So, those pesky Judges are at it again...thwarting Beloved Leader at every turn. Good job.

In a 77-page decision, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that the Pentagon's National Security Personnel System (NSPS) fails to ensure collective bargaining rights, does not provide an independent third-party review of labor relations decisions and would leave employees without a fair process for appealing disciplinary actions.
...
...Bush officials say such changes are necessary to make agencies more effective, and that new personnel systems at Defense and Homeland Security are essential to making both more nimble in the struggle against terrorism.

The number one priority for this adminstration after making sure that CheneyBurton got infinately richer along with the oil companies and other defense contractors has been union-busting. The difference between the anti-union tactics of the 1600 Crew and the old industrialists is that instead of hiring thugs with clubs, they hire lawyers in suits and put them on the public payroll as political appointees to do the bidding of ... their corporate sponsors and anyone else who feels that Unions and Communism are part and parcel of the same social contract.

Could the federal bureacracy be made more efficient? Sure. Will union-busting do it? No. Will the 1600 Crew keep trying? Do bears shit in the woods?

Is there anyone out there other than the Warflogging WarBloggers who did not see the sectarian violence coming that is now engulfing Iraq?

"They killed him just because he was a Sunni," one young man at the morgue said of his 32-year-old neighbor, whose body he was retrieving.

Safely I imagine, from the Ivy-Covered walls of their "Think Tank" offices, where they are probably having a meeting this morning to dream up their next outrage against humanity. Someone send Mssrs Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz et al each an automatic weapon, a days supply of ammo and a ticket to Baghdad. They're on their own for body armor.

We hear the candy and flowers are there for the taking, for any Neocons brave enough to spend the night outside the Green Zone.

If you're an iTunes junkie, (like me) and a Zappa Fan (like me)...you can now find a very partial compilation of some Zappa on iTunes. It was apparently put up there last week. So go enjoy some Peaches en Regalia, dance to Mudshark (not up there yet), and say hi! to our old pal Willie the Pimp.

RDNZL.

Shorter Richard Cohen: Do I spit or swallow?

In the post below about Paul Hackett this came in the comments today, and I am posting it in it's entirety. It's from Leonard Clark (read about him here).

I have just returned from Hell and even though Mr. Hackett may not be from my branch of the service : I am mad as hell about what has transpired because he is a fellow soldier. The tactics that have been used against myself ever since I had announced my intentions to run for the U.S. Senate have taught me that our democracy is not always so democratic. My family's benefits and income were threatened as well as my being placed in a federal pen for the rest of my life and then just recently my taxes were audited supposedly randomly while I was over in a combat zone and every penny was then taken straight out of my family's bank account. So, I have learned the hard way about so called American Democracy but I know one thing they never should have attacked my family for now I will fight non-violently the fight to rescue the War on Terror from those who have hijacked it to enrich themselves and their corporate lackeys.

I have just returned from Iraq and the lie being foisted upon you the American people. I have ridden first hand day by day either as gunner or driver in my Humvee for a year long tour of hell in Iraq where everyday you have to play Russian Roulette with your life. Imagine having someone place a 357 magnum pistol next to your head everyday and praying that it won't go off. Then you start to get a feel for what some of us soldiers feel who go out of the wire everyday in Iraq.

Of course you always hear that we volunteered to defend our country and place our lives on the line well that it is true but what we did not volunteer for was to be slaughtered like sheep.

You see anybody who drives down the roads of Iraq through its cities and villages will pass by whole stretches of road where slaughter markets for sheep rebound. The stench from these slaughtered sheep is so strong sometimes that it is all one can do not to vomit when passing them. The passerby will see these poor sheep writhing and twisting in pain as their throats are cut and it is truly a pitiful sight as they slowly die with no way to defend themselves as their blood drain out in the street.

Well, the reason I had to bring up that whole example is to dismiss the criticism that we soldiers should die like sheep. But that's not the way it's going to be told to you the American people. What I have just told you is only the tip of the iceberg if you knew everything you would even redouble your efforts to get my poor fellow soldiers out of this grand lie foisted on us by grand liars.

I am not going to stand by as an American citizen and let this happen I will not be that citizen who says he was just following orders as the Nazi war criminals stated at Nuremburg. I am for fighting the War on Terror and not hijacking it to enrich my personal corporate donor friends and lackeys.
Our country is under attack from terrorist without and tyrants within.
Abraham Lincoln was right in his 1838 speech when he stated that the greatest danger that this country could face wouldn't be from our enemies outside of our country but from domestic tyrants inside it.

I will be officially running for the U.S. Senate as of March 29, 2006 and I will not officially campaign for it until that date. As of now I am not a candidate but will be in 33 days.
my views do not represent the U.S. government nor the Department of Defense

Leonard Clark
Kindergarten teacher
and damned liberal
(always the damned liberal)

I've always been partial to the planar vistas of the midwestern states. There's something striking about driving along fields of wheat, corn, beans or low sand hills as far as the eye could see, especially at sunset. Or seeing and feeling a thunderstorm over those fields with a horizon stretching forever, framing those magnificent clouds filled with deadly violence and incredible grandeur. Or the shmaltzy kitsch of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, the utterly original and insanely touristy Wall Drug before reaching the beauty of the Black Hills.

No more. I'll not set a foot in South Dakota again, and if it's for the rest of my life or until they come to their senses, makes me no nevermind. What a woman does with her body is her business, not the business of some fat-ass 30 year-old probably-never-laid convenience store clerk.

Tbogg has it right

I don't care about your discomfort or moral objection with regard to abortion.

Unless you are the one who is pregnant,
it
is
none
of
your
fucking
business.

It's enough to make those magnificent faces on Mt. Rushmore shed more than one tear. But I won't be there to see it.

Seems that Google will be just a bit more porn-free, but it has nothing to do with the christofascists, it's just the free market being, not free (which in this case seems to work for the owners of the pictures in question).

Google's mission to organise all the world's information was set back by a judge who ordered the Internet search leader to stop showing thumbnail images from porn site Perfect 10 on its Google images index.

The ruling in the copyright case may prevent the company from displaying thumbnails from other sites and could have an impact on its ambitious scheme to index the contents of millions of books, whether the copyright owners allow it or not. Google plans to appeal.

No word on whether Coke or pubic hair were involved.

Well, its' good to know that we can get Congress to launch that wiretapping investigation, dump the "threat levels" thing, repeal the PATRIOT Act lock, stock, and barrel (finally), because the inerrant Boy King has spoken:

President Bush sought Thursday to calm an uproar ... saying "people don't need to worry about security."

Thanks, Bunnypants your leadership is as equally unimpressive and uninspiring as your speaking skills. Fucktard.

Beloved Leader speaks sternly to the Brown Peoples he has subjugated...

"The people of the United States strongly condemn the destruction of the Golden Mosque," Bush said of the suspected al Qaeda bomb attack on Wednesday that destroyed the shrine in Samarra.
...
"The voices of reason from all aspects of Iraqi life understand that this bombing is intended to create civil strife, that the act was an evil act," Bush told reporters.

"I appreciate very much the leaders from all aspects of Iraqi society that have stood up and urged for there to be calm," he added.

Besides, it means so much coming from him, he's such a wonderful human being, idn't he?

So, the way to accomodate the vast, and vastly profitable gas-and-oil companies who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the 1600 Crew and all their predecessors every step of the way into power is to gut the science and conservation efforts surrounding the regulation of the gas and oil fields.

The Bureau of Land Management, caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency, routinely restricts the ability of its own biologists to monitor wildlife damage caused by surging energy drilling on federal land, according to BLM officials and bureau documents.

The officials and documents say that by keeping many wildlife biologists out of the field doing paperwork on new drilling permits and that by diverting agency money intended for wildlife conservation to energy programs, the BLM has compromised its ability to deal with the environmental consequences of the drilling boom it is encouraging on public lands.
...
"The BLM is pushing the biologists to be what I call 'biostitutes,' rather than allow them to be experts in the wildlife they are supposed to be managing," said Steve Belinda, 37, who last week quit his job as one of three wildlife biologists in the BLM's Pinedale office because he said he was required to spend nearly all his time working on drilling requests. "They are telling us that if it is not energy-related, you are not working on it."

Washington - The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.

Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.

As a result of Teapot Dome, Harding's administration has been remembered in history as one of the most corrupt to occupy the White House. Harding delegated his power, and ultimately delegated it to the wrong people.

Preznit Infantile is becoming more and more like that kid you don't want to be behind in the supermarket check-out line, the one whose mom won't let them get the super-sugar chocolate-covered Madison Avenue treat of the week. The more mom gets insistent and tries to reject pleas for the candy, the more the kid wails and complains...who wins? Seems that Beloved Leader has found his chocolate-covered treat in the never-ending 1600 Crew graft market, and is beginning his tantrum now.

"I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a [British] company," Bush told reporters.

He said the transaction was thoroughly scrutinized by administration officials, who concluded that it poses no threat to national security.

The thinness of this whole "wartime" argument covering the expediency of all the illegal and questionable acts committed by this adminstration is shown by this one transaction. Their continual bleating that "we are at war...it's all different, 9/11 9/11 9/11" is made a lie by their acceptance of doing business with a state-owned company in the UAE, a country with close ties to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. If he doesn't get the objections to that, and he clearly doesn't, then the use of the veto in this single case isn't going to get him that nest-lining candy he's craving. All this is assuming that Unka Karl doesn't pull another rabbit out of his seemingly bottomless hat and threaten/bully/intimidate the opponents of this into acquiescing one more time in the interests of "politics" over Policy.

It shows that the 1600 Crew's "War" is less a war than a "ShopKreig" and Beloved Leader is the Head Buyer.

*OBB - Osama's Bestest Buddy

In yet another 1600 Crew Tora Bora moment, Preznit Collectin' D. Cash has made it pretty clear he's not going to endanger getting future revenues from his UAE buddies. National Security be damned, let a company from one of the three countries that recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government, and is a base for Al-Qaeda financial supporters do Port Security.

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports should go forward and will not jeopardize U.S. security.
...
"After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward," Bush said. He added that if the U.S. Congress passed a law to stop the deal, "I'll deal with it with a veto."

The Democratic "Leadership" should be using every opportunity to read this crap into the congressional record at every floor speech, holding press conferences and beating the 1600 Crew about the head and shoulders with this little gift. More than likely though, they'll hold a strategy meeting at the Capital Grille, where there will be a suitable number of "harrumph harrumphs", and a "stinging" but inoffesively-worded press release will be sent condeming the UAE contracts and seeking a bi-partisan solution to the problem, because we Democrats do Policy not Politics. Jeebus.

It seems that Daryn Kagan might be declining to become the next Mrs. Whale Rider:

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS First the bad news: I hear that right-wing radio guy Rush Limbaugh and CNN daytime anchor Daryn Kagan — who've been dating for nearly two years — are finally kaput. The good news, of course, is that the fabulous Kagan is back on the market.

I have gotten a lot of email (thanks, all) about the withdrawl of Paul Hackett from the Ohio Senatorial race. Needless to say, I'm pissed off about it. I'm not pissed at Hackett, I'm annoyed with the Democratic "leadership", and I use that term very loosely.

Paul Hackett represented not just a chance to put a veteran of the Iraqi War into Congress, but it represented a chance to place a standard-bearer in the Senate for Democrats who are sick of the spineless equivocation of the Senate Democratic Caucus [we're looking at you Hillary, Chuck and Dianne].

I understand that Hackett did not want to grovel for fund-raising. I don't know that he'd have had to, with the netroots ability to raise money behind him. If the DSCC had their heads out of their asses, they might have realized that Paul Hackett was not going to be a candidate who could run over and kiss the ass of their choice in the electoral dialing-for-dollars marathon. Maybe they could have come up with a way to help him overcome that obstacle.

Sherrod Brown is a good man, and can certainly give Mike DeWine a run for his money this year. But, he's an "establishment" politician. He's going to run his campaign by the DSCC playbook, he's going to kiss Chuck Shumer's ass, and Harry Reid's ring. He's going to be more of the same, another Senator who hides from his shadow, who won't be any more than politically correct about everything as it pertains to issues that affect Americans, for fear of retribution from the 1600 Crew and their attack machinery.

It was our loss to have Paul Hackett go home. I'm sorry that the DSCC felt the need to encourage a primary in Ohio, and the attendant fundraising and work that goes with it. I think it cost us all a good man, and a chance to have an unflappable voice for change.

So, great job Chuck and Harry. Please don't call looking for money any time soon. I'll send a few dollars to Brown's campaign because DeWine needs to go, not because I support your efforts.

The Duke-Stir will be sentenced this week for his minor malfeasance while treating his congressional seat like a corrupt S&L. Here's how ol' Duke's scam worked:

Convicted former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) should be sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison because of "unparalleled corruption" that included a "bribe menu" on congressional letterhead telling a defense contractor what payments were required for different levels of federal funding, federal prosecutors said in court papers yesterday.
...
For instance, it said that Cunningham offered one of the contractors, identifiable in the court papers as Mitchell Wade, head of a Washington company called MZM Inc., $16 million in government contracts in return for the title to a boat Wade had just bought for $140,000. A copy of the notes is included in the filing, showing, the government said, that Cunningham charged an additional $50,000 for every $1 million more.

When the payments reached $340,000, the rate for each $1 million of federal funding dropped to $25,000, the document said.

Blue-light special on Contracts, Aisle 2...going fast! You have figure that Cunningham isn't operating in a vacuum here. He's not bright enough to have figured this out all by himself, he had a mentor, and probably hmmmm, they were republicans and likely still around. I certainly hope there's not a delay in finding them.

Well this is interesting. The Russians are talking like they did in the bad old days when they were trying to win friends and influence people while giving Preznit Inordinately Immature the geo-political middle finger salute:

Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.

With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.

"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
...
"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.
...
Moscow is deeply concerned about the current Iranian regime's prospects for acquiring nuclear weapons, not only because Russia is geographically located close to Iran, but also because of the impact that could have on other Middle East players' nuclear aspirations, including Saudi Arabia's, the diplomat said.

Oh,and they get to rattle their all too real nuclear arsenal for old-times sake. Some of those boys in the Kremlin have gotta be lovin' that shit.

No.

THE investigation into US vice- president Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting partner has been closed, and police last night said no charges will be filed.

The Texas sheriff's department dealing with the case issued a report that supports Mr Cheney's account of the incident that wounded Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old lawyer.

One hundred years from now (if the Republic lasts that long), our grandkids are going to study invertebrates and start with the US Senate. I honestly can't say that in my life time I have ever observed a larger group of jellyfish outside the Baltimore Aquarium. Few if any are upholding their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of The United States. I don't believe that any of them took an oath to Support and Defend, unless of course it conflicts with the desires of The Little Monarch. But they keep doing it.

The Senate Intelligence Committee decided today not to investigate President Bush's domestic surveillance program, at least for the time being.

"I believe that such an investigation is currently unwarranted and would be detrimental to this highly classified program," Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the panel, said this afternoon following a closed session.

While Mr. Roberts's announcement signaled that the administration's eavesdropping program would not be subject to Senate scrutiny, at least for the time being, there was no guarantee that the House would not go ahead with an inquiry of its own.

Mr. Roberts said "an agreement in principle" had been reached with the administration whereby lawmakers would be given more information on the surveillance operation run by the National Security Agency.

Pat Roberts: one of the worst US Senators of all time, doing the bidding of the worst President of All Time. That's what they're going to remember in 100 years. Sycophancy and Bed-wetting, all the time.

Gosh you Senators of both parties, why bother to swear an oath to Support and Defend the Constitution when you have no intent of doing either?

Why doesn't this surprise me?

Today, Mr. Bush, in his first public comments on the shooting, said he was pleased with Mr. Cheney's remarks.

What a shithead.

Never had to do this before, but Kirk ol' buddy yer outta here. Don't bother posting to comments anymore, they'll just get deleted.

I don't know if you're trying to do a bad imitation of Jesus General or what, but your comments are pretty offensive to me personally and I suspect to the rest of our community here. We don't mind having some dissent, we like Bean even if he is mostly wrong (in our opinion, anyhow). But you've worn out your welcome.

To commenters who left some comments that did not show up in response to Kirk, sorry I didn't post them, I just decided that less fuel means less flames. Nothing personal, y'all.

So, today Bwana Dick goes and makes his late apology/explanation for shooting his buddy in the face:

Vice President Cheney accepted responsibility today for the accidental shooting of a 78-year-old man in a hunting accident last weekend, saying that watching his friend fall to the ground bleeding after he was injured was an "image I'll never get out of my mind."

"You can't blame anybody else," Cheney said in an interview with Fox News Channel. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. It's a moment I'll never forget."

Cheney said that after he shot Harry Whittington on Saturday afternoon at a Texas ranch, he ran over to him and said, "I had no idea that you were there. He didn't respond."my emphasis

Armstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding after he was shot and Cheney was very apologetic.

"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that. my emphasis

If Crashcart were "**hunting under the influence", wouldn't that tend to explain a bit of what's going on with the apparent cover-up? And why the Secret Service agents would not let the local sherriffs talk to Bwana Dick until 15 hours after he shot Whittington?

Cheney's hunting host lobbied White House
MSNBC - 8 hours ago
... that preceded the incident. "There may be a beer or two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.". ...

Reddhead over at FDL had a great quote about this...that someone who shoots another hunter is either drunk, an asshole or a drunken asshole. I'm positing that Bwana Dick falls into the latter classification.

You remember, that the Secret Service was compelled to testify about Bill and Monica. Why couldn't they be compelled to testify about the activities of the VP prior to the accident? Drinking would surely have been an activity that they would have closely monitored, especially when there were firearms involved. Wouldn't you think?

So, now that a few republicans have condemned the 1600 Crew for their lacksdasical response to Katrina, watch for them to be roundly condemned as "liberals" by the doctrinaire cultists of the Bunnypants League. But wait, it gets better...here's the Unka Karl strategery for winning in the 2006 midterms:

Bush adviser Karl Rove has already laid out the central political message of the 2006 midterms: that the Republicans have a "post-9/11 world view and many Demo- crats have a pre-9/11 world view," as he said last month at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee.

1. Deficits to eternity
2. Ignoring the poor in favor of the rich
3. Making sure that defense contractors get all the money they need, while the military gets a 2.2% pay raise
4. Slash veterans benefits, even as service men and women put their lives on the line in Iraq and that other place
5. Violate or ignore the Constitution and federal law, and then lie about it

Basically, their post 9/11 worldview of the world is just a fucking disaster. Just hope that there isn't a real disaster or any kind, because the post 9/11 1600 Crew is not ready, willing or able to deal with it.

By the way, I just wanted to point out that you can have a post 12/7 worldview, and it's going to do about as much good as the one that the 1600 Crew has. The difference? Well, in the war that followed that we had a competant President, a strategy for victory and a Congress that was not just a rubber-stamp for FDR. So there's always that.

Going hunting with VP Crashcart: $2000

Having Bwana Dick make a fool of himself with a deadly weapon: Priceless

Not much question that the conservitard right plays to the racists in their base. So, how does the man who tried (and in fact succeeded in) buying Washington talk when no one is around? From the Left Coaster:

From page 11 of the file:

From: Abramoff, Jack...
...
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 8:39 PM
To: 'Mike Scanlon'
...
Might be better to meet after we see [REDACTED]. I think it's essential that you take Otto to dinner tomorrow night. Can you do it? I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw tribal council. You need to close the deal with him. I set it up tonight.

From page 12 of the file:

From: ambramoffj...
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 12:32 PM
To: Mike Scanlon
...
Choctaw did not yet pay us for [REDACTED]? Shoot! Should I call [REDACTED] on this? We need to get $ from those monkeys!!!! As to Ralph, go ahead and pay him so I can get him off my back. we'll get the Choctaw money soon though.

Nice, eh? I guess that it must be a pretty prevalent sentiment, many of JACKabramOFF's old friends and associates went to the Department of the Interior, where they are responsible for among other things, administering the broken treaties that were forced on the Native Americans through the years. Apparently, they don't seem to think much more of Native Americans than JACKabramOFF does.

JACKabramOFF, the scandal that keeps on giving.

Isn't it amazing how well some things just work out for the 1600 Crew? Just as the heat gets turned up on their lack of competance about virtually everything a "stunning" announcement comes out about their role in preventing, oh I don't know fascist penguins from organizing an escape from the icehouse at the National Zoo (do they have one of those?). Or something equally as silly, like shoe bombers gone wild.

According to Townsend, the White House declassified the details of the 2002 plot because most of the leads in the investigation had been exhausted. A senior Administraion official brushed aside the notion that the speech was timed to this week's grilling of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the NSA program, noting that today's speech has been in the works since last year. "It takes forever to sign off on declassification," the official said.

Well, you know it's not perjury if you're not under oath, after all.

The Liar-in-Chief is furiosly trying justify his illegal NSA scheme to collect domestic political intelligence (yes, I believe that's what it is) by ratcheting up the Fear-O-Meter with fairy tales of boogeymen.

He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed's key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said.

Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said.

The president said the plot was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaida operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.
...
Bush's speech in October cited two other attacks inside the United States that were foiled, including one to use hijacked planes to attack the East Coast in mid-2003.

The third was the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam and allegedly plotted with top al-Qaida commanders to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. Padilla, whose plot never materialized, now is being held without bail in civilian custody on charges that he was part of a secret network that supported Muslim terrorists.

The "Global War on Terror" is primarily a law-enforcement excercise, and we have to tools for conducting it in our codes and courts. There has never been a need for things like the "PATRIOT act" or other extra-judicial means to fight it. It certainly is not a military war, and it's fast becoming the kind of a white elephant the the "War on Drugs" has become...bureaucratic, mishandled and shortsighted. Sort of a testament to the day-to-day incompetance of the administration running it.

I expect that one day Congress will figure out that the money spent on the "GWoT" has pretty much been wasted in the name of "expediency" but by then it'll be too late to stop the inertia of the machinery that the 1600 Crew has put in place. Reevaluating it will be attributed to being "soft" on subject and someone who wants to make a meaningful evaluation of it will be considered "wrong on security", because by the Hairy Thunderer we can't be having Contractors losing contracts over incompetance, inefficiency or anything like that now, can we?

Preznit Bloviating Buggery has a way with words, or at least his speechwriters do on his behalf. From the Preznitial Lie-fest in NawLins after Katrina:

Our second commitment is to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast to overcome this disaster, put their lives back together, and rebuild their communities. Along this coast, for mile after mile, the wind and water swept the land clean. In Mississippi, many thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed. In New Orleans and surrounding parishes, more than a quarter-million houses are no longer safe to live in. Hundreds of thousands of people from across this region will need to find longer-term housing.

And everyone is waiting for the FEMA maps like they were oracles at Delphi. The maps will tell residents and businesses where and how they can rebuild. "Those maps will tell people whether or not they can get flood insurance," Nelson said. And if they can't get flood insurance, they may want to sell. But there may not be a market for the house. Or the government may swoop in, raze the house and build a park.

Both US Senators and all the representatives from Louisana be they republican or Democrats should be raising holy hell about this every day on the floors of their respective chambers. Well, not if they don't want to get cut off at the (a) knees or (b) money-supply by Unka Karl. Depends on your party, I guess.

Wusses.

Yeah, who'd a thunk it?

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese-as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state-he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit.

The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson-a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that's not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay-Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

Seriously, if this is true, and there's no reason for this man to have made these assertions if he could not back them up, it brings the Vaticans whole denial of the issue of Gay Priest back into the public forum. I don't understand their problem with Gay Priests, as Gillard says, Gay men are interested in other Gay men. Pedophiles are interested in Children. The only place there seems to be a nexus there is in the minds of the fundie christo-fascists who want control of everything sexual from womb-to-tomb, no matter how insignificant or arcane. And the Vatican has bought into that mindset, lock, stock and cassock after years of moving towards a more enlightened stance on some aspects of human sexuality.

But it does give a whole new meaning to the words "Lay Leadership", eh?

My buddy, Jeff Huber over at Pen and Sword makes the point that Tom Delay just got Duke Cunningham's old seat in the House Appropriations Committee. Gee, no opportunities there to build up the old legal defense fund, are there?

Oh, and if you've been following the saga of Beadwindow, there's a new chapter up today, thank goodness.

The fastet growing segment of the population today is Latinos and they are under-represented in the Armed Forces. During my brief stint as a recruiter (hated it), we were told to recruit Latinos heavily. We were also told it was difficult. The Army is finding that out now too and making a special push to get Latinos inducted.

As Sgt. First Class Gavino Barron, dressed in a crisp Army uniform, trawls the Wal-Mart here for recruits, past stacks of pillows and towers of detergent, he is zeroing-in on one of the Army's "special missions": to increase the number of Hispanic enlisted soldiers.

He approaches a couple of sheepish looking teenage boys in the automotive aisle and seamlessly slides into Spanish, letting loose his pitch: "Have you ever thought about joining the Army?" "Did you know you can get up to $40,000 in bonuses?" "I'm from Mexico, too. Michoacán.

Critics say recruiters, who are under pressure to meet quotas, often use their charm and an arsenal of tactics, including repeated calls to a recruit, lunch at a favorite restaurant and trips to the gym. The Army also parades rigged-out, juiced-up Hummers wherever youths gather as promotional tools.

"We see a lot of confusion among immigrant parents, and recruiters are preying on that confusion," said Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran who is director of the Chicano/Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego, and is active in the counterrecruitment movement.
...
Michael I. Marsh, a lawyer who represents migrant workers in Oxnard, Calif., said he wrote a letter to a local recruitment battalion last year after a 17-year-old's parents signed off on his Army Reserve enlistment at 18. The parents told him they were under the impression that they were signing to authorize a physical exam and blood work. When the youth later tried to nullify the contract, he was told it was too late and that if he tried to pull out, he would be ineligible for school money and federal employment.

After Mr. Marsh sent the letter, the teenager was allowed to withdraw his enlistment, Mr. Marsh said. Military contracts are not binding until a person takes a second oath of enlistment.

"The recruiter does not lie, but he does not tell the whole truth," Mr. Suarez said. "If you don't know the question to ask, you don't get the information. With language and cultural differences, it's complicated."

I wish I had a dollar for every recruit I met (especially Air Force) who told me that their recruiters told them that they could be officers too by just enlisting. It's true, because if they were selected for an officer-accession program from the enlisted ranks they could, but that's not quite as automatic as they had been led to believe when they came in talking about being fighter pilots. I used to meet these kids when I would take an officer candidate down to get their physical, while I waited. They would see my wings and come up and ask me if I was a pilot (yes), what did I fly (things with wings), oh, well my recruiter says I can fly F-15's once I get out of Basic Training...(did he now?) gosh, how wonderful (what an asshole).

So yeah, it's good that the Latino community has activists who are providing a reality check. There is certainly nothing wrong with military service, and I completely understand the first-generation immigrant's desire to "pay back" for being afforded citizenship. But an ill-informed decision based on a tricked-out Hummer is not really a decision at all...it's a tribute to Madison Avenue and unrealistic expectations.

After all, if the Army is good for Latinos shopping at W*M, it's certainly good enough for Jenna and Not-Jenna, isn't it?

As more and more becomes known in the Bunnypants Spying Morass or "What the NSA can do for an ignorant Dictator-wannabe", this little gem popped up in the article in the post on how the heads of the FISA court view the little excercise in Constitution-shredding being engaged in at 1600 PA AVE.

Lamberth and Kollar-Kotelly derived significant comfort from the trust they had in Baker, the government's liaison to the FISA court. He was a stickler-for-rules career lawyer steeped in foreign intelligence law, and had served as deputy director of the office before becoming the chief in 2001.

Baker also had privately expressed hesitation to his bosses about whether the domestic spying program conflicted with the FISA law, a government official said. Justice higher-ups viewed him as suspect, but they also recognized that he had the judges' confidence and kept him in the pivotal position of obtaining warrants to spy on possible terrorists. my em

When John D'Iulio nicknamed these fucking losers the Mayberry Machiavellis he was so right. They don't give a rats ass about anything by politics. If this ever gets enough oversight by a congress with some cojones to look into what's been going on, my money is on a Hooveresque intelligence collection program on the 1600 Crew's domestic "enemies", meaning anyone who does not buy into the partyline, lock stock and party-card.

Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer, Ein Goobernauts.

Just released, the new Alphabet (Alfabit) according to Preznit Incredibly Ignorant.

A is for Absolute Fiscal Insanity
B is for Business's I ran into the ground
C is for Cheney the self-selected evil dwarf
D is for Destroying the Social Contract
E is for Egregiously ignoring congress
F is for Felonies I have committed
G is for Grand Juries that will ensure I'm acquitted
H is for Hack Political Cronies
I is for Ignorant Political Cronies
J is for Justice Denied
K is for K is for Karl, or K-street with loot
L is for Larceny, our strongest suit
M is for McClellan who lies without conscience
N is for the Noise Machine, he's always playing
O is for Obstruction of Justice
P is for Politics over Policy
Q is for Queers. Outlaw them! Marginalize them!!
R is for Religious Right, so vital yet so stupid (see Q above)
S is for Science. Hate it.
T is for Tax Cuts. Love them.
U is for Unemployment. Who Cares, got mine.
V is for Veterans. A good place to cut benefits.
W is for Me!!!!
X is for Xenophobia, let's stir that up this year!!!
Y is for Yet another Breathtaking Lie (and they bought it!)
Z is for getting to the end of this list, without fal..a..zzzzzzzz

Feel free to make corrections. Laura is so proud, he finally got to 'Z' before he fell asleep.

Interesting story about the Marines in the ancient Iraqi town of Hit. They've had success in working with the locals to get the town up and running, and keep insurgent violence to a minimum during their tour there, until the other day.

The troops of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit had every reason to feel a sense of accomplishment. Violence in this ancient town along the western Euphrates River had dropped sharply since their arrival. They were only a few days from heading home. And they had not lost a single Marine during two months in Iraq's most dangerous province.

Until Monday. Word spread around the 22nd's main camp, among those who had stayed awake late to watch the Super Bowl: Five Marines were hit about 1:30 a.m. while driving in an armored Humvee. It was a roadside bomb. They were unconscious.

In the morning, the Marines learned that three of their comrades were dead.

... On Sunday afternoon, the troops were accompanied by the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit's commander, Col. Frank McKenzie. He said he likes to walk the streets two or three times a week to get his own sense of how his strategy is working.

McKenzie, of Birmingham, sported long, dark hair before he joined the Marine Corps. He has vowed he won't shave again when he retires. Given to reading both the ancient historians and the New Yorker, McKenzie, 48, takes an old-fashioned approach to war, dismissing the more arcane theories debated by military strategists as "elegant irrelevance."

"I think that sometimes the American military was seduced -- we were intellectually seduced -- by guys who promised a solution to everything," he said, as he walked the trash-strewn streets of Hit, where rusted-out cars and dilapidated stone buildings mix strangely with well-kept riverfront mansions with brilliant green courtyards and dusty Mesopotamian palms. (my emphasis)

The preznit has now officially rolled Barry Goldwater over in his grave. Personally. I guess that the insanity of eternal debt is going to be a reality soon, because the spineless congress is about to give lip-service to reforming the budget proposed by Preznit Fiscally Fucked and then pass it anyway, probably with enough "earmarks" to lard it up more than gramma's biscuits.

George W. Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative," arguing that Americans did not have to choose between huge tax cuts and a government that would do its part to address social needs like education and health care.

Now into his sixth year in the White House, Mr. Bush offered a budget on Monday that showed more clearly than ever the inexorable limits of that political promise.

Mr. Bush is asking Congress, first and foremost, to make his tax cuts permanent and to increase spending on national security, while looking for savings in popular domestic programs like Medicare and vocational education. The tradeoffs, to his critics, are achingly clear, and unfair.

Try explaining that to the pharmacist as you beg for meds, or some goverment bureaucrat who will take your home just to toss you into a sub-standard, government-funded "assisted living facility". It will be ugly, but there will be no going back, because with government, once the invisible hand has writ, it's a stone bitch to erase it.

Oh, and to all my republican friends out there: You've been fucking played bitches, unless you make more than 300 large. Ha Ha. We told you so.

Been skimming over the liveblogging and transcripts of Abu Goes to Congress, when this jumped out at me.

GONZ: We were attacked...

LEAHY: Yeah, I know we were attacked, I was here when we were attacked. Now answer my question... did you come to the conclusion that you had the authority to spy on Americans without FISA approval pre-9/11.
...

KENNEDY: We faced a nuclear threat during the cold war ...

So, whipping the bedwetters, who for the most part send other peoples sons and daughter off to die, into a state of perpetual fear has proven to be a much better strategery for the Leaker Rove.

America: Land of the Partially Free and Bedwetting Bravely, courtesy of the ABB (American Bedwetting Brigades, "All Fear, All the Time")

We now have a new standard for truthiness in this country:

n response to the Democrats' complaints, Republicans and the administration's top intelligence officials said the real problem was leaks about N.S.A. eavesdropping and other classified matters.

Oh, wait, it's mostly the same people recycled for a do-over because they fucked up that whole Orwellian gubmint-secrecy thing the first time around.

If Monica had never met Linda, there would have been an extra 70 million bucks to waste in Mess O'Potamia or for tax cuts. Damn the republican fucktards have to be kicking themselves over that waste of cash now.

Remind you of anyone?

But when asked why Mr. Bush had not called on the public to sacrifice to reduce oil consumption, Samuel W. Bodman, the energy secretary, said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that "many Americans believe they're already sacrificing by paying the prices they're paying for gasoline and heating oil and natural gas."

I guess that the less-is-more, war-is-peace crew residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and up on Capitol Hill have decided that well, if you can't lie well, then just lie. Here's Medicare and other entitlement reform:

The House yesterday narrowly approved a contentious budget-cutting package that would save nearly $40 billion over five years by imposing substantial changes on programs including Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending.

With its presidential signature all but assured, the bill represents the first effort in nearly a decade to try to slow the growth of entitlement programs, one that will be felt by millions of Americans. Women on welfare are likely to face longer hours of work, education or community service to qualify for their checks. Recipients of Medicaid can expect to face higher co-payments and deductibles, especially on expensive prescription drugs and emergency room visits for non-emergency care. More affluent seniors will find it far more difficult to qualify for Medicaid-covered nursing care.

College students could face higher interest rates when their banks get squeezed by the federal government. ... State-led efforts to force deadbeat parents to pay their child support may also have to be curtailed.

Yesterday's 216 to 214 vote, largely along party lines, gave a much-needed boost to President Bush, who is trying to reassert his control over domestic policy despite a series of legislative setbacks and near-record-low approval ratings.

The impact of the bill on the deficit is likely to be negligible, slicing less than one-half of 1 percent from the estimated $14.3 trillion in federal spending over the next five years.
...
"I do not know how anyone can say with a straight face that when we voted to cut spending in December to help achieve deficit reductions, we can now turn around a short while later to provide tax cuts that exceed or cancel out the reduction in spending," Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) said yesterday, as the Senate took up a procedural motion that would allow tax-cut negotiations to begin. "We cannot afford these tax cuts."

When the bills for all this come due, it's going to be interesting to see how many people you meet will actually admit to having voted for these idiots. Because shame is transferrable, and no one wants to admit they could have been this stupid, residents of the The Corner excepted.

1. Damn Activist Judges
   
2. More Mess O'Potamia
   
3. Zappa Fans...
   
4. Shorter Wanking
   
5. A letter
   
6. South Dakota
   
7. Awww....
   
8. Glad this is settled then
   
9. What a guy
   
10. How to foster corruption, the Teapot Dome variant