McCain't

I'm a little worried.

It looks like the GOP may have found its great white hope. It is telling that the first two Republican governors to endorse John McCain were California's' Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida's Charlie Christ, the two party "centrists" that put the greatest distance between themselves and the Bush mob early on. Mark my words, everything that comes out of the mouths of the remaining Republican candidates will continue to evoke the nostalgia of the ultimate anti-Bush, the Alzheimer's Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the man who christened the corporatist ship-of-state, who with his avuncular, B-movie actor's charm, convinced a sizable share of America that government was the problem, not the solution (and never asking what that made him by association) while giving the CIA leave to smuggle and sell crack to fund the Contras. Yes, we can be entertained at least until "super" Tuesday (Super Bowl, super rich, super size me - what is it with us friggin' Americanos?) by McCain, Romney and Huckabee all trying to out-Reagan each other, while Ron Paul does his strange, Libertarian version of Dennis Kucinich. My guess is the nomination is McCain's to lose.

Whatever lingering respect I had for John McCain was lost when I watched him climb in George W. Bush's lap after being eviscerated by the Rovian slime machine during the 2000 primary season. It was at that point, in his hunger to one day occupy the Oval Office, that McCain stopped being his own man.

So why I am worried? Because I don't think Hillary Clinton can defeat John McCain. If Clinton is crowned as the candidate of the Democratic party, I fear that many young people, for whom Barak Obama represents their future, will sit this one out. I fear that some progressives, who see a palpable difference between Barak and Hilary, but not necessarily between her and McCain, may too. And the independents, who loathe the Clintons almost as much as their Republican half-siblings, will rationalize their votes for McCain. And meanwhile, the GOP war machine, aided and abetted by Rupert Murdoch, engineered by Karl Rove, will do what they do best. They may not even have to steal this one.

And what would a McCain presidency portend for the nation? Less jobs. More wars. The real McCain?

Congressman Robert Wexler, American Hero

As it becomes ever clearer that many of our Democratic leaders in congress have been at least tangentially complicit in some of the abuses of the Bush administration, whether by failure to act, actual knowledge, or direct participation, one Florida Congressman and two colleagues seems to have found the courage to get behind the Hon. Dennis Kucinich's legislation to begin impeachment proceeding against VP Darth Vad ... er, I mean Dick Cheney.

From the Daily Kos post by Dave Lindorff:

"Faced with an obstructionist leadership in the House, and a mainstream media that have forsaken their role as a Fourth Estate monitor of government abuse, three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee are calling on the public to demand that the Congress initiate impeachment hearings immediately against Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Speaking at a telephone press conference Friday organized by Democrats.com, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) said that following a bi-partisan vote Nov. 7 by the full House to send Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment bill (H Res 799, formerly H Res 333) to the Judiciary Committee, it was time for those hearings to 'immediately' get underway.

"Scoffing at the argument that has been made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democratic leadership that impeachment might hurt Democratic chances in the November ’08 elections, or that it could deter Democrats from their Congressional agenda, Wexler says, 'I believe that there is a constitutional obligation for the Congress to hold this administration accountable, and it should not depend on what people think the impact might be on an election. The only question should be: Did Vice President Cheney abuse his powers?'"

"He adds, 'If the American people believe that the democrats are holding a legitimate inquiry into serious issues of constitutional importance, they will not hold it against them. And besides, initial polling would indicate that this is not some off-the-reservation idea.'

"The Florida legislator, who had not been among the 22 co-sponsors of the impeachment bill submitted last April 24 by Rep. Kucinich, says that by beginning impeachment hearings in the House, 'We would create our own fate, and we shouldn’t be afraid of that fate.'

"Noting that the Democratic congressional leadership has been opposing impeachment by saying that they were sent to Washington 'to act on issues like insuring children and ending the war,' Wexler says, 'We have followed that strategy for a year now, and what we have been met with is a president who will not sign any of these measures and a Senate mired in filibusters. We have nothing to lose by starting impeachment.'

"A major problem in challenging the Democratic leadership, however, has arisen in the form of a national media that simply ignores the growing national impeachment movement and the growing calls for impeachment within the Congress. Wexler reports that an opinion article penned by himself and two Judiciary Committee colleagues, Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), which was sent to a number of leading newspapers, including the Miami Herald, the Washington Post and the New York Times, was rejected for publication—an astonishing act of censorship for a document authored by three members of congress on an issue of such significance as impeachment of the vice president.

"In that article, Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin write: 'The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

'Now that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has indicated that the Vice President and his staff purposefully gave him false information about the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent to report to the American people, it is even more important for Congress to investigate what may have been an intentional obstruction of justice. Congress should call Mr. McClellan to testify about what he described as being asked to "unknowingly [pass] along false information." In addition, recent revelations have shown that the Administration including Vice President Cheney may have again manipulated and exaggerated evidence about weapons of mass destruction -- this time about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.'

"Asked why he thought leading publications had refused to publish the op-ed piece calling for an immediate start to impeachment hearings, Wexler says, 'I think the mainstream media, at least thus far, have bought the notion that impeachment hearings are outside the bounds of what Congress ought to be doing.'

"He adds that there may be a fear, on the part of corporate media executives and editors, and on the part of Democratic Party congressional leaders, of having been 'complicit' in many of the administration’s constitutional crimes. 'There may be some significant conflicts of interest,' he says, that could make them feel uncomfortable about the idea of impeachment hearings.

"To push back against this unseemly resistance Rep. Wexler and his two House colleagues have decided to go public with their message. Wexler has set up a website, called WexlerWantsHearings. He is urging Americans from across the country to go to the sign and sign on to his call for an immediate start to hearings. 'I want to be able to go to my colleagues in the house and say I have 55,000 people calling for hearings,' he says." [Avram notes: he already has almost 60,000 as of today].



I wish my congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, showed a little of this moxie herself.

Henry Kravis makes $51,369 PER HOUR. You pay more taxes.

What would Jesus do?

Put it back on the table, people

Honestly, I am starting to wonder if there is an opposition party any more that represents the horror so many of us feel about the current administration. As far as I can see, the reluctance on the part of the Democratic party leadership to put impeachment "on the table" is nothing but pure, political contrivance, rather than what is good for this country. The question than comes down to this - who is the worst Nero, George W. Bush or the Democratic Party?

Way to go, Dennis!

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive."

Dear Mr. Jefferson: What would you have to say were you to suddenly find yourself in the 21st century United States of America? Would you believe your ears? Your eyes? Mr. Jefferson, our current president is an individual of the servile privileged class (those who get rich by patronage rather than ingenuity), who managed to turn a life of indulgence, failure and superficiality into a disputed claim to the highest elective office in the land, twice no less.

"Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

What would you make of a president who espouses a doctrine of preemptive war, who places our nation squarely on the path of fiscal insolvency, who doles out billions of dollars from the peoples' treasury into the hands of cronies and criminals, whose noblest expression is a sneer, whose tongue darts quickly out from between pursed lips when he lies, which is often?

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

Could you imagine your nation in the hands of one so petulant, so brazenly incapable of admitting wrong, a man so shallow that he seems to grieve for not a single one of the thousands dead at his own hand, a man with the audacity to claim guidance - if not governance - by the hand of God? A man who must surround himself with no one but sycophants, lest he waver in the faith of his own assuredness?

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government..."

"It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape."

What would you say, Mr. Jefferson, about an allegedly elected government that governs with imperial disdain for the constitution, that revolutionary document that you loved so dearly, who casts such a veil of secrecy over its conduct and pursuit of the "peoples' business" that some would say our nation has never been so cast into darkness? A government that spies on its own citizens, that takes prisoners against the rule of law and tortures them in prisons outside its own borders?

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."

"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Can you imagine, Mr. Jefferson, your nation spending more on its defense than all of the other nations on earth combined? Can you conceive of the politicization of our military so that it becomes the instrument of a unitary chief executive held in sway by a hegemonic philosophy of global supremacy? Can you even remotely imagine your nation debased around the globe for its policies of injustice and empire? We have become a conquerer nation on borrowed funds.

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. "

And your nation? Corpulent consumers of crap from China we have become, for our nation manufactures next to nothing. We are the maw of the world, with an insatiable appetite for distraction and adulation of celebrity (especially when the fall from grace). I know how much you valued books, Mr. Jefferson, and we have largely become a nation of non-readers. Our newspapers, along with the airwaves, are controlled by fewer and fewer interests. More and more, the sources of our information are the same corporations that want to sell us so many things we neither need nor really want, but they have perfected the art and act of selling such that appetites are created with sublime finesse.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Could you ever have dreamed, Mr. Jefferson, that propaganda would be proffered as truth in your country, and moreover, that so much of the populace would willingly accept it as so? That the nation would idly watch the national treasury looted for the gain of a few?

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence."

Take that, Rupert!

Tired of EVERY media outlet in the world becoming part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation? Well, take action against further media consolidation, and meanwhile have some vicarious fun with this:

Secretary of Hypocrisy?

In case you were wondering whether we had a Secretary of State any more under the Bush Administration, Condoleezza Rice made another one of her occasional orchestrated photo ops, this one in Russia on Saturday Oct. 13, as she met with Russian human rights activists.

In what has to be one of the most incredible examples of this administration's complete lack of self-consciousness, she was quoted as making the following statement:

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," Rice said. "I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.

Now, just substitute "White House" for "Kremlin" in the first line of the previous paragraph, and "Congress" for "Duma." Now, try and imagine if those words were uttered with the slightest bit of irony.

Yeh, buddy. War is peace. Truth is lies. Occupation is liberation.

This is your moment, Al Gore

First of all, congratulations Mr. Gore, for the global recognition of your leadership in the form of the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, more than ever, an America (and world) in the shackles of the worst executive administration in history needs a President with vision, morals, and a belief in positive change. Now, more than ever, we need an Al Gore presidency. Declare your candidacy, and I (and millions of others) will work tirelessly to make it happen in our communities.

To the naysayers in the progressive community who cite the mistakes made in 2000 (e.g., VP Lieberman, for one), the sad fact is that at that time, a candidate had no choice but to play politics with the Dem leadership of that time who were empowered by Bill's 2 terms (and most of whom have lined up with Hillary). Howard Dean has transformed the structure of the Democratic Party - the grass roots can and will make the difference. I believe that a candidate Gore would not make those blunders again.

And lastly, to the character assassins of the far right, the Rush and Coulter zombies, the brain-shrunken sycophants of the Darth Vader presidency, the chicken hawk warmongers, I merely say, in the only language that you seem to understand (based on your Internet ravings): FUCK YOU!

And today's Ann Coulter Fascist Fashion Award Winner is ...

Michelle Malkin. Proof positive that right wing harlots don't just come in the anorexic blonde variety. In case you don't watch Fox News, Michelle the Mullet harassed a 12 year old recipient (and his family) of one of the SCHIP grants for uninsured children - y'know, the program whose extension W recently vetoed.

Now let's watch Michelle the Malevolent weasel out of Ezra Klein's debate challenge.

Rudy Giuliani, 9-11 whore

A supporter of Rudy Giuliani's threw a party at his Palo Alto, CA home on Wednesday that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign.

According to the invitation, "$9.11 for Rudy" is an "independent, non-denominational grass-roots campaign to raise $10,000 in small increments to show how many individual, everyday Americans support `America's Mayor.'"

What a concept. I mean isn't that the only issue of his campaign?

The Ghost of Anbar (and the lies just keep on coming)

Shortly after the W's visit to the killing fields of Mesopotamia, our alleged ally in Anbar Province, "Shiek" Abu Risha, to whom the sharp decrease if not end of Sunni hostilities towards our troops is largely credited, was assassinated. Abu Risha's death "is a tragic loss," said Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "It's a terrible loss for Anbar province and all of Iraq. It shows how significant his importance was, and it shows al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy." Bush, in an address to the nation on September 13, noted the death of "one of the brave tribal sheiks who helped lead the revolt" against al-Qaeda in Iraq and said his fellow Sunni leaders fighting the extremists "can count on the continued support of the United States."

According to Greg Palast, the Shiek was not all he was cracked up to be:
"1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn't a sheik.
"2. He wasn't killed by Al Qaeda.
"3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik - and a murderous deceit."

Palast's daredevil cameraman, Rick Rowley made an amazing film expose of just who this guy was, which was shown on Al-Jazeeri English channel. Check it out:
Part One




Part Two


Here is some more of Palast's commentary: "Why was 'sheik' Abu Risha so important? As the New York Times put it ... , 'Abu Risha had become a charismatic symbol of the security gains in Sunni areas that have become a cornerstone of American plans to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq though much of next year.'

"In other words, Abu Risha was the PR hook used to sell the 'success' of the surge.

"The sheik wasn't a sheik. He was a fake. While proclaiming to Rick that he was 'the leader of all the Iraqi tribes,' Abu lead no one. But for a reported sum in the millions in cash for so-called, 'reconstruction contracts,' Abu Risha was willing to say he was Napoleon and Julius Caesar and do the hand-shakie thing with Bush on camera.

"Notably, Rowley and his camera caught up with Abu Risha on his way to a 'business trip' to Dubai, money laundering capital of the Middle East.

"There are some real sheiks in Anbar, like Ali Hathem of the dominant Dulaimi tribe, who told Rick Abu Risha was a con man. Where was his tribe, this tribal leader? 'The Americans like to create characters like Disney cartoon heros.' Then Ali Hathem added, 'Abu Risha is no longer welcome' in Anbar.

"'Not welcome' from a sheik in Anbar is roughly the same as a kiss on both cheeks from the capo di capi. Within days, when Abu Risha returned from Dubai to Dulaimi turf in Ramadi, Bush's hand-sheik was whacked. "On Thursday, Bush said Abu Risha was killed, 'fighting Al Qaeda' - and the White House issued a statement that the sheik was 'killed by al Qaeda.'

"Bullshit.

"There ain't no Easter Bunny and 'Al Qaeda' ain't in Iraq, Mr. Bush. It was very cute, on the week of the September 11 memorials, to tie the death of your Anbar toy-boy to bin Laden's Saudi hijackers. But it's a lie. Yes, there is a group of berserkers who call themselves 'Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.' But they have as much to do with the real Qaeda of bin Laden as a Rolling Stones "tribute" band has to do with Mick Jagger.

"Who got Abu Risha? Nothing - NOTHING - moves in Ramadi without the approval of the REAL tribal sheiks. They were none-too-happy, as Hathem noted, about the millions the US handed to Risha. The sheiks either ordered the hit - or simply gave the bomber free passage to do the deed.

"So who are these guys, the sheiks who lead the Sunni tribes of Anbar - the potentates of the Tamimi, Fallaji, Obeidi, Zobal and Jumaili tribes? Think of them as the Sopranos of Arabia. They are also members of the so-called 'Awakening Council' - getting their slice of the millions handed out - which they had no interest in sharing with Risha.

"But creepy and deadly or not, these capi of the desert were effective in eliminating 'Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.' Indeed, as US military so proudly pointed out to Rick, the moment the sheiks declared their opposition to Al Qaeda - i.e. got the payments from the US taxpayers - Al Qaeda instantly disappeared.

"This miraculous military change, where the enemy just evaporates, has one explanation: the sheiks ARE al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Just like the Sopranos extract 'protection' payments from New Jersey businesses, the mobsters of Anbar joined our side when we laid down the loot.

"What's wrong with that? After all, I'd rather send a check than send our kids from Columbus to fight them.

"But there's something deeply, horribly wrong with dealing with these killers. They still kill. With new US protection, weapons and cash, they have turned on the Shia of Anbar. Fifteen thousand Shia families from a single district were forced at gunpoint to leave Anbar. Those moving too slowly were shot. Kids and moms too.

"Do the Americans know about the ethnic cleansing of Anbar by our erstwhile 'allies'? Rick's film shows US commanders placing their headquarters in the homes abandoned by terrorized Shia.

"Rick's craziest move was to go and find these Shia refugees from Anbar. They were dumped, over a hundred thousand of them, in a cinder block slum with no running water in Baghdad. They are under the 'protection' of the Mahdi Army, another group of cutthroats. But at least these are Shia cutthroats.

"So the great 'success' of the surge is our arming and providing cover for ethnic cleansing in Anbar. Nice, Mr. Bush. And with the US press 'embedded,' we won't get the real story. Even Democrats are buying into the Anbar 'awakening' fairy tale.

"An Iraqi government official frets that giving guns and cover to the Anbar gang is like adopting a baby crocodile. 'A crocodile is not a pet,' he told Rick. It will soon grow to devour you. But what could the puppet do but complain about his strings?

"This Iraqi got it right: the surge is a crock."

Bush-owned Justice Department to Telecoms: "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"

What a surprise! After re-monopoly AT&T (and perhaps Verizon and Comcast) happily cooperated with the NSA's illegal incursions into the private life of American citizens by willingly handing over Internet traffic records, that wholly-owned subsidiary of Bush Inc. formerly known as the Justice Department (checks and balances - what a quaint concept) has weighed in on Big Telecom's side concerning net neutrality. The Justice Department last Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic. The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

More articles on this issue:
AT&T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA
NSA to spy on 38% of world telecom traffic
AT&T Seeks to Hide Spy Docs
Whistleblower outs NSA's secret spy room at AT&T

Nobody says it better than George Carlin

Comedians may be the only spokespeople capable of penetrating the miasmal fog of delusion that so many of our fellow citizens wrap themselves up in when it comes to the true nature of 21st century America. Here, in less than 5 minutes, is the truth.

The blindness of loyalty

"It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."
--George W. Bush, August 27, 2007

Heckuva job, Al.

The future of the Internet without Net Neutrality

LOLLAPALOOZA WEBCAST: SPONSORED/CENSORED BY AT&T?

From Pearl Jam's website:

"After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast.

"When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

"During the performance of 'Daughter' the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall' but were cut from the webcast:

"- 'George Bush, leave this world alone.' (the second time it was sung); and

"- 'George Bush find yourself another home.'

"This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

"AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

"Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue."

Here is the unedited footage:

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11

Here is a must read article by Wayne Barrett from the Village Voice about Rudy Giuliani's fictitious hero persona.

Protect America from itself

Forty-one Democratic Congresspeople voted "yea" on Bush's ironically named "Protect America Act;" 16 Democratic senators did likewise [Evan Bayh (Indiana); Tom Carper (Delaware); Bob Casey (Pennsylvania); Kent Conrad (North Dakota); Dianne Feinstein (California); Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Barbara Mikulski (Maryland); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Arkansas); Ken Salazar (Colorado); Jim Webb (Virginia)]. What were these people thinking? Why exactly do they believe this incompetent sitting president deserves approbation for continued attack on our basic liberties?

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, angrily chastised his colleagues for bending to the administration's will. "The day we start deferring to someone who's not a member of this body ... is a sad day for the U.S. Senate," Feingold said. "We make the policy -- not the executive branch."

What's at stake?

The law:

• Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.
• Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.
• Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.
• Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months last for a year after being authorized.
  
• Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
• Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."
• Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.
• Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.

In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress.

[The above summary is from Ryan Singel's Wired Blog. Worth reading.]

How these Dems could willingly give these powers to a White House that has already shown the most egregious indifference to the rule of law is beyond me.

At least none of the candidates voted for it. And it lasts just 6 months. So Karl Rove has 6 months to wiretap all of the Democratic presidential candidates. In between leather parties, that is.

Why I hate Bill O'Reilly (or is Rupert Murdoch the anti-christ?)

I've never really known just what rock Bill O'Reilly crawled out from under. All of a sudden here was this celebrity Fox News wingnut propagandist, seemingly materialized out of some old coke-euphoria dream of G. W. Bush. I had never even known the guy existed before. Which leads me to suspect that, much like Jonah Goldberg, this odd form of human life is manufactured, promoted and elevated by the corporate media empires that find their personalities so useful.

There are actually many reasons why O'Reilly fills me with gleeful homicidal fantasies, but it can all be encapsulated by watching this snippet of his show where he treats a chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against The War with such callow and shallow disregard that I wanted to grab his scrawny rooster neck through the screen and pop his swollen head like a pimple. Of course, all of this is framed within the useful litany of lies that this boor espouses daily on behalf of the junta of thugs and criminals currently ruining the country.

My favorite little moment of pearl-like disingenuousness is when Willy Boy actually uses the word "propaganda" to describe the truth about the war in Iraq, a wonderful example of the Orwellian techniques by which the FoxNews machine bamboozles its base of brain-addled couch potatoes. All-in-all Geoffrey Millard conducted himself with aplomb against the lily-livered chickenhawk.

Watch it here.

Which brings me to my parenthetical subtitle regarding O'Reilly's führer. I love the irony that Britain and Australia's most successful purveyor of tabloid soft core porn is the standard bearer for the right wing noise machine. Y'know, family values and all that. But their hypocrisy is already legion - we know. How many rabid born-again flag waving GOP homophobe buttwads have now been revealed as philanderers, pederasts and closeted homosexuals (and how many are still to be outed, eh, Karl?).

So now Murdoch has his hands on the bulwark of the oligarchy, the Wall Street Journal. Editorially, the WSJ has always been extremely rightwing, but everyone at least gave them plaudits for keeping their news reportage objective and meticulous (I don't know - I never read it). Most analysts figure that will soon be a thing of the past, as Rupert positions his new acquisition to counter the perceived "liberal bias" of the NY Times.

I figure that there can only be 2 reasons why Rupert has showered Hillary Clinton's campaign with money. He either figures she is absolutely the Dem that any mediocre Republican can defeat, or else he views her as the one Dem he can work with if she gets elected. I think it the latter, personally. Hillary is a corporate soldier through and through. Never forget it was her hubby's administration who got the media consolidation ball running by which Mr. Murdoch has profited so royally.