Back again for another run at the jungle gym, Preznit 39 Percenter revs up another paen to the offended minorties, the utterly clueless and the people paying his bills. So here again are his "Outside Words, and his "Inside Words"...

Tonight we are comforted by the hope of a glad reunion with the husband who was taken from her so long ago, and we are grateful for the good life of Coretta Scott King.

In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.

On September 11th, 2001 ...

No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it.

We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.

We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan

In less than three years, that nation has gone from dictatorship, to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution

The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home.

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor.

Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices – and showing a sense of duty stronger than all fear.

In recent years, you and I have taken unprecedented action to fight AIDS and malaria, expand the education of girls, and reward developing nations that are moving forward with economic and political reform.

So tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of Baby Boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

We will strengthen Health Savings Accounts – by making sure individuals and small business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get.

We must also change how we power our automobiles.

So we strive to be a compassionate, decent, hopeful society.

Human life is a gift from our Creator – and that gift should never be discarded, devalued, or put up for sale.

A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

Mars, Bitches!

is a call I just got from the DNC looking for money.

I don't think so.

Wankers.

Remember that? For all the years of the North American Bunnypants Terror Alert System, it's the one phrase that the republicans most fear hearing, because it points to the beginning of their glaring incompetance at figuring out what's going on around them. Besides the ruinous tax cuts, totally fucked up medicare "reform", the endless war in Mess O'Potamia, the lacksadaisical and uncaring response to Katrina, what have the 1600 Crew done for you lately?

Hmmmm, polluted the air, caved to every lobbyist in the K-street project who wanted legislation passed, fired scientists, larded virtually every position from Customs and Immigration to FEMA with cronies. Yeah, they're pretty amazing alright.

So, last week when Hamas won the election in Palestine, the 1600 Crew and Condi the Utterly Incompetant had to go off on how they were not going to support Hamas, and how they never saw the Hamas victory coming. Sez KindaLyin Rice, right as she removes the splinters of Preznit Magnolia Prosthesis from her mouth:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday the United States would not provide financial assistance to a Palestinian government run by Hamas, the radical Islamic group that won last week's parliamentary elections.

"The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence,"

So, what's the downside of not paying the inevitable Piper of Palestine?

Western donors funneled about $900 million into the Palestinian Authority in 2005 _ including $400 million from the United States _ to pay salaries and finance desperately needed infrastructure projects. Failure to pay the 137,000 people on the Palestinian Authority payroll could lead to massive layoffs and ignite violence in an area bristling with guns.

bin Laden Determined to Attack the US. I guess even when it's written in plain English it's too hard for those idiots to figure out. They're still out looking for rose petals and candy on the streets of Baghdad.

For some reason, okay the Swiftboating of John Kerry and the utter disrespect shown to Max Cleland come to mind, some Democratic Senators are showing the yellow side of their eyes. They are preparing to hoist a white flag thus making the Multi-millionaire Wingnut Pundit Brigades prophecy about the confirmation of Scalito self-fulfilling.

It's time to start taking back the debate. It's time to stand up for America and filibuster this jackass. As Atrios said, it's time to drop a turd in the punchbowl that is the cesspool of the 1600 Crew.

Here are the numbers. Scalito: Wrong For America today and all the tomorrows to come.

AR: Lincoln(D) (202) 228-1371
AR: Pryor(D) (202) 228-0908
CA: Boxer(D) (202) 226-6701
CA: Feinstein(D) (202) 228-3954
CO: Salazar(D) (202) 228-5036
CT: Dodd(D) (202) 224-1083
CT: Lieberman(D) (202) 224-9750
DE: Biden(D) (202) 224-0139
DE: Carper(D) (202) 228-2190
FL: Nelson(D) (202) 228-2183
HI: Akaka(D) (202) 224-2126
HI: Inouye(D) (202) 224-6747
IA: Harkin(D) (202) 224-9369
IL: Durbin(D) (202) 228-0400
IL: Obama(D) (202) 228-4260
IN: Bayh(D) No FAX listed
LA: Landrieu(D) (202) 224-9735
MA: Kennedy(D) (202) 224-2417
MA: Kerry(D) (202) 224-8525
MD: Mikulski(D) (202) 224-8858
MD: Sarbanes(D) (202) 224-1651
MI: Levin(D) (202) 224-1388
MI: Stabenow(D) (202) 228-0325
MN: Dayton(D) (202) 228-2186
Local (612) 727-5223
MT: Baucus(D) (202) 224-0515
ND: Conrad(D) (202) 224-7776
ND: Dorgan(D) (202) 224-1193
NE: Nelson(D) (202) 228-0012
NJ: Corzine(D) (202) 228-2197
NJ: Lautenberg(D) (202) 224-9707
NM: Bingaman(D) (202) 224-2852
NV: Reid(D) (202) 224-7327
NY: Clinton(D) (202) 228-0282
NY: Schumer(D) (202) 228-3027
OR: Wyden(D) (202) 228-2717
RI: Reed(D) (202) 224-4680
SD: Johnson(D) (202) 228-0368
VT: Leahy(D) (202) 224-3595
VT: Jeffords(I) No FAX listed
WA: Cantwell(D) (202) 228-0514
WA: Murray(D) (202) 224-0238
WI: Feingold(D) (202) 224-2725
WI: Kohl(D) (202) 224-9787
WV: Rockefeller(D) (202) 224-7665
WV: Byrd(D) (202) 228-0002

And possible Republicans who are purportedly strongly pro-choice:

Lincoln Chafee Fax: (202) 228-2853 / (401) 453-5085
Susan Collins: Fax: (202) 224-2693 / (207) 990-4604
Olympia Snowe: Fax: (202) 224-1946 / (207) 874-7631
Ted Stevens: Fax: (202) 224-2354

We can't get good government through the appointment of bad people. Call or fax these Senators and politely remind them that we're stuck with C-Plus Augustus for another couple of years, but his legacy will be with us for a couple of more decades if they don't stand up to the 1600 Crew and do the right thing.

If their legacy is the confirmation of Scalito, a known liar and crony, what's that say about their service as Senators? In two or five years will they be able to tell us they honestly did the best job they could? Or will they make half-assed lame excuses?

Call/Fax, do something. We can win this thing.

(thanks to Dr. Atta J. Turk at the Glorious Rising Hegemon for allowing me to steal the list. Like he had any choice.)

I read this article this morning. At first I was thinking, "damn straight, no teachin' o' the Bible in school", but as I thought about this particular proposal, I think I'm beginning to like it.

Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as "pharisees," a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion.

Democrats in both states have introduced bills authorizing school districts to teach courses modeled after a new textbook, "The Bible and Its Influence." It was produced by the nonpartisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project and provides an assessment of the Bible's impact on history, literature and art that is academic and detached, if largely laudatory.

This proposal squarely co-opts their arguments about the Bible and their use of religion as weapon for intimidation and slander by the christo-fascists. A curriculum that offered this book, or something similar that taught the Bible as literature and studies it's influences on Western Civilization is really a good thing. It might allow folks to see it's lessons for what they are, lessons if taken in a context of how it the book is constructed. I suspect that most parents, especially those who count themselves as "Sunday" Xtians will agree with this tack, and move on. After all, if the kids aren't getting exposed to their brand of religion in Church, well they're learing about the Bible in school. Even if it's in a non-partisan, neutral environment, this becomes a non-issue for most voters. Yawn. They are letting the Bible be taught as literature...when's the sale at W*M, and do we get another tax cut check this year?

Needless to say, this is making the hard core fundies crazy, because they see the issue slipping away from them. And it's going to be hard to recapture any momentum if this curriculum is adopted, especially if it's an elective.

Betty Peters, a Republican on the Alabama school board who opposed the initiative in that state, also dismissed the initiative as "pandering." Democrats, she argued, had adopted a new strategy: "Let's just wrap ourselves in Jesus."

In 2004 John Kerry's critics were pasting the image of him being an "effete" out-of-touch liberal all over the place. John Kerry did not help himself out too much. Perception, is after all reality with todays "sound-bite" media. So when Kerry called for the filibuster of Alito, I was pretty happy. John Kerry being a leader. Cool. But...

Why is he in Davos? If he's going to lead on this, his ass ought to be in DC, pounding on his colleagues doors from sunup to to sundown. He ought to be Leading, not talking about Bird Flu in Davos.

His staffers ought to be there putting out continuous press releases of those meetings, documenting on-line and in realtime why the wayward and non-supportive Democratic Senators are rationalizing their support for Alito (and yes, not supporting the filibuster is supporting Alito) even as they say they'll vote against him.

Pretty black or white, to me anyhow. Either Mr. Kerry leads by actually you know, Leading. Or he just gets on the bus and rides until the next election, knowing that once again his non-response response cost him the chance to make a difference in the lives of all Americans for the next 30 or so years.

I'm terribly sorry. I think that there might actually be proof that the Theory of Evolution is bullshit. The proof? Here are a couple of invertebrates who have somehow managed to fool everyone about having a spine:

Robert Byrd, 88 years old and as crotchety as they come. Ol'Bob wants another term in the Senate and he's going to vote for Strip Search Sammy. Someone ought to remind Bob (and his constituents who are coal miners) that Sammy loves him some coal mine owners, and fuck-all to the miners. Sammy is a company man, and Ol'Bob is working hard to get re-elected, so he's not gonna let a few dead coal miners, or pesky mine safety crap get in the way of his re-election campaign. Nope, not Ol'Bob. I guess his mission is to beat Strom Thurmond in his last days...funny how they shared so much in common at both ends of their lives, isn't it? No trace of either evolutionary forces or "intelligent design" in the Senator from West Virginia. Just a bold unwillingness to do the right thing, and stand by his constituents and the rest of America with a brain.

Mary Landrieu, gosh she always reminds me of that Star Trek episode with the Arkons. With her perfectly shellacked hair, and her fake smile, you'd think she had been possessed. Well, she has. By the Fear of Karl. Despite the fact that her constituents, you know the non-white and poor ones, were tossed aside by the 1600 Crew like bloodied sanitary products in the wake of a Summer Storm, she feels it's her duty to help the Preznit by standing with those who might upset the constitutional balance in this country forever. She just can't wait to do a favor for the same people who smacked her down then shit on her face. For Mary Mary, perhaps a recommendation for a good battered womans shelter might be in order, since she definately does not belong in the Senate. Isn't that just a classic sign of an abused spouse? Always making excuses for her man, and never quite getting up the courage to act on her own behalf, and certainly not on behalf of the people who sent her to represent them. Mary is living proof that some slime molds can be partially sentient.

So, what's going to become of this? Who knows. But one thing is pretty goddamn clear, we don't or can't enforce party discipline the way that the republicans do, and until we can we're just going to be represented by the shades of Grover Norquist's happy, smiling neutered farm animals. There has to be a political price to pay for these people who are abandoning the Americans who don't believe in a unitary executive, who don't believe that the Constitution is just so much pulp covered with scrawled letters, who believe that each small step towards fascism is not okay.

They are basically taking on the most unpopular Preznit in history, why are they afraid of their own shadows? And where oh where did their vertebrae go?

Gee, the photos of Bad King Bunnypants have been declared "irrelevant" and scrubbed from the known universe more thoroughly than Beloved Leaders military records. Oh, but wait...our leading adolescent would never deliberately want to hide anything embarrassing from his fella 'murkins would he?

Amos very straightforwardly told me that the photographs had been removed and that they had been removed because they showed Abramoff and the president in the same picture. The photos were, she told me, "not relevant."

Asked whether he personally has ever been lobbied by Abramoff or other lobbyists, Bush said: "I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him. . . . But I can't say I didn't ever meet him, but I meet a lot of people. And, you know, evidently he was . . . at the holiday party: Came in, put the grip-and-grin, they clicked the picture and off he goes."

So, what was it about that blue dress again?

Well, this is interesting. From George Wanker errr...Will's column on Tom Delay the Not-Whiner:

Furthermore, he is not about to plea-bargain in the court of public opinion. He chafes under prudential reticence: His attorneys tell him not to trumpet the fact that the Justice Department told them he is not a target in the Jack Abramoff investigation. But about other matters, the bantam is belligerent. (my em)

I guess even Abu Gonzales knows what Americans not fuck with. Short-statured, non-swarthy white guys from Texas being high on that list.

So, with all the other pressing issues in the Commonwealth of Virginia, like oh, I don't know, transportation in Northern VA, and perhaps education, they are getting ready to ban Gay Marriage, a most pressing social issue. Well, VA is after all home to two of the premier Fundie Whackos in 'Murka ... Pat and Jerry.

The state Senate all but guaranteed on Wednesday that Virginia will hold a November referendum on whether to amend its 230-year-old Bill of Rights to bar same-sex marriages.
...
"The family is the foundation of our society, and it's been based on a union of a man and a woman since the inception of marriage," said Del. John A. Cosgrove (R-Chesapeake). "A constitutional amendment . . . will protect that."

But oh, wait. The zaniness in Virginia continues and this from a Northern Virginia Democrat, no less...

In a society that loves to assure itself that it is oh-so-child-oriented, the war against kids is raging with renewed vigor. In Richmond, where state lawmakers nearly fall over each other competing to see who can concoct the wackiest proposals, the bizarre bill of the day is House Bill 1368, the Home Serenity and Tranquility Act of 2006.

This feat of legislative creativity would ban all athletic activities on every sports field and every swimming pool in the state of Virginia, even apparently including indoor facilities, before 8 in the morning, after 6 in the afternoon, or at any time on Sundays, unless the organizers of the event got written permission from every single homeowner within 65 yards of the facility. I kid you not.

This would effectively mean a ban on all athletic activity after the work and school days and on Sundays throughout all of Virginia. ...
...
Where does such a venemous proposal come from? Well, literally, it comes from the pen of a Fairfax County Democratic state delegate named Robert Hull. But of course now that he has every youth soccer league, Little League and parent from here to the Tennessee border thinking of him as Oscar the Grouch, Scrooge and Fagin all rolled into one, Hull has beaten a quick retreat and declared himself an opponent of his own bill. Seems he only offered the bill as a favor to a constituent, who, of course, he will not name.

I'll say this for the Va lege...they certainly have the corner on weirdness:

But Richmond remains the national capital of silliness. This is what makes state legislatures so much fun for reporters to write about, but it's not hugely comforting to folks who take voting seriously.

Still to come in Richmond: So many stupendous bills, including Del. Bob Marshall's proposal to hold colleges liable for any injuries suffered by students who are given morning after pills by the student health service.

Talking Dog, an attorney himself has been having conversations with other lawyers who are representing some of the detainees at GITMO, the garden spot of the Caribbean. TD has done several of these over the past few months, and with the 1600 Crew's further insistence on becoming, "Big Brother America", it's worth a few minutes to check it out.

The Talking Dog: I understand that the only evidence the government purports to have by way of "a charge" against Mr. Al-Dossari is that he was "present at Tora Bora". Has the government ever expanded or provided more detail for its statement of charges-- whether in classified form or public form? Are you aware of any further charges against him? I understand that there were reports out of the Buffalo Evening News a number of years ago that Mr. Al-Dossari was a reputed Al Qaeda recruiter who may have approached the defendants in the "Lackawanna Six" case. Has the government made any reference to that as far as a basis to detain Mr. Al-Dossari? Has any effort been made to obtain evidence from Mr. Al-Dossari with respect to that Lackawanna Six case, or any other legal action?

Joshua Colangelo Bryan: The Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) expressly found that there was no evidence to support this Lackawanna Six connection, and it was expressly not a basis for his continued detention. An interview with at least one of the Lackawanna Six in prison revealed that that defendant had never so much as met Mr. Al-Dossari. I understand that he was also questioned at Guantanamo about this.

Drop over to The Talking Dog and check it out...

News story: Pentagon commissions study on readiness. Study finds that the Army is beginning to show evidence of structural problems due to long and oft-repeated deployments of the same troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, mid-grade offices bailing out; divorce rates up due to family separation; and the Guard and Reserve are becoming sparse as their soldiers vote with their feet instead of being asked to go back in to combat as what they (the Guard and Reserve soldiers) perceive as being second-class citizend compared to the RA soldiers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed a Pentagon-commissioned study that warns the Army needs more troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, telling reporters the service is nowhere close to its breaking point.
...
Rumsfeld said he has not read the study but took issue with its conclusions.

The author of the study makes a some interesting points about the status of the military, but not from a nya-nyah, you're all fucked up point of view, but from a sober "fix it or you're gonna have trouble" perspective. Since the 1600 Crew is absolutely never wrong, how could the author even be a little right?

Could it have been that the invasion of Iraq was nothing but a combination of a way for The Deserting Fratboy Coward and his Bedwetting Chickenhawk allies to get wood and get elected/reelected? Gee, the 1600 Crew would never play politics with something as serious as WAR would they? Like hell they wouldn't.

The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft.

The Army appropriated $1.9 million in November 2002 to create a "contingency plan" for what to do if Iraqi forces damaged or destroyed the nation's oil complexes and pipelines. That "task order," under a running contract, went to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. The Army later used that task order as a justification for awarding the company a new $1.4 billion noncompetitive contract to restore oil equipment, a program that became one of the most criticized moves of the conflict partly because Vice President Dick Cheney was once the top executive at Halliburton.

Until January 2003, reconstruction planning was conducted in secrecy "to avoid the impression that the U.S. government had already decided on intervention," the draft history says. Possibly as a result, the American administrative authority arrived with no written plans or strategies for purchasing and contracting and no personnel with expertise in the area. Among the first challenges the program faced were the impossibly great needs of crumbling public works. Mr. Nash is cited in the document as saying that officials realized early on that Iraq would need $70 billion to $100 billion over several years. They were forced cut the list of projects down again and again.

"No matter how we pared the list, we needed $20 billion more than we had available or Iraqi reconstruction and transition would stall," Mr. Nash is quoted as saying.

Until January 2003, reconstruction planning was conducted in secrecy "to avoid the impression that the U.S. government had already decided on intervention," the draft history says.

*"Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." Time, March 2002

* "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
-Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C., June 18, 2002

*"After all, this [Saddam Hussein] is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time." Houston, Texas, Sep. 26, 2002

Saying that the 1600 wasn't just looking for an excuse to go oust Saddam is patently bullshit. If it weren't for Operation Bush Wood, his electoral prospects would certainly have dimmed with the spectacular failure (is there any other kind he has) to catch Osama bin Forgotten, who taunts him still from the relative safety of the Pakistani-Afghan border. Dead or Alive, what pathetic bullshit.

Looking at the big picture, this report shows one thing...perhaps there was something more screwed up then FEMA...the reconstruction of Iraq. Funny, isn't it? Well, not really.

Question: If the TM (nee MSM) wanted a picture (which they got) of The Big Dog and Monica hugging on a reception line to be circulated world-wide, how long would it take to get? Seems somewhere out there is a picture or five of Bunnypants and JACKabramOFF the Giver.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as "Jefe," or "chief" in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages.

I wonder how much the owner of those photos will be charging for them. sure as hell, it's not gonna be a pittance. And if the Democrats can't tie Bunnypants to Abramoff with a bond at a molecular level, well, there's a bigger problem in top Democratic circles than we suspect.

When those pics come out, every ad we run this year should have any republican up for re-election with a picture of them and JACKabramOFF and Beloved Leader and JACKabramOFF. Every stinkin' ad.

Here's a new variation on the "Old One-Two"...

First it's the "Father Knows Best" defense from Preznit Criminally Culpable:

President Bush and the nation's deputy national intelligence chief today defended the legality of a controversial domestic spying program, describing it as a vital tool in the war against terrorists and denying that it violates the civil liberties of Americans.
...
Bush said of the intercepted communications, "These are not phone calls within the United States. This is a phone call of an al Qaeda -- known al Qaeda suspect -- making a phone call into the United States."

He said, "I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process. We briefed members of the United States Congress . . . about this program.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said with a chuckle.
...
"Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics," he said. "It said, Mr. President, you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how."

Second, there's this extension of the Crashhcart Mythology:

Hayden said that if the program had been in place before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States and we would have identified them as such."

The 1600 Crew, never a group to miss the opportunity to put Politics ahead of Policy went to the mat to give Preznit Utterly Corrupt a campaign talking-point on his "Medicare Reform", has demonstrated how much they are in the pockets of their biggest contributors with their "reform". They have managed to fuck over a whole generation of Americans, "fixing" a problem by destroying an institution. Gee, this makes reforming FEMA look like a relative success.

On the seventh day of the new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, ominous voices, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was admitted to a hospital here for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.
...
Most of the residents are on Medicare, because they have disabilities, and Medicaid, because they have low incomes. Before Jan. 1, the state's Medicaid program covered their drugs at no charge. Since then, the residents have been covered by a private insurance company under contract to Medicare.

For the first time, residents of Dayspring Village found this month that they were being charged co-payments for their drugs, typically $3 for each prescription. The residents take an average of eight or nine drugs, so the co-payments can take a large share of their cash allowance, which is $54 a month.
...
Douglas D. Adkins, executive director of Dayspring Village, said: "Some of the pharmacists have been saying, 'No pills unless we get a co-payment.' Well, how are these people going to get the money for a co-payment? They don't have it."

But, it's OK, because they get to practice what the feel is their "god-given" right (and we all know that they believe in god, since the never, ever fail to mention it, right?), pissing on the heads of their fellow Americans not as fortunate as themselves. While they repeat to themselves, "It's OK If You Are A Republican" so they can sleep well at night.

I'm guessing that the next group to be "excluded" from the pre-staged, taxpayer-funded "Pleasantville Town Hall Meetings" of Beloved Leader will be anyone who looks like a Senior Citizen eligible for Medicare benefits. Or would I be wrong?

My buddy, Jeff Huber over at Pen and Sword has been following and investigating the defective armour scandal closely. You need to read his coverage if you haven't already. It's worth a minute or two of your day.

I guess when it's a by-invitation-only canned happy-talk "townhall meeting/photo-op", the journalists (or whatever they call themselves these days) have to report things like this and ask no meaningful kwesschunz:

The Senate may be the place for some former first ladies, but
President Bush on Thursday categorically ruled out a run for office by his wife,
Laura Bush.

"She's not interested in running for office. She's interested in literacy," Bush said during an appearance at JK Moving & Storage.

With an influence-peddling scandal swirling around Washington, Bush also said he expects elected officials to comply with the law and be open to scrutiny.

"In Washington, D.C., there needs to be high standards for the conduct of public officials," he said after a man asked him about tax fraud.

I'm sure Unka Karl wet himself laughing when Preznit Perpetual Prevaricator managed to get that line out with a straight face.

I wonder how he's gonna answer at the impeachment hearing?

This is all we need, another moron who is beholden to the christofascists for everything...

Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) is nearing a decision with major implications for the 2008 presidential primaries.

The WaPo:

As of 4:15pm ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.

At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.

But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we've decided not to allow comments for the time being. It's a shame that it's come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.

We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it. Any thoughtful feedback on that (or any other issue) is welcome, and you can send it to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

Thin Skin? Why yes.

Note: to all meanie commenters, this might not have happened if you had used this. Deborah said so.

When Preznit Eternal FUBAR is not out selling programs that are just downright disasterous (Medicare comes to mind), or just in general behaving like the incurious jackass that he is, he's trying to get into your bedroom, the Supreme Court be damned. He is, after all, the Cockwatching Commissar...

The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department said in papers filed Wednesday in federal court in San Jose.
...
The government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches as part of an effort to revive an Internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

What anyone googles is no ones business but their own. Beloved Leader is not going to be satisfied until everyone who is not his "base" has nothing left but paying taxes and dying. Preferably in the service of the State. Victory Gin at your funeral: optional, but expensive.

Kicking these motherfuckers out: Priceless.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every internet user would, just to make the 1600 Crew's life a living hell, google "hot sex" once every day. No need to follow the links, just do the search. Methinks that would skew the results a bit...not to mention rendering any "searches" meaningless.

California finally got around to executing its oldest inmate. A not-so-savory guy, who ordered a "hit" on a teenage girl. But he was in prison for so long that he developed all kinds of health issues while there...and he was executed last night. Which is really not a story, as executions have become so commonplace, it takes something noteworthy for them to get any wide-spread media attention. Something like this:

Having suffered a heart attack in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

"We would resuscitate him," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon, then execute him.

Resuscitate to Execute. Because anything less than a full pound of flesh is cheating.

Well, sitting on economic tenterhook here in the US, with record federal deficits and a weak economy, it will be worth watching this:

A stampede of sellers forced an early close of the world's second-biggest stock exchange Wednesday, with investors panicking over a mounting financial scandal that could affect the financial gains made during Japan's economic comeback.

The alarm spread after a series of government raids began Monday on the offices of Takafumi Horie, the 33-year old billionaire president of Internet and corporate investment firm Livedoor Co. and whose golden touch may have been the product of Enron-like cooked books. ...
...
Some analysts feared a domino effect of falling stocks if investigators find that other sizzling Japanese investment companies and start-ups had been engaging in similar activities.
...
Known affectionately nationwide as Horiemon -- a fusion of his last name with Doraemon, the beloved Japanese cartoon cat famous for his ability to pull anything out a pouch -- the pudgy entrepreneur became a leading figure in the reelection campaign and reform crusade of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Horie's pizzazz planted a seed in Japan, nurturing a new crop of young and brash business start-ups that helped revitalize the economy.

An just as the Enron trial is about to single-up all lines and get underway.

Some things are just so obvious, that writing about them makes me feel like the guy managing the Department of Redundancy Department.

The Bush administration's attempts to defend inhumane interrogation methods and seek exemptions from planned anti-torture legislation compromised campaigns for human rights around the world in 2005, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

It said those practices by U.S. allies -- combined with the European Union's practice of subordinating human rights to trade in its relationships with many rights offenders -- left a "global leadership void" in defending human rights.

"Sadly, Russia and China were all too happy to fill that void by building economic, political, and military alliances without regard to the human rights practices of their partners." the report said.

The new motto for the 1600 Crew: "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory". Preznit Constitutional Crackpot went around talking about how the republican-led (remember how they kept the floor vote open past in violation of House rules to pass it) Medicare legislation would make everything sweetness and light for our nations seniors. Even if he had to threaten and fire a few actuaries who told the truth, by the Hairy Thunderer this was some plan!!! Especially since it made big bucks for Big Pharma, deep-pocket contributors to the RNC and Bunnypants '04.

With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug.
...
The handling of the drug benefit threatens to become a political liability for Republicans, as older voters and people with disabilities complain that they have been denied essential medications.

• Appoint unqualified crony's and contributors to responsible government jobs? Check
• Make sure that corporate contributors get to make the rules for their industries? Check
• Play politics with absolutely everything? Check
• Violate the law and have Congress look the other way? Check

Don't you feel safer now? Oh, and do those people that Preznit Silver Spoon calls his base, do the worry about not being able to find the money to get their prescriptions? Magic 8-ball sez: Not fucking likely.

I really thought Dianne Feinstein was smarter than this...can we get Barbara Boxer to go slap some sense into her colleague?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee member, said she hopes not to see a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Speaking on CBS` 'Face the Nation,' Feinstein said Sunday she intends to vote against Alito`s nomination, but saw no need for a Democratic filibuster.

'When it comes to filibustering a Supreme Court appointment, you really have to have something out there, whether it`s gross moral turpitude or something that comes to the surface,' she said. 'This is a man I might disagree with, (but) that doesn`t mean he shouldn`t be on the court.'

Especially when facilitated by Democratic Quislings.

Gotta wonder here: Specter is making interesting noises at a funny time about the NSA scandal. He's ostensibly a pro-choice republican, who seems to be following the party-line on Strip Search Sammy, but is also making noises like he's not too happy about the 1600 Crew's legal pretzel logic...

A key Republican senator says he's dubious about the White House's need to bypass domestic spying laws and would seek impeachment if the administration broke the law.

The White House has defended the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program since it was revealed last month, citing President Bush's "inherent" constitutional powers and Congress' authorization to use force against Iraq.
...
But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is holding hearings on the surveillance program next month, said Sunday he's skeptical there's a good argument to change the law to allow warrantless eavesdropping.

"I'm prepared to listen, but I'd be very dubious," Specter said on ABC's "This Week."

Specter also said that although the question of impeachment had not yet arisen for him, he would pursue it if he believes Bush broke the law.

It's pretty obvious to the casual observer that Preznit Dickheaded Dictator might have suborned a few statutes on his way to building his perfect police-state. I don't know why ex-prosecutor Arlen is even hestitating over that. The sad part is that since there was no oral sex involved on White House property anyhow (that we know of), the Traditional Media have no sense of outrage; nor do the highly moralistic blowjob-centric Christo-Fascists (see: Baptists in BlowjobLand).

I'd make some remark about domestic wiretapping being a bigger stretch than RoseMary Woods and her favorite tape recorder, but that would just be a cheap shot and we don't do those here.

Yeah, all this "pressure" for behaving like a choir-boy.

Yielding to intense Republican pressure, Rep. Bob Ney yesterday said that he would temporarily give up his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee.

Ney, who is under investigation by federal prosecutors because of his links to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, said in a statement that "it has become clear to me in recent days that the false allegations made against me have become a distraction" to House Republicans and to his committee, which provides lawmakers with office space, equipment and parking.
...
Ney vowed "to continue working as hard as possible on behalf of my district and my constituents. It has been an honor and a privilege to represent the people of 18 th District for the last 10 years and I have been gratified by the tremendous support that I have received from so many of my constituents in recent months."

In fact, it might would be interesting if someone like MoveOn did a simple direct mail piece to Ney's constituents with pictures of some of the luxury resorts that Ney has enjoyed on their behalf courtesy of Jacky-Boy...it might make them wonder how un-bought he really is....just a thought.

Back when Powerline were still a bunch of unknown asshats, and the re-election of Preznit Magnificent Idiot was not at all a sure thing, despite Ohio, many, many of us were concentrating on getting the message of the Deserting, Cowardly Fratboy out there, especially with American Soldiers lives on the line in Mess O'Potamia. It was (and is) unseemly that someone whose total military service was wasting the taxpayers money learning to be a marginal Air National Guard pilot and getting a dental exam was a legitimate issue. Unfortunately, we all know where that went ... right into the wood-chipper that is the Right-Wing Noise Machine, and it came out as a destroyed story thanks to the incomplete reportage of the CBS team (credit for trying, but not much).

A better an more telling issue to have hammered home might have been the utter failure that Beloved Leader was as a businessman. Like Iraq, no endeavor he has ever touched has been even a modest success, even Texas is eating itself slowly in terms of education (his "signature" issue), children living in poverty and without healthcare and environmental issues because of his "leadership".

It looks like we should have paid more attention to his Harvard MBA, which was seemingly worth about as much as the coveted "flight status" given him by the Air National Guard, but a much more reliable indicator of his performance, or lack thereof. His lack of ability to even run a small business on a turn-key basis with the amazing credentials of being a Harvard MBA should have been a big-ass warning sign. I know it got some play, but nowhere near what his alleged "military service" got. All his failed business ventures have foretold his skill in managing any enterprise without intervention of capital and cover-up by family and friends his whole life. Unfortunately in the case of Iraq, no one is going to come to his aid now or ever ... he's failed there and he owns it, even Poppy can't fix it for him now or ever.

I guess that we also should have realized he wasn't actually joking about the how much easier it would be to run the government if he was a Dictator.

All this is to say one thing, Alito can't change his stripes anymore than Preznit Flying FUBAR can...what he's done and what he's said and the way he's said it are all reliable indicators that he's spinning as fast as he can to avoid the truth being told. He's already lied once to the Judiciary Committe under oath, something that should be making this a Judicial Impeachment hearing, not a Supreme Court Confirmation hearing.

We can't miss this opportunity to reject Alito, even if it means Frist's Un-American "Nuclear Option"...so long to any Senate Business for the rest of this term ... and it's all their fault, as long as our alleged "leadership" can stick to the message and not capitulate to the Millionaire Punditry faster than Mike Brown getting promoted.

So what, we're all supposed to cheer about the Army finally getting around to doing the right thing? Finally? They finally decided sending adequate body armour might be a good idea? I'm glad soldiers who have been sent into the line of fire on behalf of the North American Bedwetter Brigade are finally getting the armour they should have had from Day One. The Army doesn't get to claim credit for finally getting around to doing the right thing.

Army officials said Wednesday that they had decided to send additional body armor to Iraq to protect soldiers from insurgents' attacks.
...
In Congress on Wednesday, Army and Marine officials defended their efforts to procure additional armor, saying they had to weigh the benefits of additional plates against adding weight and restricting mobility.

From todays Rockin' Scalito Lie-a-palooza, we learn that if Vanguard only managed hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, instead of (to quote the late Carl Sagan) "Billions and Billions" of dollars, then it might have mattered that he fucking out and out lied to the same committe that he's sitting in front of now:

This case involved some thousands of dollars. Vanguard manages billions of dollars of funds. The idea that the outcome of this case could have some effect on the mutual funds that I hold is beyond preposterous, and I don't understand anybody to have suggested anything like that.

Alito is a liar who will do anything or say anything. In respectable circles, lying on a job application or in an interview and getting caught after being hired is enough to get you summarily fired. Unless you're a modern-day republican, then it's OK.

Because they lie about everything.

The goober christo-fascist brigade has made a significant inroad into crime and punishment. In the US Military. It's now a UCMJ-punishable offense to patronize a hooker (what about in Nevada, where prostitution is, um..legal?).

For the first time, the Department of Defense has specifically made it a crime for a servicemember to patronize a prostitute. The punishment: up to a year in prison, forfeiture of pay and dishonorable discharge.

The formal order came in a presidential executive order signed without fanfare Oct. 14, directing changes in the Manual for Courts-Martial. It is part of an assault the military has been waging against human trafficking.

Let me be real clear here: I don't favor human trafficking, and ostensibly this is what this is going to help end. But, soldiers and sailors have always sought the comfort of women of the oldest profession for as long as there have been armies. Right? No. True? Yes. Seeking that "comfort" is not a practice that restricts itself to the E-1 to E-9 group of soldiers and sailors either. It will be interesting to see if this is enforced in the case of officers as well. I have seen many, many of my peers in the former Subic Bay/Cubi Point bases make their required and entirely voluntary missions over Shit River to score a little comfort. Yours truly was no choir boy as a first-tour San Miguel fueled young aviator on a mission.

Subic doesn't exist as a port that is anything like it was, but the Navy still goes (I think) to ports like Phattaya Beach, Thailand, where you used to be able to go to a whorehouse and see all the girls sitting on bleachers, with big numbers on their chests...you ordered a girl (or two or three) by number, and went off to do business with them. I can honestly say that the exploits of some of the senior officers would have earned them that Duck Dinner rather quickly...Their defense, for all pencil-necked moralists would have been Phattaya was our first port after a 135-day at-sea period. No liquor, except beer days, no women and no (known) sex.

Is this going to end the practice? No. But it's guaranteed to ruin lives. You can't legislate keeping your dick in your pants no matter how much you try. Education about what the victims of human trafficking go through, and reinforcement of that by discussion would do far more, I believe to keep most soldiers and sailors out of brothels than all the puritanical rules promulgated on behalf of the alleged "men of god" who are Preznit Mine's Bigger "base".

While the change to the courts-martial manual makes it clearer that prostitution is illegal, Marine commanders from the top down already know that prostitution is a punishable offense and have taken steps to combat it, wrote Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Douglas Powell via e-mail.

“Marines are briefed by their commanders, especially those who are deploying overseas, that they should not engage in prostitution,” Powell said.

via Susie at Suburban Guerilla

Alito is an effin' liar.

Well, first they announce that the Duke-Stir was wearing a wire, and then this...

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among House Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said. These officials said DeLay, R-Texas, was preparing a letter informing fellow House Republicans of his decision.

So, I'll just be heading over to Costco to get another pallet of microwave popcorn...let the games continue!

Update:

In a letter to rank-and-file Republicans, DeLay said, "I have always acted in an ethical manner."

At the same time, "I cannot allow our adversaries to divide and distract our attention," the Texas Republican wrote.

Let's see how fast the crumbling begins. Fat Denny Hastert has been Delay's bitch for so long, it'll be amazing to see him survive this. The House is falling, this ought to be interesting. And it only took them 10 years...

This is too funny...

We have to walk the line at Sony between the needs of technology and the consumer, and the rights of the artist, which we feel very strongly about.

Pretty damn funny. And he said it with a straight face.

All the war-floggers, especially that guy who calls himself a "captain" seem to be having hysterical reactions to being called bed-wetters. Our old friend, Falafel O'Loofah went on Letterman and excoriated Cindy Sheehan for her role in the anti-war movement, again, and came off looking like the jackass he is. A bit of poking around brought this interesting essay up from a Native American site, on the view that the Brits had during and after the events surrounding 1776.

"The colonies were acquired with no other view than to be a convenience to us," the London Chronicle pointed out in 1764, "and therefore it can never be imagined that we are to consult their interest preferable to our own." In fact, the British considered that their American colonies, having enjoyed an extended period of "salutary neglect" during the 18th century, were practically self-governing. They had only to fulfill their vital function within the mercantile system by providing raw materials and consuming the manufactures of the British Empire. (The laws prohibiting trade between the colonies and foreign countries had never been strictly enforced anyway; therefore, smuggling was a popular avocation.)

There remained the thorny subject of taxation. At considerable expense, Britain had won France’s North American territory in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). Britain now faced a large postwar debt and the responsibility of additional land to protect and govern. Highly burdened by taxes themselves, the British were merely asking the colonies to bear the expense of their own administration and defense. As each proposed revenue bill met with opposition, it was repealed, Parliament being anxious to appease the colonies. But such "lenity" only encouraged additional disobedience, which was skillfully orchestrated by colonial propagandists. The Boston Massacre of 1770, during which redcoats fired on a mob owing to extreme provocation, was played up as if hundreds of colonists had been killed instead of five.

Scarcely noted in the British press at first, the Boston Tea Party was magnified from a simple matter of destruction of property into an intolerable insult to British authority. Chiefly responsible for the incident were Sam Adams, a tough and cunning professional politician, who was said to control two Boston mobs which he exploited for his own personal gain and glory, and the rich and vain businessman John Hancock, later described as "an elegant revolutionary" of the "native governing class of merchants and landowners who interests were threatened by imperial policies and by the barrier to obtaining western land." These "incendiaries" used all manner of intimidation, even tarring and feathering loyal subjects of the king, to undermine their own current democratic self-rule, although British lawyers determined after careful consideration that the rebels were not guilty of high treason -- yet.

According to official accounts of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the British did not fire in self-defense until besieged by rebel mobs who scalped and removed the ears of their victims. These techniques, in addition to such practices as shooting from cover, were considered dishonorable conduct. By 18th-century European standards, opponents were required to mass large formations of troops facing one another on open terrain.

Still maintaining their "magnanimous tolerance" up to the eve of Bunker Hill in 1775, the British offered pardon to all who would lay down their arms -- except Adams and Hancock, whose offenses were "of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment."

With the Declaration of Independence the colonists "crossed their Rubicon," as historian Edward Gibbon put it. King George III favored armed intervention to put down the rebellion, while his advisers preferred a naval blockade; wavering between a land or sea strategy, the British never fully implemented either. The opposition Whigs, advocates of trade rather than taxation and with no stomach for the war at all, accused the government of corruption and incompetence. The chief culprits were the rakish Lord Sandwich, who ran a highly idiosyncratic admiralty, and Lord George Germain, the arrogant colonial secretary whose instructions ensured the defeat of Gen. John Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777. A major blow to British prestige, Saratoga encouraged the French to avenge the humiliation of the Seven Years’ War by coming to the aid of the Americans. In fact the French navy -- not the colonial farmer -- defeated the British navy and cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, thus ending the war for all practical purposes.

Thanks to the political and physical difficulties of conducting such a huge overseas operation, the world’s greatest power was defeated by a ragged band of revolutionaries. But the loss of the American colonies, as formalized by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, was taken by the British with characteristic aplomb -- rather as if a group of businessmen were closing down an unprofitable branch, it was said.

Eyewitness Accounts

"Well, boys, you’ve had your Indian caper, haven’t you?" Admiral Montague of the Royal Navy remarked to a group of Bostonians after the Boston Tea Party. "But mind, you’ve got to pay the fiddler yet." British officers in the colonies were at first inclined to express such patriarchal condescension, and had an upper-class contempt for the rough-hewn Americans; letters home revealed their chief concerns to be pay, promotion, and perquisites.

As the War settled in for good and earnest, the British became more bitterly impassioned. "I every day curse Columbus and all the discoverers of this diabolical country," Maj. John Bowater wrote, while a surgeon on board one of His Majesty’s ships described the rebel army as "truly nothing but a drunken, canting, lying, praying, hypocritical rabble." A few, however, were moved to admiration of the Americans, particularly for Gen. George Washington and his ragged "banditti," who managed to frustrate the empire’s finest. "Come on, Maister Washington," murmured a grizzled old Highland officer in Virginia. "I could na think of gangin’ home without a sight of you."

With their defeat at Yorktown, it seemed to the British soldiers like "The World Turned Upside Down" -- one of their marching songs in which "ponies rode men" and "grass ate the cows." News of the defeat was received by British prime minister Lord North "as he would have taken a ball in his breast," a colleague reported. "O God! it is all over!" North kept repeating, and it was for him. His government would soon fall. The king, who had threatened to abdicate rather than give the rebels their freedom, steeled himself to receive John Adams, the ambassador from the new nation. Privately, however, he confided, "[I will] never lay my head on my last pillow in peace and quiet so long as I remember the loss of my American colonies."

Scalping them and removing their ears...gosh. How ... noble?

Are these, my fellow Democrats many of whom I admire just fucking brain-dead or what? Here's a simple "brightline" rule that even Clarence Thomas could figure out ... if it SMELLS like Abramoff lucre, then get rid of it. All of it. Just because you got paid and provided a service, there's no need to appear like such a bunch of greedy fucks for bucks. Damn. Are you spineless and stupid?

While dozens of lawmakers are dumping contributions from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients, others including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid smell no taint and plan to keep the money.

Still other officials and lawmakers, from Republican
President Bush to Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record) of New York, are splitting the difference. They say only some of the money linked to Abramoff is tarnished.

As recently as Wednesday, Rangel refused to return any of the money he received from Abramoff-linked clients or firms. On Thursday, his spokesman said the congressman would give up $2,000 from a law firm where Abramoff once worked — donating it to the Boys Choir of Harlem — but would keep the rest, some $47,000.

"He has no problems with his contributions from native American tribes and he's not returning any of that," said spokesman Emile Milne. "It would be ridiculous for us to assume that these tribes would be forced or directed by Abramoff to help congressman Rangel."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a fellow New York Democrat, is taking the opposite tack, donating $2,000 received from tribes Abramoff had worked with but deciding to keep contributions from lawyers at his firm.
...
Others who plan to keep Abramoff-related money include Sen. Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., with $41,000; Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., $42,500, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., $10,000.

Stand up or stand back. There's no choice here, no gray area...get rid of the money, or be face being gotten rid of. How do you like them apples?

In comments there is a bit of a discussion about this. The Mighty Wurlitzer/Rove BlastFax is not going to discriminate in terms of who in our party got money, or whether it was obtained legitimately, they are going to use the words "Money" "Lobbyists" "Special Interests" "Tribal Interests" and Abramoff's name interchangeably to smear any Democrat who took dime one legitimately or not. It's their way, we've seen it before: they Swiftboated John Kerry, smeared Max Cleland; and have done countless other things with less raw data than is provided by campaign finance statements.

If the folks who are keeping this money can't see what's coming, based on past performance of the shitbag republicans, then they're gonna get dragged through it. I don't want to see Charley Rangel's (or anyone elses) distinguished career tossed down the shitter because they feels compelled to hold on to some extra cash on some noble "principle", and hope that it can be explained away as "clean" without massive semantic contortions. A simple, "I could not be sure, so I gave it all away" would sound much better than hauling out the green eyeshade brigade everytime the subject of dirty money comes up even periperhaly. I suspect that voters will reward that behavior come this November and for many Novembers to come.

Perception is reality, and the Wurlitzer exists to keep it that way. We need to be one step ahead, not playing catch up here.

Bopping around Blogtopia this morning, I caught a reference to this in a comment over at Sadly, No!. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

Is there an efficient, legal way to keep crazy people off airplanes altogether, like the manic depressive man shot dead at the Miami airport last week?

As it turns out, the government was taking steps in that direction almost a month before Rigoberto Alpizar was plugged by U.S. air marshals after he ran down the Jetway with a bundle in his hands while saying, according to the government, that he had a bomb.

A Nov. 15 notice put out by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is always thinking about new ways to keep potentially dangerous people off our airliners, states TSA is looking for contractors to add a number of new databases for screening passengers and airport workers.

Up first are the files of the Defense Department (DoD) and Veterans Administration (VA), which the TSA says it wants scoured for "mental defectives."

As if troubled veterans didn’t have enough to worry about. According to a 2004 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, about 15 percent of the soldiers coming home from the intense guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to be afflicted with what was once called "combat fatigue."

The New England Journal of Medicine also reported in 2004 that "15.6 percent to 17.1 percent of returning soldiers from Iraq exhibited signs of anxiety, major depression or other mental health problems."

Today those symptoms are lumped together in what’s called post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which afflicted hundreds of thousands of soldiers who came home from Vietnam combat with "a thousand-yard stare" and fell into depression, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse.

One of them might be sitting next to you on an airplane: More than half, or 53 percent, of the 1 million combat veterans of Vietnam were afflicted to one degree or another, said a four-year, $9 million study published by the VA in 1990.

And the trend line for the new generation of veterans is going north. The number who sought help for depression at VA clinics in 2004 grew tenfold over the year before, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"In all, 23 percent of Iraq veterans treated at VA facilities have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder," it said. The VA is struggling to keep up with services for the troubled veterans, GAO said, thus exiling many to the streets, where they could be walking time bombs.

If they start trying to re-invent the SPN program for the purpose of classifying veterans for things like travel and other activities, it's gonna get ugly real fast. But remember, all those fucking chickenhawks 'preciate your service!!!

Now shut the hell up and get back to work, prole.

cross-posted at Main and Central

Decorated Iraq Vet (Bronze Star w/Combat "V") Brian Van Reet (One Veteran's Voice) is getting Swiftboated and threatened by a reader/commenter. Sort of reminds me of that sad-sack piece of elephant droppings who claimed to be a retired Marine E-9 who harrassed the gal who did the "Marine's Girl" blog a while back.

Anyhow, Brian doesn't take any shit from this junior Turdpolisher...go check it out.

What total buttwipes there are out there...Kos is right, they hide under beds and cry at loud noises, wetting themselves with fear and leaving a trail of slime where ever they tread. Oh, wait, I think we've made that point here before too.

Gotta love these little rat-fuckers though...they do provide the occasional bit of comic relief, proving that they can still talk with Unka Karl's hand up their asses.

Oh, yeah here's the link to Brian's Bronze Star Citation.

The General in charge of Abu Ghraib, who was never punished and was in fact fêtêd for promotion looks like he's gonna be a good soldier to the end and take one in the face for the 1600 Crew. LTG Ricardo Sanchez looks like he's going to retire as a three-star, instead of stirring up the Abu Ghraib pot in this election year.

The Army career of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, is coming to an end.

General Sanchez has told senior Army officials that he plans to retire, probably this summer, rather than face a bruising Senate confirmation fight over any new assignment, said two senior officials who were granted anonymity because General Sanchez has not made his decision public.
...
But the legacy of Abu Ghraib and its photographs of prisoner mistreatment that prompted worldwide outrage dogged General Sanchez and ensured that any promotion would ignite a political storm on Capitol Hill over holding senior military officers and top Pentagon officials accountable for the misconduct.

"It's a question of simply not being able to get by Senate confirmation," said one Army general, adding that Pentagon officials feared that nominating General Sanchez for a new job would "stir up too much political bad news in an election year."

Sanchez does have an interesting and compelling story, like Colin Powell before him, he's a guy who's a testament to the color-blindness of the military (as well as being an accomplished politician in his own right to get to the three-star rank).

The general's life story reads like a pitch-perfect script for an Army recruiter. As a 6-year-old, he worked as a dry cleaner's delivery boy to supplement the welfare payment that supported his Mexican-American family in Rio Grande City, Tex., a few miles from the border that his paternal grandfather first crossed in the early 1900's. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school.

Back right after Katrina, when we discovered that a failed political hack attorney with no experience had been appointed to head FEMA, and the righteous indignation of the American Public erupted, damn any blond bimbo eruptions, Beloved Leader wanted to appoint a lawyer with no experience in Immigration to be in charge of the Immigration Service. Of course, the Invertebrates in Congress made appropriate noises about how heckuva-job Brownie and his ilk could never be appointed again. So, the man who hates the Constitution now finds it advantageous to use it to make a recess appointment, Julie Myers, an extraordinarily unqualified person to that position today. From the Post in September:

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.

Julie Myers has held a variety of jobs at the White House and in federal government.

Concerns over Myers, 36, were acute enough at a Senate hearing last week that lawmakers asked the nominee to detail during her testimony her postings and to account for her management experience. Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) went so far as to tell Myers that her résumé indicates she is not qualified for the job.

Two-time gubernatorial loser Ellen Sauerbrey of Maryland, a rabid pro-lifer also got an appointment as an Assistant Secretary of State for Refugee affairs. I guess she needs a new housekeeper, because giving her access to the pool of people who are seeking asylum under Lady Liberty's torch can only be so she gets first crack at them for household duties.

We're so fucked...so fucked.

Aravosis has interesting list of the Friends of Jacky. Can't wait for all the incumbents here to explain how they never heard of Mr. Jack Abramoff. Oh, and I don't see any Dems on this list. How strange.

Note to the Democratic National Party War Room wonks ...pssst Start Here

Winning this year off the back of Abramoff is not a pipe dream. "Collateral damage" might include losing a seat of two of some "ethically challenged" Democrats who partook of the water at the Abramoff Trough...but Sam Rosenfeld nails this:

Historical parallels can be dicey, but Democrats would do well to consider some math here: Let's say, as has been hinted for the last month or so, that a dozen people end up facing indictments due to the Abramoff probe. (As one FBI official put it to Anne Kornblut, "With most cases, the plea is the end, but with Abramoff, the plea is just the beginning.") Would Democrats see this as a scandal worth pushing -- and running on -- if, say, two out the 12 were Dems? How about a 3 to 9 Dem-to-Republican ratio? One can imagine the answer Newt would give if the situation were reversed. Achieving a "throw the bums out" congressional takeover is not a delicate business -- you can't do it carefully threading a needle. Either Democrats run on ethics full-bore and accept the collateral damage, or they don't run on ethics to win.

Losing an ethically-challenged scumbag is not a major concern for me, if we gain either house of congress in November. Losing one or two of them and making the greater gain of committees with subpeona power is more important, we need to end the reign of Preznit FuckKnuckle forthwith, and getting his mis-administration exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight is far more important than protecting a good ol' boy or three.

As I said before, this is about as "bi-partisan" as I am Xtian, so I'm not overly worried about too many Democrats being scooped up in Abramoff's net, but there's gonna be some collateral damage by the shit-flinging that's a-comin'.

Pass the popcorn.

The republican scumbag brigade is trying going with the Hermann Goering Meme...if you tell a big enough lie, everyone will believe it to be the truth. It's not true that Abramoff was a bi-partisan corrupter...he was strictly a republican corruption machine, and while the egregious lobbying practices of "K" Street undoubtedly touched many whose moral compass was more aligned with Caribbean vacations than constituent ministration, this is not a "bi-partisan scandal", no matter how hard the GoOPers try and spin that angle.

You can see all the cock-a-roaches, as Telly Savalas used to say, scurrying for cover as the light of indictment gets brighter...

Hours after Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion charges, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) announced that he will donate to charity the tens of thousands of dollars that he has received from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients. Top Republican strategists pushed GOP leaders to embrace legislation to curb the influence of lobbyists.

Word.

So it's time to start calling these major league assholes in the media everytime they parrot the blast-fax line about "bi-partisan". The closest thing to a bi-partisan effort in Congress recently was that abortion of a bill on bankruptcy ... bought and paid for by banking lobbyists and kept alive at their behest by Democrat MBNA Joe Biden. We should be ashamed of him, and now we know why... he's part of the culture of corruption, not a Abramoff spawn, but on the same wavelength ... would he have turned down Jack "Jack"? Magic Eight ball says "unlikely".

So, perhaps not wanting to be the whipping boy for the next 1600 Crew debacle ("Osama bin Laden plans to strike US", remember that?) it seems that our buddies at the NSA were pre-shredding the Constitution to avoid the inevitable rush by Congress with their pre-written (strange how that came to pass, isn't it?) "PATRIOT" act.

The National Security Agency acted on its own authority, without a formal directive from President Bush, to expand its domestic surveillance operations in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to declassified documents released Tuesday.

The N.S.A. operation prompted questions from a leading Democrat, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who said in an Oct. 11, 2001, letter to a top intelligence official that she was concerned about the agency's legal authority to expand its domestic operations, the documents showed.

Sigh.

It was such a good idea, that whole Constitution thing. What a shame it's being destroyed by a bunch of whining pussies.

This is my 3001st post here at Democratic Veteran...wow. It sure doesn't seem like that could have been possible.

Thanks for your support even when I go drifting off for weeks at a time.

Oh, and just to pimp my blog On-line Magazine, any Koufax Nominations would be a nice holiday present (Most Deserving Wider Recognition category)...after all, this has to be the year of the Self-Promoting Democrats, or we're never gonna win anything. So I shamelessly plug myself.

I would be remiss in not encouraging everyone to go vote for Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake for everthing she's nominated for. She's simply amazing and has done more for bringing the entire Judy Miller/Plame-gate scandal out than almost anyone else out here in Blogtopia. Firedoglake has become a treasure on the internet, and is what blogging is all about. Vote early for Jane and FDL, and as often as the rules allow. Jane for Queen of the Internet, as far as I'm concerned...but then that's just me....