Does anybody REALLY read this guy?

I had never heard of Jonah Goldberg until his column suddenly appeared in my local scratchsheet, yet another right wing commentator on an editorial page already over-burdened with them (which the wingnut residents of my town pillory regularly in the letter pages for being too liberal). I read his column once and was immediately outraged. It reeked of narcissism, and a toxic dose of neocon arrogance. It is now shunned, along with Cal Thomas, and Bill "Never-met-a-lie-I-didn't-like" O'Reilly.

I just don't get it. How can someone with better than half-a-brain continue to be an apologist for the worst presidency in American history, an administration with a pathological aversion to the truth that has done more to trash the ideals of this nation than any of its predecessors, an administration whose arrogance and incompetence would be laughable were it not for the fact that hundreds of thousands of innocents have died because of them?

Justin Raimundo said it pretty well on his blog: "Jonah Goldberg's facile punditry masks a truly nasty nature seems beyond dispute: after all, here is someone who made his reputation, such as it is, retailing sex tapes surreptitiously recorded, "leaking" a trail of slime that eventually slipped up a President. A more fitting symbol of the Clinton era conservative movement – a gaggle of remarkably unattractive character assassins, bereft of ideas and fixated on filth – would be hard to imagine."

And Juan Cole hoisted the fool by his petard a few years ago when Jolly Jonah was still one of the Iraq invasion's biggest cheerleaders. But what really gets my goat is the sense that Goldberg pontificates without any direct, firsthand experience of most of the things he writes about. Or, to quote a reader of Mr. Cole's: "He looks to be of military age. Ask him why his sorry ass isn't in the kill zone."

How does he sleep?

The Country of Dick*

Just as George W. Bush has redefined the American presidency as a monarchy, so has Dick Cheney re-defined the Vice Presidency as the power behind the throne of the idiot king. Prime Minister Cheney, he of the perpetual sneer and black heart has declared himself a government unto himself. As reported in the Washington Post yesterday, Blackheart Dick's office has refused for 4 years to comply with an executive order demanding that classified information is handled according to the rule of law. The Dick went so far as to propose that the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives and Records Administration served with confirming compliance with the executive order be abolished this year when his office was once again pressed for the reports.

The penchant for secrecy of the Cheney/Bush administration has been unmatched in American history. The American public has been denied the right to know who was involved in Dickie's energy task force (which set energy policy for this craven administration), where Cheney travelled on private funds, and, most recently, the Secret Service logs of visitors to his fortress-like residential compound in Arlington.

Who does this nasty little brute think he is? His is the true face of the Bush Presidency, and it is extraordinary to me that this creep's favorable ratings hover near single digits while Dubya's maintain at 25%. Is that quarter of the American public so god damned stupid that they can't connect The Prime Minister to the King?

That's a rhetorical question.

*I thank Randi Rhodes for the concept of the "the Country of Dick."

Judicial Watch Releases New FBI Documents: Osama bin Laden May Have Chartered Saudi Flight Out of U.S. after 9/11

Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released new documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the formerly confidential documents, dated 9/21/2001, terrorist Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

Read the whole story.

President Schmuck

I realized that some accidental visitors to this blog may take offense at my referring to the President of the United States as as a "sad, sick, silver-spoon loser." I meant to say "sad, sick, silverspoon, emotionally stunted, shallow, INSENSITIVE asshole." Why? Read this:

Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show on National Public Radio.

One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”

An excerpt from the interview on NPR's Tell Me More can be heard here.

Read more here.

President Wackjob

Need any more convincing?

Georgie Anne Geyer wrote recently in the Dallas Morning News about President Bush’s strange behavior during a recent meeting with “[f]riends of his from Texas” who were shocked to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

Read more about this sad, sick, silver-spoon loser's meltdown here.

US Attorney Resigns After Greg Palast Delivers Emails to John Conyers

Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.

Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.

Read more at Greg Palast's web site.

The plan to steal '08

While, the Dems cave on Iraq war benchmarks, seemingly forgetting why the American people gave them Congress back, the real scandal of the Republican leadership (yeah, I know: "which scandal?") lies undetected right under their noses. And even as the Judiciary committee calls yet another braindead graduate of Pat Robertson's law school to chant "I don't remember" under oath, the evidence of Karl Rove's felonious assault on our democracy, replete with the fingerprints of his soft, pale white hands, is stinking right in front of their noses.

Leave it to Greg Palast, intrepid American investigative reporter (who has to work for the BBC 'cause no one except Air America and Democracy Now will touch his stuff) to get the goods on the imperial pasty one and his goon Tim Griffin (currently the "interim" DA for Arkansas - a swing state, I remind you). In a nutshell, Palast and a buddy registered a website "rnc.com" in the hopes that the Rovebots would screw up and send emails to that address rather than "rnc.org" - the correct web site of the Republican National Committee. They were using the RNC instead of official government email addresses so that the emails wouldn't be potential public record.

And why would they be concerned about that? Only because they were breaking the law. Anyway, Bush's boy "genius" did screw up. And some 500 emails went to the bogus site. Well, Greg's got them, and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, is interested (finally).

In this case, the law being broken involves a process known as "caging." ‘Caging’ was a 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign scheme to challenge, on false evidence, the right to vote of tens of thousand of African-American voters.

Here’s how caging works: letters were sent “Do Not Forward” to voters at home addresses. When the letters were returned to sender (”caged”), the voter’s right to vote was challenged. The letters, however, were targeted at African-American homeless men, students — and soldiers send overseas (many to Bush & Cheney's nasty little oil war in Iraq) — all legal voters who, because they were shipped to Iraq or for other reasons, were not at their home address. BBC obtained 50 ‘caging’ lists with 70,000 voters including large groups of servicemen.

Now, it just so happens that Rove's protege Tim Griffin, thrust into the position in Arkansas by the Rotund Rove himself, was neck deep in this little operation. Palast showed, on camera, the email he intercepted from the Bush campaign, “Subject: caging,” written by Griffin himself, making clear that Griffin was not just involved, the but the director of this vote fixing scheme. So, what does this have to do with the 2008 election? Do yourself a favor and buy the paperback edition of Palast's "Armed Madhouse" and educate yourself.

(Some text in this post was borrowed from Greg Palast's web site).

General Batiste: "Protect America, Not George Bush"

It all began with Reagan

Watching the Republican candidates "debate" (an old white guy chorus line), it struck me how they all strained not to utter the "B" word (BUSH), but invoked the ghost of Ronald Reagan at every turn. Ah, Reagan. Was it with this president that the American predilection for delusion kicked into full gear? I mean, how did this B movie actor of limited intellect and a surfeit of polyester charm ever get turned into a statesman, much yet a hero? It was Thom Hartmann the other day who really nailed it on the head: it all started with Reagan. The casting of government as the world's greatest evil by its chief executive officer. And Americans, so simple-minded as to not see the awful irony in that syllogism, fell for it hook, line and sinker.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan

It was during those eight years of the great communicator that the apparatus that held some sort of line to keep the excesses of unrestrained market capitalism from leaving tread marks on our backs was slowly dismantled, beginning an inexorable slide towards the era of corporate oligarchy that now is in full flower with George W. Bush. Did it begin with the breaking of the air traffic controllers union? Was that the Lexington of this reverse revolution? Reagan, with his winsome folksiness (he was much better at it than Dubya) convinced us that it would be morning in America again as long as we cut taxes (especially for the wealthy), deregulated industry, and terminated as many social programs as possible. With that avuncular style (probably as much a function of Alzheimer's early onset as artifice), Ronnie convinced us that it would be good to concentrate the wealth of the nation in a few hands. We began to trade one welfare state for another - that of social welfare for corporate welfare. And Uncle Ron assured us that it would "trickle down." And it has. Oh, how it has. But it is more like a shit stream than a trickle.

So here we are. It's a May morning in America. President Headuphisass wants 35,000 more soldiers for fodder in Iraq (a country whose parliament just voted in the majority that it would better if we left). Both California and Florida are burning. Kansas can't help its tornado devastated towns because their National Guard and most of their equipment are occupying Iraq. A wild arctic seal turns up in a canal in Fort Lauderdale, and dies while convalescing at Sea World. Gasoline reaches record heights in price, even though the wholesale price per barrel is lower now than a year ago. Rupert Murdoch tries to buy Dow Jones. AT&T is on its way to become a monopoly. Again. The dollar falls while the Stock Market rises, and another 1000? 10,000? homes go into foreclosure . A few mega corporations control most of what we see and hear in the media. Oh, and American industry? We don't have a whole lot of that anymore. Japanese cars made in the States are more red-blooded American than your average Chevy, Ford or Dodge. Try and tell that to your typical F-250 driver. Ford doesn't even promote their macho trucks anymore as "built in America." It's the truck that "built America." I doubt that the American Idol audience caught the subtlety. And, a REPUBLICAN president ushered in the largest growth in both the Federal administration and the deficit in decades, while enriching the coffers of countless war-profiteering corporate government contractors

So thanks, Ron. I hope we've done you proud. It's a brave new world. And a warmer one.

Bush is over

You know it's tough when the Attack Dog calls out the Pit Bull

We learned today that Dick Cheney's blood clot in his leg is now smaller. Certainly it is smaller than the blood clot in his head, where, it is rumored, his brain was once ensconced. How else to explain rolling out disgraced former bug killing Congressman Tom DeLay to out-Rush Rush in impugning the Democratic leadership of both Houses of Congress? It's not so much that the indicted Dickhead has come galloping to the Bushites defense, but more the timbre of his words. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "are getting very, very close to treason," DeLay said in a meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. This, from a self-absorbed corruption king who treated his power base in Washington as a fiefdom, replete with tribute laid at his feet, a man who gerrymandered the most transparently undemocratic redistricting in Texas history; in short, from a criminal. Oh, and while we're talking about treasonous words, here are some quotes about the current Iraq war bill sure to meet with a Dubya veto, from some other prominent "traitors:"
“This important legislation sets a new direction for Iraq. It acknowledges that America went to war without mobilizing the nation, that our strategy in Iraq has been tragically flawed since the invasion in March 2003, that our Army and Marine Corps are at the breaking point with little to show for it, and that our military alone will never establish representative government in Iraq. The administration got it terribly wrong and I applaud our Congress for stepping up to their constitutional responsibilities.”

-Maj. Gen. John Batiste, USA, Ret.

“This bill gives General Petraeus great leverage for moving the Iraqi government down the more disciplined path laid out by the Iraq Study Group. The real audience for the timeline language is Prime Minister al-Maliki and the elected government of Iraq. The argument that this bill aides the enemy is simply not mature - nobody on the earth underestimates the United States’ capacity for unpredictability. It may further create some sense of urgency in the rest of our government, beginning with the State Department.”
-Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.

“The bill gives the president a chance to pull back from a disastrous course, re-orient US strategy to achieve regional stability, and win help from many other countries - the only way peace will eventually be achieved.”
-Lt. Gen. Wm. E. Odom, USA, Retired

"Supporting the Iraq Supplemental Bill not only reflects the thinking of the Iraq Study Group but puts teeth to the phrase “Supporting the Troops”. By establishing timelines it returns the responsibility of self preservation and regional sovereignty to the people of Iraq and their government.”
-Maj. Gen. Mel Montano, USANG, Ret

“We must commence a coordinated phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and condition our continuing support of the Iraqi government on its fulfilling the political commitments it has made to facilitate reconciliation of the contending secular factions. Otherwise, we will continue to be entwined in a hopeless quagmire, with continuing American casualties, which will render our ground forces ineffective.”
- Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, USA Ret.

Get the picture?

Hats off to you, Dennis

You gotta love Dennis Kucinich. He is to the House what the late, great Paul Wellstone was to the Senate, a progressive voice of conscience and principle. Rep, Kucinich has filed impeachment papers on Attack-Dog-In-Chief Dick "Sureshot" Cheney, the REAL President of the United States. Do I think that Kucinich has an icicle's chance in hell of ever being elected president? No, sadly, I really don't. But I am sure glad he sits on the Hill. Now, as to whether his articles of impeachment against the Vice Emperor will succeed; well, kids, start calling your Congressperson and tell them "I'm mad as hell, and I want that Dick out!"

"Vice President Cheney purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of American forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to national security interests."

Karl Rove Freaks Out

If you hadn't heard the news, the White House Michelin Man went nutso at last Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner when sultry rock singer Sheryl Crow touched his arm during an exchange on global warming (oh, naturally Mr. Rove is GW denyer - global warming that is; he believes everything the other GW says -- well, actually he writes everything the other GW says). Read the story firsthand at the Huffington Post in a piece by Laurie David and Sheryl herself.

Now if it had been Ms. Crow's ex paramour Lance Armstrong who had touched him, Karlito might have positively swooned...

"In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, 'Don't touch me.' How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, 'You can't speak to us like that, you work for us.' Karl then quipped, 'I don't work for you, I work for the American people.' To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, 'We are the American people.'"

Statement by the NRA

Several days ago, the National Rifle Association posted its statement on the horrendous murders at Virginia Tech. I don't see how anyone could not fail to be moved by the heartfelt compassion of these words, by the deep and abiding solace contained in this commentary:

"The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

"We will not have further comment until all the facts are known."

Gonzo

courtesy of BuckFush.com.

None dare call it conspiracy

If you doubt that there has been a systematic effort on the part of the Bush administration to disenfranchise voters most likely to line up on the Democratic side of the fence, read this report by Greg Gordon of the McClatchy Newspaper group. It is an eye opener.


"For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

"The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won."

Now, as to the Republican mantra about "voter fraud," what do the real statistics have to say about its prevalence? Read "The Myth Of Voter Fraud" by Washington Post reporters Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt to find out just what a smokescreen this claim is, hatched by febrile brain of Machiavellian and sociopathic pudgemeister Karl Rove.

"As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It's just as important to focus on 'why,' such as the reason given for the firing of at least one of the U.S. attorneys, John McKay of Washington state: failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud.

"Allegations of voter fraud -- someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote -- have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.

"But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch."

Is Internet 2 a scam to kill net neutrality and tame the Wild Wild Web?

Read much of the computer media and the prosody about Internet 2 is decidedly purplish and positive. New bandwidth! Ultra speed! But is there a dark side to the architecture of a new Internet that cuts right to the heart of the executive branch's wet dream of total control over everything that we do (and corporate America's desire to make us pay for the privilege)?

Read this article by Steve Watson at Global Research and decide for yourself.

Here is a sample of the just the sort of controls envsioned for a "new, improved Internet:"

• In a display of bi-partisanship, there have recently been calls for all out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike.
  
• Republican Senator John McCain recently tabled a proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.
  
• During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."
  
• The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.
  
• The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
  
• In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." His solution is "intelligence fusion centers," staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year.
  
• The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance.
  
• A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.
  
• A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.
  
• The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.
  
• The EU data retention bill, passed last year after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens' data on phone calls, sms', emails and instant messaging services.
  
• The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.
  
• The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. "At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites."

And they'll probably figure out a way to charge us for it as well

We learned yesterday that the Bush administration has created a database of every single prescription drug user/patient in the country (that would pretty much be all of us). The database was created pursuant to a 2005 law that was intended to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs. Funny that this massive new database of your private medical information is now being (ab)used for a purpose that wasn't intended in or approved by the law.

The federal database of your private medical information is now being used by federal law enforcement to investigate crimes that have nothing to do with prescription drug abuse. We know this because yesterday ABC News disclosed that the feds checked the database to see what prescription meds the Virginia Tech shooter might have been on. How does the mass murder of students and faculty at Virginia Tech have anything to do with prescription drug abuse? It doesn't.

The Bush administration has created a massive database of your private medical records and they're now abusing it. Gee, what a surprise - the Bush administration secretly prying into our private lives in violation of the law. If they wanted this power, they could have sought it from Congress. They didn't. So they took it anyway, even though the law doesn't allow it.

Your privacy is gone, and it's not terribly clear that anyone in Washington cares.

-- John Avarosis, America Blog

The Inexplicable Enrichment of Bush Cronies

If you need any further evidence (or just want a digest of the collective tidbits) of what the most venally corrupt presidential administration in American history has wrought for its friends, patrons, associates and former employees, read this article by Evelyn Pringle. It is guaranteed to set your blood boiling, and inspire fantasies of Robespierrian flirtations with guillotines and such. Unless, of course, you were one of those friends, patrons, associates or former employees.

"Halliburton CEO David Lesar made $26.6 million in 2005, and nearly $50 million since 9/11, an amount that even beats the $24 million that Dick Cheney received in exchange for the guarantee that Halliburton would be the number one military contractor during the Bush administration. "

Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car."
-- Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler Motors

Lee Iacocca has had enough and he isn't gonna take it anymore. So, what the hell is wrong with the rest of us?

Read more here.