Ah, the whiff o'scandal in the air. The coin of the realm scandal (puh-leeze, not coingate) has been getting betr-n-betr in OH-IO as republican luminaries are deserting Toledo Republican Fat Cat and Coin Broker Tom Noe like rats from a sinking ship. If the Ohio Democratic Party (Calling Denny White) can't get into this with both feet, they never deserve to win an election again. Ever.

But this week, Mr. Noe's lawyers said that as much as $13 million of the state's $50 million investment in his two funds could not be accounted for. Mr. Noe, meanwhile, has become the focus of at least six investigations or audits involving either his handling of the coin investments or his campaign fund-raising. Federal investigators are also looking into his contributions to President Bush's 2004 campaign as a "Pioneer," raising more than $100,000.

And suddenly, Republicans who once stood staunchly at Mr. Noe's side, and at his fund-raising parties, cannot seem to run from him fast enough.

Why just recently, Republican Rumpsniffer Kenneth Blackwell was pooh-poohing the missing coins as being essentially inconsequential in the grand scheme of the state budget (cue: Carl Sagan -- billions and billions). I suspect that the impact could be far and wide if the Ohio Dems keep this issue front and center as 2006 approaches. After all, weren't the Ohio "Values Voters" so highly regarded? Looks like they got theirs for just over Thirty Pieces of Silver Gold.

I guess it's getting to be ssshhhhowtime:

Meanwhile, for a third consecutive day, Mr. Noe yesterday refused to show state fraud investigators who visited his headquarters any of the rare coins he says were purchased with $50 million in state money.

An official from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation - the agency which gave him the money - said if Mr. Noe does not cooperate by 8 this morning, the bureau has asked the attorney general’s office to take legal action so the “bureau can have access to its assets.”

I love how the crooked bastards are fleeing from Noe like they are all pure as the driven snow virgins protecting their honor. There are few, if any, among them who haven't taken cash and plenty of it from Noe and his wife in the years leading up to this.

Hey.

Just a note. I have upgraded my Moveable Type installation to the latest and greatest...sorry for any inconvenience if you tried to comment today.

I have added the "Typekey" commenting feature, which means that you need to have a Typekey login to comment if you want to leave a URL in your comments. I don't think you have to register just to comment, if you do, I'll disable that until I get it fixed. If you don't want to register (and I understand if you don't), email me the URL and I'll stick it into your comment for you. I was getting literally hundreds of trackback spams a day and this might be a way to control it.

Thanks. We now return to our regularly scheduled ranting.

Thanks again for understanding...

Shorter John Tierney: Despite the fact that war is a low-risk business, my main contribution to the Iraqi War will be waving a flag along a Parade route.

Only in 1600 Crew Bizarro World:

Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.

Look! Over there! It's Vince Foster's body lying on the Rose Law Firm Billing Records just dug up from the Whitewater Development! Clenis™!! Blowjob!

What will we tell the children?

Preznit Equine Ejaculation:

"Our citizens live in freedom because patriots are willing to serve and sacrifice for our liberty," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

STATEMENT OF INTENT
"I, GEORGE WALKER BUSH, UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF PILOT TRAINING PLAN TO RETURN TO MY UNIT AND FULFILL MY OBLIGATION TO THE UTMOST OF MY ABILITY. I HAVE APPLIED FOR PILOT TRAINING WITH THE GOAL OF MAKING FLYING A LIFETIME PURSUIT AND I BELIEVE I CAN BEST ACCOMPLISH THIS TO MY OWN SATISFACTION BY SERVING AS A MEMBER OF THE AIR NATIONAL GUARD AS LONG AS POSSIBLE."

/s/
GEORGE WALKER BUSH

"Lt Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama."

On Monday, he will lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to pay tribute to those he said made the ultimate sacrifice.

Oh, and just when do the twin sperm receptacles Jenna and Not-Jenna join the "two difficult missions: defeat the terrorists and transform the U.S. military to meet the threats of the 21st century."?

Hmmmm?

well at least a turn as Karl's Leather Slave.

Owen, 50, was first elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994 with the help of key Bush adviser Karl Rove. Backers hailed her as a top-notch jurist who helped increase legal services to the poor; critics said she bends the law to fit her conservative views, including opposition to abortion.

Goes to: Common Dreams, from a piece on the 1600 Crew and it's stench of deceit...

Blaming Newsweek for lost lives and a tarnished reputation is like blaming the kid who steals a hubcap after a deadly 12-car pile-up for causing the crash.

Preznit Equine Stroker yesterday:

The House passed a bill on Tuesday to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, defying a veto threat from President Bush, who appeared at the White House with babies and toddlers born of test-tube embryos and warned the measure "would take us across a critical ethical line."

Heart of the republican party. Jumbo Shrimp. Military Intelligence...you get the idea.

But leading voices among social conservatives sharply disagreed. "It's a rebuff of both the president, Senator Frist and the socially conservative base of the party by a handful of senators," said Gary L. Bauer, a former presidential candidate and president of American Values. "The heart of the Republican Party is as unhappy as I can recall."

I'd be more than happy to send care packages and bibles to them. 'Cause I care about the heart of the republican party, yo.

I have a good number of friends who say this all the time: "I vote(d) republican because I believe in Fiscal Conservatism and progressive social policy" (setting aside the obvious cognitive dissonance there for a second), who are now looking for a viable platform from the Democrats. They no longer see their leaders as Fiscally Conservative, and the Schiavo debacle makes them feel that they have been personally embarrassed by the Leading Wingnuts-on-Parade.

If capturing those disaffected republicans becomes one element of the strategy of our party, obviously we might begin to do better. Interestingly, none of them are particularly taken with the "republican-lite" crap from the Joementum and Ben Nelson crowd, they see it as pandering for their vote. Anyhow, just an observation...

Oh, oh, oh, Condie's Cryin'. Well, we can only hope. Ohio Senator George Voinovich has taken a stand for principle over party and is urging other republicans to reconsider their commitment to vote for John Bolton as the John Birch Society Representative to the UN.

"In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective ambassador to the United Nations," Mr. Voinovich wrote. He urged colleagues to "put aside our partisan agenda and let our consciences and our shared commitment to our nation's best interests guide us."

It's not like the Kennebunkport Klan have an exactly stellar record of picking outstanding legal scholars or anything is it? Kinda like VD, it's their gift to the republic that just keeps on giving.

After Vietnam Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder became an accepted diagnosis and the basis for lots of Hollywood's "B" Psycho-killer-vet movies. Unfortunately, the whole PTSD thing is becoming too real now that Preznit Crapfest Commando has his war on.

But it is the injuries you cannot see that are beginning to worry the Pentagon.

"My nightmares are so intense I woke up one night with my hands round my fiancee's throat," says Lt Julian Goodrum.
...
More than 10,000 returnees from the Iraq war have sought help for a condition in which the mundane becomes a menace.

"The smell of diesel takes me back to Iraq," Lt Goodrum says.
...
It is the nature of Iraq's insurgency of unseen snipers and roadside bombers which has fuelled the trauma.

I am glad that at least for now, the Pentagon is giving some recognition to this problem for what it is: a real medical issue that need effective, long-term treatment. The biggest danger: when the 1600 Crew decides that the cannon-fodder it sent off to war have become the "welfare queens" of their generation by fiat (as if that's not a real possibility) and decide to send another tax-break to their Pioneer buddies and corporate sycophants at the expense of our brave men and women. Who will find themselves portrayed questionably in yet another spate of "B" movies as the Psycho Killers from Another Foreign Entanglement while being marginalized with inadequate care and support from the very Chickenhawks who sent them off in the first place.

In an outstanding column today, Bob Herbert at the Times looks at Rummy in what might be the perspective of future generations. And he sees a catastrophe. For all my vet buds out there who remember the travesty that was McNamara, Rumsfeld is proving to go beyond catastrophic to apocolyptic. Herbert:

The military spent decades rebuilding its reputation and regaining the respect of the vast majority of the American people after the debacle in Vietnam. Under Mr. Rumsfeld, that hard-won achievement is being reversed.
...
The insurgency in Iraq appeared to take Mr. Rumsfeld completely by surprise. He expected to win the war in a walk. Or, perhaps, a strut.

Beloved Leader by all accounts wants to hear no bad news from the Mess in Mesopotamia. Rumsfeld seems to be just the operative at DoD to give him none, and make sure that the his uniformed whipping-boys (and girls) are ready, willing and able to deliver transfer tubes with a cheery aye-aye on request by providing substandard supplies of armor and troops who not only need a rest, but a guarantee that they'll never have to go back to Baghdad again. Ever.

Perhaps the Filibuster will become the Fristibuster.

Just sayin'.

So later today we get to watch the republicans begin to shred 217 years of American History and Senate tradition for a tripartite cause: to satisfy Preznit Drippy Dick's temper tantrum over not getting 10 judges rubber stamped; to further the presidential ambitions of a gutless politician who wants to be Preznit for the New American Christocracy (thanks, Digby!); and to pay the Christocrats off for their support in November, 2004.

In what promises to be the start of a historic debate, Republicans will bring the appellate court nomination of Texan Priscilla Owen to the Senate floor today in a move aimed at ending Democratic filibusters of President Bush's judicial picks.
...
"We believe they have waited too long for an up-or-down vote," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. ...

I further swear to always be seen in the presence of at least one "disadvantaged" person, and be seen carrying a bible or other religious icon and say "Jesus" or "God" whenever television cameras are within 100 feet of me, so help me Protestant God"

Gotta love this guy:

British lawmaker George Galloway passionately denied allegations that he profited from the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, blasting Sen. Norm Coleman Tuesday as a "lickspittle" of President Bush and telling a congressional panel that the charges against him were "the mother of all smokescreens."

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader," Galloway began his impassioned denial of the allegations levied against him by the Minnesota Republican. "I was an opponent of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas."

Oh, and what about that picture of ummm....Rummy shaking 'Suh-damns' hand? IOKIYAR. All the time.

Beloved Leader, he loves him some dictators. Wishes he could be one, really. Gots his boyz like Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin's Nazi Gift To America proposing legislation that makes us a nation of snitches. Pretty soon the republican junior gentry will be sending their kiddies off to Amurikan Gestapo Kamp to get their ID medallions, while the non-gentry will be sending their kids off to die in another contractor-enriching war. Former Libertarian Presidential Candidate Harry Browne:

And if toppling dictators is so important, why is George Bush cozying up to brutal dictators in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan?

The Uzbek troops were shooting again, this time from rooftops, and Zukra Karimova's 58-year-old father fell to the ground as he ran, a dark bloodstain spreading along his thigh. "Go on without me or you'll be killed, too!" he shouted as she bent down to help him, she recalled.
...
...refugees said in interviews that many people who turned out and were killed were ordinary citizens like themselves.

I guess that Preznit War Twins must have some of that reefer-induced memory loss. Here's his response to a Dutch Journalist (scroll down):

Well, first of all, all Americans, including me, reject Abu Ghraib. That was an aberration.

During his tenure as White House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales advised the President that the laws of war do not bind us in the difficult fight against terrorism. He approved a definition of torture so narrow that much of the barbarism depicted in the photos from Abu Ghraib would have been beyond the law to punish. He has contended that U.S. personnel are exempt from the ban on cruel and degrading practices that has been binding U.S. treaty law for more than a decade. And he has embraced the radical view that the President has the power to ignore laws passed by the nation�s representatives in Congress.

Wasn' there another semi-candid moment once? Here we go again...

It was an old-fashioned Soviet-style military parade, complete with propagandist sights and sounds glorifying the Communist, totalitarian rule that terrorized citizens of Eastern Europe for so many decades.

And according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan, President Bush was quite taken with it.
...
"Q Any squeamishness about the hammer and sickle flag, and goose-stepping soldiers and the symbols of that era?

"MR. McCLELLAN: No.
...
"What Russians had never seen at a Victory Day celebration on Red Square until now, however, was an American president. . . .

"If Bush felt unease on the reviewing stand during tributes to the Red Army, he did not show it."

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator - December 18th, 2000)

Thanks, Nina for this. From comments:

"Dear George,

You don�t mind if I call you George do you? When you sent me a letter offering your condolences on the death of my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq, you called me Cindy, so I naturally assume we are on a first name basis...George, it has been seven months today since your reckless and wanton foreign policies killed my son, my big boy, my hero, my best-friend: Casey. All of this lying, fooling, and betraying must be �hard work� George. You really think you know what hard work is?...George, let me tell you what �hard work� really is...Hard work is seeing your oldest son, your brave and honorable man-child go off to a war that had, and still has, no basis in reality. Hard work is worrying yourself gray and not being able to sleep for 2 weeks because you don�t know if your child is safe...Hard work is seeing your son�s murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you�re enjoying the last supper you�ll ever truly enjoy again...Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son�your first born�your kind and gentle sweet baby..."

My guess? The Korner Kids and Powerslime would say SPC Sheehan's mom was being out of line for her letter because after all, Preznit'n is Hard Work. Fuck 'em and the Keyboards they make their lucre with.

Tough letter for Mother's Day. Gee, what are Jenna and Not Jenna doing when not hung-over?

Yeah, so shoot me, I'm a classic rock kinda guy.

Luv 'n' Haight - Sly and the Family Stone
Kathy's Song - Paul Simon
Life's been Good - Joe Walsh
At Last - Etta James -----There's an excellent cover of this by Miles Davis, too
Thorn Tree in the Garden - Derek and the Dominos
Darling Nikki - Prince
Girl - Beatles
Wavelength - Van Morrison
Surrender - Cheap Trick
God Bless the Child - Blood Sweat and Tears

Yeah, I'm shallow. :)

Ahh, wasn't there something some hundreds of years ago when the religio-knotheads finally admitted that science might actually be...valid? The American Christo-Fascist Conspiracy to look like unedjicated dolts (aka the Kansas Bored of Education) wants to turn back the clock a few centuries to adopt the tenets of the average middle-ages priest.

About a dozen scientists, most from Kansas universities, spoke each day at news conferences after evolution critics testified before a board subcommittee. They expect to continue speaking out as the hearings wrap up on Thursday.
...
Leaders of the science groups said the three subcommittee members already have decided to support language backed by intelligent design advocates. All three are part of a conservative board majority receptive to criticism of evolution.

Really, it's coming to a point where they'll soon be denying that the earth revolves around the sun, some buckle o' the Bible-belt preacher will be claiming he can transmute lead into gold in an infomercial with the help of gawd! and witch-burning will become a popcorn-worthy event in some cities and towns.

In a related irony, Old Europe will probably become the center of science, technology and enlightenment as we watch Focus on the Family Fuckus in Perpetuity.

A few months back we had a lively discussion by all the snake-eating, bog-sleeping dyed-in-the-wool Army Infantry guys about the Combat Infantry Badge and how (and why) it was awarded. Ultra-sharp reader and correspondant 'L' sent me a story about the newest award for soldiers who are not designated infantry who are in combat. It's not a replacement for the CIB, but a new award to recognize combatants who take many of the same risks but have an MOS of say, Motor-T or Cook.

A Combat Action Badge will soon be available to all Soldiers who engage the enemy in battle.

Although the Close Combat Badge was once considered an option, Army leadership created the CAB instead to recognize all Soldiers who are in combat. They said the decision was based on input from leaders and Soldiers in the field.
...
The CAB is distinct from other combat badges, officials said. The Combat Infantryman's Badge, or CIB, and Combat Medical Badge will remain unchanged, they said.

Being a sailor, tell me...am I right in assuming this is a good thing or am I just a full of shit squid?

To quote a well-known internet bag-o-wind: Heh. Indeed.

I got my new issue of Leatherneck: Magazine of the Marines in today's mail. I just had to share this letter to the editor in the Sound Off section from an eagle-eyed old salt, and the editor's response:

Why doesn't the Commandant trust his Marines?

I'm a bit embarrassed to ask this. In the March 2005 issue of Leatherneck, page 20 includes a photo of Company B marching in the Presidential Inaugural Parade. The Marines didn't have bolts in their M1 rifles. Nor did the color guard on page 21.

The rifles are not cleared with the bolts locked in the rear of the receivers; they are missing. The operating rod is forward and the follower is exposed.

What gives?

SgtMaj Thomas R. Jablonicky USMC (Ret)
Colby, Wis.

And the response:

Our readers don't miss a thing.The nation is at war and, consequently, security at the inauguration and related events was high. According to Lance Corporal Earnest J. Barnes, Public Affairs Office, Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., the bolts were removed from the rifles carried by Marines in the inaugural parade for security purposes by order of the Secret Service. Gunnery Sergeant David Dunaway, USMC (Ret) of Shoreline, Wash., and Joseph Berthelot of Syracuse, N.Y., also took notice. - Sound Off Ed.

Can't trust his Marines. No Marine should ever salute that piece of walking dogshit again; he's an insult to the Men and Women I knew who wore the Eagle, Globe and Anchor with pride and honor.

Even as Beloved Leader makes his impassioned pleas for "freedom" in cemetaries where his lying, deserting, disprespectful ass makes mockery of the brave soldiers laid to their final rest there, the "mission accomplished" violence continues in Iraq.

...In the week since a new cabinet was formed, about 250 Iraqis have been slaughtered in car bombings and other bloody attacks, a pace as relentless and heartless as any since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years ago. ...

...the insurgents are actually several groups of people who might share tactics, but possess different motivations and long-term objectives.

If the spineless cocksuckers in Congress had taken their role of oversight instead of rubber-stampery seriously, we might not be in this mess today. Is it just me, or will history perhaps judge folks like Tom Delay less as failures for their predictable hubris and greed and more for their jingoistic, flag-waving bloodthirsty support for unneeded military action to satisfy the tantrum of a spoiled child selected by an accident of fate and placed in power by his daddy's bondsmen?

The Iraqi insurgency is providing answers to questions we never needed to ask...and they are not answers that seem to fit in Preznit Lucky Sperm's world view: one size does not fit all.

Well, it's been a good long time since I've felt the need to whack the Duchess of Dupont over the head. But she's back (apparently...was she ever gone?) and in fine form. As dissonant as ever.

I have to say I'm underwhelmed by the arguments for the judicial filibuster as it is now deployed by the Democrats. The president and his party won the election; and the president should be able to nominate judges and have them brought to a vote in the Senate. Maybe an exceptional case could justify a filibuster; but I don't see the broad decision to block so many nominees as a matter of precedent.

The precedent of eliminating the filibuster to be accomodationist for a group of Christo-Fascist whackos whose response is never "Thank You" but "Get the Fuck out of our Faces, WE WANT MORE" should worry even Sullivan. That it doesn't is evidence that despite his public protestations about the 1600 Crew, prove he's still pining for the same treatment Commander Codpiece gave the stallion. And he's not afraid to tell us. Or him.

tin soldiers and nixon coming
we're finally on our own
this summer i hear the drumming
four dead in ohio

gotta get down to it
soldiers are gunning us down
should have been gone long time ago
what if you knew her
and found her dead on the ground
how can you run when you know?

--Neil Young

Kent State. May 4, 1970.

My, but Priscilla Owen has some, um, familiar-sounding credentials.

Prior to being elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994 (Karl Rove served as her $250,000 campaign consultant), Owen practiced commercial litigation in Houston for 17 years, arguing one federal appellate case and one state appellate case and writing the briefs for one other state court appeal. According to the Texas Lawyer newspaper, Owen had toiled in "legal obscurity."

"She was a second-tier oil and gas litigator," McDonald says.

If the republicans manage to detonate the "nuclear option" to get their own way, it may be their "bridge too far". Most Americans who pay attention on both sides of the spectrum don't like it, and since they pay attention they vote. It might bode well for the mid-terms if they try and throw that tantrum. Those who pay attention, also tend to remember what they were paying attention to.

Listen...that muffled sound you hear is the republicans self-destructing in Hubris, USA, located somewhere in the Lynchburg - Colorado Spring - DC triangle.

The Proof is in the Voting folks. Bill to provide 1.9 billion and change for veterans healthcare went down on partisan lines 46-54. Sole republican voting with all the senate Dems: Arlen Specter (ex-Marine officer, I believe). Joementum voted for vets (surprised we are!) and McCain voted against them, which surprises me, but then he's been getting so far up Preznit Brush Hacker's ass it's not such a shocker. He's so forgotten his roots that if you asked him if he was a "turtle"* he probably wouldn't remember the answer. Sad.

46-54. Real Americans vs "Troop-Hating Frauds". Doesn't get much clearer than that, does it?

*You bet your sweet ass I am!

Atrios has a post up on the NPR Ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin and his response to bloggers posting and commenting on the report of the killing of the Italian Secret Service agent.

Shorter Dvorkin "Bloggers amoral and bad, NPR (and the media) saintly and good".

So I had to write Mr. Dvorkin a letter:

Several reasons:

"Second, the blogosphere has proven once again to be an amoral place with few rules. The consequences for misbehavior are still vague. The possibility of civic responsibility remains remote. It is a place where the philosophy of "who posts first, wins" predominates."

Next:

"Those who rely on the Internet as their primary source of news keeps growing compared to other media sources. This group also considers Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, to be the most trusted television anchor".

Finally:

"Can the MSM adopt any blog values to attract the younger audience? Or should we wait and see? Perhaps these younger people will outgrow these youthful informational indiscretions and come to their senses -- and back to media that can serve them best..."

For some reason, you seem to think that our finding a voice in the national discourse is wrong and that we as bloggers should be silent and defer to our 'betters' at NPR and elsewhere. There are many fine bloggers who have left the established media, whose body of work as bloggers stands on its own. David Neiwert at Orcinus for instance. Since you must have some background as a journalist to be the "ombudsman" at NPR, I'll leave it to you to be a journalist and find others on both sides of the aisle who are being bloggers and journalists, and doing a damn fine job of it. Me, I'm just an unapolgetically hyper-partisan egg-tosser who wants his country back from the zealots and whackos in charge right now. On any good day, maybe 400 folks read my blog, so I'm not talking to huge numbers of folks but think about the fact that I'm pretty typical in terms of reach and multiply that by however many political blogs exist. That's a lot of eggs being tossed every day in both directions.

I liken blogging to the pamphleteering of the era of the Founding Fathers. Their voices were heard, and look what came from it. From the wikipedia:

A pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets in order to get people to vote for their favourite politician or to articulate a particular political ideology. A famous pamphleteer of the American Revolutionary War was Thomas Paine. Today a pamphleteer might communicate his missives by way of weblog, but before the advent of telecommunications, those with access to a printing press and a supply of paper used the pamphlet as a means of mass communications outside of newspapers or full-fledged books.

Sorry 'bout that. The times they have changed, and you need to accept it and find a way to deal with it. Become part of the solution and quit whining about the problem.

Respectfully,
Jo Fish
Democratic Veteran
usndemvet.com/blog

My old HR professor once told me "Companies get the Union they deserve". There is a kernal of truth to that statement. Wal-Mart, while phenomenally profitable for some, is not exactly the place I'd go drop my resume. For a lot of reasons, but this is one of them:

With most of Wal-Mart's workers earning less than $19,000 a year, a number of community groups and lawmakers have recently teamed up with labor unions in mounting an intensive campaign aimed at prodding Wal-Mart into paying its 1.3 million employees higher wages.

H. Lee Scott Jr., Wal-Mart's chief executive, vigorously defends his company, arguing that wages are primarily determined by market forces and that Wal-Mart pays more than most retailers and provides better opportunities for advancement.

"If people tell you that Wal-Mart is leading the so-called 'race to the bottom' in terms of job quality or pay, they're not only wrong, they're dead wrong," he said to journalists at a company-sponsored conference here in April, the first time Wal-Mart has gone out of its way to invite a number of reporters to its headquarters to hear its views. "We are instead creating a better workplace with more opportunity and more benefits than have been available in retail."

Mr. Scott contends that the critics, including competitors, are defenders of an outdated status quo, intent on upholding a retailing system full of inefficiency and inflated prices.

He said that if Wal-Mart were as greedy as its detractors say, it would never have attracted 8,000 job applicants for 525 places at a new store in Glendale, Ariz., or 3,000 applicants for 300 jobs in outlying Los Angeles.

Mr. Scott argues that retailers, with narrow profit margins, face a different competitive situation and cannot afford to be as generous to their workers as automakers and other capital-intensive companies.

"Some well-meaning critics," he said, "believe that Wal-Mart, because of our size, should play the role that General Motors played after World War II, and that is to establish the post-world-war middle class that the country is so proud of. The facts are that retailing doesn't perform that role in the economy as G.M. does or did. Retailing doesn't perform that role in any country in the world."

Seems to me that the Wal-Mart execs want it both ways, they want the love of the stock analysts and Wall Street for being "efficient", and they want taxpayers to help them maintain those "efficiencies" by providing Medicaid and Food Stamps to help the company keep expenses down. How utterly republican. Greed, is after all, good. Right/Correct?

Here's the riddle inside the enigma question: what happens as republicans gut programs like Medicaid and Food Stamps? How does that play out in the Wal-Mart corporate strategery book, given that they are big contributors to/supporters of [gasp] the 1600 Crew and their help-the-rich agenda?

Seems Beloved Leader has a little quandry facing him. Perhaps Scott Ritter is right and the invasion of Iran is less than 60 days away. Here are some Preznit Horse Cock noises:

The Bush administration said Monday that Iran was trying to build atomic weapons in secret and suggested the international community should respond by taking away Tehran's right to nuclear energy technology.

The Defense Department acknowledged yesterday that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the U.S. military to a point where it is at higher risk of less swiftly and easily defeating potential foes, though officials maintained that U.S. forces could handle any military threat that presents itself.
...
Underscoring the stress facing the armed services, the Army reported separately yesterday that its recruiting efforts are continuing to slip, as recruiters nationwide obtained less than 60 percent of the April goal of 6,600 new recruits into the active-duty force. It was the third straight month in which the Army missed its recruiting goal, and it represents a significant downward trend.

I'm pretty sure they'll be right behind Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz and Bolton; it's their destiny.

Everyone's favorite troglodyte, Tom Delay is becoming more visible nationally. Good. Between his arrogance, and Preznit Horse Cranker's moribund intellect things are looking, well, pretty fine. The longer that Delay is around, the more Beloved Leader will be tied to him, and that's great!

At first, it was easy to believe that the storm clouds gathering around House Majority Leader Tom DeLay signaled little more than another Washington tempest. After all, most Republicans reassured themselves, hardly anybody outside the Beltway or DeLay's district in Sugar Land, Texas, had even heard of the Congressman, much less cared about his inflammatory comments about judges or his overseas junkets that might have been paid for by lobbyists. But not any more. Letters and phone calls to congressional offices about DeLay have picked up sharply of late, an aide to the House GOP leadership says.

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." - From a speech made to bankers [3/12/03]

* "I am the federal government." - DeLay was responding to a government employee who tried to prevent him from smoking on government property. As reported in the New York Times [2003 June 13]

"...I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." - From "Talk Back Live" on CNN [1995 December 19]

"The judges need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution. (If they don't behave) we're going to go after them in a big way." - From the Washington Post [9/14/97]

On Clinton's military intervention in Bosnia:

"The President now needs to show leadership, consistently and with great clarity, from devising an exit strategy to developing favorable rules of engagement, from defining the criteria of success to detailing the timetables of operations. We have learned the hard way in this country that muddled military missions lacking clear leadership hurt our national credibility while putting our troops in harm's way."

�This is [President Clinton�s] war.� Washington Post, 4/14/99

�The Kosovo operation is different and oxymoronic. It is a �peace war� waged by �peace hawks� pursuing a dovish social agenda. Peace hawks are global idealists and former anti-war activists, including the youthful Bill Clinton.� Floor Statement, 4/15/99

�Instead of sending in ground troops, we should pull out the forces we now have in the region. Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should send ground troops to Kosovo and I do not think we should be bombing in the Balkans, and I do not think that NATO should be destroyed by changing its mission into a humanitarian invasion force.� Floor Statement, 4/28/99

But when Bunnypants started wasting people in Iraq (American and Iraqi):

�I think it's hypocritical to say on the one hand that you support the troops while on the other hand you say the reason they are risking their lives is wrong. I think it undermines the effort and the unity this country ought to be showing right now."- Rep. Tom DeLay, Washington Times, 3/20/03

�Well, I think it's not the time to be questioning this president on how he is carrying out the war. George W. Bush, thank God we have him as president right now and thank God that we've got all of the people that he has, really strong individuals that around him, fighting this war�The President�s doing it under great criticism, unfortunately, but hopefully, that criticism will now come to an end, and we we'll all unify and support our troops and support the effort and win the war.� � Rep. Tom DeLay, CNN InsidePolitics 3/19/03

�This destructive rhetoric does nothing more than demoralize our troops and second-guess our commander in chief.� � Rep. Tom DeLay, Press Release, 3/20/03

He and Quayle, DeLay explained to the assembled media in New Orleans, were victims of an unusual phenomenon back in the days of the undeclared Southeast Asian war. So many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself. Satisfied with the pronouncement, which dumbfounded more than a few of his listeners who had lived the sixties, DeLay marched off to the convention.

Silly Kuwaiti uterus-bearing humans, thinking that the al-Sabah's would give them the [gasp] vote. Seems that Chimp 41 went to war because the evil tyrant Sad-dam had crossed that line the sand, threatening the Koo-Aitis and their Oil. So he had to be stopped. His semi-retarded offspring has not succeeded in spreading Democracy to neighboring Kuwait it seems.

Kuwait's Parliament effectively killed a measure today that would have allowed women to participate in municipal elections for the first time this year, delaying any further discussion of the measure until after the elections are called. The measure's failure ends any chance that women will be able to vote or run in elections for another four years.

Wham! Bam! Screw you ma'am! It's Islamo Fascism Time in Suffragette Kuwait City!

In the slightly, okay, make that extrememly Orwellian and Paranoid world of the 1600 Crew it's fair to say that classification reigns supreme. In the heavily-redacted, but incorrectly saved .pdf file of the report on the mistaken killing of the Italian Secret Service officer, amidst all the alphabet soup of military jargon, this little germ was marked "S//NF", which if I remember my militarese means "Secret, No (dissemination to) Foreign Nationals. Since we here at Democratic Veteran once held a pretty high-level clearance and got to see much of the boring, and over-classified shit that passes for "secret" and above stuff (it's pretty mundane folks), we're sensitive to not letting out any state secrets. But since the unredacted version of this was taken from the website of an Italian newspaper, it's fairly safe to assume that the "cat is out of the bag". Ooops.

If I were the guy who was responsible for classifying this, I would do it in a way that I would not look like an idiot if it were ever made, ahem, public. Here goes:

² (S//NF) ² VOIP is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (analog) phone line.

Un Be Lievable. Voice over IP is classified by our government as Secret Technology. I guess all those broadband phone companies better be careful, they're obviously not getting with the "loose lips" etc... program.

1. Tell 'em Noe, Noe, Noe
   
2. Updated
   
3. A chickenhawk squawks
   
4. The Fittingest of Tributes
   
5. Memorialize This
   
6. What Priscillaz Owens...
   
7. Best Sentence of the Year Award
   
8. One Mouth. Two Sides.
   
9. Oxymoron
   
10. George v. John