It Must be Cold There, In Our Shadow

The latest poll has Bush at a below freezing 31 job approval rating, the lowest in his Presidency.
[...]

Bush's approval rating, at 34 percent a week ago, tumbled on declining support from conservatives and Republicans. The poll found 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's performance, record lows in both categories.

Bush's approval rating has been mired in the low and mid-30s in most surveys amid public unease about the Iraq war and rising gasoline prices. His plummeting standing has caused growing worry among Republicans about November's elections, when the balance of power in Congress will be up for grabs.

[...]

Most pundits place his sliding poll numbers to the quagmire of the illegal war in Iraq.
However, his spending like a drunken soldier could be a key reason why his conservative base is slipping away.

[...]

With passage of the budget, the House will have raised the federal borrowing limit by an additional $653 billion, to $9.62 trillion. It would be the fifth debt-ceiling increase in recent years, after boosts of $450 billion in 2002, a record $984 billion in 2003, $800 billion in 2004 and $653 billion in March. When Bush took office, the statutory borrowing limit stood at $5.95 trillion.

[...]

A curious thing is happening over in the land of wingnuts. Criticisms leveled at Bu$hCo by the reality based community over expanding Federalism, nation building, secrecy, torture, warrantless wiretapping of Americans and exploding deficits were all shouted down as treasonous against our Commander-In Chief and accusations were leveled of giving aide and comfort to our enemies.

[...]

Rove last night also criticized Democrats for responding weakly to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said.

[...]

Okay, so Rove is a dick. But now that Bush's approval rating is about the same as several social diseases, in order to save face of conservatism, wingnuts now claim Bush has always been a liberal.

Yesterday, I referenced an article in National Review by Jonah Goldberg in which Goldberg argued that the two most glaring examples of failed Republican presidents -- Richard Nixon and George Bush -- weren't conservatives at all, but were actually liberals. I characterized this claim as "dishonest" because, as I pointed out, virtually no conservatives were claiming that Bush was a "liberal" when his popularity ratings were in the 60s and he was perceived as some sort of heroic, beloved political figure. It is only now that his approval ratings are reaching historically low levels, and it is becoming unavoidably apparent that his presidency is dying and failed, that conservatives are seeking to claim that Bush's failure is not a failure of conservatism because -- as it turns out -- Bush was really a liberal all along. Alas, Bush's failure is simply the latest instance of the failure of liberalism.

[...]

As a political reality, conservatives are responsible for Bush's presidency. They claimed him as one of their own and engineered both of his elections. The newfound recognition that -- hey, what do you know? -- Bush, after all, turns out to be a liberal, is prompted by the collapse of his presidency, the collective realization that he has been a grand failure, and a desire to shield conservatism from the fallout. If this labelling of Bush as a "liberal" were prompted by genuine and intellectually honest observations, then the claim from conservatives that Bush is really a liberal would have been made long before he tumbled to 32%. It wasn't, and that is what makes it so dishonest.

[...]

See, conservatism cannot fail, but people can fail conservatism. But the definition of conservatism on answers.com doesn't say anything about fiscal responsibility.

1. The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order.
2. A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and opposition to sudden change in the established order.
3. Conservatism The principles and policies of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom or of the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada.
4. Caution or moderation, as in behavior or outlook.

I guess it just doesn't apply anymore. The tax and spend liberal is just a cute little talking point that just holds no water. Since LBJ left a small surplus in the national treasury in 1969 it was over three decades before it happened again. In between we had Nixon and Nixon and Ford and Carter and Reagan and Reagan and GW Bush and Clinton. That's six R's and one D, Clinton doesn't count because he didn't make a happy plate. Apparently Republicans can't be trusted with security (9/11) foreign affairs (name it) or our checkbook. By looking at the definition above a truthful campaign slogan would be: Vote For Me, I'll Leave Everything Just Like It Is. Sorta like the Ruins maintenance department for the Parthenon.

The Runaway Executive

Somebody needs to take away his crayons.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

This is a very serious article written by Charlie Savage at the Boston Globe. Waytago Chuck, or as they will say at the Stenogr... er Correspondents Dinner, No Soup For You!!

Still, using words like disobey to describe a serial criminal is a little like putting lipstick on a pig. But see, our Prez Nit doesn't think he's breaking any laws. He doesn't veto anything. After he signs legislation, he breaks out his crayons and writes the real law. This makes him the Legislature-In-Chief. He can do this see, because he got a shiny new decoder ring from Battle Creek Michigan, that lets him judge what is constitutional. This also makes him a judge, or the Decider-In Chief.

The Rubber Stamp Republican controlled congress really don't want to make much of this highly illegal tactic since the Prez Nit is, well, a Republican. And midterms are so near. Democrats are just hoping for subpoena power that comes with being in the majority. Besides, it is pretty clear that congress is powerless to reign in this runaway executive, short of cutting all funding for his exploits or impeachment. It's clear that Bush thinks Congress' cute little laws are pretty irrelevant.

Good thing none of the laws the Prez Nit is violating are anything serious like murder or torture and shit. Oh wait, they are that bad. After torturing several prisoners the Administration decided they better get a legal okeydokey in case The dems ever got in control. As soon as they got their judicial "get out of jail free" card sewed up it was croney city. One of the judges that gave them permission was awarded the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nomination four days later. The judge who originally came up with the signing statement idea got the other seat, Sam Alito.

The idea that America does not torture is lost on this Prez Nit. John Yoo, a key legal architect in Bush's post 9/11 soft dictatorship shares this chilling theory:

Cassel: If the President deems that heÂ’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the personÂ’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
(emphasis mine)

Dear reader, Yoo is referring to you. The Prez Nit can declare you an enemy combatant, throw you in jail with no charges, no lawyers, no judges, nada. He doesn't have to notify congress and he can drag your kid in front of you and start to mash his testicles. Or do unmentionables to your sweet little girl. Our fourth estate is nothing but stenographers of the Bushit cocktail weeney circuit. If it weren't for guys like Chuck and Sy and a few over at Newsweak and a handful of blogs, we wouldn't know about this stuff. It's time to get active locally. Do what you can to get progressives elected so we can put a stop to this outrage. Had Enough?

Immigration Redux

Just when you think the country couldn't get any more divided, it does. The huge immigration protests has put a finer point on a different type of divisiveness. The "law and order" branch of the Republican party demand the illegal immigrants be sent packing immediately and don't want to hear any noise about "path to citizenship." The Republican corporate paymasters want a cheap, abundant, fearful and powerless workforce to exploit. The "blue collar dems" see the doom of good wages in the face of illegals and the unions see the potential salvation of their falling membership.

And then there's my sister.

She lives in Southern California, and I can tell, she's just tired of this fucking shit. Trying to drive around in Southern California, knowing that a HUGE number of the cars on the road are being driven by people who don't belong there is immensely frustrating. She sends me emails, usually without comment, like this one:

From the L.A Times

1. 40% of all workers in L.A. County (L.A. County has 10 million
people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they
are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.

2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal
aliens.

3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are
illegal aliens.

4. Over 2/3's of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal
alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are
Mexican nationals here illegally.

6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living
in garages.

7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are
most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.

8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.

9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.

10. In L.A.County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million
speak Spanish (10.2 million people in L.A.County).

(All 10 from the Los Angeles Times)

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 29% are
on welfare.

Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over
90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.

The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was a
NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year, [Profess or
Donald Huddle, Rice University].

The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for
the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE

29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

If they can come to this country to raise Hell and march by the
thousands, Why can't they take charge over the corruption in
their own
country? We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.

I guess she thinks I don't geddit. Trust me Sis, I geddit. The only solution is to prosecute the exploiters. If the jobs are eliminated, illegals will self-deport. The truly criminal element of illegal immigrants must be dealt with harshly. We have plenty of homegrown crooks without these interlopers coming in. Depolarizing the magnet is the only true solution. Building a wall is worthless. Seems like I heard of someone building a wall before. Oh yes, in China. It is a big wall. No, strike that. It is a great wall. Probably why it's called the Great Wall of China. So great, in fact, that it is the only man-made structure on the planet that can be seen with the unaided eye from the surface of the moon. But it did not save the Ming Dynasty. So, what's all this shit I keep hearing about a wall? Methinks it's coming from the cyclone fence and ACME brick lobby.


I doubt we will ever see anything spectacular happen for a while. Several social diseases have higher approval ratings than Bush, who still has higher ratings than the Republican controlled congress, who has higher approval ratings than Deadeye Dick. With midterms at six months away and counting down I wouldn't be expecting any startling legislation to pass. Time to get busy at your local level and do all you can to support those who share your views. Be the change.

In Support of the DNC

So Dean is trying to build a 50 state Democratic infrastructure. I feel this is very farsighted. I've often felt that no one ever learns anything when things are going fairly smoothly. Education truly begins when "we've always done it that way" is demonstrated as a path to apathy.

During the late 80's and early 90's, here in Oklahoma, we had a Democrat and a Republican as U.S. Senators. I was working as an advertising executive for a widely circulated and well-received (circulation appx 50K) community newspaper in a strong Democratic area of OKC. This area of OKC, is geographically referred to as South OKC, since it is located on the southside of the Canadian river, and was deemed by many "Northsiders" or "Silkshirts" as we referred to them, as being negative for voting down many bond issues and such.

I met several local politicians and became fairly politically active myself. A city self-improvement project, called the Metropolitan Area Project, (MAPs) came up in '93. It was a grand plan that would require a huge investment by passing a countywide one cent sales tax for five years with a vote of the people. It would fail without the support of the southside. Our publication endorsed the project and published a special edition spelling out all the details.

I was relentless in obtaining advertising revenues for the support and distribution of this message. Face it, there is nothing free about the press. I was the top five revenue providers for that publication. At the watch party, I was next to Tom Keilhorn, a local political polling god when the results came in from the south. He was incredulous as he looked up at me from his chair and speechlessly shook my hand. Governor Ron Norick did the same.

It was not a blowout. Only about 52% in favor countywide, which was about the same as the southside. Soon after that, I had a career change, Senator Boren retired and Oklahoma fell firmly into the Red State column with Inhofe and Coburn for Senators.

If a solid infrastructure, like the one Dean is trying to put together now, was in place back then, perhaps I could have been urged by someone on the lookout to further aid the Democratic party. There can be no doubt that it is needed. Full-time paid political operatives constantly looking for new recruits. Isn't that what being a democrat is all about? Just wanting to help someone needing help?

War On Iran

Apparently it has already started. No windy congressional debates, no podium pounding speeches from our politicians televised and hashed out by the talking heads of the corporate media. We already have boots on the ground in Iran, and have for quite some time, according to retired Colonel Sam Gardiner who taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College. He is somewhat of an authority in Bushco truthiness as he uncovered the urine soaked liar sheets of the bogeyman scare machine that brought us Iraq. As he said recently on CNN.

GARDINER: And let me say this -- I'm saying this carefully. First of all, Sy Hersh said in that article which was...

CLANCY: Yes, but that's one unnamed source.

GARDINER: Let me check that. Not unnamed source as not being valid.

The way "The New Yorker" does it, if somebody tells Sy Hersh something, somebody else in the magazine calls them and says, "Did you tell Sy Hersh that?" That's one point.

The secretary point is, the Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year. I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units."

He said, quite frankly, "Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans."

The evidence is mounting that that decision has already been made, and I don't know that the other part of that has been completed, that there has been any congressional approval to do this.

My view of the plan is, there is this period in which some kinds of ground troops will operate inside Iran, and then what we're talking about is the second part, which is this air strike.

And we have the ex-speaker Newt, who is still Newt and still speaking, saying crap like this:

The United States, Europe and Israel face massive destruction by a nuclear attack, Gingrich told University of South Dakota students and faculty. "This is one of the great deciding points of history," Gingrich said, opening a question-and-answer session at Farber Hall.

Folks, we cannot allow this to happen. These guys are absolutely nuts to even be considering a nuclear strike against another country. First, another word for pre-emptive war, is war. This is totally up is down Orwellian crazy talk. Prevent a war by dropping bombs on another country, maybe even nuclear bombs? How's this for sanity? To prevent war, don't start one.

It's clear that Bush has already thrown congress on the heap of irrelevance, what with his signing statements basically saying how cute he thinks their little laws are, but he's gonna do whatever he wants to do and they can't stop him. He don't need no stinking warrant! But just maybe his little Republican buddies might need a little boost in an October Surprise move so the bedwetters will scamper to the polls for protection against the screaming brown meenies.

If you don't think Georgie would start a war just to get a few votes then you haven't been paying attention. That's as far as his planning goes. Any plans for an actual war would likely bring up those pesky details like uniting Iraqi Shia with Iranian Shia and the wholesale slaughter of our forces currently in Iraq that would be sitting ducks. And the instantaneous worldwide outrage of America becoming a rogue nation, using nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear state. All our debt Bush has run up that is now in the hands of foreign countries? Whaddya think the next day is gonna look like? If George Bush, Darth Cheney and Ronald Dumsfeld drop nuclear bombs on Iran, they will become instant war criminals.

People, these guys have got to go. Generals are rebuking them. They are internationally hated and nationally not so popular either. And yet the feeling is another impending march to doom. They need to be impeached, jailed or both. Democrat led, Republican led, I really don't care. I don't even care for what reason they are impeached, the reasons are numerous, just pick one or use a dozen and make it a multiple guess kind of thing.

We are being hijacked by a leader described as having a "messianic complex" who feels he only has two years left to save the world. Rummy has consolidated American international intelligence under his own complete command and control with virtually all congressional oversight removed.

Not that that's all that important since the "Rubber Stamp Republicans" oversite is actually overlook, and congress will only be in session for like 12 days this year. Make no mistake, the situation here is totally fucked. We really need to run these guys out of town. Seriously.

Gingrich Not Welcome In Whoville

Newt wants to be welcomed into the rising ranks of war critics after having said this:

"I think it's quite clear as you point out, Sean [Hannity], that from this tape, that bin Laden and his lieutenants are monitoring the American news media, they're monitoring public opinion polling, and I suspect they take a great deal of comfort when they see people attacking United States policies."

One should be highly suspicious of newly arrived war critics who attempted to stifle any Bush aggression policy critics of treason. Remember the parable of the frog and the scorpion.

Unable to cross the river, the scorpion asked the frog for aid. The frog refused, saying the scorpion would sting and kill him. The scorpion pointed out, that since he couldn't swim, it would be folly to do so. The frog relented and midway across the river, sure enough, the scorpion stung the frog, because, as the scorpion pointed out, "that's just the kind of son-of-a-bitch I am."

Newt, as well as many other "recent converts" should not be trusted. As Billmon points out:

I don't think Newt is criticizing or second-guessing the administration's policy in Iraq so much as he is front-running it – probably in an effort to polish his credentials as a foreign policy heavyweight (“See, I suggested we should drawn down our forces in Iraq, and they listened to me.”)

[...]

If IÂ’m right, we should hear more about it fairly soon, as the semi-official media begins to shift from the old to the new party line, which may be something along the lines of: Those ungrateful Iraqis had their chance at democracy, but now itÂ’s time for us to go, and the first step is to consolidate all our troops in a few key bases. Or maybe it will be: Even if there isnÂ’t a government, the Iraqi Army is in great shape, and we can start bringing home the troops. Or maybe it will just be: Mission accomplished. On to Tehran.

With Newt leading the way – rhetorically, I mean.

And sure enough, low and behold, the ex-speaker never learned the art of silence. Newt, leading the way:

The United States, Europe and Israel face massive destruction by a nuclear attack, Gingrich told University of South Dakota students and faculty. "This is one of the great deciding points of history," Gingrich said, opening a question-and-answer session at Farber Hall. The situation is heightened, Gingrich said, by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's promise to "defeat the Anglo-Saxons and wipe Israel off the face of the earth."

"How is that deterred, where your religion tells you that dying in Armageddon is cool? Where you have suicide bombers with atomic weapons?" Gingrich asked. "You have to take them out. You have to change the regime. Just to take out the (nuclear) facilities is a loser game. When they develop atomic weapons, they will sell them to somebody, and that will be dangerous."

It sounds like he just wants to move the battlefield and break out the big guns. No, we should not welcome people like Newt into the reality based community when they are clearly batshit insane.

Iraq Answer Lives In Omaha

As I have repeatedly said about Iraq, we will not be able to force them to live together, but we probably can help to separate them:

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts - one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic.

Supporters said the plan would give minorities control over their own school board and ensure that their children are not shortchanged in favor of white youngsters.

Apparently they ended the forced busing, and to deal with the minority districts being financially shortchanged, the Omaha legislature and Republican Governor, punted. This shining example of bigotry should be held up as an example for the Iraq quagmire, as well as a demonstration of Americas own overt and still alive racism.

Hateful Bigots

Me thinks the wingnuts cannot help themselves. Recently, Hugh Hewitt, part of the rightwing noise machine educated Wolfe Blitzer on the well behaved right compared to the fever swamp left. Moonbat left wing bloggers have since been scouring the wingnut sites to expose the hideous bigoted underbelly of the "morally superior" bigotsphere. I'll not foul this blog with their quotes. I only question how are people like this created? How can so much hate be so rampant in one party against such a diverse group? They must start when they're very young and reinforce it over and over. I have come up with a mock dialogue to assume how this could happen. It takes place between a stay-at-home mother and her eight-year-old son in an affluent neighborhood. I'll call the son Sean H.

"Sean, it's time to get up. You don't want to grow up to be a Democrat, now do you?" Little Sean sits up, wiping the sleepy from his eyes with one hand and grooming his cowlick with the other. "What's a Democrat?" he asks. "Why Sean, It's people who want to come in here and take all our nice things, that we have worked so very hard for, and give it to layabout minorities."

I remember no such conversations in my house. Certainly I was exposed to numerous racial epitaphs, but that in itself shouldn't cause the degree of hate that exists with wingnuts. Our worldview is just so much different. I had occasion to visit Baltimore Maryland on a bolt hunt (don't ask). The only place that carried them was located in what would be called "the projects." Miles and miles of hideous multi unit dwellings. I got ill. How can any child being raised in those conditions stand a 10 percent chance of doing any good at all? I can only imagine what a winger would say seeing the same sight. "See, They're animals. That's your welfare working for you right there!" Such compassion.

Is the superiority they feel genetic? The old nature, nurture question. An early memory I have is seeing a little girl, on our way to school, giving pieces of silver, her lunch money in fact, to some boys so they would quit frying ants with a magnifying glass. That was my first experience with love at first sight.

The Republic Is Wounded

Folks are pretty busy. They don't have the time to look over the minutiae of every bill proffered, seek out consultants and experts and such. So we vote somebody else to do that for us. Unfortunately, our representatives tend to become beholden to lobbyists who finance the ability to campaign for reelection. Rates for media buys for politicians tend to be somewhat different than for regular businesses. By that I mean higher. This is how they can afford the overpriced newsreaders who trade reporting the truth for the safer and easier path of 'he said she said'. So the fourth estate is beholden to revenue streams, as are our representatives. The disconnect from the voters is being filled nicely by the netroots. Surely, not everyone has access to the internet, and most who do do not read blogs. However, blogs can have an impact on the corporate media and elected officials alike. Bloggers are not separate from the electorate, merely a concentrated slice of it. We tend to be more informed and feel it is our civic duty to shine the light of careful analysis on current events. Being voracious readers of the corporate media, as well as other blogs, some of us tend to get close to the truth of various issues. Lightening fast feedback to sloppy reporting is no doubt irksome to lazy reporters and sloppy editors, not to mention extremely uncomfortable to the Delays in congress. But if the Republic wasn't wounded, their would be no need for us. So don't worry, we're only here to help.

Guest Worker Program

We need to watch this one. I'm afraid it could end up being the 21st century version of slavery. Will the 'guests' have any rights whatsoever? And if so, what protections will be afforded to some 'uppity messicans'? Is this the introduction to a revolving door of indentured servitude serfdom of guests? Legislation that authorizes exploitation with provisions for 'use "em and lose 'em" is patently inhumane and un-American. We have grown past slavery and torture, woops. Any legislation must include a path to citizenship. The numbers must be controlled by punishing the exploiters. Fences and walls will not stop those in desperate need nor those willing to prey on them. Criminalizing those who set forth, with hope as the only means they have in abundance, to a new land, has already happened here before. The debate needs to be how many immigrants do we need each year, and then absolutely control that number. Each immigrant that legally enters our country should be provided with a path to citizenship. Those found exploiting undocumented workers must be fined an exorbitant amount. If we need to employ displaced union workers to root these bastards out, so be it. No one else seems to have the gonads to do it.

It's The Trust, Stupid

Corruption and cronyism has virtually bankrupted our country. Gone are the days of surplus budget into the days of ancient history. To find such a time, one must travel back to the beginning of this century, 2000 BB (before Bush).

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.

[...]

This represents, Clinton said, "the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States."

[...]

In June, the administration predicted the surplus would be $211 billion, and would increase by as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

And now, after five years of Bush the Republican controlled Congress has had to boost the Treasury Departments credit line four times for a total of $3 trillion. That now puts our debt ceiling at nearly $9 trillion. To spend $1 trillion, one would have to spend a million dollars a day for a million days, or 2,739 years. Multiply that by nine times.

Apologists for the Republican looting of our National Treasury will blame 9/11 and the war on "Terra" in Iraq. I just love the nifty way they link the two in the same breath/sentence and later deny they ever intended any linkage.

Certainly 9/11 and the unrelated and illegal war provided ample opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate their mettle. The only surprise that should exist is the scale of thievery. Slowly, this crap will percolate up and people will become aware that this criminal band of brothers, aka Republicans, are not moral and godly people. The religious right was hoodwinked into believing they had anointed godly men to positions of power. The reality is the Jesus pimps went on a mission of sacking our country for their own worldly gains. And people died in the process. Delay now cries "Uncle" and wants to further fleece the flocks for Republican support.

Democrats wanting to restore credibility to Congress must do so by being credible. After writing laws for 225 years it is dubious that any new such laws can stop this kind of activity. As the Danny DeVito character "Larry the Liquidator" said in Other Peoples Money, "Pass all the laws you want. Guys like me don't go away, we adapt." Honest stewardship of the peoples trust. That is the key first and foremost. Certainly new laws might be appropriate after all is rooted out and methods are exposed. But bottom line, It's the Trust, Stupid.

Latest Republican Wedgie

Millions of Latinos and their supporters flooded the streets recently showing opposition to republican legislation making illegal immigrants felons. Sporadic protests continue, coupled with the heated camel creation (a horse built in committee) debate in congress, treating Americans to another brilliant civics lesson. The issue has driven a wedge between the law and order branch and the cheap and abundant labor business interests of the republican party. The law and order branch wants them deported because illegal means illegal. The cheap and abundant labor business interests wants the illegal immigrants to stay because they are narcotically hooked to high profits. The wedge on the democratic side is between, primarily, unions and civil rights activists. Unions fear the decline of wages in the workforce and civil rights activists protest against the exploitation and creation of a permanent underclass.

The focus has been on a guest worker program and whether undocumented immigrants should be able to earn citizenship. And border security. The "earn citizenship" hampers the argument that undocumented workers only do jobs Americans won't do. Once they earn citizenship they become the Americans that won't do that kind of work anymore. Hence the need for more undocumented workers. If the guest worker program does not include a path toward citizenship it stretches the imagination to see people lining up to participate in it. Border security is mandatory and has no opposition. But it will be ineffective.

The Civics Lesson

American history is marked by dramatic events that forced changes. Many events created causes and these causes had leaders. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel leading the suffragette movement. Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, Dr. Martin Luther King, etc. But today we are saddled with an illegal war, a President who violates the law by spying on Americans without a warrant, has expanded the federal government by thirty percent and cut taxes delivering a crushing deficit to our children. But the huge protests are from people wanting to become Americans. Are Americans truly what other nations accuse Bush of being? Are we a bunch of arrogant bullies happy to live off of the heroic press clippings of our forebearers? Must we import our public dismay for our elected officials?

Where do we go from here?

Yeah, protect the borders. But those who exploit undocumented workers must be punished.

A report by the Government Accountability Office last year found the number of penalties issued to companies suspected of hiring illegal immigrants across the nation plummeted from 417 in 1999 to only three in 2004.

Wow. 12 million undocumented workers and three fines. It doesn't seem like this Administration is interested in enforcement. The only solution to stemming the tide of illegal immigrants is to eliminate the jobs. Fines must be so devastating that the risk would be akin to hiring a serial sexual abuser/crack headed workers comp pro. Employers who whine about not running a police station or extra paper work should not ask for a urine sample or authorization for a credit check. So what would a good enforcement program look like? It's a cinch it wouldn't resemble anything we have now. The laws should be absolutely clear, with no wiggle room. Open a brand new government agency, completely independent of congress by being self financed by the fines they levee and staffed entirely by displaced union workers. Start this out very small in one metro area with an undocumented labor problem. The pressures would be immense to bribe or coerce the agency to turn a blind eye to certain exploiters. The system would have to be tweaked and watched but we really need to try something different. I mean, c'mon, three fines?

Just as consumers demand competition between merchants to foster low prices, it is only fair employers have the same opportunity. We should have a healthy flow of LEGAL immigration to America to aide in this. No business should be forced to overpay some lazy bastard due to no other options. If we can't get off our asses enmasse to protest the abuses foisted on the world by Dubya, then maybe we need some new pioneers with the grit to cross deserts, rivers, fight banditos on both sides of the river just to make a life. They have a hell of a path to citizenship and they're showing us the way. Feel free to take notes.

Illegal Immigration

Illegal means illegal. Both Mexico an America's leaders have utterly failed to address this problem. Mexico is not as most people believe, a poor, third world county, completely dependent on its big brother to the north. They are actually a very wealthy country, the richest country in Latin America by a long ways. Unfettered capitalism has consolidated wealth and power into the hands of the ruling elite, leaving a very small middle class and about half the country living in poverty. Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics said:

"Basically, it's up to Mexico to solve its problem, and basically the wealthy classes do not want to tax themselves, period. It's basically an attitude of look out for yourself."

He points to the fact of taxes in Mexico being only 14% of GDP as opposed to Americans at 25 to 28%. Seems like the wealthy want to live off the fat of the land without having to pay rent. Bush is not likely to tell President Vicente Fox to raise taxes on the rich. Hufbauer continues:

"Basic social services and infrastructure are awfully lean for a country that wants to move ahead. While I'm not usually an advocate for larger government, Mexico is a country where public investment, done wisely, could pay huge dividends."

Both Presidents, however, are on the same leash to wealthy and powerful interests. American companies want cheap and abundant labor, not to do the jobs Americans won't do, but to do the jobs they can't export. Like construction of our homes and buildings, roads and bridges, and the jobs available in natural resources like oil and gas.

There can be no doubt that the wages would be substantially higher and unemployment would be substantially lower if 12 million (est) illegal immigrants were deported. Nearly half of the illegal immigrants wire money to Latin America regularly, which amounted to $32 Billion in 2002. That's nearly a 40% increase since 2000 and doesn't sound like lettuce pickin' money either.

Bear in mind that money cycles in a community, unless of course it's wired out of the country. The feeble minded legislation meant to put a surcharge on these wire transfers is simply electioneering. If someone is resourceful enough to break into a country, swim rivers, cross deserts, get a job and a check, I imagine they can find a legal buddy to wire the money home, for a smaller fee than the govt. wants.

Bush is simply out Foxed at his own game of delivering the goods to the arrogant and rich. By refusing to raise taxes and invest in infrastructure and utilizing his country's abundant resources that would create jobs, his desperate citizens flee to America and wire dollars back. No need for expensive social programs for him since America already has all that.

Unfortunately our leaders have ignored this problem for entirely too long. To export 12 million illegals would be difficult on a biblical scale. I truly empathize with their plight, but we have problems too and we were here first. All these protest marches they are conducting throughout America are taking place in the wrong country. They need to tell it to Fox, and I don't mean the news (?) program.

The first thing that needs to be done is to close our borders. Bush scolds Iran and Syria and Pakistan for not sealing their borders. That's like being called ugly by a frog. Seal the damn borders, then we'll talk about step two.

Oilfields, by Oilfieldguy

Probably the dumbest thing I've ever done is run out of gas with money in my pocket. I mean it's so much easier to carry fuel in the tank than it is to carry it in a can. I've made most of my living working in the 'Oil and Gas Binness', only in the mud end of it. Sorry, that's sort of an inside joke. The point being, my Masters Degree was earned at the University of OJT. And I'm here to tell you that oil fields play out. It takes a while, and usually the 'suits that run the store' use heroic efforts, akin to doctors trying to squeeze every precious additional heartbeat into a dying patient, to extract oil from the field.

So they go and drill somewhere else. But I think most of the lowlying fruit is pretty well picked. Sure, new fields will be discovered, maybe even a few bonanza finds, but c'mon, face it, we're headed for a real disaster.

"Peak oil" theorists posit that global production is at or near its historic ceiling and will begin a long, inexorable decline. They worry that America is not ready for the downturn, for skyrocketing prices and even shortages.

That quote comes from a story about a bonafide Billionaire oil tycoon. He's worried because he's been paying attention by reading everything he can get his hands on. We know that fossil fuels are a finite resource but the need for energy is not. More people are becoming dependent on oil, like China, and our oilfields are playing out. We need to begin a national strategy now or face catastrophic economic chaos in the very near future. T. Boone Pickens, legendary oilman recently claimed he felt we are at Peak oil now. Some say by 2010 and others say Peak oil will occur about 2035. The sooner we act, say experts, and non-experts like me, the better the transition will be and less disruptive. We will have to change. Look at the fuel gauge on the dash. We don't want to run out of gas with no money in our pockets.

Bush V. Feingold

So Russ proposes a censure for Bush's admitted and repeated violations of the constitution and his fellow Democrats run from him like he smells like a skunk getting a perm in a slaughterhouse septic tank. Pundits shriek that Russ has wobbled the Democrats off message and handed the midterm victories to the Republicans. It is apparently unusual for an elected official to do their job. It raises quite a fuss when one is caught doing so.

It seems quite a fuss was made when Clinton apparently violated FISA by conducting a physical search of some rat bastard selling Government secrets. Come to find out, FISA did not cover "physical searches" and the Clinton white house worked with congress to amend FISA to cover physical searches as well. The reason I think this is important is that this administration has admitted to violating FISA, and for some reason everyone just assumes it is the wireless surveillance portion of it. Can they just kick down your door in the name of national security? Maybe they thought they heard someone tell someone once that they heard you were involved with someone who knew someone who was involved with a commie sympathizer. All of this is naturally sorted by some NSA algorithm.

I am amazed the press continues to give this President the benefit of the doubt when he has earned no such benefit. His spectacular failure in all phases of Iraq (pre-conduct-post), devastating economic policy, cake eating during Katrina, 9/11 (as you can tell, these are not in order, just as they occur to me.) Dubai, this mans leadership is fluently stupid. Our congress has become an outlaw regime enabler and our MSM continues to fail miserably in their duty to inform accurately facts and truths, preferring to lazily rely on inside the beltway analists (sic?)

Senator Feingold should be surrounded by Democrats with no daylight separating them from their outrage at this administrations illegal activity. Certainly we were attacked by terrorists and we should be ever vigilant. Someone should inform the President with a Presidential Daily Briefing that says at the top in bold type Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States or something like that so we could get ready. But this administration is attacking our very way of life by a creeping soft dictator system. He doesn't need to be investigated; he needs to be stopped.

Is America Bushed?

It seems like every week there is something new to become all screechy and unhinged about. Even though Bush expanded the federal government by 30% there weren't enough people to respond to Katrina, a hurricane that, unlike terrorists, telegraphed its punch. The first responders to St. Bernard Parish were Canadian Mounties. Canadian Mounties!
And then we learn civil rights are a fond memory as the president announced he is spying on Americans and no judge or congressman is going to tell him he can't. And the republican controlled congress has abdicated to Bush's claim and refused to have any serious investigation into the scandal. Opponents to the program are tarred and feathered with the stain of being al quaeda sympathizers, which has paralyzed some Democrats from voicing concern or forcing the issue. Even though the Administration is known to have spied on Quakers, college activists and others deemed to be a threat to national security. Yet we are to be assured that like other superheroes, they promise to only use their power for good.
The crowning achievement of pharmaceutical industry is the Medicare prescription drug program. Our seasoned citizens look at all the options like a bull looking at a new gate. And the costs just keep on rising exponentially. I wonder where all that extra money is coming from?
Then Cheney shoots a guy in the face. That scandal was short lived since the victim promptly apologized.
It appears that Iraq will return to its roots and break off into three different countries. I can't imagine the audacity of these ungrateful and recently freed Arabs. Bush has provided them with the God given right of freedom and democracy and this is how they act? Even though many advisers warned Bush of a potential bloody civil war, he preferred the flowers and parades stories. All of his pre-emptive strike reasons were found to be false. It was eventually pre-empted with the cutesy phrase of "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," that faux news viewers could understand.
And now his ports deal opens our front door to a country with very real ties to 9/11. So maybe we can fight them over here after all. Does this make Bush guilty of harbouring terrorists? More likely his arrogant and Imperialistic worldwide policies has given birth to thousands of them. This latest debacle has provided a serious rift between the President and the republican congress.
The republican doppleganger they have in Bush has sprung a leak. Inflated by popular belief which cast him as the "protector in chief", the UAE ports deal has the Administration searching for a patch. The arrogance of Bush has deemed congress as irrelevant, bolstered by their own cowtowing, prevents his altering course on this deal. This will force the congress to rediscover a previously ignored body part. The tide has turned as more republicans distance themselves from a wildly unpopular president and his failed policies. Perhaps democrats can retake control of congress which is the best hope for serious investigations into this lawless administration.

Uncle Sam Is Not A Widower

She's baaaaack!
Convicted felon John Poindexters' discreet, yet chatty mistress, TIA (Total Information Awareness, or TIA, which is spanish for Aunt) a mega super snoopy data mining type continental gossip, is not so dead after all. Uncle Sam's nosy wife was thought to have been euthanized by lawmakers over two years ago, for privacy infringement reasons, and that she was known to be consorting with convicted gunrunners. As the National Journal puts it:

A controversial counter-terrorism program, which lawmakers halted more than two years ago amid outcries from privacy advocates, was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the privacy of U.S. citizens. Research under the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program -- which developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States -- was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency, according to documents obtained by National Journal and to intelligence sources familiar with the move. The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.

This little slut TIA is going to give Uncle Sam a virus. He probably needs a good old fashioned enema to get rid of all this shit. If this government were staffed by professionals with true credentials instead of keystone cop cronies this would be grave. As it is now, it seems like just another imperialistic run-of-the-mill lawbreaking. The one thing they can do though is win elections. I wonder who that nosy bitch is spying on?

Governance By The Faithless

President Bush has faced a difficult task; namely, by trying to govern when you don't believe in government. As Erick Mink of Knight Ridder news service points out:

...but the main mission of Bush and Cheney was to leave Washington less than they found it.

And they wasted no time getting down to it, most triumphantly with their massive tax cuts of 2001. The cuts would leave less revenue to pay for federal programs, saddle future presidents with crippling deficits and debt-interest payments, make the middle class pay more and lighten the load on the rich.

Bush/Cheney also packed federal departments -- EPA, Justice, State, FEMA, Defense and others -- with multiple layers of true-believing appointees. Their job was to freeze out career public servants and radically shift their institutions from active mode to passive to somnolent in such areas as environmental protection, voting/civil rights and social services.

[...]

Suddenly, Bush and his fellow would-be pillagers had to figure out how to marshal the manifold resources of government -- including those experienced, dedicated public servants previously regarded as quaint anachronisms -- to actually accomplish things.

In his article he describes Paul R. Pillar, who retired last year after 28 years with the CIA, the last six of them as the senior analyst responsible for coordinating information and data on the Middle East from America's 15 different intelligence agencies, assessment of Bush "fixing the intelligence" around the pre-emptive strike doctrine for Iraq.

Pillar readily acknowledges some incorrect assessments about Iraq by the intelligence community, but he says that those mistakes were mostly irrelevant because Bush didn't base his decision to invade Iraq on intelligence anyway.

Of course not. He had the neocon playbook that called for the removal of Saddam. And he was going through it step by step. Bush doesn't lead...you just sort of aim him.

Farewell Iraq

The rush to war in Iraq for national security and WMDs and 9/11 and all that bullshit has now finished the country. I'm officially certifying the death certificate as of this time on this date. It has been on life support since our invasion, which is what killed it. And a civil war was the only possible outcome. As Cenk Uygur points out:

An Iraqi Sunni is a thousand times more loyal to his fellow Sunnis than to some theoretical Iraqi government. The same is true of Shiites and even more true of Kurds. They don’t care about Iraq – we do.

The Iraqis are perfectly capable of fighting with passion and effectiveness. Just look at the insurgency – those are Iraqi fighters (at least 90% according to the various Pentagon sources). Look at the Kurdish peshmarga militia that maintains order in the north. Look at the Badr brigades and the Mahdi army of the Shiites in the south. All of these forces are perfectly capable and willing to fight – just not for the Iraqi army.

[...]

There is no Iraq. It does not exist in the minds and souls of the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. There will be three different countries in the place we call Iraq, whether we like it or not.

[...]

What we should be doing is working towards a realistic goal – a relatively peaceful transition towards three different countries in the area. We might not be able to keep these people together but we could probably help them to separate.

I don't see Iraq ever being Iraq again. If stay the course means our soldiers being the primary target in a three way civil war, I see the Presidents judgement (as if) coming into serious question. The good news it's over for Bush. The bad news is:

And at what point will we have to re-invade Iraq to protect the Sunni minority from the Shiite oppression?

That day promises to be rich with irony. I wonder if people will notice. They didn't seem to when Rumsfeld ordered the invasion of the country he sold weapons to for having too many weapons (let alone the fact that he sold them those weapons to use against Iran and now we just handed the country over to Iran with our invasion to get rid of the weapons we sold them to fight against Iran).

Holy War In Iraq

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

The 1200 year old most holy Shiite mosque is in ruins, as is any hope of a stable Iraq. Our fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here goofy talking point lies amidst the ruins. The civil war, that has all but been declared by the MSM, is not a holy war jihad against the infidels, but against believers of the same faith. Holy sites throughout the cradle of civilization are under siege and being attacked.

The wobbly Iraqi government is calling for calm and suggestions that some outside source is responsible trying to foment internal strife. The claim may be a valid one but it requires reason. And faith picks up where reason ends. Unfortunately and too often faith usurps reason passionately. Those who question actions carried out in the name of religion are merely insufficiently religious, or more on point, godless heathens, subhuman and deserving of destruction.

Human search for existential points have caused faith to become the answer. We seek answers for what is unknowable and faith provides that by creating a deity that is all-knowing. This faith drives its followers to disdain, sometimes fanatically, actions contrary to the perceived will of the deity. Prophets lay out tenents, shrines are built, and the faithful worship and obey.

The caution is that our creator also gave humans the ability to reason. One assumed S/He expect us to use it. Especially to identify false prophets to cynically lead the flock astray. Recent events have shown how power and profit hungry people can acquire the leadership of the most powerful country on earth by contemptuously motivating religious followers to his cause. It is now understood that "yeehaw" is not a foreign policy. The current desecration of Muslim shrines in Iraq could very well flood the entire middle east region. Haters of America might decide to destroy Mecca and blame the infidels for the carnage. Instead of 12 terrorists armed with boxcutters we could very well be confronted by the entire Muslim world. This would be a direct result of false prophets cynically leading the flock astray for their own dubious purposes.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

A Fine Mess

So they're blowing up each others shrines in Iraq now. Saddam was such a bad man and had to go. In his place are our American troops in the midst of a civil war. Their was no other possible outcome for this disastrous pre-emptive bullshit bill of goods we were sold. Religious and ethnic tensions have plagued the area we invaded for thousands of years and our pollyanna president was convinced all he had to do was waltz in there and oust Saddam and we would be greeted as liberators with flowers and parades.

Most certainly he had experts available that might have offered an alternate reality, but that's too much like homework. Besides, he likes the flowers and parades story better. The cartoon protest is like a garden party compared to what happens when someone blows up a shrine. One that stood for twelve hundred years and entombed two guys with major holy mojo. This is an absolute travesty. Every reason put forth for us being there has been demonstrated as false--most of which the government knew was false and the rest of the "evidence" is suspect. We still wait as Senator Footdrag of Kansas refuses to conduct Phase II of the investigation as well as blocked the investigation into the NSA Warrantless eavesdropping program.

War on Terra, war on Iraq, war on Americans in America. Yeah, he's a war President.

Dubai Or Not Dubai

Revelations of selling the management of six of our ports to UAE has stirred up quite a controversy. Strong positions are being staked out on both sides in a curious fashion. Neither side, from what I can tell, is saying they are right. The problem is the other side is wrong.

It sends the wrong signal to allow one company in one part of the world manage the ports and not another from a different part of the world. Or even stronger, it's wrong to be an islamaphobe--it's wrong to be racist--it's wrong to be xenophobic.

And the opposition claims it's wrong allow our ports to be managed by a country with ties to terrorists. It's wrong to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, yet hold the door open for them.

So this is the choice. Right and wrong is always an easy choice, but when faced with two wrong choices one must decide which is least wrong. Maintain at least one (desperately needed) valuable Arab ally that has demonstrated aide in our efforts to combat terrorism? Granted, they may rub shoulders occasionally with shady characters, don't we all. Or should we be better safe than sorry?

Dubious Dubai & Dubya

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the US Government turning the keys of six of our major ports over to a state-owned business with very real ties to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our country. As opposed to the country we are now mired in a pre-emptive war with that had no connection--even though we were assured that the linkage was "pretty well confirmed" by Cheney and Condi. Keys to one and bullets for the other. Apparently one came across with money in hand; the other had to be done the hard way. Of course the war profiteers are profiting from the American treasury, they just have to blow another country to smithereens to earn it.

It would be much easier to believe this administration has a watchful eye on all things at all times and we need not worry since dubya is riding shotgun and people much wiser than the unwashed masses are effectively managing our affairs of state. What would help in this is if you knew some political ideology was driving them. Something like conservative or moderate or liberal--as long as it was something consistent that you could kind of lean on as a guide. Instead, these high idealistic signposts are now splintered, laying in waste and leaning to and fro like so many drunken sailors.

I always understood where conservatives were coming from, and indeed they hold valuable points. I just happen to disagree on several fundamental points. Fair enough. I can never tell where this Administration is coming from. My first reaction to this opening of our ports and letting UAE walk in and take over was bewilderment. Why would Dubya allow terrorist financiers take over several ports? All this talk about coast guard and customs maintaining security at these ports is such bullshit. Mohammed Atta didn't have the fucking keys to the plane either now did he? Which brought out my second reaction--anger. I have listened to democrats demand action and funding to increase our port security. The yellow dog barks and the caravan rolls on. We're fighting 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here.

So, what the hell, it's an election year, let's go ahead and bring 'em over here. Which brought me to my third reaction--fear. A car bomb or a shiny bullet placed strategically into the right person in there homeland and their complete political landscape could change overnight. And god forbid should someone draw a cartoon of the wrong prophet. The hue and cry could be almost immediate "Death to America!" and a boatload of nukes could steam our way. Then another reaction stole into my psyche--suspicion.

A Rovian trap with midterms on the horizon. As my feeble mind is no match to plumb the depths of his deviousness, my fear surprisingly increased. The devil you know (terrorists) versus the devil you don't (Rove). His dirty tricks for political gain have now been played on an international scale. Dubya promised to be a unifier after the grueling campaign marshaled by Rove ended in a supreme court coronation. September 11 gave him that unification, democrats and republicans stood shoulder to shoulder behind or President, as did the entire world, and we were indeed united.

No longer. Any opposition to the President was dealt with by using 9/11 as a blunt political weapon to beat opposition senseless with. The right wing grew more powerful and became intoxicated at the spectacle of wholesale slaughter of debate and laughed and jeered like heathens watching lions eat Christians. It has now grown into a cult where even their own kind are thrown to the lions for gainsaying King George. Now clothed in unfettered omniscience and brandishing a terrible swift sword, he can and does and says his will. Which no longer has any semblance of conservative theory. Nation building, expanded federal government and expanded federal power can in no way be construed as conservative ideals.

Invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, had no WMDs, did not harbor terrorists and had a secular government and replace it with a civil war headed by tribal factions of fanatical religious cultists recruiting and training terrorists to kill Americans. Hell, sign me up. But take a country with undisputed ties to 9/11 and hand our ports over to them. Anyone who speaks out against this is declared a xenophobic racist, or some shit like that. Is the true motive behind these things not a political ideology at all? Is money the driving issue behind these zany policies and hyperbolic defenses of same? Certainly forensic accountants will view all of these transactions and I'm sure it will take years to wade through all of the financial subterfuge--if in fact money was the driving force behind this patchwork of applied political stances.

I'm certain there are some who have already made up their minds on this. That would take a serious leap for me to make. Ravage foreign countries and sell national security for filthy lucre.

A Voice In The Wilderness

I'm constantly amused at the rights nearly unwavering support of George of the Bungle. The modifier is for Harriet Miers. But their support for his NSA warrantless spying program is truly confounding. It reminds me of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson fans unabashed adulation. Blood on the socks and on the car and squirrelly alibi's and Jesus juice could not shake their devotion.

This alarms me when it is applied to the leader of not-so-free world who claims the power to spy, jail and perhaps even torture and kill Americans in America. On his say so alone and no one has the authority to see any evidence against his victims. Has the social Darwinism espoused from the right somehow mutated into this grotesque form of government intrusion? How can anyone defend such an outrageous claim as this? Even though Bush is term limited out, this matter will have to be resolved. Slowly, this issue will hopscotch through requisite hoops until some future resolution will occur. And with the midterms on the horizon, it appears the Democrats are running from this issue for fear of being soft on terror. For god sake, take a stand and tell Bush, in the strongest language possible, to go fuck himself.

Yes the terrorists attacked us but we have faced utter annihilation by far greater threats and came away with our constitution intact. There are those that say these powers the president is invoking are in the constitution and therefore are no threat to it. It is an aberration and wholly foreign to any Americans understanding that any president can intrude on an American citizens life and completely disregard all liberties the citizen thought he had. What bullshit. Hillary needs to quit biting Cheney's' ankle and writing flag burning amendments and demand an accounting of the real attack on American people.

Of course we should spy on terrorists. Duh. Osama shouldn't be calling anyone, he should be dead or rotting in one of our jails. Where is the outrage from our elected democrats? Our very democratic ideals are being assailed by this administration which must be met with an unapologetic full frontal assault on this breach of civil liberties. The time to take a stand on this is now. Require a full hearing to determine who was spied on and for what reason. That is something the Administration wants to keep anyone from knowing. Who gives a shit how they conducted the intercepts and all this gee-whiz technocrap. Demand all content of all files and what constituted reasonable suspicion. Political enemies? Anti-war demonstrators? Reporters?

As Bush continues to plummet in the polls, the moral-relative right wingers will discard him for the unpardonable sin of losing support. As long as he was popular, he could do no wrong. That time has passed as pointed out in Digby's post:

By the time it's all over Bush is going to be seen as a coke-sniffing, frat boy hippy by the movement conservatives. This is how they do it. And then they'll go back to doing the same things they always do --- whatever it takes to win.

I would be surprised if Karl Rove survives the CIA leak investigation in the outing of Valerie Plame. I'm sure he is the one that most Democrats fear when opposing the president on using war powers against American citizens. I know how they feel. When I went to court in a dispute with my ex-wife I had all these rules and shit, like telling the truth, she however did not. It is always unpleasant facing an opponent who will do anything to win while you are bound by certain restraints. Be that as it may, the president has declared war powers on the constituents who elected their representatives to conduct their business. It's time to get busy and some noise.

Our Three Legged Table

America is supported by three legs; Executive, Legislative and Judicial. When one leg grows to long or another too short--we get all wobbly and shit. Weird stuff starts happening and the town crier starts to scratch his head--which gives his balls a vacation. Which is what the press, for the most part, has been doing since 9/11 dubbed our overstuffed codpiece protector-in-chief for a nation of bedwetters. Seems like there is an election coming up and maybe congress is not so willing to be a lapdog for a very unpopular president who claims dictatorial authority.

One politician was concluding a day of very hard door to door campaigning and flesh pressing with a campaign fundraiser picnic at a local park. The main menu item was fried chicken and the famished candidate took his place at the feeding line. The lady with the tongs gave him two pieces of chicken and moved to the next plate. Our famished candidate protested saying he wanted more and added "I'm the candidate". The lady was unmoved as she told him "I'm the one with the tongs."

One would think elected leaders would be as provincial in their own capacity as the chicken lady. Truly, it would be hard to imagine a worse leader than the one we have now. Clearly he is not conservative and yet many conservatives blindly defend his every movement. Lately they seem to be increasingly scrambly, which is a technical term for nervous. Virtually every poll that I have seen shows an extremely unpopular president. He may quickly descend to toxic, or even to the level of Abramoff, radioactive. Imagine the idiocy of selling our port security to the financiers of 9/11. You got to have some major limber lips to sell that one.

I have always had little patients for someone who criticizes any and all statements and objectives of an elective official. I deem them partisan hacks who should be viewed as such and not taken overly seriously. I now find myself uncomfortably within their numbers. I can find no redeeming qualities in this administration and the lickspittle lapdogs in congress who carry their water. The one card they played continuously for political advantage was fear. Fear to blind us to all while they threw open the doors to our treasury for their donors to help themselves. And now they want to sell our port security to terrorist financiers. I mean, they do have money, right?

Last week Glenn Greenwald posted about this blind following of Bush is not patriotism and broached the subject of Republicans using fear for political gain. Apparently Alexandra von Maltzan who blogs at All Things Beautiful took exception to this claim. While true nothing short of a Vulcan mind meld or a short stay at Abu Graib for our leader could produce the undeniable truth to his motives, the circumstantial evidence of the right wing noise machine, led by our protector-in-chief, is nothing short of trying to induce some sort of mass hysteria. And now they want to sell our port security to terrorist financiers.

A heath care policy written by lobbyists, nation building in a disastrous and unnecessary war, no effort to find Osama bin Laden, exploding deficits, the abandonment of Katrina victims, exploding deficit giveaways to big oil, big pharmaceutical and the ultra rich, sham defense companies receiving earmarks to fund Republican campaigns, disastrous environmental laws, miners being killed by appointing lobbyists over mine safety, and on and on and on. I find no redeeming qualities for this administration and those who allow them free reign to rape pillage and plunder this country. And now they want to sell the advantage they felt they had. Those who now defend this administration are the beneficiaries of the sacking of America.

Bush Claims War Powers On Americans

Attorney General Aberto Gonzales claimed the warrantless domestic eavesdropping authorized by President Bush is legal according to Article II of the constitution at his recent testimony regarding the NSA spying program. Many disagree. The point is the disturbing position taken by the White House. Glenn Greenwald spelled out very clearly the Administrations claims:

(1) The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him.

Whether this radically perverted view of presidential power is legal or not, will be decided by the courts. The point is in the claim itself, and the belief this administration has that it can listen in on private conversations, (e-mail, snail mail) gather intelligence on whoever they feel is a threat to "national security", (Quakers, student protestors) jail American citizens for years with no charges or access to lawyers or the courts (Padilla) with no oversite whatsoever.

The legal position stated by Gonzales is very disturbing and should alarm and outrage all Americans. An administration that claims the exclusive authority to spy, jail, and perhaps even torture and kill its citizens is a claim wholly foreign to all Americans. As Glenn pointed out, this is not a liberal or conservative outrage but one that subverts all Americans basic understanding of the founding priciples of our country.

Contrary to the central deceit manufactured by Bush followers over the last five years, patriotism is not defined by loyalty to a particular elected official. Indeed, excess loyalty to a single individual is the very antithesis of patriotism, as it places fealty to that individual over allegiance to the country, its interests and its values. Patriotism is measured by the extent to which one believes in, and is willing to fight for and defend, the defining values and core principles of our country.

This cannot stand. We must demand action to reign in this blatant power grab and insist the rule of law be brought to bear on this totalitarian viewpoint. Exercise your freedom of speech while you still have it.

Take Republicans To The Woodshed

Some guys at work were talking the other day when I came up and it became clear the one that was doing most of the talking was a Faux news fan. I smiled and called him a wingnut. He looked down at me (figuratively and literally; he's quite a bit bigger than me, but when it comes to pugilistic endeavors, well, I'll just say I'm into that sort of thing) and said I couldn't be a liberal because I had a job. Amazing. I told him the two were not mutually exclusive and I am a liberal but I appreciated the flowers anyhow (that's CB radio talk for thanks for the compliment).

My brother and me were raised by a single mother who worked everyday. My sister came along later and all of us grew up outside the penitentiary and off the pipe. And we all work everyday. It's unfortunate that my coworker has been blinded by the right. The belief that somebody took all the wacky liberals and threw a tent over the circus and called it the Democratic party. Do I have problems with the dem's? Sure I do. However my problems with the Republicans are long, deep and wide.

I see it primarily as a value issue. Or the conflict between the value placed on people instead of things. It should be obvious to the reasonable person, which of these two choices is the right one. Human rights should be a centerpiece issue in all of our foreign policy decisions. The women of Islam are treated atrociously and have no rights whatsoever. However, the policies of this leadership shows they have made a disturbing value choice in nearly all areas including Tax policy, Environment, Health Care, Jobs, wages and immigration. And it's not just this administration. The republicans have convinced me that they truly don't care. Not by what they say, (since I'm not a member I don't have a decoder ring) but what they do.

Tax Policy

We call this redistribution of wealth. And yes, we'll be using the same words, but with dramatically different meanings. One of the greatest things in this country is our infrastructure. Hot and cold running water, lights you don't have to use a match on, highways and bridges, even our system of economy. All these things took a large investment in time effort and money. And this infrastructure allowed some people to become quite wealthy, which is the American way. Republicans believe the people who became wealthy by taking full advantage of the opportunities this system has provided, should not be required to contribute their share of the upkeep of it. Bush just submitted a budget of 2.77 trillion dollars to congress replete with cuts to farms, medical research, health for our seniors, student education and more. But he wants the tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans to be made permanent. Corporations are required by tax code to pay 35%. With tax shelter schemes many have reduced their tax load down to 15%. The cost to America has been conservatively estimated at $75 billion per year. Some estimates run as high as $250 billion.

Meanwhile a disastrous war rages in Iraq where our soldiers are protected with second rate body armor. Where is the shared sacrifice in this budget in the face of staggering debt? Certainly not with those who have benefited the most. This tax policy does not value people. It is simply a version of the failed "Trickle On" policies of Ronald Reagan. We clearly have a record in modern times of sound policies that demonstrates the triumph of people v. things. Twelve years of Republican leadership (Reagan and GW) Eight years of Democrat (Clinton) and now five years of W. In case you were asleep it went: massive deficit spending, surplus and paying down the debt, and back to massive deficit spending.

Now certainly, the republicans can point to 9/11 and inherited the "Clinton Recession" and Iraqistan and the Australian tse tse fly. This is not leadership. Step up. I have little patients for lack of responsibility.

Environment

I think we're in serious trouble with this one. Fortunately this Administration has passed the Clean Air Act and the Healthy Forest Initiative. Oh, wait, I don't have my decoder ring so I don't really know what that means. (snark) Well, yes I do. The default interpretation is usually the opposite. Allow industry free reign to rape, pillage and plunder our environment. And many of these Corporations use fancy offshore tax dodge schemes. In the 50s the tax load was split about fifty fifty between corporations and individuals. Now corporations pay less than 14% of tax revenues collected. Are they good Americans?

Jobs

The old saying is if you think high wages are the answer, vote Democrat. If you think high wages are a problem, vote Republican. I understand a business owner feeling the government has no business in his business. Deregulate everything and rely on "Social Darwinism." To adopt this policy is to ignore our history of tenement housing for the working class with wealth and power consolidated into the hands of the few. A business owner can operate because these regulations are in place. It is a well founded policy in civil society to regulate businesses. To avoid these burdensome regulations many companies have moved operations overseas where they pay Chinese laborers (who have no protections) 30 cents an hour, incorporate in the Grand Cayman Islands to evade taxes, and reduce America to consumers. Those jobs that cannot be exported, such as the harvesting of our natural resources, like oil and gas, agricultural, road construction, etc. are being taken over by illegal immigrant at the tacit endorsement of this Administration. Abu Gonzales sent a letter out to judges reprimanding them for being to hard on illegals. Fascinating. Wholesale outsourcing of our jobs and flood the market with cheap labor.

Health Care

Seems we've been paying everyone else's bill. We have been informed that Americans are paying for R & D for the whole world because our government won't come up with a sane Health Care Policy. Pharmaceutical companies have the most active of all lobbies in DC. If they hear of a bill being considered they twist arms, grease palms wallpaper congressional districts with flyers--ie a full court press. And the American people pay out the nose for health care. This is untenable. When Clinton was in office and he handed this project off to Hillary she was roundly criticized. This administration fixed it so the government couldn't get price breaks and Americans couldn't order cheaper drugs from Canada.

We need to reevaluate where we place our values. This Administration places the highest value on profits from the wealthiest of citizens, rampant cronyism and maintaining power. The midterms are coming up and we will see if the influence of lobby dollars in campaign can purchase enough smoke to cloud the vision of the electorate. Or is it already entirely too late.

survey in: chicks dig old white guys

Gonzales Testifies; Can't Find Bible

So I listened to most of the hearings on the radio today. Abu Gonzo weaved and bobbed in an attempt to demonstrate his superior constitutional knowledge. His arguements were sprinkled with "clearly" this and "obviously" that, gently remonstrating the roomful of subordinates for not understanding the power of Jefe. I won't even try to rebut the dizzying arguements made on the opening day, I'll leave that in the cabable hands of Glenn. I'm just glad it was a debate and not just a cheering section.

What came through to me was we have this superduper secret spy program that's so secret they won't show anyone outside the echo chamber what's going on. They use the word "international" but when Abu Gonzo was asked if any intercepts happened from American soil to American soil he couldn't discuss operational details. No shit. Could it be because it goes against your shiny new title of "International Terrorist Surveillance program?" Basically he said this is legal, MYOB, we're professionals so trust us. Trust us??

You see, this is where the rub is. I mean, this administration has done such a bang-up job up 'til now. Starting with the smear on Senator Mcain in the primaries to election night. And that was just the pre-game. They can tap dance all around the legal issues if they want but the real issue is credibility, and the lack thereof. George of the Bungle's 45 day re-authorization reveiw was described as careful and thoughtful. Like when he was Governor of Texas and reduced his review time of death penalty cases from half an hour to 15 minutes.

So we have one of the nastiest campaigners in the White House controlling a superduper computer hearing aide. Who is he going to protect? Himself or the country? We already know they spy on their political enemies ala Tricky Dicky. The stories are already out here and here and here. I would rather Gonzo and Bungle be led off in leg Irons. Short of that, somebody has got to be able to look over these guy's shoulder.

Republican Finance Scheme Update

Earlier I posted about a sleazy Republican tactic using tax money to finance campaigns. I guess this is an extension of the disgraced and convicted felon Republican Duke Cunningham. Alas, one goes down and ten more pop up sticking their hands out. Read all about it here, here and here.

All of congress is atwitter with the reform movement. They write a bill and pass it and go home and say, look at what I've done. They are, after all, lawmakers. We've been writing laws for what, 200 years now, and they think this or that will be the magic law? The answer is honest lawmakers. And they aren't called republicans. Sure the Dems have had their share of crooks, but these guys are apparently bred to believe they are entitled to loot our treasury. Throw 'em out. Get busy.

Dems Chances at Midterm Elections

Seems most Dems are getting a little antsy over the Government warrantless spying program. I guess they have good reason, since Rove came out with the offensive stance he's directing the Republicans to use. Something like anyone who opposes the President and his "terrorist surveillance program" is giving aide and comfort to the enemy. His sleazy tactics are well known. So it is not surprising that these neocons can endorse torture, warrantless spying, pre-emptive attacks on a non-threat and emptying our treasury.

Democrats face two enemies who will do whatever it takes to acheive their goals. The reason a terrorist straps a bomb to his chest and gets on a bus is because he doesn't have an F-16. If he did and dropped a bomb on a neighborhood he would be considered part of a legitimate government. The reason Rove conducted "push polls" against Mcain in the primary, where callers asked respondents if they were aware that Senator Mcain had an illegitimate black child, would they be more or less likely to vote for him, was to become a legitimate government.

When questioned by a reporter like Timmeh or Tweety on domestic spying the suggested response should be, "If Osama bin Laden or Al Quaeda is calling someone in America, I'll want to know why." When pressed about warrantless spying it would simply be a matter of pointing out that no judge would fail to issue a warrant on those grounds.

But this is not the only issue, even though this one is huge. Corruption is another big one. Even beyond Abramoff. In the budget reduction Act Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) gave $22 billion back to the health insurance industry--that had previously been cut--in a closed door session, no Democrats allowed. And there is case after case of these shady dealings going on. Another shady republican finance scheme, if true, shows the depth of their sleaze. You open up a whole slew of front companies and call them defense contractors. You submit a bunch of bids the pentagon didn't ask for and get your republican buddies to put a bunch of earmarks into a spending bill and presto-changeo, you turn tax dollars into republican TV commercials. This story was broke by Google Sherlock over at Kos.

Medicare has been turned into a joke. Our senior citizens are looking at acres of forms like a bull looking at a new gate. More complicated and more expensive. Governors across the country are scrambling to pick up the slack. Incomes are going down, good jobs are being lost, the environment is being destroyed, our treasuries been plundered, our military is getting short shriff, the constitution is being pushed aside and Republicans are on the take.

Looking across this withering failure of Republican policies, I think the Democrats stand an outstanding chance. After many years of being politically inactive, I have been spurred into action. Not just by quietly typing away a tirade and railing against the system, but physically as well. I have donated to my local Democratic party and have started, once again to become involved. My goal is to get two or three of my friends involved as well. It's a realistic goal and I feel confident I can do it. I think it's worth my time and effort to replace as many Republicans as possible and send a message that I want a good steward of the publics trust and wisdom in our foreign policy.

Abramoff Attempts To Quash Accounting

In a little known angle to the Abramoff scandal, he funneled half a million dollars of tribal gaming funds to the leader of a Republican front group appointed by Gale Norton, Secretary of Interior for the apparent purpose of stalling an audit that may reveal a shortage of payments to the tune of $176 billion to...you guessed it...indians.
Hand picked by Norton, Italia Federici leads the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) and gave Abramoff an inside track to the DoI. Seems they were pretty chummy. The attempt (so far successfully) to stall the accounting of the DoI is a tale that makes Erin Brockovich look like a sandbox squabble. In Cobell v. Norton, the largest class action lawsuit in history, pits Elouise Cobell, a Blackfoot banker representing 500,000 indians who claims the DoI has shorted payments to their indian clients by $176 billion. She means to collect.
Opposing her efforts are the DoI, the considerable resources of the Department of Justice and 35 of the countries most expensive law firms. Naturally the indians are concerned that the negative implications of the Abramoff and gaming interest will spill over into making indian causes a bad thing. Mary Beth Williams writes a series of articles on this very complicated but ultimately tragic example of how we continue to fuck Native Americans over. Do yourself a favor and read about it and link to it.

The Omniscient Burning Bush

People have a habit of putting words together that don't go. Like Government Intelligence and President Bush. This whole spying on Americans program is just a little disturbing. Coupled with the fact that George of the Bungle has as much credibility as Pee Wee Herman on opposite day. Only this isn't funny. When Dubya say's limited, we know by default it's massive. When He says focused, He means on everyone. Back in late 2002 John Markoff for NYT foreshadowed the program this way:

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described
the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence
analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from
Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and
travel documents, without a search warrant.
Historically, military and
intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without
extraordinary legal authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national
security adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government
needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute details of
electronic life in the United States.

That's right, the same Poindexter indicted and convicted of 7 felony charges during the Iran-contra investigation of the early '90s (later overturned on appeal). Since he was running the "Total Information Awareness" program (an ominous sounding name without even pointing out that the aconym TIA is spanish for aunt. Seems Uncle Sam's ole lady is a nosey bitch) it didn't pass the smell test with congress and they cut the funding to it.

So apparently the Administration just did an end run around congress and the judicial branch as well. From what I gather, data mining isn't a way to track persons of interest. It seems like its a way to find persons of interest--by just spying on everyone and trying to root out bad guys. Now I'm not a lawyer but it seems like it would be pretty hard to get a warrant for something like that. "Judge we think there's a bad guy in Cleveland so we'd like a warrant to search everybody in town until we find a crook." Maybe that's why Bush's advisers told him FISA wouldn't work with nosey TIA.

Calls For Special Prosecutor In NSA Spy Case

The calls for a special prosecutor to investigate George of the Bungle's warrantless domestic spying program are becoming louder as more people join the ranks of the dissatisfied. For some reason, that defies logic, this growing crowd does not trust Dubya's chief cheerleader in illegal activity, Attorney General Abu Gonzales. Why wouldn't the author of the torture memo and humanitarian protector of organ failure be able to apply the law to his boss? After all, he scoured the courts to find a judge who would remove the protections of the Geneva conventions from POW's by listing them as enemy combatants. He found the best judge he could. So good in fact he is now chief justice of the Supreme Court. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

So now who is it exactly that would appoint this independent prosecutor? An Abu Gonzales mini me?

Rumsfeld Compares Chavez to Hitler

Seems like it's being called ugly by a frog. Exporting a nations ideology at the point of a gun and invading a sovereign nation to do so. Who could this be refering too? But this is what Rumsfeld had to say about someone else:

"I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld added. "He's a person who was elected legally - just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally - and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others."

Damn. Used the "H" word. These neocons are way out of control. Do their campaign contibutors need more no bid contracts? WTF?

New House leader

Republicans hold erection; Get Boner

Sorry about the typo's, I'll try to be more careful. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected to the House of Representatives second most powerful position on the second vote. Seems there were more votes cast than members on the first ballot. Boehner is confident that all the fuss about the "culture of corruption" will die out in a few weeks. I think the Dem's will be making this a big issue in the mid-terms as Boehner will probably just make a few cosmetic changes. So this is good news for the Dem's as the Repub's have selected an ubersleazeball as their leader. Let's retake the House and investigate George of the Bungle so we can give him a premature ejection.

Republican Is Now A Dirty Word

These guys make my penis itch. The right wing noise machine hyperventilates over Cindy Sheehan, the dead soldier pimp/moonbat/anti-American/Osama hugger, attempting to assault our glorious commander-in-chief with a t-shirt. Glenn Greenwald bravely entered right wing blogs to see what they were saying about her. This was after he pointed out that no rule or law was broken and she shouldn't have been arrested. I think Glenn must be a lawyer or something. He hangs out some of the bedwetters urine soaked sheets for us to see. It's a great read, especially the non-retraction retraction. The Capitol police has since apologized and admitted (Glenn was right--he must be a good lawyer) that no law or rule was broken. No such action from most of the right wing noise machine.

Now it seems there are missing e-mails from the office of the Sith Lord. Scooter needs them for his defense but Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald said somethings amiss with the archives. Since tricky Dick had problems with missing recordings, a law was passed in 1978 saying all communications of the White House are the property of the government and must be archived. Digby pointed out the outrage the Republicans expressed when supposedly there was a missing e-mail that Lewinski had sent to Clinton. Poor Bill, republicans climbed so far up his ass he could taste brylcreme. Where is their outrage now?

This lying, cheating hypocracy runs rampant in the Republican Party. MyDD grew a little weary of the limpwristed polls the MSM was doing on the warrantless domestic spying program which, predictably, produced vanilla results. So they put out their own poll. A real cinchy no-brainer question was should congress investigate and stunningly 72.5% of the Republicans said no! And if he had broken the law 64.7% of the Republicans opposed or strongly opposed impeachment and removal from office. And I thought there was no loyalty among theives. Oh, that's right, I haven't got to the theiving part yet.

Whoever said "Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes," didn't know Dick. Before achieving Sith Lord status Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. During his tenure, Halliburton's offshore tax havens went from nine to 44 and its taxes shrank from paying $302 million to an $85 million refund. This tax me if you can scheme has shifted the tax burden to people, like me, who shower after they get off work. In 1940 the taxes were pretty evenly divided--about half were paid by corporations and about half were paid by individuals. Now corporations pay 13.7% and individuals pay 86.3%. The IRS estimates these tax dodge schemes cost the American Government approximately $70 billion per year. Charles Rossotti, IRS Commissioner from 1997 to 2002 estimates it at closer to $250 to $350 billion a year, or about 15%. And today the Republican controlled congress celebrating carving $40 billion out of the budget by reducing spending for low income sick people and child support and student loans. These guys make my penis itch.

President's New Health Care Initiative

I work with a guy named Mike and whenever I say to him "What do you say, Mike?" he always answers the same way. "Save your money." I think that's what I heard in the SOTU speech last night. Mike is a wise old sage.