we going to war with Iran again? To find and destroy weapons of mass destruction that don't exist?

Does any of this sound familiar?

At all?

Pluto is now leasing

2007-02-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

More incomprehensible pseudo-scientific nonsense from the American government.

The US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday.

You know, I personally don't make a huge claim to a lot of scientific knowledge, since my education in that area concluded with 12th-grade physics and biology, more or less. But even I know stupidity when I see it.

Did you Busheviks ever consider what a planet without sunlight would be like?

You could try moving to Pluto or Neptune. They don't get much sun there. I'm sure the environments on those planets are much more receptive to big business pollution practices. Why, you could pump steam and nuclear exhaust and carbon monoxide and coal shavings all day long, for century after century, and you'd never even come close to questionable violation of the Kyoto Protocol. No pesky trees or plants or flowers or fruits or crops that might suddenly up and die off when you block out the sun, either. It's a global-warmer's paradise.

Enjoy your stay. And please schedule your travel arrangements soon.

the 4th branch

2007-01-31T15:26:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to write about a lengthy piece about an expensive piece of military equipment: a new fighter jet called the F-22 Raptor.

But that's merely the framework for the argument. I am not criticizing the F-22 itself so much as I'm criticizing the process that brought it to life in the first place. No, the real purpose of today's blog post is to show you the real reason why war cannot be stopped.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's the war machine (in the United States...although there's more than one) which cannot be stopped. Because even if there is peace everywhere on the planet -- and how often do we see that? -- the US war machine will continue to grind on. It will continue to make ready for the next war, even though we may not have any enemies. It will continue to eat up vast portions of our national budget, despite the other urgent priorities that this money could be spent upon.

And most importantly, it will continue to dominate foreign policy and the politics governing technology to an extent that it looks like the war machine runs everything. While part of our government, the war machine is, in fact, larger than our government...because in any contest of wills between the war machine and the rest of our government, the war machine always wins.

Don't believe me? I wouldn't either. Without evidence.

So let's take a look at the F-22 (which makes a choice example for a case study), shall we?

In fact, it's so choice, that the GAO (Government Accountability Office) has issued a report saying, “The F-22 acquisition history is a case study in increased cost and schedule inefficiencies.”

The F-22 Raptor fighter jet, the United States Air Force’s most expensive weapon, is designed for global air dominance. But its biggest battles have not been in the skies, but in the corridors of power in Washington, where it has just taken on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Washington budget-cutters — and won.

Since coming into office, Mr. Rumsfeld and the administration have tried to rein in the costs of the $65 billion fighter jet program, which has been two decades in the making and has suffered one cost overrun after another.

But their efforts were rebuffed this week by the powerful F-22 lobby, a combination of the Air Force, Lockheed Martin, which makes the fighter jet, and their allies in Congress.

Now before we go any further, I should point out that this article is from September of last year, so the time frame is a little out of date. (That's right kids, Rummy is no longer Secretary of Defense. Very observant of you!)

But the facts in this article remain pertinent. In fact, some people would go so far as to claim that the war machine has been present in (and a problem of) our national government since 1933. But we're not going to go that far back, class. We are only interested in the failures of the Bush administration to administrate and effectively govern, so we shall not venture farther back than 2000.

Keep in mind that, before his abrupt dismissal-slash-resignation, Rummy was the politician's politician. He knew how to play the power game, knew how to curry favor with Bush, knew how to make heads roll on the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the top brass of our country didn't see things the Bush way. He knew how to lay down policy without signing or drafting a single document. (He never used e-mail.) That skill alone says quite a lot, even outside of Washington.

Yet even Rumsfeld, with the backing of the GAO and a few bigwig Senators in the GOP, could not stop the F-22. What's going on here?

Even as strong a critic of wasteful Pentagon spending as Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, who will become the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as the committee’s current chairman, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican, could not defeat the F-22 lobby.

The two senators were able to extract some concessions in the closed-door House-Senate conference committee. But they could not muster the support to defeat the multiyear contract, in which F-22’s would be acquired in a series of three-year contracts rather than annually.

“The F-22 lobby is an extraordinary juggernaut and they fought to the death on this one,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington research group. “It is astonishing in that the lobby can take on the most powerful in Washington, including the president, and win.”

And it seems like they even had the backing (or at least the tacit support) of Bush himself on this one. (Of course Bush doesn't care about fighter planes, he only cares about oil.) Yet they still lost?

Now I understand that internecine battles are fought in our government every day, because this is the nature of government. No single person has the answers to all of the questions and social problems, so there are always gaps of law and policy and control waiting to be filled...by whoever is bold enough to take charge of them, usually. The most common and frequently-cited example of a power struggle in Washington is between Democrats and Republicans.

But this...this war over the F-22...this is pitting Republicans against Republicans.

Yes, Republican in-fighting is also nothing new, and probably not even really news-worthy today. But this is a different kind of in-fighting, more than just stealing money and bennies from each other's lobbyists or pouncing upon each other's young pages.

How often do you see GOP Senators storming onto the floor of the Senate to chew each other out?

Originally, the Air Force wanted 750 planes. Even though that number has been cut sharply, the Air Force has continue to push for more, aided by what Washington insiders call the Iron Triangle — a politically powerful combination of military contractors and their allies inside the Pentagon and Congress.

For instance, the multiyear contract was passed by the Senate in the summer, 70 to 28, before being sent to conference committee. The language in the Senate measure was identical to a draft proposal written by a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin and given to members of Congress.

Before the Senate considered the issue, an e-mail message was circulated by Lockheed to Senate members, saying, “Please vote ‘yes’ on the proposed Chambliss Amendment” to permit the multiyear contract. After the e-mail message was sent, the amendment was introduced by Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, whose district includes an F-22 assembly plant.

“What happened was predictable,” said Christopher Bolkcom, a military specialist at the Congressional Research Service. “Everyone could see the opponents of the measure were swimming upstream. The Air Force is still chipping away, trying to get more planes.”

In fact, Senator Warner accused Senator Chambliss and Lockheed of doing an end-run around his committee, where such important measures are typically decided. The Armed Services Committee opposed the measure.

“We are facing here a rather interesting chapter of a very significant and important defense contractor trying to get through this body a decision, which is in violation of statute and overrides the judgment of the majority of the members of the Armed Services Committee,” Senator Warner said on the Senate floor.

Now this is a puzzling situation, regarding the F-22. Two powerful GOP Senators are against it. The Secretary of Defense is against it. Several government offices charged with oversight for other government agencies (such as the GAO) are against it. Yet not only is the F-22 unstoppable, it is also unkillable.

But from 2000 to 2006, haven't the GOP enjoyed unpredecented power and control over the executive and legislative branches? What could possibly thwart the Republican will during this time period? Where is this conflict on the Hill coming from?

Is it possible that someone or something is using the GOP to achieve its own ends? What could be this powerful?

What if there was an alliance...between the military...and the corporations who served them?

Another measure sought by F-22 supporters, the lifting of a ban on sales to foreign countries, easily passed the House in July on a voice vote but failed to make it out of a House-Senate conference committee. Backers of the measure said that overseas sales would help reduce the overall costs of the F-22 program.

Opponents fear that it would permit other nations to gain access to the Pentagon’s most advanced weaponry and technologies.

That measure was offered by Representative Kay Granger of Texas, a Republican whose district includes the Lockheed factory that makes the F-22 midsection and employs 2,640.

Okay, it was clearly bad enough that the F-22 budget went from annual to multiyear contract, because that removed it from Congressional oversight. (This is what Senator Warner was beefing about.)

But at least the arms and the technology would stay in the country!

I think this new measure to lift the ban on selling the F-22 to foreign countries deserves a closer look. Unfortunately, the original article doesn't have much more on it, so now we're going to have to switch over to a different article.

Technical glitches aside, even critics concede that the F-22 is an engineering marvel. And that becomes part of the problem when the United States considers foreign sales. For decades, the United States has allowed sales of its fighter jets. For instance, thousands of F-16 fighter jets have been sold to dozens of countries including Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and Venezuela.

But as geopolitical alliances shift, some military experts fear that some sales could come back to haunt the United States. Not only is there the risk that potential rivals could gain access to the Pentagon's most advanced technologies, but allowing countries to build up their arms arsenals for use in regional conflicts could also hurt American foreign policy interests and destabilize parts of the world.

"I do not know if the House understands the extraordinary implications of selling a state-of-the-art plane overseas," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project for Government Oversight. "The argument for the F-22 was that it was needed because our own aircraft was being flown by potential enemies."

"So I ask," Brian said, "is the answer to make the same mistake? Pakistan has the F-16. To me, that's one of the clearest examples of the problem with foreign sales of top-of-the-line aircraft."

Actually, that's an easy problem to fix. If another nation acquires the F-22, and then subsequently becomes hostile towards the US...

...why then, we'll just have to develop and build an even more advanced fighter jet to take out their F-22s. (Let's just call this newer aircraft the F-35.)

"But if the F-35 also gets sold to foreign countries, won't we have to develop and build yet another even more super-advanced fighter jet to counter the threat of F-35s flown by hostile foreigners?"

NOW you are beginning to get the picture. It is a never-ending cycle of develop weapons, sell to the military, sell again to the foreigners, then develop even better weapons.

What would be the point of stopping the one-sided arms race? New weapons factories wouldn't get built. Congressional districts would have less pork to take home. Whole chunks of the federal budget already allocated to defense spending would suddenly get re-assigned elsewhere.

For the military-industrial complex, otherwise known as the Iron Triangle, it's a lose-lose situation.

This is why the war machine will never end. Peace is not desired...and neither is a state of full-on war which might disrupt operations domestically within the US and send stock prices plummeting...but that tense and fearful pre-war state of anxiety, ah, now that's the ticket. Keep buying more arms and troops, that's the only thing that will keep you safe. Every Blackhawk helicopter purchased is more profit for Boeing. Every Blackhawk downed is another helicopter that must be replaced.

If we did not have the Iraq war, where would Halliburton's profits be?

"But somebody has to profit from war, right? So it might as well be American companies instead of anybody else! And...and everybody is against selling arms to foreign terrorists and foreigners who could someday be terrorists...right? I mean, things like this State Department initiative show that we take care not to export our arms technology, right?"

Okay, that's a great little webpage you've found there...we can agree on that. But is it the truth, or is it just what our government wants us to believe? (Sort of like how they would prefer that we believe the F-22 is universally approved by everyone at all levels of our government.)

Because if they were to tell you the truth, I think it would sound something more like this instead.

Arms industry flouting export control laws

Weapons companies are using globalisation to routinely flout arms control laws and supply lethal products to repressive regimes, according to a new report.

The industryis using outsourcing to breach embargoes. Offshore production companies and foreign subsidiaries are set up in countries which have few controls over where the weapons end up.

The report, Arms Without Borders, by Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms, points out, for example, that the European Union prohibits selling helicopters to Israel. But Apache gunships used in the recent attacks in Lebanon, which drew widespread condemnation, were built with components made in Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands. During the same conflict British security equipment sent to Iran for anti-drugs operations was found in the possession of Hizbollah fighters.

By the end of this year world military spending is estimated to reach an unprecedented $1,058.9bn (£562bn) - roughly 15 times international aid expenditure. This is higher than the Cold War record reached in 1987-88 of $1,034 in today's prices.

That's quite a dollar figure, isn't it? Here it is once more: $1,058,900,000. Wouldn't you like a piece of that action too?

Sure we all would. The difference between the military-industrial complex and the rest of us, however, is what we would compromise in order to obtain that money.

But this piece is not here to debate the morals of over-charging your own government to build and develop weapons of war and murder, and still calling yourself a patriot and a human being. This piece is here to point out that the military-industrial complex is out of control. To point out that the cycle of spending tax dollars and developing more weapons systems needs to be broken before our economy breaks first. (Don't be so sure that cannot happen. You are forgetting the USSR.) It's such a juggernaut that even the major players of the GOP cannot stop or check this thing.

Think about that. Even the party who birthed the Iron Triangle sometimes get bitten by the monster in their midst. Now you understand why Ben & Jerry (yes, the ice cream guys) are out to whack the F-22 program. So don't buy into the excuse that military spending automatically equals corporate responsibility.

I close this piece with a few words from former President Eisenhower.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[jump]

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Seinfeldianism

2007-01-29T13:39:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, you've been wondering why the GOP struck down the measure to increase the minimum wage. You might be feeling like Ted Kennedy was feeling: ready to lash out at some economic bigots who were born into privilege, make seven figures a year, and who apparently care naught for the little guys.

Then this guy comes along and explains everything:

The majority of Senate Republicans filibustering and delaying the passage of a new minimum wage law may be heartless, but they're not dumb. They know that bumping the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour is enormously popular with the American people and they're also aware that it passed by huge numbers in the House of Representatives, with 80 Republicans voting in favor of helping the working poor.

So why the stalling? Why put off the inevitable with over 100 nonsensical amendments, while already voting once against ending debate on a clean minimum wage bill?

Well, folks, it's kind of like the Seinfeld episode, where George Costanza knows his girlfriend is about to break up with him so he just ducks her -- breaks dates, pretends he's not home, doesn’t answer the phone, reasoning that if he can stall her by not being available, she can’t break up with him.

Except in this case, the Republicans figure that if they can keep the Senate occupied indefinitely with an open-and-shut thing like a minimum wage increase, they can avoid the thing they fear most -- having to vote on any of the myriad Iraq-war resolutions waiting in the wings.

Now are those some yellow elephants or what?

I did not know that Seinfeld was so useful in explaining and predicting American politics. Perhaps we should name a new school of political philosophy after the show. (What GOP politician doesn't remind you of George Costanza?)

Can't be bothered to fight in the Iraq war. Cannot even be bothered to take a moral stance on the war. Would much rather let the little guy (that's Americans like you and me, who aren't making seven figures) keep right on suffering instead. Who said the GOP was the party of strong convictions and values? Where's the courage? Where is the will to do what's right?

All that I see is a party of serial convicts and missing values.

HOW IS THIS SUPPORTING THE TROOPS?

All Bush is saying...is give war a chance...

2007-01-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

Compare this piece with the text of Bush's latest State of the Union speech...and then tell me WHAT that speech will solve in Iraq. Tell me what that speech is supposed to be good for. Tell me it's not just another collection of hot air, lies, and broken promises set up to be broken again. I dare someone to tell me this. I dare anyone to show me a single plus side, intelligent point, or scrap of truth anywhere in that entire SOTU address. I dare you. I double-dare you. I triple-dog-dare you. In the meantime, I stand here on my soapbox, one hand on hip, the other with the middle finger thrust high into the air, pointed at all of the Bush supporters. You caused this. You people brought this into the world. Read it and weep.

UPDATE:

Just in case you're still not weeping, here is another story.

The Final Word

2007-01-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

-- John Viscount Morley

I wonder if there is a term for taking criminal acts, and making them seem proper by incorporating them into the law. The strict interpreters would say that alone is enough to make a thing legal and proper; so what if it was illegal and immoral once, the times change, and with a single stroke of a legislator's pen, what was previously unacceptable yesterday becomes de rigeur today.

Because that is what they are attempting to do in Iraq, right this minute. We all know it's wrong for the US to take the oil from Iraq, because we invaded them for no good reason. But if the US can force the Iraqis to pass a law that puts the same oil into the hands of the US, does that suddenly make it right?

We could get into an argument about morality, economics, and government, but that's beyond the scope of this blog. Today we're just trying to make one simple point:

It's a bad law because oil is the whole reason we invaded Iraq in the first place.

See, there is no other reason for why we're in Iraq. Plain and simple. All of the other reasons that Bush and the GOP have given us for going into Iraq have been proven to be lies, and no other reason remains. That's why no one in the Bush administration will even suggest that oil is the true reason for the war. Because the truth is damning.

The purpose of this blog post is to put that illusion to rest. We are there for the oil. It's the only explanation that fits all the facts. Get it through your heads. Look around you. There is plenty of evidence to support it, and nothing to rebut it. We've written about this subject in great detail.

What else do you need, to prove that all of the offered reasons for invading Iraq were lies? You're asking us to disprove a pack of negative propositions. That is not how logic works. The party who is FRONTING the proposition needs to offer the evidence and the proofs that it's the truth. THAT is scientific method. Scientists don't have to prove that astrology is fake. It's up to astrologers to prove to the world that their fortune-telling is a legitimate science. (By the way, that test applies to religion too.) But I digress.

This blog post is the final word on the subject. We are there for the oil. We took out Saddam because he stopped dealing with the US. The Busheviks did not want to admit this reason publicly, pitching excuse after excuse to the media, in the hopes that the masses would be thrown off the scent. But now it's crystal-clear and oh-so-obvious. Because they're trying to make that reason into permanent binding law.

Four months ago, about 80 oil company executives and consultants packed an office on St. James's Square in London for a briefing on exploration prospects in Iraq's Kurdish region and a Kurdish draft of an Iraqi national petroleum law.

Despite the immense risks of working in Iraq -- pipeline explosions, kidnappings, insurgency, political infighting -- the oil company executives were lured by the potential rewards, which are immense, too. Outside Saudi Arabia, no country has proven oil reserves as big as Iraq's. And the oil there is high quality, easy and cheap to produce, and bottled up in reservoirs that many major oil companies were familiar with three decades ago before wars and sanctions drove them out.

"Exxon Mobil has more seismic data on Iraq than on Houston real estate," says Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. who used to work for Mobil. "If Exxon had security on the ground, the following day it would have crews there," Gheit said. "And money would be no object."

Gheit estimated that Iraq could easily produce 6 million barrels a day, more than three times its current output and enough to help keep a lid on world prices.

Four months after the London meeting, however, security remains elusive and so does the national petroleum law. Barham Saleh, Iraq's deputy prime minister, said in a recent telephone interview that a compromise was "very, very close."

The proposed law has taken on significance beyond oil. While Iraq and foreign oil companies are eager to tap new revenue, the Bush administration and many Iraqis also hope that the law can be a model for resolving disputes and can bind Iraq's warring factions together.

Does anyone really believe that?

Agreement has been reached on sharing oil revenue on a per-capita basis, a benefit for Sunnis who live mostly in areas with less production. A deal also has been struck that recognizes the power of regional authorities, such as the Kurdish Regional Government, to award oil contracts, but establishes a national petroleum commission with the power to review contracts within 60 days. A "revamped" national oil company would continue to manage existing production while new regional affiliates would participate in new exploration and production.

"We need to close the deal on one or two small issues," Saleh said. "A number of the major issues have been resolved."

But an adviser to the Kurdish authorities said those "small issues" included some significant details. On Friday, the Kurdistan Regional Government posted an item on its Web site denying news reports that a deal was complete. The "important annexes to the law are still pending," it said.

Don't mess with the Kurds. They are farther down the road to true independence than anybody wants to admit. Anybody who isn't a Kurd, that is. One false step and they're gone.

I'm not saying that angering the Kurds would cause this oil deal to fall apart...but it might cause the country to fall apart first.

Outstanding issues include how much oil revenue will go to the central government; a charter for the new national oil company; the role of the oil ministry; and the principles upon which the new commission could reject regionally negotiated contracts. Also unsettled is whether the commission will require a simple majority vote or a two-thirds vote to reject a contract's terms. Those provisions must all be part of one package with the petroleum law, Kurdish leaders said.

If the Shia-dominated Iraqi central government spends heavily on its own projects, it could deny the Kurds and other regional authorities significant shares of oil revenue.

Even if negotiators agree on a draft, it must win approval from Iraq's cabinet and fractious parliament, which hasn't met in weeks.

The United States has been pressing Iraq to complete the law. "As awful as the Saddam Hussein government was, it did have a record of dealing with foreign investors that wasn't that bad," said James A. Placke, an expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "That's gone and hasn't been replaced."

Now, forging a petroleum law requires a balancing of sharply divided interest and ethnic groups, not just the word of a dictator.

"This is not a regular piece of Iraqi legislation being signed off on," said Jonathan Morrow, an adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government. If successful, he said, "it . . . might show the way forward in Iraq."

Saleh suggested that a deal might discourage attacks on oil installations and reduce corruption. "Since we all agree on revenue sharing, all elements of Iraqi society will have an interest in maximizing revenues and best business practices," he said.

For now, however, the oil sector is a mess. Since the first attack on a pipeline on June 1, 2003, it has been a struggle to keep oil flowing. Basic production equipment has been looted or destroyed. Many wells still are not working properly. And last year, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction complained that Iraq's oil ministry was not reporting on its budget and had spent "only a fraction" of money set aside for capital costs.

While the Bush administration once thought that Iraqi oil revenue would cover occupation and reconstruction costs,

Oh, what's this? You mean...the war WON'T "pay for itself"? You mean...the Bush administration can actually get some predictions wrong? You mean...the Bush administration can actually make MISTAKES based upon those erroneous ~~assumptions~~ ~~presumptions~~ predictions?

(insert laughter)

the Iraq government still relies heavily on U.S. technical and financial aid. Placke estimated that Iraq produced 1.85 million barrels a day last year, less than the year before, less than the prewar output and well below the U.S. target of 3 million barrels a day.

Now that's an interesting quota. Why is the United States setting the quotas on oil production in Iraq?

I thought that the oil of Iraq was only to be used by Iraqis?

I thought that the oil of Iraq was only to be sold by Iraqis?

I thought that the oil of Iraq was only to be extracted for the benefit of Iraq?

I thought that Iraq has its own functioning government, with a parliament and a president and everything?

This figure makes us sound like a slave plantation owner. Or a Communist party leader.

It does NOT make us sound like an ally helping a once-oppressed nation get back on its feet and build a new democracy.

In fact, it makes us sound like we're just continuing the oppression. (Oh wait...is that one of those unspeakable truths?)

Placke, who was part of the Iraq Study Group, estimated that 200,000 barrels a day is siphoned from the main export line through southern Iraq, put on barges, and loaded onto tankers waiting in the Persian Gulf. What's left after discounts and bribes goes to militias or insurgent groups, he said.

In the south, some local Shia militia, clan or clerical groups are trying to claim the rights to some Iraqi fields and a voice in negotiating access for foreign companies. A stake in a billion-barrel field could be more important than a stake in the parliament or cabinet. Some experts worry that, as in Sudan, oil could contribute more to tearing the country apart than to uniting it.

Okay, the phrasing of "some local Shia militia, clan or clerical groups" does not truly reflect the strength of the Sadr movement. A casual Western reader, upon reading that description, would think that these were merely ordinary Iraqis who got a hold of some guns, and are taking advantage of the chaos to make some political noise.

That is partially correct, I suppose. However, the key fact that's missing here is the numbers. These ragtag bands of freedom fighters...how many do you think there are, in total? A dozen? A few hundred?

How about 40,000 to 60,000 men?

I guess you would say that's a veritable army. And you'd be right. It is Muqtada al-Sadr's army of "some local Shia militia, clan or clerical groups" in the South. This is the same guy who's been calling the shots in Iraq lately.

If you think Sadr's just going to roll over and play dead, and do nothing to defend Shiite interests while the Sunnis strike deals with the Americans and the Saudis and the Kurds, you got another think coming.

A senior Iraqi government official involved in the petroleum-law talks said that if militias and clans were to cut separate deals with foreign companies, it would be a "recipe for disaster and civil war." He warned foreign companies against signing such deals. "We are very interested in credible investment in the oil sector," he said. "We cannot afford to have these cowboys running around trying to manipulate the situation in Iraq."

The national petroleum law remains a touchy subject in part because of widespread suspicion that the U.S. invasion in 2003 was motivated by designs on Iraq's oil riches.

They said it. Not me.

The Iraq Study Group report contained three pages of recommendations for the sector, including suggestions that international oil companies invest in the country and the government fight corruption on contracts.

"Before embarking on controversial measures such as this law favoring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government must prove that they are capable of protecting the country's sovereignty," Kamil Mahdi, a senior lecturer in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter in England, wrote in the Guardian newspaper. "A government that is failing to protect the lives of its citizens must not embark on controversial legislation that ties the hands of future Iraqi leaders, and which threatens to squander the Iraqis' precious, exhaustible resource in an orgy of waste, corruption and theft."

In a telephone interview, Mahdi said, "My main worry is that if I were an official in the ministry of oil negotiating a contract and living under the kind of threats that people in Iraq are daily experiencing, I would probably be in a very weak negotiating position."

While the debate continues, the Kurdistan Regional Government is pushing ahead. In 2002, at the suggestion of Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader who is now Iraq's president, the Turkish conglomerate Cukurova Group set up an oil unit called Genel Enerji to look for oil in Kurdistan. Genel signed a production-sharing agreement in July 2002 and took over the Taq Taq oil field in February 2003 on the eve of the U.S-led invasion. It signed another exploration contract in July 2005. A Norwegian firm, DNO, and a Canadian firm, Heritage Oil, also struck exploration and production deals in the Kurdish region.

Tariq Shafiq, a former executive of Iraq National Oil and director of the consulting firm Petrolog & Associates, has drawn up three contracts -- service, buyback and production-sharing -- that the government will use in its new petroleum law. He said the Kurdish production-sharing contracts give away too much to the foreign companies; he said that after paying for capital and operations costs, as much as 55 percent of the oil goes to the foreign firms. "These, in the eye of many, are illegal and would have to undergo review to bring them in line with this law," he said.

But Kurdish authorities said they have no intention of submitting existing contracts for review. Duran said Genel's contract was renegotiated last November and falls within the 20 percent share production that would be the ceiling under the new law. "The commercial terms of the PSA are in conformity with internationally acceptable PSA terms," Duran said in an e-mail response to questions. "Therefore, our PSA is not generous at all."

Repeating what I said above, about not getting on the wrong side of the Kurds. Probably impossible to avoid at this late date, but oh well.

Major U.S. oil companies haven't signed any contracts in Kurdistan yet. Some of them have tried to build goodwill with the central government. Chevron, for example, helped clear mines from the coastline. Others have collected seismic data or trained Iraqi oil company technicians in Dubai.

Some major companies from other nations -- Russia's Lukoil, a Chinese state company, France's Total -- are hoping to get their big Hussein-era concessions back. Their prospects remain uncertain.

And now you know why both Russia and China were both so quick to publicly damn the invasion and destruction of the Iranian embassy in Iraq by US forces.

Anyone in here still think that was a good idea?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

But don't just take my word for it. Do some of your own research. And see what the non-American media sources are saying.

Colbert does it again

2007-01-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

You need to watch this!

(video is actually one more click behind this link)

It is too funny...and too sad to be funny...but he makes us laugh regardless.

Hat tip to Crooks & Liars.

Change is All or Nothing

2007-01-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

The most frequent excuse that I hear from the right-wungnuttia sphere is that "9-11 changed everything." It doesn't matter what Bush and the GOP might do right, or do wrong (or abjectly fail to do) -- this excuse excuses all of it. "You're still stuck in pre-9-11 mentality, Constitution boy. This is a changed world. This is a more dangerous world. That Cold-War mentality won't cut it anymore. We have new enemies to fight. We have to develop new ways to protect ourselves." And they repeat this line, every time a civil liberty is removed, every time a prisoner is tortured, every time a soldier dies in Iraq, every time a politician demands more powers, every time the citizens (or the press) are told that we don't need to know that. (Whatever it is we asked about.)

The message that I'm hearing here is that we're supposed to just willy-nilly ACCEPT all of these changes, period. No matter how much they reduce the American way that I'm used to. No matter how much they harm the quality of life and liberty in what used to be America. No matter how much they make my country unrecognizable to me, and also to two-thirds of my fellow citizens.

Well, if that's true...if America has really changed so much...then why are so few of you able to accept that in other areas of life such as soccer leagues?

In Clarkston, soccer means something different than in most places. As many as half the residents are refugees from war-torn countries around the world. Placed by resettlement agencies in a once mostly white town, they receive 90 days of assistance from the government and then are left to fend for themselves. Soccer is their game.

But to many longtime residents, soccer is a sign of unwanted change, as unfamiliar and threatening as the hijabs worn by the Muslim women in town. It’s not football. It’s not baseball. The fields weren’t made for it. Mayor Swaney even has a name for the sort of folks who play the game: the soccer people.

Caught in the middle is a boys soccer program called the Fugees — short for refugees, though most opponents guess the name refers to the hip-hop band.

The Fugees are indeed all refugees, from the most troubled corners — Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burundi, Congo, Gambia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan. Some have endured unimaginable hardship to get here: squalor in refugee camps, separation from siblings and parents. One saw his father killed in their home.

I suppose that I should start with a warning. This is a heart-rending newspiece to read. Consequently, this will also be a heart-rending blog post.

I apologize for shamelessly yanking on the heart strings and making anyone seriously emotional today...I was barely able to get through this entire piece dry-eyed myself.

But that brings me to my point in writing about this article today. What kind of reactions and welcomes are these refugees getting from Americans? Let's take a look.

At first the refugees — most from Southeast Asia — arrived so slowly that residents barely noticed. But as word got out about Clarkston’s suitability, more agencies began placing refugees here. From 1996 to 2001, more than 19,000 refugees from around the world resettled in Georgia, many in Clarkston and surrounding DeKalb County, to the dismay of many longtime residents.

Many of those residents simply left. Others stayed but remained resentful, keeping score of the ways they thought the refugees were altering their lives. There were events that reinforced fears that Clarkston was becoming unsafe: a mentally ill Sudanese boy beheaded his 5-year-old cousin in their Clarkston apartment; a fire in a crowded apartment in town claimed the lives of four Liberian refugee children.

At a town meeting in 2003 meant to foster understanding between the refugees and residents, the first question, submitted on an index card, was, “What can we do to keep the refugees from coming to Clarkston?”

[jump]

Then there was the game in rural Clarkesville last season at which rival players and even some parents shouted a racial epithet at some of the African players on the Fugees.

After being ejected from a game against the Fugees in November, a rival player made an obscene gesture to nearly every player on the Fugees before heading to his bench. And opponents sometimes mocked the Fugees when they spoke to each other in Swahili, or when Ms. Mufleh [the Fugees' coach] shouted instructions in Arabic.

There were even incidents involving referees. Two linesmen were reprimanded by a head referee during a pregame lineup in October for snickering when the name Mohammed Mohammed was called.

Ms. Mufleh tells her players to try their best to ignore these slights. When the other side loses its cool, she tells them, it is a sign of weakness.

Before you start frothing at the mouth and ranting that these dirty illegal immigrants are only getting what they deserve for coming here illegally, let me point out again that these children are refugees, not illegal immigrants. They did not come here illegally. They did not come here legally, then seek ways to make their visits permanent. They came here to flee death and destruction...the exact same kind of trauma that inhumane terrorists like al-Qaeda seek to visit upon helpless victims. So to that extent, we (Americans and refugees in America alike) have something in common.

(In fact, didn't the Founding Fathers come to America to flee religious and financial persecution at the hands of an unjust and corrupt government?)

Jeremiah Ziaty, one of those early players, is a typical member of the Fugees.

In 1997, in the midst of Liberia’s 14 years of civil war, rebels led by Charles Taylor showed up one night at the Ziatys’ house in Monrovia. Jeremiah’s father was a low-level worker in a government payroll office. The rebels thought he had money. When they learned he did not, they killed him in the family’s living room.

Beatrice Ziaty, Jeremiah’s mother, grabbed her sons and fled out the back door. The Ziatys trekked through the bush for a week until they reached a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast. There, they lived in a mud hut and scavenged for food. After five years in the camp, Ms. Ziaty learned her family had been accepted for resettlement in Clarkston, a town she had never heard of.

[jump]

Other members of the Fugees also have harrowing stories. Qendrim Bushi’s Muslim family fled Kosovo when Serbian soldiers torched his father’s grocery store and threatened to kill them. Eldin Subasic’s uncle was shot in Bosnia. And so on.

The Fugees, Ms. Mufleh believed, shared something intense. They knew trauma. They knew the fear and loneliness of the newcomer. This was their bond.

“In order to get a group to work together, to be effective together, you have to find what is common,” she said. “The refugee experience is pretty powerful.”

Ms. Mufleh made a point never to ask her players about their pasts. On the soccer field, she felt, refugees should leave that behind.

Occasionally, though, a boy would reveal a horrific memory. One reported that he had been a child soldier. When she expressed frustration that a Liberian player tuned out during practice, another Liberian told her she didn’t understand: the boy had been forced by soldiers to shoot his best friend.

“It was learning to not react,” Ms. Mufleh said. “I just wanted to listen. How do you respond when a kid says, ‘I saw my dad shot in front of me’? I didn’t know.”

Now contrast that with the way that some of our fellow Americans have been treating these kids. Are you ashamed yet?

We are Americans. We are supposed to be better than this. We are supposed to be the country that the rest of the world looks up to, looks to for support and for protection against evil.

(Oh, that's right, we changed. That America must be dead. Silly of me to even bring up the topic of national shame, right?)

And to anyone who sympathizes with the "old Clarkston" residents who hate the refugees for their non-whiteness and the changes they represent, I say: bite me. I say: Give me your poor, your tired, your hungry. I say: 9-11 changed everything, didn't you get the memo? We need to fight teh terrists over here to help out our troops over there!

Until the refugees began arriving, the mayor likes to say, Clarkston “was just a sleepy little town by the railroad tracks.”

Since then, this town of 7,100 has become one of the most diverse communities in America.

Clarkston High School now has students from more than 50 countries. The local mosque draws more than 800 to Friday prayers. There is a Hindu temple, and there are congregations of Vietnamese, Sudanese and Liberian Christians.

At the shopping center, American stores have been displaced by Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants and a halal butcher. The only hamburger joint in town, City Burger, is run by an Iraqi.

(p.s. The whites can also be ejected as illegal immigrants, since the American Indians were here first. In fact, our government today still continues to recognize tribal sovereignty. Good thing they've never asked any of us for our papers. I'm just sayin'.)

I'm sorry, you were about to say something about how America belongs to the whites?

But surely you must have heard: variety is good for you. Ask any mutual fund investor, stockbroker, or portfolio manager. Homogeniety breeds weakness. (That word means all things are the same, it has nothing to do with gay-bashing.) Ask any biologist, racehorse breeder, or DNA researcher. A mix of various grades of ingredients yields a stronger finished product than just one ingredient. (You could even say that purity is bad.) Ask any blacksmith, swordsman, or metallurgist.

Okay, for argument's sake I can grant you the ~~generalization~~ argument that the world has indeed become a more dangerous place after 9-11. But more danger abroad only means more refugees from other countries...refugess which, by our own federal laws, we as American citizens are obliged to accept into our midst. So how can you celebrate the wars we are fighting abroad without accepting any sort of responsibility for the consequences of those wars popping up in your own neighborhood? You can't have it both ways, wingnuts.

Conclusion: if you support any of the wars that America is currently engaged in, then you also support turning people into refugees. Because there are other wars that we could fight (not just Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran) in Darfur and Somalia that would drastically reduce the refugee "problem" over here. Where else could we do more good than harm? Just read the article and see where some of these little boys are from.

As mayor, Mr. Swaney has frequently found himself caught between these voters and the thousands of newcomers. But he has also taken potentially unpopular steps on behalf of the refugees. In 2006 he forced the resignation of the town’s longtime police chief, in part because of complaints from refugees that Clarkston police officers were harassing them. Mr. Swaney gave the new chief a mandate to purge the Police Department of rogue officers.

Within three months, the chief, a black man of Trinidadian descent named Tony J. Scipio, fired or accepted the resignations of one-third of the force.

Soccer is another matter. Mr. Swaney does not relish his reputation as the mayor who banned soccer. But he must please constituents who complain that refugees are overrunning the town’s parks and community center — people like Emanuel Ransom, a black man who moved to Clarkston in the late 1960s.

[jump]

Ms. Mufleh and Ms. Ediger, the team manager, spend the holiday vacation visiting the players’ families. On Dec. 26, Ms. Mufleh receives a fax on Town of Clarkston letterhead.

Effectively immediately, the fax informs her, the Fugees soccer team is no longer welcome to play at Milam Park. The city is handing the field to a youth sports coordinator who plans to run a youth baseball and football program.

Questioned by this reporter, Mayor Swaney says he has forgotten that in October the City Council gave the Fugees six months. A few days later, he tells Ms. Mufleh the team can stay through March.

In early January, Ms. Mufleh logs on to Google Earth, and scans satellite images of Clarkston. There are green patches on the campuses of Georgia Perimeter College, and at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, around the corner from City Hall. She hopes to find the Fugees a permanent home.

And you thought that the mayor was an awful guy! (And that all of the people set against the refugee kids were white.) It just goes to show you what a little careful reading can dispel by way of stereotypes.

If you liked this story, please forward the link to as many people as you can. I'm sure they could also benefit from a few donated dollars (or equipment) as well.

Bloody Sunday

2007-01-22T11:34:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, unidentified fighters brought down a Black Hawk helicopter with a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile, killing all 12 servicemen onboard.

Someone want to try explaining once again why this battle is not like Vietnam?

Helicopter UH-1H 69-15619

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Information on U.S. Army helicopter UH-1H tail number 69-15619
The Army purchased this helicopter 0870
Total flight hours at this point: 00001709
Date: 01/08/1973 MIA-POW file reference number: 1978
Incident number: 73010810.KIA
Unit: 62 AHC
South Vietnam
UTM grid coordinates: YD324528
Original source(s) and document(s) from which the incident was created or updated: Defense Intelligence Agency Reference Notes. Defense Intelligence Agency Helicopter Loss database. Also: 1978 ()
Loss to Inventory

REFNO Synopsis:

On January 8, 1973, a UH-1H helicopter from the 62nd Aviation Company with a crew of four and three passengers from the Military Assistance Command Army Advisory Group departed Landing Zone Sally in Quang Tri Province en route to Quang Tri City. It was later reported to have flown across the Thach Han River into hostile territory and circled twice with its guns firing at an unknown ground target. It was then fired on by the People's Army of Vietnam using SA-7 ground to air missiles. The first missile missed and the second hit the helicopter's boom. A third hit the helicopter proper prior to its crash in the area of the South Vietnamese Army's Ai Tu Combat Base. Multiple SA-7 launches drove off SAR forces in the area of the helicopter shoot down. The seven servicemen were declared missing in action. Subsequent to their loss, CIA forwarded hearsay information from a Vietnamese source reporting a helicopter had been shot down on January 8, 1973, in the area of this loss incident. Four U.S. pilots were reportedly captured and the fate of two other crewmen was unknown. DIA later determined that CIA had terminated the source due to possible fabrication of information. In August 1973, DIA received a hearsay report of a helicopter crash site in the area of this loss incident. Two remains were reportedly in the crash site area in Trieu Phong District, Quang Tri Province. Returning U.S. POWs had no information on the precise fate of the missing servicemen. After Operation Homecoming, all were declared dead/body not recovered, based on a presumptive finding of death.

This would be a good place to add the mantra "History repeats itself."

I will add it, but with a personal note. I do not believe that history is always fated to repeat itself, because there's no such thing as pre-determination. Rather, the truer form of the mantra should read like this: "History repeats itself...when the principal actors are not smart enough to obey its lessons." At which point, they need to be schooled again.

UPDATE: Al-Qaeda is claiming responsibility for this. (No, not the helicopter downing in Vietnam. The helicopter downing in Iraq. I know, it's hard to tell them apart.)

Please note: Australia is not part of America

2007-01-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

It is not the 51st state of the United States, nor is it any satellite or controlled non-allied territory. It is its own country.

Therefore, there is no reason to think that its culture MUST in any way be identical to that of America's. Not even for one second. Everyone who is still insane enough to support Bush, please keep this fact in mind when you make your crazy racist postings on the internets. We don't need you to embarrass the rest of us any further with your ignorance of history and geography. Your delusional politics are already doing that quite well.

Boiling Over

2007-01-17T13:15:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought that things in the Middle East couldn't possibly get any more complex, with even countries as far away as Russia and China taking sides against the US...guess what.

Saudis consider sending troops to Iraq

Saudi Arabia believes the Iraqi government is not up to the challenge and has told the United States that it is prepared to move its own forces into Iraq should the violence there degenerate into chaos, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Tuesday.

I'm sorry, I just have to interrupt the coverage of the news story here. But I just have to point something out. So the Saudis...are waiting for "the violence in Iraq to degenerate into chaos"? So there really *is* such a thing as "orderly violence" after all? Or maybe the more appropriate label is "ordered war"..."civilized war"...let's try "non-chaotic sectarian violence"? No? I'm just sayin', I didn't realize that what's been happening in Iraq for the last 4 years did not represent or include CHAOS in the slightest.

Perhaps the Saudis have built a unique detector that can determine the fine line between order and chaos. Or perhaps this is diplomatic-speak for what they expect will happen (and what they will have to shoulder) if/when the US withdraws from Iraq. Or perhaps they are content to call it non-chaotic as long as the Green Zone has not been blown up or overrun.

The Saudi government has signaled in the past that it would oppose an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, fearing it would leave minority Sunni Muslims at the mercy of Shiite Muslim militias.

What's this? Do I detect some religious bias in that sentence? Only the Shiites have been forming rogue militias and death squads in Iraq, is that it? At no time have any Sunnis lifted weapons to defend themselves or slay a single Shia or attack American forces, eh?

For starters, let me dispel any illusions that the sectarian violence in Iraq has all been one-sided.

Identifying particular districts with particular groups is easier than ever. Sectarian cleansing began in Baghdad and elsewhere immediately after the fall of the old regime, with Shias or Kurds going to Sunnis living in predominantly Shia or Kurdish areas, accusing them of being part of Saddam's regime and warning them to move out. Sectarian killings often followed. Sunnis fled in terror, leaving clearly defined Shia and Kurdish areas. Soon Sunnis adopted the same tactics, forcing Shias out of heavily populated Sunni areas such as al-Adhamiyah, Dora and Saidiya.

Yeeeaaah...so much for ushering in a new democracy.

Anyhow, back to the religious bias of the Saudis. This is not surprising when you consider that the Saudi government itself is heavily pro-Sunni.

Saudi Arabia
International Religious Freedom Report 2004
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Section II. Status of Religious Freedom

Restrictions on Religious Freedom

Members of the Shi'a minority are the subjects of officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination.

[jump]

The Government continued sporadically to enforce other restrictions on the Shi'a community, such as banning Shi'a books and excluding Shi'a perspectives from the extensive religious media and broadcast programming.

Shi'a have declined government offers to build state-supported mosques because they fear the Government would prohibit the incorporation and display of Shi'a motifs in any such mosques. In the past, Shi'a have been permitted to build new Hussainiyas (gathering places) in Qatif and Ahsa, but the Government has closed Shi'a mosques built without government permission.

Members of the Shi'a minority are discriminated against in government employment, especially in national security-related positions, such as in the military or Ministry of Interior. While there are some Shi'a who occupy high-level positions in government-owned companies and government agencies, many Shi'a believe that openly identifying oneself as Shi'a will have a negative impact on career advancement. There is an absence of Shi'a representatives in government, both local and national. While there is no formal policy concerning the hiring and promotion of Shi'a, anecdotal evidence suggests that in some companies -- including companies in the oil and petrochemical industries--Shi'a are passed over for less-qualified Sunni compatriots.

The Government also discriminates against Shi'a in higher education through unofficial restrictions on the number of Shi'a admitted to universities. There are no Shi'a principals in the approximately 300 female schools in the Eastern Province. While government officials state that textbook language with prejudicial, anti-Shi'a statements has been removed, some teachers have not been retrained and continue to use anti-Shi'a rhetoric. Some cases have resulted in punitive measures being taken against Shi'a parents who have complained. There are no Shi'a cabinet ministers, and there are only 2 Shi'a in the 120-member Majlis al-Shura (consultative council). There are no Shi'a members of the country's highest religious authority, the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars (Ulema).

Okay, so this last part might not exactly have been news to some of you...apologies if this is repeating what you already know. Still, we've found that when it comes to the histories, cultures, and religions of the Middle East, it's never a safe assumption to assume that the people in charge know what they're doing.

So why bring up this pro-Sunni trait of Saudi Arabia?

To underscore my prediction that the presence and interference of Saudi Arabia in the black hole that is now Iraq will not fare any better than the presence and interference of America did.

Some of you may be wondering how could I predict this...wondering that perhaps if Saudi Arabia were to shoulder some of the burden in keeping order in Iraq, that it might be exactly what the US needs to make Iraq work. Maybe the Saudis will provide the troops needed to restore the peace. Maybe the Saudis will do better than pale-skinned non-Muslim non-Arabic-speaking Westerners at searching for WMDs, rooting out insurgents, enforcing curfews, delivering aid and supplies, patrolling streets, waging pitched battles, ducking and disarming bombs, enduring the heat, and winning over the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Maybe this is exactly what Bush needs.

To be honest, I'm not going to dismiss this as wishful thinking, because I wouldn't mind this happening. If the Saudis can pacify the whole of Iraq -- or at least, enough of it to end the civil war -- then that's a solution we should all be putting our support behind. Because we all want Iraq to be stable and peaceful again, right?

Right?

"Peace and stability...at any price? But some prices are too high! Don't we have a say in who gets to be in charge of Iraq? Don't we get a say in how Iraq is going to be run? What if we wind up installing somebody just like Saddam?"

For we Americans to get a say in who rules Iraq...putting aside the fact that we were the invaders, why shouldn't the Saudis make the exact same claims? After all, they're one of Iraq's neighbors, you know. Who gets to be in charge of Iraq is probably a nearer and dearer question to them than to Americans.

Why is part of why I don't think Saudi interference is a good idea...any more than I would think American interference is a good idea. They come with their own agendas. They are not particularly interested in letting Iraqis seize their own destinies. They have a thirst for oil revenues that probably even dwarfs America's greed, since so much of their economy depends upon oil. They are very much interested in promoting Islam as not just being the most popular religion of choice, but also in removing that choice -- in making it the only official State-backed religion endorsed by the government. (See 2004 report by Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, linked above.) And they are not exactly best friends with Israel.

And most importantly, they come with their own factions and internal divisions, just like any other country. Despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers behind 9-11 were Saudi nationals, al-Qaeda attacked the Saudi capitol of Riyadh in 2003. And that one almost got the Royal Palace. It makes you wonder if Saudi Arabia's security forces are not equally as fraught with concealed terrorists and assassins as present-day Iraq's policemen and military brigades.

Just as I'm sure that news of the Bush administration's 80% solution has been fabulously well received by the Saudis. Marginalize the entire Sunni population of Iraq, just to make a deal behind their backs with the Shiites and the Kurds?!? I don't think so, Mister Bush...not if the Saudi royal family has anything to say about it. I would even suggest that it was the news of this 80% solution from the White House that prompted the Saudis to begin planning for their own military deployment into Iraq.

Make no mistake, the Saudis are taking advantage of the US-led chaos in Iraq to make any excuse for stepping in and imposing their own brand of order...and given the curious alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States, and how much the two countries have in common (one is a bloated and corrupt Christian state, the other is a bloated and corrupt Islam state), I am not at all convinced that one can succeed where the other has already failed. But hey, you never know until you try, and pox on whatever the experts on the region might tell you otherwise, isn't that right Mister Surge?

In closing, I want to point out one more thing from the first article.

Rice is in the region to lobby Egypt, Jordan and the six moderate Arab states in the Persian Gulf for a statement of support for Bush’s plan.

“I’ve briefed the president’s plan on Iraq at all the different stops,” Rice told reporters. “There is, I think, very good support for the American commitment there, very good support for the objectives the president wants to achieve.”

Bush’s proposal has met with wide skepticism as sectarian violence has deepened in Iraq.

Don't you just love how that last sentence contradicts everything Rice said? It's almost as if the people who wrote this story are getting tired of being told to write propaganda, and are starting to let little clues about the truth pop up now and then. Seriously, does Rice have any other skill besides putting a good face on bad news? Some would say that this is the core skill of being a diplomat...except that Rice is supposed to be in charge of all of our diplomats, and she hasn't been doing a very good job of that, either.

And so between her and Bush, between America and Saudi Arabia, the cauldron of black magic called Iraq continues to boil...

We still need an answer

2007-01-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

Scene: White House Press Room

Reporter: "So what *is* an appropriate way to dissent against Bush?"

Mouthpiece: "..."

(Click on the above link for a video of the non-responsive response.)

I guess that's the unofficial version of "No Comment"?

What a tool.

Hat tip to TalkingPointsMemo / TPM Café / TPM Muckracker.

Breaking: Pentagon sells arms to terrorists

2007-01-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

You know that you're living in a police state when the government prosecutes with one hand, and enables with the other.

Some of you might think that this news is false: how can the Pentagon be appeasing and enabling terrorists?

But when you consider that it's not really the Bush administration in charge, but the corporations, then it starts to make some sense. When has the Bush White House ever stood up against its corporate masters and done something they didn't like? More to the point, are there any laws that the Bush administration is not willing to break just to save the corporations some dollars?

Let's turn to the article and find out.

Fighter jet parts and other sensitive U.S. military gear seized from front companies for Iran and brokers for China have been traced in criminal cases to a surprising source: the Pentagon.

In one case, federal investigators said, contraband purchased in Defense Department surplus auctions was delivered to Iran, a country President Bush has branded part of an "axis of evil."

In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say those parts did make it to Iran.

[jump]

"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."

Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.

In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again - customs evidence tags still attached - to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.

[jump]

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth - including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas - by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.

"They helped us load our van," [GAO Head of Special Investigations Greg Kutz] said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.

The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.

Click on the article link to read a massive list of example cases.

What I want to know is: does this make the Pentagon criminally liable for violating the Patriot Act?

Not the little guys...not the 1- or 2-bar lieutenants who are merely shuffling papers and fulfilling purchase orders. The big players. The big guns. Everyone with 4- or 5-stars on their uniform, plus the entire civilian staff. Including Rumsfeld.

Let's hoist them by their own petards and see how they like it.

SEC. 808. DEFINITION OF FEDERAL CRIME OF TERRORISM.

Section 2332b of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(2) in subsection (g)(5)(B), by striking clauses (i) through (iii) and inserting the following:

'(i) section 32 (relating to destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities), 37 (relating to violence at international airports), 81 (relating to arson within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction), 175 or 175b (relating to biological weapons), 229 (relating to chemical weapons), subsection (a), (b), (c), or (d) of section 351 (relating to congressional, cabinet, and Supreme Court assassination and kidnaping), 831 (relating to nuclear materials), 842(m) or (n) (relating to plastic explosives), 844(f)(2) or (3) (relating to arson and bombing of Government property risking or causing death), 844(i) (relating to arson and bombing of property used in interstate commerce), 930(c) (relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a Federal facility with a dangerous weapon), 956(a)(1) (relating to conspiracy to murder, kidnap, or maim persons abroad), 1030(a)(1) (relating to protection of computers), 1030(a)(5)(A)(i) resulting in damage as defined in 1030(a)(5)(B)(ii) through (v) (relating to protection of computers), 1114 (relating to killing or attempted killing of officers and employees of the United States), 1116 (relating to murder or manslaughter of foreign officials, official guests, or internationally protected persons), 1203 (relating to hostage taking), 1362 (relating to destruction of communication lines, stations, or systems), 1363 (relating to injury to buildings or property within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States), 1366(a) (relating to destruction of an energy facility), 1751(a), (b), (c), or (d) (relating to Presidential and Presidential staff assassination and kidnaping), 1992 (relating to wrecking trains), 1993 (relating to terrorist attacks and other acts of violence against mass transportation systems), 2155 (relating to destruction of national defense materials, premises, or utilities), 2280 (relating to violence against maritime navigation), 2281 (relating to violence against maritime fixed platforms), 2332 (relating to certain homicides and other violence against United States nationals occurring outside of the United States), 2332a (relating to use of weapons of mass destruction), 2332b (relating to acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries), 2339 (relating to harboring terrorists), 2339A (relating to providing material support to terrorists), 2339B (relating to providing material support to terrorist organizations), or 2340A (relating to torture) of this title;

Yeah...I think we've got your chickenhawks painted into a corner this time. Or should I say, you painted yourselves into this corner. Tried to write a nice broad law to silence and intimidate all the "enemies" of the United States who might question what you're doing with our tax dollars or where the integrity of our government went...and look where it's gotten you.

On a related note, I think that I should point out that juror selection in the Libby trial started today...this one should set new records in how low the Bush administration will crawl through slime (and ingest it) in order to game the justice system in its favor.

(Nixon still has not left the building.)

But I am digressing again.

Why are ordinary American citizens being incarcerated and persecuted for years on end, without warrants, without probable cause, without trials, without access to counsel, all on the strength of the Patriot Act, while the Pentagon gets to get away with murder by proxy? Because that's what I would call it, if a single American soldier dies by the gunfire of a single gun or aircraft or tank or any other weapons platform that the Pentagon itself sold to a foreign national. Why are the laws no longer being applied justly in this country? How can these be considered fair and just laws? How can what is happening today be termed justice without laughing at the hypocrisy of renaming injustice as its opposite?

What can we do to take our country back?

Place Your Bets!

2007-01-16T08:44:00.001-08:00

One Dutch bank is warning its customers that either Israel and/or the United States (both or together) will strike Iran in February or March.

[ING Chief Economist Charles Robertson] suggests a February-March 2007 timeframe for several reasons. First, there is a comparable situation to Israel's strike on Iraq's nuclear program in 1981, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political troubles within Israel. Second, late February will see Iran's deadline to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1737, and Israel could use a failure of Iran and the UN to follow through as justification for a strike. Finally, greater US military presence in the region at that time could be seen by Israel as the protection from retaliation that it needs.

Sounds like pretty sane advice to me.

Anyone else care to place a bet on when the first armed military strike against Iran will take place? Hurry up now...betting automatically closes when the fighting actually starts.

Hmmm...perhaps this is the real reason why Bush has been so freakin adamant about inserting more troops into Iraq lately? Because it's only a short hop from there to assaulting Iran.

To read the bank's warnings for yourself, here is a link to the first newsletter containing the warning, and here is a link to the next newsletter after that one, containing an update to the warning.

Hat tip to Raw Story for this one.

If everything is unacceptable, then that includes Bush

2007-01-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

An excellent blog post from the Chicago Tribune this morning.

In six years in office, President Bush has found a lot of things to be unacceptable – most recently, the situation in Iraq. Sometimes the president has accepted responsibility for the situation, as he has in Iraq, and sometimes he has attempted to hold others accountable for all that is unacceptable.

When he acknowledged, soon after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, that the federal relief effort was "unacceptable,'' the president readily accepted responsibility for fixing it. But some things continue to be "unacceptable,'' in the president's eyes – such as Iran's designs for a nuclear weapon and violence in the Middle East – and these situations remain unresolved. Like the situation in Darfur. And poor schools in many places. From the begiinning, Bush has found problems. For a sampler of all the president has found unacceptable, see these excerpts from remarks since his first year:

"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me,'' the president said in his televised address to the nation last week. "Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.''

That's not all the president has found unacceptable:

On Oct, 29, 2006, in the diplomatic reception room of the White House, following North Korea's test of a nuclear device:
"This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan. We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and all of us agreed that the proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response by the United Nations Security Council.''

Oct. 27, 2006, meeting with the secretary general of NATO in the Oval Office, in answer to a reporter's question:
"We must double our effort to work with the international community to persuade the Iranians that there is only isolation from the world if they continue working forward on such a program. And I've read the speculation about that that's what they may be doing, but whether they've doubled it or not, the idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable, and it's unacceptable to the United States and it's unacceptable to nations we're working with in the United Nations to send a common message.''

On April 28, 2006, meeting with advocates for the victims of genocide in Darfur in the Roosevelt Room of the White House:
"I just had an extraordinary conversation with fellow citizens from different faiths, all of who have come to urge our government to continue to focus on saving lives in Sudan. They agree with thousands of our citizens -- hundreds of thousands of our citizens -- that genocide in Sudan is unacceptable.''

On March 20, 2006, in Cleveland, holding out the Iraqi city of Tal Afar as an example of coalition forces restoring order:
"After we removed Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the terrorists began moving into the city. They sought to divide Tal Afar's many ethnic and religious groups, and forged an alliance of convenience with those who benefitted from Saddam's regime and others with their own grievances. They skillfully used propaganda to foment hostility toward the coalition and the new Iraqi government. They exploited a weak economy to recruit young men to their cause. And by September 2004, the terrorists and insurgents had basically seized control of Tal Afar. We recognized the situation was unacceptable. So we launched a military operation against them. After three days of heavy fighting, the terrorists and the insurgents fled the city.

On Jan. 13, 2006, in the East Room of the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel:
" The U.N. Security Council is part of the diplomatic process, started by Germany, France, and Great Britain representing the interests of a lot of countries like ourself, which made it abundantly clear to the Iranians that the development of the know-how and our -- a nuclear weapon was unacceptable. And the reason it's unacceptable is because Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon, poses a grave threat to the security of the world.''

On Oct. 22, 2005, in a radio address:
"Our border patrol and immigration agents are doing a fine job, but we still have a problem. Too many illegal immigrants are coming in, and we're capturing many more non-Mexican illegal immigrants than we can send home. And one of the biggest reasons we cannot send them back is that we lack space in our detention facilities to hold them until they are removed. When there's no bed available, non-Mexicans who are caught entering our country illegally are given a slip that tells them to come back for a court appearance. Most never show up. And then they disappear back into the shadows of our communities. This is called "catch-and-release," and it is unacceptable.

On Sept. 3, 2005, in a Rose Garden statement on Hurricane Katrina:
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable.

On Feb. 17, 2005, in an East Room press conference:

First, on Iran:
"And so the objective is to solve this issue diplomatically, is to work with friends, like we're doing with France, Europe, and -- I mean, France, Germany, and Great Britain, to continue making it clear to the Iranians that developing a nuclear weapon will be unacceptable.''

Then, on the Middle East:
"Obviously, I'd like to see the Iraqi government continue to make the progress it is making toward providing its own security, as well as begin the process of writing the constitution. We will continue to work with the international community to make it clear that some of the behavior in the Middle East is unacceptable. The development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. Harboring terrorists, or providing safe haven for terrorists is unacceptable.''

On July 1, 2003, at a school in Washington, D.C.:
"The District of Columbia needs to improve. Let me just put it bluntly. (Laughter.) There are some great schools in the District and there are some lousy schools in the District. There has been a recent measurement to determine how the District schools do relative to other schools around the country, and 90 -- in grades four and eight, those were the two grades tested, the District of Columbia scored below every single state in the Union in terms of basic skills. And that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable to the Mayor, it's unacceptable to the City Council, it's unacceptable to Peggy, it's unacceptable, most importantly, to the parents. And we need to do something about it.''

On May 8, 2003, in a statement about the blocking of his judicial nominees:
"Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen have been waiting two years for an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Both of these nominees are of the highest integrity and character with tremendous legal experience. Both have been unanimously rated "Well Qualified" by the American Bar Association. Each has the support of a majority of Senators, yet votes on their nominations are being blocked by a minority of Senators who are engaged in simultaneous filibusters. These partisan obstructionist tactics are unprecedented, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the Senate's Constitutional responsibility.''

On Sept. 14, 2002, in a radio address before the congressional vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq:
"As the United Nations prepares an effective response to Iraq's defense, I also welcome next week's congressional hearings on the threats Saddam Hussein's brutal regime poses to our country and the entire world. Congress must make it unmistakably clear that when it comes to confronting the growing danger posed by Iraq's efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction, the status quo is totally unacceptable.

On May 24, 2002, in a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin:
"We reaffirm our unequivocal condemnation of all terrorist acts, considering terrorism and any form of violence an absolutely unacceptable means for achieving political goals. At the same time, recognizing the legitimate right of Israel to fight terrorism, we urge the Israelis and Palestinians to consider carefully the consequences of any actions they may take and to work to create and sustain an environment in which the parties can return to a serious political dialogue.

On June 26, 2002, facing reporters at a G-8 summit in Canada:
QUESTION: "Mr. President, in your speech you made it very clear that the current leadership in Palestinian is not acceptable. If the outcome of the election in January were to result in the reelection of Yasser Arafat, what would be the policy of your government? ''
THE PRESIDENT: "I meant what I said, that there needs to be change. If people are interested in peace, something else has got to happen. We're mired in the situation now where there is terror on the one hand and hopelessness on the other, and that's unacceptable.''

On May 14, 2001, at a forum on crime in Philadelphia:
"Nationally, there were 12,658 murders in 1999, two-thirds of which were shooting deaths. And for every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.

On Feb. 12, 2001, in a tour of Fort Stewart, Georgia:
"You are among the most deployed units in the Army. But you live on a base that has some of the least developed infrastructure. (Applause.) Two-thirds of your barracks need renovation. (Applause.) Some of your workshops are housed in wood buildings built in 1941, buildings that were designed to last 10 years, which are now having their 60th birthday. (Laughter.)
"These problems, from low pay to poor housing, reach across our military and the result is predictable. Frustration is up; morale, in some places, is difficult to sustain; recruitment is harder. This is not the way a great nation should reward courage and idealism. (Applause.) It's ungrateful, it's unwise and, it is unacceptable.'' (Applause)

Follow the original link if you want to read some of the comments on that post, or contribute your own.

China to America: BACK OFF!

2007-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Do you ever get the feeling that Bush frequently bites off more than he can chew?

China warned the United States on Thursday not to meddle in its trade relations with Iran after Washington expressed concern about a Chinese oil company's planned investment in an Iranian gas field.

[jump]

Asked if that meant Beijing believed the United States was interfering in its dealings with Iran, [Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman] Liu said, "This is our position."

Personally, I am not sure that is a good translation. What he probably said might have been better translated as, "That's what I just said, you dumb whitey. Weren't you listening? Gawd, these palefaces...so ignorant! We make an official statement, and 20 seconds later they ask us what we meant by that. Have these people never heard of reading between the lines? Do they not understand the art of making veiled threats?"

The U.S. government expressed concern to Beijing last month about a planned investment by state-owned Chinese oil company CNOOC Ltd. in Iran's Northern Pars gas field. Washington said major business dealings with Tehran were inappropriate while Iran is defying U.N. resolutions on its nuclear program.

No...sorry, but that's not true at all. Washington only believes that major business dealings with Tehran are inappropriate when the US isn't involved. America wants those fields of oil and natural gas that Iran just happens to be sitting upon. Therefore it's not "fair" for anyone else to take them. No matter who was there first. No matter who has the energy contracts already locked and signed. No matter who has the better business and trade relationship with Iran.

Please observe that this is the real reason for America's urge to make war with Iraq and with Iran. It is all because the Chinese and the Russians secured the development rights to the fuel in those countries first. Invading lets America cast down the legitimate governments of Iraq and Iran, and then install puppet governments that will renege on any past agreements and only give America its energy deposits.

Because believe me, when it comes to comparing trade between China and Iran, as opposed to the US and Iran, China is the definite winner.

The aspect of China-Iran relations that has attracted most attention since the eruption of the Iran nuclear crisis has been the energy deals. As the fast-growing Chinese economy increasingly depends on imported oil and gas to sustain itself, China has stepped up its efforts to acquire energy supplies from overseas, including the Middle East. In March 2004, China’s state-owned Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation signed a deal to import 110 million tonnes of Iranian LNG over 25 years. The deal is worth approximately $20 billion. In October 2004, one of China’s major state oil companies, Sinopec, signed an MoU with Iran to buy 250 million tonnes of LNG over 25 years. In return, Sinopec obtained a 50% stake in developing the Yadavaran oilfield, which is believed to be able to produce 300,000 barrels per day. The deal is valued at $100 billion. China is also believed to be interested in constructing a pipeline in Iran to transport oil to the Caspian Sea, so that eventually it can gain direct pipeline access to Iranian oil via Kazakhstan.

LNG = liquefied natural gas MoU = memorandum of understanding, aka contract under international law Dollar values are expressed in U.S. dollars

Download the study here: PDF

See, the amount of fuel buried inside the planet is finite. We know this because the mass of the planet is not expanding infinitely. Since the total amount of fuel in the world is limited, superpowers are probably going to come to blows in battling for that fuel. This is bad news for America, because with our military forces being in the current state that they are, we cannot defeat China.

I need all of you to appreciate this fact. China helped Iran develop a missle that was used to spank Israel during its conflict with Palestine last summer. When you consider that Israel has some of the best military technology and equipment that America has to offer, this does not bode well. Why are these weapons being built by China and Iran, in a spirit of cooperation? Well, take a guess at who their mutual enemy might be...a mutual enemy with a thirst for oil, a lust for invasion, and a bloated military budget.

And here's some more appreciation. Chinese stealth technology has advanced to the point where US naval fleets cannot detect Chinese subs. Now if they also have weapons like the Tomahawk already developed (or very close to being developed) then I need you to think about the ramifications of that. Ever seen The Hunt for Red October?

Consider how "stretched thin" our military forces already are, conducting war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and getting ready for a third battlefront with Iran. What makes you think that the US is ready to take on the likes of China?????

This is a warning we would do well to heed. (I'm talking to you, Bush.)

UPDATE: Now Russia is also warning us as well.

UPDATE 2: China tests an anti-satellite weapons system. This is some pretty whopping big news.

Now that a ground-launched anti-satellite system has been demonstrated, getting that genie back into the bottle may prove a daunting challenge. Henceforth, any reasonably sized military missile could be a satellite-killer with the addition of a Volkswagen-sized warhead.

Thanks, Bush.

2007-01-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward -- someone please tell me again how the Dictator-In-Chief has made our world safer?

What is the sound of one hand throwing fecal matter into rotating blades?

2007-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Such wondrous and uplifting news today.

Why did we raid the Iranian embassy in Iraq?!? What in samhain justified this?

US forces accompanied by military helicopters on Thursday stormed the Iranian consulate in the Kurdish city of Arbil, arresting five Iranian employees, a Kurdish security source said. In addition to the arrests, US troops confiscated documents and computers, while Kurdish security authorities cordoned off all roads leading to the building.

In Tehran, the Iranian leadership responded by summoning diplomats representing US interests in order to protest.

Local Kurdish officials in northern Iraq refused to comment on the incident.

Arbil is located 350 kilometres north of Baghdad in Iraq's Kurdistan province, the only region officially recognized as a federal entity.

Okay, that last phrase may sound kind of strange...let me fill you in on what's happening there.

Iraq is going to get partitioned into smaller countries. As long as the Kurds in northern Iraq continue to stand behind their own flag and recognize only their own parliament, this is an inevitable result, even if we ONLY split Iraq into Iraq and Kurdistan.

That would be an example of one of the more PEACEFUL roads to partition. It would also be a model example of nation forging.

Personally, I worry that we're not on the peaceful road...and that we're also looking at as many as 18 possible countries being salvaged out of the wreckage of Iraq. (See previous link.) And that's still being optimistic.

Back to the article.

The raid came a day after US President George W Bush said the United States would confront Iran and Syria, accusing them of fomenting violence in Iraq by allowing insurgents into the country and supporting attacks on American troops.

The political and religious representatives of Iraq's Sunni Muslim population accuse the Iranian leadership of supporting Shiite militias and even sending its own fighters to take part in death squads.

Gosh, that last sentence almost makes it sound like we're taking part in battles between Sunnis and Shiites. I thought our objective was to stay out of this civil war? Oh, that's right, first we have to admit it's a civil war, before we can deal with it actually being a civil war. In the meantime, we just drive around from gunfight to gunfight, and kill whomever shoots at us. Maybe we really have been duped into conducting ethnic cleansing on behalf of various Iraqi factions. This certainly wouldn't be the first time we've been played for fools like this...and I also sincerely doubt that it's going to be the last.

Anyone who continues to support Bush, I just want you to know that you are also to blame for all of this death, waste and bloodshed.

Think about it. Why do we continue to prosecute Nazis? No matter if they were supreme commanding generals or mere gate guards at concentration camps. Do you really think we would still be hunting Nazis if Hitler alone was to blame for the Holocaust?

Back to the article.

In Tehran, Iran summoned the ambassadors of Iraq and Switzerland (which represents US interests in Iran) over the consulate raid, Iran's state television network IRIB reported.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry demanded explanations from the two ambassadors on the raid and stressed that the consulate was established in the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region at the explicit wishes of the Iraqi government and Iraqi Kurdish officials.

Meanwhile, a source close to the Kurdistani government said the administration was unaware of the US plans to raid the Iranian consulate and didn't know the purpose of the operation.

You know, I actually believe that last part. Even if the Kurds knew about the plans for the raid on the embassy, why would they care?

Are they US allies? Have we done right by the Kurds? Is there a history of cooperation and intelligence-sharing between the Kurdish population and the United States?

Or has our conduct been more along the lines of "screw the Kurds, they're poor and they don't sit on any oil"?

What is he talking about, I can hear you wondering. I'm talking about things like doing nothing...and in fact, turning a blind eye while other countries attack Kurdish civilians with their military forces. That do it for you?

Yes, some of them may have cheered when Saddam was tried and hanged...but don't think for a second that they were cheering for us.

Back to the article.

After raiding the consulate, the US forces headed for Eikawa district, which hosts foreign companies and countries' representatives. Security forces of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP) reportedly surrounded three US military vehicles to prevent them from further action.

Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini condemned the raid and called it contrary to diplomatic norms.

He also confirmed the arrest of the five consulate staff members, but could give no information on their whereabouts or whether they have been transferred outside Arbil.

The IRIB Arabic network Al-Alam reported that the Iranian consulate employees had already been transferred to Baghdad although the president of the Kurdish autonomous region, Massoud Barzani, had tried to prevent the transfer.

I'd be worried about my brown-skinned employees in US custody too. I would be extremely worried that would be squirreled away somewhere secret, and then tortured.

The funny thing is, only 20 to 40 years ago, this is why we Americans said that the USSR had to be taken down. Because of KGB practices.

Okay, so maybe that observation is not funny at all. But you get my point.

Back to the article.

Hosseini told ISNA news agency that all accusations by the US alleging Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs were just excuses to cover up the US failure in Iraq.

"Even the Iraqi officials have several times confirmed that Iran had no interference in Iraq," the spokesman said.

But that fact won't stop the United States from spinning (lying) that Iran had something...anything...everything...to do with 9-11, now will it?

All of this has happened before...and all of this will happen again.

What A Difference!

2007-01-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

So the wheels of our government are finally turning at last. Things which should have been done years ago...are now finally happening...thanks to the new Congress.

Read it and rejoice.

A House bill (H. Res. 1) to implement recommendations suggested by the September 11th Commission passed by a vote of 299 to 128, with eight members of Congress not voting.

Gee, and it only took them what...5 years and 4 months to do this?

What was the freaking delay, people?

House Republican Leadership had urged a no vote to the legislation, reasoning that it had not been considered with appropriate hearings by House committees, and amendments on the House floor were not permitted.

Translation: House Republican Leadership had urged a no vote to the legislation, whining that there weren't enough earmarks in it for their pet districts, that there wasn't enough extra funding padded in to continue their graft and corruption, and that it really didn't line their pockets since all it did was provide for the protection of the little poor people.

Thank you 110th. Now we're seeing some real progress in action.

No thanks to Bush (who still wants the power to line-item veto) and no thanks to the GOP. The GOP has had full control of the Executive and the Legislature since well before 9-11, and what do they have to show for it?

Anyone remember this?

The federal government received failing and mediocre grades yesterday from the former Sept. 11 commission, whose members said in a final report that the Bush administration and Congress have balked at enacting numerous reforms that could save American lives and prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The 10-member bipartisan panel -- whose book-length report about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks became a surprise bestseller -- issued a "report card" that included 5 F's, 12 D's and two "incompletes" in categories including airline passenger screening and improving first responders' communication system.

Somebody please tell me again how Republican leadership is supposed to make us safer than Democratic leadership?

Someone?

Anyone?

Litmus Test: FAILED

2007-01-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

Bush has failed the litmus test for backbone and independence from the oil and gas industries.

He is now officially a spreading whore. I would leave a five dollar bill on the nightstand, but that's too generous of a tip.

Another Civics Lesson...This One's for Our Congressmen

2007-01-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, I can sort of understand it when the ordinary citizens of a nation do not know everything about the most basic workings of their government. There is, after all, a very fine line between civics and law, and in an ideal (peaceful and idyllic) society, one should not have to touch the law unless driven to do so, because dealing with the justice system is such a terrible burden. (I'm just kidding with that last statement. Ignorance of the law makes people easier to control, and reduces us to sheep. All citizens who would respect the word "citizen" have a civic duty to educate themselves.)

But it's another thing entirely when the freaking elected representatives of the people -- the ones chosen by the rest of us to serve in office as career politicians, the parasites whose jobs depend upon such knowledge -- exhibit this same ignorance.

What am I talking about? Let's check in with very recent media shows for two very fresh examples:

Example #1

ABC news anchor Charles Gibson: Would you vote in favor of money to support another 20,000 to 40,000 troops in Iraq?
Representative (D-KS) Nancy Boyda: I think we're going to vote to support what the commander in chief and head of military asks to do. At least, I am certainly going to vote to support it.
Gibson: If he wants the surge, he'll get it.
Boyda: Yes.… He is the commander in chief, Charlie. We don't get that choice. Congress doesn't make that decision.

Example #2

Senator (D-DE) Joseph Biden: You can’t do it...You can't go in and, like a [Tinkertoy,] and play around and say, "You can’t spend the money on this piece and this piece and...[H]e’ll be able to keep those troops there forever constitutionally if he wants to.
MSNBC news moderator Tim Russert: Why not have legislation then that would cap the number of troops in Iraq?
Biden: Because it's very difficult to-—it’s constitutionally questionable whether or not you can do that. I think it is unconstitutional to say, "We’re going to tell you you can go, but we’re going to micromanage the war." When we wrote the Constitution, the intention was to give the commander in chief the authority how to use the forces, when you authorize them, to be able to use the forces.

(snapping fingers)

Do I have your full attention now? Good.

*********************************************************

FACT: Congress can check Bush on troop escalation.

*********************************************************

And now you're probably wondering how two Congressmen (both of them Democrats, no less) could possibly be wrong on this topic.

"Didn't Congress declare war / authorize the President to use force on September 14th, 2001?"

Glad you mentioned that. Let's take a closer look at the exact text of that resolution:

(all the "Whereas..." paragraphs at the beginning deleted)

Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. Short Title

This joint resolution may be cited as the "Authorization for Use of Military Force"

Section 2. Authorization for Use of United States Armed Forces

(a) That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force...

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements

(1) Specific Statutory Authorization -- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) Applicability of Other Requirements -- Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

So that means the 1973 War Powers Resolution still applies, and applies in full, in spite of this Authorization.

Don't you love how the right-wingers love to paste up the entire text of this Authorization on their websites...but keep forgetting about paragraph 2(b)(2)? Talk about selective blindness.

Perhaps we should give this ancient law a thorough reading as well? Let's do that.

Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SHORT TITLE

SECTION 1. This joint resolution may be cited as the "War Powers Resolution".

PURPOSE AND POLICY

SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicate by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.

[jump]

CONSULTATION

SEC. 3. The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.

[jump]

REPORTING

(b) The President shall provide such other information as the Congress may request in the fulfillment of its constitutional responsibilities with respect to committing the Nation to war and to the use of United States Armed Forces abroad.

[jump]

INTERPRETATION OF JOINT RESOLUTION

(d) Nothing in this joint resolution--
(1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President, or the provision of existing treaties; or (2) shall be construed as granting any authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this joint resolution.

See that, Bush? You need to work with Congress during times of war, and keep them just as informed as you are on all subjects concerning that war. What's more, nothing grants you any further authority to wage war. NOTHING. You remain beholden to the laws passed by Congress, past present and future, now and forever. You don't get to wiggle out of this one with a "signing statement" get-out-of-jail-free card, whatever the hell that is.

So...to hell with your theory of the Unitary Executive, which by any other name would be Dictator! And to hell with any Congressman (or -woman) who also thinks that the Executive branch trumps the Legislative! It's the other way around, numbnuts. Congress has the power of the purse strings. If the President wants to do something, Congress has the authority and the ability to stop him, simply by denying the funding necessary to pull it off. It's written right there in the federal Constitution, look it up.

What's this, you're still not convinced? You're thinking that this is just my opinion, and nobody else's?

Let's see...who else agrees with me on this point? Okay, for starters, there is Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House:

"If the president chooses to escalate the war, in his budget request, we want to see a distinction between what is there to support the troops who are there now," she said in an exclusive interview on Face The Nation.

"The American people and the Congress support those troops. We will not abandon them. But if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it and this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions," said Pelosi, D-Calif.

Some of you have problems with Pelosi, fine. That's your prerogative. You don't have to believe everything coming out of her mouth.

But what about good ol' Jack Murtha? Now there's a fightin' Congressman and well-decorated war hero if there ever was one!

Yep. So, click here to watch a VIDEO of him shutting down and tearing up Biden's "it's unconstitutional" statement on national news TV.

Of course, since Murtha is the Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, it's in his power to push such a limitation on funding.

That's right, TPM, couldn't agree with you guys more.

And while we're on the website of TPM, here's another Congressman, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who has already introduced legislation that would require Bush to get the approval of Congress for his surge plan.

The money paragraph of the bill reads as follows:

Prohibition. -- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be obligated or expended by the United States government to increase the number of United States forces in Iraq above the number for such forces which existed as of January 9, 2007, without a specific authorization from Congress by law for such an increase.

Granted, this is kind of redundant, since the War Powers Resolution already requires the President to consult Congress every time more troops are "introduced" to areas of "hostilities" or "potential hostile circumstances" but that's Washington politics for you.

Allright, I hear you...you're getting tired of listening to the blathering rhetoric of Congressmen (who are all biased and have party affiliations) and you want to hear from somebody else.

Allow me to grant that wish. Here is a blog piece written by Georgetown University professor Marty Lederman.

I have argued in this space that because the Democrats appear now to have come out firmly against an escalation of troops in Iraq, and in favor of a deescalation of the conflict, they ought to pass a bill compelling the President to abide by such decisions.

[jump]

[T]he hypothetical statute here would prohibit him from using more than a specified number of troops in Iraq, and/or require that the troops be used only for particular purposes and only for a specified period of time.

[jump]

Ask yourself this: Imagine a hypothetical situation in which an armed conflict has gone disasterously awry, resulting in a devastating and spiraling civil war in a major Middle Eastern nation and profound harms to both U.S. troops and our nation's long-term foreign interests. Over 70% of the U.S. public concludes that the President's proposal to escalate the conflict will only make the disaster worse, and is for that reason a terrible mistake. Over two-thirds of each House of Congress -- supermajorities that include numerous members of the President's own party -- are willing to vote to forbid him from taking such a fateful step.

Is it really imaginable that any reasonable constitution-writers -- let alone our own Framers, suspicious as they were of unchecked executive military power -- would disable the legislature from correcting the Executive's mistake under such circumstances?

This last question was asked in reference to Senator Biden's statement. Clearly, Lederman does not agree that Bush = constitutional, and has had enough of such talk.

(The hypothetical situation, however...I have no clue what that one's about, or where it could be from, or what it could possibly be referring to.)

Here is another piece written by legal expert Neil Kinkopf, President Clinton’s former constitutional law advisor.

Even if the President does not submit his [new Iraq] plan for congressional approval, Congress is constitutionally empowered to require him to do so.

The Constitution grants Congress extensive war powers – so extensive, in fact, that Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that “The whole powers of war being, by the Constitution of the United States, vested in Congress, the Acts of that body can alone be resorted to as our guides ….” (Talbot v. Seeman (1801).) These powers include the power to declare war; grant letters of marque and reprisal; raise and support an army and navy; make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; provide for the calling forth of the militia; and to lay taxes and appropriate funds to provide for the common defense, with the proviso that no appropriation for such a purpose can be for more than two years.

[jump]

As Commander in Chief, the President’s role is to prosecute the war that Congress has authorized. The President may not go beyond this authorization. This understanding of the President’s power as Commander in Chief is plain enough from the text of the Constitution itself. It has also been the consistent interpretation of the Courts. Chief Justice John Marshall set forth this interpretation in a series of cases arising from the naval war with France. Most notably, in Little v. Barreme, Chief Justice Marshall held that the President’s war powers are defined by statute and may not exceed statutory limits.

[jump]

Justice Jackson’s famous concurring opinion (which the Supreme Court has since held to set forth the proper view of presidential power) emphasized that the Constitution does not set forth exclusive power, but overlapping or shared power. Where Congress and the President share power, as in the area of war power, the President is bound to comply with the statutes that Congress enacts.

[jump]

Most recently, [i]n both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), the Supreme Court rejected the President’s assertion of unilateral authority to conduct military operations[,] holding instead that the President must comply with applicable statutory limits as well as applicable international law.

The Supreme Court has been clear and unambiguous. When Congress, acting in the vast areas of overlapping power, tells the President “no,” the President must comply. Thus, Congress may limit the scope of the present Iraq War by either of two mechanisms. First, it may directly define limits on the scope of that war—and forbid the President from exceeding these limits—such as by imposing a ceiling on the number of troops assigned to that conflict. Second, it may achieve the same objective by enacting appropriations riders that limit the use of appropriated funds. Indeed, the reason that the Constitution limits military appropriations to two years is to prevent Congress from abdicating its responsibility to oversee ongoing military engagements.

The Constitution’s drafters understood the immense national sacrifice that war entails. Moreover, they understood the advantages that would accrue to the President during times of war. For these reasons, the Constitution assigns Congress the power to initiate war and to define the parameters of military operations. The Constitution’s structure, then, clearly contemplates that important decisions regarding the scale of war are to be made not by the President alone, but through the democratic process. This is why the Constitution mandates Congress’s assent not only to the initiation of a war but to its size and scope.

And now, last but not least, for the list of people who agree with me...

...here is the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Stephen Breyer delivering the concurring opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: (that means he's on the side of the majority of judges)

The dissenters say that today's decision would "sorely hamper the President's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy." [Citation omitted.] They suggest that it undermines our Nation's ability to "preven[t] future attacks" of the grievous sort that we have already suffered. [] That claims leads me to state briefly what I believe the majority sets forth both explicitly and implicitly at greater length. The Court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a "blank check." [] Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.

Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine--through democratic means--how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democractic means. Our Court today simply does the same.

The other justices in the majority were Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice David Souter and Justice Anthony Kennedy. (Considering that Bush actually picked two of the current Supreme Court Justices himself, this is pretty sad.)

Look, it's very simple. I'm going to repeat this fact--Congress can check Bush on troop escalation--because it bears repeating. The Judicial branch of our government has final say on all questions of constitutional law. See Marbury vs. Madison. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the President must obey statutes when exercising powers, even in areas where powers are shared with Congress, such as war powers. (See the Kinkopf piece, linked earlier, for examples of this throughout America's history. Click here for even more examples.) They said so in 2002, and they said it again in 2004. What makes you think the Supremes will say anything different in 2007-2008? End of discussion.

Any politician currently sitting in Congress who is not aware of this basic function of checks and balances that I have outlined here (especially during this time of "war") needs to go back to middle school and re-do every single Civics class until they can pass the exact same Civics examination that we administer to foreign nationals wishing to become naturalized United States citizens. (I'm looking at you, Boyda and Biden.) How can we expect you to govern if you have no working knowledge of government? This is a minimum job requirement, for competency's sake! Anything less is just ripe fodder for another travesty in our times.

Hey, ewe, get offa McCloud!

2007-01-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's a stupid post title, but so what...

There's not much I can do, when the news itself is even stupider.

Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

Wow...another arm patch reference. And this one is actually in the name of "improving" the base human genetic stock, no less.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

But the researchers argue that the work is valid, shedding light on the “broad question” of what determines sexual orientation. They insist the work is not aimed at “curing” homosexuality.

Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds.

The scientists have been able to pinpoint the mechanisms influencing the desires of “male-oriented” rams by studying their brains. The animals’ skulls are cut open and electronic sensors are attached to their brains.

By varying the hormone levels, mainly by injecting hormones into the brain, they have had “considerable success” in altering the rams’ sexuality, with some previously gay animals becoming attracted to ewes.

Considerable success...but not total success? That sounds like fudging the results.

Professor Charles Roselli, the Health and Science University biologist leading the research, defended the project.

He said: “In general, sexuality has been under-studied because of political concerns. People don’t want science looking into what determines sexuality.

“It’s a touchy issue. In fact, several studies have shown that people who believe homosexuality is biologically based are less homophobic than people who think that this orientation is acquired.”

Right, because gayness isn't a germ or a bug that can be acquired. It's not a freaking disease, people. Get some spine already.

The research is being peer-reviewed by a panel of scientists in America, demonstrating that it is being taken seriously by the academic community.

Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child.

Roselli has said he would be “uncomfortable” about parents choosing sexuality, but argues that it is up to policy makers to legislate on questions of ethics.

Why am I not surprised in the least -- IN THE LEAST -- that this project is coming straight out of red America?

Do the religious nuts even think about the consequences of things like this before they cough up the funding?

Because here's the other shoe I'm going to drop:

If this project actually succeeds...

...if sexuality really can be adjusted after birth by hormones...

...then that means everything about the mammalian brain can be determined, adjusted, altered, and re-written through drugs and advanced chemistry...

...and therefore, there is no such thing as a soul.

Think about it. This project applies to humans as well. (See the paragraph about the arm patches.) If everything -- EVERYTHING -- in the brain is merely a result of biochemistry, then what's permanent?

The answer: nothing.

We've been searching for centuries for the definitive proof as to whether the soul exists or not, and here it is. If this project works, there is no soul. You are not a spiritual being. You are an algorithm, a flesh robot, a set of memories and emotional responses...that can be re-programmed by the State.

Checkmate for military-service contractors

2007-01-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

I have some good news for you today. If you have ever looked at the travesty of Iraq, and wondered "where is the accountability?"...then this posting is for you. True, we aren't at 100% full accountability yet -- that would probably require two impeachment proceedings and dozens of criminal trials, all followed by lengthy prison sentences -- but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Over the last few years, tales of private military contractors run amuck in Iraq -- from the CACI interrogators at Abu Ghraib to the Aegis company's Elvis-themed internet "trophy video" —- have continually popped up in the headlines. Unfortunately, when it came to actually doing something about these episodes of Outsourcing Gone Wild, Hollywood took more action than Washington. The TV series Law and Order punished fictional contractor crimes, while our courts ignored the actual ones. Leonardo Dicaprio acted in a movie featuring the private military industry, while our government enacted no actual policy on it. But those carefree days of military contractors romping across the hills and dales of the Iraqi countryside, without legal status or accountability, may be over. The Congress has struck back.

Perhaps you haven't been following some of the world news (non-US news) closely enough to remember what this controversy is about. So let me give you one ancient example to refresh your memory. During the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, DynCorp employees were accused of participating in the Bosnian sex-slave trade. Male contractors of DynCorp purchased girls as young as 12 for sexual purposes, buying women and children kidnapped from Russia, Romania, and other Eastern European countries by the Serbian mafia. A few of the contractors even tried to get around U.S. immigration laws to have the women brought home with them as personal property.

In a more recent example, the new law could prevent incidents like this one.

Starting to get the picture?

We now return you to the originally scheduled article:

Amidst all the add-ins, pork spending, and excitement of the budget process, it has now come out that a tiny clause was slipped into the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 budget legislation. The one sentence section (number 552 of a total 3510 sections) states that "Paragraph (10) of section 802(a) of title 10, United States Code (article 2(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), is amended by striking `war' and inserting `declared war or a contingency operation'." The measure passed without much notice or any debate. And then, as they might sing on School House Rock, that bill became a law (P.L.109-364).

The addition of five little words to a massive US legal code that fills entire shelves at law libraries wouldn't normally matter for much. But with this change, contractors' 'get out of jail free' card may have been torn to shreds. Previously, contractors would only fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, better known as the court martial system, if Congress declared war. This is something that has not happened in over 65 years and out of sorts with the most likely operations in the 21st century. The result is that whenever our military officers came across episodes of suspected contractor crimes in missions like Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, or Afghanistan, they had no tools to resolve them. As long as Congress had not formally declared war, civilians -- even those working for the US armed forces, carrying out military missions in a conflict zone -- fell outside their jurisdiction. The military's relationship with the contractor was, well, merely contractual. At most, the local officer in charge could request to the employing firm that the individual be demoted or fired. If he thought a felony occurred, the officer might be able to report them on to civilian authorities.

[jump]

The situation perhaps hit its low-point this fall, when the Under Secretary of the Army testified to Congress that the Army had never authorized Halliburton or any of its subcontractors (essentially the entire industry) to carry weapons or guard convoys. He even denied the US had firms handling these jobs. Never mind the thousands of newspaper, magazine, and TV news stories about the industry. Never mind Google's 1,350,000 web mentions. Never mind the official report from U.S. Central Command that there were over 100,000 contractors in Iraq carrying out these and other military roles. In a sense, the Bush Administration was using a cop-out that all but the worst Hollywood script writers avoid. Just like the end of the TV series Dallas, Congress was somehow supposed to accept that the private military industry in Iraq and all that had happened with it was somehow 'just a dream.'

What's this? The Bush administration in denial about something? Say it ain't so!

The current Under Secretary of the Army, by the way, is one Mr. Pete Geren, a former Congressman from Texas, and one of the four top-ranked leaders of the Pentagon who were featured on a promotional evangelical video filmed inside of the Pentagon itself.

This guy has "former Bush cronie" and "fecking batshyte crazy mental fundamentalist" written all over him. So his attitude regarding "Christian contractors hired by the Christian Pentagon can do no wrong" should come as no surprise.

In many ways, the new law is the 21st century business version of the rights contract: If a private individual wants to travel to a warzone and do military jobs for profit, on behalf of the US government, then that individual agrees to fall under the same codes of law and consequence that American soldiers, in the same zones, doing the same sorts of jobs, have to live and work by. If a contractor doesn't agree to these regulations, that's fine, don't contract. Unlike soldiers, they are still civilians with no obligation to serve.

[jump]

Given that the firm executives and their lobbyists back in DC have completely dropped the ball, someone ought to tell the contractors in Iraq that they can now be court-martialed.

Normally, I would conclude this piece with a scathing criticism of what the PMCs ("private" military contractors, what an oxymoron) have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Normally.

Today, however, I think I will let the video footage speak for itself. A picture being worth 1K words after all.

If you were wondering what "the Aegis company's Elvis-themed internet trophy video" (mentioned in the article) was all about, click here and prepare to be shocked.

And if that link doesn't work for you (they put it in the 18+ section because it's so graphic in violence) then try this video link instead.

Then, when you're done watching that, surf over here to grab some more videos and get the word out.

New Year, New Packaging, Same Bushit

2007-01-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

The man's poll numbers have gone so low this time, he has written an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. How pathetic can you get? This is a guy who couldn't even finish "My Pet Goat" in under 8 minutes. What do you have to say to us here that couldn't wait for the State of the Union address? Everyone knows that WSJ readers are a bunch of rich WASP GOP pantywaists...are you trying to reach out to Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Jane American with this? Try again.

It's a horrible read. I found that it needed a lot of translating. There's a lot that he wants to tell us, but can't quite bring himself to commit to paper. I have taken the liberty (heh, TAKEN that freedom) of adding the lines between the lines.

*******************************************************

What the Congress Can Do for America
BY GEORGE W. BUSH

What the President Can Do for America: Quit Office, and Take Cheney With Him
BY CONCERNEDCITIZEN

*******************************************************

Tomorrow, members of the 110th Congress will take their oaths of office here in Washington. I will have the privilege of working with them for the next two years--one quarter of my presidency, plenty of time to accomplish important things for the American people.

Tomorrow, more Democrats than I've ever seen in my lifetime will come to work in Washington. I will have the privilege of dropping my trousers for the next two years--one quarter of my presidency, while they go over my butt with a microscope and try to find out what I did for the American people.

Together, we have a chance to serve the American people by solving the complex problems that many don't expect us to tackle, let alone solve, in the partisan environment of today's Washington.

Because, to tell you the truth, I couldn't "solve" my way out of a wet paper bag, let alone manage the United States and the rest of the world.

To do that, however, we can't play politics as usual.

Unless I'm the one playing the game who's holding all of the cards in both his hands. Close to my chest and with a game face on, that is. Heh heh.

Democrats will control the House and Senate, and therefore we share the responsibility for what we achieve.

That includes everything I did before the 110th Congress was convened.

In the days and weeks since the November elections, I have been encouraged by the productive meetings I've had with many of the new leaders in Congress from both parties.

Because the midterm elections finally schooled me into the fact that this is not a dictatorship, and I need the help of other people to get anything done. (Before the midterms, I never had meetings with ANYONE lower than Condi.)

I am hopeful we can find common ground without compromising our principles.

Because I'm already so thoroughly compromised, I wouldn't know a principle if it bit me and chewed off a pound of flesh.

I believe we share many of the same goals for the people we serve--

--such as taking the middle class for every penny they are worth--

--and with good will and hard effort, we can find practical ways to advance the American Dream and keep our nation safe.

Which is why I'm reaching out to all of you with this editorial, as I'm a stranger to both good will and hard effort. (I'm not familiar with practicality, either.)

My principles are no secret.

You need to have principles before they can be kept secret. Get it? Hah? Karl told me that one. He's a pretty sharp fella, but he's not as bright of a tool in my shed as I am.

I have campaigned on them in my races for governor and in two presidential contests,

all of which were plagued with allegations of cheating and ballot-stuffing,

and I have worked hard during my presidency to translate these principles into sound policy.

or at least, pretty darn good reasons for cutting back the estate taxes on the rich while increasing the tax burden on everybody else.

I believe that when America is willing to use her influence abroad, the American people are safer and the world is more secure.

Pay no attention to what's happening in Afghanistan or Iraq, heh heh.

I believe that wealth does not come from government.

It's the other way around.

It comes from the hard work of America's workers, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Most of who are living in China and India, since I let my CEO buddies write whatever laws they please.

I believe government closest to the people is more responsive and accountable.

Which is why you'll never see me shaking hands at a fundraiser, or telling the Secret Service or the FBI to just go ahead and let any protesters come attend my speeches.

I believe government plays an important role in helping those who can't help themselves.

Which is why I'm glad that we've got someone like Brownie in charge of FEMA...what do you mean, he quit? Now wait just a darn minute--

Yet we must always remember that when people are hurting, they need a caring person, not a government bureaucracy.

And certainly not a good-fer-nothing president who shows up 8 days late, rolls up his sleeves for a few photo-ops, then leaves again and is never heard from or seen since.

These are all common-sense principles, and they provide the basis for how I will approach governing with the new Congress.

Because for some odd reason, my common sense just ain't the same as your common-sense...or anybody else's. I'm still trying to figger that one out, heh heh.

We've proved it can be done: When our nation was attacked, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Patriot Act and reform our intelligence agencies.

And you see that now they no longer provide us with intelligence, but with cherry-picked foreign policy agendas instead.

When our economy was struggling, we worked together to pass tax relief that has helped our economy grow, create jobs, and raise the standard of living for the American people.

And I did it all with one hand tied behind my back while selling the Brooklyn Bridge to our friends the British. (I got a great deal on the Crown Jewels.)

When we saw that our public schools were failing our children, we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, insisting on high standards, accountability and better options for parents.

Options that include purchasing COWs, eight-thousand-dollar movie projectors in giant purple boxes on wheels. And history taught with rap songs.

The outcome of the elections has changed the balance of power in Congress, yet the priorities for keeping our country safe and prosperous go beyond party labels.

[author's note: I'm wondering how many of you noticed the placement of "yet" in that sentence. The implication is that changing the balance of power in Congress (stripping the GOP of power there) does nothing to keep our country safe and prosperous. Quite the opposite is true. You have an excellent team of speechwriters, Mr. President.]

Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001--and who are working hard to attack us again.

Harder than I'm working to protect you, that's for sure. By the way, did you notice that I made mention of 9-11 and the word "terror" again? No, I'm not playing any political games here, why do you ask?

These terrorists are part of a broader extremist movement that is now doing everything it can to defeat us in Iraq.

[author's note: Here is another unspoken implication. If you are against continuing the war on its present course, then you want the United States to "lose" in Iraq and are therefore part of this broader extremist movement. Note that he does not mention al-Qaeda once in this whole exchange. That is because Bush is not interested in focusing on that group, as it would remind people of his failure to apprehend Osama bin Laden despite 5 years having gone by. No, he wants to take this opportunity to expand the definition of "enemy combatants" and "enemies of freedom"...to include his own fellow Americans. Dissenters will not be tolerated. So now you know why torture has been institutionalized and habeus corpus has been eliminated.]

In the days ahead, I will be addressing our nation about a new strategy to help the Iraqi people gain control of the security situation and hasten the day when the Iraqi government gains full control over its affairs.

[author's note: I'm sorry, did you say "new" strategy? How does dumping even more American troops into a foreign country with no clear combat goals translate into a NEW strategy? How does this differ from April 2003, way back when we first invaded Iraq for no good reason?]

Ultimately, Iraqis must resolve the most pressing issues facing them. We can't do it for them.

Because it's their own fault for worshipping heathen gods and rejecting Christ.

But we can help Iraq defeat the extremists inside and outside of Iraq--and we can help provide the necessary breathing space for this young government to meet its responsibilities.

It's called governing from inside the Green Zone.

If democracy fails and the extremists prevail in Iraq, America's enemies will be stronger, more lethal, and emboldened by our defeat.

So if you people don't fix the mess that I started, then it's all your fault.

Leaders in both parties understand the stakes in this struggle. We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus to fight and win the war.

I have a dream...of a peaceful Iraq...ruled by Halliburton and Co. Where wings take dream, and Barbara's and Jenna's kids can earn 20 percent on all oil transactions.

America's priorities also include keeping our economy strong.

Even at the expense of our health care, our environment, our Social Security and our education system.

The elections have not reversed the laws of economics.

E-voting controversies still put money in the hands of the lawyers.

It is a fact that economies do best when you reward hard work by allowing people to keep more of what they have earned.

And that's why the euro is now stronger than the dollar. Everyone got that?

And we have seen that businesses can expand and hire more workers when they have more money to invest--and since August 2003, America's employers have added more than seven million new jobs.

Most of those being jobs created to replace the 48 to 51 million jobs lost to Americans in that same time period, but who cares about numbers.

It is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues.

For the rich. And for the oil companies. CEO severance pay has ballooned like nobody's business...makes me wish I was an oil man again, heh heh. Wait, that's right, I still am one.

Because revenues have grown and we've done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule.

So pony up another $100 billion for my Crusade in Iraq already.

By continuing these policies, we can balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent.

For the rich. And for the oil companies. CEO severance pay has ballooned like nobody's business...

In early February, I will submit a budget that does exactly that.

Anything to distract your attention away from my two failed wars. Who's up for attacking Iran?

The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget.

But not good at all for the American CEO, the American fat cat, the American politician, or the American oilman. That's why you'll never see me practicing anything that could be called spending restraint. Heh heh!

Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people.

I already twice, the third time will probably result in open civil war.

By balancing the budget through pro-growth economic policies and spending restraint, we are better positioned to tackle the longer term fiscal challenge facing our country: reforming entitlements--Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid--so future generations can benefit from these vital programs without bankrupting our country.

Because the top 2 percent richest people in this country have children and grandchildren to worry about, too.

One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress.

[author's note: The rest of us learned it a lot sooner than the November 2006 midterm elections, but you take your wins where you can.]

I'm glad Senator Robert Byrd and Congressman Dave Obey--the Democrats who will lead the appropriations process in the new Congress--heard that message, too, and have indicated they will refrain from including additional earmarks in the continuing resolution for this fiscal year.

I'm mentioning 2 Democrats here because I'm trying to tie their names to this issue. By association, the Demorats will look so bad, we can retake everything in 2008! Heh heh!

But we can and should do more.

Such as, sending in more troops! More troops! More troops! More troops! More troops! More troops! More troops!

It's time Congress give the president a line-item veto.

Because I STILL DON'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO RUN THINGS MY WAY!!!!!

And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.

I'm drafting a signing statement to give myself unlimited powers in the event of Demorat improprieties.

The strength of our economy also requires us to address some of the biggest issues facing the American people--greater energy security, comprehensive immigration reform, and affordable health care.

[author's note: What the hell is "energy security"? Is that something like...dominating all of the Middle East, dissolving OPEC, and setting gasoline at 15 cents a gallon, now and forever, amen, allejuiah, glory be to Bush?]

While progress has been made in each of these areas, we must do more.

Which is why I'm opening up a third war front against Iran. Anyone got any suggestions for the 4th?

I look forward to working with Congress on these difficult issues.

Because I can usually read "My Pet Goat" once or twice during them subpoena sessions.

Our Founders believed in the wisdom of the American people to choose their leaders and provided for the concept of divided and effective government.

And look how I schooled them. Heh heh! That's my revenge for 9th grade civics classes! What a boring subject. Who's the Deciderer now? Heh heh!

The majority party in Congress gets to pass the bills it wants.

But hold on, this article isn't about playing politics.

The minority party, especially where the margins are close, has a strong say in the form bills take.

That's why I'm the tie-breaker (and The Deciderer) with the veto-power power. That's what my Oval Office is for. See, I'm as smart as Poppy.

And the Constitution leaves it to the president to use his judgment whether they should be signed into law.

So when you question me, you question the Constitution. Remember that, Demorats. Remember that when Rummy's men open a Gitmo party in your butts.

That gives us a clear challenge and an opportunity. If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate.

So I don't want to see any more flag burning or Terri Schiavo bills crossing my desk, unless it's a new election season.

If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.

The next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation if a different President is in my chair.

We can show the American people that Republicans and Democrats can come together to find ways to help make America a more secure, prosperous and hopeful society.

Because I seem to have failed in my self-chosen job title of The Great Uniter, and divided us into North and South again. Heh heh.

And we will show our enemies that the open debate they believe is a fatal weakness is the great strength that has allowed democracies to flourish and succeed.

I'll set an example by allowing free questioning during press conferences in the White House and any of my future public speeches. Heh, just a joke, folks! Like the one about looking fer them WMDs under my chair.

To the new members of the 110th Congress, I offer my welcome--and my congratulations.

And Rummy's head on a silver platter. (sniff) Now there goes an American who really understood the meaning of making a sacrifice for me.

The American people have entrusted us with public office at a momentous time for our nation.

And I've been dropping the ball at every single chance with no quarter.

Let them say of these next two years: We used our time well.

At least, that's what the history books in my post-presidential library will say. Heh heh.

Osama Two-Minutes Hate

2006-12-29T10:11:00.000-08:00

'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'

-- George Orwell, 1984

Today's entry comes to you thanks to this little exchange over on CNN.

CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get [Osama bin Laden]. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

White House Homeland Security Advisor Frances Frago Townsend: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet.

Just...wow.

This is the single most hare-brained piece of "logic" that I have ever seen coming out of the White House. This one really takes the cake. So anything that we desire to happen, but which has not yet happened...we are allowed to count that as a success, no matter what the actual odds are of that thing ever happening at all?

Let's take a look at how that's supposed to work:

It's not bankruptcy, just financial growth that hasn't occurred yet.

It's not illness, just health that hasn't flourished yet.

It's not stupidity, just intelligence that hasn't developed yet.

It's not civil war, it's just democracy that hasn't taken hold yet.

**********

Wow, that block buster movie script I wanted [to] write...well it is a success that has not occurred yet. Where's my million? I want my money now.

**********

My Nobel Prize for making cars runs on thin air is a success that hasn't occurred yet.

**********

I bought a lottery ticket today. Those are just winnings that I haven't collected yet.

**********

I can’t wait to get “A Success That Hasn't Occurred Yet”--the 2006 NY Giants DVD.

**********

The uncovering of WMD's in Iraq are a success that haven't occurred yet. The link to [al-Qaeda] and Saddam are a success that hasn't occurred yet.

**********

By the way, I started my own business a few years back. Although I've lost a ton of money so far and I'm so deeply in debt that I doubt I'll ever recover, I prefer to look at my business as a fabulous success that hasn't occurred yet.

**********

It wasn't rape! She just hadn't consented yet.

**********

My wife and I have raised 14 children together. None of them are born yet.

**********

Britney Spears isn't trailer trash. She just hasn't visited Miss Manners yet.

**********

There is no such thing as pre-marital sex. That's just old married couples who haven't tied the knot yet.

This must be what they mean when they can look at Iraq and call it a success. A war with no end...lasting far longer than Rumsfeld's 6-month prediction...no sign of democracy taking hold (the prime minister was put into power by the Sadr faction)...no better than things were under Saddam (the current puppet government is applying the same brutal laws Saddam wrote)...no peace, no stability, no medicine, no health care, no utilities, no schools, no policemen who aren't death squad killers...nothing but blood and death.

Oh, but it's not a failure. It's a success that hasn't occurred yet.

By that standard, it's never a failure.

This administration does not score football games the same way as the rest of us do. When they can't get the ball past the goal post, they like to pretend that the goal post doesn't exist...that the entire fecking end zone doesn't exist. They sit forever at the base line, fumble after fumble after fumble, and they expect us to be impressed whenever they get the ball to move FIVE INCHES. "Look at what we did! See, Iraq is not a failure, we built a school!" A school that cost 40 times what it should have in construction fees and materials, which no one will attend or teach at for fear of assassination, and which has no running water or electricity.

I'm sorry, but you don't get any points for anything until the ball makes it to the end zone. SAYING you put the ball into the end zone already (or will, someday) doesn't make it true.

You people in the White House...do you really expect us to believe that you've scored (when you really haven't) just by saying that you did? Did you expect us to not rely upon our own senses (we're watching the game too) and surrender all of our judgment and common sense to your PR flacks and mouthpieces? Perhaps you've had some limited success in fooling some of the people some of the time, as the proverb goes...but didn't you people learn anything from the midterm election results?

There are two possible explanations for the continued spin after the midterms. One is that the White House really thinks that Americans are so stupid, they will believe ANYTHING a politician says. (And that we won't trip over the truth until well after the 2008 presidential election.) The other is that the White House itself is psychotic, disconnected and delusional. Take your pick.

Thank you for attempting to channel the discourse on Osama bin Laden with such a blatant example of doubleplusgoodNewspeak, Ms. Townsend. Thank you for that sad attempt at taking a black hat and calling it white. Thank you for exposing the White House, the Homeland Security Department, and the entire Bush apparatchik for being the media-manipulating liars they are. Thank you for reminding us that the State can be just as evil and filled with propaganda on this side of the Iron Curtain. Thank you for that naked attempt to break out the rose-colored glasses and FORCE the rest of us to wear them.

Because you have justified all of our suspicions for distrusting the government. You have proven all of the GOP critics to be correct. You have shown your hand at controlling and deceiving the public.

I believe it's time we renamed the Homeland Security Department to the Ministry of Truth.

Even if you were not operating under strict orders to spin the truth, Ms. Townsend, are you really such a feckless coward? Would it really kill you (and your career) to admit that "yes, the fact that we still haven't captured bin Laden after 5 years is a failure"? Do you fear for your job so much? Even if the White House fired you for such an admission, you could sue for wrongful termination. Because it isn't a crime to state the truth or hold an opinion. (Yet.) So you can't be punished for it. (Yet.)

And really...who wants to work for any government or any boss that is so afraid of the truth, so afraid of a little negative characterization?

It just makes me wonder what else that boss (or that government) is trying to hide. Can we say "insecurity," class? All together now.

And while we're on the subject of national insecurity...

WHERE IS OSAMA, MR. BUSH? IT'S BEEN MORE THAN FIVE YEARS, YOU BITCHES! GO FIND HIM ALREADY.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to wrap up this blog entry and get going. I've got to be present for my next Goldstein Two-Minutes Hate. I hear there's going to be a rally to attack Eastasia...I mean Iran.

Foreign Hired Guns In Uniform

2006-12-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

More glorious news today about Our Glorious Leaderer's glorious struggles to bring glory to ~~the Middle East~~ ~~the United States~~ his own keister:

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks, including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and put more immigrants on a faster track to U.S. citizenship if they volunteer, according to Pentagon officials.

Now wait just a minute here...I thought that we were the country who hated immigrants of all stripes? Because they do things like speak in OTHER LANGUAGES and fly airplanes into our largest buildings, you know. Can't trust them furreiners.

So if these people are really so evil and untrustworthy and impossible to integrate into America's cultural melting pot...then why in nine hells are we giving them guns?!?!?!?

Ah, that's right. I am making the mistake of accusing the Bush administration of operating in accordance with logic and rationality. I am sorry, it won't happen again.

This is certainly disappointing news, but it's not entirely unexpected -- I mean, it's the inevitable next step, once you tear down the character requirements for United States soldiers, and start letting all kinds of criminals and felons wear the service uniforms of the troops. I mean heck, the number of contractors that we use in Iraq is nearly as large as the total number of actual US troops stationed there.

So what's a few more lowered moral standards between imperialists?

Foreign citizens' serving in the U.S. military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

Hey, that reminds me. I wonder how many of you have heard of Operation Yellow Elephant? This is a project to put the ultimate question to all of the GOP politicians, talking heads, and like supporters: if you are truly in so much overwhelming favor for this war, then why the hell aren't YOU in Iraq?

For more information on the OYE movement, click here.

It's their war. Why aren't they fighting it?

Already, the army and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security have "made it easier for green-card holders who do enlist to get their citizenship," Hilferty said. Other army officials, who asked not to be identified, said personnel officials were working with Congress and other parts of the government to test the feasibility of going beyond U.S. borders to recruit soldiers and marines.

[jump]

A recent change in U.S. law, however, gave the Pentagon authority to bring immigrants to the United States if it determines it is vital to national security. So far, the Pentagon has not taken advantage of it, but the calls are growing to use this new authority.

Some top military thinkers believe the United States should go as far as targeting foreigners in their native countries.

Well, now isn't that just delicious. So when do the recruiting offices in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq open for business?

Actually, if you look closely at this picture and read the caption again, it looks like we're already doing that.

The article continues:

Still, to some military officials and civil rights groups, relying on large number of foreigners to serve in the military is offensive.

The Hispanic rights advocacy group National Council of La Raza has said the plan sends the wrong message that Americans themselves are not willing to sacrifice to defend their country. Officials have also raised concerns that immigrants would be disproportionately sent to the front lines as "cannon fodder" in any conflict.

Some within the Army privately express concern that a big push to recruit noncitizens would smack of "the decline of the American empire," as one Army official who asked not to be identified put it.

He said it, not me.

For part one of the posts pointing out the military's lowered standards, click here.

Waterworld Is Coming

2006-12-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

An entire island, once inhabited by 10,000 people and marked on world maps, has now disappeared beneath the rising oceans. This is one of the worst predictions of global warming come true.

I don't think the United States is going to take any significant action on this problem until the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport is similarly submerged, or threatened with being wiped off the maps of Maine. And even then, nothing will happen if the Bushes are not personally affected by the pending disaster before January 20th, 2009. In which case, the rise in sea levels will be left up to the next President to deal with.

Merry Festivus!

2006-12-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Now that the holiday season is here upon us...I'd like to take a moment to cut away from the usual news feed of current items, and talk to all of you about a growing and disturbing trend in this country that I've noticed.

For those of you that may need the reminder, Christmas is supposedly about the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Now, when I say "supposedly" I am not referring to the fact that he was actually born in April. (Because calendars have changed throughout the course of history, you know.) No, I am specifically referring to the sense that the meaning of the holiday season has been lost.

Lost to politics. Lost to political agendas.

(What, you thought this was going to be a rant about Christmas-season commercialism and marketing gone wrong? Would you like some whine with that? No Scrooge screeds here.)

Perhaps some of you are not quite sure what I am talking about, yet. Let me dig up a few examples.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of peace...yet America has started 2 wars and is looking to begin a 3rd one against Iran.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of forgiveness...yet Muslim-baiting and Muslim-hating still happens in our communities.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of sharing...yet Katrina victims still have no homes and the minimum wage goes nowhere.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of compassion...yet we torture prisoners, and habeus corpus is now officially dead.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of truth...yet FOIA requests for information are repeatedly denied for no reason.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of brotherhood...yet the government spies on its own citizens without any warrants.

The fact that Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love...yet more than 1 million people have died because of our baseless wars, immigrants are being rounded up into concentration camps, and the weapons development programs of the Pentagon continue with no end in sight.

Is this really a Christian nation?

How does Bush run our government the way he does...and yet still claim to be a born-again Christian?

Are you beginning to see, now, what I mean by losing the meaning of Christmas? Of Christians in this country losing Christ himself?

Or maybe you haven't lost sight of Christ...but you find that you are no longer marching in lock-step with your own increasingly dictatorial and totalitarian government.

There are now 2 kinds of Christians in America. There are the ones who, however much they might have supported the current administration at one point, no longer feel supportive of it, and are simply waiting for time to remove these feckless fools of politicans from office so they can vote in new ones. (The midterm election was a great example of this.)

The other kind of "Christian" continues to support the current administration no matter what it might do, and that includes criminal acts, immoral acts, venial sins, mortal sins, and sins of omission. I have a hard time accepting these people as true Christians, which is why I'm using the term "Christian" in quotes to refer to them. Because a real Christian, you see, could not support war or torture or lies to cover and excuse such acts, and would have withdrawn moral support from such IMMORALITY long ago.

In fact, I think it's time to coin a new name for these "politics-first Christians"...now let's hear it from someone at Time Magazine who agrees with me.

Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right?

[jump]

Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.

What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

Of course, you don't have to agree with this guy, nor accept that my observations are the beginning and the end of the discussion.

However, I do suggest that you check here to read 6 more examples of how the people who are truly religious are starting to tear themselves away from the Republican base of GOP loyalists. They are starting to see through the lies and recognize the fact that the GOP does not represent their best interests, nor does it give a damn about Christ and his teachings. Check out some of those stories and then come back here when you're done.

Christianist -- what an ugly and offensive term. How could anyone use such a word in normal everyday discourse?

...See, that's the exact same question I'd like to put to anyone who's been using the term "Islamofascist" to refer to the entire Muslim world.

Now the shoe's on the other foot! Don't like how it fits, do ya?

If you like the term "Islamofascist" and think that it accurately describes every Muslim on the planet, then you shouldn't mind it one whit when the rest of us use "Christianist" to mean the same thing in talking about Christians. Fair is fair. If you used to like "Islamofascist" but "Christianist" rubs you the wrong way, then you better get off your bigoted high horse, and start unlearning some of that anti-Muslim bias and racism. Because if you think it's accurate to refer to every Muslim in the world as a seasoned or potential terrorist...have you ever imagined what people in Iraq think about YOU?

So now that your feelings have been hurt...NOW you want to bother me for a formal definition of Christianist? To make the distinction between Christians and Christianists...okay, that's a pretty good reason. If I was a Christian, I'd worry about being lumped in with the Christianists too.

A Christianist is someone who believes that the religion of Christianity should dictate all politics...not only in America (we shall have no politicians but Christians) but also in the world entire. A Christianist is someone who believes that there is no such thing as relative morals...everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) has to live their lives in accordance with Christian doctrine against sin. A Christianist is someone who denies that there should ever be such a thing as separation of church and state...and would even go so far as to deny that there should ever be such a thing as separation of church and military. A Christianist believes that supreme authority for all aspects of life stems directly from the Bible...and this includes education AND government AND military command, not just spiritual guidance. "Theocracy" doesn't even begin to describe it. "Theocracy" is too mild of a term for what Christianists seek to impose upon the rest of us.

...Sounds pretty much like the Taliban, doesn't it?

Perhaps now you are beginning to understand why people from the Middle East call people from the West HYPOCRITES. How can we tear down one theocracy in Afghanistan while at the same time build a new one in America?

Let's go over a few more examples of how Christianism works, just in case anyone's still not clear.

That term "Christianist" [] refers to those who view Christianity not merely as a religious doctrine to govern their personal and private lives, but far beyond that, as a set of beliefs to which secular law must conform when constraining others, such as this: "We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and state." [the 2004 Texas GOP platform] Or the 2006 Texas GOP Platform which declares that "America is a Christian nation." Or those who believe in laws providing that American adults who have un-Christian sex in the privacy of their own homes will be arrested and imprisoned as criminals. Or those who want to outlaw private consensual activities among consenting adults -- including pornography and gambling -- solely because such activities violate Christian morality. Or those who believe that the Federal Government ought to intervene and take control of end-of-life conflicts being adjudicated by a state court judge because the judge, when faithfully applying state law, reaches an un-Christian result. Or those who believe that our Middle East policies ought to be governed by a desire for Rapture.

To this list I would add: Those who believe that all non-Christians desire to harm America and therefore should not serve in its public offices. (No matter how long their family has lived in America. No matter how many Secret Service agents you put in their office to watch them as they work.) Those who believe that the Ten Commandments should be displayed in all government buildings in America. (And even when they are displayed, still believe that the Commandments don't apply equally to everyone.) Those who believe that every cell found within the womb is sacred...while at the same time beliveing that people who have actually made it past birth aren't all that important and not worth saving. Those who believe that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

If you're going to support one theocracy in the world...then you have to support them all. No matter what religion they come from.

If you're going to tear down one theocratic government...then you have to tear them all down. Anything less is religious bigotry.

"But theirs is a false religion, a pagan doctrine of false gods! My religion is the correct one, therefore my bigotry is justified."

Riiiiiiiight...you remind me of the segregationists who kept insisting that blacks should not be allowed to vote or own real estate because whites were naturally superior. Did you know that Christians and Muslims share the same God? It's true, look it up.

So you're saying that your murderous wars and occupation of these people is justified? Are you using religion to justify murder and torture, Christianist?

Allright, that's enough comparative government for one day. I'm going to dismiss this class early...everyone go home, have a great holiday season, and think about what you've learned here today. And while you are decorating your pine tree with a nice wreath with pinecones and a red ribbon, lining your windows with holly and spray-on frost, putting mistletoe over the arch, setting up snowmen, elves, reindeer and Santa figures all through the house, exchanging gifts, burning Yule logs in the fireplace, eating dinner with beautiful red candles set in evergreen holders, and singing “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” and “O Tannenbaum”...just remember:

1. Everything you do to celebrate Christmas is a pagan ritual, and

2. The Christian Right...is neither.

The 80% Solution

2006-12-21T08:55:00.000-08:00

For some odd reason, as I was reading this piece, I kept hearing "The Final Solution" instead of "The 80% Solution" in my mind. Perhaps this is because the implementation of the 80% solution would mean the total destruction and elimination of all Sunnis in Iraq. Oh sure, it sounds very logical and moderate at the outset -- let's not kill the Sunnis or force them to move out of their cities and neighborhoods, but "marginalize" them from the entire political process at all levels of government and industry in Iraq -- but how the hell do you expect to pull this off without royally pissing them off? "You just sit over there at the kiddie table with the rest of the other kiddies and be glad for the few leftovers of oil profits that we decide to drop on you once in a rare while." Excuse me?

This is not a formula for creating peace and stability in the Middle East, people. This is pure incentive to push the Sunnis (20% of the population, remember, that is one-fifth of 5 billion people in Baghdad alone, you do the math) from being merely a loose collection of death squad terrorists into a full-blown revolutionary military force hell-bent on emancipation or bust. "Give me liberty or give me death" -- it worked over here, why not over there? How would YOU feel if your government suddenly decided to discriminate against you, and remove your relatives from any position of power, and block your entire church from taking part in any political process...all because of your choice of religion?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

However peacefully this marginalization process would begin, it can only end in greater chaos in the Middle East, and greater fascism in Iraq. (You thought Saddam was a tough guy...you ain't seen nothing yet!) What, you expected something else from this White House administration? They have a long and glorious history of taking half-cocked half-cooked cockamamie Middle-East-improvement schemes and making them succeed in spite of all the odds, is that it? I'd rather have Tim Allen taking power tools to my house, thank you very much.

Senator Harry Reid seems to agree that the 80% solution is no solution at all: "It's a civil war and America should not be policing a Sunni-Shia conflict."

Keystone Cops Coming Soon To A War Zone Near You

2006-12-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

There are some days when I wake up in the morning, and the first thing that I ask myself is: What kind of a clusterfreak are we cooking up in Iraq? How can this clusterfreak possibly be making the world SAFER? Isn't that a blatant lie? Isn't it painfully obvious (and therefore correct) to say that this war has freaked up the entire Middle East, if not the entire world? (Because all of the energy to power the world comes from the Middle East.) There isn't any good news coming out of Iraq because...there isn't any good news. You may see an occassional puff piece about new schools being built or talks moving forward, but it's always gone with the next explosion, or lost in the wake of contractor theft and wasted spending.

And then there are days when I read something like this...and I know that Iraq is not just a clusterfreak in a pot, but a nightmare of truly unmanageable proportion. To even think of this mess as being a legitimate war (will it end if any one person surrenders?) is probably not even scratching the surface of the cluster.

A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired, several Iraqi officials said.

[jump]

A Sunni Arab who claimed ties to the insurgency, Sameraei was arrested in August of this year and charged with a dozen counts of misallocating millions of dollars in Iraqi government money.

[jump]

There have been no suggestions that American officials had a role in Sameraei's escape Sunday afternoon. But the B-movie scenario of a rich businessman hiring armed muscle to bust himself out of jail from inside the fortress-like, U.S.-protected enclave could further contribute to Iraq's image of instability and lawlessness. The flamboyant former government minister's arrest and prosecution were held up by Iraqi and U.S. officials as a rare example of good government prevailing in the new Iraq.

His high-profile escape, splashed across Iraqi television channels Monday night, also could further damage the reputation of the U.S., which is already believed by many Iraqis to have wasted and stolen billions of dollars in Iraqi revenue.

Iraqi officials were enraged by his escape and the suggestion that any Americans had a hand in it.

[jump]

The 12-hour lag between the moment Sameraei disappeared and the time police officers guarding him finally informed other officials raised suspicions that the officers were in on the escape plan.

Gee, when is this story going to be splashed across American television channels? They better get cracking, as they are already 48 hours behind their Iraqi TV media counterparts.

You want to know why no one in the West is ever going to hear this story? I'll tell you why. It's because the mega-corpo-mil-bases such as The Green Zone are supposed to be sacred and impenetrable. They are like 5-star resorts for our troops crossed with Roach Motels for everybody else. Terrorists go in, once captured and shackled...and terrorists do not come back out again. Supposedly.

This is just great. US military contractors (jailbreakers) set against...US military troops (jailkeepers)? What comes next? The generals in Iraq set against the American president? Oh wait, that's already happening. You might as well put Red State people and Blue State people in an arena, give them swords and shields, and tell them that the side who kills off the other side completely gets to vote in the next presidential election. Where does Bush come off, claiming that he is the great uniter of our time? What deeds of his DO NOT divide this country further, do not send us scattering from the political center into the right and the left, do not set the rich against the poor, do not cast down the government in the eyes of its own people? Maybe "Keystone Cops" is too kind of a label to be using here. This is more like Keystone Sherrif with the powers o' Keystone Deputizing.

UPDATE:

The escaped convict was a Bush and GOP donor. Makes you wonder how he got to be a minister in Iraq for a short while, doesn't it?

Breaking: the war is a lie

2006-12-20T08:18:00.000-08:00

...and the British are writing a tell-all memoir. Just read it and weep.

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

[jump]

The Foreign Office had attempted to prevent the evidence being made public, but it has now been published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

It shows Mr Ross told the inquiry, chaired by Lord Butler, "there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material" held by the Iraqi dictator before the invasion. "There was, moreover, no intelligence or assessment during my time in the job that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbours or the UK or the US," he added.

Mr Ross's evidence directly challenges the assertions by the Prime Minster that the war was legally justified because Saddam possessed WMDs which could be "activated" within 45 minutes and posed a threat to British interests. These claims were also made in two dossiers, subsequently discredited, in spite of the advice by Mr Ross.

His hitherto secret evidence threatens to reopen the row over the legality of the conflict, under which Mr Blair has sought to draw a line as the internecine bloodshed in Iraq has worsened.

Mr Ross says he questioned colleagues at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence working on Iraq and none said that any new evidence had emerged to change their assessment.

"What had changed was the Government's determination to present available evidence in a different light," he added.

Mr Ross said in late 2002 that he "discussed this at some length with David Kelly", the weapons expert who a year later committed suicide when he was named as the source of a BBC report saying Downing Street had "sexed up" the WMD claims in a dossier. The Butler inquiry cleared Mr Blair and Downing Street of "sexing up" the dossier, but the publication of the Carne Ross evidence will cast fresh doubts on its findings.

Mr Ross, 40, was a highly rated diplomat but he resigned because of his misgivings about the legality of the war. He still fears the threat of action under the Official Secrets Act.

"Mr Ross hasn't had any approach to tell him that he is still not liable to be prosecuted," said one ally. But he has told friends that he is "glad it is out in the open" and he told MPs it had been "on my conscience for years".

One member of the Foreign Affairs committee said: "There was blood on the carpet over this. I think it's pretty clear the Foreign Office used the Official Secrets Act to suppress this evidence, by hanging it like a Sword of Damacles over Mr Ross, but we have called their bluff."

So when does the same cross-examination of The Deciderer start to happen over on this side of the pond?

Who Needs Separation of Powers Anyway?

2006-12-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

Looks like the Republicans are up to their old tricks again. This time asking judges to rescues themselves from class of cases in exchange for letting their nominations to the federal court go through.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R - Kansas, believe that one nominee should do just that since she went to a gay commitment ceremony (non-legally binding ceremony) of a long time friend. Brownback put a hold on her nomination and wants her to rescues herself from ruling on all same sex cases in the future.

Senator questions judge's role in lesbian wedding
POSTED: 2:24 p.m. EST, December 19, 2006 CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/19/brownback.judge.ap/index.html

Lets see. The legislature telling the judicial system what cases it can and can't rule on and who can rule on them. Wasn't that prohibited by Articles 1-3 of the U.S. Constitution?

Yep but that matters not to the Republicans. To them, the Constitution is nothing more than ancient history. It doesn't fit their view of the New World Order. Because if it did, a Senator would NEVER conceive of asking such a thing from a judge. The concept of power resting solely in the hands of one branch of government or one party would make them puke.

No, these Republicans want that kind of power. They don't want people to challenge them. They want to be able to tell you what you can read, where you can protest (if at all), what you can and can't do with your life, and who has rights and who doesn't. They want you to believe that they stand for the American values and all those that don't support them are unpatriotic. That only they understand the working man and are working to help him out with tax breaks to companies and the rich.

We saw this type of Republican once before in another country. Back then, they were called the National Socialist Worker's Party. The time, place, and names have changed but the ideas are still the same.

Backwards, Christian Soldiers

2006-12-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

There is a blatant disregard for the separation of church and state happening in our government. Worse yet, it is taking place inside one of the most critical areas of our government, in terms of wars and the war on terror -- the Pentagon.

None of this would have been brought to light if some Christian group had not filmed a promotional video inside of the Pentagon itself.

Mikey Weinstein is the founder and president of MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation) and his group is the only one who has noticed this video and the dire implications behind it. He held a press conference announcing a FOIA probe and a request for governmental inquiry and oversight, and also gave an interview in Salon magazine about this whole sordid affair.

Bob Varney, the executive director of Christian Embassy, the group that made the video, tells Salon he believes no regulations were violated, and he says Weinstein's allegations about increased evangelical influence within the military are wrong.

"I don't understand how one could come to that kind of conclusion," Varney says. "The military believes in religious freedom, it offers religious freedom, it therefore offers people of different religions to express them, and we're one among a number of different religions that are working in the Armed Services."

Oh really? So you're telling me that, if I am a cleric of Islam, then I should be able to march into the Pentagon with a camera crew, force it to suspend work on classified projects while I gather footage, AND get the highest-ranking officers in the land to star in my video?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

There is some serious favoritism going on here, and it amounts to discrimination. Christianity should not be allowed to spread within the military because that is not the purpose of the military. That is the purpose of attending church. Military people can have whatever religion they want -- and in fact, there is a broad spectrum of religions recognized by the US armed forces -- but it stays at home, it stays outside of their workplace, and it stays off the battlefield.

So maybe you're reading this, and you're a Christian, and you don't see the harm of this. I wonder how you would feel if we told the firemen in your town to arrest drug dealers and interrogate suspects. I wonder how you would feel if we told the policemen in your town to conduct physical check-ups on citizens and recommend good dentistry practices.

"That's not their jobs!" That would be the first complaint, yes?

Excellent. NOW you are starting to understand.

Salon: What's wrong with this video?

Weinstein: I'm trying to think where to start. It is absolutely violative of a mountain of Department of Defense internal regulations, guidelines, core values, instructions, making it very clear that members of the military can not endorse any one particular political position, partisan religious view, they can't hold up a tube of toothpaste like Colgate and push it. Irrespective of that, it's also blatantly violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and at least as important it's violative of Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution -- you don't even have to get into the Bill of Rights -- which states that we will never have a religion test for any position in the federal government, which was brilliantly prescient of our Founding Fathers.

This, to me, constitutes as much of a national security threat to this country as al-Qaida. In fact, the video itself, to me, would be the No. 1 recruiting tool that I would expect bin Laden, the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, although he's dead, Ayman al Zawahiri, Hezbollah with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, to get angry young Islamic men and women in Iran, Syria and Lebanon to join the insurrection and jihadi terrorist activities. This would be a perfect accelerant to create even further conflagration.

[jump]

Of course, I realize people have religious rights. We only have about 2,200 chaplains in each of the military branches; every base has multiple chapels, and these people can pray all they want to themselves, like kids in school can pray to themselves, but when you're in the military, and you're coming in like that one person, Catton, whom I knew when I was a kid at the [Air Force] Academy, and he goes, "I share my faith, that's who I am, and let me tell you right now, the hierarchy as an old-fashioned American is that your first duty is to the Lord, second to your family and your third is to your country." That is the exact opposite of what is taught, and for anyone who understands anything about the military, it is always the country first. When you're told, "Troopers, we're going to go take that hill," you can't stop, fall to your knees and see what your particular version of Moses, Vishnu, Satan, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah, whatever they're going to say, and then quickly make a cellphone call to your family. So it is beyond-the-pale egregious, it is a national security threat every bit as bad as al-Qaida, and these people should be court-martialed.

Yeah...you hear that, you dumb Christian mo-fos? By shooting a promo video that uses United States military men, you are linking together the government of the United States with Christianity, and that further implies that Christianity is the state-sponsored religion of the US. When nothing could be further from the truth...maybe you've heard of this "separation of church and state" thing. It's still the law. Look it up.

But I digress from my main point. By painting Christianity as the state-sponsored religion of the US, you aren't doing anything but proving all the terrorists right. They attacked the World Trade Center because the United States is the Great Satan. They blew up hundreds of Marines in Beirut because Americans are just a big stupid pack of white Jew-lovers and Israeliofacsists. Think about it. We removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2002 because we saw how bloody and cruel a government could become when it is run and controlled by one religion taken to extremes. And now we turn around and hand our military command over to Christian soliders? Did the pot just call the kettle black? Do any of you Christians know what the word HYPOCRITE means?

Weinstein: Look, let's make sure your readers understand something, OK, put it in perspective: The U.S. military, which I consider a noble and honorable institution, is technologically the most lethal organization ever created by Homo sapiens. When you have the leadership believing that to be a good soldier, good Marine, good airman or sailor you have to be not just a Christian but the right type of Christian, we're no better than al-Qaida. And it's hideous, beyond belief. My kids were called "f--king Jews" and accused of total complicity, they and their people, in the execution of Jesus Christ, by superiors up and down the chain of command at the Air Force Academy.

But like I've said before, most of the people who've come to me are Christians. That's been the big sea change here. Look, Sinclair Lewis said it best, in [the 1930s]. He came back from Germany, he was observing it for a number of months ... and he [said] that he had now seen fascism up close and personal, and he knew that when it came to America it would be wrapped in the American flag, carrying a cross. And you know what? He's right.

It's one thing to be pushing evangelical Christianity on prisoners in a penitentiary and to be pushing intelligent design in public schools. That's bad enough, but that's not our fight. My foundation focuses, with laserlike precision, on the Marine Corps, Army, Navy and Air Force, because if we lose them, we lose everything.

That's right, you read that right, from both me and from Mr. Weinstein. If we allow our military or our government to officially endorse one religion over all of the others, then we are no better than the Taliban. Then we are no better than al-Qaeda...and it won't matter that Islam and Christianity are different religions. Both are supposed to be about love and peace, but both can be used to find reasons to kill, to find reasons to hate another country, to find reasons to hate another religion and kill as many of the followers of that other religion as you can even though you yourself may lose your life in the process.

Besides which, I am not at all convinced that Christians are nice people.

Weinstein: But I can tell you that I get -- I don't think I'm in double digits, but it started at about 10 o'clock last night; after the press conference in the morning, I've had nine death threats since about 10 o'clock last night. I usually get about two or three a week. They're very grotesque, everything from wanting to gas all the Jews in America and send the corpses back to Israel to threatening to blow me up, threatening my house will be blown up, raping my wife, blowing up my house. We've had our tires slashed, we've had feces and beer bottles thrown at the house, we've had dead animals placed on the front door of the house.

I was in Topeka, on a book tour, and the local Episcopal priest came out to support me and five hours later his church was burned down. And the local synagogue in Topeka, where I was to speak that night, was desecrated with spray paint saying, "F--k you, Jews" and "KKK," all that stuff.

So if this is a nice, Christian response, my response is take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line, because we're not going to stop, we're not going to ever stop, we're going to lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds on these people that are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is not a Christian-Jewish issue, and it's also not a political spectrum, left or right issue, it's a Constitutional right and wrong issue. These officers, and what's happening in that video, simply by appearing in a video that is blatantly and vociferously sectarian, by simply doing three things in that video, they should be court-martialed. That would be circulating blood, reflecting light and breathing. That's all they had to do and that alone would have been enough.

Look, it's very simple. I just don't understand how can there be such a thing as a Christian soldier. What about Thou Shalt Not Kill? Anyone else seeing the oxymoron here...with a special emphasis on the moron part?

This is why we cannot stop writing this blog, even though the midterm elections are done and the next election is 2 years away. Because the Christian fundamentalists are everywhere, and we need to maintain vigiliance against them all. Root them out like cockroaches and decontaminate their brainwashing doctrine with the cold clean ultraviolet light of science and reason.

Let me put this another way: if I was a member of a peace-loving religion (as Christians claim to be) then I would be ashamed and horrified that somebody would be using soldiers to promote my religion. Because NOTHING says "warmonger" like the Pentagon.

Brother, can you spare $100,000,000,000?

2006-12-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

Today's news contains an interesting tidbit that Bush plans to ask for yet another one hundred billion US dollars for the "war effort" in Iraq.

What's the matter, Chief Shrub-ya...you done went and already burned through the $379 billion that's been appropriated for the war so far? (That inconvenient truth is also cited in the same news link above.)

I get it. You actually wanted a much bigger number at the start...it was probably somewhere in the 100 trillion or quadrillion neighborhood. But then your advisers said, "Don't ask for all of that at once. Break it up into smaller chunks over time, and there will be less resistance all around. It's like paying off a large credit card debt or a mortgage, nobody wants to see all of the payment numbers come up at once."

Well the bad news about that scheme is that you no longer have the Rubber Stamp Congress to foot your bills with. Their last day of session is tomorrow. After that, you can only deal with the 110th Congress...and I think that, based upon the midterm election results and the fact that Henry Waxman gains Subpoena Powers, you will find that dealing with this new Congress will not be fun and games.

You should have asked for this money sooner. I wouldn't be surprised if the first act of the 110th is to shoot down this request for additional expenses.

Maybe if you got rid of that damn library of lies that you're planning on building, you would already have this kind of money in your hand...and you know what they say about having one in your hand being worth two in your bush, Mr. Bush.

And besides...whatever happened to the meme "the war will pay for itself"???

DeLay has a blog now, whoopee...go tell him what you think of him.

2006-12-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, so some of you may have heard that Tom DeLay, the GOP convict, has started his own blog.

What you might not have heard is that it's become a case study in freedom of speech.

The first version of the blog was launched without moderation or comment filtering. How's that "wielding the power of the blogosphere" thing working out for you, Mister DeLay?

That version of the blog was taken down, and a new one put in its place with mandatory registration required for posting comments, plus comment moderation. But apparently the site admins there have never heard of grade school codes. So let me ask you again: how's that whole First Amendment thing working out for you?

We're taking bets to see how long these acrostic posts will stay up.

Who's afraid of a recount?

2006-12-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

This just in, from one of our favorite sites, Electoral-Vote.com:

In a surprise upset, Ciro Rodriguez (D) beat incumbent Henry Bonilla (R) in the runoff yesterday in TX-23, one of the districts Tom DeLay gerrymandered. The district is on the Mexican border and probably half the population consists of Mexican Americans. The runoff was cleverly scheduled on a Mexican holiday, presumably in an attempt to discourage Mexican Americans from voting, but they voted in large numbers anyway.

As a result of this election, the Democrats now have 233 seats in the House, more than the Republicans had in 1994; in fact, it is more than the Republicans have had at any time since the President Eisenhower's landslide in 1952.

Scheduling runoff elections during a holiday, eh? It doesn't look like anything has changed in the GOP playbook of dirty tricks.

Congratulations, Representative Rodriguez!

Msg 2 Bsh: W3r in yr b@s3, t@k1ng yr d00dz

2006-12-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

As the Japanese video game boss once said:

All Your Base Belong To Us!

A Turn Of Phrase, Turned Down

2006-12-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

So it would now seem that our British allies are giving up the Great War on Terror.

Britain stops talk of 'war on terror'

Foreign Office has asked ministers to ditch the phrase invented by Bush to avoid stirring up tensions within the Islamic world

Cabinet ministers have been told by the Foreign Office to drop the phrase 'war on terror' and other terms seen as liable to anger British Muslims and increase tensions more broadly in the Islamic world.

[jump]

'It's about time,' said Garry Hindle, terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. 'Military terminology is completely counter-productive, merely contributing to isolating communities. This is a very positive move.'

A Foreign Office spokesman said the government wanted to 'avoid reinforcing and giving succour to the terrorists' narrative by using language that, taken out of context, could be counter-productive'. The same message has been sent to British diplomats and official spokespeople around the world.

'We tend to emphasise upholding shared values as a means to counter terrorists,' he added.

Many senior British politicians and counter-terrorism specialists have always been uneasy with the term 'the war on terror', coined by the White House in the week following the 9/11 attacks, arguing that the term risked inflaming opinions worldwide. Other critics said that it was too 'military' and did not adequately describe the nature of the diverse efforts made to counter the new threat.

Shorter UK: Your phrase is useless, it's not doing anything but pissing people off and giving terrorists a recruiting tool, so we're cancelling your advertising.

(Since they pronounce it as "ad-VERT-is-ment" over there, does that mean they also say "ad-VERT-is-ing"?)

This sounds like a pretty serious withdrawal of support for America to me. I mean, the only thing that they could have done to indicate their withdrawal even more seriously would be to remove all of their troops from Iraq. Oh wait, that's right, that is exactly what they are already planning on doing, indeed.

Yep, we've screwed the pooch pretty good, when one of our staunchest historical allies decides that being seen in the same neighborhood with us is a thing to be avoided.

Direct from Iraq

2006-12-08T15:33:00.000-08:00

If you really want to know how the war in Iraq is going...why not ask one of the troops?

I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.

When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. I didn't swear to build democracies in countries on the other side of the world under the guise of "national security." I didn't join the military to be part of an Orwellian ("1984") war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be the key to destroying the enemy. Example given – the Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for. President Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren't killing Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren't abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?) works, or had worked, up until last month's elections.

My point in this; to show that America was never nationalistic. If anything they were Statalistic (giving their allegiance to the state of their residence). This is shown in the fact that the founders created states with fully capable and independent governments and not provinces that were just a division of the federal government. These men believed that America was a place where imperialistic values would be non-existent. Where the people trying to make their lives better by working hard, thinking, inventing and using the free market would tie up so much of normal life that imperialistic colonization and the fighting of wars thousands of miles away for interests that are not our own would be avoided. They believed this expansion of power could be left to the European nations, the England, France and Spain of their time. However this recent, and current influx of nationalistic feeling has created an environment where giving up your rights, going to a foreign country to fight a people who did not ask for us to be there, nor did their leader do anything to warrant us being there, and dying would be considered honorable and heroic. I don't believe it anymore. I don't believe it's right for any American to go along with it anymore. Yes I know that we in the military are bound by the UCMJ and somehow don't fall under the Constitution (the very thing we're suppose to be defending) but sooner or later there is a decision that every American soldier, marine, airmen and seamen makes to allow themselves to be sent to a war that is against every fiber this country was founded on. I know that when April rolls around I will be thinking long and hard on that decision. Even though we in the military are just doing as we're told we still have the moral and ethical obligation to choose to do as we're told, or to say, "No, that isn't right." I believe that if more troopers like me and the professional military, the officers and commanders, start standing up and saying that they won't let themselves or their troops go to this illegal war people will start standing up and realizing what the heck is going on over there.

The sad fact of the matter is that we are not fighting terrorists in Iraq. We are fighting the Iraqi people who feel like a conquered and occupied people. Personally I have a hard time believing that if I was an Iraqi that I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to kill and maim as many Americans as possible. I know that the vast majority of Americans would not be happy with the Canadian government, or any other foreign government, liberating us from the clutches of George W. Bush, even though a large number of us would like that, and forcing us to accept their system of government. Would not millions of Americans rise up and fight back? Would you not rise up to protect and defend your house and your neighborhood if someone invaded your country? But we send thousands of troops to a foreign country to do just that. How is it moral to fight a people who are just trying to defend their homes and families? I think next time I go to Iraq perhaps I should wear a bright red coat and carry a Brown Bess instead of my digitalized utilities and M16.

Notice I never once used the word homeland in any of this. I have a secondary point I want to bring up now. Never once was the term homeland ever used to describe the country of America until Mr. Bush began the department of homeland security after the 9/11 attacks. Taking a 20th century history class will teach us that the most notable countries in the last century that referred to their country in this way were Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Hitler used the term fatherland to drum up support, nationalistic support, for his growing war machine. He used the nationalism he created in the minds of the Germans to justify the sacrifice of their livelihood to build the war machine to get back their power from the oppressive restrictions the English and French had put on them at Versailles. This is the same feeling that has been virulently infecting the American psyche in the last hundred years. This is the same feeling that consoles a mother after her son is killed in an attempt to prosecute an aggressor's war 10,000 miles away. It's also known as Patriotism these days, but I say, "No more." No more nationalistic inanity, no more passing it off as patriotism. Patriotism is learning, and educating oneself to understand what their country really stands for.

I heard a lot during the memorial service about how the dead Marine did so much good for others and how his helping others was like a little microcosm of America helping because we have the power to do so. Well if we have the power to help people why aren't we helping in Darfur where hundreds of thousands of people have died in the last 10 years. Saddam was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to assassinate him. (I know all you "patriotic" Americans would be calling for the heads of anyone who conspired to assassinate supreme leader Bush). And yet we spend upwards of 1 trillion dollars and nearing 3,000 lives to help these Iraqis when they don't even want us there. Not to mention we don't have the legal justification to be there. I guess we should wait around for the omnipotent W Bush to decide who we should use our superpowerdom to help next. It's about time to throw him and the rest of the fascists out. Moreover it's about time to start educating Americans about their past and history, and letting them know that imperialistic leaders are not what the founders of this great country wanted.

Philip Martin has been a Marine for 2 years. He is in the infantry (a "grunt"), and spent 7 months in the al-Anbar province of Iraq. He went on more than 180 combat patrols in and outside of the city of Fallujah, where he was hit with 2 IEDs (luckily never injured) and was involved in a number of firefights. He is currently stationed in Twentynine Palms, CA, and due to return to Iraq for a second deployment in April 2007. He is 21 years old.

Cannot wait for January!!!!111

2006-12-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but this is one title fight that I am looking forward to, now that the contenders are here.

In the altered landscape that is Washington, there's a new contender for the title of Scariest Guy in Town. He stands 5 ft. 5, speaks softly and has all the panache of your parents' dentist. But when it comes to putting powerful people on the hot seat, there's no one tougher and more tenacious than veteran California Congressman Henry Waxman. In the Democrats' wilderness years, Waxman fashioned himself as his party's chief inquisitor. Working with one of the most highly regarded staffs on Capitol Hill, he has spent the past eight years churning out some 2,000 headline-grabbing reports, blasting the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress on everything from faulty prewar intelligence and flaws in missile defense to the flu-vaccine shortage and arsenic in drinking water.

Come January, however, the man that the liberal Nation magazine once called the "Eliot Ness of the Democrats" can do even more, thanks to the two words that strike fear in the heart of every government official: subpoena power. As the new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Waxman will have free rein to investigate, as he puts it, "everything that the government is involved with." And the funny thing is, Waxman can thank the Republicans for the unique set of levers he will hold. Under a rules change they put through in the days when they used the panel to make Bill Clinton's life miserable, the leader of Government Reform is the only chairman who can issue subpoenas without a committee vote. Then-Chairman Dan Burton –- who famously re-enacted the suicide of Clinton deputy White House counsel Vince Foster by shooting at what he called a "head-like thing" (later widely reported to be a melon) in his backyard –- issued 1,089 such unilateral subpoenas in six years. Since a Republican entered the White House, the G.O.P. Congress has been far less enthusiastic in its oversight. Waxman likes to point out that the House took 140 hours of sworn testimony to get to the bottom of whether Clinton had misused the White House Christmas-card list for political purposes, but only 12 hours on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

[jump]

What Waxman does love to do is write laws, and he has been extraordinarily good at it. The walls of his Washington office are covered with framed pens that Presidents from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton used to sign the laws that Waxman helped make a reality: the Clean Air Act, generic-drug legislation, food- and toy-safety laws, and Medicare catastrophic coverage, to name a few. In 1994, as chairman of the health and environment subcommittee, he lined up the chief executives of the nation's biggest tobacco companies, had them raise their right hands and then shredded them as finely as their own products. His hearings helped pave the way for the lawsuits that followed, which led to a landmark $246 billion legal settlement with the industry.

To paraphrase the Matrix, Republicans are a virus...and we are the cure.

Congratulations!

2006-12-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

Well isn't this some great news!

Now I'm wondering what to bring to the baby shower.

Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are "ecstatic" about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.

[jump]

News of the pregnancy will undoubtedly reignite the debate about gay marriage. During the campaign, Mary Cheney was criticized by gay activists for not being more publicly supportive of same-sex marriage. Her father said people "ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to" but deferred to the president's policy supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. Cheney herself called the proposed amendment "a gross affront to gays and lesbians everywhere" in her book, "Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life," which was published in May.

[jump]

In November, Virginia voters passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions; state law is unclear on whether Poe could have full legal rights as a parent of Cheney's child.

Now that is an interesting question. What would happen, do you imagine, if some years after the child is born, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe get into a heated argument, and wind up breaking up and living apart from one another? What would happen then? In a custody battle between the two, which of them would win? Would they even be ALLOWED to have a custody battle at all? Would "full legal rights as a parent" pass to Dick Cheney instead? Would the happiness of his youngest grandchild (and that of his only daughter, and possibly even that of his wife) force the Vice President to make a stance in direct support of same-sex marriage? Would he throw the President and the fundamentalist base of loyalist GOP voters under the bus in favor of his own family?

I don't know about you, but I'm happy for the happy couple. What better way to move a 15-year committed relationship forward. I'm sure they will make two great moms.

They probably won't get "congratulations" from every adult American...so they better enjoy the limelight while they can.

UPDATE:

Yup, they sure did get some ugly reactions from the morality cops on the right. (This is a video link. If you just want to read a collection of hate speech from the opponents of same-sex marriage and don't want the video, here is a good article.)

Your Tax Dollars Not At Work

2006-12-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

The current salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $165,200 per year.

-- http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa031200a.htm

Perhaps you've been wondering why the 109th Congress, due to terminate this Friday, never got anything done. Well, this announcement makes one reason for the inaction very clear...and promises to put a stop to it.

Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.

The horror.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."

The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

[jump]

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.

Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn't mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.

He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. "We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people," he said.

For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of Washington, longer weeks are not a burden -- although they are likely to cut into members' fundraising and campaigning activities. But for members from Alaska and Hawaii, the West Coast, or rural states, the new schedule will mean less time at home and more stress.

"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

Oh really? Is that the best excuse that you can come up with -- that this new schedule is a Democratic conspiracy to break up families? Perhaps you've forgotten, Repiglican Kingston, that this schedule only affects Congressional families. While these families may "represent" America in the legislative Constitutional sense, they all come from the top 10% income bracket and are predominantly WASP, and therefore do not actually represent most Americans.

But FireDogLake has an even better smackdown for this whiner of a Congressman.

It is wonderful to see a Republican like Jack Kingston supporting working families like this — wherein some folks have to work two and three jobs just to make ends meet. I look forward to his future legislative proposals to give every working person in America the same benefits he's been able to enjoy as a Republican Rubber Stamp the last few years: great medical benefits, working only three days a week, passing little to no legislation — other than the full-of-earmarks rampant cronyism bills for pals of the GOP, six-figure salary, free trip perks…you know, what we all get to enjoy in our everyday lives. Oh, wait…

If Republicans want to know why so many of them lost in November, I think you have your answer. Welcome to reality, where you have to actually do your jobs. It cannot be January soon enough.

You want more proof that (a) only the Republicans are whining about this schedule and (b) the Democrats are looking forward to it?

Then just refer back to the conclusion of the original article.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the architects of the lighter workweek, put the best Republican face on Hoyer's new schedule.

"They've got a lot more freshmen then we do," he said of the Democrats. "That schedule will make it incredibly difficult for those freshmen to establish themselves in their districts. So we're all for it."

[jump]

But most Democrats, some still giddy from their election victories, seemed game.

"It's long overdue," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who lives in Napa Valley and will have to leave his home at 3 a.m. on Sundays to catch a flight to Washington in time for work Mondays. "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home."

Which is the kind of attitude that I'm looking for in my elected officials.

In fact, the more time that Congressmen spend out on the road commuting to work and back, the more that they are forced to endure Monday-to-Friday FULLTIME workweeks, the more that they have to choose between taking a long daily commute or packing up and moving to be closer to the workplace...the more they will be able to connect with the rest of us average Americans. Welcome to reality, indeed.

UPDATE:

This is amazing. Somebody got Repiglican Kingston on camera live admitting that he was actually doing nothing but sitting around and "twiddling his thumbs" for most of the time he was in Congress. I guess that just goes to show you what kind of a work ethic Repiglicans are used to. Work is something that only immigrants and non-whites and poor folk do! WASPs clearly deserve better in life, as their skin is too delicate for any actual labor. No wonder this guy dared to complain about working 40 hours a week in the next Congress.

Where is 3 Strikes Law when you need it?

2006-12-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes...these blog pieces almost write themselves. I mean, there is usually very little work to do, when the news is ugly enough. All that we have to do is point you to the link and highlight the salient paragraphs.

I don't know about you, but I actually wish it were otherwise. Aren't you just sick of how Bush constantly paints his backside into a giant target for criticism? I know I am. Can we please get a competent President already????

The title for this piece stems from the fact that this is the 3rd time we've had to bring the DHS to your attention. You can find links to the other two entries at the bottom of this post.

A semiannual report filed to Congress by the department's inspector general showed [] a litany of staff misconduct: immigration officials demanding sex in exchange for visas, airport screeners stealing money from tourists' luggage, federal air marshals smuggling drugs, and employees from various DHS agencies committing sex crimes — including indecent exposure and distributing child pornography.

[jump]

Investigations by the inspector general's office triggered 321 arrests and 243 convictions in the six-month period. The report filed for the previous six months documented 200 arrests; six months earlier, there were 54.

The report did not provide a breakdown of how many cases involved DHS staff, but they came from all parts of the department.

Two TSA screeners were caught pilfering jewelry from luggage, while another was found smuggling more than $80,000 in an attempt to avoid reporting income brought into the country. Another team of four screeners targeted Japanese tourists until one was caught stealing up to $1,800 from checked luggage.

Many of the offenses involved getting contraband past barriers. Two federal air marshals were snared by a DHS and FBI investigation that found the marshals had sought and accepted a bribe to shepherd 15 kilograms of cocaine through airports. Two guards at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement prison sold alcohol and cigarettes to the illegal immigrants in their custody.

The agency's defenders said that in a department of more than 180,000 people, the number getting into trouble is relatively insignificant and that the arrests show the department's oversight is improving.

The inspector general's reports can be found online at http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/rpts/semiannl/editorial_0330.shtm.

It's just so nice to know that, when Bush puts his feet down and forms a whole new federal agency, this is how it functions. I don't know about YOU, but I am feeling a whole lot safer already, now that the DHS is on the job.

For our earlier posts about the pedophilia and catch-nothing background checks and other screw-ups over at DHS, check here and here.

A new power is rising!

2006-12-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have been aware of the fact that on November 29th, a meeting had been scheduled between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during Bush's visit to Jordan. (Yeah, it really speaks volumes about how "safe" and "swimmingly" Iraq is going these days when you can't even have an international conference about Iraq within the borders of Iraq. Perhaps somebody in the Pentagon or the Secret Service has decided that Iraq is just too dangerous for the president to go there again? But I digress.) The meeting was supposed to have been two whole days of talks about the security (or lack of it) situation in Iraq, with Jordan hosting the event and acting as an impartial observer or mediator.

Some of you may also know that the meeting was canceled and/or delayed because al-Maliki actually blew off both Bush and Jordanian King Abdullah II by declining to show up at a scheduled formal banquet. (Mmmmkay...points for making the outrage heard, but it doesn't win you any friends.)

The end result was that the meeting which did finally take place on November 30th was much smaller in scope than originally planned.

Instead of two days of talks, Bush and al-Maliki will have breakfast and a single meeting followed by a news conference on Thursday morning, the White House said.

Now, if you listen to some of the more popular channels of the Western media, they all say this public dissing was because of a leaked memo. The meeting “was put off to Thursday after a U.S. memo cast doubt on al-Maliki’s ability to deal with the sectarian warfare in Iraq.” The classified memo was written by Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, and most of the text can be found here (maybe someone else has a more complete version of the memo available). Despite the classified label, the memo was somehow leaked to the press just before the meeting was to take place, and because it does not paint al-Maliki in a flattering light (Hadley "expressed doubts about Maliki's ability or willingness to go beyond the Shiite sectarian agenda and forge a unity government"), the pundits in the West are speculating that this memo was the entire reason why al-Maliki decided to insult not one but two leaders of nations at the same time, by refusing to dine with them. (Sure, and the king's blatant attempt to insert the Israel-Palestine issue into the talks didn't bother the prime minister none, either.)

Personally, I do not believe this analysis is correct at all.

For one thing, this is a pretty useless memo, as national security documents detailing the situation in Iraq go. Hadley lacks understanding of the parliamentary system in which al-Maliki works, and is so divorced from reality, the memo reads like a page from Karl Rove's pre-midterm playbook. Which is not exactly high praise for the great minds at the White House, if this is the sort of drivel they expect in a critical situation summary. But don't take my word for it, read the last link for yourself...or read the memo for yourself. Then decide.

But this blog entry is not primarily about grading the advisers sitting at the heels of Bush. I make mention of the Hadley memo, and throw some dirt over it, to put some perspective on it. The thought process contained in this memo -- is that really worth embarrassing both Jordan and the United States, when you don't even have a real country of your own?

I sincerely doubt that al-Maliki publicly insulted the Deciderer of the Free World and the King of Jordan just because of some unflattering memo about him that some bureaucratic underling wrote in Washington. He understands that the White House needs him, just as much as he needs the entire armed forces of the United States to stay in power. The two of them can take turns blaming each other for conditions in Iraq, which gives them continued cover to bleed Iraq of its oil while ignoring its people who are dying from terrorism and lack of infrastructure. Besides, to admit that the memo insulted him would be to admit in public that the things the memo said about him contained some grains of truth. No, al-Maliki is a shrewd power player along with the best of the powerhouse playas, who knows when to kiss a ring, when to bow and scrape, and when to ignore a rant.

In fact, I suspect that the Hadley memo was deliberately leaked, in order to save the United States some face. With the classified memo out in the open, people asking about why al-Maliki would dare to insult Bush could seize upon that memo as the explanation, and look no further. The pundit talking heads in Western media have been leading the way in this cover-up effort.

What are they covering for, you might be wondering? What could possibly be the real reason for the insult? And why would it merit a blanket media cover-up?

Try sinking your teeth into this article, with its news that did not receive much worldwide attention.

Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, a bloc that was pivotal in bringing Maliki to power in May, launched a boycott Wednesday of their governmental duties to protest Maliki's decision to meet with Bush.

[jump]

Some 32 members of parliament loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr suspended their membership in the legislature at 6 pm on Wednesday, and the 5 Sadrist cabinet members also resigned contingently.

Wednesday? Why...that was November 29th. The same day that the talks were supposed to begin.

Starting to see some of the truth behind that veneer of a memo? Let's try another article. This one is even more of an eye-opener.

Al-Sadr Loyalists Boycott Iraq Government

Lawmakers and Cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Wednesday they have carried out their threat to suspend participation in Parliament and the government to protest Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's summit with U.S. President George W. Bush.

The 30 lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers said their action was necessary because the meeting in Jordan constituted a "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights." Their statement did not explain that claim.

Al-Maliki and Bush are meeting in Amman, the Jordanian capital, Wednesday and Thursday in a summit aimed at halting Iraq's escalating sectarian violence and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.

"We are sticking to our position. ... The boycott is still valid," Falih Hassan, a Sadrist legislator, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Bush is a criminal who killed a lot of Iraqis and we do not want him to interfere in Iraq's affairs. The Iraqi government should negotiate with the U.N. Security Council, not with the leader of the country that is occupying Iraq."

So now the truth comes out. And you see that the leaked Hadley memo had nothing to do with it.

Al-Maliki dodged the meeting and shortened it as much as he was physically able to shorten it...because he was experiencing a major revolt within his government by the al-Sadr bloc of politicians. And when I say "bloc" I do mean "bloc" because it seems obvious to me that anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controls at least 30 lawmakers in Parliament and five Cabinet ministers. (If not more.)

That sounds like a much better reason for insulting a king and a president, now doesn't it? Going back to one of the previous articles for confirmation.

Trying to push anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr out of the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as the [Hadley] memo suggests, would be throwing gasoline on a fire, [experts] said.

Sadr's party is the largest in parliament, with 32 seats, and Maliki became prime minister only with his support. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia controls large parts of Baghdad and southern Iraq, and many Iraqi Shiites hail him as their only protection from attacks by rival Sunni Muslims, which American and Iraqi forces have failed to stop.

(All emphasis added by me.)

What's this? I've heard the name al-Sadr a few times in the Western media...but he controls an army?

Apparently so.

In a reflection of the growing new dimension of civil strife, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday that the militia of radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has grown eightfold over the past year and now fields 40,000 to 60,000 men. That makes it more effective than the Iraqi government's army, the official indicated.

And let's not forget that other fact, stated two paragraphs above, that al-Maliki only became prime minister with the support of al-Sadr. See, I moved the word "only" in that sentence for you. Now you can see how utterly dependent on al-Sadr's approval the prime minister is. Now you can see exactly how much power al-Sadr wields in the new official Iraqi government. If al-Sadr and his boys don't want some meeting in Jordan to happen between the US and the prime minister, then by Allah, the prime minister better fecking well think twice about attending it.

(And you can see that, under enormous pressure abroad to attend and enormous pressure at home NOT to attend, the man walked the middle path fairly well. But I digress. This blog entry is about al-Sadr.)

It really says something, doesn't it, about the amount of power that al-Sadr has accrued, if he can now dictate foreign policy procedure to the prime minister. It really says something if he can field a private army 40,000 to 60,000 in number, and challenge even the standing army of Iraq itself for dominance. It really says something when you consider that, a mere two years ago, we (the United States and the CPA, coalition provisional authority) were still issuing arrest warrants for al-Sadr on murder charges which may or may not have been trumped up...but which charges were our best excuse for assaulting Najaf in an attempt to take him down or take him out.

The fact that the 2004 assault on Najaf by the cream of the US Army and the Marines failed to take out al-Sadr (or even slow him down) also says something.

It also says something that we had to back-pedal on the arrest warrant and invite him into the new Iraqi government in the first place. (See above for his influence on the choice of prime minister.)

Like I said, I suspect that the Hadley memo was deliberately leaked, in order to save the United States (and Bush, and al-Maliki, and the King of Jordan) some face. How the hell do classified materials get leaked so quickly after they're written, anyhow? It has all of the signs of a classic cover-up. Hadley was the fall guy.

Consider, too, that we just recently bombed al-Sadr's city and also just recently raided al-Sadr's offices...and less than a week later, he still has enough power to do this, to affect global politics in places as far away as Jordan.

It is for reasons like these that some of the more honest (or less truth-fearing) media pundits have been debating Why Moqtada al-Sadr May End Up Deciding America's Fate In Iraq.

No one in Iraq talks about arresting Sadr for the murder of al-Khoei anymore. That seems like ages ago — back when Sadr's armed supporters were estimated in the hundreds, compared with many thousands today. Now diplomats speak of trying to keep Sadr inside the political system, hoping he can tame his followers. He's a militant Islamist and anti-occupation, they say, but he's also a nationalist, and not as close to Iran as some of his rivals. Nobody knows whether Sadr is dissembling when he speaks about Iraqi unity, or preparing for all-out war. What is clear — more today than ever before — is that it's time to stop underestimating him.

Click here to read an excellent article that details al-Sadr's rise to power. Please note that (on page 2) Saddam Hussein had the young al-Sadr followed, because Saddam had murdered his father and was therefore afraid of the son. (He even tried to buy al-Sadr off.)

Click here to watch some right-wing talking heads pissing and moaning about the possible upcoming "Armageddon" in Iraq with al-Sadr in the middle of everything. Well if you don't like al-Sadr...just remember who put him into power. (Hint: It wasn't Saddam.)

UPDATE:

Saddam's execution was moved forward from the initial 30-day order to the weekend before Eid al-Adha because Sadr wanted it pushed forward. "Sadr Movement spokesmen demanded that he be executed on the eve of the Day of Sacrifice[.]"

What more proof do you need of who calls the shots in Iraq?

The Litmus Test

2006-12-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

One of the many points of contention and controversy surrounding Bush is the question of his whoring the Oval Office for the oil industry.

(You see, the issue is NOT whether he is a spreading whore for Big Oil, but rather how much is he spreading.)

So let's just watch this recent new development and see where it goes.

Bush may end drilling ban in Alaskan bay

President Bush is deciding whether to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling in federal waters off Alaska's Bristol Bay, home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world's largest sockeye salmon run.

[jump]

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel confirmed Saturday the president was considering taking that step.

Environmentalists oppose drilling there because of the potential for oil spills and harm to wildlife. They have speculated in recent days that Bush might allow such drilling before Democrats regain control of Congress in January.

"If the Bush administration decides to allow drilling in Bristol Bay, it will simply illustrate the level to which they will sink to satisfy Big Oil," Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, said Saturday. "They are willing to risk a valuable, renewable resource like Bristol Bay's salmon fisheries for limited, shortsighted drilling plans."

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the House Resources Committee, said opening up Bristol Bay and expanding drilling off Florida's coast — a goal of House Republicans before losing power to Democrats — would amount to "a last minute giveaway of public lands as an early Christmas present to the big oil companies."

The rest of the article is just stuff about the profits and monies to be made at the drilling versus the species endangerment and human health hazards that would be put into effect by the drilling. Not really worth further pursuit. (end sarcasm)

If, in point of fact, Bush does NOT open Bristol Bay to offshore drilling, then I take back everything I said about Bush's environmental policy. (Which was better labeled as a Big Oil policy, since it was tantamount to screwing over the environment at every possible opportunity.) He may have been an oil whore once, but if he can resist this latest overture, then it will prove that he's not completely at their beck and call (like a call girl who does in-house visits) but will instead prove that he's got some independent backbone.

Backbone independent of the corporate interests that have kept him afloat during the governorship of Texas and the presidency of the United States.

...And don't let the door hit your @$$ on the way out.

2006-12-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

So the man with the ugly mustache is finally out of the UN for good. I note that the only complaints are coming from the far right. Everyone from the center to the left is breathing a big sigh of relief at this good news.

Perhaps you are wondering why John Bolton was not, shall we say, a model diplomat? Let us go over his track record at the UN.

Bolton has never been a diplomat — which, among his supporters, is regarded as a mark of honor. He hails from the Republican Party's extreme conservative wing. Bush chose him to please the most fervent right-wingers in his administration, most of whom either scorn or want to terminate the United Nations.

Bolton has for a long time been an excessive and unrestrained critic of the U.N.

Among his infamous utterances: that it wouldn't make a difference if 10 stories were sliced off the U.N. building; that the U.S. has no obligation to pay its dues to the organization; that the Security Council should be reduced to one member, namely the U.S.

And, perhaps his most notable sally, that "there's no such thing as the United Nations."

His record since taking over as ambassador in August 2005 has shown that his adversarial stance toward the institution has not softened.

In his first month as U.N. envoy, he gleefully undermined the most comprehensive reform movement in U.N. history by insisting on the adoption of hundreds of irrelevant amendments that were never going to be accepted by the General Assembly.

Later, when the U.N. did agree on one important change — creating a new, reformed Human Rights Council — he argued furiously against it, rallied just three other nations to the cause (out of 191) and eventually saw the U.S. go down to a humiliating defeat.

Then he turned around and said he would work with the council and help it financially but not join it. Which left Washington looking not just like a loser, but a whiny one at that.

As Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) remarked, Bolton was not just a bully, but an "ineffective" one.

In furtherance of his mission, Bolton also has promoted various pet causes at the institution. For example, when issues of population control or limiting the use of small arms come up, he brings into his office antiabortion activists and National Rifle Assn. members, respectively, to take the other side.

He has, on occasion, reportedly sneaked around his own nominal boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to Vice President Dick Cheney's office to get support for his own hard-line views at the U.N. — for example, his refusal last summer to endorse the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing poverty in the developing world.

Rice eventually forced him to reverse that stance.

To the extent that he has been able to operate at all at the United Nations — most recently in the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire — he has had to bow to a new realism within the Bush administration, and yes, sometimes, to international pressure.

Even then, though, according to published news reports, he doesn't get along well with our allies. His bristling nature has left many bruised feelings among his colleagues. His accomplishments are marginal at best.

He may be among the most ineffective envoys the United States has ever sent to the U.N.

Which just goes to show you why I happen to agree that "ineffective bully" is the most apt label for Bolton. I suppose that faint praise is better than none at all. A bully is a great characteristic...for a bouncer in a nightclub, or a Mafioso's bodyguard.

But an international diplomat for a superpower of the world?

Click here to watch a video of Bolton screaming at the UN assembly. The man has done as much as Bush to damage the reputation and standing of America in the eyes of the world.

The world seems to work better when Bush's agenda is not being crammed down everyone's throats. Even Rumsfeld appears to have noticed this, just before he left. Rice also knows that Bush is bad for the world, but won't say so in public until she retires and writes her memoirs. Sure the GOP side of Congress must have learned something from the midterm election results. Now it's just a matter of educating the remainder minority of Americans who still believe that Iraq had something do with 9-11...a premise that Bush himself won't even endorse anymore.

This is not what they mean by "as ye sow".

2006-12-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

A group of Muslims are trying to build a mosque (that would be a building that is their equivalent of a Christian church or Jewish synagogue or Buddhist temple) in Texas. So the local residents get this bright idea to oppose the construction of the mosque by staging pig races on a Muslim holy day.

I'm not buying into any of the Texans' excuses for staging this event. Even if the reasons were all 100% true, this is an event that is calculated to cause maximum offense to Muslims. If somebody was to stage an event calculated to cause maximum offense to Christians, do you think it would matter who hurled the first insult? My point is that some offenses go beyond the pale in pissing people off...and this pig race is clearly one of them. How very humble and Christian of these Texans. I thought that "Love Thy Neighbor" was a Christian teaching? How about "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"? Or have these been discarded in favor of warmongering?

Damn, yo. Religions are supposed to be all about forgiveness and acceptance and tolerance and love and PEACE, aren't they????

By Their Pinched Expressions Shall You Know Them

2006-11-30T11:52:00.000-08:00

It's time for another pop quiz, class!

Q: How do you tie the panties of 62,040,610 chickenshits (that being the number of American citizens who voted for Bush in 2004) into one giant hopeless knot at one fell swoop?

A: You run for Congress...then tell the world that you'll be sworn into office with a Koran.

Keith Ellison (D-Minn), whom some of you might remember as being the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office upon the Bible. (See the previous link for a video clip.)

The pro-Bush psycho pantywaists are up in arms over this, predictably enough. Some of them seem to be laboring under a delusion that this is somehow forbidden under the laws of our land. A delusion that it's actually written somewhere that all government officials must swear upon a Bible when starting their service in America's government.

They could not be more wrong. Please refer to the federal Constitution, Article 6, Paragraph 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

I find it very amusing that all of these people who are protesting Representative Ellison's choice of book for taking solemn oaths can still claim to somehow be pro-America and America First...when it is abundantly clear that they have not read the full text of the Constitution, and -- what's more -- do not care what it actually says.

Very funny. Almost frightening, how funny that is.

It really doesn't take much to send a wingnut over the edge, these days. In that case...how does the saying go? "Notice from the management: The beatings will continue until morale improves." Apparently the wingnuts learned nothing from the midterm election results. So learn this: not every President was sworn into office using a Bible. So if the President is not beholden to this mere tradition, then why should a Congressman be any more so?

If this is "dangerous multi-culturalism" that could wreck the country, then that wrecking should have happened generations ago. I had Chinese take-out for dinner last night while I was watching football (which is derived from English rugby) and ripping a Japanese cartoon on my computer. Then I had some French sorbet for dessert and washed that down with a pint of Irish stout. (By the way, even Congress has started calling pomm frits French fries again.)

If this is "undermining American civilization" then American civilization is really nothing more than intolerance, and as such deserves to be undermined. And by the way, you might want to read the Constitution before flaunting it.

Here is the final word on the subject:

Well, in a way, it's quite amusing. Think of it this way, for all the fighting to allow religion into the public sector -- it has finally come to bite those people in the ass. THIS IS WHY the "liberals" and other "evil", god-less groups of individuals have been fighting against religion being allowed into the public sector to begin with! If they could get their heads out their asses they would realize it's not an attack on "Christian values" it's to try to avoid situations exactly like this from ever happening in the first place!

It's astonishing to me what a one-way street all of their talk of getting rid of "PC" is. They're such hard-asses when it comes to not worrying about who gets offended, until they are the ones getting the short end of the stick. Yeah, right buddy, political correctness is destroying America until you walk into Walmart one day and get told "Merry Ramadan!"

Bravo, Representative Ellison. Let's see more of that panty-twisting throughout the entire length of your term in Congress.

Meanwhile In Afghanistan

2006-11-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

...terror continues to rule the land.

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

[jump]

But, as in the rest of Afghanistan, it is the civilians who are bearing the brunt of this conflict. At the village of Qara Bagh, the family of Mr Halim are distraught and terrified. His cousin, Ahmed Gul, shook his head: "They killed him like an animal. No, no. We do not kill animals like that, it would be haram [mortal sin]. They took away a father and a husband, they had no pity. We are all very worried. Please go now, you see those men standing over there? They are watching. It is dangerous for you, and for us."

If that doesn't prove to you that the Taliban are back in power, then I don't know what will.

It's very important to note that, not only are the Taliban back in power, but that the Taliban are also wielding their power with a new vengeance, oppressing the people of Afghanistan even worse than before America removed them from power in 2002. It is very important to note this because the talking heads (read: official "unofficial" propaganda agents of the State) are still going around claiming that Afghanistan is a success story for Bush and his Yee-Haw foreign policy. This grisly public execution proves that hogwash to be a lie. Afghanistan is not a success story because nothing has changed for the better...things have only gotten worse.

Think about it. If we are winning the war on terror in Afghanistan, then why did the GOP advocate cutting and running from that country?

If we are winning the war in Afghanistan, then why is opium still being grown and cultivated in record-breaking crops? Why did the government of Afghanistan draft a constitution wherein Christianity is a federal crime punishable by death?

Is this how you define "success" Mr. Bush? Because the rest of us would call that "failure" and I'm using a polite form of that word.

And if you still aren't convinced, here's the final straw. This article tells you everything that you need to know about how we're doing in Afghanistan.

Told. You. So.

2006-11-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

And now the proof that you've all been waiting for.

A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.

“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

[jump]

“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.

Lohse says the trend isn’t unique to Bush: A 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.

And you always wondered why Republicans hate science so much! :)

UPDATE:

Click here to listen to Rush Limbaugh -- one of the Bush's biggest supporters, and therefore one of the most psychotic talking-head media personalities -- completely give up on Iraq and declare that we should just blow the whole place up.