Wednesday, September 20, 2006
From the Man of God: Torture protects us! From a GOP consultant: "Peace is not a Biblical value" and other rants
It’s even worse than we thought! The Republicans don’t just want to go back to the 19th century, to the Gilded Age. They want to go back to a time when we didn’t have the Magna Carta (which dates to 1215), perhaps considered the ultimate influence towards constitutional law today. Habeas Corpus or our right not to be imprisoned which according to habeascorpus.net actually predates the Magna Carta which stated, ““...no free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed except by the lawful judgment of their peers or by the law of the land.”
The National Litterbox backed bill seeks to take away the right of habeas corpus to those imprisoned at Guantanamo whom he considers terrorists although the Red Cross estimates that they are 90% innocent. The Republicans say we want rights for terrorists, but who is to say that the White House would not consider those who dissent against his wars for American hegemony terrorists? What is to prevent Litterbox Bush to whisk us off to another country to be tortured if we dissent publically against his “war on terror?”
The amendment might have passed had two Democrats not missed the vote; the two were at a news conference on the Medicare drug benefit. A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, one of the two, said she was rushing back for the vote but just missed it. “She’s obviously disappointed,” said the spokesman, Jonathan Beeton. “It was unfortunate timing.”
House leaders plan to bring the Bush plan to the floor next week.
Knowing the Rethuglicans and their underhanded tactics, who’s to say that the Rethuglicans knew that two Democrats were going to be absent and went ahead anyway, just biding their time until the Democrats could not be present?
Don’t forget that Litterbox Bush who poses as God’s Favorite Christian and the most pro-lifer out of all of us quietly slipped in a signing statement on the torture ban a while back that “quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.” Remember how he cited national security and his duty to protect the American people? Well imagine this scenario…Let’s say that ANSWER has planned a huge anti-war rally in front of the White House. What’s to say that since according to conservatives and right-wingers we are terrorists, what’s to say that Bush would imprison one of the organizers of the rally indefinitely or even make him disappear? What’s to say that he wouldn’t rendition one of them to a country like Syria, which he condemns in public but sends those to be tortured over there to wash his hands much as Pontius Pilate did? What’s to prevent Bush from imprisoning that activist forever without being any charges to him or her as he claims the “war on terror” can last generations?!
Am I being too paranoid? Am I being too extreme? Am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist? Or am I correct in saying that some right-wingers would actually applaud if one of the guys from ANSWER or Moveon.org or even Michael Moore were tortured in the name of national security?
Republicans are not the party of life, they are the party of Abu Ghirab, they are the party of the Spanish Inquisition, the party of torture, the party of witchcraft trials that killed innocent women and men in Europe and Salem, they are the party of dehumanizing treatment, they are the party of the Dark Ages. They do not care of the irreparable damage that this rejection of McCain’s amendment would do to our country, they do not care for the troops who could fall into enemy hands from a country that might also reinterpret the Geneva Conventions for its own purposes, they just do not care because they are out of touch with the danger our troops face in the field. This is how they can deny them funding for body armor and do nothing while troops scrounge around for metal they can fit into armor, while turning around and saying with a straight face that the GOP is the party that supports the troops while Democrats want them DEAD!
Frist says he will challenge the amendment with a filibuster. Funny, I thought filibusters were supposed to be detrimental to our democracy. I thought it was only a tool that the Democrats were using to subvert the chances of conservative judges I mean Men of God of getting onto the federal appeals courts and the Supreme Court. I thought they wanted to do away with the filibuster. So am I to believe that filibusters to prevent activist judges who would take away all our rights to hold corporations accountable for their injustices against us are bad but filibusters to allow our Litterbox to torture detainees and any others he sees it is okay? What kind of message does it send to the world when America, the supposed beacon of human rights (HAHA) is opposing an amendment that would prevent torture?
Will the right-wing churches that participated in Justice Sunday (which should strip them of their tax-exempt status in a just world instead of a world with an IRS that seeks to intimidate liberal churches opposing war) come out against the filibuster of this amendment or will they come out in favor of torture with their deafening silence?
In other news from the shit-filled Litterbox, Bush was against sending troops into Pakistan to capture Osama before he was for it. Today, he said, “Absolutely” when he was asked if he would send in troops if intelligence indicated Osama was in Pakistan. One wonders if he would ask Musharaff for permission when last week he said he would need an invitation.
Bush’s IRS is seeking to strip away the tax-exempt status of a liberal church in Pasadena that preached against the war in the sermon. Never mind that the pastor was speaking on peace which appears in one of Jesus’ epithets, Prince of Peace. Never mind that the pastor was asking what would Jesus do? Never mind that he castigated BOTH Bush for carrying out the war-mongering policy and Senator Kerry for enabling it. Yet Dobson is free to rant and rave against the Satanic liberals and promote conservative politicians subtly in his voter's guides WHICH will jeopardize or should jeopardize the tax-exempt status of churches that participate in his programs such as the Value Voters Summit coming up in September.
All Saints has been known as "a headquarters for political activity" since the 1970s, said Steve Frank, a GOP consultant who organizes churches for political campaigns. The IRS is probably using the sermon as an excuse to investigate the church's expenditures, Frank said.
"It's not a question of the IRS going after one ideology. They're going after anybody that violates the law," he said. "The reality is it doesn't stop a minister from teaching ... what they believe is the truth within the Bible."
Wait, did he just say that the famous verse in the Bible that says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9) is not truth within the Bible?
In other news...
Geoff Davis (R-KY naturally) says he supports the troops but he supports even more the loan sharks who charge 400% interest on their loans…He is coming out against a bipartisan bill supported by the Pentagon which would limit interest rates on short-term loans to military members to 36% (as if that wasn't high enough) Wait, wasn’t there a prohibition against usury?
For a party that loves to quote Leviticus, well here’s something for you! 'You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. (Leviticus 25:35-37)
Republicans voted for the 21st century poll tax even though it is unconstitutional, saying that only brown people commit vote fraud. Well if they want their ID law, then make every DMV in the county give IDs and driver’s licenses out for free. Put a DMV in every little town and village and in the rural areas so that EVERYONE can get an ID. The fact that the Republicans would NEVER stand for that with their blame the victim rhetoric (people who cannot afford to go out and get drivers’ licenses either because of the lack of money or lack of transportation) shows that right-wingers dream of the day when voters hailing from the other end of the spectrum were disenfranchised by these poll taxes. The fact that they do not care about Diebold and hackable voting machines shows that they only care for disenfranchising their political enemies. What next? Grandfather clauses for whites who can’t afford the IDs and literacy tests?!
Monday, September 18, 2006
What is happening in Iraq is only a blueprint for Bush's America of the future
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
How does abortion have to do with rebuilding Iraq?! Two applicants were interviewered about their views on Roe v. Wade. Others were asked primarily who they voted for in 2000? Do you agree with how Bush is handling the war on terrorism? (don’t you just love the subtle hint that Iraq = terror?) We all know that cronyism was rampant in FEMA and other government positions in the EPA, every cabinet position, every department, but why should we not be surprised as the Post is of the rampant cronyism amidst the rebuilding process in Iraq? Is it no wonder that political hacks and lackeys have totally bungled the reconstruction and that we have lost $10 billion of Iraq’s reconstruction money?O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade
As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.
"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush."
So doing things for the good of the country is now replaced by I’m here for the glory of George W. Bush, deified as the emperors were. Disgraceful, EVERYTHING is political. This is like North Korea where even the trains have a portrait of the late Great Leader who is basically deified. It’s like the Roman emperors who could not build temples to themselves in Rome itself, but allowed the provinces to set up temples to burn incense and to offer worship, except it’s not sanctioned by Bush who wouldn’t have a problem with it anyway. At least he didn’t try to appoint Barney to a Senate seat or something. So you can consider the Green Zone a temple of Bush, sacred ground when it shouldn’t be. The cult of Bush is alive and well in the Fertile Crescent.
But that's not the worst of the story...
Veteran Middle East hands were regarded as insufficiently committed to the goal of democratizing the region. Post-conflict experts, many of whom worked for the State Department, the United Nations or nongovernmental organizations, were deemed too liberal. Men such as Kerik -- committed Republicans with an accomplished career in business or government -- were ideal.
Too liberal?! Too liberal!? Insufficiently devoted to the goal of spreading democracy in the Middle East?! (and we all know what democracy means, pro-US governments even if they are dictatorships) So just like in the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ, we have affirmative action for right-wing political hacks and Bush loyalists justified in the name of taking away affirmative action for liberals. We have the same co-opting of affirmative action language to justify affirmative action for the FMR, except that they’re claiming that they’re purging liberals whom they imply only got their jobs through affirmative action and replacing them with “qualified” conservatives who share Bush’s vision. This is what government and the rebuilding I mean Looting of Iraq has come down to because it always comes down to the liberal word. This is not the only time Bush’s cronies have used the liberal word to justify purging qualified liberals out of public service.
Rewind back to a few months back about the controversy over the Civil Rights Division which exposed the Bush' Administration's co-opting of affirmative action language to rid the division of liberals whom they accused of getting in through affirmative action while using the Bush loyalist's affirmative action to pack it with conservatives.Magnuson also objected to measuring civil rights experience by participation in organizations devoted to advancing traditional civil rights causes. She noted that many of the division's lawyers had been clerks for federal judges, where they ``worked on litigation involving constitutional law, which is obviously relevant to a certain degree."
But Roger Clegg , who was a deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights during the Reagan administration, said that the change in career hiring is appropriate to bring some ``balance" to what he described as an overly liberal agency.
I’m sure O’Beirne is defending these political hacks as qualified to do the job, after all they love National Litterbox Bush and his policies and are ready to jump off the cliff with him just as long as he gives the order. Liberals are not qualified in Bushworld because they are the political hacks while party loyalists are shut out of public service because of some affirmative action policy that rewards the “incompetence” of liberals at the expense of “qualified” Bush loyalists. We needed people who would work with the Bush Administration, not try to obstruct it like the liberals in Congress always do. We all know what balance means to the Chimpeviks: 100% right-wingers who toe the Bush line, who do not question. Debate means how strongly you feel about the president as long as it’s supporting. We can’t have debate on how the Bush policies in the Middle East have failed. We can’t debate unless it’s debating on whether Bush is totally awesome or just incredibly awesome.
What is their agenda in the Middle East? To use Iraq as the experiment laboratory for their agenda here: to privatize everything to the point where even water becomes a cash cow for corporations (beware brown water).
Didn't we hear how privatization is the answer for everything?
Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
We all know that conservative ideas rarely work except on paper with a sufficient amount of conservative bias and Iraq is just proof #7879852.
Haveman (isn't the name appropriate?) didn't like the idea that medical care in Iraq was free. He figured Iraqis should pay a small fee every time they saw a doctor.
One of these bastards objected to the Iraqis having free health care! To paraphrase Al Franken: Get those bums off the street and have them pay for treatment because getting free treatment will encourage them to get sick again!
Instead of trying to restructure the dysfunctional state-owned firm that imported and distributed drugs and medical supplies to hospitals, he decided to try to sell it to a private company.
To prepare it for a sale, he wanted to attempt something he had done in Michigan. When he was the state's director of community health, he sought to slash the huge amount of money Michigan spent on prescription drugs for the poor by limiting the medications doctors could prescribe for Medicaid patients. Unless they received an exemption, physicians could only prescribe drugs that were on an approved list, known as a formulary.
Yeah, because we all know providing life-saving drugs to the poor is socialism and this discourages them from going out to find employment. No wonder Iraq’s unemployment is so damn high. Maybe if we make them pay for their drugs, they’ll get off their lazy asses and find work!
Folks you should be f'in outraged because once the GOP gets their 60-senator majority and totally pack the courts with privatization, corporation-friendly activist judges, the process of duplicating what's going on in Iraq will finally jumpstart here. If you wish to drink brown muddy water while paying exorbitant rates for water, let us all sit back and do nothing. Otherwise, let's take our country back from these demons in November!
Saturday, September 16, 2006
This is your so-called president
This is your so-called president who looks like he is about to burst into a childish temper tantrum because some Senate Republicans refuse to give him what he wants: the White House plan to torture interrogate and detain suspects in the so-called "War on Terror."
"The information the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks) has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including planned strikes inside the United States and on a U.S. Marine base in East Africa, an American consulate in Pakistan and Britain's Heathrow Airport," Bush said.
Right, like the Miami plot where the plotters did not even know what they were doing? Like the plot to take down a busy bridge in New York with a blowtorch? the Holland Tunnel plot that violated the rules of physics? Like the anthrax killer, plot? O wait, never mind.
Bush is so intent in getting torture through that he would even compromise our national security!
To a mindless sheep Bush-supporter, this is proof that well the Man of God wants to follow the Geneva Conventions but he is only confused because the rules are so muddled and filled with grey areas. To the Bush supporter, this is proof that Bush is not a lawless president as we liberals and progressives charge. This is proof that Bush is looking out for us but he wants to do it right. He won't risk us violating international law so he would rather shut down the program. But to us, it is something utterly more sinister. Bush never cares about the law, he has 800 signing statements declaring his intentions not to follow certain parts of laws that Congress passes. What makes you think that he would follow the Geneva Conventions? As Buzzflash notes, how can the Geneva Conventions have clarity for every president, Republican or Democrat but not Bush? The wording has not changed and either Bush is admitting he's a complete dumbass who has miniscule reading comprehension ability (plausible considering he does not read or pretends to in order to appear intellectual) or that he is just using it as an excuse to show that he does not care (equally likely, I think it's a combination of the two).Bush heatedly warned rebellious Republicans and other lawmakers Friday that CIA questioning of high-value terrorism suspects will end unless the rules are clarified on how far the interrogations can go.
"Weakening the Geneva protections is not only unnecessary, but would set an example to other countries, with less respect for basic human rights, that they could issue their own legislative 'reinterpretations,'" McCain said in a statement released Friday. "This puts our military personnel and others directly at risk in this and future wars."
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Nothing says Support the Troops more than denying them modern body armor
Allen voted YES to table an amendment by Senator Landrieu which would have boosted National Guard funding by $1 billion which would have gone to body armor, but his campaign is denying that he actually voted no to not fund body armor. However, isn't tabling an amendment the same as killing it? So yes, he did vote against the troops. He just doesn't want you to know it.
Nothing says Support the Troops more than denying them modern body armor
Allen voted YES to table an amendment by Senator Landrieu which would have boosted National Guard funding by $1 billion which would have gone to body armor, but his campaign is denying that he actually voted no to not fund body armor. However, isn't tabling an amendment the same as killing it? So yes, he did vote against the troops. He just doesn't want you to know it.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Halliburton Tax: Potential Campaign ads from the DSCC and the DCCC if they were smart
Remember how KBR served SPOILED, ROTTEN FOOD for our troops, and there were NO cries of outrage from the Republicans about it. None. This is supporting our troops, GOP style: Allow your cronies to FUCK em over and then stand idly by while they make a profit off it.
The Republicans want to get personal on this election campaign? Well bring it on! We can play dirty just the same except that we won't be mud-slinging like the Republicans do, because it's not when you're telling the truth. Why don't we air ads showing rotting food in a dumpster somewhere with a caption that says, "Dick Cheney's company served our troops spoiled food while the Republicans did nothing to investigate. Is this supporting our troops?"
Or how about this? "KBR, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's former company stole a Super Bowl Party from the troops and wasted taxpayer money billing US for it. Is this supporting our troops?" Then you would show a cartoon of corporate pigs watching the Super Bowl on a widescreen while gobbling up wings, nachos, tacos, pizza, etc. on a split screen with troops in an empty room asking, "Where's our party?"
You know what? Let's call KBR and Halliburton overcharging us for laundry ($100 per 15 pounds of laundry) and a 12-pack of soda ($45!) the Halliburton tax. In my state of California, the California GOP is running ads saying that Angelides is for raising every tax ever dreamed about. Well let's fight back. Let's say the GOP is for keeping the Halliburton tax, ripping you, the American taxpayer while allowing it to make obscene profits while fucking our troops over. Do you want your money going towards spoiled food, $45 packs of soda, unsanitary kitchens with BLOOD AND ROTTING FOOD ALL OVER THE FLOOR?!
They say that Halliburton: Lodged 100 workers at a five-star hotel in Kuwait for a total of $10,000 a day while the Pentagon wanted them to stay in tents, like soldiers, at $139 a night; Abandoned $85,000 trucks because of flat tires and minor problems; Paid $100 to have a 15-pound bag of laundry cleaned as part of a million-dollar laundry contract in peaceful Kuwait. The price for cleaning the same amount of laundry in war-torn Iraq was $28; Spent $1.50 a can to buy 37,200 cans of soda in Kuwait, about 24 times higher than the contract price; and knowingly paid subcontractors twice for the same bill.Government waste...The Republicans claim that it's your money and that you should have say over it and that the government just takes it and wastes it. Yet when Halliburton takes YOUR money and wastes it like junking perfectly servicable trucks so that you can pay for more trucks, it's not waste according to the silence coming from the Republicans. It's just the free market at work except that our troops are getting screwed over. Your money is going to accommodate Halliburton contractors at five-star hotels while our troops sleep in tents for a fraction of the cost. Yet, there is no cry from the Republicans who get all pious and teary-eyed when they talk about how taxes for the rich are affecting ordinary Americans and how it's your money and not the government's.
and Remember, the GOP is not the party of the troops, it's the party of Halliburton. Back in 2005, they KILLED a bill that would have investigated Halliburton's ripping off of the American taxpayer with a lame promise that they would eventually investigate Halliburton sometime later...Fast forward to June 2006...Surely ENSIGN would keep his promise to jumpstart a Halliburton investigation after all, he did say this...
"I want to inform the Senator from North Dakota that, hopefully, when we come back for a couple days in December, as the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, I plan on holding hearings on exactly this. I plan on pulling that curtain back. I plan on getting into the investigation in the same way as Harry Truman. If it happens to be it is embarrassing to the administration, we are going to find out the truth on this--just like Harry Truman went after those cost-plus contracts in those days. It is not only the soul-source aspect, it is also the fact they are cost-plus contracts."The Republicans killed S.AMDT.4230 which would have dealt with contracting "by eliminating fraud and abuse and improving competition in contracting and procurement."
Wells Fargo has a commercial on the radio wondering how much better the world would be if we all knew where our money goes...Well we can with My Spending Report...It's about time the Democrats ask the same question. Wells Fargo customers...you know where your money goes, but do the American taxpayers know where their money is going when it comes to Halliburton? Do you think that it's going to gourmet food (have a screenshot of troops finally back at home enjoying lavish dinners and parties) or is it really going towards this? Then have a screenshot of a slab of rotting beef (don't mind the smell, it's for the good of the country) Then have a screenshot showing the facts and then blast the GOP for not investigating, then end with this line: "The GOP thinks supporting the troops means providing them with foods that could poison them while Halliburton gets rich. The GOP thinks that your tax dollars should be funneled to Halliburton."
You know what, we shouldn't worry about GOP cries that we are exploiting the troops when we should stand by them. The corporate media does not care that another corporation is exploiting their troops because it would make the GOP look bad. We need to get the message out, especially in the red states in the South where the military is everything to them. Do they even know what Halliburton is doing to their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers serving in the military? Probably not, because the GOP would rather keep them in the dark while appearing in photo-ops with the troops to show that yeah, they really are the party that supports the troops. These Southerners need to realize that the GOP is not providing any oversight to check the abuses being wrought upon our troops and by GOD, we need to make that connection.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
There's going to be hell to pay if ABC goes through with this docudrama
''It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle,'' this executive said.But now…they’re perfectly willing to distribute it everywhere: to the schools and to Republicans only of course…
Does the movie have the president reacting to the August 6, 2001 memo nonchalantly and staying on vacation while the country faced its greatest threat which eventually came to fruition a month and five days later?
Does the movie have a split screen showing Bush launching golf drives on vacation while the other shows Bush signing Terri’s law?
I wonder if the film has anything about how we OUTSOURCED the upcoming capture of Bin Laden in Tora Bora which allowed him to get away…
I wonder if the film has that infamous video clip where Bush is caught saying, “So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him. … And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 was based on fact even if he did kind of stretch the truth a bit, but overall it was based on fact and what did Disney do? They refused to distribute it. Moore did NOT make up scenes unlike this movie on the other hand has scenes in which the director admitted he made up which portray Clinton administration officials and Sandy Berger in a bad light. They bend over backwards and do their best to promote the movie. At least Michael Moore does not pretend that it is nonpartisan but Bernie Ward points out that the movie was given a R rating so that it wouldn’t be shown in the schools. Shouldn’t this movie be given one too instead of giving it out to 100,000 schools?
What are they so afraid of that they won’t distribute it to Democrats, liberal bloggers, Daily Kossacks? Why are they only giving it out to right-wingnuts? Doesn’t that show you that they’re afraid of what we have to say about the movie and they are tacitly conceding that the movie is blatantly biased against Clinton? What are they so afraid of? Oh, that's right, an internal memo said basically the movie was all about blaming the Clenis, I mean Clinton for 9-11.
But the blame on the Clinton team is in the DNA of the project and could not be eradicated without pulling the entire show....You know since the movie has made-up scenes, I would not have been surprised if there was a scene with Osama Bin Laden meeting with Saddam shaking hands and plotting 9/11.
And to DeMint who says that if the Democrats spent half the time helping them fight this “War on Terror,” we would be closer to victory, well if Bush spent half the time on Bin Laden as he spent linking 911 to Iraq and misleading the Iraqi people, we would have captured him and brought him to justice.
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