I had a little dust-up at work the other day with a co-worker over the Iraq war. A defender of the war, and die-hard Republican, my co-worker directed a lecture, actually a scold, about the need for sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy. Or something. The lecture was a sophomoric and petulant attempt to shame me into supporting the invasion/occupation/escalation of the PNAC agenda. It was also mixed with a small bit of spittle.
I agree with the need for sacrifice for Dick and Dubya's most excellent adventure, but it should not be so compartmentalized. The pain and blood and death sacrifice being borne almost entirely by our all-volunteer army, their families and friends. And in typical Republican fashion, the payment for this war is punted well out of reach, falling as a sacrifice to our grandchildren. This Administration has a war, an occupation, expanded the federal government by forty percent and cut taxes to its billionaire corporate donor base.
So where is this sacrifice? If indeed, as the rightards vehemently point out that America being invaded by 20 box-knife wielding fanatics is an existential threat to end life as we know it, then perhaps each and every American should share in this sacrifice.
Re-institute the draft. No wussy-assed loopholes like "five deferment Dick Cheney" or anal cyst OxyMorons. Two years of Mess-O-Potamia for all. The Democrats just initiated the PayGo system, which means, like, pay as you go. Apply this to Iraqistan. No new funds issued until the last tab is paid in full. One would definitely have to eliminate the billionaire tax breaks. Perhaps everyone else's taxes would have to double--or triple.
I'm down with that. Perhaps if the sacrifice, in real time, of suffering and funding for the disaster known as Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) visited the hearts and bank balances of each American, the 30 percent domestic support it enjoys would evaporate, and people would take to the streets, banging a pot or a pan, demanding an end to this fruitless disaster.
But mostly it remains Somebody Else's Problem. As Drifty so elegantly pointed out, people are perfectly happy to just sit at home and watch "Poo-Flinger Island" and "Smell My Wife."
As far as the occupation escalation, can someone please explain to me how arming and training people involved in a civil war is supposed to quell the violence. With more guns and better training?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Big Picture Conservative Machine
Work hard and play by the rules and you will succeed has been the American mantra for generations. But what chance does a regular American have when the deck is stacked so decidedly against him or her? Consider the modern-day conservative machine cobbled together not for the benefit of America, but for the benefit of the wealthy elite. What began as a memo in 1970 to the National Chamber of Commerce by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell saying that all of our best students are becoming anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks.
Business folks took this advice seriously, coupled with Republican scandals that resulted in running a Republican President out of town.
Captains of industry set up non-profit think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and converted earlier ones like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute to benefit their own corporate interests. They carefully peopled these symbiotic organisms with the fruit of their loins, children with double doctorates carefully bred and nurtured to provide sustenance to the maw of the elite.
There are thousands of such organizations across America, located in every state, closely affiliated with the local chambers of commerce and genetically linked with Corporate CEO's who routinely make 500 times more than his average employee. The sole purpose of this machine is to maintain this outrageous imbalance of economic distribution, which bears no relevance whatsoever on the profitability of the company.
But it doesn't end there, since this is all quiet lobbying behind the scenes intended to nothing more than perpetuate Corporate wingnut welfare. It also extends into the airwaves, the so called fourth estate, also known as the media
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Hailed to foster competition, it in fact reduced the number of major media companies from 80 to six in twenty years. This was preceded by the death of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan Administration which demanded radio stations to provide balanced programming.
The birth of the mighty right wing wurlitzer had begun, and a cancer began to grow on the body politic. The right wing noise machine caters to the low-hanging fruit, the easy boogeyman, pointing at the dirty fucking liberal hippy as the irrational reason of all societal problems. Liberals want to take all the money from hard working Americans and give it to lay-about coloreds, welfare queens and illegal immigrants. The lazy and hateful ideology they spew is not countered whatsoever in over 90 percent of the country, according to Ed Schutlz, a popular progressive radio talk show host. This is backed up by a recent study done by a liberal think tank known as The Center For America Progress which shows:
This is one of those things that is fundamentally true while being simultaneously patently false. Stay with me here. One hundred and forty four "journalists", nationwide, made campaign contributions from 2004 through the first quarter of 2007. There are over 116,000 journalists in America. This is a toenail clipping of the body politic, not some rampant liberal press. Besides that, those who did contribute to Democrats were copy editors and sports reporters from sisterfuck Alabama, not editorial writers for the New York Times, or Washington Post.
We are not done yet folks, because even with armies of sooper smart lobbyists from think tanks, the fruits of the loins of captains of industry invading our state-houses and Federal government by the platoon, and a million decibels of rightard spew blasting "it's all about icky libruls keeping you down," still, even with all that, the best the mighty conservative machine can do at the ballot box is forty percent.
Hello Ralph Reed , James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell. These three, along with many other pious and upright Christianists preached intolerance and hatred against any and all that would oppose the Glorious Conservative Revolution. Indeed if one supported the babykilling sodomites, one should expect eternal damnation. No need to address the poor and downtrodden or environment or any other issue of society that was about to be gobbled up by corporatists on their way to an industrial lunch because that may hamper the millions of taxpayer dollars they get for "faith based initiatives."
Think I'm done? Hah, you silly blogreader! Even with armies of Doctorates invading Washington and millions in corporate PAC's flooding in being blanketed with a million decibels of rightard radio and the soothing dulcette tones of the Pentecostal preacher urging "vote Republican or suffer eternal damnation," it still ain't enough!
Enter massive purges of voter rolls and the privatization of voting machines with closed source software that flips votes on command and three minute waits in Republican precincts and eight hour waits in democratic ones and still, we have a sitting President who complained to the Supreme Court in 2000 that if Florida kept counting votes he would be irreparably harmed. The court agreed, which I guess means he would have lost. But he won by a one vote Supreme Court margin.
This is the Republican Party and how they came to power. The results are all around us. Strong on sales, short on delivery, unless of course you are a member of their trifecta.
Business folks took this advice seriously, coupled with Republican scandals that resulted in running a Republican President out of town.
Captains of industry set up non-profit think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and converted earlier ones like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute to benefit their own corporate interests. They carefully peopled these symbiotic organisms with the fruit of their loins, children with double doctorates carefully bred and nurtured to provide sustenance to the maw of the elite.
There are thousands of such organizations across America, located in every state, closely affiliated with the local chambers of commerce and genetically linked with Corporate CEO's who routinely make 500 times more than his average employee. The sole purpose of this machine is to maintain this outrageous imbalance of economic distribution, which bears no relevance whatsoever on the profitability of the company.
But it doesn't end there, since this is all quiet lobbying behind the scenes intended to nothing more than perpetuate Corporate wingnut welfare. It also extends into the airwaves, the so called fourth estate, also known as the media
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Hailed to foster competition, it in fact reduced the number of major media companies from 80 to six in twenty years. This was preceded by the death of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan Administration which demanded radio stations to provide balanced programming.
The birth of the mighty right wing wurlitzer had begun, and a cancer began to grow on the body politic. The right wing noise machine caters to the low-hanging fruit, the easy boogeyman, pointing at the dirty fucking liberal hippy as the irrational reason of all societal problems. Liberals want to take all the money from hard working Americans and give it to lay-about coloreds, welfare queens and illegal immigrants. The lazy and hateful ideology they spew is not countered whatsoever in over 90 percent of the country, according to Ed Schutlz, a popular progressive radio talk show host. This is backed up by a recent study done by a liberal think tank known as The Center For America Progress which shows:
the Center for American Progress concluded that 91 percent of weekday talk radio is conservative, compared with liberal content at 9 percent. The group, which said it analyzed 257 news and talk stations owned by the five biggest radio broadcasters, calls for stricter media-ownership limits and public-interest requirements.In other words, a handful of media owners are effectively silencing the political voice of 70 percent of the people. One may say this is stupid, since advertising is the lifeblood of media and one should go where the money is. This is true. Since General Electric is a major media holding company, it is interesting to note that its PAC donated over $800,000 to the Republican party last year and about half of that to the Democrats, a pattern that is consistent in the past several years. But you won't find that on Faux News. They point to the fact that journalists give to the Democratic party 9 to 1 over Republicans.
This is one of those things that is fundamentally true while being simultaneously patently false. Stay with me here. One hundred and forty four "journalists", nationwide, made campaign contributions from 2004 through the first quarter of 2007. There are over 116,000 journalists in America. This is a toenail clipping of the body politic, not some rampant liberal press. Besides that, those who did contribute to Democrats were copy editors and sports reporters from sisterfuck Alabama, not editorial writers for the New York Times, or Washington Post.
We are not done yet folks, because even with armies of sooper smart lobbyists from think tanks, the fruits of the loins of captains of industry invading our state-houses and Federal government by the platoon, and a million decibels of rightard spew blasting "it's all about icky libruls keeping you down," still, even with all that, the best the mighty conservative machine can do at the ballot box is forty percent.
Hello Ralph Reed , James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell. These three, along with many other pious and upright Christianists preached intolerance and hatred against any and all that would oppose the Glorious Conservative Revolution. Indeed if one supported the babykilling sodomites, one should expect eternal damnation. No need to address the poor and downtrodden or environment or any other issue of society that was about to be gobbled up by corporatists on their way to an industrial lunch because that may hamper the millions of taxpayer dollars they get for "faith based initiatives."
Think I'm done? Hah, you silly blogreader! Even with armies of Doctorates invading Washington and millions in corporate PAC's flooding in being blanketed with a million decibels of rightard radio and the soothing dulcette tones of the Pentecostal preacher urging "vote Republican or suffer eternal damnation," it still ain't enough!
Enter massive purges of voter rolls and the privatization of voting machines with closed source software that flips votes on command and three minute waits in Republican precincts and eight hour waits in democratic ones and still, we have a sitting President who complained to the Supreme Court in 2000 that if Florida kept counting votes he would be irreparably harmed. The court agreed, which I guess means he would have lost. But he won by a one vote Supreme Court margin.
This is the Republican Party and how they came to power. The results are all around us. Strong on sales, short on delivery, unless of course you are a member of their trifecta.
Senator Coburn; Good Republican--Bad American
U. S. Senator Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, is earning his bonafides as a conservative by shielding racists from prosecution under the guise of being fiscally conservative. No expense is too great for the neocon war on brown people in a country that was not a threat, did not attack us and had no connection to 9/11, but less than 10 million dollars is way too much money to spend investigating and prosecuting murderers of Americans defending civil rights in America.
The bill, H. R. 923, the Emmitt Till Unsolved Civil-Rights Crime Act, focuses on hate crimes of the civil-rights era prior to 1970, sailed through the House last week with only two votes opposed. It was expected to sail through the Senate by unanimous consent, but Coburn placed a hold on the bill for budgetary reasons.
Senator KKKoburn feels perfectly fine spending unlimited fundage killing foreign people of questionable pigmentation but is unwilling to spend a pittance to prosecute those who do so, even if the victims are Americans attempting to exercise the right to vote. One wonders if he is opposed to African-Americans or civil rights, or both. Why does the Senator oppose the defense of Democracy in America yet fanatically support its exportation by military force?
On behalf of all Oklahomans, allow me to issue this public apology for the oxygen Senator Coburn is using up that could be going to some useful purpose.
For more info and background on this bill and what it means, please read this outstanding post by Meteor Blades. mcjoan weighs in here, and, as usual, what Digby said.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Made His Mark
Some people say tut-tut, there oughta be a law, and some people break the law to fix it. I am referring to the law against tattooing in Oklahoma, the last state in the Union to have such a ban. The law was recently changed, thanks in large part to a frustrated young artist named D.J. and several of his buddies.
Al Lindley, a local Democratic Representative in Oklahoma City had written legislation to legalize and regulate the profession and bring it out into the open. It languished in committee for seven years.
DJ and Co. said "fuck this shit" and opened up a tattoo shop storefront with bold signage and flashy graphics right out in broad daylight. They commenced to giving tattoos. To cops and prosecutors and bikers. Hell, everybody gets tattoos these days, even your very own Oilfieldguy's daughter is a tattoo artist in Lost Wages, Nevada.
His open and notorious defiance of the law was short-lived however, and I watched on the teevee as they froggermarched DJ and Co off to the pokey.
"Dood," one of the wayward tattooers said to the cameraman on his way to the squad car, "the law says, like, permanent markings, and like, they got lasers that can remove tattoos, so we feel they aren't so permanent."
I grinned and shook my head at the obvious stoner argument. Still, I admired their pluck. Tilt on, dood!
About a week or so later, the defense attorney had her chance in front of the camera. She viewed it as a constitutional issue involving freedom of expression, and her clients method of expression was tattoos.
Now that, my friends, is an argument. Seems Lindley's languishing legislation got some wind beneath its wings, and that is how a bill becomes law.
DJ, and a small group of defiant "outlaws" challenged the system, risked the loss of freedom and fundage for what they believed was a righteous cause.
Can we all give a polite golf applause to our modern day Don Quixote's?
But this is not the end of the story. You see, I have softened you up, perhaps invoked a hint of admiration for DJ. I met him through my daughter who is good friends with his wife, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Seven of Nine, and they have a new baby.
The other night DJ was having a barbecue at his house with several friends. In the crowd was a recently separated young lady, whose ex-boyfriend showed up with several friends un-invited. Harsh words were exchanged, and the jilted boyfriend broke a baseball bat over DJ's head and stabbed him with it.
DJ is young and tough, but he will have to continue life without a spleen, his recovery will be slow, but he will recover. He has no insurance, a young wife and a new baby. Last time I checked it costs between 40 to 50 thousand dollars to have a spleen removed.
I plan to pass the hat. I won't be putting up a donate button, because a) I'm too fukkin' stoopid, and b) I do not care for any money to pass through my hands. We will be having a benefit for DJ next month at a local eatery. For those in the blogosphere, check back here and I will give mailing info to an account we will set up for him.
I'd like to show this guy some love, dragging Oklahoma into the 21st century and protecting a damsel in distress. What's not to love?
Al Lindley, a local Democratic Representative in Oklahoma City had written legislation to legalize and regulate the profession and bring it out into the open. It languished in committee for seven years.
DJ and Co. said "fuck this shit" and opened up a tattoo shop storefront with bold signage and flashy graphics right out in broad daylight. They commenced to giving tattoos. To cops and prosecutors and bikers. Hell, everybody gets tattoos these days, even your very own Oilfieldguy's daughter is a tattoo artist in Lost Wages, Nevada.
His open and notorious defiance of the law was short-lived however, and I watched on the teevee as they froggermarched DJ and Co off to the pokey.
"Dood," one of the wayward tattooers said to the cameraman on his way to the squad car, "the law says, like, permanent markings, and like, they got lasers that can remove tattoos, so we feel they aren't so permanent."
I grinned and shook my head at the obvious stoner argument. Still, I admired their pluck. Tilt on, dood!
About a week or so later, the defense attorney had her chance in front of the camera. She viewed it as a constitutional issue involving freedom of expression, and her clients method of expression was tattoos.
Now that, my friends, is an argument. Seems Lindley's languishing legislation got some wind beneath its wings, and that is how a bill becomes law.
DJ, and a small group of defiant "outlaws" challenged the system, risked the loss of freedom and fundage for what they believed was a righteous cause.
Can we all give a polite golf applause to our modern day Don Quixote's?
But this is not the end of the story. You see, I have softened you up, perhaps invoked a hint of admiration for DJ. I met him through my daughter who is good friends with his wife, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Seven of Nine, and they have a new baby.
The other night DJ was having a barbecue at his house with several friends. In the crowd was a recently separated young lady, whose ex-boyfriend showed up with several friends un-invited. Harsh words were exchanged, and the jilted boyfriend broke a baseball bat over DJ's head and stabbed him with it.
DJ is young and tough, but he will have to continue life without a spleen, his recovery will be slow, but he will recover. He has no insurance, a young wife and a new baby. Last time I checked it costs between 40 to 50 thousand dollars to have a spleen removed.
I plan to pass the hat. I won't be putting up a donate button, because a) I'm too fukkin' stoopid, and b) I do not care for any money to pass through my hands. We will be having a benefit for DJ next month at a local eatery. For those in the blogosphere, check back here and I will give mailing info to an account we will set up for him.
I'd like to show this guy some love, dragging Oklahoma into the 21st century and protecting a damsel in distress. What's not to love?
The Big Dick
Apparently, Dick Cheney is a government unto himself and claims his office is not an entity within the Executive branch.
The Sith Lord is a brutal infighter. He has proposed modifications that would eliminate oversight and review by the Attorney General--not that he's all that concerned with Bertie Walnuts--who has problems of his own.
Dick Cheney's nonchalant history of abusing national security secrets for partisan political gain is stunning. During the run-up to the Iraq invasion, he cherry-picked certain items from the National Intelligence Estimate that helped the neocon vision of Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) and leaked it to his favorite media bitch, Judith Miller via Scooter Libby.
The NIE is a classified document. It is important to remember the war in Iraq began on March 19, 2003.
Congressman Waxman notes:
I wonder why?
Waxman, being no shrinking violet, even in the face of evil ideology, continues:
Welcome to the land of Republicans. It's a long way from America.
H/T to Think Progress.
So, "Top Secret" does not apply to Dick Cheney and he can willy-nilly out CIA operatives if their husbands get crosswise with the Sith Lords evil ideology. If the pesky congresscritters try to get an attitude about it, he uses the Dark Side of the force and Jedi mind tricks.Washington, D.C. — The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”
As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President’s position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President’s staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President’s executive order.
In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: “I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. … [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials.”
The Sith Lord is a brutal infighter. He has proposed modifications that would eliminate oversight and review by the Attorney General--not that he's all that concerned with Bertie Walnuts--who has problems of his own.
Dick Cheney's nonchalant history of abusing national security secrets for partisan political gain is stunning. During the run-up to the Iraq invasion, he cherry-picked certain items from the National Intelligence Estimate that helped the neocon vision of Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) and leaked it to his favorite media bitch, Judith Miller via Scooter Libby.
The NIE is a classified document. It is important to remember the war in Iraq began on March 19, 2003.
Congressman Waxman notes:
In 2001 and 2002, your office had provided the National Archives with data on its classification and declassification activities, as required by the executive order. Your office ceased to provide this information in 2003, and has refused to provide it in each year since. No rationale for this change in policy was provided to the Archives at that time.
I wonder why?
Waxman, being no shrinking violet, even in the face of evil ideology, continues:
Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information. As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald established, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, your former Chief of Staff, leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to several reporters in June 2003. Mr. Libby was convicted in March of perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements for lying to a grand jury and to FBI agents in order to conceal his role in the leaking of this information.
The prosecution of Mr. Libby also revealed that you apparently misused the declassification process for political reasons. In July 2003, you reportedly instructed Mr. Libby to leak to the media portions of an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein’s purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Your selective declassification of this information was apparently made outside the formal declassification process and done as part of a damage-control effort you undertook to defend the Administration’s rationale for going to war in Iraq.
In a separate incident, Leandro Aragoncillo, a former aide in your office, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to passing classified information to plotters allegedly trying to overthrow Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Mr. Aragoncillo reportedly disclosed numerous secret and top secret documents to Philippine officials over several years while working in your office.
Private Government absolutely resistant to any oversight that has seized the power to wiretap, jail and torture its citizens without judicial or congressional review.
Welcome to the land of Republicans. It's a long way from America.
H/T to Think Progress.
Close Gitmo
I've seen stories flying around about the closing of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It needs to be done, but I don't see how the Administration can do this. They only have two real options, and that is to either put them into the American justice system, which means bring charges and provide them with legal counsel, or cut them loose. A third option would be detain them in other military bases, but that is just more of the same.
Open hearings would subject this Administration more accusations of torture and perhaps the reveal that some of the "evidence" used to detain these "enemy combatants" is thinner than a gnats ass stretched across a rain barrel. Evidence gathered by torture would be inadmissible, and surely such claims will be made. Guards will talk, defending themselves with orders from headquarters.
No doubt some bad hombres are housed in Gitmo. They deserve to be brought to justice. Those who cannot be convicted deserve freedom.
This administrations hesitancy is not out of concern for the illegal activities of Gitmo prisoners, but of their own.
To a modern day conservative, all problems can be solved with enough police on the ground, and just the utterances by their Glorious Leader of the magic words "enemy combatant" is enough to grab them by the scruff of the neck and toss them in jail.
Indefinitely.
No Judges, no lawyers, no "phone call."
And they can be tortured, or crush their sons testicles in front of them.
It helps if the "enemy combatant" is of questionable pigmentation, but it is not required; anyone will do, even an American.
A government that can jail people based only on its own will with no proof or requirement thereof is something completely alien to the definition of America.
This government is called Republican. It is no longer possible to be a good American and a good Republican. In other words, Republicans are bad Americans.
The government of bad ideas and authoritarian cultists who ignored all pre-911 warnings and on that fateful day, when Dear Leader was told "America is under attack," impersonated a bull looking at a new gate for seven minutes.
Let the bad guy get away.
Invaded the wrong country.
Spied on his own people, in violation of the law.
Could not manage a Safeway, much less a national disaster (Katrina) or a global war on terror.
And now Gitmo, full of rat bastids ready to dime out the petty little torture thugs in the White House.
Can't cut 'em loose and can't let 'em talk. What is a Preznit to do?
Open hearings would subject this Administration more accusations of torture and perhaps the reveal that some of the "evidence" used to detain these "enemy combatants" is thinner than a gnats ass stretched across a rain barrel. Evidence gathered by torture would be inadmissible, and surely such claims will be made. Guards will talk, defending themselves with orders from headquarters.
No doubt some bad hombres are housed in Gitmo. They deserve to be brought to justice. Those who cannot be convicted deserve freedom.
This administrations hesitancy is not out of concern for the illegal activities of Gitmo prisoners, but of their own.
To a modern day conservative, all problems can be solved with enough police on the ground, and just the utterances by their Glorious Leader of the magic words "enemy combatant" is enough to grab them by the scruff of the neck and toss them in jail.
Indefinitely.
No Judges, no lawyers, no "phone call."
And they can be tortured, or crush their sons testicles in front of them.
It helps if the "enemy combatant" is of questionable pigmentation, but it is not required; anyone will do, even an American.
A government that can jail people based only on its own will with no proof or requirement thereof is something completely alien to the definition of America.
This government is called Republican. It is no longer possible to be a good American and a good Republican. In other words, Republicans are bad Americans.
The government of bad ideas and authoritarian cultists who ignored all pre-911 warnings and on that fateful day, when Dear Leader was told "America is under attack," impersonated a bull looking at a new gate for seven minutes.
Let the bad guy get away.
Invaded the wrong country.
Spied on his own people, in violation of the law.
Could not manage a Safeway, much less a national disaster (Katrina) or a global war on terror.
And now Gitmo, full of rat bastids ready to dime out the petty little torture thugs in the White House.
Can't cut 'em loose and can't let 'em talk. What is a Preznit to do?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Party With Warm And Happy Furry Puppies
I've been meaning to write about this Unity '08 piece of shit political party. Spokeshead Sam Waterston whines that the two parties have become so polarized that they fail to address the concerns of the American people. So they sniff and decide they will step off a hundred paces from everybody else, which would be the middle woodnit? and hammer an impudent little stake in the ground, hoist a flag from it and declare a new Merika.
Whatta putz!
Yo' you twitchy dickhead over there with the geeky looking nukylar wedgie posing as a flag, move about a thousand miles to the left and you will find the cold and the tired and the huddled masses that used to be the middle class, and you will find that all you stoopid sumbitches exist only in the fantasyland of corporate America, where campaign donations keep corporate welfare flowing, the food, drug, earth, wind and fire monopolies well protected from the vermin of the voters. Except for the voters who support their cause, which is to protect us from homosexuals and secular humanists that hate all your corporate profits because you love Jesus.
The last twenty five years stands as a stark testament to the failure of conservatism. The very mention of its name is a boot in the face of any family interested in improving their station in life. It exists as an anchor of prevention.
A thick and stifling mud of racism and male dominance and blotting out of anything new and creative and vibrant. Only the old roots stand fast. New shoots and perspectives and channels and views are blotted out and smitten, removed from the calendar and the womb. The day is shut. A meaningless viewless sameness is all that exists with conservatism.
All problems shall be solved with enough police on the ground. Seen and unseen, the lidless eye of conservatism shall not blink and shall not rest until every hill is shoved into every valley. Nothing shall stick up and impugn the senses with deviance.
And now, as the desolation of conservatism creeps into view of the American psyche the people are aghast. Entrails of mother earth are vomited out into huge slag heaps in multinational corporations rape for profit. The skies dim and the wind is thickened in a massive hoax against Republicans like Inhofe and the oil corporations that fuel his campaign.
Democrats, for a generation, were lost in the woods being led by feckless sluts like Shrum saying to be elected you must pay fealty to the creeping and shapeless mud of conservatism that defines nothing.
And now, we reach the point of absolution, where the people of America wake up from their long nightmare of strangulating leadership, furious at their plight, ripping control of the Democratic party from the DC insider pundits, and demanding their government behave like a mechanism to benefit not just the privileged, but everyone.
Food, drug, earth, wind and fire.
And here comes Sam, with his happy, warm, furry puppy party, with posies in his hair, skipping and whistling "Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day...!"
Stuff it Sammy. Those of us on the left are not willing to gather at the river and sing kumbaya with a bunch of fucking warmongering neoconservatives that just spent the last thirty years labeling anything other than the dense mud of their sick, dark ideology traitorous America-haters.
Republicans have earned the right to lose in spectacular fashion. Do not deny them this right by attempting to split the 70% opposition vote.
Whatta putz!
Yo' you twitchy dickhead over there with the geeky looking nukylar wedgie posing as a flag, move about a thousand miles to the left and you will find the cold and the tired and the huddled masses that used to be the middle class, and you will find that all you stoopid sumbitches exist only in the fantasyland of corporate America, where campaign donations keep corporate welfare flowing, the food, drug, earth, wind and fire monopolies well protected from the vermin of the voters. Except for the voters who support their cause, which is to protect us from homosexuals and secular humanists that hate all your corporate profits because you love Jesus.
The last twenty five years stands as a stark testament to the failure of conservatism. The very mention of its name is a boot in the face of any family interested in improving their station in life. It exists as an anchor of prevention.
A thick and stifling mud of racism and male dominance and blotting out of anything new and creative and vibrant. Only the old roots stand fast. New shoots and perspectives and channels and views are blotted out and smitten, removed from the calendar and the womb. The day is shut. A meaningless viewless sameness is all that exists with conservatism.
All problems shall be solved with enough police on the ground. Seen and unseen, the lidless eye of conservatism shall not blink and shall not rest until every hill is shoved into every valley. Nothing shall stick up and impugn the senses with deviance.
And now, as the desolation of conservatism creeps into view of the American psyche the people are aghast. Entrails of mother earth are vomited out into huge slag heaps in multinational corporations rape for profit. The skies dim and the wind is thickened in a massive hoax against Republicans like Inhofe and the oil corporations that fuel his campaign.
Democrats, for a generation, were lost in the woods being led by feckless sluts like Shrum saying to be elected you must pay fealty to the creeping and shapeless mud of conservatism that defines nothing.
And now, we reach the point of absolution, where the people of America wake up from their long nightmare of strangulating leadership, furious at their plight, ripping control of the Democratic party from the DC insider pundits, and demanding their government behave like a mechanism to benefit not just the privileged, but everyone.
Food, drug, earth, wind and fire.
And here comes Sam, with his happy, warm, furry puppy party, with posies in his hair, skipping and whistling "Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day...!"
Stuff it Sammy. Those of us on the left are not willing to gather at the river and sing kumbaya with a bunch of fucking warmongering neoconservatives that just spent the last thirty years labeling anything other than the dense mud of their sick, dark ideology traitorous America-haters.
Republicans have earned the right to lose in spectacular fashion. Do not deny them this right by attempting to split the 70% opposition vote.
Scooter Saves Shooter; Sentenced To 30 Months
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was sentenced today to 30 months in a Federal Pen, fined a quarter of a million dollars, 2 years of probation when he gets out of the hoosegow and 400 hours of community service, for being a liar and obstructing justice.
This whole sordid affair began with Ambassador Joe Wilson standing up to the Bush Administrations bogus claims in the run-up to the war with Iraq of Saddam seeking yellow cake uranium from Niger.
Ambassador Wilson has a history of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
In the '90s, in the run-up to the first Iraq war, Wilson was stationed in Baghdad and received a note telling him all citizens under his care had to be registered and refusal to comply was a capitol offense. But to register, folks had to show up in person, which would just replenish Saddam's hostages.
Joe Wilson refused, being determined to protect those under his care, asked a Marine to fashion a hangman's noose. Mr. Wilson then proclaimed that if Saddam intended to kill him, he would "bring his own fucking rope."
Sounds like a bonafide hero to me.
And his wife was just as deeply involved in the protection of America. Valerie "Plame" Wilson was a spy for the CIA and worked in the area of nuclear proliferation of Iran.
Again, not something you would want to cast aside lightly, especially in light of her many years of service, training and experience, especially these days.
But Joe was dismayed the Administration kept slinging their Nukyalar crap about Iraq and the Niger connection, even after he had checked it out and found it was without merit. So he went public two days after the fourth of July in '03 with his op-ed piece published in the NYT titled, "What I Didn't Find In Niger."
The Administration was incensed and started behaving like third-grade sandbox bullies trying to figure out how to slam Joe Wilson. One of the exhibits in the trial was Joe Wilson's article, tore out of the NYT's with Dick Cheney's handwriting on it providing talking points to his minions.
One was something to the effect "Did his wife send him on this junket?"
Shortly thereafter, Valerie's name appeared in Bob Novacks column, ending her career and endangering the lives of anyone she had ever had contact in the Middle East. The message was clear; do not aide Americans in intelligence because they do not even protect their own.
The CIA requested an investigation, which Scooter Libby obstructed by lying repeatedly.
To aide Judge Reggie Walton in his decision for sentencing over 160 people wrote him letters. People like Henry Kissinger and Paul "horndog comblicker" Wolfowitz and Ronald Dumsfeld and John Bolton and l'il Dougie "stupidest man on the planet" Feith and Mary Matalin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "I hate faggots" Peter Pace.
The defense whined and pleaded with the judge not to release the letters, because them dirty internet bloggers would mock them. The Judge disagreed and released the letters, so let the mocking begin!
As a general overview, most of these letters point out what a massively important person the letter writer is by using two or three paragraphs up by stating, "I..me...I...me...blah, blah, blah. and then they throw in something about Scoots being a real swell too.
They usually conclude with heartrending plea for leniency for the sake of Scooter's wife and children.
Ambassador Wilson and his wife have children, and the mother of these children's career has been ended.
And the neocons got their war which removed from all doubt that Republicans cannot do anything right whatsoever. Americans will pay dearly for a long time for the catastrophic reign of the Republican party.
Go over and peruse the letters at smoking gun. Every defender of Scooter Libby urges leniency for perjury, obstruction of justice and giving false statements. These are the same partisan hacks that demanded Bill Clinton's head for perjury during his impeachment hearing.
This whole sordid affair began with Ambassador Joe Wilson standing up to the Bush Administrations bogus claims in the run-up to the war with Iraq of Saddam seeking yellow cake uranium from Niger.
Ambassador Wilson has a history of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
In the '90s, in the run-up to the first Iraq war, Wilson was stationed in Baghdad and received a note telling him all citizens under his care had to be registered and refusal to comply was a capitol offense. But to register, folks had to show up in person, which would just replenish Saddam's hostages.
Joe Wilson refused, being determined to protect those under his care, asked a Marine to fashion a hangman's noose. Mr. Wilson then proclaimed that if Saddam intended to kill him, he would "bring his own fucking rope."
Sounds like a bonafide hero to me.
And his wife was just as deeply involved in the protection of America. Valerie "Plame" Wilson was a spy for the CIA and worked in the area of nuclear proliferation of Iran.
Again, not something you would want to cast aside lightly, especially in light of her many years of service, training and experience, especially these days.
But Joe was dismayed the Administration kept slinging their Nukyalar crap about Iraq and the Niger connection, even after he had checked it out and found it was without merit. So he went public two days after the fourth of July in '03 with his op-ed piece published in the NYT titled, "What I Didn't Find In Niger."
The Administration was incensed and started behaving like third-grade sandbox bullies trying to figure out how to slam Joe Wilson. One of the exhibits in the trial was Joe Wilson's article, tore out of the NYT's with Dick Cheney's handwriting on it providing talking points to his minions.
One was something to the effect "Did his wife send him on this junket?"
Shortly thereafter, Valerie's name appeared in Bob Novacks column, ending her career and endangering the lives of anyone she had ever had contact in the Middle East. The message was clear; do not aide Americans in intelligence because they do not even protect their own.
The CIA requested an investigation, which Scooter Libby obstructed by lying repeatedly.
To aide Judge Reggie Walton in his decision for sentencing over 160 people wrote him letters. People like Henry Kissinger and Paul "horndog comblicker" Wolfowitz and Ronald Dumsfeld and John Bolton and l'il Dougie "stupidest man on the planet" Feith and Mary Matalin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "I hate faggots" Peter Pace.
The defense whined and pleaded with the judge not to release the letters, because them dirty internet bloggers would mock them. The Judge disagreed and released the letters, so let the mocking begin!
As a general overview, most of these letters point out what a massively important person the letter writer is by using two or three paragraphs up by stating, "I..me...I...me...blah, blah, blah. and then they throw in something about Scoots being a real swell too.
They usually conclude with heartrending plea for leniency for the sake of Scooter's wife and children.
Ambassador Wilson and his wife have children, and the mother of these children's career has been ended.
And the neocons got their war which removed from all doubt that Republicans cannot do anything right whatsoever. Americans will pay dearly for a long time for the catastrophic reign of the Republican party.
Go over and peruse the letters at smoking gun. Every defender of Scooter Libby urges leniency for perjury, obstruction of justice and giving false statements. These are the same partisan hacks that demanded Bill Clinton's head for perjury during his impeachment hearing.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The Evolution Of The Crazy Church Lady
It seems Peggy Noonan is deeply offended by the titular head of her party; Republican/Conservative, doing exactly what they have always done--what they have been trained for--which is to promote the agenda of corporatists and monied interests by attacking the opposition as traitors who do not know what is good for them. Only this time, weary from carrying water for an incompetent and blatantly ideological administration, the crazy church lady gets her french pedicured toenail stepped on. She huffs:
Now, up until this point, the mighty right-wing wurlitzer has been silent on these very points. The tribal group-think of conservatism and Reagan's eleventh commandment, "thou shall not speak ill of another conservative," not only prevented them from pointing out the destruction of America, but directed them to label anyone who did so as far-left Michael Moore Bush-haters.
Let us continue to peek in at Ms. Noonan clutching her pearls and desperately fanning her face.
Well, gee golly gosh. The poor dear is a victim of Conservative S.O.P. which is demonization of your opponents so you can get your way. Peggy dear, to maintain your lifestyle you simply must be supplied with an endless supply of virtually powerless servants. Please do as you're told and do not question your betters, especially out loud. Remember the eleventh commandment.
Oh fer cryin' out loud. Peggy sprays this ink all over the Wall Street Journal as if she just now parachuted into the middle of the latest maladministration fecal fest. It's like Patrick Duffy just stepped out of the mutherfukkin shower on "Dallas" or sumthin.
It is open warfare within the Republican party, Wall Street who enjoys cheap labor and purchases the fuel for the Republican campaign machine, and the right-wing wurlitzer that generates profits from ad revenues based on low information, knuckle-dragging rascists, aka Republican voters.
Poilitics requires money and votes. This is the essence of the failure of conservatism. The interests of the corporatists are in direct conflict with the interest of the voters, violently, in the Republican party. In effect, they are hoist by their own petard as a result of their "southern strategy."
The biggest mouth-from-the-south, Bill O'Reilly hosts pro-comprehensive immigration plan Senator John McCain (R-AZ). via Atrios:
Completely aside from the fact that we have two guys whose names begin with O' and Mc, feel their "white cultural dominance" is threatened, indeed an existential threat as real as al qaeda, requiring some serious brown ass-kicking even closer to home, one wonders why O'Real McCoy doesn't have any Apaches or Navajo's involved in this little powow.
For a cherry on top of this little discussion I am including a brilliant collection of essays gleened from the comments of Firedoglake by a dear friend I have never met, Valley Girl. Hugh, very much tongue-in-cheek defends English as Our National Language. I begin here, with part three: Be careful, it may be a French invasion.
Or perhaps, Latin is a better defense.
Here, Hugh begs us to stay on the path and be wary of gorillas, or something:
For the sake of posterity here are parts one and two (follow the links) and Hugh even put up a yiddish version.
Hugh offers no version for Native Americans. Their language was not suitable to be integrated into American. And now, those who claim to hold a monopoly on the definition of American are fighting amongst themselves.
It is ironic that many in the Republican Party who do not believe in evolution are now throwing poo at each other.
Peggy Noonan wrote, "that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks."
Unfortunately, we did not hear such language coming from such learned and worthy scribes as Ms. Noonan until recently. One wonders at what point does such behavior cross the line from defensible to unacceptable.
I would presume to venture the O'Rielly defense (insufficiently racist) or the porch light defense (June bugs seek out the brightest porch lights) or both.
Conservatism cannot fail, people merely fail conservatism. A conservative can spend all the money s/he wants, quadruple the size of the federal government, but if they fall in the polls (porch light dims) by not being sufficiently racist they are failed conservatives.
[...]For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.
[...]
Now, up until this point, the mighty right-wing wurlitzer has been silent on these very points. The tribal group-think of conservatism and Reagan's eleventh commandment, "thou shall not speak ill of another conservative," not only prevented them from pointing out the destruction of America, but directed them to label anyone who did so as far-left Michael Moore Bush-haters.
Let us continue to peek in at Ms. Noonan clutching her pearls and desperately fanning her face.
[...]But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."
The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."
[...]
Well, gee golly gosh. The poor dear is a victim of Conservative S.O.P. which is demonization of your opponents so you can get your way. Peggy dear, to maintain your lifestyle you simply must be supplied with an endless supply of virtually powerless servants. Please do as you're told and do not question your betters, especially out loud. Remember the eleventh commandment.
[...]
Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.
[...]
Oh fer cryin' out loud. Peggy sprays this ink all over the Wall Street Journal as if she just now parachuted into the middle of the latest maladministration fecal fest. It's like Patrick Duffy just stepped out of the mutherfukkin shower on "Dallas" or sumthin.
It is open warfare within the Republican party, Wall Street who enjoys cheap labor and purchases the fuel for the Republican campaign machine, and the right-wing wurlitzer that generates profits from ad revenues based on low information, knuckle-dragging rascists, aka Republican voters.
Poilitics requires money and votes. This is the essence of the failure of conservatism. The interests of the corporatists are in direct conflict with the interest of the voters, violently, in the Republican party. In effect, they are hoist by their own petard as a result of their "southern strategy."
The biggest mouth-from-the-south, Bill O'Reilly hosts pro-comprehensive immigration plan Senator John McCain (R-AZ). via Atrios:
Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you've got to cap with a number.
John McCain: In America today we've got a very strong economy and low unemployment, so we need addition farm workers, including by the way agriculture, but there may come a time where we have an economic downturn, and we don't need so many.
[crosstalk]
O'Reilly: But in this bill, you guys have got to cap it. Because estimation is 12 million, there may be 20 [million]. You don't know, I don't know. We've got to cap it.
McCain: We do, we do. I agree with you.
Completely aside from the fact that we have two guys whose names begin with O' and Mc, feel their "white cultural dominance" is threatened, indeed an existential threat as real as al qaeda, requiring some serious brown ass-kicking even closer to home, one wonders why O'Real McCoy doesn't have any Apaches or Navajo's involved in this little powow.
For a cherry on top of this little discussion I am including a brilliant collection of essays gleened from the comments of Firedoglake by a dear friend I have never met, Valley Girl. Hugh, very much tongue-in-cheek defends English as Our National Language. I begin here, with part three: Be careful, it may be a French invasion.
OT in Defense of English as a national language Part III
This may seem like déjà vu for some of you since I have already written twice vis-à-vis the importance of English as our national language. But one of my bêtes noires is the laissez faire attitude and dégagé manner of our current President who makes one gaffe and faux pas after another in what is supposed to be his native tongue. Not everyone, I know, can write or speak with élan or panache but at least Bush should be able to find the mot juste from time to time (’suicider’ being only the most recent atrocity). To be frank, it offends my amour propre to see this daily sabotage of English camouflaged as Texan bonhomie and good old boy naïveté. Nor do you have to be a member of a soi-disant élite to feel this way but just a true blue linguistic patriot like me. The raison d’être of English as a national language movement, as I see it, is to use the force majeure of the federal government in the promotion of the proper use of English. This legislation would drag Bush from his semi literate cul-de-sac and require him to speak English for the first time in his life, comme il faut and sans détours. Gone would be the days of our acceptance of his manque of rhetorical savoir faire and toleration of his many linguistic défauts. The débâcle that is his language skills would have at last received its coup de grâce or, at the least, be rendered hors de combat. I say without a soupçon of malice and with a complete sang froid that that is a day I would dearly like to see.
Or perhaps, Latin is a better defense.
In defense of English as a national language Part V
We are one nation from the Rio Grande to Montana, from Florida to Los Angeles and San Francisco. As one who is an aficionado of English, I say it is this language that binds us and our nation together. English is too important to become a political piñata. It has helped make us Número Uno in the world. We should keep it and although there is little chance of us losing it, if we did lose it, we could lose the whole enchilada and that would be plain loco. However unlikely, we could be left pronto with zero, zip, nada and that would be muy malo for us all.
Understand those who support English as the national language are not waging a guerilla war on some but are making a sincere effort to create a unifying and unitary ambiente simpático for us all. Nor is it an act of machismo by the current jefe and his junta. Indeed Bush’s pregnant pauses are the very opposite of this. They bespeak a man embarazado and that is an embarrassing state of affairs indeed. No, amigos, compañeros, English as a national language is an act of faith, an auto de fe, as it were, of our rights. Let us not say hasta la vista, baby to an idea whose time has come. Let us embrace our inner pendejo and have the cojones to bid adiós to our doubts. To those who ask in the plaza of public opinion, ¿Qué pasa? here, let our answer and our language be clear: ¡Que será será!
I am not sure, but I think this is in English:
OT Something for Friday: in defense of English as a national language Part VII and last
Our language like our borders is in crisis. Its autochthonic ethos is threatened by the paradox of a heterodox dogma of inclusion. This embrace of linguistic schizophrenia must be anathema to all those who love the orthogonal logic of our native idiom. We must shed our dystopic entropic psychology of cataleptic catatonia with its apathetic anergy of cultural polymorphism. Polyglot iconoclasts under the aegis of heterogeneity and with a nostalgia for the exotic are making a hecatomb of our language. They accuse us of seeking our therapeutic in a sophistic xenophobia. Alas, this is not some paranoid phantasm. We stand at the edge of the abyss on the horns of a dilemma surrounded on all sides by catastrophe, cataclysm, holocaust, and a full tetrahippal apocalypse. In such a toxic atmosphere, we, the hoi polloi, must be the catalyst of a cathartic apologia leading to the agathic agape of a pragmatic paradigm of an English only hegemony.
Hugh offers no version for Native Americans. Their language was not suitable to be integrated into American. And now, those who claim to hold a monopoly on the definition of American are fighting amongst themselves.
It is ironic that many in the Republican Party who do not believe in evolution are now throwing poo at each other.
Peggy Noonan wrote, "that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks."
Unfortunately, we did not hear such language coming from such learned and worthy scribes as Ms. Noonan until recently. One wonders at what point does such behavior cross the line from defensible to unacceptable.
I would presume to venture the O'Rielly defense (insufficiently racist) or the porch light defense (June bugs seek out the brightest porch lights) or both.
Conservatism cannot fail, people merely fail conservatism. A conservative can spend all the money s/he wants, quadruple the size of the federal government, but if they fall in the polls (porch light dims) by not being sufficiently racist they are failed conservatives.
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