Found this in a Kos Diary:

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

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

Anyhow, Our Big Liar from his speech today:

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

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

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

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

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

Check it out, it looks good...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never mind, they're running the country.

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

Semper Fi, my friends.

Golly gee whiz...

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

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

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

They hate us. They really hate us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I like this quote even more:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preznit Mile-Wide Yellow Stripe:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luke 6:20

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

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

Simply amazing...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Best One-Liner
   
2. Bunnypants Drivel
   
3. Facelift
   
4. My Veterans Day Salute
   
5. A new face
   
6. republican ethics
   
7. USMC 230
   
8. GoOPers hate Veterans, see?
   
9. No, John, No
   
10. Shorter Judith Miller