Well, it's started. Now that the thieving republicans are getting caught with their hands in every cookie jar open to them (and since they control everything, that's all cookie jars available), they have to say that, well, Democrat's do this too...gee, that would be what, the first attempt at bi-partisan governance since they took the House and Senate? Here's how Howie (aka Mr. Sherri Annis, republican mouthpiece) spins it:

Is the recent spate of corruption cases a growing problem for the Republicans, or is that just Democratic spin?
...
Of course, the Democrats don't have totally clean hands. Abramoff was friendly with some D's as well. Ohio's Jim (Beam Me Up) Trafficant is in jail on a 2002 bribery conviction. And Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson is under investigation over a telecommunications deal in Niger.

But Kurtz does provide exactly what his republican paymasters so desperately are seeking in this all-news all-the-time world: Cover. Each little bit of crap like what Kurtz puts out there lets someone else point to what he has written as factual, and then it becomes gospel that "All Dems as dirty as All Republicans" in about two news cycles (because heaven forfend, actual journalisism occur).

The best defense at this point seems like a good offense. Reid and Pelosi need to take an aggressive point position, followed by Howard Dean and others, like Bob Kerry and Bill Bradley ... squeaky-clean and utterly vanilla Democrats who are pissed at being tarred with brush of the Rove Blast Fax on corruption just for their party affiliation. We did a great job on Social Security...it's time to mobilize those efforts towards this issue NOW before we are overcome by republican talking head talking spin points

Weeeel, I guess it beats unemployment. But by how much, I'm just not sure. Seems that the Army is looking for about 78,000 "Armies of One", including officers.

The Army this month began contacting 78,000 people who previously served in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to pitch them on the idea of leaving behind their civilian lives and returning for another stint in uniform, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.
...
Unlike in the past, they now can return to the Army without giving up their previous rank or undergo the rigors of basic training, said Hilferty, who described it as the first program of its kind for the Army.
...
Hilferty said the new program, which targets people who left the military within the past five years and particularly those who were in branches other than the Army, is not a sign of recruiting desperation.
...
About 7,000 former officers were among the 78,000 receiving recruiting letters that stated, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces, and this is your opportunity to answer the call to duty again."

I love this part of the letter:

"You've served our country before, and maybe you miss the adventure, camaraderie, teamwork and leadership opportunities that the military offers. If so, you can put your previous military experience and skills to work again as a soldier in the active Army," the letter adds.

Wouldja? If they sent you a letter? Serving my country again would be the biggest draw for me (that and flying a slick doing dust-off), serving this incompetant, dickheaded adminstrations foreign policy aims would be the biggest drawback.

The Rumsfeld Bullshit never ends (scroll down), does it?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, are you concerned over -- and, in fact, is the United States looking into growing reports of uniformed death squads in Iraq perhaps assassinating and torturing hundreds of Sunnis? And if that's true, what would that say about stability in Iraq?

RUMSFELD: I'm not going to comment on hypothetical questions. I've not seen reports that hundreds are being killed by roving death squads at all.

We know for a fact that it's a violent country. We know for a fact that there have been various militias. We know that there have been some militias that have been Iran-oriented. We also know there have been some militias in the north that have been very helpful.
...
QUESTION: Well, sir, that's not a hypothetical, I don't believe. The Sunnis themselves are charging that hundreds have been assassinated, people shot in the head, found in alleys.

RUMSFELD: What you're talking about are unverified -- to my knowledge, at least -- unverified comments. I just don't have any data from the field that I could comment on in a specific way.

Do you, General?

PACE: I do not, sir, although I do know that the Iraqi government has said that they were going to investigate those kinds of allegations.

RUMSFELD: And they should. That's a good thing.

Look, it's a sovereign country. The Iraqi government exists.

There's also a political campaign taking place, and we ought to be aware of that, that there are going to be a lot of charges and countercharges and allegations. And they may very well be timed, as they are in every country in the world that has a free political system, they may be timed in a way to seek advantage.

We also will find in some cases that there will be investigations and that they will prove to have been valid. I just don't know. I can only talk about what I know.

That's life.

Everytime Rumsfeld opens his mouth he just condems these fools to their place on the shit-heap of history. This whole abortion over in Mess O'Potamia has the name "Bush" writ large on it, and "Rumsfeld" writ in just slightly smaller letters. Our leaders, our national disgrace for another century...

Oh, and Iraq is a sovereign country? I think there are alot of Iraqi's who might dispute that point. In fact, many are and violently at that...what an idiot is our SecDef. General Pace has to be so embarrassed to stand up there with him.

Yeah, so ol' reliable rinoDino Joe (who our pet troll seems to admire because he acts like a ...republican, imagine that...)

Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware on Morning Sedition this morning:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.

And then he probably wandered off looking for yet another pressitute to impress with his command of Unka Karl's talking points...

IMHO, the best WaPo editorial in a long time. Deserves to be reprinted and stuck up on every member of congresses door, every day until Novemeber of 2006. Remind them who they work for. And why.

No. Jeebus, the republicans who at this time last year were crawling up each others asses to co-sponsor yet another useless flag-burning amendment that the Dukestir had out there. Now they are "shocked! shocked! I tell you!" to find the extent of corruption he was involved with.

Concerned that the stain of former Representative Randy Cunningham's admission that he took bribes and evaded taxes could damage the party's prospects, President Bush and other Republican leaders issued strong denunciations of Mr. Cunningham's actions on Tuesday.
...
Though some Republican officials said Democrats in Congress were equally guilty of questionable behavior, including lobbyist-paid trips and underreporting of campaign contributions, they acknowledged that Republicans, because they control the White House and Congress, are being held to a higher standard by many voters. They also expressed shock and embarrassment at the extent of Mr. Cunningham's wrongdoing, which the president described on Tuesday as "outrageous."

Mr. Bush, answering a question about Mr. Cunningham's resignation from a reporter in El Paso, said members of Congress must take their legal and ethical obligations seriously.

"The idea of a congressman taking money is outrageous," the president said. "And Congressman Cunningham is going to realize that he has broken the law and is going to pay a serious price, which he should."

Why let's look at that:

* Cheney claimed that he supported the U.S. sanctions on Iraq, but the Financial Times of London reported that through foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, Halliburton became the biggest oil contractor for Iraq, selling more than $73 million in goods and services to Saddam Hussein's regime. (See http://gwbush.com/spots/postpage.html for a Washington Post article on the matter.)

Cheney has said publicly that he was unaware of Halliburton’s accounting machinations while he was CEO of the company. His Sgt. Schultz defense has been used before by the likes of Gary Winnick of Global Crossing, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, John Regas of Adelphia and Ken Lay of Enron, all of whom have been prosecuted by the Justice Department for cooking the books at their respective companies.

A story in the July 22, 2002 issue of Newsweek sets the record straight and proves that Cheney knew full well that Halliburton was engaging in accounting trickery to boost its stock and standing on Wall Street and he should be held accountable just like those other corporate evildoers.
...
The Washington Post summed up Cheney’s tenure at Halliburton this way on July 16, 2002 following revelations that the vice president made a $35 million windfall from his sales of Halliburton stock, right before the company’s share price crashed on the announcement that it was being investigated by a grand jury related to the company overbilling the federal government for its work at Fort Ord in California (which also took place under Cheney’s watch), an issue that is identical to current charges that the company has overbilled the government for its work in Iraq.

“The developments at Halliburton since Cheney's departure leave two possibilities: Either the vice president did not know of the magnitude of problems at the oilfield services company he ran for five years, or he sold his shares in August 2000 knowing the company was likely headed for a fall.”

Either way, the more evidence that surfaces related to Cheney’s role at Halliburton the more it becomes clear that the vice president is unfit to serve a second term in the White House.

35 million? As Amy Poehler said on SNL the other night: millions with an "M", that's so cute....

The new 1600 Crew motto? "Sunshine? Fuck no...that's what Undisclosed Locations are for...next question?"

Wait a minute...

"Quitting is not an exit strategy," he said in opening remarks at a news conference. "It would be a formula for putting the American people at still greater risk. It would be an invitation for more terrorist violence.

"Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, we should be focused on our strategy for victory," he added.

Why didn't I immediately recognize the inherent genius of this simple plan. I'm so going to have to ride the short bus to the unemployment office tomorrow.

Now, what was that Strategery for Victory™© again?

So, Preznit Onion-Thin Skin is cruising over to a boo-free zone to give us all his speechwriter's (and Unka Karl's) view of the War on Terra™ (WJWT? - Who Jesus Would Torture?).

What does it say about the president of the United States that he won't go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he'll only speak to captive audiences?

President Bush's safety zone these days doesn't appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers.

Tomorrow, Bush gives a speech on the war on terror -- at the United States Naval Academy. Then he attends a reception for Republican party donors.

Today, he visits a U.S. Border Patrol office, then attends a Republican fundraising lunch.

Yesterday, he spoke at an Air Force base and a Republican fundraiser.

MATTHEWS: I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally.

R Preznit...he's just an All-American...

Fuck-up.

Our first-ever fill in the blank day here at DV. Not amazingly, surprisingly or even in the realm of the unexpected, the Preznit of Vice is not gonna tell us about his travel expenses, even though he has to by law. Fuck laws, those are for the rest of America, not the ruling 1600 Crew Klaven...

Open-government advocates say that Vice President Cheney is to executive branch secrecy what darkness is to the night.
...
More recently, a government watchdog group has called attention to less noticed records that Cheney has sought to keep private: travel costs.

In a report this month, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity said Cheney and his staff have sidestepped regulations that require annual reporting of travel expenses of more than $250 received from outside groups. The center, which focuses on ethics and public service issues, said previous vice presidents routinely disclosed such payments for lodging, travel and food when the veep and his staff made appearances at colleges, think tanks and trade associations.
...
Cheney's office says nothing is amiss. In three letters since 2002 to the Office of Government Ethics, which collects the travel reports, David S. Addington, then Cheney's general counsel, noted that the reporting requirement applies to the "head of each agency of the executive branch."

"The Office of the Vice President is not an 'agency of the executive branch,' and hence the reporting requirement does not apply," wrote Addington, who this month replaced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as Cheney's chief of staff.
...
Yet, according to the center's research, Cheney has given 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at academic institutions since 2001 -- apparently all at taxpayers' expense.

"[I]t appears that his office labels them 'official travel,' " the center said. "As a result . . . the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill."

You know, it's never the big things that bring 'em down...it's the smallest details that sometimes get'em. The problem with a government-by-stealth is that the hide all the details, and it's not until years later we find out the extent of their criminality.

You would think someone so fired up about "honesty" in government would behave differently. Well five years of raw power have proven only one thing to The Dick...he thinks he can get away with anything. Maybe not for much longer.

In the years after Watergate Congress could not pass legislation to prevent this crap from happening fast enough. Over successive years and administrations and congresses, they were stripped away as "cumbersome", "unnessecary" yadda yadda...maybe the only good thing about the 1600 Crew criminals from Delay to Preznit My Guts Their Blood will be a recognition that not all legislation has to only benefit special interests and big money. Some can benefit Americans as well.

Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Navy "ace" so close to being booted out of the Navy for being a piss-poor officer, before he shot down his last MiG is finally reaping the fruits of his own stupidity. Met Duke as a passing acquaintance when he was the (no shit) senior pilot in his squadron flying Phantooms off the Coral Maru. He was a legend in his own mind. A hell of a pilot though...unfortunately for him, being a hell of a stick is not always enough to build a successful Navy career on...

So now he's pleaded guilty to that crap from last summer...

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

Cunningham answered "yes, Your Honor" when asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted bribes from someone in exchange for his performance of official duties.

Later, at a news conference, he wiped away tears as he announced his resignation.
...
After the hearing, Cunningham was taken away for fingerprinting and released on his own recognizance until a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing. He could receive up to 10 years in prison.

He also agreed to forfeit to the government his Rancho Santa Fe home, more than $1.8 million in cash and antiques and rugs.

In a statement, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations.

I guess you can say this about Duke ... he'll probably be "born yet again" in prison, and have a felony conviction in common with his son...

In Boston,Todd Cunningham, 29, the son of U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA),
was sentenced on November 17 to 2-1/2 years in federal prison for marijuana smuggling. Rep.
Cunningham, who has supported the death penalty for drug traffickers, made a tearful plea to
U.S.Judge Reginald C. Lindsay for leniency for his son. Prosecutors supported the sentence, which is
half the mandatory five year term for such an offense, because Cunningham provided information about
other offenders involved in the smuggling operation. It was Cunningham's first conviction. (Bill Murphy,
"Son of lawmaker sentenced to prison," San Diego Union Tribune, November 18, 1998.)

At least he's got his Navy Pension...

Interesting...there are nine veterans of Mess O'Potamia planning runs for congress next year, and eight of them are Democrats.

Over the din of a bustling downtown coffee shop, the 41-year-old infantry officer and lawyer leans across the table, and outlines his latest mission.

''You either have to buy into the rhetoric or stand up. I am standing up."

Lentz, who as a major in the 82d Airborne helped to rebuild the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, is running for Congress. He is one of at least nine veterans vying to become the first soldiers of the post-9/11 military to be elected to the House of Representatives, according to party leaders.

They say their experience makes them well-suited to help successfully extricate the United States from Iraq and to more effectively fight the war on terrorism, which they fear is being lost in the Muslim world's court of public opinion.

Eight of the nine are running as Democrats. At least three are lawyers. Most went to the front lines from the Reserves or the National Guard. Some have been recruited for office by party leaders; others say they are trying to get the national parties to pay attention to them.

If the status quo seat holders are feeling a little threatened by these folks, fuck 'em. Perhaps it's time to look for new blood, men and women who are already proven to be unafraid of a fight and a little adversity in reaching their goals and taking care of their troops and now the folks "back home".
...
Regardless of political party, most say they are running against the current political order, which they believe has failed to collaborate on a unified strategy.How do we get these guys to talk to us so we can start spreading the word that we want to help? I really, really, have no problem tossing out a Democrat who has sucked up to the 1600 Crew for their personal gain/access/whatever and supported all the policied of Mess O'Potamia without question if they are going to be challenged by someone who has been there and bought the T-shirt.

I do read my email...

Hi Eschatonians...if you're seeing this, then welcome aboard. Feel free to poke around my Palace of Mopery and Dopery. No Charge.

Peace.

Holy Crap. This is some serious shit, and it's not being talked about much...or I've been sleeping waaaay too long.

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."
...
In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.

So with this blog post, on this most American of Holidays...I'll sum this up with a blast from the past.

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall at the Nuremberg Trials

2006 Can Not Come Soon Enough.

Yeah, so it's the biggest shopping weekend of the year. I hope everyone has gone out and spent money to support the 1600 Crew initiative of better living through massive debt. No, really. All kidding aside, one of the best gifts this year is coming from the Abu Gonzales Justice Department (how long will that last?), the investigation of the K-Street follies, or "A Bribe By Any Other Name Is Still A Felony"...

An attorney for DeLay, whose wife worked for a lobbying firm that received client referrals from Abramoff, said there was no connection between her work and congressional business. A spokesman for Doolittle, whose wife received payments from Abramoff's lobbying firm, also said there was no connection with her husband's position. Burns's office has said his actions were consistent with his support for improving conditions for Indian tribes.

Oh my, there's more..

Investigators are also gathering information about Abramoff's hiring of several congressional wives, sources said, as well as his referral of clients to Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying and consulting firm run by former senior aides to DeLay. Financial disclosure forms show that the firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, from 1998 to 2002.

Ooops. I guess the 1600 Crew and friends are the gift that just keeps on giving, as long as they're gettting. Theirs.

Gotta wonder: if M/M Delay go down, do they get a federal lockup with conjugal facilities...?

I love this. Happy fucking Turkey Day!

Former lobbyist Michael Scanlon's cooperation with U.S. Justice Department lawyers in a conspiracy investigation may help them clear a constitutional hurdle that protects lawmakers from prosecution over official acts.

Scanlon's guilty plea yesterday gives prosecutors a witness who may be able to provide evidence that lawmakers worked to pass legislation in exchange for favors, said Jim Cole, a former attorney with the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. The Justice unit is spearheading the federal probe of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his former associate, Scanlon.

Scanlon's testimony may allow the government to overcome a defense based on the "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution, which protects lawmakers from being prosecuted for legislation they introduce or speeches they make in Congress, Cole and other experts said. Scanlon may be able to testify about deals between lawmakers and lobbyists; such quid pro quos wouldn't be protected by the Constitution.

"The speech and debate clause only prevents you from using a legislative act" as evidence, Cole said. "The agreement is the crime."

Scanlon is a veteran of the Delay and Abramoff shakedown regimes...he knows where the bodies are buried and after seeing his heroes indicted for all kinds of shit and finding himself in the crosshairs next, went for the deal. Smart lad. It'a gonna be interesting to see how many of the republicans who have been such vocal "advocates" for "better gubmint" are dragged off to the hoosegow with Scanlons assistance.

2006 can't get here fast enough, can it?

Holy Crap...now that the Iraqi government has declared open season on Americans (and any furriners) in Iraq, life is about to get more miserable than ever in Mess O'Potamia...no shitsky.

Leaders of Iraq's sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called Monday for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country and said Iraq's opposition had a ``legitimate right'' of resistance.

The final communique, hammered out at the end of three days of negotiations at a preparatory reconciliation conference under the auspices of the Arab League, condemned terrorism, but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if their operations do not target innocent civilians or institutions designed to provide for the welfare of Iraqi citizens.

It's interesting to see the MSM doing interviews with guys who have returned from Iraq who say that we should stay and "finish the job". I wonder how this will change their perspective. The Iraqi Government, in seeking to attempt to minimize casualties among their countrymen in a war they don't support have given cart blanche to the "evil-doers" to kill everyone else. I guess that none of the brilliant NeoCon Asshats ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences...

How's that Strong on National Security thing working out for you now, Ken Mehlman et al? Nice job with the target affixing thing...Asshats.

I love to see this stuff:

The implied critique of Bush frustrates some GOP strategists. Vin Weber, a former House member, says disunity among Republicans is "enormously dangerous" because it threatens the party's traditional advantage as the one voters trust most on national security. "To risk giving that up by splitting with the president over a central national security issue is really betting the family jewels," he says.

Ahhh, I love the smell of republican desperation on Monday mornings...

It's official...he's off the wagon. Our Preznit went out and had one with the boys from Ulan Bator, when he went to Mongolia to Fluff Rummy's horse, Montana. Really...

In the first visit by a sitting US president to Mongolia, George W. Bush announced that he was in Ulan Bator to deliver an "important international message", then after a pause, added: "Secretary Rumsfeld asked me to check on his horse."

His comment got a knowing laugh from the watching Mongolian elite, dominated by officers festooned with gold medals. When Mr Rumsfeld visited Mongolia last month, the defence secretary received a horse as a gift, which he named Montana.
...
Later, Mr Bush watched Mongol warriors on horseback, drank - tentatively - fermented mare's milk, and listened to traditional throat singing.

Try fermented cow's or mare's milk. After a bowl or two, you'll be ready to invade Europe yourself.

Another shocking revelation...Scalito wants more religious interference in our lives. He's firmly in the Crazy Pat Robertson "no wall" Camp.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has compiled a brief but unmistakable record, lawyers and analysts say, that makes him a leader in the camp of conservative theorists and judges who believe federal courts have been too quick to limit religious activities in public life.

During his 15 years sitting in Newark as a member of a federal appeals court, Judge Alito has sided almost uniformly with those who have complained vigorously in recent years that zealousness in enforcing the Constitution's separation of church and state has unfairly inhibited religious practices.
...
He is inclined to the view of the First Amendment that the government is not intended to be hostile to religion," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University in California. "It is intended to be accommodating when it can."

Professor Kmiec, a former Justice Department colleague of Judge Alito's, is a leading proponent of the "religious liberty" argument pressed by social conservatives, which advances the view that the Constitution allows for a greater presence of religion in the public sphere than courts have previously allowed. This stream of argument has largely involved issues like prayer at school functions, the display of religious symbols at Christmastime and public financing of programs run by religious groups.

So after all the screaming and yelling was done last week (and that was just on Fox), you have to wonder how the voters are feeling right now about their CongressCriminals...after the Schimdt Stinkbomb on the floor of the House the republicans felt it their duty to however cynically, point out that they are all for keeping their constituents kids over in Mess O'Potamia, while theirs stay safe and sound here on their (or their friends/lobbyists/whatever) payrolls, raising their 2.5 little republican offspring and driving their SUVs in the burbs...

''To cut and run would invite terrorism into our backyards, and no one wants to see troops fighting terrorism on American soil,'' Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Friday night after the House, as planned, rejected a GOP-written resolution for immediate withdrawal. The vote, held as lawmakers rushed toward a two-week Thanksgiving break, was 403-3.

But wait, let's see, that means that there's a disconnect somewhere here...hmmmm....according to some recent polling data, maybe a more honest discussion of these issues might be prudent. Because as stupid as the Washington set seems to think that the Average American is, it seems that they are starting to wake up to the fact that there's no real plan, no ideas, and certainly no honesty from the folks wielding the levers of power about Mess O'Potamia...

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?" N=1,006, MoE ± 3

11/11-13/05
Approve 35%
Disapprove 63%
Unsure 1%

---

"In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?" Form A (N=491, MoE ± 5)

Made a
Mistake 54%

Did Not
Make a Mistake 45%

Unsure 1%

Did I pick a rotten few days to disappear or what? I caught the Howlin' Mad Jean Schmidt shrieking on the floor of the House and was immediately sorry I had given up my laptop ... what a fiasco, eh? Then the republicans making everyone vote all nicey-nicey that so that the Rove Smear machine could target the "recalcitrant" House Members who clearly hate the troops so much that they want to bring them home ... ALIVE.

Jeebus.

Gonna be not so near a computer for a couple of days...should be back to ranting, raving and generally annoying the wingnuts in another day or two. Back soon...

Pax.

In 100 years, long after my grandkids (if there are any) laugh at my feeble attempts at humour and political commentary here, people are still going to shake their heads and wonder what in the hell were Americans thinking when they went to the polls in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Here's Dr. Political Malpractice:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) took to the Senate floor to insist that his colleagues were in no way trying to shift administration policy or rebuke the White House, calling such an assessment "absurd" and "ridiculous."

"It's not a change in policy," he said. "It's a continuation of the oversight we've been conducting for years in United States Senate."

Oh, but this republican senate love-fest for the voters sake i.e. a massive disinformation campaign about how "in-tune" these multi-milloinaire republican senators are just gets better:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a staunch Bush ally, insisted the Senate vote did not indicate a change in war strategy, while also saying that Congress was becoming more assertive.

The lying never ends with the 1600 Crew and their minions does it? It's starting to look like maybe leaving Sandra Day O'Connor on the bench until 2008 as punishment for her part in the stolen election of 2000 might constitute some actual justice at the Supreme Court. Skank-Lito is a liar, a boldfaced, in-your-face, liar and he's going to get away with it unless the filibuster card is played...with the mood of the country right now, I'd like to see Dr. Tele-Malpractice go for the nuclear option...go for it Bill, your fading presidential hopes and the Republican Senate would be but a wistful summer memory...

So here's Skank-Lito talking to DiFi:

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito distanced himself Tuesday from his 1985 comments that there was no constitutional right to abortion, telling a senator in private that he had merely been "an advocate seeking a job."

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito said Thursday he was "unduly restrictive" in promising in 1990 to avoid appeals cases involving two investment firms and said he has not made any rulings in which he had a "legal or ethical obligation" to step aside.

In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Alito said a 1990 questionnaire he filled out for the panel covered his plans for "initial service" as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"I respectfully submit that it was not inconsistent with my questionnaire response for me to participate in two isolated cases seven and 13 years later, respectively," he wrote.
...
When he listed the companies in the 1990 questionnaire, "my intention was to state that I would never knowingly hear a case where a conflict of interest existed. ... As my service continued, I realized that I had been unduly restrictive," Alito said.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., criticized Alito's response in a statement. "I'm troubled to learn that Judge Alito does not stand by his 1990 promise to recuse himself from any cases involving the Vanguard companies," Kennedy said. "His letter raises serious factual questions as well as questions of law and judgment."

In the 2002 case, Shantee Maharaj, who had lost a suit against Vanguard, sought a rehearing after learning Alito held investments with the mutual fund company. She sought to have the ruling erased and Alito disqualified from further proceedings.

Letting the Frech-fry obsessed Roberts on the court could be really bad thing for the next 30 or so years, the jury is going to be out for a while, as it were (my view: bad mojo), but Skank-Lito, he's a frothing Christo-Fascists dream. Just think how happy they'll be with a camera in every bedroom and a bible in every public school desk, why just go ahead and bring out the stocks and dunking stools.

All your bodies will belong to the State anyhow, to be strip-searched, tattooed and sorted into "good" and "bad"...gee, is any of this sounding familiar? The only reasons they won't be using trains for the next go-round is that the republicans have killed Amtrack.

I guess if some Americans don't expect the Preznit to be truthful, then why expect a Supreme Court Judge to be honest as well? The lying just never stops with these asshats, does it?

No, I'm not offering any tech support for the atrocious rootkit that Sony/BMG have perpetrated on Wintel users who purchased a some music CD's which have an eminently hackable rootkit and the End User License Agreement from Hell on them...I'm offering an observation about how to make someone's life miserable...and who is that someone? Why your congresscriminal, whether or not they voted to support the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the piece of legislation that the Big Record Companies wanted to protect their dying hold over recorded music. Am I in favor of piracy? No. I own/legally license all the software I have on my various computers, I buy music off iTunes or purchase CD's (less and less frequently as the iTunes catalog increases).

But I digress. The entertainment industry and the software bidness spent tons of money buying votes in congress to pass the DMCA, which is one of the things that I am sure emboldened Sony to go for the "gold" so to speak. Their rootkit is so obnoxious that even Microsoft is considering it Malware and releasing a tool to rid your system of it...when Microsoft acts that fast, you know they don't want to be blamed for someone elses boo-boo, if that's what it is.

Apparently Sony is not being real forthcoming with the CD's that are affected, and they are not being real helpful with mitigating issues that their software has caused.

So, here's a suggestion: if you have a problem, or suspect you have a problem related to the rootkit, don't call Microsoft, don't call your Anti-virus vendor, don't call your PC manufacturer...call your member of congress and ask for tech support. In fact, insist on tech support because without the DMCA, there would be no rootkit or any other crap like that. Don't take no for an answer, insist that they help you. And don't forget your senators, they need to help you too...there are less of them to go around, but they too are responsible for enabling companies that want to screw up your Personal computers.

Here's the link for the House switchboard and members offices in DC. I don't have a list of all the local offices, but here's a link from the House website where you can put in your zip code (you need zip+4 to do a lookup, here's the link to find your zip+4) and find your representative, and their DC and local phone numbers.

Remember, it's your computer and some huge company should not be denying you your right to its full use. They also should not be putting software on it that enables hackers to take over your machine for various ill purposes. If the rootkit has stopped your computer from working, or has allowed attacks on your computer because of the exploitable vulnerabilities it presents, call your Congressperson and Senator for tech support to regain the full functionality you expected when you turned on your computer and discovered the rootkit has hosed you.

Whether your elected representative is a Democrat a republican, was in the 105th Congress that passed the DMCA or not, they need to help you out...this is their fault and they can fix it. Yesterday if they want to by getting rid of the whole DMCA, part and parcel. So call'em and don't take no for an answer, it's your PC and they're your representatives. Your PC should just work and it's their responsibility to fix it.

Now call. And when they tell you they don't do Tech Support (which they will) don't be shy about asking how to fix it and offering a solution: Dump DMCA or in 2006 you'll remember that they appreciated the big campaign contributors and lobbyists who bought DMCA better than you and your vote.

update: this is really interesting. It seems that there are over 500,000 networks worldwide that have PC's which are Sony rootkit infected. Wow.

Call...call...call.

Yeah, I'm talking about you Bill Bennett. For a right-wing whack-job moralist who loves to tell everyone else how to be virtuous on his way to the casino, methinks your hypocrisy is showing.

"Judy Miller went to jail," said author and radio host Bill Bennett, a fierce critic of the Post story. "This woman might have to go to jail too. . . . The hypocrisy here is for the media establishment to say some great wrong was done to Valerie Plame, but where is the outrage about Dana Priest?"

Sadly, the new wingnut talking point is forming as another skewed and manufactured outrage over something that we should be honestly outraged about for reasons completely unrelated to the bullshit claims of "national security"...those prisons. Not because their existance was revealed, but because they exist at all as American creations. That's an outrage.

Somehow the Clenis™' Justice Department managed to convict all kinds of terrorists from the first WTC bombers to Timothy McVeigh in open court and in the light of day. Why is that so much harder for this gang of crooks? Could it be that they are less comptetant than the Clenis™? Sure seems so...on many levels....

You have to wonder, how Mr. and Mrs. Six-Pack would feel if following our example of these "secret prisons" another superpower like say China were to start locking up abducted American businesspeople who they did not like on charges of "economic terrorism"...after all, in China a crime is what the government says it is. How do we object to the Chinese government, that such a thing is both immoral and illegal? Today, we don't. My guess, the Six-Pack's wouldn't care unless their son/daughter/relative went missing during or after a visit to Asia.

Found this in a Kos Diary:

GOP: 17th century values, 21st century marketing.

Preznit Lying Sack went out there and stood in front of the troops, who are probably tickeled pink to be that close to a POTUS. Too bad they're not close to the President...wasn't he at Arlington dishonoring all those who had their priorities straight?

Anyhow, Our Big Liar from his speech today:

And yet this fight we have joined is also the current expression of an ancient struggle -- between those who put their faith in dictators, and those who put their faith in the people. Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision -- and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure -- until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent -- until the day that free men and women defeat them.

Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, nice guy, boils his opponents alive

The ruling family of Kuwait...we gave them back democracy to flourish after Desert Storm 1, kidding much!

The Saudi Royal Family including all the little princes that Preznit Hopscotch holds hands and skips around the Rose Garden with like a couple of penis-laden Heathers

Hey. Just wanted to point out (if you haven't been there already) that Main and Central has gotten a facelift for Veterans Day...our intrepid designer was up all night getting it ready for a launch today. So "Hasta la Bye-Bye" to the old and in with the new. Same great writing and contributors, new digs...

Check it out, it looks good...

From an old post, but the sentiment is the same today as two years ago.

May all my friends now in the Fertile Crescent come home to celebrate many, many Veterans Days with their kids, grandkids and any other close or distant relations who might want to hang with them.

May the Neocons all read Dante, and take it to heart.

Hey, just wanted to let you know about a new blog that was brought to my attention..."One Veteran's Voice", an Army OIF vet just returned from Mess O'Potamia.

Brand spankin' new and pretty damn good. Go give Brian a big "welcome aboard" to Blogtopia! He's headed to the blogroll too...

Oh, and three posts and he's already got a Troll...

The GOP sez: Lies are OK as long as they're our lies.

In a written response to questions from the US Senate during his 1990 confirmation hearings to be an appeals judge, Samuel Alito promised: ''I would disqualify myself from any case involving my sister's law firm, Carpenter, Bennett & Morrissey of Newark, New Jersey." His sister left that firm in 1994, and she said yesterday that she joined McCarter & English in March 1994 -- about a year before the full court denied a rehearing in the bank-loan case.

Samuel Alito's promise to disqualify himself from hearing cases in which he faced a potential conflict of interest has become a focal point for Democratic critics as they prepare for his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in January.

In his questionnaire, provided to the Senate during his confirmation hearings as an appeals court judge, Samuel Alito cited four types of cases in which he would disqualify himself to avoid a potential conflict of interest: those involving Vanguard, in which he owned mutual fund shares; Smith Barney, his brokerage firm; First Federal Savings & Loan of Rochester, N.Y., which held his home mortgage; and his sister's law firm.

Alito ruled in a 2002 case in Vanguard's favor at a time when he owned between $390,000 and $975,000 in mutual fund shares from Vanguard.

Never mind, they're running the country.

Happy Birthday to The Corps. 230. What an achievement.

Semper Fi, my friends.

Golly gee whiz...

On Tuesday - three days before Veterans Day - House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, "veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees."

Remember that Buyer was handpicked by criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to replace former veterans committee chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who had been extremely vocal about the consistent underfunding of veterans causes.

The Disabled American Veterans, the "official voice of America's service-connected disabled veterans," just issued a scathing release calling the move "an insult to all who have fought, sacrificed and died to defend the Constitution." The timing, they said, "could not have been worse."

They hate us. They really hate us.

November 2006 is coming. The Atrocities are being documented. Don't be whiny pussies when you lose, 'K GoOPers?

John McCain in his run-up to being the chosen one of the right reverend tinkywinky and company for the nomination in 2008 was talking about the need to stay in Iraq. I was sitting in a restaurant that had MSGOP on, and was trying to follow his speech on Iraq via the closed-captioning and basically caught this: we have to stay in Iraq or we'll be branded as the Big Chickens of the World. Or as the 1600 Crew talking points would have it: if we leave, the insurgency wins.

Well, other than the obvious fact that we never should have invaded Iraq in the first place, much less gone in without either a plan or a clue, tell me John, how many dead American Soldiers does it take to declare a victory over an insurgency? The last major experience our country had in this kind of a war you spent as guest of the enemy in a POW camp being tortured for a goodly number of years. From that little dust-up the final tally was around 58,000 if I remember my history correctly. Oh, and the dominoes never fell.

Granted that this is a different conflict, but other than invading a former ally on what have now turned out to be outright lies, our claims of trying to "democratize" the middle-east ring hollow everytime a press report comes out that we have been using Willie-Pete as an anti-personnel weapon. We have done nothing to begin to address the problems facing the poorest and most-oppressed citizens of countries that are ripe for exploitation by radical Islam, our new 'worstest enemy' and scapegoat for all our misguided adventurism.

Even with the unilateral nature of the invasion (The Coalition of the Bought, nothwithstanding) allies would have been useful in helping to settle some of the issues we are experiencing now. Instead the unblooded cowboys of the NeoCon wing of the republican party with pump-jacks in their eyes and contractors at their shoulders convinced the Preznit to pooh-pooh the idea of multi-lateralism...going it alone, is after all, the mas macho Rexall Wrangler way.

So now we're stuck. Your Preznit is gearing up to try a major PR blitz to deflect attention back to the Democrats and nay-sayers on your side of the aisle. To provide another smoke-and-mirrors defense of the war and the horrid "black prisons" being run in our name, with a concept of "Justice" ("we're finding terrorists and bringing them to 'justice'") that's so perverse it ought to be rated TV-MA to be discussed on the air at all.

All the upcoming PR bluster will be for the purpose of deflecting talk away from the Preznit and onto Americans who question the need for the war and the abrogation of the human rights for anyone, even the worst of our enemies...if we can't try them openly and fairly, then are we still the America you and I signed up to defend?

So John, just how many dead American soldiers are in the "successful" crushing of an insurgency? Is there a number you have in mind, or do we find out in 2015 when they tally up the names for yet another memorial on the Capital Mall?

"But I wanted to investigate my own errors in reporting about non-existant WMD's but they wouldn't let me...waaaaaaaaaaah!"

Wow, given the popularity in absolute terms of Preznit Free-Falling with most Americans these days and African-Americans in particular, it's amazing that Michael Steele will be hosted at a fundraising event featuring the politically-toxic but well-Beloved Leader.

Maryland Republican officials confirmed yesterday that President Bush will host a fundraising luncheon for Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele this month -- the latest high-profile embrace by national GOP luminaries of Steele's U.S. Senate bid.

Oh, and given that Mr. Steele is follically-challenged, it might be wise if he wears a hat when in the presence of Preznit Head Rubber...it's gotta be kind of embarrassing when the guy rubs your head in public, and then grins like a ten year-old...

It's amazing isn't it, that with just the passage of a small, nay infinitesimal, amount of time, Ahmad Chalabi, raconteur of the Fairy Tales of Mass Distraction, convicted embezzeler, liar of monumental proportion and a covert operative for the Government of Iran gets a warm welcome into the highest circles of power in America?

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi offered Wednesday to be questioned by the Senate on his role in prewar Iraq but refused to apologize for fueling allegations that Saddam Hussein had hidden caches of weapons of mass destruction.

Accorded a warm reception by the Bush administration, Chalabi lined up Vice President Dick Cheney and five Cabinet officers, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, for meetings this week and next.

Chalabi, whose reputation in Washington has soared, fallen and now revived, was welcomed by administration officials whom he briefed on Iraq's reconstruction efforts, particularly on energy and financial issues.

Funny how that all worked out ... for Chalabi.

Which brings us to a new definition, Chalabi'd: To be rode hard and put away wet and told that it was good for you without even being offered a post-coital smoke.

Weeeel golly gosh, it looks like the falling numbers and perhaps the defeat of Beloved Leader's Chosen One to lead Virginia back to the Dark Ages in preparation for the rapture have given the "moderate" (read: Concerned) republicans in the House a bit of spine.

House Republican leaders neared an expected decision to strip oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve from their massive $54 billion budget-cutting measure last night as they scrounged for support ahead of a scheduled vote today.

At least 22 Republicans have told the House leadership they will not vote for the sweeping bill unless the drilling provision is removed and they are given assurances that it will not return after House and Senate negotiators hash out a final measure. Even then, several moderate Republicans have said they still would oppose the bill, which would allow states to impose new costs on Medicaid recipients, cut funds for student loans and child support enforcement, trim farm supports, lift a moratorium on "Outer Continental Shelf" offshore energy drilling, and restrict access to food stamps.
...
"It's not just [the Arctic drilling] or the Outer Continental Shelf or food stamps. It's the package in its totality," said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), who has told GOP leaders the measure will lead to the "dismantling" of the Republican conference.

The moderates' firm stance, especially on Arctic drilling, has put GOP leaders in a bind. ...
...
In the Senate, a similar showdown will occur today, as the Finance Committee moves to draft a five-year, $60 billion bill that would extend expiring tax cuts from President Bush's first term. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) told Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) she would oppose the measure as fiscally unwise and an unfair boost to the affluent just as Congress moves to cut programs for the poor.

If, as expected, Finance Committee Democrats oppose the tax cuts' extension, Snowe's opposition would sink the bill.

You know, as with anything the more you practice, the better you get. It's taken a lifetime of consecutive failures for Preznit Dry Hole to perfect the art of Spectacular Failure on an Almost-Cosmic Scale...but oh my, he's gotten good at it, hasn't he?

Here's a toast to all the wingnuts who keep saying "well, you just have win elections". Well, we're doing that.

Oh, and a big shout out to my boy Preznit Publicly Toxic! Keep up the good work! Campaign like it's 1999 in all those districts that luv ya man! They 'preciate ya!

Big Time gets a hearing on his torture amendment after he and all his staffers who are pro-torture go as students, to one of the military's schools where some aspects of survival are taught. The whole course, every day, every hour with not a VIP kit, Secret Service agent, grovelling toady or sycophantic staffer in sight.

That of course will never happen, but it might wake them up to the facts that torture is a poor excuse for (forgive the pun) intelligence.

Seems the Duchess of Dupont thinks she's relevant to the discussion again...ever passing out the sage advice, she proffers:

...None of this means we should follow the anti-war movement and abort the mission. ...

More to the point...he's still in love with Preznit DOMA...here's the full quote:

It seems to me that we are getting a better picture every day of how this administration screwed up its own war. They were defensive when they should have been candid; they were reckless when they should have been meticulously prepared for every outcome; they were insecure when they should have been forthcoming; they decided to divide, rather than unite the country. None of this means we should follow the anti-war movement and abort the mission. It simply means we have to be very skeptical of the key players in this war - Cheney and Rumsfeld above everyone - and try and prevent them from inflicting more damage on a noble cause.

Well with last minute dirty tricks by the republicans (what else is new?) to try and defeat Tim Kaine, it seems that Beloved Leader is now trying to salvage what little is left of his "man date" with the American people by tossing himself willy-nilly into the Virginia Governors race.

In jumping into the Virginia governor's race just 10 hours before polling booths open, President Bush put his credibility on the line last night and ensured that the results will be interpreted as a referendum on his troubled presidency. But the White House is gambling that after weeks of political tribulations, Bush has little more to lose.

But I like this quote even more:

The Virginia venture, though, could accelerate the snowball. "I think he will regret it and I think the only reason he went is because not going was a threat to his manhood," Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman said.

A Kilgore loss may convince some Republicans that Bush is more liability than asset. "If both these races go south, in New Jersey and Virginia," said a GOP consultant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, "that'll be a real signal to Capitol Hill and that's when the rats will really jump off the ship."

Interesting story on how the attack dogs of the right wing are trying to intesify the smear on Joe Wilson. Because the kool-aid drinkers can't get beyond the fact that the Mayberry Machiavellis play politics with National Security, they just continue to attack Wilson instead of demanding accountability from the 1600 Crew. Right, like that's gonna happen...

Two GOP attack dogs (who are regular pundits on FOX and have been published by Regnery, the nutty GOP publishing arm) are now trying to spread a lie about Joe Wilson, saying he revealed to them in a casual conversation in the Green Room at FOX News in 2002 (a year before Novak outed Valerie Wilson) that Valerie worked at the CIA.

Interesting note: in the letter from Wilson's lawyer, he uses the phrase:

"... Ms. Wilson's secret CIA identity ..."

Methinks the teflon is starting to chip off...if Unka Karl heads off to fight the legal battles that are anticipated for him and Scooter, the burden of actually governing will fall on the narrow shoulders of Preznit Failure Is An Option. Let's face it, a guy with a Harvard MBA who has run that many bidnesses into the ground ought to consider Agriculture not Politics for a profession. At least there, he'd only be killing crops, not Americans.

The expected departures are among a host of new signs suggesting that Bush's sixth year in office--the last one before midterm elections and a turn in attention toward the 2008 race to succeed him--will be very different from his first five. The sunny optimist who loved to think big is now facing polls in which for the first time a majority of Americans say they do not trust him. "It's like it's twilight in America," says one frustrated conservative.

But hey, we're not counting our chickens here, we're just watching the conservitives self-destruct with all their "honor and dignity" intact. I'm guessing that right now someone in RNC is wishing that Preznit Sippin' and Suckin' would just get a blow-job in the Oval Office...at least they have a model for how to spin that. The last time a republican Chief Executive was caught lying he left on Air Force One and landed in just another military jet flying west.

We can only hope that Crawford will take their village idiot back without his Secret Service detail. You don't get to keep that if you're impeached and convicted.

Preznit Mile-Wide Yellow Stripe:

"...We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice."

In reference to point one above: How long has Osama bin Missing?

With the proof that Big Time and His Ethically-Challenged minions have moved solidly into the territory charted by Michael Moore in Farenheit 9/11, is it really so silly to start looking at the La Famiglia Bunnypants and the bin Ladens a wee bit more closely?

I love this. Some Christo-Fascists have a new cause. Environmentalism. Well, some of them anyway...

In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally.

With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming.

In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions.

A major obstacle to any measure that would address global warming is Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an evangelical himself, but a skeptic of climate change caused by human activities.

Mr. Inhofe has led efforts to keep mandatory controls on greenhouse gases out of any emission reduction bill considered by his committee and has called human activities contributing to global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

"You can always find in Scriptures a passage to misquote for almost anything," Mr. Inhofe said in an interview, dismissing the position of Mr. Cizik's association as "something very strange."

Mr. Inhofe said the vast majority of the nation's evangelical groups would oppose global warming legislation as inconsistent with a conservative agenda that also includes opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. He said the National Evangelical Association had been "led down a liberal path" by environmentalists and others who have convinced the group that issues like poverty and the environment are worth their efforts.

Luke 6:20

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

If this is true, it's going to cause quite a fissure in the GOoPers who are in the camp I think of as "Literal Rapturists" and these folks who are finally coming onboard with some environmental protections. It's interesting that Inhofe is trying to tar the environmentally-aware envangelicals as being "gay friendly". Gee, wonder how that's gonna play with those folks? Not spectacularly well, I'd imagine.

Simply amazing...

A Department of Defense decision to renege on war-time promises to pay bonuses to more than a dozen re-enlisting Washington National Guardsmen has sparked outrage from prominent elected officials and state National Guard officers working to rectify the situation.

According to a state Guard spokesman, Maj. Phil Osterli, at least 15 Washington National Guardsmen and women signed re-enlistment forms promising them a tax-free $15,000 bonus in return. Many of them were stationed in Iraq at the time, he said.

But Pentagon officials have said in published reports that the bonuses were canceled because they duplicated other programs and were prohibited.
...
He signed a re-enlistment form Jan. 17, just after he took the oath from his commanding officer. "For a 6 year reenlistment/extension I will receive a total bonus of $15,000," reads the official Army National Guard form.

After serving two years active duty with the Navy and the last 11 years with the National Guard, Latson said, "I re-enlisted because the opportunity was there to finally get a bonus."

Latson, who served in Iraq most recently from March 2004 to March 2005, said he has been counting on the money to help buy a house and to support his 11-year-old daughter. He said he knows at least 10 other National Guardsmen in the same boat.
...
Latson said that regardless of whether he gets the money promised him, he's made one decision. He plans to quit the military long before retirement age.

"I'm to the point now where I want to get out," he said. "I'm just really disappointed."

What part of "contract" do the folks in that five-sided monument to Murphys Law of Architecture not understand?

If we had a Preznit who actually believed any of this bullshit, it might be different.

"The United States has common ground with countries that promote democracy and freedom and believe in the rule of law,"...

I wonder if Hugo Chavez will ask how that WMD-hunt is going in Mess O'Potamia?

Ol' Brownie, the Arabian Stallion of the sinking 1600 Crew, has an interesting archive of emails that have been released, which will help immortalize him as the biggest Hindquarter of Horse in the history of political appointments.

Tucked into that treasure-trove of self-aggrandizing fashion commentary is this:

From: Worthy, Sharon
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 10:17AM
To: michael.d.brown
Subject: Your shirt

Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt...all shirts. Even the President rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow.

In this crises and on TV you just need to look more hard-working...ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!

Isn't email wonderful?

Seems that the rest of the hemisphere gets it...and slowly, some folks who were ignoring the message here, may be getting it soon too...

A crowd of 10,000 people chanting "Get out Bush!" swarmed the streets of this Argentine resort Friday, hours before the hemisphere's leaders sat down to debate free trade, immigration and job creation at the fourth Summit of the Americas.
...
Chanting "Fascist Bush! You are the terrorist!" the protesters hung from the engine and moved up the sides of the train, trying to shake hands with those inside.

Here on the homefront, if the DNC doesn't make this into a commercial and start doing ad buys to run it continuously at low-volume for the next year, something is seriously wrong...

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

Yeah, I'm guessing that the 'values' card might be a bit harder to pull out of the deck next year ... not even wacko christo-fascists like to be played for the fool 24/7/365. I'm guessing there might be drought of goodwill in Wackotown come next year. Running some ads might just encourage precipitously poor weather for the shearing of that flock don't you think?

Another strange mix...really, really strange.

Jungleland...................Springsteen
Try A Little Tenderness......The Committments
Hypnotized...................Fleetwood Mac
Roll Me Away.................Bob Seger
Lose Yourself................Eminem
Peace of Mind................Boston
Hello Again..................The Cars
1985.........................Bowling For Soup
Free Me......................Foo Fighters
Be My Lover..................Alice Cooper

My iPod is possessed. At least it's not channeling the 1910 Fruitgum Company. eeew, can't believe I just wrote that. Sorry.

Got your attention, did it? Check this out and see if that's all that far off...

Congress will worsen a near crisis of runaway military health care costs if it enacts a Senate-backed provision to open the new Tricare Reserve Select program to all drilling Reserve and National Guard members, the Defense Department's top health official has warned.

In testimony before a House subcommittee, Dr. William Winkenwerder said military health costs have doubled in just the last four years to more than $36 billion, largely because of enhancements in benefits for retirees and their families. But Winkenwerder also blamed a decadelong freeze on Tricare enrollment fees and co-payments, which he suggested DOD will try to raise after consulting military leaders and Congress.

If costs aren't brought under control, he warned, the "sustainability" of the military's "world class" health benefit is threatened. The current $36 billion budget will climb to $50 billion in four or five years, Winkenwerder said. Even the Joint Chiefs, he added, are now worried that health spending is affecting programs of higher priority for the nation's defense.

The of course, there are the conservitards in the House of Representatives who couldn't balance the budget if their lives depended on it:

Congress should do nothing more on reserve health benefits, Winkenwerder said, until TRS has had time to run. He criticized as costly and unneeded a Senate-approved plan to open TRS to all drilling reservists. House Republican leaders removed similar language from the House 2006 defense authorization bill, saying the $3.8 billion cost over five years, was not offset with cuts elsewhere, thus violating House budget rules.

Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the personnel subcommittee, had supported that decision and invited Winkenwerder to comment on the nearly identical provision alive in the Senate bill.

"We don't support that provision," said Winkenwerder.

Don't you love it when the DoD and by extension the 1600 Crew fights for you? Anymore of this kind of love, and you could be getting billed by collection agencies while you're recuperating from those shrapnel wounds from last weeks IED explosion. Oh, wait, that's already happened. Never mind.

One might almost argue that Dr Winkenwerder is trying to be a good guardian of our tax dollars at work...except he's trying to make sure he guards them for the next round of tax cuts for the Friends of the 1600 Crew.

While everyone is focusing on Scooter, Judy, Big Time and the other players in the immaculate birth of Mess O'Potamia, there's this intersting little bit of information about how some of this all got started. And trust me, it's a real three-penny opera, complete with bad Italian actors, forgeries and low-lifes run rampant.

As Washington braces for the possible indictment of some of its most powerful officials, Italy is reliving its own small but significant role in "Niger-Gate," the scandal that surfaced as the Bush administration made its case for war in Iraq.

If all roads lead to Rome, so do the rumors: Washington's problem with the leak of a CIA officer's identity has tentacles here.

Former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, whose wife was the covert CIA operative whose identity might have been leaked by White House officials, was dispatched in February 2002 to investigate a claim that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Niger after documents asserting exactly that surfaced in Rome.

The documents were determined to be forgeries, and Wilson said he found little evidence to back the claim.

Yet the claim was used in late 2002 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and in early 2003 by President Bush to illustrate the threat posed by the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

Who forged the documents, which included letters and purported contracts, remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the affair.

Speculation about how the papers were produced in Rome, and complaints that the Italian government has done little to find out or to come clean, dominated political debate here this week, especially in the left-leaning newspaper La Repubblica, which has dedicated page after page of breathless prose to the matter.

Among its claims, La Repubblica has suggested that the head of Italy's military secret service, Nicolo Pollari, disseminated the false information to the Bush administration on orders from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a loyal ally eager to give Bush a helping hand.
...
The murky saga involves one Rocco Martino, an occasional Italian spy and businessman who initially peddled the documents. He has told reporters over the last few years that he obtained the papers through a contact at the Niger Embassy in Rome (which, incidentally, was burglarized in 2001) with the help of another officer from Italian military intelligence, and that he sold them to a French intelligence agency with which he occasionally traded.
...
Martino is a problematic figure. La Repubblica described him as a "failed carabiniere [policeman] and dishonest spy" and a "double-dealer" who plays many sides of every fence and was fired from his job in the Italian secret service.

In 2002, the documents came into the hands of an Italian reporter, Elisabetta Burba, working for the magazine Panorama, which is owned by Berlusconi, the prime minister.

Burba has not publicly identified her source, except to say he was a usually reliable "security consultant," and she declined to do so again Thursday in an interview. But news reports have said Martino was her source. On orders from her editor, she handed copies of the documents over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Separately, she traveled to Niger to check out the claims herself, notably that Iraq was attempting to buy 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from the African country, and concluded the report was not reliable.
...
"I am very mad," Burba said. "I was used. And the documents have been used to justify a war where people are being killed. This makes me very uneasy."

So if the papers that were sent through the intelligence channels resembled something closer to a Ludlum first-draft than actual intelligence, who's going to be surprised?

Remember, Secret Intelligence without real Oversight means Never Having to Say "I'm Sorry". The proof is in Mess O'Potamia tonight.

ps...where is Osama?

One of the loyal readers, an active duty soldier sent me an interesting link to a story about a Catholic Army chaplain who was recently convicted of yeah, guess what? Sodomy and assorted other military crimes.

A Bamberg Army chaplain received a five-year prison sentence Tuesday for sodomizing three soldiers and committing several other offenses stemming from two encounters over a 13-month period.

Earlier in the day, Chaplain (Capt.) Gregory A. Arflack pleaded guilty to forcible sodomy, indecent acts, fraternization and conduct unbecoming an officer. The crimes touched the lives of six servicemembers, three of whom were sodomized and physically assaulted.

“To these [six] soldiers, I’m so sorry,” Arflack said as he choked back tears during the sentencing phase of the general court-martial. “You placed your trust in me, and I failed you.”

In the case of former CPT Arflack, how long until he's excommunicated by the Vatican? Or will he get to take over the diocese of Ft Leavenworth ... after all, the Army will pay his moving expenses to Kansas. A sodomizing priest moved to a new parish...gee, how ... familiar.

The soldier who sent me the link tells this story:

I am a servicemember and I'm so sick of the constant proletyzing and the power chaplains have. Last year I went with a buddy to see a chaplain, she had been raped and needed counseling very badly. All he could do was tell her to find comfort in Jesus and not to have anger in her heart...

Likely to be the first words out of Scalito's Yap if he's confirmed. A judge who wants to perpetuate the All-American White Boyz Klub, make sure that wimminz is barefoot an pregnint and that Korporations Rule!

Scalito...the choice for the Dark Ages.

Scalito.

And someone please tell Ben Nelson to remember which party supports him...it does not have a prevaricating pachyderm as it's icon.

In the really stupid motions department:

Attorneys defending Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay told a judge today that Democratic state district Judge Bob Perkins should be removed from DeLay's criminal trial to avoid an appearance of bias.

Prosecutor Rick Reed countered that DeLay's attorneys must prove, not speculate, that a member of the public would have a "reasonable doubt that the judge is impartal" in order to get Perkins removed from the case.

"Judges are presumed to be impartial," Reed said.

Unless of course a "partisan judge" send him there....

Why is it that the press manages to make some of the utterances of Preznit Eternal Liar seem like they are straight off the mountain on stone tablets? Seems that the missle-man has gone all steely-eyed on the Avian Flu trail...

President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu as a first wave of protection.

The president also said the United States must approve liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the number of American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry has been hit with a flood of lawsuits.

But wait. Preznit Action Figure has called for immediate Avian Flu Action...release the hounds, just like these examples...

The Bush administration has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect airplanes, ships, and railways from terrorists.

A plan to defend ships and ports from attack is six months overdue. Rules to protect air cargo from infiltration by terrorists are two months late. A study on the cost of antiterrorism training for federal law enforcement officers who fly commercially was supposed to be done more than three years ago.
...
Thompson said the government has yet to develop a comprehensive plan to protect roads, bridges, tunnels, power plants, pipelines, and dams. He said a broad plan to protect levies and dams might have helped prevent the New Orleans levies from being breached.

Oh, wait. First we have cut taxes again, then we need to sign the new, improved Patriot Act, and protect Big Pharma from litigation, then we need to cut taxes again, then we need to swagger around and threaten either Syria or Iran, then cut taxes again.

Avian Flu? Whazzat? Fuck it, we'll just cut taxes. Again.

If the 1600 Crew proposes, then its up to America to dispose...will that be the fate of the next round of tax-cutting for the wealthiest Americans by the Super-Crony Administration? Because remember, if you're not a Pioneer...you ain't shit.

Chosen to find a simpler way to tax the nation, a presidential panel on Tuesday recommended two designs that would rewrite virtually every tax law for individuals and businesses. Treasury Secretary
John Snow called the propoposals "bold recommendations" but he did not indicate what ideas the administration would embrace.

Under the panel's plan, most deductions, credits and other tax breaks would be eliminated along with much of the paperwork and equations that baffle taxpayers under a drastically simplified income tax.
...
Drawing particular criticism, the panel determined that tax breaks for homeownership be changed to spread their benefits to more middle-income families.

The panel would convert the home mortgage interest deduction into a credit equal to 15 percent of mortgage interest paid. The $1 million limit on mortgages eligible for the tax break would shrink to the average regional price of housing, ranging from $227,000 to $412,000.

But here's the real sop to the Pioneers...just what the Grovel Nosetwist wing of the North American Fat-Cat party has been waiting for so patiently all these years:

Under one plan, individuals would pay no tax on dividends paid by U.S. companies and exclude 75 percent of their capital gains from taxation. Under the second plan, all investment income would be taxed at 15 percent.

Who doesn't want to have simpler tax forms? The question is, how many Sheeple will clamor for simplicity at the risk of causing further economic ruin to themselves and our country so that the richest of the rich get more tax breaks?

I can't wait for Prezint Bidness Failure to go out on the road and start selling this to his prescreened audiences. Maybe instead of Mommy Bar, he'll get Princess Sedation to come and talk about the new, simpler tax forms that even Beloved Leader can figure out. Blind Drunk. And Stupid.

It's funny that the republicans always talk about how Democrats "have no ideas". Well, that's really not true, it's just that none of our ideas involve ruining the economy, pissing off our friends and allies and being criminals. So, I guess from a certain jaundiced point of view, they're correct in a playground sort of way.

So it continues. More US soldiers charged with more prisoner abuse in Afghanistan. Let's for a moment pretend that we will let these guys off with a "traffic ticket" of an Article 15 hearing for bad behavior, and go for the real culprits in this case ... gee, where would you look. Perhaps in the Oval Office? The dehumanizing rhetoric about Islamic prisoners flowed from the very top of the Chain of Command. Two goobers, however ill-intentioned, were not going to go whaling on prisoners if they did not believe that they had some justification or cover... from somewhere for their misbehavior...

Two U.S. soldiers have been charged with assault for allegedly punching two detainees in the chest, shoulders and stomach at a military base in
Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.
...
The charges against the two soldiers include conspiracy to maltreat, assault and dereliction of duty. The allegations, if substantiated, could lead to disciplinary action, the statement said, adding that neither detainee required medical attention.

Prosecution of these misguided souls is the only way to ensure "good order and discipline" in the ranks...but somewhere, someone has to be keeping a tally of all this bullshit, because someday there's going to be an accounting by the 1600 Crew for their willful ignorance of the Geneva Conventions...and that's the day these folks will get their real day in court, as spectators watching the protagonists of this war being dragged before the bar for their real bad acts... the ones that have cost us our collective soul as a Republic.

1. The Smear Campaign is Underway...
   
2. Gee, sign my ass up....
   
3. Boggled again...
   
4. Der LieberMonkey Chronicles:
   
5. Read it...
   
6. Do they get it?
   
7. Dumbshit Donald
   
8. Ol' Yella Stripe
   
9. Crashcart is to honesty as ______ is to _______?
   
10. Bye Bye CDR CrotchRocket or Duke takes a "cut pass" to a Taxi One