The Official Blog of PCPB

With friends like the Democrats, who needs enemies?!

2007-09-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

House Republicans are introducing a resolution to condemn an ad that MoveOn.org ran in The New York Times, referring to General David Petraeus as "General Betray Us" and accusing him of playing politics with his statistics regarding the surge. The ad was frequently referred to by Republican members at yesterday's committee hearing with the general.

"The despicable attack MoveOn.org launched against General Petraeus today should be condemned by all Members of Congress, including the Democratic leadership," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). "I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to join in support of this resolution so the House speaks with one voice rejecting the character assassination tactics employed by this extremist group."

House Democrats are introducing a resolution to condemn an ad that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran on television, falsely accusing John Kerry of lying about his service in Vietnam. The ad was frequently referred to by Democratic members at yesterday’s campaign rally in support of Kerry.

“The despicable attack the Swift Boat veterans launched against Senator Kerry should be condemned by all Members of Congress, including the Democratic leadership, and President Bush,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to join in support of this resolution so the House speaks with one voice rejecting the character assassination tactics employed by this extremist group.”

Democrats successfully pushed through, by a 72-25 vote, a resolution condemning an advertisement by the 527 group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Oh wait, that never happened. Shows you the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, doesn’t it?

So you know what would have REALLY peeved the Republicans? Resorting to their own tactics. I know there will be some of y’all who say we shouldn’t stoop to their level, but you know what? We have to fight back and we can’t continue playing this higher ground bullshit that encourages the Republicans to hit us below the belt and kick us while we’re down. So there is a Republican senator who is placing a hold on giving the public access to presidential records while Senator Tom Coburn shows his love for the troops by placing a hold on a Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Bill. Why? Because Coburn can’t resist pandering to the NRA at the expense of the lives of veterans. You see if they were to be screened for risk of committing suicide, they might be denied a handgun. (Wow! It really seems like Coburn WANTS psychologically damaged veterans to purchase guns. Ignore the straw man argument, it’s what Republicans do.)

So the Democrats could have placed a hold on it, but not revealed who did so. That would have really pissed off the Republicans who would have sanctimoniously pontificated about having openness in government, something they have conveniently forgotten when they were in power. But the Democrats are weak, and as so, the Republicans can’t help but to rub their hands in glee while they continue to fuck over the troops with the acquiescence at best or at worst the compliance of Democrats who fall into the trap of those infuriating words, “Support the troops,” which has been framed as Support President Bush or else you want the TROOPS DEAD and you want Osama Bin Laden and SADDAM Hussein to have won. Support the troops means you support General Petraeus’ partisan hackery while supporting the GOP’s attempts to FILIBUSTER a bill that would have given troops equal time at home as in the front. Supporting the troops is now supporting Coburn’s attempts to kill legislation that would help suicidal veterans in favor of the NRA. Supporting the troops means not doing anything about the terrible conditions at Walter Reed because it might embarrass Resident Bush who is more of a troop than our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. (when’s the last time you heard a Democrat or the media talk about it? Yeah, I thought you couldn’t answer.)

How much media attention has Coburn’s hold on this really crucial bill gotten? Zero, I bet. The media doesn’t want to dispel the notion that the Republicans are the only ones who support the troops. Do they ever report on stories such as this? Probably not.

BTW, WHAT HAPPENED to the Democrats' refusal to bring this resolution to a vote? Oh, that's right, the Democrats caved in, as usual...

Bush's Jesus Complex

2007-07-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

This is nothing new, in fact, many of y’all probably have blogged on this, but this Raw Story article just confirms a sick and twisted fantasy which Bush and his cronies from radio and the media have all steered us into: Bush = Jesus.

I am arguing that it doesn’t matter that Bush is bothered by the fact that the people really do hate him. Once his advisors confirm it, it only reinforces his belief that he is a religious figure, he is the Man of God sent by God to do His will, which is supposedly to bring democracy to the Middle East, I mean to fill the bottomless pockets of Halliburton and other corporate cronies. After all, Supply-side Jesus smiles upon him and brings him great blessings of corporate donations and the comforting knowledge that at least Big Oil is on his side with its obscene profits.

Bush clearly has a delusion of grandeur. David Corn touched upon this so-called Mission from God when he noted that Bush believes that his mission is to “free people," much as Christians believe that Jesus came to the world to free humanity from sin. Don’t forget how Bush said, "There is a higher father that I appeal to." Let this article from Raw Story speak for itself.

President Bush is holding private meetings "over sodas and sparkling water" in which he asks trusted advisers -- "Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?"

Notice how he’s turning himself into a martyr figure. Much like how the crowds who sang Hosanna when Jesus entered into Jerusalem turned on Jesus a few days later, he sees himself fallen from high above when he enjoyed 90% approval ratings in the days after 9/11 to now where only the hard-core base made up of the corporate and financial elites and the sheep who blindly follow him because he is a Man of God or because he is a Republican who would protect humanity from the evil scourge known as the homosexuals.

To some, "Bush seems alone, isolated by events beyond his control, with trusted advisers taking their leave and erstwhile friends turning on him."

I am sure that the Biblical scene in which Jesus after praying in the garden goes back to his devoted apostles and is grieved to see them sleeping is going through Bush’s delusional head. I’m sure he sees himself just as abandoned by his friends and us the American people as Jesus felt when he was walking up to Calvary, accompanied by no one except those closest to him, which was about three people including his mother. I’m sure Bush sees himself going to his own crucifixion with the jeering crowds spitting on him and heckling him as he stumbles to the ground and in the polls with that overwhelming cross to bear.

"I find him serene," Kissinger said. "I know President Johnson was railing against his fate. That's not the case with Bush. He feels he's doing what he needs to do, and he seems to me at peace with himself."

It doesn’t matter that he’s only at 26% or 31% depending on which poll you believe. The more he perceives the people hate him, the more the belief that he is a latter-day Jesus sent by God to save the American people from the Satanic terrorists who want to overthrow the American government and from those damn homosexuals who want to seduce our children into participating in the unholy Bacchanalia that is sure to come when gay marriage is legalized, is reinforced. Since he is a religious figure, he cannot bend to the polls like most politicians who pander to the whims of the American people. No, he is above that. He is a Man of God whose mission is to obey God who votes Republican and supports war in the name of corporate profits, who supports sacrificing our young men and women to the Almighty Dollar. He cannot abandon his Surge in Iraq because this is God’s will and more importantly, he like Jesus must be patient with us ignorant followers much like how Jesus was patient with the disciples who must have frustrated him with their stubbornness and naivety.

Realize how dangerous this rhetoric really is. Realize how dangerous this is when a faux president installed by a junta of robed activist judges believes himself to be infallible in the face of undeniable failure in Iraq. It doesn’t matter how many lives are to be sacrificed in his Holy War to transform the Middle East and possibly bring about so-called Biblical prophecy. It doesn’t matter that the world has turned against America who has lost any moral high ground she claimed with torture and rendition flights. It doesn’t matter that torture is against the Geneva Conventions, because that is earthly law and that does not apply to Bush.

This is not the only example, but this infamous incident shows how much the Religious Right which claims to be the only legitimate moral arbiter of America has been corrupted by its ties to the GOP.

Do you remember when Tom Delay was going on every news channel to proclaim that the liberals like Hitler were using the Big Lie to “persecute” him? Do you remember that scene which made us spew forth the bile in our throats when the Reverend Rick Scarborough put his hand around Tom Delay and said these infamous, blasphemous words?

"God always does his best work right after a crucifixion."

Yes, who can forget one of the most corrupt figures in American politics being compared to his own Savior, being made into one who was being martyred by the Democrats who did not know that Republicans were infallible gods whose motives should not and cannot be questioned?

If I offend some of you with the religious language and all the Jesus talk, I am doing this to illustrate a point and to show that this article further shines a light in the dark abysses of Bush’s soul.

I did a paper once on Creon and his hubris in proclaiming himself to be above divine law when he insisted on refusing Polynices burial, even after the blind prophet Tiresias basically gave him a choice of following the sanction of the gods or facing a fall greater than any man or woman could bear. Except that Creon mocked the power of Hades and even Zeus, showing contempt for Death. I see the same mentality in Bush in that he sees himself above the law and above our standards of justice, except that instead of just believing that divine law does not apply to him, he believes that he is a god himself, or at least the god’s prophet sent to save this land from evil. He doesn't outright say it, but he mocks his god by betraying the principles of his supposed favorite philosopher, Jesus, whether it's through his lies and deceptions or by perverting justice. It doesn’t matter that commuting Libby’s sentence was obstruction of justice, because Bush is a godly figure who dispenses justice. Always quick to be those who would cast the first stone especially against minorities on death row convicted after dubious trials in which their lawyers did virtually nothing, Bush suddenly becomes the merciful Jesus who would rather spare the guilty than to harm a hair on her head?

I leave you with this quote from Antigone.

“when he weaves in the laws of the land, and the justice of the gods that binds his oaths together he and his city rise high-but the city casts out that man who weds himself to inhumanity thanks to reckless daring. (Antigone, 409-415)

Let us be the city or in our case the nation that casts out the man who has lost all sense of humanity in the delusional belief that he is a god, not subject to earthly law or that damn piece of paper, the Constitution.

or else we'll get more scenes like this...

Bush spits in the face of us all and commutes Libby's prison term...jail is only for the rest of us

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

CNN IS SAYING that this “avoids the political aspects of the situation.”

NO FUCK THAT! The Democrats should NOT let Bush get away with this one. They should treat the situation as if Bush had pardoned Libby instead of just commuting the prison sentence. The fine is just a slap in the face. How much do you want to bet that the Libby defense fund will pay it?

The rule of law does not apply to Republicans, so sayeth the Litterbox. What does this tell you about law and order conservatives who always cry about the law when it’s anyone except them. They should just drop the act already.

30 months is too excessive?! So Bush had to commute the sentence? Hell, the Publicans or should I say the Rethuglicans wanted Clinton virtually executed for receiving a consensual blowjob in his office. So what you have here is Bush and the Republicans saying that no matter what Republicans do, they are not guilty, because if they are prosecuted under the law, it is only a political stunt meant to discredit them. So much for respecting the rule of law. Prison is only for the rest of us who cannot afford lawyers and who don't have conservatives in our law schools writing letters on our behalf.

John Aravosis over at AmericaBLOG notes that the Bush talk about letting justice run its course is all a bunch of bushit. Of course he is right, but also, Bush’s idea of justice is allowing Republicans to commit their crimes with impunity while his administration goes after Democrats on trumped-up charges such as those against ACORN, brought upon them by a partisan GOP HACK. Bush’s idea of justice works on the principle that Republicans are above the law, they are like gods whose motives we must never question, much less challenge in the court of law. It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence of a left-wing conspiracy to compromise our elections by committing massive voter fraud on a scale Republicans claim has never been seen before. It doesn’t matter that there is more evidence that Republicans sought to use their powers to suppress the vote.

This is a culmination of the GOP mantra that everything is a liberal conspiracy against them and that they are truly the victims and oppressed of the society. Our so-called resident-in-thief was only dispensing justice for that poor, downtrodden Republican who was dreading prison so much that he must have been praying like a good conservative Christian would.

"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."

and what about the families of those who go to prison for minor drug offenses like possessing marijuana? What about them? Do they not suffer too or is it only that Republicans and their families suffer when they go to prison? Is this not like the argument Bill Napoli had when he said only Christian virgins suffer the trauma of rape and therefore they should be the only ones who deserve the exception when it comes to rape and incest? Tasteless I may be for pointing that out, but I see the same elitist argument that common people who don’t belong in the favored class don’t suffer.

The fine doesn't matter, because the defense fund will probably cover it...Probation is nothing. If Bush thought the sentence was too excessive could he not have halved it or something? Why should it have mattered? Libby was probably going to go to the country club prison anyway where he would have enjoyed the meals Duncan Hunter claimed Club Gitmo got, yes lemon chicken, gourmet style.

Tuesday Topic #14

2007-06-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus due to school (especially grading papers, which was all I did anyway)...

Has the era of invading a nation to install a new government been exposed as a failure?

I desperately want to say yes, but we live in extraordinary times. Our populace which had been cowed into believing everything that Bush said about Iraq having WMDs and the ability to nuke NYC in 45 minutes or less might be souring on Bush's invasion of Iraq, but I do not see any hope that they have finally disavowed Bush's belief that he could invade other countries and install democracies. We have a complicit media that claims to have learned their lessons from the leadup to war and has given us hollow, faux mea culpas designed to show us that they too have seen the light. Alas, it is not so.

Case point #1: Fox News (8/30/2006)

Case point #2: Neo-con magazine editor prays that we bomb Iran

Is there any hope that we will see past the attempts of the media to sell the administration's lies as gospel truth? No, because we've fallen for it, and we'll fall for it again.

Tin foil hat on...

So what happens if the administration decides to close Gitmo, transfers the prisoners to U.S. military prisons, but hires some of them to "break out" and commit acts of terrorism on U.S. soil? What if they then turn around and then blame Democrats for insisting that Gitmo and Abu Ghirab be closed? Would you put it past this administration to stage terrorist attacks so that they could foil them on U.S. soil to score political points to take back Congress and win the 2008 election for those guys who thumping their chests like cave men, who declared that they wanted to double Gitmo? This is purely a conspiracy theory talking, but we live in the age of the litterbox where conspiracy theories are closer to the truth than you think they are...

Tuesday Topic

2007-04-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

This post is a response to Tuesday Topic #2 in which I am trying to argue that we suffer from a dangerous empathy-deficit...

the problem with us aMEricans is that we do not have empathy for the "other." We have been raised to believe that America is and always will be right, that we always have the best intentions for the world, and that we have only altruistic intentions for the rest of the world. What history book covers the CIA coup in Iran in 1953? What history book covers the brutality in which we suppressed the Filipino independence movement right after the Spanish-AMERICAN War? Besides the universities, our students are not being told of the darker side of our history. It's not all to be proud of, but our students would not know that.

Take for example, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How many of us think that it was a glorious show of might makes right and a justified action to save American lives? Do we ever think that there could have been another option? Perhaps we could have bombed an isolated atoll in the Pacific to impress the Japanese. Perhaps if we might have allowed the emperor of Japan to keep his throne as a ceremonial figure such as the monarch of England and had expressed our willingness to make this concession if you may to the Japanese, perhaps the lives snuffed out by the incinerating pillar of death and sorrow might have been spared. As Dong Long points out, the doves would have cast their lots with the most fanatical of hawks if the Americans had insisted on disposing the emperor. Perhaps if we had not spent the whole war dehumanizing the Japanese who appeared as monstrous vampire bats flying over to suck out the vitality of our country, we might see the other side and have empathy for them.

We see this dehumanization of the enemy or the other throughout our history, especially when it comes to war. Who can forget Colonel John Chivington's infamous words when he ordered his men to massacre the Cheyenne and Arapahoe at Sand Creek, "kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice." Who can forget the dehumanization of the Koreans and Vietnamese when we could not distinguish between the "friendlies" and the enemy (which would tragically lead to our troops massacring innocent civilians caught in the crossfire)? Who can forget the countless numbers of victims whose lives were destroyed in our everlasting quest for Manifest Destiny?

This is the tragedy of this war today as it seems like we are doomed to repeat the terrible decisions we have made in the past instead of atoning for our actions. Can anyone tell me the difference between what we are saying about the people of the Middle East to what Chivington said about the innocent women, men, and children his troops were about to massacre? Can anyone point out the difference about how we brutally dealt with the Filipinos who wanted us out of the Philippines just as the Iraqis desperately want us out of Iraq? We are bombarded with stereotypes of the people of the Middle East as vicious terrorists, suicide bombers, radical fanatics, "ragheads," "towelheads," etc. that we cannot see them as humans. This is why you can have ignorant and unfeeling cowards advocating for turning the whole Middle East into a concrete parking lot or whatever the phrase is. We cannot see that the Iraqis might WANT a democracy, but that they don't want it imposed at the point of a gun barrel. We cannot see that the Iraqis do NOT want their oil in the hands of multinational corporations and that they like any other country would want control of their own natural resources. We cannot see that the Iraqis who have lost children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, etc. are turning against us because we promised them that things would be better than it was under Saddam.

It is pointless to ask us Americans how we would feel if another country invaded our country. Would we be not in arms becoming the freedom fighters we so despise in Iraq right now? You can't ask that question, because the answer will be, "No one has the strength to invade America. No one would dare invade." No, we can only see the Iraqis as an ungrateful childlike-people who much like a lion cub we are raising would someday turn on us, ungrateful and oblivious to the fact that we are "helping" them and "liberating" them. We cannot see that we are the aggressors and occupiers of an occupied country. If we did not condemn the French for establishing a resistance movement against the Nazis, then why do we not extend the Iraqis the same courtesy? Yes, that's right, because they are resisting us. Sympathy for the French Resistance or the Prague Spring rings hollow when we do not extend the sympathy for those whom we have been oppressing.

Peace should be a virtue...

2007-03-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Why is peace so reviled these days? Why is the very notion of peace enough to have the rabid, wingnut right froth at the mouth with self-righteous anger? I had blogged about how peace is now even being equated with Satan as a homeowner’s association in Colorado had ordered a wreath in the shape of the international peace sign taken down. Some members had claimed it was a Satanic symbol, even Nero’s Cross supposedly even though the evidence that Nero used it was rather thin. It is the absurd claims that we rightfully laugh at and roll our eyes at that are the very tactics of demagogues who seek to rile up our basest emotions. It is these absurd claims that could turn around a noble word like peace and make it into something to be rejected, because it is a left-wing or even Satanic conspiracy to bring our country down. Is peace considered a feminine trait by those who follow the hyper-masculinity ethos? Must everything be settled with fists and bombs?

Our National Litterbox, (I refuse to just call him president) says Jesus is his favorite philosopher. Yet, like the GodMen of Tennessee who want a more masculine Christianity, Bush must have only read the part where Jesus drives the moneychangers from the temple in a not so peaceful display of power. Bush who is so concerned about national security that he does not investigate his administration’s outing of a COVERT CIA agent who was tracking the movement of weapons of mass destruction, whose Covert front company uncovered evidence that the WMDs were being moved into Iraq from Turkey likely so that the Litterbox could claim that WMD HAD been found in Iraq. This is no better than Hitler dressing up prisoners in Polish uniforms and shooting them, leaving their bodies in German territory so that he could claim that Poland invaded Germany. Yes, I made the comparison and rightfully so. No man of peace, no Man of God as his administration and the countless numbers of mindless uncritically-thinking Bush supporters claim Bush to be would start a war on false pretenses and then plant the evidence to fool the American people into believing that Saddam was about to nuke New York City.

Must everything be a war? We have conjurations of faux and real wars designed to appeal to the men in us. Is this why the military is so afraid of having gay men and women serve in the military openly, because they supposedly go counter against the image of a masculine army trained in the arts of war? Even the media, mainly Faux made up a fictional War on Christmas so that Christian men could claim to be fighting on the sidelines safe in America against the godless Liberals who sought to infect our country with atheism and secular humanism…

Does this administration even care that our wounded veterans had to suffer through urine-soaked mattresses, belly-up cockroaches, mice droppings in their living quarters? Could this administration not spend money to fund treatment for our wounded vets coming home? Of course not, this is considered to be nurturing and caring, traits traditionally considered feminine in nature. The hyper-masculine ethos states that money should not be going into social programs designed to give a hand up to those stuck in poverty but to huge weapons, nuclear bombs, bunker-busters, new fighter jets, etc.

We have money to spend on new weapons that are not needed in this new so-called “War on TERROR” yet we cannot spend money to fund VA hospitals and to provide psychological treatment to the wounded. We cannot deal with Post-traumatic stress Disorder as the military brass with the consent of this administration wants to send our troops back into combat without any treatment. After all, a MAN should suck it up and ignore his wounds so that he could fight for the freedom of his country. Those who are expressing concerns about PTSD and their families are being unpatriotic and un-American. It is more of the cult of hyper-masculinity that Glenn Greenwald depicts in this excellent article. After all, if our Litterbox can land a fighter jet at 150 mph on an airplane carrier, then these men should seek to emulate the masculinity of our “Fearless leader.”

Peace should not be a masculine or feminine value...it should be one we hold common whether we are male or female. By assigning it a gender, we cheapen its value and risk having our society which tends to prefer "masculine traits" over "feminine traits" glorify the death and carnage of war. Indeed, the GodMen video from ABCNews talks about how men love blowing things up. While that may be fine in Monster Truck rallies, let us not make blowing things up in war a spectacle much like the ones held in ancient Rome, where even naumachiae or mock naval battles produced casualties.

The Pledge
I believe in the immediate withdrawal of all foreign combat troops from the nation of Iraq. I believe in using my blog, in whole or in part, as a tool toward this end.

There were 300 men...against a million...ummmmmm not quite...

2007-03-09T01:54:00.001-08:00

I do plan on seeing 300, the story of the Spartans' last stand at Thermopylae (Greek for the Hot Gates which don't really exist anymore), but I am interested in seeing how faithful the movie is to Herodotus, but reading Victor Davis Hanson's preview doesn't give me much hope (I am a purist and unabashedly so). I mean did the Greeks fight in the heroic nude as they are portrayed in black-figure vases and the yahoo.com promo against clothed "degenerate, effeminate" Persians?

I am also interested in seeing if there is any mention of the contingent of Thespians and Thebans. Of course 300 makes a well-rounded number, easy to remember, plus it's more oh I don't know, romantic I guess in saying 300 instead of maybe 750. Most likely, all focus is on the Spartans and all. I wonder if there will be any mention of the lone Spartan, Aristodemus, who missed the battle to his utter disgrace, which would not be made up by his almost-suicidal fanaticism and heroism at Plataea to make up for his disgrace?

I have to admit that I have not read the comic book inspired by Herodotus called 300, written by Frank Miller which the movie is based upon, but it's something to look forward to, once I get the time...along with Gates of Fire.

I saw the promo on yahoo.com touting that 300 Spartans faced death in the guise of millions of Persians. Herodotus gives the figure of 5,283,220 with half of them as combat troops. Considering the nightmares of logitistics Xerxes would have faced, it's really hard to believe the stories of rivers being dried up as the horses and men drank from them (Herodotus 7.108). But hey, the greater the odds faced by our Greeks, the more glory for them, right? Wouldn't that fit Herodotus' theme of how the Greeks faced overwhelming odds and defeated the slavish Persians who prostrated themselves daily to the Great King? And how can we condemn Herodotus for exaggerating if countless generals and soldiers have exaggerated the odds they faced in their victories and battles (the notable example in my mind being General George McClellan and his endless hordes of Confederates)? Besides, the greater the number of Persians Xerxes led to utter defeat, the greater and more spectacular his fall. After all, this was a man who lashed the sea after a storm, an act Herodotus condemned as utter hubris, which of course would lead to his downfall.

Arther Ferrill argues in Herodotus and the Strategy and Tactics of the Invasion of Xerxes that even Arrian who had extensive knowledge of military tactics and strategy was prone himself to exaggerating the numbers that Alexander faced. In this sense, the movie and comic book both keep faithful to the Greek tradition of pitting the Greeks fighting for their freedom against overwhelming hordes of Persians whose numbers seemed as endless as the stars.

In an interesting point, Ferrill argues that much of Herodotus' reputation as a total amateur when it came to military matters was due to this mathematical exaggeration. At first glance, his tendency to exaggerate the Persian army seems to serve to discredit him as a military historian. To support his argument, he cites Herodotus 7.173 where Herodotus argues that the Greeks, contrary to being afraid of Alexander of Macedon's warnings, were more afraid of the Persians outflanking them through another pass and in 7.177 where he states the Greeks chose Thermopylae so that the heavy advantage the Persians had in cavalry would be negated. After all, you can't do much with a cavalry force on a narrow pass barely 50 feet across. His point is that Herodotus deserves more credit than what many are willing to give him.

I'll see the movie eventually, once I get motivated enough to actually do anything other than sleep...

P.S. I encourage you to read Herodotus. It is a rich history full of anecdotes such as Arion charming the dolphins with music so that they save him when he jumps overboard to escape his captors, divine intervention in the form of a rockslide saving Delphi, stories of ghostly Greek heroes rising up to slaughter the Persians, the clever thief who so impressed the king whom he stole from that the king offered his daughter in marriage...etc. After all, the movie should do more than just entertain, it should be an opportunity to explore the world of Classics...because everyone knows the CATS love Classics.

Arther Ferrill: Herodotus and the Strategy and Tactics of the Invasion of Xerxes: The American Historical Review, Vol.72, No.1.(Oct.,1966), pp.102-115. (Accessed through JSTOR)

The media is playing the "Let's not hold the administration accountable for the good of the country" card

2007-03-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

The risk for Democrats would be overplaying the accountability hand. Their attempts to impose limits on Bush's ability to fight the war have collapsed repeatedly and left them unable to fashion a coherent approach to the most serious issue in the country. Some Republicans suggested that the public could tire of repeated hearings such as those held this week and write them off to partisanship.

The media is now playing the accountability might be used for partisan purposes and poison the Washington atmosphere card now that the Democrats are in power and are using the power of subpoena against the Bush Administration. Our country is tired of partisanship and wants to return to the good old days of bipartisanship and civility which fostered in a Golden Age of American politics as none had ever seen before. Excuse me? Is this the same media which mindlessly repeated Republican charges against Clinton and pursued the witch hunt against him with equal vigor that now says we must back off for the good of the country?

Were not the Republicans overplaying the accountability hand when they attempted to investigate EVERYTHING the Clinton administration did? 1000 subpoenas issued by the House Government Reform Committee and for what? Was he actually convicted of corruption? Remember the $200,000 wasted on Vandalism-gate, the claims that the Bush Adminstration was victimized (such a right-wing fantasy that continues to be repeated ad nauseam) by Clinton administration thugs who removed Ws from computer keyboards? Remember how those allegations were proved to be false? Where was the media? Apparently when the GAO proved those accusations to be utter LIES, the media was asleep at the wheel. Now reverse the situation...If Gore had been president and accidently misspoke, the media would have been all over, howling and frothing at the mouth to show the country how much of a FUCKING LIAR Al Gore was. (oh wait…)

We did NOT have accountability when the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress. Potemkin hearings where Arlen Specter would engage himself in a kabuki play of faux accountability filled with meaningless sanctimonious words about fighting the administration’s abuse of power and backing off when he got his nose too deep in its matters does not count as accountability.

"They bring up sort of old Washington," said former Bush aide Nicolle Wallace. "The Democrats have to walk a fine line and be careful. People don't want to turn on the TV and see every story being about the obstruction of people trying to do things. . . . The people who will stand out in Washington are the ones who will look forward."

Please compare this to what the Publicans said about Bill Clinton and the subpoenas which wasted our taxpayer dollars for nothing…and remember old Washington is what the Republicans instituted under the Clinton administration, but funny a Republican forgets to mention that...

"I think it would be disastrous. It is basically saying he is above the law, he doesn't have to comply with the law," said Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma on NBC's "Meet The Press." "Everybody else in America has to comply with subpoenas (while) he's saying he wouldn't. ... I don't think that would be sustainable."

"I think the fact that he would ignore and violate a subpoena would certainly be grounds to file articles of impeachment," Hatch said. "If Kenneth Starr does have additional information, I think it could snowball into a real impeachment problem for the president. I personally hope that doesn't happen."

The Republicans are now claiming that our country does not need to be poisoned by investigation after investigation of this administration’s misdeeds, which include lying the nation into war, corruption, cronyism, intimidation of federal attorneys, etc. The list goes on and on, but the same people who sought to obtain Bill Clinton’s head on a platter are now saying that the country doesn’t need to go through another Watergate. It does not need the trauma of seeing a president investigated and convicted for his crimes, never mind that 3,200 of our troops are dead and 655,000 Iraqis and 30,000 Afghans. Now the liberal media decides it’s in their best interest to trump the GOP talking point and run away with it.

Sex scandals in the White House which should have been the business of the president and his wife are best sellers for the media but even the public grew tired of the impeachment saga, and the move backfired on them. Now the media is spinning that into the notion that the public doesn’t want to see a Democratic Party witch hunt and instead wants to see the president serve out the remainder of his terms in relative peace. Impeachment would destroy the country and it would not recover from the toxic environment the Democrats are about to plunge it into. I’m sorry, but accountability is not only for Democrats, it must be for those in power too.

"Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn't have lasted beyond its opening act," National Review said within hours of the verdict.

This is the GOP playing the pardon card. The country doesn’t need anymore trauma. President Nixon should have never been pardoned, but that according to the Republicans is good politics. Pardoning Caspar Weinberger so that he wouldn’t implicate Bush 41 is also good policy. However, when Clinton pardoned his choices, the GOP frothed at the mouth like the mad pack dogs, yet they are actually calling for a repeat of Watergate, because justice was never served.

2007-02-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

Got to love how this White House works...

The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs -- including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP) -- that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.
The additional protection is needed for thousands of U.S. reinforcement troops flowing into Baghdad, where these devastating weapons -- used primarily by Shiite fighters -- are particularly prevalent, the officials said.

U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit, known as FRAG Kit 5, according to U.S. officials. The Army has ramped up production of the armor, giving priority to troops in Baghdad, but the upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer, Army officials said. That is well into the timeline for major operations launched last week to quell violence by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, which the U.S. military now views as the top security threat in Iraq

Create misleading and false claims that Iran is providing the insurgents high-tech roadside bombs as if the insurgents didn't know how to make them while doing nothing to ensure our troops have the armor on the humvees that are needed to withstand these blasts.

The rule of thumb is NEVER trust anything this administration says...this administration has cried wolf too many times and unlike the story, our soldiers have died. In the original story, only sheep were eaten...this cry wolf tale has far more consequences.

Another question: JUST where the FUCK are our taxpayer dollars going to if not for body and humvee armor? War profiteering?

The LITTERBOX Adminstration is FINALLY doing something about global warming?

2006-12-27T12:06:00.000-08:00

The administration is proposing that polar bears be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Have they finally seen the light? Not quite....Much like how conservatives had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept the end of slavery, segregation, women's suffrage, you get the point...

Quote:

"We've reviewed all the available data that leads us to believe the sea ice the polar bear depends on has been receding," said the Interior official, who added that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have concluded that polar bears could be endangered within 45 years. "Obviously, the sea ice is melting because the temperatures are warmer."

The biggest NO-SHIT statement I've ever heard from this administration...besides "we're not winning in Iraq..."

Could this have something to do with the suit that was filed by well-known environmental groups that was recently settled?

Quote:

NRDC senior attorney Andrew Wetzler, one of the lawyers who filed suit against the administration, welcomed the proposal for listing.

"It's such a loud recognition that global warming is real," Wetzler said. "It is rapidly threatening the polar bear and, in fact, an entire ecosystem with utter destruction."

There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide, 4,700 of which live in Alaska and spend part of the year in Canada and Russia. The other countries with polar bears in their Arctic regions are Denmark (Greenland) and Norway.

Could this be a start to the administration finally getting its head out of its ass and finally accepting that global warming is real and that we need to do something about it? Don't hold your breath...If there is something about the Litterbox ADMINISTRATION, it is a tendency to distort science and use it as a political football to kick around; after all, these people believe that the environmentalists are Nazis and fascists... They won't take this defeat lying down. They'll find a way to undermine this settlement and we'll be back to square one.

Quote:

Scientists have not charted the same rapid decline within the U.S. polar bear populations, but federal scientists have observed a number of troubling signs. The bears have resorted to open-water swimming and even cannibalism in an effort to stay alive.

I can't see why the Republicans would have any problem with this because the cannibalism sounds like their very own behavior when it comes to eating their own when it is deemed politically expedient...

Quote:

Still, the official added that the decision to propose polar bears as threatened with extinction "wasn't easy for us" because "there is still some significant uncertainty" about what could happen to bear populations in the future.

Yeah, those damn lazy fat polar bears! They should welcome the increased swimming so that they can stay fit and get some badly-needed exercise. This is just a handout that encourages polar bears to be lazy and shiftless just like welfare and Social Security. CEOs and the wealthiest 1% earn their living by working extremely hard and actually earn their money. After all, it is hard work drinking vodka out of a frozen penis on an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David. Just think of global warming causing the ice to melt as a 24-hour fitness program, courtesy of the Litterbox Administration. /snark

Quote:

The department could take up to a year to complete its proposal, and it could abandon the listing if it unearths new scientific projections about the bears' fate. But that appears unlikely, as recent models have consistently pointed to a faster deterioration of Arctic sea ice.

New scientific projections could mean a further "debunking" of global warming as this administration is infamous for its junk science. After all, its EPA told the Ground Zero rescue workers that the air was safe to breathe and asbestos levels were within acceptable levels. It also suppressed a report testifying to the effects of mercury in women, including neurological damage to their fetuses, which is fucking ironic because this administration claims to be pro-life. Pro-life of course means that you are only concerned about the fetus until it is delivered, unless it comes to the profit margin, when all concern about life is tossed out to be scattered like leaves in the wind.

So when can we expect an Interior Department survey given to polar bears which suggests that they actually welcome the increased swimming and that we shouldn't do anything about global warming because it just makes them obese? When can we expect a study showing a negative correlation between the amount of ice melting and coronary disease in polar bears? When can we expect a study showing that there is a negative correlation between the amount of swimming done and rates of depression in polar bears or a study showing that cannibalism actually is quite healthy for them?

Link

Apparently the peace sign is a symbol of OMG SATAN!!!!!

2006-11-27T02:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, talk about stupidity! A peace sign is actually considered a symbol of Satan! Just when you think the Age of the Litterbox cannot produce anymore shit, this gem comes along. Last time I checked Satan was the prince of darkness, the father of lies, you get the gist. Last time, I checked, Jesus was the prince of Peace and supposedly it’s his birthday coming up. So why all the fuss?

Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs.

These are probably the same people who say our soldiers fight for your freedom to say stupid things, NOW SHUT UP! (without realizing the irony of course.

There are some things so absurd that you have to see the part in the article to believe...

He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

Apparently the confusion is that they believe that this is actually a symbol of Nero, who persecuted Christians and blamed them for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. according to Tacitus. Apparently, they believe that Nero used it as a symbol to represent what he hoped would be his victory over Christianity, as they claim. Well I hate to burst their bubble, but the peace sign is not a vast left-wing conspiracy to co-opt the teachings of Jesus and use them for the Satanic purposes of purging Christianity from the face of the Earth. The only sites that are claiming that this is the Cross of Nero are fundamentalist Christian sites in hysteria over the peace movement and it's connection to Satan.

Basically there is a more benign explanation to the peace sign...

It was developed by the British "Committee for Nuclear Disarmament" (CND), apparently about 1958. It is comprised of the two semaphore flag positions for "N" and "D," standing for "nuclear disarmament."

Here are the flag positions for N and D...Put together with a circle around it, and you get the peace sign.

Apparently peace is so unpatriotic that if Jesus were alive today, he would be investigated by the NSA and the Pentagon, after all they do a helluva job investigating non-violent anti-war protesters who might, I repeat might grow violent some day. (Meanwhile, potential right-wing homegrown terrorists are ignored by this administration even when they acquired shit like cyanide. But that's how it is in our Age of the Litterbox where peace is war and 2+2 = 5). After all, didn't Jesus throw out the moneychangers in the temple, overturning their tables and driving them out with a whip? Such violent behavior! OMG!

The church is getting ready to celebrate Advent, which is preparation for the birth of yes, you guessed it, the Prince of Peace. Yet some people in the homeowner’s association in Denver are spitting on the principles of Jesus and is now equating Jesus with Satan. I wonder what Dobson and Falwell would have to say about this…Oh I forgot, they’re too busy fucking over their buddy Ted Haggard and ditching him after it turned out that Pastor Ted was gay (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, but the hypocrisy, of course!).

Perhaps we should nominate those members of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association who believe that the wreath in the form of a peace sign is so offensive for the Nobel War Prize. Oh, there’s no such thing? Well then, we can always nominate it for the Nobel Peace Prize, after all, if Bush can get nominated by a Norwegian right-wingnut hack, then I’m sure the homeowners association can too. Who knows? Maybe Bush might stump for them to actually win the whole thing…

There are those like Dennis Kucinich who propose a Department of Peace that will do everything in its power to make sure that war is reduced to the dustbin of history, forgotten as the leaves scattered about in the wind. Then there are people like Chuck Sweeny who believe that this is a loony idea. There are those like Roy Blunt who believe that this is an idea to be mocked, that if the United States advocates peace, then we have become OMG a sissy nation...

How about we give peace a chance instead of attributing it falsely to Satan?

2006-11-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

The Great Cat has woken up from her nightmare and the Senate AND The House are OURS!

3:24 PST

2006-11-08T03:31:00.000-08:00

STATUS

CANDIDATE

VOTE

VOTE %

KEY RACE

Tester

173,259

49%

Burns
(Incumbent)

171,207

48%

Jones

9,061

90% of the precincts reporting

Senate is 49-49, with 2 undecided. Jim Webb leads in Virginia but that will most likely go to a recount. This is the important race...Tester's lead keeps on shrinking and I am loathe to go to bed but I have work tomorrow at 9:20 am.

The best news is that we took down Pombo!

Fear, it worked back in 1861 and it's working again...

2006-11-04T01:49:00.000-08:00

We Americans need to get over this mentality that suggests that the other (in this case gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants, and African-Americans) is going to come into your homes and rape and kill you. We must seem like a cowardly people, so afraid of the big, bad terrorist that we are willing to compromise our civil liberties in order to receive protection (non-existent from the GOP, but that’s for another blog post). We are so afraid of so-called illegal immigrants crossing our borders, invading our towns, terrorists coming over to blow up our petting zoos in Indiana, and even worse, TEH GAYS brainwashing our children and forcing them into homosexual orgies and Bacchanalias. It is my intention in this blog to hopefully argue that the same irrational appeals to fear are being perpetrated on the American voter today and that the GOP does not really believe in those appeals but are finding them useful in trying to keep power.

Corker had been trailing in the polls to Ford until that FUCKING NRCC ad aired, you know the one with the seductive scantily-clad woman winking at Harold Ford. Ever since, he has been rising in the polls and now enjoys a slim lead over Ford. If Corker pulls out a victory, we can thank this damn ad that plays to a common theme that has been found throughout Southern history, the fear of the other, in its case, the black person, whether slave or free, a fear that has led to 3029 lynchings of African-Americans in the former Confederate states, an astounding 87.9% of the total in just 11 states, will rightfully be blamed for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Rewind back to 1861. The DEEP South is burning with the fire of secession. Lincoln has been elected and the states in the Deep South secede because they cannot accept his election because they fear he will do everything in his power to abolish slavery even though he has publicly declared that he would not touch slavery in places it was already established. The secessionists are the hardcore, no-compromise hardliners who would not accept anything less than the Republican Party totally abandoning their platform of restricting the spread of slavery. They are pretty confident that citizens of their states would stand by their votes to secede.

The Deep South knows that they would not stand a chance without those states for If they could get the Upper and Middle South, states like Virginia and Tennessee to secede, they would go a long way to evening out their seemingly insurmountable odds. James McPherson notes that the Lower South only had 5% of the industrial capacity of the North and only 20% of the population (McPherson, Ordeal of Fire, 150). Commissioners were sent to these states to fire up the population, arguing that Lincoln’s victory would mean racial equality and worse to their standpoint, interracial mixing or miscegenation.

Charles B. Dew, a Southern-born historian argues persuasively that it was racism and the appeal to fear that got the Upper South fired up from lukewarm support to actual secession. He argues that the direst specter that any Southerner could imagine was the slaves rising up and engaging in interracial sex with their daughters! Dew argues that this was the most dire threat of all as the chastity of their daughters was what the plantation owners cherished the most (Dew 79). Contrast that to the denial of neo-Confederate groups who deny that slavery had anything to do with what they call the “War of Northern Aggression.” Contrast that to the neo-Confederates who deny that racism is a problem today and that it IS a problem.

I’ll let the primary documents and Dew speak for themselves…for they can say it better than I can.

But in the South, where in many places, the African race largely predominates, and as a consequence the two races would be continually processing together, amalgamation or the extermination of the one or the other would be inevitable. Can Southern men submit to such degradation and ruin? God forbid that they should.

But it is said that there are many constitutional conservative men at the North who sympathize with and battle for us.

- Letter of Stephen F. Hale, commissioner from Alabama to Governor Magoffin of Kentucky, 12/27/1860

They have demanded, and now demand, equality in the honors and emoluments of office, equality in the social circle, equality in the rights of matrimony. The cry has been, and now is, “that slavery must cease, or American liberty must perish,” that “the success of Black Republicanism is the triumph of anti-slavery,” “a revolution in the tendencies of the government that must be carried out.”

- Address of William L. Harris, commissioner from Mississippi, to the Georgia General Assembly, Dec. 17, 1860.

Leroy Pope Walker, Alabama’s commissioner to Tennessee and subsequently the first Confederate secretary of war, predicted that in the absence of secession all would be lost – first, “our property,” and “then our liberties,” and finally the South’s greatest treasure, “the sacred purity of our daughters.”

- Dew, Apostles of Disunion, pg. 79

Same strategy except less graphic and less mention of rape, but the same topic of “miscegenation” is there. The GOP knows that showing Ford and bringing up the fear of blacks raping whites is overtly racist and would be too obvious for our society today, which is reluctant to acknowledge our racist past but is just in denial today, believing that racism is a thing of the past and limited to only the KKK and other Neo-Nazi groups. However, they can imply that Ford, a black man is secretly lusting after white women and they know that some of their hardcore racist hick base will fall for that again unfortunately. I find it sad that perhaps the ad is working as Corker has opened up a slight lead in the polls and signs show it to be leaning Republican as of today. Of course this is not to excuse Ford, I thought his pandering to his base was despicable with respect to the NEW Jersey decision, but I wasn’t surprised. Do you not see the “nightmare” that the GOP is trying to conjure up? A black man in the Senate from the South, and even worse a black man who claims that he loves girls (his own words, not mine)? OMG, what next? More interracial marriage and sex? There are those who still disapprove of interracial marriage and this ad is just more pandering to that select group.

I’m arguing that the GOP is using the same strategy here as right-wingnuts did in 1861. Does the GOP actually believe their inane arguments just as implausible as the brutal orgy of rape the secession commissioners conjured up in the Deep South in the lead-up to war? Does the GOP actually believe that the Democratic Party would actually ban the Bible in favor of allowing gay marriage? Probably not. The GOP knows the Democratic Party would do no such thing, because that would be political suicide, but the same appeal to the emotions, our basest emotions is there. People care about religion in the United States and what better way to demonize the other party by saying that the Dems will mock and outlaw Christianity? Did the secession commissioners believe that the slaves would force themselves on their masters’ daughters? Probably not, even though they conjured up images of another Santo Domingo (slaves rose up in revolt in 1793).

Same arguments apply here to gay marriage. Legalize gay marriages and TEH GAYS will be emboldened! They are trying to brainwash our children by sending subliminable (haha) maessages to our children attending our schools. Their message of tolerance is just a Trojan Horse in which lies the true, dire, sinister message that children SHOULD accept homosexuality and even become homosexuals themselves. So let us compare the message…Not seceding will mean amalgamation and miscegenation and interracial rape…fast forward 145 years and now it’s homosexuals want to convert our children into becoming homosexuals! Isn’t there a common theme here? Why did Ford feel the need to pander when it came to the New Jersey decision which did not go FAR ENOUGH in securing gay rights? Simple, it is the irrational fears that the GOP exploits to win votes from people who if they don’t know any better, don’t care that they are irrational fears. Ford can’t be seen as the candidate who would allow the gays to come into your homes to rape you and brainwash your children into joining their daily orgies they must hold in the moonlight! :sarcasm:

Compare the quotes of the secession commissioners to the quotes the Religious Right and the extreme right leaders of our generation say against our GLBT brothers and sisters…

"This is ultimately about the protection of America's youth from such groups as NAMBLA and militant homosexuals who seek to lower the age of consensual sexual intercourse between homosexual men and young boys to the age of fourteen" - Charles Socarides, on the board of NARTH and the other top 'ex-gay' psychiatrist, from NARTH's Web site, http://www.narth.com/docs/1995papers/socarides.html

Gays want access to children
"Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement." - "Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys," Family Research Council publication, July 1999, http://www.frc.org/misc/bl057.pdf

Cannot this argument be compared to the OMG Slaves want access to our daughters and race mixing will ensue if we don’t secede from the Union? Is this argument not appealing to the same unfounded fears that stir up such fear and loathing?

Gays want to give churchgoers AIDS
"[Homosexuals]want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers." Pat Robertson, 700 Club, 1/18/95 - People for the American Way Web site, http://www.pfaw.org/issues/right/rtvw.antigay.shtml

Compare this quote to John Smith Preston’s speech claiming that Lincoln’s election was a “decree” of “annihilation” for the whites of the South. He claimed that South Carolina had a GOD-given right to strike back at such “mad rage of fantaticism” (Dew 70).

I find it truly sad that the GOP has to use race-baiting especially in the South to “win.” It just shows that they truly have no ideas and that they are the party with no ideas other than tired, battle-tested, battle-failed ideas such as “STAY THE COURSE,” tax cuts for the rich that fail to prop up a sluggish economy, BAN GAY MARRIAGE (gets old), and deregulation of everything. I find it sad that Corker has to express faux outrage over the ad and Mehlman suddenly claims he is impotent and cannot do anything against an ad “independently produced,” INDEPENDENT of the NRCC that paid for them. I find it sad that the party which started off with some rather progressive ideas such as the progressive income tax they passed during the war has degraded into a shadow of its former self.

Except, things are different now. This blatant play to racism and the faux outrage make it seem that the Southern Strategy is evolving into even more of a giant shell game. Show the racist ads but condemn them at the same time and blame them on some independent contractor. It’s always someone else’s fault with the Republicans because the Party of Personal Responsibility is always taking the awesome responsibility of shifting responsibility away from itself. We’re not racist, the ad was an independent expenditure! We had no control over it even though we paid for it. Besides, it’s all fun and games! It’s all satire. This is the new Republican line when it comes to this racist ad and deceptive mailers in Nevada done a while back. That’s exactly what the Clark County GOP said too when it mailed those mailers which were supposedly from Harry Reid’s Searchlight PAC but had actually endorsed Republican candidates. The GOP claims to have disowned these ads but they ran their course, doing their damage and we’re paying for it. This is the new face of the Southern Strategy where nowadays, it’s not enough to just benefit from these actions and keep silent, but to show their bona fides in pretending to condemn these actions. Too bad that in Tennessee, it just might work. Then you have people using the “OMG they’re using the racism card!” If you’re too blinded and stupid not to know our history to see the implicit racism in this ad then there is no hope for you. This is how Marilyn Musgrave can claim that gay marriage is not just the most important issue in this election, but in all of America. This is how the GOP can continue to use fear to scare us into voting Republican, lest the gays, blacks, “illegal” brown people, terrorists, Iraqis break into our homes and slit our throats or rape us.

FEAR, it’s the only weapon that the GOP has left, it’s just too bad that some people are just so fucking scared that they will believe anything fearmongerers have to say.

Dew, Charles. Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001)

McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001)

2006-10-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

Bob Geiger has produced this excellent chart that shatters the myth once and for all that only the GOP supports the troops...The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America or IAVA is NONPARTISAN for all you right-wingers who want to claim LIBRUL BIAS!

Dobson is no Man of God, he is only interested in power...

2006-10-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

"It is the first plausible thing I've heard in seven days."

- Dobson after he read that there were rumors about a possible prank perpetrated on Foley by the pages.

Dobson is no Man of God. He is dismissing the Mark Foley sex scandal as nothing more than a joke perpetrated by a bunch of mischievous, probably liberally-minded and biased teenage pages who were doing the bidding of the Party of Satan, I mean the Democratic Party. If Foley was a Democrat, Dobson would be up in arms sending out emails to his Focus on the Family subscribers and the churches, BEMOANING the fact that our poor children could be at prey from a child predator. He would be saying how inappropriate it was for a 52-year old man to be asking 16-year old boys for their pictures. He would still be blaming the homosexuals of course, but he would also blame the Democrats for being the “party of pedophilia.” (By the way, he has not condemned any Republican for molesting or raping small children, which must mean that he condones any type of behavior as long as you have the right Letter by your name. This folks, is a supposed so-called Man of God.) Maybe it'd be better to call the Republicans the party of pedophilia and prostitutes, instead of the party of family values, unless you count protecting your own political buddies over protecting children family values.

DOBSON: We condemn the Foley affair categorically, and we also believe that what Mr. Clinton did was one of the most embarrassing and wicked things ever done by a president in power. Let me remind you, sir, that it was not just James Dobson who found the Lewinsky affair reprehensible. More than 140 newspapers called for Clinton's resignation. But the president didn't do what Mr. Foley has done in leaving. He stayed in office, and he lied to the grand jury to obscure the facts. As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.

If I were Clinton, I would have probably lied to the grand jury about having an affair too. It’s embarrassing and I would have wanted to cover it up. Yet Dobson remains silent at this latest episode, preferring to blame the victims. It must be the victims’ fault because they perpetrated the hoax even though the evidence against Foley is overwhelming. Then again, what ABCNews showed us with those disgusting online conversations must be an illusion of Satan meant to disgust the evangelicals so much so that they stay at home. What a joke.

If Foley was the victim of a joke as Dobson claims he was, then WHY in the world did he resign? Did he resign for being gullible? Yes, Dobson would like for you to believe that. But since Foley is a Republican, and Dobson WANTS the Republicans in power, he is doing his best to diffuse this scandal so that his evangelicals stay motivated to go to the polls this November 7th. He is trying to imply that Republicans would NEVER stoop down to such a level and this must be a vast left-wing conspiracy to discredit the party of family values.

Dobson is the same one who encouraged this a while back to protect your child from the evil mind-controlling homosexual agenda with this gem of a soundbite…and he calls himself a child psychologist of all things!

"Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger."

Me thinks it’s better for a parent not to follow this sick piece of advice.

Lastly for the ten millionth time, PEDOPHILIA does NOT EQUAL homosexuality.

From the Man of God: Torture protects us! From a GOP consultant: "Peace is not a Biblical value" and other rants

2006-09-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

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?!

What is happening in Iraq is only a blueprint for Bush's America of the future

2006-09-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Scary article from the Washington Post I saw earlier yesterday on the rampant cronyism in the rebuilding of Iraq...

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.

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

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?

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!

This is your so-called president

2006-09-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

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!

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.

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).

A person who has never gone to war, a person who does not have to worry about his or her family going to war, and a person who sends people to war with no thought or self-doubting on whether Iraq had WMDs or not can never understand the next point John McCain made.

"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."

Bush does not have to worry about the terror of war ever reaching his family. He does not have to worry about one of his relatives coming home in a flag-draped coffin. He does not have to worry about the grief thousands of American families face over the deaths of their sons, daughters, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers whose lives have been taken away prematurely. He does not have to worry about being orphaned, widowed, wondering how he would provide for his family. He does not have to worry about dreams of making it in life and starting families being thrown away like broken toys by a roadside bomb. These are people who were loved by their own families, people who wanted to start families of their own, people who will never see their newborn sons and daughters who were supposed to bring the utmost joy to their lives, people who wanted to defend their country and their families but were betrayed by an administration more interested in war-profiteering and spreading American hegemony in the Middle East. This is how he can be so gung-ho on torture in the name of protecting the American people. Only a chickenhawk like him and the other neo-cons can be so naive to think that our troops would not be subject to the very treatment we give to the inmates at Guantanamo and Abu Ghirab.

So can we not PLEASE identify Bush as the Manchurian candidate? He is willing to risk America's security if he doesn't get the Senators to go along with torture. He is willing to risk further irreparable damage to our reputation and further risk never being able to recover the good-will throughout the world we will need to work with other countries to bring terror suspects to justice. He constantly forgets Osama Bin Laden except when it comes to scaring the American people right before election time. He has not even tried to capture Osama and uses the excuse that he does not want to violate the sovereignty of a sovereign nation like Pakistan to go after Osama even though he violated Iraq's sovereignty to oust Saddam Hussein, the move Osama wanted to galvanize the Muslim world to his side. He has been willing to compromise national security in the name of reining in government spending with his Congress' refusal to fund port security until the 2006 midterm elections neared. He constantly refuses to hold Halliburton and KBR accountable for their abuses of our troops, whom he claims to support.

Nothing says Support the Troops more than denying them modern body armor

2006-09-14T21:16:00.001-07:00

Votevets.org has probably the most hard-hitting, no-nonsense, in your face ad this election campaign. Who is it against? Senator George Allen (R-VA) who is in the fight for his political survival. A while back, he was being touted as a possible 2008 presidential candidate, a while back he was running comfortably ahead of his Democratic challenger. Then came the infamous Macaca incident, followed by the "I love Brown People rally" which consisted of more whites than not. Now Vote Vets.org has entered the fray with an ad comparing the body armor Donald "We go in with the army we got" Rumfilled sent the troops into Iraq with with modern body armor. I won't spoil the details for you but you have to see the ad to appreciate the magnitude of danger this administration and its enablers send our troops in while pontificating about "supporting" the troops.

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

2006-09-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Halliburton Tax: Potential Campaign ads from the DSCC and the DCCC if they were smart

2006-09-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is how Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root supports our troops, eat their food and then bill the U.S. government for services it "provided" for the troops. A Super Bowl party for the troops complete with a widescreen TV and chicken wings, tacos, cheesesticks became a Super Bowl party for KBR itself while we paid for the Super Bowl Party apparently the troops never had.

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.

There's going to be hell to pay if ABC goes through with this docudrama

2006-09-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

Digby notes that Disney flip-flopped when it comes to showing politically-charged movies. When Michael Moore’s movie which made $200 million came out, it blocked its Miramax division from distributing the movie because…

''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.

Please go here to send a message to ABC

2006-08-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

You know a recent discussion in my blog made me think. If the right cares so much about babies born out of wedlock or to rape victims, how come they do not do anything to help fund child care for the baby? How come if the baby is put up for adoption, they not call for the funding of adoption programs and centers?

Is it because once the baby is out of the womb, they do not care about the baby or what happens to him/her? Somehow the reason that pro-choicers would not support such legislation does not satisfy me necessarily.

The fact is the GOP loves to use abortion as a wedge issue, but when it comes to walking the walk, they are afraid to walk the plank. I don't know why the Democrats don't stress this out, but abortion when put up against economic issues such as giving corporations the right to screw the people over economically always comes up short. The example I allude to countlessly ad nauseam is the vote of the 37 senators considered most pro-life when it came to allowing the EPA to use data from studies conducted by pesticide companies which used pesticides on pregnant women who have yes, you guessed it fetuses.

Many of these babies will be put up for adoption, so shouldn't it make sense that if South Dakota was going to ban abortion except when the mother's life was in danger, to also fund foster-care programs, adoption programs, and child-care programs? Wouldn't it make sense to fork aside some funds to ensure that these babies find loving homes where they could lead productive lives?

Or does the criticism and charge that right-wingers only care about the baby if he/she's in the womb ring true more than ever today? So, many of these politicians believe that well the mother should bear all the responsibility for taking care of her child? Is that what it is? Well then, maybe some Republican should bring up a child care bill. Hell, rescind the tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of the country and see how much support is drummed up. My guess is that Republicans and our supposedly pro-life president will not support this bill if the richest Americans have to pay for it. Would they support it even if the tax cuts weren't on the line or would this be another social program that the government shouldn't have to pay for?

Kudos to Senator Coburn for going against the majority of his party in voting no on that legislation. At least he is being consistent on this issue, but shame on the "pro-life" senators who chose money over the unborn.

The right believes in a lazy form of pro-life ideology: they believe that if you ban abortion, then abortions will magically disappear because everyone will be loathe to break the law. How NAIVE! They believe that just being against abortion and stem-cell research will be enough, that they don't have to call for better economic conditions that help lower the rate of abortions. They do not believe in providing a social safety net to ensure that mothers do not have to resort to abortion because they are impoverished and cannot afford to have the baby. Many on the right do not believe that corporations should be prevented from testing their products on pregnant women such as the example I have provided above. Is this pro-life ideology? Many of them do support executing those on death row, even though a true pro-lifer would claim that one innocent executed is one too many when hundreds could potentially be exonerated and probably some have even been executed. I challenge the right to bolster the middle class and the poor so that mothers have a decent income to start a family. I challenge them to put ideology aside and work towards reducing the number of abortions. I challenge them to put their loving rhetoric about how every baby needs a chance and start providing them with one to succeed in life instead of having to rely on the lottery which determines if you'll be born into a rich family or not.

2006-08-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Will Americans be fooled by the administration’s rhetoric concerning ~~Iraq~~ Iran with a N this time around or will they see that it is indeed recycled rhetoric? Will Iran be tied to 9/11 as Brent Cunningham of the Columbia Journalism Review speculates? Yes Iran is a threat, but is it the boogeyman that the Litterbox and his minions will hype it into just in time for the midterm elections? (Vote GOP or Iran will NUKE your cities!)

The fact is Iran can spew all hate towards Israel and all desire that it’ll be wiped off the map, but would they do anything against Israel knowing that one attack would be enough to invite perhaps a nuclear strike? Maybe the Iranian president’s rhetoric is just populist rhetoric to muster up support from the masses or maybe he is unhinged, but Iran would never attack Israel for that reason. But you wouldn’t know that from the neo-con’s rhetoric. You’d think that Iran was planning a nuclear strike on New York City or the heartland!

This is why they outed Valerie Plame. The administration does NOT want reliable intelligence on the supposed threat from Iran if it exists. They didn’t want reliable intelligence on the WMDs in Iraq that have not been found. They did NOT want reliable evidence to debunk the supposed link that Saddam had with Al Qaeda and the September 11 attacks. It is not surprising that over 60% believe that Saddam helped plan or even was the MASTERMIND of the terrorist attacks. The administration wants a cowed CIA to cherry-pick at best or to distort at worst all evidence so that it could support their rush to war. The administration is supposed to use the evidence and then make a crucial judgment whether to pull the trigger or not, but everything has been turned upside-down in Litterboxland. Now, intelligence is twisted to “vindicate” the administration’s ideology and the administration is trying to pressure the CIA to present intelligence that fits the pResident’s world view.

Will we hear Bill Kristol say that striking at Iran would be a cakewalk? Will he say that a tactical air strike perhaps with nuclear weapons would be enough to take out the Iranian “threat?” Is he naïve enough to think that the Iranians only have one nuclear site? Iran Focus reported that Iran has over 300 reported nuclear sites in the whole country. Is Bush prepared to bomb out all 300 sites? Do we even have reliable intelligence on those sites? Perhaps if the BUSH administration wasn’t so adept at outing CIA operatives for political points, maybe we would.
In fact, let’s take this further. Let’s fulfill the sick, twisted fantasy of the Savage Weiner and the other right-wingers who want to turn the Middle East into a parking lot. Let’s just bomb the whole nation to the Stone Age. Let’s bomb Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and see what the whole world does. Maybe they’ll send flowers and candy to the White House praising us for taking out the Middle East and bringing our version of the Pax Americana to the world. Yeah, let’s see how nuking the Middle East wins us friends and solves problems. Right-wingers are so damn naïve or have their heads stuck up so far up the wrong end that they actually think that this would solve everything. They don’t see that we would just confirm that we are the rogue state and deserve to be a pariah in the court of world opinion. But at least the Rapture would come, wouldn’t it, once the bodies start to pile up in the Middle East?

For once in this administration, can it PLEASE try pressuring Iran through diplomacy and get the court of world opinion on our side instead of alienating our allies and isolating us like the time we went into Iraq with the Coalition of the Willing which included some island countries in the Pacific?