"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.
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:
Here is a must read article by Wayne Barrett from the Village Voice about Rudy Giuliani's fictitious hero persona.
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?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.]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.
Paul Craig Roberts has been one of the most virulent critics of the Bush administration. For that matter so has reactionary Pat Buchanan, but Roberts is the more interesting because of his pedigree. Robert was a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under the Reagan administration. Recently, Roberts went so far as to suggest that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year. He first issued this warning in his syndicated column, and then amplified it in an interview on the Thom Hartmann radio show.
Now, if a reasoned individual like Roberts is ready to basically throw in with the 9-11 conspiracists (sort of - I am taking some poetic license here), you have to wonder, when will the clearly progressive majority of the American people rise up and demand an end to the illegal, immoral dictatorship of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?
Here is a link to Thom Hartmann's radio program archives. It appears that access is now free, but you still have to use a username and password (listed onthe page). The Roberts interview was on July 19. The link above is to several downloadable versions of the Roberts segment alone.I've always found the Libertarian line a bit daft - I mean, I have little faith in the "free" market to regulate itself. Human greed and avarice are just too overpowering motivations to allow room for altruism. And according to a recent study, most Americans really do believe that government should be the watchdog over the common good, making sure that those left behind by get a helping hand. A great deal of the information comes from a massive Pew Research Center study of American values from 1987-2007.
Some highlights of this report are:
On Health Care: 69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have access to health coverage; 76 percent find access to health care more important than maintaining the Bush tax cuts; three in five would be willing to have their own taxes increased to achieve universal coverage.
On Energy Policy: 52 percent of Americans believe "the best way for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on foreign oil" is to "have the government invest in alternative energy sources"; 64 percent are willing to pay a higher energy tax to pay for renewable energy research; 68 percent of the public thinks U.S. energy policy is better solved by conservation than production.
On the Economy: 77 percent of Americans believe Congress should increase the minimum wage; 66 percent believe "upper-income people" pay too little in taxes; 53 percent feel the Bush administration's tax cuts have failed because they have increased the deficit and caused cuts in government programs.
On Government's Role: 69 percent of Americans believe the government "should care for those who can't care for themselves." Twice as many people (43 percent to 20 percent) want "government to provide many more services even if it means an increase in spending" as want government to provide fewer services "in order to reduce spending."
On Immigration: 62 percent of Americans believe undocumented immigrants should be given a chance to "keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status." 49 percent believe the best way to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico is to penalize employers, not more border control.
Keith Olbermann, on fire.
"You have condemned yourself to a place among that remarkably small group of Americans whom Americans cannot forgive: those who have sold this country out and who have willingly declared their enmity to the people at whose pleasure they supposedly serve."
Rudy Giuliani, the leading Republican candidate for the Presidency in 2008, is the perfect heir to the Bushite assault on American ideals. Painting himself in the colors of false heroism, this man, this monster, will only lead us further into penultimate decline. So, here, in the public interest, is a primer of readings on the real Giuliani:
Paul Craig Roberts on The Criminal Career of Rudy Giuliani.
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, "Giuliani: Worse Than Bush."
Giuliani Gets Exposed As Fraud by Firefighters:
In the interests of fairness, a critique at the above video.
Cashing In on Catastrophe by Wayne Barrett & Dan Collins.
Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, book by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins.
The Full Rudy: The Man, the Mayor, the Myth by Jack Newfield.
The infamous "Thank God that George Bush is our president, and thank God that Dick Cheney, a man with his experience and his knowledge and his strength and his background, is our vice president."
16 Reasons Why Rudy Giuliani Sucks
We Americans are famous for taking everything for granted, whether it be cheap gasoline, clean water, Social Security when we retire. Oh, and a representative democracy based on an extraordinary document called the Constitution (accompanied by a Bill of Rights), replete with a system of checks and balances that prevents any one component of our government - executive, legislative and judicial - from amassing unmitigated power.
Right?
George Bush's legacy, which we are told has become of increasing concern to to this damaged shell of a man, will of course be the gravest attack on the principles of our democracy in the 200 years of its history. We no longer have a President, we have a king, and the king has a magic want called "executive privilege," with which the "people's business" suddenly has been placed on a "needs to know" basis. And we, the American people, apparently have no need to know.
From today's Washington Post: "Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority Thursday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege."
The American people should be outraged, but don't hold your breath waiting for the somnambulant masses to rise up in indignation. As for me, I am calling not only my own congresswoman, but a hell of a lot of others. I want impeachment proceedings started against these bastards NOW!
As for democracy? You don't miss your water until the well runs dry.
"I'm not going to answer endless questions about it all over again and again and again and again. That might sell newspapers, but it wouldn't serve my family or my constituents well."-- Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), 7/16/07, speaking out publicly for the first time about appearing on the D.C. Madam's list.
When I begin to despair of any mainstream American media outlet providing any offset to the roiling gasbags of Fox News, Keith Olbermann rises forth and provides counterpoint to this unelected administration and their policy of deception and cruelty. By now, you've all heard of Department of Homeland Stupidity honcho Chertoff's prophetic gut. Here, Olbermann puts the clown's gastric prescience into perspective.
"You have by now heard the remark — instantly added to our through-the-looking-glass lexicon of the 21st century, a time when we suddenly started referring to this country as 'the homeland,' as if anybody here has used that term since Charles Lindbergh or the German-American Bund in 1940. Michael Chertoff’s 'gut feeling.'"
I've begun a new blog, sort of a MTV (Mirsky TV) featuring videos of my favorite singer-songwriters. Little did I know that YouTube could be such a treasure chest of vintage and/or obscure music video. Right now, there's just one artist featured, but I anticipate many by the time I've exhausted myself. Hopefully, something I post will constitute a new discovery for at least one visitor - then my job is done. Escuche.
Well, not me, but this parody video is better than any of the candidate's, that's for sure. even that Sopranos take-off.
And here's Ms. Southern's blog.
Now, in the interest of equal time for the two poll leaders:
Now, don't you just love the political theater of our nation's electoral process?
One of my absolute favorite bloggers is video producer and writer Tom Degan, up in Goshen, NY. Rather than attempt to encapsulate my own thoughts on the totally unsurprising commutation of Scooter Libby's 30 month jail term while awaiting sentencing on his litany of lies to protect his boss Blackheart Dick and our soulless president, I point you to Tom's well-scribed take on the issue:
"The Rant" by Tom Degan: LIBBY'S OFF THE HOOK
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?
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."
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.
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.
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:
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.
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 
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.
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).
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.
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.
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."
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.'"
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."
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."
"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."
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:"
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
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. "
"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.
Have we ever had a presidential administration so lacking a moral compass? One whose flirtations with absolute power and autocratic authority defile the constitution of our nation? Which is worse, that we must endure another eighteen months of this motley crew, or that s
omewhere close to a third of the American populace STILL believes that they can do no wrong?
Why are we so passive in the face of the affront that the Bush administration presents to the world, to the damage that this most corporate of administrations has done and continues to do to the image of the American republic, to the environment, to our military, to the Middle East, to the future of our children and grandchildren? Are we so easily lulled into somnambulance by the marketplace? By the media? I would estimate that over half the citizenry are as outraged by the morass of arrogance, deception and murder that these hatless shadow figures have perpetrated upon the world. But why are are we not raising our voices in loud unison, asking for their removal from office? Why is ANYTHING off the table when it comes to effigies of humanity like these people?
When Condaleeza Rice has the audacity to say "Iraq will be worth the sacrifice," you have to ask yourself, "what in God's name did this woman sacrifice," whose idea of leadership is shoe-shopping on 5th Avenue while New Orleans is destroyed by a killer storm and her boss' indifference? Have we ever had a secretary-of-state with lower standing in the eyes of global leaders? The sad irony is that not only is she a woman, she is an African-American woman. Administration architect Karl Rove must have blessed himself thricely to have found such a prize, a black female who not only drank the kool-aid of corporatist fascism, but would lie before its alter.
Latin American can be a place of extremes. Oddly, it can produce two kinds of monsters, seemingly from the same clay: leftist revolutionary ideologues who can justify cold-blooded murder in the name of some perversion of social justice, men like Abimael Guzman in Peru, as well as dictators like Pinochet or the generals of Argentina's "Troubles," who have no issue with making thousand of people disappear overnight. The former depends on the young people of large, disenfranchised indigenous populations who dwell in such a state of anomie that they become empty vessels for the message of false power that men like Guzman are able to provide. The Generals, on the other hand, depend on a certain quiet type to draft the policies of oppression; little, colorless men who were the choir boys at church, crossed the street when they saw the big boys lurking up ahead in the shadows, and happily accepted the polemic of fascism as destiny. Alberto Gonzales strikes me as one of these.
No, history will not be kind to such men and women. But neither will history look favorably upon an American people who allowed the charlatans their way, who accepted a parody of democracy not once, but twice, and thus gave the hideous ideology of imperial conquest for profit and perversion leave to sully our flag and our spirit. Overfed, under-informed, but mostly cowed by an irrational fear of an invisible enemy. We have been played. And far too easily.
Posts
All Comments
